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Scientists for the people

Scientists for the people

Deborah R Coen writes: In the 1930s, as Jewish and dissident scientists were forced from their posts in Nazi Germany, many found refuge at universities in the United States. At the time, American scientists were trying to shield themselves from the winds of politics by honing arguments for the value of ‘pure’ science. It was in this spirit that Abraham Flexner had founded the hermetic Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey in 1930, expressly to pursue research for its…

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Canada declares the Proud Boys a terrorist group

Canada declares the Proud Boys a terrorist group

The Washington Post reports: Canada on Wednesday declared the Proud Boys a terrorist entity, adding the far-right group to a list that includes al-Qaeda, ISIS and al-Shabab as part of an effort to crack down on what senior government officials called one of the country’s “most serious threats.” The announcement by Public Safety Minister Bill Blair comes less than a month after Proud Boys allegedly joined the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol after attending a rally by then-President…

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How the brain responds to beauty

How the brain responds to beauty

Jason Castro writes: Pursued by poets and artists alike, beauty is ever elusive. We seek it in nature, art and philosophy but also in our phones and furniture. We value it beyond reason, look to surround ourselves with it and will even lose ourselves in pursuit of it. Our world is defined by it, and yet we struggle to ever define it. As philosopher George Santayana observed in his 1896 book The Sense of Beauty, there is within us “a…

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The Brazil coronavirus variant is exposing the world’s vulnerability

The Brazil coronavirus variant is exposing the world’s vulnerability

James Hamblin writes: Even in a year of horrendous suffering, what is unfolding in Brazil stands out. In the rainforest city of Manaus, home to 2 million people, bodies are reportedly being dropped into mass graves as quickly as they can be dug. Hospitals have run out of oxygen, and people with potentially treatable cases of COVID-19 are dying of asphyxia. This nature and scale of mortality have not been seen since the first months of the pandemic. This is…

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General Motors is counting on your loving electric cars

General Motors is counting on your loving electric cars

Jody Freeman writes: General Motors’ announcement last week that it will stop making gas-powered cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles by 2035 and become carbon neutral by 2040 is even bolder than it sounds: The repercussions will ripple broadly across the economy, accelerating the transition to a broader electric future powered by renewable energy. The pledge by the nation’s largest automaker to phase out internal combustion engines puts pressure on other auto companies, like Ford and Toyota, to make equally…

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S&P warns Exxon, Chevron and other oil firms it may cut their credit ratings

S&P warns Exxon, Chevron and other oil firms it may cut their credit ratings

Markets Insider reports: S&P Global Ratings has put some of the biggest oil companies in the world on notice that it could soon downgrade their credit ratings thanks to heightened concerns about climate change and a global push towards greener energy. The agency – one of the three most influential ratings firms in the world – said it could downgrade the ratings of Chevron, Exxon, Shell and Total among others. It downgraded the outlook, although not the rating, for both…

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How the Biden administration can help solve our reality crisis

How the Biden administration can help solve our reality crisis

Kevin Roose writes: Last month, millions of Americans watched as President Biden took the oath of office and, in a high-minded Inaugural Address, called for a new era of American unity. But plenty of other Americans weren’t paying attention to Mr. Biden’s speech. They were too busy watching YouTube videos alleging that the inauguration was a prerecorded hoax that had been filmed on a Hollywood soundstage. Or they were melting down in QAnon group chats, trying to figure out why…

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Are conservative policies shortening American lives?

Are conservative policies shortening American lives?

By Lola Butcher In 2013, a research team comprised of some of the nation’s top epidemiologists and demographers compared the health of Americans with the health of people in other high-income nations. They summarized their findings in the report’s title: “U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health.” Compared to 16 other nations, the U.S. ranked dead last in life expectancy for males and second-to-last for females. Beyond that, the nation ranked at or near the bottom in nine…

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Amazon’s anti-union blitz stalks Alabama warehouse workers everywhere, even the bathroom

Amazon’s anti-union blitz stalks Alabama warehouse workers everywhere, even the bathroom

The Washington Post reports: Some workers in Amazon’s Bessemer, Ala., warehouse complain that the company’s aggressive performance expectations leave them little time to take bathroom breaks. When they do get there, they face messaging from Amazon pressing its case against unionization, imploring them to vote against it when mail-in balloting begins Feb. 8. “Where will your dues go?” reads a flier posted on the door inside a bathroom stall. “They got right in your face when you’re using the stall,”…

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‘He invited us’: Accused Capitol rioters blame Trump in novel legal defense

‘He invited us’: Accused Capitol rioters blame Trump in novel legal defense

Reuters reports: Emanuel Jackson, a 20-year-old Washington area man, was caught on video using a metal bat to strike the protective shields wielded by police officers as they tried to fend off rioters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Jackson, awaiting trial in federal court on assault charges, is now adopting a novel legal defense: seeking to pin the blame on Donald Trump, citing the former president’s remarks at a “Stop the Steal” rally shortly before the Capitol siege….

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A new day for the climate

A new day for the climate

Elizabeth Kolbert writes: Nine years ago, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse had a sign made up that showed a photograph of the Earth as seen from space. “TIME TO WAKE UP,” it urged, in large, unevenly spaced letters. Every week that the Senate was in session, Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, would tote the sign to the chamber, set it on an easel, and, before a hundred chairs—most of them empty—deliver a speech. Though the details changed, the subject of the…

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How Trump unleashed a domestic terrorism movement

How Trump unleashed a domestic terrorism movement

Mother Jones reports: Even the wifi password was a signal. Attendees at President Donald Trump’s rally in Dalton, Georgia, on January 4 who wanted to log in to the Make America Great network had to enter the phrase into their devices: “SeeYouJan6!” Trump was in town that night ostensibly to boost two Republican Senate candidates, but he spent much of his speech railing about the “stolen” 2020 election—and inciting supporters to descend on the nation’s capital two days later. “They’re…

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Dozens of former Bush officials leave Republican Party, calling it ‘Trump cult’

Dozens of former Bush officials leave Republican Party, calling it ‘Trump cult’

Reuters reports: Dozens of Republicans in former President George W. Bush’s administration are leaving the party, dismayed by a failure of many elected Republicans to disown Donald Trump after his false claims of election fraud sparked a deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol last month. These officials, some who served in the highest echelons of the Bush administration, said they had hoped that a Trump defeat would lead party leaders to move on from the former president and denounce his…

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Trump’s sleight of hand: Shouting fraud, pocketing donors’ cash for future

Trump’s sleight of hand: Shouting fraud, pocketing donors’ cash for future

The New York Times reports: Former President Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party leveraged false claims of voter fraud and promises to overturn the election to raise more than a quarter-billion dollars in November and December as hundreds of thousands of trusting supporters listened and opened their wallets. But the Trump campaign spent only a tiny fraction of its haul on lawyers and other legal bills related to those claims. Instead, Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. stored away much…

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