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Former senior Trump administration official endorses Joe Biden

Former senior Trump administration official endorses Joe Biden

Miles Taylor writes: After serving for more than two years in the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership during the Trump administration, I can attest that the country is less secure as a direct result of the president’s actions. Like many Americans, I had hoped that Donald Trump, once in office, would soberly accept the burdens of the presidency — foremost among them the duty to keep America safe. But he did not rise to the challenge. Instead, the president has…

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Jared Kushner has become his father-in-law’s most dangerous enabler

Jared Kushner has become his father-in-law’s most dangerous enabler

Franklin Foer writes: When Kushner showed up for work on March 11, he was summoned by Mike Pence. The vice president had been designated by Trump to preside over the government’s response to the virus. With the economy on the verge of collapse, his efforts could hardly be characterized as a triumph. Now Pence dumped the problem on Kushner’s desk. As he grasped the magnitude of the challenge before him, Kushner is said to have felt an uncharacteristic jolt of…

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Trump finalizes drilling plan for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Trump finalizes drilling plan for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration said Monday it will open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, a move that will allow oil and gas rights to be auctioned off in the heart of one of the nation’s most iconic wild places. Achieving a goal Republicans have sought for 40 years, the action marks a capstone for an administration that has ignored calls to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the face of climate change. The move will…

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Rewriting the limits of presidential powers

Rewriting the limits of presidential powers

CBS News reports: The power of the president is enormous – and this president is not bashful in describing powers that go well beyond simple declarations. In April, when discussing guidelines to be issued to governors about reopening states during the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump said, “When somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be – it’s total.” There are, it’s true, some restraints on most presidential…

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Can New York hold off a second wave of the coronavirus?

Can New York hold off a second wave of the coronavirus?

The New York Times reports: Health experts in New York City thought that coronavirus cases would be rising again by now. Their models predicted it. They were wrong. New York State has managed not only to control its outbreak since the devastation of the early spring, but also to contain it for far longer than even top officials expected. Now, as other places struggle to beat back a resurgence and cases climb in former success-story states like California and Rhode…

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Southeast Asia detects mutated coronavirus strain sweeping the world

Southeast Asia detects mutated coronavirus strain sweeping the world

Bloomberg reports: Southeast Asia is facing a strain of the new coronavirus that the Philippines, which faces the region’s largest outbreak, is studying to see whether the mutation makes it more infectious. The strain, earlier seen in other parts of the world and called D614G, was found in a Malaysian cluster of 45 cases that started from someone who returned from India and breached his 14-day home quarantine. The Philippines detected the strain among random Covid-19 samples in the largest…

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How to use ventilation and air filtration to prevent the spread of coronavirus indoors

How to use ventilation and air filtration to prevent the spread of coronavirus indoors

Open windows are the easiest way to ventilate a room. Justin Paget / Digital Vision via Getty Images By Shelly Miller, University of Colorado Boulder The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, most of it from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus. The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a home or business would be to simply keep infected people away. But this is hard to do when an estimated 40% of cases…

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House accelerates oversight of Postal Service as uproar grows, demanding top officials testify at ‘urgent’ hearing

House accelerates oversight of Postal Service as uproar grows, demanding top officials testify at ‘urgent’ hearing

The Washington Post reports: The House Oversight Committee will hold an emergency hearing on mail delays and concerns about potential White House interference in the U.S. Postal Service, inviting Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and Postal Service board of governors Chairman Robert M. Duncan to testify Aug. 24, top Democrats announced on Sunday. Democrats have alleged that DeJoy, a former Republican National Convention finance chairman, is taking steps that are causing dysfunction in the mail system and could wreak havoc in…

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The Postal Service scandal doesn’t belong only to Donald Trump. Mitch McConnell played a big role

The Postal Service scandal doesn’t belong only to Donald Trump. Mitch McConnell played a big role

Mark Sumner writes: Once upon a time, most Americans would have been hard-pressed to name the postmaster general. That fabled time was any time before May of this year, when Donald Trump replaced Postmaster General Megan Brennan with Louis DeJoy. And yes, I had to look up Megan Brennan. What position of power did Brennan occupy before taking over the Postal Service under Barack Obama? None. Brennan started as a mail carrier at the Postal Service in 1986, delivering letters…

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FDA clears saliva test for Covid-19, opening door to wider testing

FDA clears saliva test for Covid-19, opening door to wider testing

STAT reports: The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday authorized emergency use of a new and inexpensive saliva test for Covid-19 that could greatly expand testing capacity. The new test, which is called SalivaDirect and was developed by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health, allows saliva samples to be collected in any sterile container. It is a much less invasive process than the nasal swabs currently used to test for the virus that causes Covid-19, but one that…

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Long after the fire of a Covid-19 infection, mental and neurological effects can still smolder

Long after the fire of a Covid-19 infection, mental and neurological effects can still smolder

STAT reports: Early on, patients with both mild and severe Covid-19 say they can’t breathe. Now, after recovering from the infection, some of them say they can’t think. Even people who were never sick enough to go to a hospital, much less lie in an ICU bed with a ventilator, report feeling something as ill-defined as “Covid fog” or as frightening as numbed limbs. They’re unable to carry on with their lives, exhausted by crossing the street, fumbling for words,…

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Oil companies wonder if it makes economic sense to continue oil exploration

Oil companies wonder if it makes economic sense to continue oil exploration

Bloomberg reports: A few dots near the bottom corner of the world map in the southern Atlantic, the Falkland Islands were once at the forefront of a new era for the oil industry as companies scoured the planet for resources. Yet a decade after the discovery of as much as 1.7 billion barrels of crude in surrounding waters, the British overseas territory known for sheep rearing and tension with Argentina looks as remote as ever. Rather than the next frontier,…

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Sanders defends Harris as vice presidential pick

Sanders defends Harris as vice presidential pick

Politico reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders defended Sen. Kamala Harris on Sunday, saying that despite Democratic Party infighting over policy proposals, a majority of progressives understand the importance of defeating President Donald Trump come November. Sanders spoke highly of Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick, noting that she’s “incredibly smart [and] incredibly tough.” “I think she’s an asset for the Biden campaign, and I think she’s going to do great on the campaign trail,” the Vermont independent said of the California senator…

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Facebook algorithm found to ‘actively promote’ Holocaust denial

Facebook algorithm found to ‘actively promote’ Holocaust denial

The Guardian reports: Facebook’s algorithm “actively promotes” Holocaust denial content according to an analysis that will increase pressure on the social media giant to remove antisemitic content relating to the Nazi genocide. An investigation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a UK-based counter-extremist organisation, found that typing “holocaust” in the Facebook search function brought up suggestions for denial pages, which in turn recommended links to publishers which sell revisionist and denial literature, as well as pages dedicated to the…

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