Katherine J. Wu, Ed Yong, and Sarah Zhang write: For nearly two years now, Americans have lived with SARS-CoV-2. We know it better than we once did. We know that it can set off both acute and chronic illness, that it spreads best indoors, that masks help block it, that our vaccines are powerful against it. We know that we can live with it—that we’re going to have to live with it—but that it can and will exact a heavy…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Xi Jinping’s campaign against private enterprise, it is increasingly clear, is far more ambitious than meets the eye. The Chinese President is not just trying to rein in a few big tech and other companies and show who is boss in China. He is trying to roll back China’s decadeslong evolution toward Western-style capitalism and put the country on a different path entirely, a close examination of Mr. Xi’s writings and his discussions with party…
Van Savage and Geoffrey West write: Humans have long wondered why we sleep. A well-rested prehistoric mind probably pondered the question, long before Galileo thought to predict the period of the pendulum or to understand how fast objects fall. Why must we put ourselves into this potentially endangering state, one that consumes about a third of our adult lives and even more of our childhood? And we don’t do it grudgingly – why do we, along with dogs, lions and…
The New York Times reports: Joe Manchin, the powerful West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate energy panel and earned half a million dollars last year from coal production, is preparing to remake President Biden’s climate legislation in a way that tosses a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry — despite urgent calls from scientists that countries need to quickly pivot away from coal, gas and oil to avoid a climate catastrophe. Mr. Manchin has already emerged as the crucial…
Mark Hertsgaard writes: Fossil fuel companies bear as much responsibility as governments do for humanity’s climate predicament – and for finding a way out. Our planetary house is on fire, and these companies have literally supplied the fuel. Worse, they lied about it for decades to blunt public awareness and policy reform. There’s no better time for ExxonMobil and other petroleum giants to be held accountable than at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November. The Glasgow summit is…
Travis Waldron reports: David Dreyer just needed a nap. The morning of Jan. 6, Dreyer, a Georgia state representative, had spent most of the last 24 hours in the Georgia World Congress Center watching local officials tally absentee ballots in the two runoff elections that had taken place the day before. The outcome would determine majority control of the U.S. Senate. Overnight, The Associated Press had projected both Democratic candidates, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, as the winners….
New York Magazine reports: About 100 people showed up on Saturday for a protest on the National Mall in support of people arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol during the pro-Trump insurrection on January 6. Considering the widespread media coverage and extensive security preparations ahead of the event, and the fact that journalists and police far outnumbered attendees, the so-called “Justice for J6” rally undoubtedly attracted more attention than it deserved. Indeed, the rally’s “D-list” organizer claimed on Friday that…
Peter Nicholas writes: When president Joe Biden rolled out his plan requiring vaccinations on a mass scale, he sounded a bit like a gambler at a point of desperation. Biden’s presidency, and much of his legacy, hinges on defeating the prolonged pandemic. During a dismal summer of rising infections and deaths due to vaccine holdouts and the Delta variant, the pandemic seemed to have defeated him. Under the new rules, Biden hopes to pressure about 80 million more Americans to…
Nature reports: Six months ago, Miles Davenport and his colleagues made a bold prediction. On the basis of published results from vaccine trials and other data sources, they estimated that people immunized against COVID-19 would lose approximately half of their defensive antibodies every 108 days or so. As a result, vaccines that initially offered, say, 90% protection against mild cases of disease might only be 70% effective after 6 or 7 months. “It felt a little bit out on a…
The Scientist reports: While researchers have found plenty of gene variants that seem to increase the risk of an autism diagnosis, it’s not clear why some people carrying these mutations develop autism spectrum disorders and some do not. In a study published today (September 17) in Science Advances, researchers point to a potential answer: severe infections during early childhood. After an early immune challenge, male mice with a mutated copy of the tuberous sclerosis complex 2 (Tsc2) gene developed deficits…
When journalism forces government to admit mistakes. The @nytimes Visual Investigation team once against defy official stories and prove unnecessary targeting of civilians. Outstanding work from @heytherehaIey ,@trbrtc ,@whitney_hurst ,@ckoettl and othershttps://t.co/ffSt1mPVUm — Rasha Al Aqeedi (@RashaAlAqeedi) September 18, 2021 Almost everything senior defence officials said publicly in the hours, days and weeks after the August 29 drone strike turned out to be false. The car posed no threat at all. https://t.co/MHie1f8EbT — Louisa Loveluck (@leloveluck) September 18, 2021…
CBS News reports: Three of the nation’s four most recent former presidents are coming together to offer their support to a new organization that aims to assist Afghan evacuees who are resettling in the United States after fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, are joining Welcome.US as honorary co-chairs “to lift up everyone else involved and remind us that this…
The New York Times reports: The United States and Australia went to extraordinary lengths to keep Paris in the dark as they secretly negotiated a plan to build nuclear submarines, scuttling France’s largest defense contract and so enraging President Emmanuel Macron that on Friday he ordered the withdrawal of France’s ambassadors to both nations. Mr. Macron’s decision was a stunning and unexpected escalation of the breach between Washington and Paris, on a day that the two countries had planned to…
By Patricia A. O’Brien, Georgetown University It has been announced the US, Australia and the UK are forming a new security partnership to be known as AUKUS. This alliance, announced by the leaders of the three countries, throws an entirely different light on the recent 70th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty and indeed key defence relationships of the past seven decades. Dubbed by some as ANZUS 2.0, AUKUS is a trilateral agreement, but one that notably excludes New Zealand. With…