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Pfizer data suggest third dose of Covid-19 vaccine ‘strongly’ boosts protection against Delta variant

Pfizer data suggest third dose of Covid-19 vaccine ‘strongly’ boosts protection against Delta variant

CNN reports: A third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine can “strongly” boost protection against the Delta variant — beyond the protection afforded by the standard two doses, new data released by Pfizer on Wednesday suggests. The data posted online suggest that levels of antibodies that can target the Delta variant grow fivefold in people 18 to 55 who get a third dose of the vaccine. Among people ages 65 to 85, the Pfizer data suggest that antibody levels that…

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Video shows salmon injured by unlivable water temperatures after heatwave

Video shows salmon injured by unlivable water temperatures after heatwave

  The Guardian reports: Salmon in the Columbia River were exposed to unlivable water temperatures that caused them to break out in angry red lesions and white fungus in the wake of the Pacific north-west’s record-shattering heatwave, according to a conservation group that has documented the disturbing sight. In a video released on Tuesday by the non-profit organization Columbia Riverkeeper, a group of sockeye salmon swimming in a tributary of the river can be seen covered in injuries the group…

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Gaza: Apparent war crimes during May fighting

Gaza: Apparent war crimes during May fighting

Human Rights Watch: Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups carried out attacks during the May 2021 fighting in the Gaza Strip and Israel that violated the laws of war and apparently amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The Israeli military and Palestinian authorities have a long track record of failing to investigate laws of war violations committed in or from Gaza. Human Rights Watch investigated three Israeli strikes that killed 62 Palestinian civilians where there were no…

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Republicans refuse to reckon with January 6

Republicans refuse to reckon with January 6

What a moment https://t.co/SySsgNoLRk — 💫 Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) July 27, 2021 Elaine Godfrey writes: All along the hallways of the Capitol complex today, members of the Capitol Police stared at their phones and nearby TV screens. Four of their fellow officers were testifying before Congress for the first time about the treatment they’d endured on January 6. They described being beaten with metal flagpoles, sprayed in the eyes with wasp repellent, and shocked with their own Tasers. One of…

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Pelosi is fighting a war that Republicans started. Their aim is to never lose an election

Pelosi is fighting a war that Republicans started. Their aim is to never lose an election

Kurt Bardella writes: Two things happened on Jan. 6. First, there was that domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol and second, 147 Republicans returned to the U.S. Capitol AFTER said domestic terrorist attack and gave the legislative equivalent of a stamp of approval to said domestic terrorists by voting to overturn the results of a free and fair presidential election. On this day, it became the official position of many (most?) in the Republican Party to reject democracy. It…

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Cheney and Kinzinger call out GOP leaders at first Capitol riot hearing

Cheney and Kinzinger call out GOP leaders at first Capitol riot hearing

Politico reports: The two House Republicans participating in the Democratic-led investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack issued pointed rejoinders to their party’s leadership, defending their own conservative credibility, during the select panel’s first hearing on Tuesday. An emotional Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois spent much of his questioning time criticizing fellow Republicans who “have treated this as just another partisan fight.” While he didn’t mention House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy by name, the GOP leader has chastised Kinzinger and…

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As virus cases rise, anger increases among the vaccinated

As virus cases rise, anger increases among the vaccinated

The New York Times reports: As coronavirus cases resurge across the country, many inoculated Americans are losing patience with vaccine holdouts who, they say, are neglecting a civic duty or clinging to conspiracy theories and misinformation even as new patients arrive in emergency rooms and the nation renews mask advisories. The country seemed to be exiting the pandemic; barely a month ago, a sense of celebration was palpable. Now many of the vaccinated fear for their unvaccinated children and worry…

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‘What’s Covid?’ Why people at America’s hardest-partying lake are not about to get vaccinated

‘What’s Covid?’ Why people at America’s hardest-partying lake are not about to get vaccinated

Politico reports: The petite blonde bartender in ripped jean shorts bounced to each side of a square-shaped bar as women in bikinis and shirtless men lined up on a sweltering afternoon to order Bud Light, vodka and soda, and piles of nachos at this dockside retreat in the Lake of the Ozarks region. In a county designated a Covid hot spot, in a state with one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation, and in a region where hospitals…

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Tunisia’s democracy verges on collapse as president moves to take control

Tunisia’s democracy verges on collapse as president moves to take control

The New York Times reports: Tunisia’s fledgling democracy, the only one remaining from the popular revolutions that swept the Arab world a decade ago, trembled on the brink of collapse Monday after its president sought to seize power from the rest of the government in what his political opponents denounced as a coup. The president, Kais Saied, who announced the power grab late Sunday, did not appear to have completely succeeded in taking control as of Monday evening, as chaos…

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The woman who brought us the world

The woman who brought us the world

Alice Dragoon writes: Had Virginia Tower Norwood listened to her high school guidance counselor, she would have become a librarian. Her aptitude test showed a remarkable facility with numbers, and in 1943, he could think of no better way for a young woman to put such skills to use. Luckily, Norwood didn’t suffer from the same lack of imagination. The salutatorian of her Philadelphia high school class, she had long been devouring logic puzzles and putting the slide rule her…

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The seven climate tipping points that could change the world forever

The seven climate tipping points that could change the world forever

Alexandria Herr, Shannon Osaka, and Maddie Stone report: In 2019 an international team of scientists published a commentary in the celebrated science journal Nature, sounding the alarm of a planet in crisis — and calling for transformative change. “We are in a state of planetary emergency,” they wrote, departing from the usual sterility of scientific writing. “The stability and resilience of our planet is in peril.” Yes, they were writing about climate change, but of a particular kind: climate tipping…

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Facebook pledged to bring the world together but wound up pulling us apart

Facebook pledged to bring the world together but wound up pulling us apart

Jill Lepore writes: Facebook has a save-the-world mission statement—“to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”—that sounds like a better fit for a church, and not some little wood-steepled, white-clapboarded, side-of-the-road number but a castle-in-a-parking-lot megachurch, a big-as-a-city-block cathedral, or, honestly, the Vatican. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s C.E.O., announced this mission the summer after the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, replacing the company’s earlier and no less lofty purpose: “to give people the power to share…

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Your vaccinated immune system is ready for breakthroughs

Your vaccinated immune system is ready for breakthroughs

Katherine J. Wu writes: A new dichotomy has begun dogging the pandemic discourse. With the rise of the über-transmissible Delta variant, experts are saying you’re either going to get vaccinated, or going to get the coronavirus. For some people—a decent number of us, actually—it’s going to be both. Coronavirus infections are happening among vaccinated people. They’re going to keep happening as long as the virus is with us, and we’re nowhere close to beating it. When a virus has so…

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‘We’re f—ed’: Democrats fear turnout catastrophe from GOP voting laws

‘We’re f—ed’: Democrats fear turnout catastrophe from GOP voting laws

Politico reports: After Georgia Republicans passed a restrictive voting law in March, Democrats here began doing the math. The state’s new voter I.D. requirement for mail-in ballots could affect the more than 270,000 Georgians lacking identification. The provision cutting the number of ballot drop boxes could affect hundreds of thousands of voters who cast absentee ballots that way in 2020 — and that’s just in the populous Atlanta suburbs alone. It didn’t take long before the implications became clear to…

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