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Postal service changes pose threat to voting, says former USPS deputy

Postal service changes pose threat to voting, says former USPS deputy

The Guardian reports: A former top official at the United States Postal Service (USPS) has warned that recent changes at the agency, now led by a Trump ally, could “disenfranchise” voters as they are implemented just months ahead of an election in which a record number of Americans are expected to vote by mail. Amid reports of significant mail delays, Ronald Stroman, who stepped down earlier this year as the second in command at USPS, said he was concerned about…

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The real coronavirus death toll in the U.S. has already surpassed 200,000

The real coronavirus death toll in the U.S. has already surpassed 200,000

The New York Times reports: Across the United States, at least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March, according to a New York Times analysis of estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus. As the pandemic has moved south and west from its epicenter in New York City, so have the unusual patterns in deaths from all causes….

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After the civil rights era, white Americans failed to support systemic change to end racism. Will they now?

After the civil rights era, white Americans failed to support systemic change to end racism. Will they now?

Will white people’s participation in Black Lives Matter protests yield real change? Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images By Candis Watts Smith, Pennsylvania State University The first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement, which crested after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, had the support of less than half of white Americans. Given that Americans tend to have a very narrow definition of racism, many at that time were likely confused by the juxtaposition of Black-led…

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Facebook’s preferential treatment of U.S. conservatives puts its fact-checking program in danger

Facebook’s preferential treatment of U.S. conservatives puts its fact-checking program in danger

BuzzFeed reports: On May 8, Prager University, a nonprofit conservative media outlet, published a video on Facebook that incorrectly claimed “there is no evidence that CO2 emissions are the dominant factor” in climate change. Within days, Climate Feedback, a nonpartisan network of scientists and a member of Facebook’s global fact-checking partnership, rated the content as false — a designation that was supposed to result in serious consequences. It was PragerU’s second strike for false content that month, which under Facebook’s…

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Catastrophe drives evolution but life resides in the pauses

Catastrophe drives evolution but life resides in the pauses

Renée A Duckworth writes: In certain places around the world – in the Badlands near Drumheller in Alberta, Canada, in the Geulhemmergroeve tunnels in the Netherlands, or in the Hell Creek formation in eastern Montana – you can touch a thin line of rock, and know you are touching the most famous mass extinction event on Earth. This Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary layer is a seam of clay found all over the world, enriched with iridium – an element that appears…

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Kamala Harris crystallizes Trump’s view of women — ‘nasty’ or housewives

Kamala Harris crystallizes Trump’s view of women — ‘nasty’ or housewives

Katie Rogers writes: In the hours since Senator Kamala Harris joined the Democratic presidential ticket, President Trump has responded by sorting women into two categories: the good “suburban housewife” he believes will vote for him, and nasty women who have not shown him or his political allies a sufficient amount of respect. After Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, announced on Tuesday that Ms. Harris would be his running mate, Mr. Trump wasted no time sorting her into…

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How Trump bent and broke the Republican Party

How Trump bent and broke the Republican Party

Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes: “As time went on, it became clear that the sickness was a feature, that anyone who entered the building became a little sick themselves,” wrote the journalist Olivia Nuzzi in March 2018 of the Donald J. Trump White House and those who serve it. For a century, those who have worked closely with authoritarian rulers have shown the symptoms of this malady: a compulsion to praise the head of state and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own…

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U.S. postal service reorganization sparks delays, election questions

U.S. postal service reorganization sparks delays, election questions

Reuters reports: A shakeup of the U.S. Postal Service is leading to mail delays, union officials said on Tuesday, heightening concerns that an ally of President Donald Trump is destabilizing the service as millions of Americans consider whether to cast their ballots by mail in the Nov. 3 presidential election. New Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has donated $2.7 million to Trump and his fellow Republicans since 2017, has ordered operational changes and a clampdown on overtime in a bid…

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Baghdad’s record heat offers glimpse of world’s climate change future

Baghdad’s record heat offers glimpse of world’s climate change future

The Washington Post reports: This city roars in the summertime. You hear the generators on every street, shaking and shuddering to keep electric fans whirring as the air seems to shimmer in the heat. Iraq isn’t just hot. It’s punishingly hot. Record-breakingly hot. When one of us returned here last week, the air outside felt like an oven. The suitcase crackled as it was unzipped. It turned out that the synthetic fibers of a headscarf had melted crispy and were…

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Population immunity is slowing down the pandemic in parts of the U.S.

Population immunity is slowing down the pandemic in parts of the U.S.

MIT Technology Review reports: The large number of people already infected with the coronavirus in the US has begun to act as a brake on the spread of the disease in hard-hit states. Millions of US residents have been infected by the virus that causes covid-19, and at least 160,000 are dead. One effect is that the pool of susceptible individuals has been depleted in many areas. After infection, it’s believed, people become immune (at least for months), so they…

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Russia doesn’t really know whether its Covid vaccine works

Russia doesn’t really know whether its Covid vaccine works

Max Nisen writes: Russia is prematurely declaring victory in the race for a vaccine against Covid-19, with potentially dangerous consequences for the Russian population. President Vladimir Putin says his government has approved a vaccine and will start inoculating teachers and medical workers this month, before embarking on a mass vaccination effort in the fall. Yet the shot is not backed by evidence from a complete phase 3 trial, the gold standard for confirming safety and efficacy. Deciding to move ahead…

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‘A smoking gun’: Infectious coronavirus retrieved from hospital air

‘A smoking gun’: Infectious coronavirus retrieved from hospital air

The New York Times reports: Skeptics of the notion that the coronavirus spreads through the air — including many expert advisers to the World Health Organization — have held out for one missing piece of evidence: proof that floating respiratory droplets called aerosols contain live virus, and not just fragments of genetic material. Now a team of virologists and aerosol scientists has produced exactly that: confirmation of infectious virus in the air. “This is what people have been clamoring for,”…

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Kamala Harris: ‘A great partner to Joe Biden,’ says Elizabeth Warren

Kamala Harris: ‘A great partner to Joe Biden,’ says Elizabeth Warren

.@KamalaHarris will be a great partner to @JoeBiden in making our government a powerful force for good in the fight for social, racial, and economic justice. pic.twitter.com/q5ggXBro5B — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 11, 2020 I’ve known Senator @KamalaHarris for a long time. She is more than prepared for the job. She’s spent her career defending our Constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake. This is a good day for our country. Now let’s go win this thing….

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Trump: Biden is insulting men everywhere by picking woman as running mate

Trump: Biden is insulting men everywhere by picking woman as running mate

The Daily Beast reports: If you’re looking for a quintessential example of fragile masculinity, look no further. President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday morning that, in pledging to pick a woman as his running mate, Joe Biden has offended men everywhere. Trump made his comments in a simpering interview with Fox Sports personality and OutKick founder Clay Travis. Travis’ fearsome questioning covered why the president thinks the media is so mean to him, what sports he likes to watch on television,…

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