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The U.K. coronavirus mutation is worrying but not terrifying

The U.K. coronavirus mutation is worrying but not terrifying

Sara Reardon writes: A new mutated form of the novel coronavirus that appears more transmissible than the original has raised alarm in the U.K. and around the world. It does not appear to cause more severe disease, and the newly available vaccines do seem to protect people against it. Yet on December 19—after an announcement that the variant, dubbed B.1.1.7, had suddenly accumulated 17 mutations and was spreading rapidly in the U.K.—the nation’s prime minister Boris Johnson announced stricter lockdowns…

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Could Covid-19 have wiped out the Neandertals?

Could Covid-19 have wiped out the Neandertals?

John Hewitt writes: Everybody loves Neandertals, those big-brained brutes we supposedly outcompeted and ultimately replaced using our sharp tongues and quick, delicate minds. But did we really, though? Is it mathematically possible that we could yet be them, and they us? By the same token, could not the impossibly singular Mitochondrial Eve, her contemporary Y-chromosome Adam, and even the “Out of Africa” hypothesis simply be convenient fictions paleogeneticists tell each other at conferences to give their largely arbitrary haplotype designations…

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How civilization broke our brains

How civilization broke our brains

Derek Thompson writes: Several months ago, I got into a long discussion with a colleague about the origins of the “Sunday scaries,” the flood of anxiety that many of us feel as the weekend is winding down and the workweek approaches. He said that the culprit was clear, and pointed to late-stage capitalism’s corrosive blend of performance stress and job insecurity. But capitalism also exists Monday through Saturday, so why should Sunday be so uniquely anxiety-inducing? The deeper cause, I…

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The triumph of Trump’s kleptocracy

The triumph of Trump’s kleptocracy

Franklin Foer writes: Paul Manafort came of age in New Britain, Connecticut. His father, the garrulous mayor of that decaying factory town, taught him how to cobble together an electoral coalition, passing down the tricks of the trade that became the basis for the son’s lucrative career as a political consultant. But as the local hardware manufacturers fled to foreign shores, the Mafia moved into town. To hear the local papers tell the story—or to read the counts alleged in…

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Instead of draining the swamp, Trump grants clemency to former congressmen convicted of federal crimes

Instead of draining the swamp, Trump grants clemency to former congressmen convicted of federal crimes

The Washington Post reports: As Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency in 2016, his vow to “drain the swamp” included outrage at past use of presidential pardons. Citing the way President Bill Clinton had pardoned a fugitive financier during his last week in office, Trump fumed, “People couldn’t believe it.” Yet now, in the closing days of his term, Trump has added to his portfolio of pardons and commutations several people who seemed to exemplify the very swamp that Trump…

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Inside Trump and Barr’s last-minute killing spree

Inside Trump and Barr’s last-minute killing spree

ProPublica reports: In its hurry to use its final days in power to execute federal prisoners, the administration of President Donald Trump has trampled over an array of barriers, both legal and practical, according to court records that have not been previously reported. Officials gave public explanations for their choice of which prisoners should die that misstated key facts from the cases. They moved ahead with executions in the middle of the night. They left one prisoner strapped to the…

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Giuliani told to preserve all records as lawyers for Dominion warn legal action is ‘imminent’

Giuliani told to preserve all records as lawyers for Dominion warn legal action is ‘imminent’

CNN reports: A defamation law firm representing Dominion Voting Systems has sent letters to White House counsel Pat Cipollone and President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani instructing them to preserve all records related to the company at the center of Trump’s conspiracy theories and warning Giuliani that legal action is “imminent.” Through two well-known defamation attorneys, Dominion Voting Systems sent letters to Cipollone and Giuliani Tuesday, demanding Giuliani stop making “defamatory claims against Dominion” and ensure there is “no…

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Trump stirs chaos in Washington

Trump stirs chaos in Washington

Politico reports: President Donald Trump has once again thrown Washington into chaos, making uneven demands that have left lawmakers baffled and Americans coping with a global pandemic uncertain when they’ll be getting long-promised financial help. On Tuesday night, Trump blindsided all of Washington — including his own staff — with a series of eleventh-hour demands to amend coronavirus relief and government funding legislation that his own administration had helped carefully craft and supported. Overnight and into Wednesday, senior Republicans, Hill…

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Herd immunity may be further away than most Americans realize

Herd immunity may be further away than most Americans realize

Donald G. McNeil Jr. reports: At what point does a country achieve herd immunity? What portion of the population must acquire resistance to the coronavirus, either through infection or vaccination, in order for the disease to fade away and life to return to normal? Since the start of the pandemic, the figure that many epidemiologists have offered has been 60 to 70 percent. That range is still cited by the World Health Organization and is often repeated during discussions of…

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Millions of U.S. vaccine doses sit on ice, putting 2020 goal in doubt

Millions of U.S. vaccine doses sit on ice, putting 2020 goal in doubt

Reuters reports: Millions of COVID-19 vaccines are sitting unused in U.S. hospitals and elsewhere a week into the massive inoculation campaign, putting the government’s target for 20 million vaccinations this month in doubt. As of Wednesday morning, only 1 million shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine had been given, about one-third of the first shipment sent last week. Over 9.5 million doses of vaccines, including Moderna’s, have now been sent to states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control…

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Covid-19 vaccines are safe. But let’s be clear about what ‘safe’ means

Covid-19 vaccines are safe. But let’s be clear about what ‘safe’ means

STAT reports: Unprecedented collaborative efforts in vaccine development have culminated in multiple vaccines being tested in advanced clinical trials all in less than one year since global leaders understood we were in the midst of a global pandemic. One is now being given to health care workers, and another will soon follow. As the first Covid-19 vaccines are being distributed in the United States and in other countries around the world, the main question now on many minds is, “Are…

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The ‘red slime’ lawsuit that could sink right-wing media

The ‘red slime’ lawsuit that could sink right-wing media

Ben Smith reports: Antonio Mugica was in Boca Raton when an American presidential election really melted down in 2000, and he watched with shocked fascination as local government officials argued over hanging chads and butterfly ballots. It was so bad, so incompetent, that Mr. Mugica, a young Venezuelan software engineer, decided to shift the focus of his digital security company, Smartmatic, which had been working for banks. It would offer its services to what would obviously be a growth industry:…

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Inside Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election

Inside Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election

Politico reports: It started with a phone call. In mid-November, President Donald Trump rang Monica Palmer, the Republican chair of an obscure board in Michigan that had just declared Joe Biden winner of the state’s most populous county. Within 24 hours, Palmer announced she wanted to “rescind” her vote. Her reasoning mirrored Trump’s public and private rants: The Nov. 3 election may have been rife with fraud. “The Wayne County election had serious process flaws which deserve investigation,” she wrote…

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Undercutting Trump, Barr says there’s no basis for seizing voting machines, using special counsels for election fraud, Hunter Biden

Undercutting Trump, Barr says there’s no basis for seizing voting machines, using special counsels for election fraud, Hunter Biden

The Washington Post reports: Outgoing Attorney General William P. Barr said Monday he saw no basis for the federal government seizing voting machines and that he did not intend to appoint a special counsel to investigate allegations of voter fraud — again breaking with President Trump as the commander in chief entertains increasingly desperate measures to overturn the election. At a news conference to announce charges in a decade old terror case, Barr — who has just two days left…

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‘I’m haunted by what I did’ as a lawyer in the Trump Justice Department

‘I’m haunted by what I did’ as a lawyer in the Trump Justice Department

Erica Newland writes: I was an attorney at the Justice Department when Donald Trump was elected president. I worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, which is where presidents turn for permission slips that say their executive orders and other contemplated actions are lawful. I joined the department during the Obama administration, as a career attorney whose work was supposed to be independent of politics. I never harbored delusions about a Trump presidency. Mr. Trump readily volunteered that his agenda…

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In last rush, Trump grants mining and energy firms access to public lands

In last rush, Trump grants mining and energy firms access to public lands

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is rushing to approve a final wave of large-scale mining and energy projects on federal lands, encouraged by investors who want to try to ensure the projects move ahead even after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office. In Arizona, the Forest Service is preparing to sign off on the transfer of federal forest land — considered sacred by a neighboring Native American tribe — to allow construction of one of the…

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