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Republicans have been waiting for a Matt Gaetz scandal to break

Republicans have been waiting for a Matt Gaetz scandal to break

The Daily Beast reports: After Rep. Matt Gaetz accused a Florida lawyer of a $25 million extortion scheme to make sex trafficking allegations disappear, Republicans on and off Capitol Hill on Wednesday largely kept their mouths shut. Gaetz—the Trump-loving, Fox News-grinning, 38-year-old Florida Republican—has a less-than-sterling reputation among his congressional colleagues. More than a half-dozen lawmakers have spoken to these reporters about his love of alcohol and illegal drugs, as well as his proclivity for younger women. It’s well-known among…

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Can vaccinated people spread the virus? We don’t know, scientists say

Can vaccinated people spread the virus? We don’t know, scientists say

The New York Times reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday walked back controversial comments made by its director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, suggesting that people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus never become infected or transmit the virus to others. The assertion called into question the precautions that the agency had urged vaccinated people to take just last month, like wearing masks and gathering only under limited circumstances with unvaccinated people. “Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during…

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The pandemic’s wrongest man: Alex Berenson

The pandemic’s wrongest man: Alex Berenson

Derek Thompson writes: The pandemic has made fools of many forecasters. Just about all of the predictions whiffed. Anthony Fauci was wrong about masks. California was wrong about the outdoors. New York was wrong about the subways. I was wrong about the necessary cost of pandemic relief. And the Trump White House was wrong about almost everything else. In this crowded field of wrongness, one voice stands out. The voice of Alex Berenson: the former New York Times reporter, Yale-educated…

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There are no borders in the climate crisis

There are no borders in the climate crisis

Bill McKibben writes: The “crisis” at the border is dominating the news, and, as my colleague Jonathan Blitzer has written, the immediate focus is on the political battle to prevent Joe Biden from passing meaningful immigration reform. But this might also be a moment for thinking about what globalism means in a world where borders ultimately can’t offer protection against the most serious threats. To give an example: owing in part to climate change, there was a record hurricane season…

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White House unveils $2 trillion infrastructure and climate plan

White House unveils $2 trillion infrastructure and climate plan

The Washington Post reports: The White House’s unveiling of a $2 trillion jobs, infrastructure and green energy proposal to reshape the U.S. economy met a chorus of opposition late Wednesday, with Republicans panning it as a partisan wish-list, some liberals challenging it as not sufficient to combat climate change and business groups rejecting its proposed tax hikes. Under what the administration calls the American Jobs Plan, President Biden aims to tackle some of the nation’s most pressing problems — from…

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Japan’s Kyoto cherry blossoms peak on earliest date in 1,200 years, a clear sign of climate change

Japan’s Kyoto cherry blossoms peak on earliest date in 1,200 years, a clear sign of climate change

The Washington Post reports: Amid an exceptionally warm March in Japan, the cherry blossoms in Kyoto peaked Friday, the earliest in more than 1,200 years of records. The record bloom fits into a long-term pattern toward earlier spring flowering, a compelling indicator of climate change, experts say. The March 26, 2021, peak bloom date surpassed the previous record holder of March 27, 1409, nearly a century before Christopher Columbus sailed to America. The long-term record dates back to A.D. 812,…

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N.Y. prosecutors seek Trump insider’s records, in apparent bid to gain cooperation

N.Y. prosecutors seek Trump insider’s records, in apparent bid to gain cooperation

The New York Times reports: State prosecutors in Manhattan investigating former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization have subpoenaed the personal bank records of the company’s chief financial officer and are questioning gifts he and his family received from Mr. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In recent weeks, the prosecutors have trained their focus on the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, in what appears to be a determined effort to gain his cooperation. Mr. Weisselberg,…

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Silicon Valley investors want to oust San Francisco’s reformist district attorney

Silicon Valley investors want to oust San Francisco’s reformist district attorney

Mother Jones reports: San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was at home cooking dinner on a Thursday evening in January when he opened a new app called Clubhouse that lets people drop into virtual “rooms” and listen to live, unrecorded conversations. Someone had messaged Boudin to let him know that tech investors were hosting an “interesting” conversation about the “Future of SF.” As he prepared his food, some of them were speaking critically about San Francisco’s liberal political leaders. Soon,…

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Amazon isn’t anyone’s friend

Amazon isn’t anyone’s friend

Ian Bogost writes: On social media, brands have been evolving from public-relations automatons to your cool friends. When Walmart posts about a “moment of zen … brought to you by our spring stock up essentials,” it’s just doing vanilla-flavored marketing. But when Slim Jim, the beef-stick company, sasses Steak-umm, the frozen-beef-sheet seller, over supposedly subliminal 69s in a post, it is striving to embody a personality that might resonate with customers. Amazon’s straight-up aggression [in its social media campaign against…

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I have come to bury Ayn Rand

I have come to bury Ayn Rand

David Sloan Wilson writes: My father, Sloan Wilson, wrote novels that would help define 1950s America. I loved and admired him, but the prospect of following in the footsteps of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and A Summer Place was like being expected to climb Mount Everest. My love of nature provided an alternative path. I would become an ecologist, spending my days researching plants and animals, which fascinated me since the summers I spent as a boy…

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The fourth surge is upon us. This time, it’s different

The fourth surge is upon us. This time, it’s different

Zeynep Tufekci writes: Across the United States, cases have started rising again. In a few cities, even hospitalizations are ticking up. The twists and turns of a pandemic can be hard to predict, but this most recent increase was almost inevitable: A more transmissible and more deadly variant called B.1.1.7 has established itself at the precise moment when many regions are opening up rapidly by lifting mask mandates, indoor-gathering restrictions, and occupancy limits on gyms and restaurants. We appear to…

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Brazil is rocked by political turmoil as pandemic outlook darkens

Brazil is rocked by political turmoil as pandemic outlook darkens

The Washington Post reports: Six cabinet members are out. The military’s top leaders are also gone. And it’s only Tuesday. First came the Monday morning exit of Brazil’s foreign minister, a right-wing ideologue blamed for failing to secure enough coronavirus vaccines. Then the defense minister was gone. Then the justice minister was replaced. Tuesday morning brought still more tumult: the departures of the navy, army and air force chiefs. The exits have sent political shock waves across Latin America’s largest…

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The quest to unseal the papers of the architect of the modern anti-immigration movement

The quest to unseal the papers of the architect of the modern anti-immigration movement

Isabela Dias writes: In the days following the 2016 presidential election, then–Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and President-elect Donald Trump posed for photographs at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey. Kobach, an anti-immigration hardliner whose name was being floated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, held a binder and a stack of papers on his left hand. Zoomed-in images revealed the title—“Kobach Strategic Plan For First 365 Days”—and bullet-pointed agenda items that included reinstating a…

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This is what happens when a political party turns against democracy

This is what happens when a political party turns against democracy

Jamelle Bouie writes: The most outrageous provision of the Election Integrity Act of 2021, the omnibus election bill signed by Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia last week, is one that makes it illegal for anyone except poll workers to offer food or water directly to voters standing in line. Defenders of the law say that this is meant to stop electioneering at the polls; critics say it is a direct response to volunteers who assisted those Georgians, many of them…

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