One huge choice is made — now come innumerable small ones

One huge choice is made — now come innumerable small ones

Andy Revkin writes: Last night, walking over to our neighbors to watch the election returns, I looked up at the star-filled darkness of a Downeast night and was reminded that the Solar System and wider universe wouldn’t be anxiously trying to peak in at the big-screen TV to catch the tally over our shoulders. Standing in the chill dark, I was reminded of Carl Sagan’s wisdom reflecting on the 1990 “pale blue dot” Voyager 1 image of Earth as pixel:…

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Stunning images from Jupiter created out of latest NASA Juno spacecraft flyby

Stunning images from Jupiter created out of latest NASA Juno spacecraft flyby

my god.https://t.co/jTnhJ3O2jU pic.twitter.com/egWqXk9JS5 — remnynt (@remnynt) November 6, 2024 CNET reports: Since NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered Jupiter’s orbit in July 2016 and began transmitting image data, the world has gotten glimpses of the solar system’s largest planet and its moons. But a new batch of images that have been contributed by spacewatchers using data from the mission are stunning, even by these standards. The most recent perijove, or the point when it’s closest to the planet, occurred for Juno on…

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MAGA’s looming succession crisis

MAGA’s looming succession crisis

David Siders writes: The tailgate was aimed at boosting a protégé, but it was Donald Trump whose name and image were plastered everywhere — on the banner hung from Republicans’ table outside the Arizona State University football game, on baseball caps, on signs they carried and stickers they fixed to tank-tops on a Friday night where the pavement was still hot and the temperature, at dusk, hovered around 95 degrees. They might have turned out to support the protégé, Kari…

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A Trump field director was fired for being a white nationalist

A Trump field director was fired for being a white nationalist

Amanda Moore writes: A white nationalist worked on the Trump campaign in an important position in Pennsylvania for five months — until Friday, when the Pennsylvania GOP fired him after learning about his views from my reporting. Last week, I confirmed that Luke Meyer, the Trump campaign’s 24-year-old regional field director for Western Pennsylvania, goes by the online name Alberto Barbarossa. As Barbarossa, he co-hosts the Alexandria podcast with Richard Spencer, organizer of the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right…

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X’s plan to interfere with the election

X’s plan to interfere with the election

Casey Newton writes: With polls essentially tied and hours to go until Election Day, no one knows for certain who will win the 2024 US presidential election. But we can say with some certainty what will happen if the result is anything other than a landslide victory for Donald Trump: a concerted campaign to delegitimize the election’s results, organized and amplified on Elon Musk’s X. Today, let’s talk about what we should expect to see in the potentially tumultuous aftermath…

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X is a white-supremacist site

X is a white-supremacist site

Charlie Warzel writes: X has always had a Nazi problem. I’ve covered the site, formerly known as Twitter, for more than a decade and reported extensively on its harassment problems, its verification (and then de-verification) of a white nationalist, and the glut of anti-Semitic hatred that roiled the platform in 2016. But something is different today. Heaps of unfiltered posts that plainly celebrate racism, anti-Semitism, and outright Nazism are easily accessible and possibly even promoted by the site’s algorithms. All…

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Man planned to use drone with explosive to attack substation, U.S. says

Man planned to use drone with explosive to attack substation, U.S. says

The New York Times reports: A 24-year-old Tennessee man was arrested on Saturday moments before he planned to use a drone carrying an explosive to destroy a Nashville power substation to further his “violent white supremacist ideology,” federal prosecutors said Monday. The man, Skyler Philippi of Columbia, Tenn., had plotted the attack to push an extremist ideology called “accelerationism,” which calls for the complete collapse of American society, according to a criminal complaint prepared by the F.B.I. Christopher Wray, the…

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North Korean troops heading to Ukraine are inexperienced, poorly trained and underfed

North Korean troops heading to Ukraine are inexperienced, poorly trained and underfed

Justin McCurry writes: Depending on whom you ask, they are the boost that Russian forces need to make a significant breakthrough in Ukraine, or they are simple cannon fodder, destined for repatriation in body bags. After weeks of speculation, Nato and the Pentagon have confirmed that around 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia, with most massing near Ukraine’s border in Kursk, where the Kremlin’s forces have struggled to repel a Ukrainian incursion. US officials believe the North Koreans could…

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A new field theory reveals the hidden forces that guide us

A new field theory reveals the hidden forces that guide us

Daniel W McShea and Gunnar O Babcock write: Why do rocks fall? Before Isaac Newton introduced his revolutionary law of gravity in 1687, many natural scientists and philosophers thought that rocks fell because falling was an essential part of their nature. For Aristotle, seeking the ground was an intrinsic property of rocks. The same principle, he argued, also explained why things like acorns grew into oak trees. According to this explanation, every physical object in the Universe, from rocks to…

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Meet the conservative women who are keeping their votes for Kamala Harris a secret

Meet the conservative women who are keeping their votes for Kamala Harris a secret

NPR reports: In political ads and campaign speeches, supporters of Vice President Harris have a message for Republican women: Your vote is private, and no one will know if you secretly vote for Harris. “No one gets to know how you’re going to vote,” Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin said last week during a campaign stop in Michigan. “No one gets to check it. It’s not available online. Right? Your vote is your choice. You don’t have to tell anyone.” Slotkin,…

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How Trump could ban abortion without Congress

How Trump could ban abortion without Congress

Mary Ziegler and Reva Siegel write: The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to abortion drugs just a few months ago, but anti-abortion forces are already back with a new lawsuit. The suit would have a devastating impact on abortion rights across the country. But even if it doesn’t succeed, it’s part of a strategy that former President Donald Trump could use to ban abortion nationwide if he wins the White House — even without action from Congress. Trump has said…

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Russia suspected of plotting to send incendiary devices on U.S.-bound planes

Russia suspected of plotting to send incendiary devices on U.S.-bound planes

The Guardian reports: An incendiary device hidden in a DHL package that caught fire in Germany in July was due to be sent by air to the UK as part of a suspected Russian sabotage plot that may also have been a dry run for a similar attack on the US and Canada. The device, reported to have been secreted in shipments of massage pillows and erotic gadgets, started a fire on the ground in Leipzig that was feared to…

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Trump claims ‘illegal alien’ voting is rampant. His own party disagrees

Trump claims ‘illegal alien’ voting is rampant. His own party disagrees

By Andy Kroll This story was originally published by ProPublica In public remarks, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unfounded claims about the threat of widespread voting by “illegal aliens” and noncitizens in the 2024 election. Away from the spotlight, though, at least one Republican National Committee official is telling volunteer poll watchers a completely different story: that such voting is close to impossible. In a private Oct. 29 training session for poll watchers in Pennsylvania, an RNC election-integrity…

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Elon Musk lawyer says $1 million voter giveaway winners are not random

Elon Musk lawyer says $1 million voter giveaway winners are not random

Reuters reports: Elon Musk’s pro-Trump group does not choose the winners of its $1 million-a-day giveaway to registered voters at random, but instead picks people who would be good spokespeople for its agenda, a lawyer for the billionaire said on Monday. Musk lawyer Chris Gober was trying to persuade a Pennsylvania judge that the giveaway was not an “illegal lottery,” as Philadelphia district attorney Lawrence Krasner alleged in a lawsuit seeking to block the contest ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential…

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