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The man who controls the Senate

The man who controls the Senate

Evan Osnos writes: On a frosty night in February, Joe Manchin III, the senior senator from West Virginia, invited a few colleagues over for dinner aboard the houseboat he docks on the Potomac. In the past, opponents have sought to highlight the vessel for political effect; a 2018 advertisement by the National Republican Senatorial Committee called it a “$700,000 D.C. luxury yacht.” (In response, Manchin’s office reported that he bought it, used, for two hundred and twenty thousand dollars.) The…

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Progressives crank up filibuster pressure on Sinema with million-dollar ad buy in Arizona

Progressives crank up filibuster pressure on Sinema with million-dollar ad buy in Arizona

NBC News reports: A progressive group is launching a seven-figure ad campaign aiming to pressure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., to support abolition of the filibuster, as the Senate eyes a vote to advance major voting rights legislation. The group, Just Democracy, is spending $1.2 million for TV ads and another $200,000 on digital ads in Arizona from June 21 to June 30, said a spokesman for the group, adding the effort will feature two ads on cable news programs, local…

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The authoritarian instincts of police unions

The authoritarian instincts of police unions

Adam Serwer writes: In May 2020, Darnella Frazier, a 17-year-old with a smartphone camera, documented the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Most Americans who watched the video of Floyd begging for his life, as Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck, saw a human being. Robert Kroll did not. The head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis saw a “violent criminal” and viewed the protests that followed as a “terrorist movement.” In a letter to…

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Since 9/11, military suicides dwarf the number of soldiers killed in combat

Since 9/11, military suicides dwarf the number of soldiers killed in combat

NBC News reports: Since 9/11, four times as many U.S. service members and veterans have died by suicide than have been killed in combat, according to a new report. The research, compiled by the Costs of War Project at Brown University, found an estimated 30,177 active duty personnel and veterans who have served in the military since 9/11 have died by suicide, compared with 7,057 killed in post 9/11 military operations. The figures include all service members, not just those…

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Climate models predicted heatwaves like America’s record-breaking weekend

Climate models predicted heatwaves like America’s record-breaking weekend

Quartz reports: The U.S. hasn’t seen anything quite like this. Over the weekend, temperatures soared to new triple-digit heights across the American West. The immediate cause was a “heat dome,” a mass of high-pressure air trapping heat beneath it, one far stronger and larger than normal. But what we saw this weekend is what climate scientists have been predicting for decades. And it’s a taste of what’s to come. “It’s surreal to see your models become real life,” Katharine Hayhoe,…

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Everyone wants to sell the last barrel of oil

Everyone wants to sell the last barrel of oil

Bill McKibben writes: A final victory last week over the Keystone XL pipeline is a reminder that fighting particular fossil-fuel projects is a necessary strategy if the climate is to be saved. The defeat of Keystone XL doesn’t mean that Canada’s vast tar-sands project, which is generally regarded as the largest industrial project in the world, is over, but the fight has been a gut punch to the fossil-fuel industry. In 2011, when protests began outside the White House, Canada’s…

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A mysterious crater’s age may add clues to the dinosaur extinction

A mysterious crater’s age may add clues to the dinosaur extinction

The New York Times reports: Some 65 million years ago, a rock from outer space slammed into Earth, wreaking havoc on life in its wake and leaving a large crater on our planet’s surface. No, it’s not the one you’re thinking of. Boltysh crater, a 15-mile-wide formation in central Ukraine, may not be as famous as the Chicxulub crater under the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, which is directly implicated in the death of the dinosaurs and many other species about…

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The day the dinosaurs died

The day the dinosaurs died

Douglas Preston writes: If, on a certain evening about sixty-­six million years ago, you had stood somewhere in North America and looked up at the sky, you would have soon made out what appeared to be a star. If you watched for an hour or two, the star would have seemed to grow in brightness, although it barely moved. That’s because it was not a star but an asteroid, and it was headed directly for Earth at about forty-five thousand…

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The world relies on one chip maker in Taiwan, leaving everyone vulnerable

The world relies on one chip maker in Taiwan, leaving everyone vulnerable

The Wall Street Journal reports: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s chips are everywhere, though most consumers don’t know it. The company makes almost all of the world’s most sophisticated chips, and many of the simpler ones, too. They’re in billions of products with built-in electronics, including iPhones, personal computers and cars—all without any obvious sign they came from TSMC, which does the manufacturing for better-known companies that design them, like Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. TSMC has emerged over the past…

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Iran’s next president, Ebrahim Raisi, isn’t who you think he is

Iran’s next president, Ebrahim Raisi, isn’t who you think he is

Sajjad Safaei writes: In late May, the 12-member Guardian Council—Iran’s election watchdog, many of whose members are associated with Raisi—barred prominent moderate and pro-reform figures from running in the race. Some still clung to the hope that Khamenei would eventually intervene, just as he had done in 2005, to reinstate some of the disqualified candidates. Khamenei eventually called on the Guardian Council to “make amends” for its “unjust” conduct, but without demanding any specific candidate to be reinstated; the Guardian…

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Historic change: Arab political parties are now legitimate partners in Israel’s politics and government

Historic change: Arab political parties are now legitimate partners in Israel’s politics and government

Mansour Abbas, Israeli Arab politician and leader of the Ra’am Party, in a meeting at the Israeli president’s residence in Jerusalem on April 5, 2021. Abir Sultan/Pool/ AFP/Getty Images Morad Elsana, American University The next government is not going to be a typical one for the citizens of the state of Israel, and especially for members of the Palestinian Arab minority, who are 20% of Israel’s population. This is the first time the Zionist political parties forming the government are…

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Delta variant could create ‘two Americas’ of Covid, experts warn

Delta variant could create ‘two Americas’ of Covid, experts warn

BuzzFeed News reports: The Delta coronavirus variant, which devastated India and forced the UK to delay lifting its remaining coronavirus restrictions, is now on the rise in the US. What that means for you will depend on whether you are fully vaccinated and where you live. Experts say we may be about to see the emergence of “two Americas” of COVID: One with high rates of vaccination where the Delta coronavirus variant poses little threat, and the other with low…

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How Republican states are expanding their power over elections

How Republican states are expanding their power over elections

The New York Times reports: Lonnie Hollis has been a member of the Troup County election board in West Georgia since 2013. A Democrat and one of two Black women on the board, she has advocated Sunday voting, helped voters on Election Days and pushed for a new precinct location at a Black church in a nearby town. But this year, Ms. Hollis will be removed from the board, the result of a local election law signed by Gov. Brian…

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A simple remedy for January 6 trutherism

A simple remedy for January 6 trutherism

Jack Shafer writes: The human appetite for alternative, and usually hair-brained, explanations for why events blossomed the way they did can never be sated. Oh, you can battle a poison fruitcake ideology like QAnon to the point that it can be contained in a 55-gallon drum and sealed. You can repel one nutter idea after another—Obama birtherism, Benghazi, Sandy Hook, the Katrina levee breach, Bush’s foreknowledge of 9/11—a new one will pop up to replace it like a target in…

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