Physics and information theory give a glimpse of life’s origins

Physics and information theory give a glimpse of life’s origins

Natalie Elliot writes: How did life originate? Scientists have been studying the question for decades, and they’ve developed ingenious methods to try to find out. They’ve even enlisted biology’s most powerful theory, Darwinian evolution, in the search. But they still don’t have a complete answer. What they have hit is the world’s most theoretically fertile dead end. When scientists look for life’s origins, they usually work in one of two directions. They work backwards in time through the record of…

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More than ever, Trump casts himself as the defender of white supremacy

More than ever, Trump casts himself as the defender of white supremacy

Peter Baker writes: After a summer when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting racial injustice against Black Americans, President Trump has made it clear over the last few days that, in his view, the country’s real race problem is bias against white Americans. Just days after returning from Kenosha, Wis., where he staunchly backed law enforcement and did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot seven times in the back by the…

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Trump viewed as savior figure by Germany’s neo-Nazis

Trump viewed as savior figure by Germany’s neo-Nazis

The New York Times reports: Just before hundreds of far-right activists recently tried to storm the German Parliament, one of their leaders revved up the crowd by conjuring President Trump. “Trump is in Berlin!” the woman shouted from a small stage, as if to dedicate the imminent charge to him. She was so convincing that several groups of far-right activists later showed up at the American Embassy and demanded an audience with Mr. Trump. “We know he’s in there!” they…

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Trump doth protest too much

Trump doth protest too much

David Frum writes: Donald Trump generates a lot of noise. He talks. He tweets. He is echoed and amplified by a vast claque, on TV and online, made up of Americans and foreigners, humans and bots. Never has he shouted louder than in the days since my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg reported the president’s disparaging comments about those who have fallen, been maimed, or taken prisoner in war. Trump’s protestations have been seconded by his wife. The first lady’s endorsement of…

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Trump (commander-in-chief) condemns Pentagon leadership for arms spending and ‘endless wars’

Trump (commander-in-chief) condemns Pentagon leadership for arms spending and ‘endless wars’

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Monday accused the United States’ military leadership of being beholden to arms manufacturers, in an attack on his own administration only days after reports that he had mocked fallen soldiers. Speaking at a combative White House news conference, Trump said leaders at the Pentagon probably weren’t “in love with me” because “they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes…

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Michael Cohen: Trump held ‘low opinions of all Black folks’

Michael Cohen: Trump held ‘low opinions of all Black folks’

The New York Times reports: President Trump routinely referred to Black leaders of foreign nations with racist insults. He had an abiding admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin’s willingness to treat Russia like a personal business. And he was consumed with hatred for President Barack Obama. Those are the descriptions that Michael D. Cohen, a former personal lawyer and self-described fixer for Mr. Trump, lays out in his book, “Disloyal: A Memoir,” which paints the president as a sordid, moblike…

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As rich Americans get richer, the bottom half struggles

As rich Americans get richer, the bottom half struggles

Politico reports: The path toward economic recovery in the U.S. has become sharply divided, with wealthier Americans earning and saving at record levels while the poorest struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table. The result is a splintered economic picture characterized by high highs — the stock market has hit record levels — and incongruous low lows: Nearly 30 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits, and the jobless rate stands at 8.4 percent. And that dichotomy,…

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Belarusian opposition leader, Maria Kolesnikova, is abducted in Minsk

Belarusian opposition leader, Maria Kolesnikova, is abducted in Minsk

Politico reports: The Belarusian opposition accused the nation’s authorities of “terror” after Maria Kolesnikova, a vocal critic of President Alexander Lukashenko, was abducted in downtown Minsk on Monday morning. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Lukashenko’s main rival during the August election, said in a statement from Lithuania that “the regime is engaged in terror.” “The authorities are wrong when they think it will stop us,” she said. “The more they intimidate, the more people will go out. We will continue to fight, we…

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Redirect military budgets to tackle climate change and pandemics

Redirect military budgets to tackle climate change and pandemics

Denise Garcia writes: Despite threats to human existence from climate change, biodiversity loss and a pandemic that’s devastating economies and paralysing societies, countries still spend recklessly on destructive weapons for wars they will never fight. As an academic who advises the United Nations on arms control and the military uses of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, I have long argued that nations should prioritize ‘human security for the common good’ over military spending. That means ensuring people can live to…

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America’s coronavirus crisis will end — but not soon

America’s coronavirus crisis will end — but not soon

Juliette Kayyem write: A weary friend of mine—another working mom—recently texted to say she couldn’t decide which aspect of daily life during the coronavirus pandemic was worse: “the insanity or the monotony.” Either way, the misery will not end when 2020 does. The new year will inherit many of the same problems that have become so grindingly familiar in 2020. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got some Americans’ hopes up with its recent instruction that states should be…

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Trump fixates on the promise of a vaccine — real or not — as key to reelection bid

Trump fixates on the promise of a vaccine — real or not — as key to reelection bid

The Washington Post reports: President Trump is so fixated on finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that in meetings about the U.S. pandemic response, little else captures his attention, according to administration officials. Trump has pressed health officials to speed up the vaccine timeline and urged them to deliver one by the end of the year. He has peppered them with questions about the development status and mass-distribution plans. And, in recent days, he has told some advisers and…

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A rural Virginia community thought it could escape the pandemic but now has among the highest number of new cases in the state

A rural Virginia community thought it could escape the pandemic but now has among the highest number of new cases in the state

The Washington Post reports: In the brightest red corner of Virginia, where “Trump Digs Coal” signs dot the Appalachian mountain hollers, Jerry Estep first brushed off the coronavirus as an urban plague. Now he won’t leave home in this tiny town, population 980, without a mask. “I was just going out like normal, but that’s not normal no more,” said Estep, 77, a retired florist with longtime health woes that could make a case of the coronavirus especially lethal. “I…

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‘Reign of terror’: A summer of police violence in Los Angeles

‘Reign of terror’: A summer of police violence in Los Angeles

The Guardian reports: Los Angeles police officers have continued to kill civilians at alarming rates and under questionable circumstances in the last three months, despite a summer of unprecedented activism and growing political pressure from lawmakers. Most recently, two deputies with the Los Angeles sheriff’s department (LASD) fatally shot a bicyclist, 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee, who was fleeing after officers tried to stop him for an alleged “vehicle code” violation. The killing on Monday of yet another Black man in South…

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Here’s what the media must do to fend off an election-night disaster

Here’s what the media must do to fend off an election-night disaster

Margaret Sullivan writes: You might think that 2000 would have adequately prepared the media — and the American public — for the complete unpredictability of what may happen in November 2020 as a nation votes in the midst of a pandemic with a sitting president who is busy creating mistrust in the system and threatening not to accept a defeat. But there’s not much reason for confidence. Recall the 2018 midterms when some media figures rushed to judgment again. “It’s…

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