Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

Why Kristi Noem is rising quickly as a Republican prospect for 2024

Why Kristi Noem is rising quickly as a Republican prospect for 2024

The New York Times reports: With Republicans hungry to cultivate their next generation of national leaders, it is not a Capitol Hill comer or a veteran battleground-state politician who is stirring interest by fusing Trumpism with a down-home conservatism spin. It is the first-term governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, a rancher who delights in sharing images of herself shooting pheasants and riding horses. Ms. Noem began drawing wider attention last year for cozying up to President Donald J. Trump…

Read More Read More

The legacy of the Order can be seen in the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers

The legacy of the Order can be seen in the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers

The New York Times reports: They robbed an armored car outside a sprawling Seattle shopping mall. They bombed a synagogue in Boise, Idaho, and within weeks assassinated a Jewish talk radio host in Denver. Then a month later, they plundered another armored car on a California highway in a spectacular daylight heist that netted more than $3.6 million. What initially seemed to F.B.I. agents like distant, disparate crimes turned out to be the opening salvos in a war against the…

Read More Read More

Giuliani’s legal trouble is Trump’s too

Giuliani’s legal trouble is Trump’s too

Renato Mariotti writes: You don’t need to be a lawyer to know that when federal agents knock on your door with a search warrant and seize your electronic devices, you’re in big trouble. Ever since that happened to former Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday, he has tried to downplay the peril he is in, saying whatever evidence is on his phones proves that “the president and I…are innocent.” But it sure looks like he has a long legal…

Read More Read More

Space junk is blocking our view of the stars, scientists say

Space junk is blocking our view of the stars, scientists say

Live Science reports: The night sky is becoming increasingly filled with shiny satellites and space junk that pose a significant threat to our view of the cosmos, as well as astronomical research, a new study warns. The researchers found that the more than 9,300 tons (8,440 metric tons) of space objects orbiting Earth, including inoperative satellites and chunks of spent rocket stages, increase the overall brightness of the night sky by more than 10% over large parts of the planet….

Read More Read More

What might brainlets in a dish tell us about what it means to be human?

What might brainlets in a dish tell us about what it means to be human?

Alysson Muotri writes: When I moved from Brazil to the United States to train as a neuroscientist, I was shocked to discover that most of our ‘knowledge’ about the human brain in fact came from another species: the mouse. This struck me as pretty strange. After all, it wasn’t the mouse brain that put us on the Moon or that decoded the human genome. It was the human brain in all its complexity that generated our understanding of life and…

Read More Read More

With citizens desperate for oxygen, India’s politicians deny there’s even a problem

With citizens desperate for oxygen, India’s politicians deny there’s even a problem

Reuters reports: A forum of scientific advisers set up by the government warned Indian officials in early March of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus taking hold in the country, five scientists who are part of the forum told Reuters. Despite the warning, four of the scientists said the federal government did not seek to impose major restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. Millions of largely unmasked people attended religious festivals and political rallies that…

Read More Read More

Severe Covid in young people can mostly be explained by obesity – new study

Severe Covid in young people can mostly be explained by obesity – new study

By Nerys M Astbury, University of Oxford; Carmen Piernas, University of Oxford, and Min GAO, University of Oxford From the start of the pandemic, it was clear that some people who were infected with the coronavirus were experiencing more severe illness, which increased their chances of being hospitalised, admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) or dying. As we age, a weaker immune system and chronic health conditions could influence the way our body responds to the virus. Indeed, age…

Read More Read More

Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

Scientific American reports: Since the novel coronavirus began its global spread, influenza cases reported to the World Health Organization have dropped to minuscule levels. The reason, epidemiologists think, is that the public health measures taken to keep the coronavirus from spreading also stop the flu. Influenza viruses are transmitted in much the same way as SARS-CoV-2, but they are less effective at jumping from host to host. As Scientific American reported last fall, the drop-off in flu numbers was both…

Read More Read More

‘It’s all Taliban country now’: New militant checkpoints on key roadways choke off parts of Afghanistan

‘It’s all Taliban country now’: New militant checkpoints on key roadways choke off parts of Afghanistan

The Washington Post reports: Taliban checkpoints have proliferated across key parts of Afghanistan as U.S. forces have withdrawn over the past year, leaving Afghan towns and cities increasingly isolated and impeding the Afghan government’s ability to function. Dozens of temporary Taliban checkpoints now dot the main highways leading into and out of the Afghan capital, according to eight local officials, and more than 10 permanent outposts have been established by the militants along the country’s main north-south highway. Many of…

Read More Read More

Fierce foes, Iran and Saudi Arabia secretly explore defusing tensions

Fierce foes, Iran and Saudi Arabia secretly explore defusing tensions

The New York Times reports: In a prime-time television interview four years ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia dismissed the idea that his kingdom could somehow find an accommodation with its archrival, Iran. “How do we communicate?” he asked. “The mutual points that we can agree on with this regime are almost nonexistent.” Now, Prince Mohammed is finding those points as he embarks on a diplomatic effort to defuse tensions between the two regional powers that have…

Read More Read More

Brazilian Amazon released more carbon than it absorbed over past 10 years

Brazilian Amazon released more carbon than it absorbed over past 10 years

AFP reports: The Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20% more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the past decade than it absorbed, according to a startling report that shows humanity can no longer depend on the world’s largest tropical forest to help absorb manmade carbon pollution. From 2010 through 2019, Brazil’s Amazon basin gave off 16.6bn tonnes of CO2, while drawing down only 13.9bn tonnes, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study looked at the volume of…

Read More Read More

GOP seeks to empower poll watchers, raising intimidation worries

GOP seeks to empower poll watchers, raising intimidation worries

The New York Times reports: The red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods. “This is where the fraud is occurring,” a county Republican official said falsely in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he…

Read More Read More

In rural America, fear more than politics shapes attitudes to Covid vaccine

In rural America, fear more than politics shapes attitudes to Covid vaccine

The New York Times reports: “So have you gotten the vaccine yet?” The question, a friendly greeting to Betty Smith, the pastor’s wife, lingered in the air as the four church women sat down for their regular Tuesday coffee and conversation at Ingle’s Market. Mrs. Smith hesitated, sensing a chilly blast of judgment from a never-mask, never-vax companion. She fumbled through a non-reply. Recalling the moment later, she sighed, “We were there to get to know each other better but…

Read More Read More

Manchin says he doesn’t support D.C. statehood bill, dealing advocates a major blow

Manchin says he doesn’t support D.C. statehood bill, dealing advocates a major blow

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Joe Manchin III told reporters in his home state of West Virginia on Friday morning that he does not support the bill to make D.C. the nation’s 51st state, according to audio provided by the Democrat’s office and a report from WVNews. Manchin, a key swing vote in the closely divided Senate, said he believes a constitutional amendment, rather than legislation, would be required to admit D.C. as a state. His stance deals a major…

Read More Read More