Americas’ first cowboys were enslaved Africans, ancient cow DNA suggests

Americas’ first cowboys were enslaved Africans, ancient cow DNA suggests

Science reports: Think “cowboy,” and you might picture John Wayne riding herd across the U.S. West. But the first cowboys lived in Mexico and the Caribbean, and most of them were Black. That’s the conclusion of a recent analysis of DNA from 400-year-old cow bones excavated on the island of Hispaniola and at sites in Mexico. The work, published in Scientific Reports, also provides evidence that African cattle made it to the Americas at least a century earlier than historians…

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How General Mark Milley protected the Constitution from Donald Trump

How General Mark Milley protected the Constitution from Donald Trump

Jeffrey Goldberg writes: The missiles that comprise the land component of America’s nuclear triad are scattered across thousands of square miles of prairie and farmland, mainly in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. About 150 of the roughly 400 Minuteman III inter­continental ballistic missiles currently on alert are dispersed in a wide circle around Minot Air Force Base, in the upper reaches of North Dakota. From Minot, it would take an ICBM about 25 minutes to reach Moscow. These nuclear weapons…

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‘If we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war,’ Zelenskyy tells senators as shutdown looms

‘If we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war,’ Zelenskyy tells senators as shutdown looms

NPR reports: On a day when Russian missiles struck energy infrastructure across his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington, D.C., to make his renewed case for American aid to Ukraine to a deeply divided Congress preoccupied with a looming government shutdown. Zelenskyy’s reception in Congress was emblematic of the division between the two chambers as an end-of-the-month deadline to pass a government spending bill approaches — with a $24 billion White House request for funding to Ukraine hanging…

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Trump’s latest legal gambit could cause ‘cascade’ of trial delays, New York warns

Trump’s latest legal gambit could cause ‘cascade’ of trial delays, New York warns

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s trial calendar is a delicate balancing act, one that could be upended by the possible delay of the first in a long string of Trump trials scheduled to begin early next month, the New York attorney general’s office argued in a court filing. The attorney general’s office wrote that any delay in its upcoming civil fraud trial against Trump, which is set to begin Oct. 2, “is likely to create a cascade of delays in not…

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California’s climate disclosure bill could have a huge impact across the U.S.

California’s climate disclosure bill could have a huge impact across the U.S.

Climate Connnections reports: The California Legislature took a step last week that has the potential to accelerate the fight against climate change within the state and have a transformative effect across the nation. It also marked the rise of a more forceful climate caucus in the legislature, led by new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, bucking an intense industry lobbying push that killed a similar bill last year. Senate Bill 253, which would force companies that generate revenues of more than…

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The era of climate migration is here, leaders of vulnerable nations say

The era of climate migration is here, leaders of vulnerable nations say

Inside Climate News reports: As world leaders gathered Wednesday at the United Nations in New York to rally for more aggressive climate action, the heads of some of the most vulnerable nations met on the sidelines to highlight the daunting challenges they face as extreme weather forces millions of people to flee their homes. The problem is here already, they said, and it will only get worse unless governments slash emissions and prepare for what will effectively be a new…

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The killing in Canada shows what India has become

The killing in Canada shows what India has become

Daniel Block writes: On September 18, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood before his country’s Parliament and leveled a dramatic charge: Ottawa had “credible evidence” that the Indian government had assassinated a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. The citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, had been gunned down outside the Sikh temple where he served as president. Trudeau declared the killing “an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty” and “contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves.”…

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Archaeologists in Zambia discover oldest wooden structure in the world, dating to 476,000 years ago

Archaeologists in Zambia discover oldest wooden structure in the world, dating to 476,000 years ago

Live Science reports: Archaeologists have discovered the oldest evidence yet of a wooden structure crafted by the hands of a human ancestor. Two tree trunks, notched like Lincoln Logs, were preserved at the bottom of the Kalambo River in Zambia. If the logs’ estimated 476,000-year-old age is correct, it means that woodworking might predate the emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens, and highlights the intelligence of our hominin ancestors. Archaeologists unearthed the logs at Kalambo Falls, on Lake Tanganyika…

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The mass disappointment of a decade of mass protest

The mass disappointment of a decade of mass protest

Osita Nwanevu writes: Though his name wouldn’t ring a bell to most in this country, Mohamed Bouazizi was, without question, among the most influential individuals of our century thus far. The millions he unintentionally inspired teetered and toppled governments beginning with his own; in doing so, they rattled the global order and altered the course of politics even here in the United States, where many who never learned his name nonetheless know of him—the Tunisian produce vendor who, bullied one…

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Trump privately frets about life in prison

Trump privately frets about life in prison

Rolling Stone reports: In the past several months, Donald Trump has had a burning question for some of his confidants and attorneys: Would the authorities make him wear “one of those jumpsuits” in prison? As the criminal cases against him have piled up, the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner has wondered aloud in recent months about what life would be like if he’s convicted, and if appeals fail. While Trump publicly professes confidence, privately, three sources familiar with his…

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Damning evidence of witness tampering and obstruction as Trump used the words of a ‘mob boss’

Damning evidence of witness tampering and obstruction as Trump used the words of a ‘mob boss’

  Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb and former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons speak with CNN’s Erin Burnett after the New York Times reported that former President Donald Trump told an aide to say she knew nothing about the boxes of documents later found at Mar-a-Lago.

Ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson describes how Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6

Ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson describes how Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6

The Guardian reports: Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump aide turned crucial January 6 witness, says in a new book she was groped by Rudy Giuliani, who was “like a wolf closing in on its prey”, on the day of the attack on the Capitol. Describing meeting with Giuliani backstage at Donald Trump’s speech near the White House before his supporters marched on Congress in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Hutchinson says the former New York mayor turned Trump…

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Trumpism costs the GOP in a crucial election, again

Trumpism costs the GOP in a crucial election, again

Aaron Blake writes: The Republican Party’s increasing Trump-era tendency toward more extreme nominees and its struggles to account for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade have already cost it plenty. It’s quite possible that these things cost it control of the Senate in both the 2020 and 2022 elections. If unpopular GOP nominees in key states had merely matched the political fundamentals, Republicans might have held the Senate for the duration of Joe Biden’s presidency and had a much more significant House majority with…

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Why Rupert Murdoch dumped Tucker Carlson

Why Rupert Murdoch dumped Tucker Carlson

Michael Wolff writes: After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, Fox News — to the surprise of many, including founder Rupert Murdoch, who loathed Trump — became more successful than it had ever been in its already very profitable history. It had survived not only the loss of its longtime boss Roger Ailes, ousted the same year in a sexual-harassment scandal, but that of its former ratings leader Bill O’Reilly in another harassment scandal and that of Megyn Kelly,…

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