Back to New Jersey, where the universe began

Back to New Jersey, where the universe began

Dennis Overbye writes: On a field just below the summit of Crawford Hill, the highest point in Monmouth County, N.J., almost within sight of the skyscrapers of Manhattan, sits a cluster of shacks and sheds. Next to them is the Holmdel Horn Antenna, a radio telescope somewhat resembling the scoop of a giant steam shovel: an aluminum box 20 feet square at the mouth and tapering to an eight-inch opening, through which the radio waves are funneled into the “cab,”…

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The prosecutions of Donald Trump are something to celebrate, not lament

The prosecutions of Donald Trump are something to celebrate, not lament

Donald Ayer writes: Several distinguished individuals have recently expressed grave reservations about the prosecutions of former President Donald Trump. Notably, they appear to have no dispute about the seriousness of his wrongdoing. Rather, their main concern is that “terrible consequences” may result, because the prosecutions “may come to be seen as political trials … and play directly into the hands of Trump and his allies.” Although many Trump supporters will view the situation in just this way, any suggestion that…

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Wisconsin GOP’s impeachment plan: Another MAGA coup against democracy

Wisconsin GOP’s impeachment plan: Another MAGA coup against democracy

Dennis Aftergut and Austin Sarat write: MAGA Republicans in Wisconsin are gearing up to impeach newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, just five weeks after she took her seat on the court and before she has cast her first vote. They want to stop her from doing what the majority of Wisconsin voters elected her to do. Their plan is nothing less than a coup attempt, an effort to sideline a duly elected judge not because she has…

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Why you should pay attention to the Texas attorney general’s impeachment trial

Why you should pay attention to the Texas attorney general’s impeachment trial

Shirin Ali writes: A battle that’s long been brewing in Texas is finally coming to a head as the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, undergoes an impeachment trial for allegations of corruption, bribery, and abuse of power. It all started after Paxton demanded that $3.3 million in taxpayer money be used to settle a lawsuit against him. (Paxton has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty this week in his first hearing.) Paxton is a polarizing political figure, even beyond…

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How ‘free speech’ warrior RFK Jr. tried to intimidate a DailyKos blogger

How ‘free speech’ warrior RFK Jr. tried to intimidate a DailyKos blogger

The Daily Beast reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long postured as an absolute defender of “free speech” online, especially after private social media firms declined to provide a platform to his deadly misinformation during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. But he hired Kyle Rittenhouse’s former attorney to deliver a kill shot to an anonymous DailyKos blogger who penned an article he disliked. That DailyKos writer, who for two decades has contributed to the site’s community section under the…

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Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies

Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies

CNN reports: A federal appeals court on Friday said the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment in some of its communications with social media companies, but also narrowed a lower court judge’s order on the matter. The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media…

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The sea was never blue

The sea was never blue

Maria Michela Sassi writes: Homer used two adjectives to describe aspects of the colour blue: kuaneos, to denote a dark shade of blue merging into black; and glaukos, to describe a sort of ‘blue-grey’, notably used in Athena’s epithet glaukopis, her ‘grey-gleaming eyes’. He describes the sky as big, starry, or of iron or bronze (because of its solid fixity). The tints of a rough sea range from ‘whitish’ (polios) and ‘blue-grey’ (glaukos) to deep blue and almost black (kuaneos, melas). The sea in its calm…

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Magnetism may have given life its molecular asymmetry

Magnetism may have given life its molecular asymmetry

Yasemin Saplakoglu writes: Scientists have debated why life became homochiral [that is, having molecular asymmetry], and whether it needed to happen or if it was purely a fluke. Were chiral preferences impressed on early life by biased samples of molecules arriving from space, or did they somehow evolve out of mixtures that started out as equal parts right- and left-handed? “Scientists have been mystified by this observation,” said Soumitra Athavale, an assistant professor of organic chemistry at the University of…

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Climate report card says countries are trying, but urgently need improvement

Climate report card says countries are trying, but urgently need improvement

The New York Times reports: Eight years after world leaders approved a landmark agreement in Paris to fight climate change, countries have made only limited progress in staving off the most dangerous effects of global warming, according to the first official report card on the global climate treaty. Many of the worst-case climate change scenarios that were much feared in the early 2010s look far less likely today, the report said. The authors partly credit the 2015 Paris Agreement, under…

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Exxon says global climate goals are destined to fail

Exxon says global climate goals are destined to fail

Grist reports: Exxon Mobil projected that greenhouse-gas emissions and the efforts to keep the planet’s temperature from rising beyond an increase of 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 is destined to fail in a report released by the oil giant on Monday. Oil and natural gas are projected to meet more than half of the world’s energy needs in 2050, or 54 percent, because of their “utility as a reliable and lower-emissions source of fuel for electricity generation, hydrogen production, and…

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Ukraine’s strikes behind enemy lines are paying off

Ukraine’s strikes behind enemy lines are paying off

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: At first, it looks like ordinary surveillance footage of a large military plane sitting on the tarmac. But then the wing catches fire. A second plane flickers across the screen, and in an instant its fuselage is engulfed in flames. Even in grainy black and white you can see the smoke billowing up into the night sky. Two Russian Ilyushin IL-76 strategic airlifters were destroyed by Ukrainian drones on Aug. 29 at Kresty air…

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Elon Musk acknowledges withholding satellite service to thwart Ukrainian attack

Elon Musk acknowledges withholding satellite service to thwart Ukrainian attack

The New York Times reports: A top adviser to Ukraine’s president accused Elon Musk of enabling Russian aggression, after the billionaire entrepreneur acknowledged denying satellite internet service in order to prevent a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian naval fleet last year. The Starlink satellite internet service, which is operated by Mr. Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, has been a digital lifeline in Ukraine since the early days of the war for both civilians and soldiers in areas where digital infrastructure…

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Judge refuses to move prosecution of Mark Meadows to federal court

Judge refuses to move prosecution of Mark Meadows to federal court

Politico reports: The prosecution of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for attempting to overturn the 2020 election will remain in state court, a federal judge ruled Friday as he turned down Meadows’ bid to move the case to federal court. The decision, which Meadows is likely to appeal, is a victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ drive to bring former President Donald Trump, Meadows and 17 other defendants to trial under the state’s broad criminal…

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The surprisingly strong constitutional case for Trump’s disqualification

The surprisingly strong constitutional case for Trump’s disqualification

Thor Benson interviewed CREW President, Noah Bookbinder, to discuss whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from running for office: Thor Benson: There might be a legitimate constitutional argument here, but what do you say to people who say it’s anti-democratic? Noah Bookbinder: There’s a certain irony in the argument that it’s anti-democratic to take somebody off the ballot — that everybody should be able to vote for the candidate of their choice. What happened after the 2020…

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