How China crushed coronavirus

How China crushed coronavirus

Wired reports: Hong Wei* returned to his hometown of Luoyang in Henan province for the Spring Festival in early February. It took a few days for the gateway of his residential compound to be cordoned off, signalling that only residents should enter. For Hong, this was just the first sign of the mass mobilisation of people that has characterised China’s remarkably successful response to the coronavirus pandemic. Hong’s uncle had already stocked up on all the ingredients to serve roast…

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Trump knows he lost but is out for revenge, ally says

Trump knows he lost but is out for revenge, ally says

CNN reports: President Donald Trump told an ally that he knows he lost, but that he is delaying the transition process and is aggressively trying to sow doubt about the election results in order to get back at Democrats for questioning the legitimacy of his own election in 2016, especially with the Russia investigation, a source familiar with the President’s thinking told CNN on Thursday. The President’s refusal to concede, as CNN has previously reported, stems in part from his…

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If the losing party won’t accept defeat, democracy is dead

If the losing party won’t accept defeat, democracy is dead

Edward B. Foley writes: If the losing party can’t accept defeat, the whole enterprise of electoral democracy is finished. Two-party competition means each party taking turns depending on what the voters want in any given election. President Trump himself will never acknowledge this. But the Republican Party institutionally must. That is the critical challenge facing Senate Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): When and how decisively will they pull the plug on Trump’s desperate effort to force upon…

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Trump-appointed judge rejects Lin Wood’s ‘creative’ election lawsuit in Georgia

Trump-appointed judge rejects Lin Wood’s ‘creative’ election lawsuit in Georgia

Law & Crime reports: A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump rejected what he called a “creative” lawsuit on Thursday. It was a suit that Georgia’s assistant attorney general warned would cause the Peach State’s largest disenfranchisement since the Jim Crow era. “To halt the certification at literally the 11th hour would breed confusion and disenfranchisement that I find have no basis in fact and law,” U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg declared at the end of a roughly two-and-a-half…

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Trump tax write-offs are ensnared in two New York fraud investigations

Trump tax write-offs are ensnared in two New York fraud investigations

The New York Times reports: Two separate New York State fraud investigations into President Trump and his businesses, one criminal and one civil, have expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The inquiries — a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and a civil one by the state attorney general, Letitia James…

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Pence sees ‘great progress’ as pandemic worsens nationwide

Pence sees ‘great progress’ as pandemic worsens nationwide

Politico reports: Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday touted “great progress” against the coronavirus pandemic during the first White House task force briefing in months as the country experiences record-high cases, hospitalizations and deaths. “America has never been more prepared to combat this virus than we are today,” Pence told reporters. He declined to take questions despite the worsening crisis and tensions following the presidential election, even as President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede could hamper the fight against coronavirus….

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Evolutionary adaptations to viruses have made us what we are

Evolutionary adaptations to viruses have made us what we are

Science Daily (2016): The constant battle between pathogens and their hosts has long been recognized as a key driver of evolution, but until now scientists have not had the tools to look at these patterns globally across species and genomes. In a new study, researchers apply big-data analysis to reveal the full extent of viruses’ impact on the evolution of humans and other mammals. Their findings suggest an astonishing 30 percent of all protein adaptations since humans’ divergence with chimpanzees…

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Biden fires an early warning shot at Wall Street

Biden fires an early warning shot at Wall Street

CNN reports: Elizabeth Warren’s fingerprints are all over the Biden transition, much to Wall Street’s dismay. President-elect Joe Biden’s agency review teams include several people who share Warren’s reputation for being tough on the financial industry. It’s more evidence of the influence of Warren, a fierce opponent of big banks and the excesses of Wall Street — as well as an early signal that Wall Street will be under much greater scrutiny, especially compared to four years of President Donald…

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Trump’s racist appeals powered a White evangelical tsunami

Trump’s racist appeals powered a White evangelical tsunami

Dana Milbank writes: As partisans and analysts puzzle over the higher-than-expected turnout for President Trump (nearly 6 million fewer votes than for President-elect Joe Biden, but still high), they are poring over groups and subgroups: White, non-college-educated men. Suburban women. Young Black men. But much of the Trump 2020 phenomenon can be explained by a far simpler way of looking at the electorate: There are White evangelical Christians — and there is everybody else. White evangelicals are only 15 percent…

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Firing Christopher Krebs crosses a line — even for Trump

Firing Christopher Krebs crosses a line — even for Trump

Garrett M Graff writes: Within minutes of Donald Trump tweeting that he had fired Christopher Krebs as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency Tuesday night, Twitter slapped on a warning label that the accompanying claim about electoral fraud “is disputed.” The disinformation warning was, in some ways, a fitting denouement to a two-week-long battle between Krebs, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and his boss in the Oval Office. Ultimately, Krebs’ mission to…

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‘Confusion and chaos’: Republicans denounce Trump’s latest purge

‘Confusion and chaos’: Republicans denounce Trump’s latest purge

Politico reports: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was scheduled to speak with the government’s top cybersecurity official on Wednesday. But the night before, Christopher Krebs was cast out of a job. “I was going to tell him thank you for a good job” helping to secure the 2020 election, Capito (R-W.Va.) said after checking her schedule to see if the call was still on. “I’m still going to tell him that — just not today.” President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening…

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The disturbing GOP attempt to block certification of Biden’s Michigan win

The disturbing GOP attempt to block certification of Biden’s Michigan win

Vox reports: Republican officials in Wayne County, Michigan, made a stunning move to block the certification of their presidential election results Tuesday — but backed down a few hours later amid intense criticism. Wayne County is the largest county in the state, it includes the city of Detroit (where the vast majority of the population is Black), and it votes heavily for Democrats. As with all Michigan counties, its election results go to a bipartisan board of canvassers for certification…

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Trump campaign officials started pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state long before the election

Trump campaign officials started pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state long before the election

ProPublica reports: Long before Republican senators began publicly denouncing how Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled the voting there, he withstood pressure from the campaign of Donald Trump to endorse the president for reelection. Raffensperger, a Republican, declined an offer in January to serve as an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Georgia, according to emails reviewed by ProPublica. He later rejected GOP requests to support Trump publicly, he and his staff said in interviews. Raffensperger said he…

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What human hair reveals about death’s seasonality

What human hair reveals about death’s seasonality

Max G. Levy writes: Each wave of Edith Howard Cook’s reddish-blonde hair tells a story. One segment may chronicle an unusually damp San Francisco summer; another may recall a dry December. But read in their entirety, the strands reveal the season in 1876 when 2-year-old Edith passed away. Archaeologist Jelmer Eerkens helped identify Edith after a construction crew discovered her remains in a backyard in 2016. “I have kids myself,” says Eerkens, an archaeologist at the University of California, Davis….

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