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China seeks first military base on Africa’s Atlantic coast, U.S. intelligence finds

China seeks first military base on Africa’s Atlantic coast, U.S. intelligence finds

The Wall Street Journal reports: Classified American intelligence reports suggest China intends to establish its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Central African country of Equatorial Guinea, according to U.S. officials. The officials declined to describe details of the secret intelligence findings. But they said the reports raise the prospect that Chinese warships would be able to rearm and refit opposite the East Coast of the U.S.—a threat that is setting off alarm bells at…

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Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame

Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame

NPR reports: Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That’s according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic. NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across…

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Carbon inheritance

Carbon inheritance

James Balog writes: Do any of us really have a right to be angry or frustrated about the climate- and-energy crisis without considering how we ourselves have contributed to it? Honestly? Truly? With eyes wide open? I don’t think so. We all play a role in producing the problem. No one inhabits a righteous, pure-and-holy aerie above the human condition. Not me, not you, not anybody. We all drive our chariots of carbon fire. We all rely on carbon fuels…

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Why I stopped writing about Syria

Why I stopped writing about Syria

Asser Khattab writes: When the war broke out in 2011 and many of us quickly grew accustomed to its horrors, programming my days around the possibility of rockets or mortar shells falling around me became increasingly ordinary, like picking clothes appropriate for the weather. And when I had to escape, it was just another thing that I had to do. The night before I left, I went to the bar, raised a glass to the good old days with the…

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What happened to the ideal of multi-religious Arab modernity?

What happened to the ideal of multi-religious Arab modernity?

Ussama Makdisi writes: By the time I was born in 1968, my grandfather was an emeritus professor and a pillar of Ras Beirut’s small and highly educated Protestant community. But by then, as well, the optimism of the first half of the 20th century had receded dramatically. European empires had long since cynically partitioned the Ottoman Empire and created several new states including Lebanon. The Arab East, of which the small Mediterranean country was an inseparable part, witnessed the vibrant…

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The James Webb Space Telescope will rewrite cosmic history — if it works

The James Webb Space Telescope will rewrite cosmic history — if it works

Natalie Wolchover writes: To look back in time at the cosmos’s infancy and witness the first stars flicker on, you must first grind a mirror as big as a house. Its surface must be so smooth that, if the mirror were the scale of a continent, it would feature no hill or valley greater than ankle height. Only a mirror so huge and smooth can collect and focus the faint light coming from the farthest galaxies in the sky —…

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A billion shellfish and other marine animals baked to death

A billion shellfish and other marine animals baked to death

Julia Rosen writes: During this summer’s stifling heat wave, Robin Fales patrolled the same sweep of shore on Washington’s San Juan Island every day at low tide. The stench of rotting sea life grew as temperatures edged toward triple digits—roughly 30 degrees above average—and Fales watched the beds of kelp she studies wilt and fade. “They were bleaching more than I had ever seen,” recalls Fales, a Ph.D. candidate and marine ecologist at the University of Washington. She didn’t know…

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Snow may vanish for years at a time in Mountain West with climate warming

Snow may vanish for years at a time in Mountain West with climate warming

The Washington Post reports: A new study provides a glimpse into the future of Western U.S. snow and the picture is far from rosy: In about 35 to 60 years, mountainous states are projected to be nearly snowless for years at a time if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked and climate change does not slow. Due to rising temperatures, the region has already lost 20 percent of its snowpack since the 1950s. That’s enough water to fill Lake Mead, the…

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WHO says no deaths reported from Omicron yet as Covid variant spreads

WHO says no deaths reported from Omicron yet as Covid variant spreads

The Guardian reports: The Omicron variant has been detected in at least 38 countries but no deaths have yet been reported, the World Health Organization has said, amid warnings that it could damage the global economic recovery. The United States and Australia became the latest countries to confirm locally transmitted cases of the variant, as Omicron infections pushed South Africa’s total cases past 3 million. The WHO has warned it could take weeks to determine how infectious the variant is,…

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U.S. intelligence sees Russian plan for possible Ukraine invasion

U.S. intelligence sees Russian plan for possible Ukraine invasion

The New York Times reports: The Biden administration’s growing alarm about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine is based in part on U.S. intelligence that Moscow has drawn up plans for a military offensive involving an estimated 175,000 troops as soon as early next year. An unclassified U.S. intelligence document details some of the intelligence findings, including the positioning of what officials say could eventually be 100 battalion tactical groups, as well as heavy armor, artillery and other equipment. The…

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Meet the Trump fanatics who have taken over elections in a critical swing state

Meet the Trump fanatics who have taken over elections in a critical swing state

Roger Kerson writes: When Donald Trump was scrambling in November of 2020 to overturn an election he clearly lost, my home state of Michigan was directly in his crosshairs. Nancy Tiseo, a Republican activist from Macomb County—home to the legendary “Reagan Democrats”—was ready to join him on the ramparts. Tiseo’s prescription: The president should declare martial law, call off the December meeting of the Electoral College, and cancel January Senate runoffs in Georgia. “Military tribunals” are needed, Tiseo wrote on…

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Hamas terror listing is yet another UK betrayal of the Palestinians

Hamas terror listing is yet another UK betrayal of the Palestinians

Avi Shlaim writes: British Home Secretary Priti Patel has declared her intention to proscribe the whole of Hamas – the Islamic resistance movement that rules the Gaza Strip – as a terrorist organisation. The military wing of the group was proscribed in the UK back in March 2001. Twenty years on, the home secretary proposes to extend this ban to the political wing by arguing that the distinction between the two wings is no longer tenable. The truth of the…

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If cable news disappeared tomorrow, who would notice?

If cable news disappeared tomorrow, who would notice?

Jack Shafer writes: How did the cable news networks become our main stage? Nary a day goes by without somebody saying something stupid somewhere on cable that ignites a national uproar that seizes the news cycle for days. On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson praised the journalism of Infowars fantasist Alex Jones on his Fox News Channel show, and that sparked coverage in the Washington Post, the Daily Beast, HuffPost and elsewhere. Earlier in the week, the someone saying something stupid was…

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The Supreme Court will gaslight us until the end

The Supreme Court will gaslight us until the end

Dahlia Lithwick writes: Perhaps it would be refreshing if the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court no longer felt the need to lie to us. The lying, after all, is becoming nearly untenable—especially for an institution that relies on public confidence. After confirmation hearings in which they promised that stare decisis was a deeply felt value and that Roe v. Wade was a clear “precedent of the court” and “the law of the land.” there’s something sort of soothing about…

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