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Unprecedented ice loss is predicted for Greenland Ice Sheet

Unprecedented ice loss is predicted for Greenland Ice Sheet

Kate Ravilious writes: Over the next eighty years global warming is set to melt enough ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet to reverse 4000 years of cumulative ice growth – with rates of ice-loss more than quadruple even the fastest melt rates during the past 12,000 years. These stark conclusions come from new simulations which, for the first time, put current and projected future rates of ice-loss into context; comparing them directly with historical rates of ice-loss. These latest results…

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Could Trump have infected Biden?

Could Trump have infected Biden?

Ed Yong writes: “I don’t wear masks like him,” President Donald Trump said during Tuesday night’s presidential debate, deriding his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask.” But at nearly 1 a.m. eastern time today, Trump announced that he had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes COVID-19. As president, Trump’s dire mishandling of the U.S. pandemic response has contributed to the deaths of about 200,000 Americans and at least 7.2…

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11 positive coronavirus tests traced to presidential debate, Cleveland officials say

11 positive coronavirus tests traced to presidential debate, Cleveland officials say

NBC News reports: At least 11 positive coronavirus tests can be traced to organizers of this week’s presidential debate in Cleveland, city officials said Friday. The city’s announcement came after President Donald Trump, who debated Democratic rival Joe Biden on Tuesday in Cleveland, revealed that he and his wife have both tested positive for Covid-19 and are in isolation. Trump was transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. “The City of Cleveland is aware of positive cases…

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Journalists who work at the White House are testing positive for Covid-19

Journalists who work at the White House are testing positive for Covid-19

CNN reports: A widening coronavirus outbreak at the White House has left members of the media scrambling to find out if they, too, are infected. Three journalists who work at the White House tested positive on Friday, according to a series of memos from the White House Correspondents Association. “Given these positive cases, the president’s diagnosis and positive cases among other members of the White House staff, a number of White House journalists are self-isolating pending diagnostic testing,” the correspondents…

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Trump infects America

Trump infects America

Olivia Nuzzi writes: “At the best of times, Trumpworld operates with all the strategic direction of a chicken with its head cut off,” a senior Republican official told me. “Right now, they’re operating like a chicken with its head cut off, lit on fire, and thrown off a cliff.” The world has heard little from Donald Trump since he announced, just before 1 a.m. on Friday, that he has been diagnosed with COVID-19. Usually it’s the tweets that cause concern,…

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Top White House staffers still not wearing masks

Top White House staffers still not wearing masks

Yahoo News reports: Hours after President Trump announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, some of his own top aides were still appearing in public without protective masks, including most prominently White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the conservative former North Carolina congressman. Briefing reporters on Friday morning outside the West Wing, Meadows stood at a lectern without covering his mouth and nose, flouting the guidance of the president’s own coronavirus task force. Masks protect other people from…

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Trump kept regular schedule after learning close aide Hope Hicks had Covid

Trump kept regular schedule after learning close aide Hope Hicks had Covid

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump learned on Thursday morning that his aide Hope Hicks tested positive for coronavirus, yet continued on with a full schedule of events, including a fundraiser at his New Jersey resort that raised $5 million, according to people familiar with the situation. Trump’s movements are being closely scrutinized since he later tested positive for coronavirus, announcing the news shortly before 1 a.m. Friday, Washington time. The White House has not said when Trump first tested positive…

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Trump’s campaign has an epically bad day — and it’s not just the virus

Trump’s campaign has an epically bad day — and it’s not just the virus

Philip Bump writes: Trump’s broad effort to suggest that the pandemic was all but over meant that a number of states and tens of thousands of Americans treated it as if it was. Over the summer, that approach contributed to a big surge in new cases in the South. Trump’s own infection seems like a microcosm of his “ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away” national strategy. Trump’s diagnosis occurred in parallel with a number of other newly confirmed infections, including that of Sen. Mike Lee…

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The deep Anthropocene

The deep Anthropocene

Lucas Stephens, Erle Ellis, and Dorian Fuller write: Humanity’s transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is one of the most important developments in human and Earth history. Human societies, plant and animal populations, the makeup of the atmosphere, even the Earth’s surface – all were irreversibly transformed. When asked about this transition, some people might be able to name the Neolithic Revolution or point to the Fertile Crescent on a map. This widespread understanding is the product of years…

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Trump using the levers of government and taxpayer dollars for self-promotion during election

Trump using the levers of government and taxpayer dollars for self-promotion during election

Politico reports: The Agriculture Department last week began mandating that millions of boxes of surplus food for needy families include a letter from President Donald Trump claiming credit for the program. The USDA’s $4 billion Farmers to Families Food Box Program has distributed more than 100 million boxes to those in need since May, with the aim of redirecting meat, dairy and produce that might normally go to restaurants and other food-service businesses. But organizations handing out the aid complain…

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Trump’s crew of far-right vigilante poll watchers is coming

Trump’s crew of far-right vigilante poll watchers is coming

The Daily Beast reports: The truck-revving, banner-waving, loudspeaker-blaring pro-Trump rally took place, conveniently, on Sept. 19, the first Saturday of early voting in the swing state of Virginia, in a parking lot where voters in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County were lined up to cast their ballots. Some Trump supporters drove circles around the voters while others—many without face masks—mingled with the line, chanting and waving flags. “We had a couple poll observers there that had to actually escort voters in because…

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Moderna CEO says its coronavirus vaccine won’t be ready until spring of next year

Moderna CEO says its coronavirus vaccine won’t be ready until spring of next year

CBS News reports: Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said Wednesday that his company’s coronavirus vaccine won’t be ready for widespread public distribution until spring of next year, according to a report. The drugmaker also won’t seek emergency authorization for the vaccine for frontline medical workers and other at-risk individuals until November 25 at the earliest, he told the Financial Times. Speaking at a health conference on Wednesday, Bancel said Moderna would not be ready to seek Food and Drug Administration approval…

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Trump’s ex-national security adviser says president is ‘aiding and abetting’ Putin

Trump’s ex-national security adviser says president is ‘aiding and abetting’ Putin

Politico reports: Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Thursday that President Donald Trump is “aiding and abetting” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to sow doubt about the American electoral system. The stern warning from McMaster, who Trump handpicked to lead the White House National Security Council in 2017, came in an interview on MSNBC, after he was asked whether he agreed that the president posed the greatest threat to U.S. election integrity. “I agree that he is aiding and…

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1,600 former Justice Department lawyers accuse Barr of using DOJ to help Trump in election

1,600 former Justice Department lawyers accuse Barr of using DOJ to help Trump in election

USA Today reports: Former Justice Department attorneys expressed concerns Thursday that Attorney General William Barr is using the power of the agency to help President Donald Trump win reelection, citing statements Barr had made about mail-in ballots and the politically fraught inquiry into the Russia investigation. “We fear that Attorney General Barr intends to use the DOJ’s vast law enforcement powers to undermine our most fundamental democratic value: free and fair elections,” according to an open letter signed by about…

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Judge rules federal law enforcement commission violates law

Judge rules federal law enforcement commission violates law

The Washington Post reports: A national commission on policing launched earlier this year by President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr has violated federal law by seating only people in law enforcement and failing to include members with different perspectives such as civil rights activists, defense attorneys or mental health professionals, a federal judge ruled Thursday as he halted the group’s work. The commission also did not file a charter, post public notice of its meetings or open them…

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Flu season never came to the Southern Hemisphere this year

Flu season never came to the Southern Hemisphere this year

CNN reports: The run-up to flu season in the US has been fraught with fear. Health experts worry that fighting Covid-19 and influenza simultaneously could burden the health care system’s ability to treat both infections. Flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, though, came and went with so few cases that there was “virtually no influenza circulation,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC experts believe that efforts like social distancing, mask-wearing and school closures might have critically…

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