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Australia has almost eliminated the coronavirus — by putting faith in science

Australia has almost eliminated the coronavirus — by putting faith in science

The Washington Post reports: The Sydney Opera House has reopened. Almost 40,000 spectators attended the city’s rugby league grand final. Workers are being urged to return to their offices. Australia has become a pandemic success story. The nation of 26 million is close to eliminating community transmission of the coronavirus, having defeated a second wave just as infections surge again in Europe and the United States. No new cases were reported on the island continent Thursday, and only seven since…

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The wisdom of pandemics

The wisdom of pandemics

David Waltner-Toews writes: Wisdom is the ability to discern inner qualities and subtle relationships, then translate them into what others recognise as good judgment. If it comes to us at all, wisdom is the product of reflection, time and experience. A person might achieve wisdom after decades; a community after centuries; a culture after millennia. Modern human beings as a species? We’re getting there, and pandemics can help. If we persist in our curiosity and reflect on what we find,…

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How the gut protects the brain

How the gut protects the brain

Deborah Devis writes: The gut is well known for being the first line of defence against infection, but it seems it also protects our most important organ – the brain. According to surprising new research, antibodies that defend the perimeter of the brain are normally found in, and trained by, our gut. “This finding opens a new area of neuroimmunology, showing that gut-educated antibody-producing cells inhabit and defend regions that surround the central nervous system,” says Dorian McGavern from the…

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If Trump tries to sue his way to election victory, here’s what happens

If Trump tries to sue his way to election victory, here’s what happens

ProPublica reports: A hearing on Wednesday in an election case captured in miniature the challenge for the Trump campaign as it gears up for what could become an all-out legal assault on presidential election results in key swing states: It’s easy enough to file a lawsuit claiming improprieties — in this case, that Pennsylvania had violated the law by allowing voters whose mail-in ballots were defective to correct them — but a lot harder to provide evidence of wrongdoing or…

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Trump says he’s going to court, but he has absolutely no basis to sue

Trump says he’s going to court, but he has absolutely no basis to sue

Joshua A. Geltzer writes: Even as President Trump falsely claimed electoral victory early Wednesday morning, he implicitly acknowledged that the election results are not, in fact, decided yet by pledging to go to court to obtain the result he wants — reelection. But going to court requires making actual legal arguments. And, for all of the complex election-related legal questions that might still arise as the votes are counted, none of the claims Trump made on Wednesday morning qualifies as…

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Trump orders advisers to ‘go down fighting’

Trump orders advisers to ‘go down fighting’

The Daily Beast reports: As Election Day turned into election week early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump had a simple message for his closest political and legal advisers as they began charting a plan to challenge and temporarily halt ballot counts in several key states: give them a court fight that “they’ll never forget.” The president’s remarks, relayed by two people familiar with them, came on the morning after an inconclusive election night, but one that seemed trending Joe Biden’s way….

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U.S. heads toward its highest voter turnout in over a century

U.S. heads toward its highest voter turnout in over a century

The New York Times reports: With more than 101.1 million early votes cast in person and by mail before the polls even opened on Election Day, the 2020 presidential campaign was shaping up to be one for the record books, on pace to attract the highest turnout in more than a century. The huge turnout appeared to be spurred by the momentous issues that have upended the lives of nearly every American, including the surging coronavirus outbreak and the struggling…

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Fox News made a big call in Arizona, buoying Biden and angering Trump

Fox News made a big call in Arizona, buoying Biden and angering Trump

The New York Times reports: It was just after 12:30 a.m. on election night, and Fox News was under fire. “Arnon, we’re getting a lot of incoming here, and we need you to answer some questions,” the network’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, said pointedly. “Shoot!” Arnon Mishkin replied, his face breaking into a smile. Roughly an hour earlier, Mr. Mishkin’s decision desk team at Fox News had made a bold call that instantly changed the tenor of the night:…

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We are two countries, and neither of them is going to be conquered or disappear anytime soon

We are two countries, and neither of them is going to be conquered or disappear anytime soon

George Packer writes: We don’t yet know the outcome of the election, but its meaning is already clear. We are two countries, and neither of them is going to be conquered or disappear anytime soon. The outcome of the 2016 election was not a historical fluke or result of foreign subversion, but a pretty accurate reflection of the American electorate. The much-discussed Democratic majority that’s been emerging since the turn of the millennium is still in a state of emergence…

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Make America healthy again by paying more attention to nutrition

Make America healthy again by paying more attention to nutrition

Vanita Rahman and Matthew Rees write: Health care and health care policy were centerpieces of the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns. It’s a shame that neither party focused on the underlying issue: the poor health of the American people, largely attributed to poor nutrition. By many measures, the population of the United States is the unhealthiest of any high-income country despite spending much more money, as a share of the economy, on health care. The incidence of chronic disease is…

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After dire warnings, Election Day voting issues are ‘isolated and sporadic’

After dire warnings, Election Day voting issues are ‘isolated and sporadic’

Politico reports: Election administrators and regular Americans were bracing for Election Day chaos — warned to expect violence, malfunctions, long lines and disinformation. Instead, they got something else entirely: a fairly smooth election process across the country. Though some problems have emerged — even serious ones like election equipment failures — there were not, by early Tuesday evening as a first round of states was set to close their polls, any major disruptions to the democratic process, election observers said,…

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U.S. Postal Service blows deadline to check for missing ballots. About 300,000 can’t be traced

U.S. Postal Service blows deadline to check for missing ballots. About 300,000 can’t be traced

USA Today reports: The U.S. Postal Service blew a court-ordered deadline Tuesday to sweep mail-processing facilities in more than a dozen states for missing election ballots that could number in the hundreds of thousands. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington ordered the sweep Tuesday morning after the Postal Service said its delivery performance had dropped over the past five days and could not say whether more than 300,000 ballots received in its facilities had been delivered. The sweep…

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The ‘Trump train’ drivers had reason to expect impunity

The ‘Trump train’ drivers had reason to expect impunity

Gregory H. Shill writes: In Texas on Friday, dozens of vehicles driven by supporters of President Donald Trump formed a “Trump Train” on Interstate 35, and several of them surrounded a Joe Biden campaign bus, slowing it and attempting to force it off the road. One viral video shows a truck with pro-Trump and Blue Lives Matter banners striking a Biden staffer’s vehicle. After the FBI announced an investigation of the coordinated operation, Trump thanked the perpetrators, declaring, “In my…

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YouTube cut down misinformation — then boosted Fox News

YouTube cut down misinformation — then boosted Fox News

The New York Times reports: After the 2016 election, engineers at YouTube went to work on changes to a YouTube algorithm that had become one of the world’s most influential lines of computer code. That algorithm decided which videos YouTube recommended that users watch next; the company said it was responsible for 70 percent of the one billion hours a day people spent on YouTube. But it had become clear that those recommendations tended to steer viewers toward videos that…

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What liberals don’t understand about pro-Trump Latinos

What liberals don’t understand about pro-Trump Latinos

The Atlantic reports: Abraham Enriquez speaks with the clarity of a levelheaded TV anchor. The 25-year-old Latino from Lubbock, Texas, was the first in his family to be born in the United States, after his grandparents immigrated from Mexico in the 1980s and brought his then-2-year-old mother with them. He visits his family across the border at least once a year for service trips with his grandparents’ church. When we talked recently about the state of American politics, I recognized…

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