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Scientists say it’s ‘fatally foolish’ to not study catastrophic climate outcomes

Scientists say it’s ‘fatally foolish’ to not study catastrophic climate outcomes

Inside Climate News reports: As global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, some climate scientists say it’s time to start paying more attention to the most extreme, worst-case outcomes, including the potential for widespread extinctions, mass climate migration and the disintegration of social and political systems. “Facing a future of accelerating climate change while blind to worst-case scenarios is naive risk management at best and fatally foolish at worst,” an international team of researchers wrote this week in a Perspective…

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Climate change: Are we already passed the point of no return?

Climate change: Are we already passed the point of no return?

The Observer reports: The publication of Bill McGuire’s latest book, Hothouse Earth, could not be more timely. Appearing in the shops this week, it will be perused by sweltering customers who have just endured record high temperatures across the UK and now face the prospect of weeks of drought to add to their discomfort. And this is just the beginning, insists McGuire, who is emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. As he makes clear in…

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Fear, hate, and grievances animate Trump’s Republican Party

Fear, hate, and grievances animate Trump’s Republican Party

Peter Wehner writes: For all the defects Donald Trump has as a politician, he does possess certain skills, among them an almost preternatural ability to tap into the sensibilities—the id—of the American right. More than any other Republican candidate in 2016, Trump was in sync with the base of the party. He still is, as he prepares for what looks like another run for the presidency. Returning to Washington, D.C., for the first time since he left the White House…

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Inside conservatives’ next big dream: A constitutional convention

Inside conservatives’ next big dream: A constitutional convention

Insider reports: As former Republican senator Rick Santorum addressed Republican lawmakers gathered in San Diego at the American Legislative Exchange Council policy summit, he detailed a plan to fundamentally remake the United States. It would become a conservative nation. And the transformation, Santorum said, culminates with an unprecedented event: a first-of-its-kind convention to rewrite the Constitution. “You take this grenade and you pull the pin, you’ve got a live piece of ammo in your hands,” Santorum, a two-time GOP presidential…

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Vast new study shows a key to reducing poverty: More friendships between rich and poor

Vast new study shows a key to reducing poverty: More friendships between rich and poor

The New York Times reports: Over the last four decades, the financial circumstances into which children have been born have increasingly determined where they have ended up as adults. But an expansive new study, based on billions of social media connections, has uncovered a powerful exception to that pattern that helps explain why certain places offer a path out of poverty. For poor children, living in an area where people have more friendships that cut across class lines significantly increases…

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Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine

Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine

CNN reports: Days after Moscow launched its bloody war on Ukraine, a Russian cargo plane stood on a Khartoum runway, a strip of tarmac surrounded by red-orange sand. The aircraft’s manifest stated it was loaded with cookies. Sudan rarely, if ever, exports cookies. A heated debate transpired between officials in a back office of Khartoum International Airport. They feared that inspecting the plane would vex the country’s increasingly pro-Russian military leadership. Multiple previous attempts to intercept suspicious Russian carriers had…

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Why John Mearsheimer is dangerously wrong about Ukraine

Why John Mearsheimer is dangerously wrong about Ukraine

Joe Cirincione writes: International relations scholar John Mearsheimer is brilliant, provocative and deeply insightful. I have had the pleasure to know him and to have lectured to his class at the University of Chicago. On Ukraine, however, he is dangerously wrong. In numerous essays and articles, Mearsheimer focuses his fire on U.S. and NATO policies for causing the Ukraine war and for its continuation. His speech, “Why Is Ukraine the West’s Fault?” has been viewed more than 27 million times….

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Trump is increasingly being cold-shouldered by Fox News

Trump is increasingly being cold-shouldered by Fox News

The New York Times reports: It’s been more than 100 days since Donald J. Trump was interviewed on Fox News. The network, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and boosted Mr. Trump’s ascension from real estate developer and reality television star to the White House, is now often bypassing him in favor of showcasing other Republicans. In the former president’s view, according to two people who have spoken to him recently, Fox’s ignoring him is an affront far worse than…

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Biden EPA to tackle coal industry carbon with rules on other pollutants

Biden EPA to tackle coal industry carbon with rules on other pollutants

Reuters reports: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to use new limits on traditional pollutants like ozone and coal ash to help encourage the retirement of the nation’s remaining coal-fired power plants, after the Supreme Court limited the agency’s ability to impose sweeping climate regulations, according to EPA chief Michael Regan. The approach reflects how the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden intends to forge ahead with goals to decarbonize the power sector despite the recent ruling from the court….

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Climate deniers attack weather forecasters during UK heatwave

Climate deniers attack weather forecasters during UK heatwave

BBC News reports: Weather forecasters faced unprecedented levels of trolling during this month’s extreme heat in the UK, according to leading figures in the industry. The BBC’s team received hundreds of abusive tweets or emails questioning their reports and telling them to “get a grip”, as temperatures hit 40C. BBC meteorologist Matt Taylor said he had never experienced anything like it in nearly 25 years working in weather. The Royal Meteorological Society condemned the trolling. Most of the abuse seems…

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The day Tunisia’s democracy died

The day Tunisia’s democracy died

Shadi Hamid writes: A year has passed since the start of President Kais Saied’s slow-motion coup in Tunisia. That it was as slow as this was perhaps key to its success. I would rather not write this as a sort of political eulogy. But it seems appropriate to write in the past tense, at least for now. This isn’t to say that Tunisians won’t be able to wrest their country back from their would-be strongman. I hope and pray that…

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Perineuronal nets play unexpected role in chronic pain

Perineuronal nets play unexpected role in chronic pain

R. Douglas Fields writes: Neuroscientists, being interested in how brains work, naturally focus on neurons, the cells that can convey elements of sense and thought to each other via electrical impulses. But equally worthy of study is a substance that’s between them — a viscous coating on the outside of these neurons. Roughly equivalent to the cartilage in our noses and joints, the stuff clings like a fishing net to some of our neurons, inspiring the name perineuronal nets (PNNs)….

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How six states could overturn the 2024 election

How six states could overturn the 2024 election

Barton Gellman writes: Late last month, in one of its final acts of the term, the Supreme Court queued up another potentially precedent-wrecking decision for next year. The Court’s agreement to hear Moore v. Harper, a North Carolina redistricting case, isn’t just bad news for efforts to control gerrymandering. The Court’s right-wing supermajority is poised to let state lawmakers overturn voters’ choice in presidential elections. To understand the stakes, and the motives of Republicans who brought the case, you need…

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‘Constitutional sheriffs’: Inside one far-right sheriff’s crusade to prove Trump’s bogus voter-fraud claims

‘Constitutional sheriffs’: Inside one far-right sheriff’s crusade to prove Trump’s bogus voter-fraud claims

Reuters reports: Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged has been decisively debunked by local election officials, state and federal courts, and the former president’s own attorney general. All deemed his case bogus. Here in Michigan’s rural Barry County, Sheriff Dar Leaf rejects all that. Since late 2020, Leaf has been investigating one of Trump’s most fantastical false assertions – that vote-counting machines somehow flipped votes from Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Working with key figures in the…

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