Music: Hvalfugl — ‘Regnen Falder Som Sne’
How Jan. 6th committee’s revelations of interference in their investigation can enable Special Counsel
Ryan Goodman writes: On Monday, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol released an executive summary of its final report, which focuses primarily on former President Donald Trump’s alleged criminal efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The committee, however, also presented new evidence of criminal efforts to interfere with its investigation – on the part of some witnesses, their attorneys, and others associated with the former president. It is the kind of evidence that…
Did the January 6 committee finish Trump?
Ed Kilgore writes: The tenth and final public hearing of the House select committee on January 6 didn’t break much new ground or provide any sensational new revelations besides confirming reports that it would refer Donald Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Depending on what does indeed happen to the accused, the legacy of the committee, and its skillful leadership by Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, may well be found in the political if not legal consequences of…
Who is Rep.-elect George Santos? His résumé may be largely fiction
The New York Times reports: George Santos, whose election to Congress on Long Island last month helped Republicans clinch a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, built his candidacy on the notion that he was the “full embodiment of the American dream” and was running to safeguard it for others. His campaign biography amplified his storybook journey: He is the son of Brazilian immigrants, and the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent. By…
An ‘imperial Supreme Court’ asserts its power, alarming scholars
Adam Liptak reports: The conventional critique of the Supreme Court these days is that it has lurched to the right and is out of step with the public on many issues. That is true so far as it goes. But a burst of recent legal scholarship makes a deeper point, saying the current court is distinctive in a different way: It has rapidly been accumulating power at the expense of every other part of the government. The phenomenon was documented…
The role of billionaires in directing climate policy
The Washington Post reports: They are not elected to any office. But in the fight against global warming, the world’s billionaires have more influence than many heads of state. As government struggles to move quickly to contain greenhouse gases, ultrawealthy investors and philanthropists are increasingly grabbing the reins, using their fortunes to guide the transition to cleaner energy toward their favored projects and market strategies. They are men with household names like Jeff Bezos (net worth: $113 billion, according to…
The Energy Department’s fusion breakthrough: It’s not really about generating electricity
John Mecklin writes: This week’s headlines have been full of reports about a “major breakthrough” in nuclear fusion technology that, many of those reports misleadingly suggested, augurs a future of abundant clean energy produced by fusion nuclear power plants. To be sure, many of those reports lightly hedged their enthusiasm by noting that (as The Guardian put it) “major hurdles” to a fusion-powered world remain. Indeed, they do. The fusion achievement that the US Energy Department announced this week is…
Microorganisms that expand their range by absorbing organelles
Veronique Greenwood writes: Nature, red in tooth and claw, is rife with organisms that eat their neighbors to get ahead. But in the systems studied by the theoretical ecologist Holly Moeller, an assistant professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the consumed become part of the consumer in surprising ways. Moeller primarily studies protists, a broad category of unicellular microorganisms like amoebas and paramecia that don’t fit within the familiar macroscopic categories of…
Music: Yussef Kamaal — ‘Strings of Light’
White House leans on Congress, rallies allies, to aid Ukraine through winter of war
Politico reports: The White House is steeling itself for new challenges posed by a winter of war in Ukraine and an incoming Republican House majority promising to curb funding to Kyiv. Though Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia’s brutal invasion continue to exceed expectations, President Joe Biden has been warily watching developments on both sides of the Atlantic. Ukraine remains standing as fighting enters its tenth month, but new tests for the Biden administration, at home and abroad, are rising just…
Iran uses rape to enforce women’s modesty
Nicholas Kristof writes: One gauge of the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime is that there are credible reports that it is enforcing its supposedly strict moral code by arresting women and girls accused of advocating immodesty, and then sexually assaulting them. In a searing report about the rape of protesters by security forces, CNN recounted how a 20-year-old woman was arrested for supposedly leading protests and later was brought by the police to a hospital in Karaj, shaking violently, head…
Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti arrested after criticism of death penalty
The Guardian reports: Taraneh Alidoosti, one of Iran’s most famous actors, has been detained by security forces in Tehran days after she criticised the state’s use of the death penalty against protesters. She had previously posted a picture of herself on her Instagram page in which she was not wearing the hijab and holding a piece of paper reading “women, life, freedom” – the slogan that has come to encapsulate the fight against the current Iranian regime. Alidoosti is regarded…
Facing blackouts and Iranian-made drones, Ukrainian Jews urge Israel to help
The Washington Post reports: When Russia invaded Ukraine, the homeland of his parents and grandparents, David felt obligated to leave Israel and fight against Vladimir Putin, the man he views as a modern Hitler. After praying on a recent Shabbat in Kyiv’s oldest synagogue, David, 56, said he was proud to have spent most of the past nine months on the front lines, where he took fire from artillery and drones while fighting in Ukraine’s eastern offensive in Kharkiv. Are…
Media companies remain in codependent relationship with Twitter
The Washington Post reports: When Twitter abruptly suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists Thursday night — in response to a baffling claim from new owner Elon Musk that they had endangered his safety — media bosses were quick to speak out in protest. The New York Times called the suspensions “questionable.” CNN said it would “reevaluate” its relationship with Twitter. The Washington Post demanded that Twitter reinstate the account of one of its technology reporters “immediately,” noting that he…
Life in Fukushima offers a glimpse into our contaminated future
Maxime Polleri writes: As a farmer, Atsuo Tanizaki did not care much for the state’s maps of radioactive contamination. Colour-coded zoning restrictions might make sense for government workers, he told me, but ‘real’ people did not experience their environment through shades of red, orange and green. Instead, they navigated the landscape one field, one tree, one measurement at a time. ‘Case by case,’ he said, grimly, as he guided me along the narrow paths that separated his rice fields, on…
Trump’s need for attention hasn’t dwindled since he left office
The Washington Post reports: On a typical day since leaving office, advisers said, Trump gets up early, makes phone calls, watches television and reads some newspapers. Then, six days a week, he plays 18 or sometimes 27 holes of golf at one of his courses. After lunch, he changes into a suit from his golf shirt and slacks and shows up in the office above the Mar-a-Lago ballroom or, when he is in New Jersey, a similar office in a…