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Author: From elsewhere

Societies lacking cohesion have a history of falling apart

Societies lacking cohesion have a history of falling apart

Science Alert reports: In the area where the Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexican borders now meet, ancestral Pueblo societies thrived and then collapsed several times, over the span of 800 years. Each time they recovered, their culture transformed. This shifting history can be seen in their pottery and the incredible stone and earth dwellings they created. During 300 of those years, some Pueblo peoples, who also used ink tattoos, were ruled by a matrilineal dynasty. As in the collapse…

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CDC finds notorious weed killer tied to cancer in over 80% of urine samples collected in the U.S.

CDC finds notorious weed killer tied to cancer in over 80% of urine samples collected in the U.S.

The New Lede reports: In fresh evidence of the pervasive nature of pesticides, more than 80 percent of urine samples drawn from children and adults participating in a US health study contained a weedkilling chemical linked to cancer and other health problems. The report by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that out of 2,310 urine samples collected, 1,885 were laced with detectable traces of glyphosate, the active ingredient in herbicides sold around the…

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Pollen and heat — a looming challenge for global agriculture

Pollen and heat — a looming challenge for global agriculture

Carolyn Beans writes: Last June, Aaron Flansburg felt the temperature spike and knew what that meant for his canola crop. A fifth-generation grower in Washington state, Flansburg times his canola planting to bloom in the cool weeks of early summer. But last year, his fields were hit with 108-degree Fahrenheit heat just as flowers opened. “That is virtually unheard of for our area to have a temperature like that in June,” he says. Yellow blooms sweltered, reproduction stalled, and many…

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The nexus between the climate change and democracy crises

The nexus between the climate change and democracy crises

Roger Karapin writes: The crises the U.S. is facing regarding global warming and representative democracy are similar in some ways. Both have been serious problems for several decades, but have taken on new urgency in the past five years. In both, the Republican Party is a key barrier to progress or the instigator of regress. Both now place the U.S. increasingly at odds with our allies in Canada and Western Europe. Beyond those similarities, the two crises also are linked:…

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UN warns of ‘looming hunger catastrophe’ due to Russian blockade

UN warns of ‘looming hunger catastrophe’ due to Russian blockade

The Guardian reports: A looming hunger catastrophe is set to explode over the next two years, creating the risk of unprecedented global political pressure, the executive director of the UN World Food Programme has warned. Calling for short- and long-term reforms – including an urgent lifting of the blockade on 25m tonnes of Ukrainian grain trapped by a Russian blockade – David Beasley said the current food affordability crisis is likely to turn into an even more dangerous food availability…

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Ukraine forces finally seeing impact of arms from West, says Zelenskiy

Ukraine forces finally seeing impact of arms from West, says Zelenskiy

The Guardian reports: Ukrainian forces are finally seeing the impact of western weapons on the frontlines of the war with Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said. Experts say while western equipment has been crucial for pushing back Russian forces, the west will need to scale up its supplies, and even mobilise its own defence industries, if it wants to avoid a war of attrition that Ukraine could lose. During his nightly TV address, Zelenskiy said that thanks to western supplies, Ukrainian…

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Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe

Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe

Fintan O’Toole writes: It seems rather apt that Boris Johnson pocketed a huge advance from a publisher for a book about William Shakespeare but never got round to writing it. Johnson’s rise and fall hovers between cheap farce and theatre of the absurd. It has none of the grandeur of tragedy. The only line of Shakespeare’s that came to mind at his political demise was the first bit of Mark Antony’s elegy for Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do…

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Why Johnson fell but Trump remains his party’s de facto leader … for now

Why Johnson fell but Trump remains his party’s de facto leader … for now

Stephen Collinson writes: Britain’s Conservatives just did what America’s Republicans never dared to do. They toppled a wrecking ball right-wing populist leader who reeled from one self-created scandal to another and who was accused of flagrantly breaking the law, abusing power and building his political career on an edifice of lies. After weeks of clinging desperately to office, Boris Johnson finally resigned as the ruling Conservative Party’s leader Thursday after a rebellion by his own lawmakers. The party will elect…

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What happened to Michael Flynn?

What happened to Michael Flynn?

Barton Gellman writes: Michael Flynn faced the camera with brow creased and lips compressed. He hadn’t been born yesterday, his expression said. He was not going to fall for trick questions. “General Flynn, do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified?” Representative Liz Cheney asked him in a video teleconference deposition for the January 6 committee. Flynn’s lawyer pressed the mute button and switched off the camera. Ninety-six seconds passed. Flynn and the lawyer reappeared with a request…

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Ex-Trump White House counsel Cipollone ‘cooperative’ with Jan. 6 committee during lengthy interview

Ex-Trump White House counsel Cipollone ‘cooperative’ with Jan. 6 committee during lengthy interview

NBC News reports: Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone appeared before the House Jan. 6 committee for a marathon interview Friday, sitting for more than seven hours of questions. Cipollone, who panel vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., has repeatedly described as a critical witness, joined the committee for a videotaped and transcribed closed-door interview around 8:45 a.m. ET, and left shortly before 5:30 p.m., taking numerous breaks with his attorneys throughout the day. He was in the deposition…

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Glee in Russia, sadness in Ukraine, and hope in Brussels and Dublin as Boris Johnson quits

Glee in Russia, sadness in Ukraine, and hope in Brussels and Dublin as Boris Johnson quits

The Guardian reports: Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while officials in Kyiv expressed sadness at the resignation of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s key ally, which is likely to lead to fears for what it will mean for Ukraine’s war effort. Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first world leader to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine, but his…

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Young people are abandoning Biden in droves because he won’t fight for their rights and freedom

Young people are abandoning Biden in droves because he won’t fight for their rights and freedom

Ryan Cooper writes: President Biden’s approval rating just keeps sinking and sinking—down to a low of just 39 percent in the FiveThirtyEight poll average, or about three points below where Donald Trump was at a similar point in his term. Unlike Trump, Biden’s poor numbers are mainly thanks to weak support among his own base. Where Trump commanded virtual lockstep loyalty among Republicans, Biden is staggeringly unpopular among wide swaths of Democrats—particularly young folks. Americans aged 18–29 have gone from…

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The McCarthys and the Grahams and all the other parasitic suck-ups who made the Trump era possible

The McCarthys and the Grahams and all the other parasitic suck-ups who made the Trump era possible

Mark Leibovich writes: I never found Donald Trump to be remotely captivating as a stand-alone figure. He’d been around forever and his political act was largely derivative. His promise to “drain the swamp” was treated as some genius coinage, though in fact the platitude had been worn out for decades by both parties. Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” in 2006, just as the Reagan-Bush campaign had vowed to “Make America Great Again” in 1980. Trump said and did…

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Right-wing evangelical activist bragged about praying with justices inside Supreme Court

Right-wing evangelical activist bragged about praying with justices inside Supreme Court

Rolling Stone reports: At an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said. This disclosure was a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major conflict of interest. Nienaber’s…

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