Why sewage may hold the key to tracking diseases far beyond COVID-19

Why sewage may hold the key to tracking diseases far beyond COVID-19

Betsy Ladyzhets writes: The future of disease tracking is going down the drain — literally. Flushed with success over detecting coronavirus in wastewater, and even specific variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, researchers are now eyeing our collective poop to monitor a wide variety of health threats. Before the pandemic, wastewater surveillance was a smaller field, primarily focused on testing for drugs or mapping microbial ecosystems. But these researchers were tracking specific health threats in specific places —…

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The Biden administration’s next big climate decision

The Biden administration’s next big climate decision

Bill McKibben writes: Earlier this year, the Biden Administration approved the Willow Project, a huge oil-drilling complex to be built in Alaska on thawing permafrost that may need to be mechanically refrozen before it can be drilled. Not surprisingly, Willow drew opposition—more than five million people, many of them young, signed petitions against the plan, and a million sent letters to the White House—which, the Times noted last month, could become “a wild card factor in next year’s presidential race.”…

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The ludicrous agony of Rupert Murdoch

The ludicrous agony of Rupert Murdoch

Michelle Goldberg writes: It’s nice to know that Fox News, which has so deranged America while making Rupert Murdoch ungodly sums of money, has in the end made Murdoch miserable, at least if the journalist Michael Wolff is to be believed. But the consolation is a small one. Murdoch’s unhappiness and befuddlement is the throughline of Wolff’s amusingly vicious and very well-timed book, “The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty,” which is to hit shelves next…

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Clarence Thomas secretly participated in Koch network donor events

Clarence Thomas secretly participated in Koch network donor events

ProPublica reports: On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private jets descended on Palm Springs International Airport. Some of the richest people in the country were arriving for the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, the political organization founded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. A long weekend of strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising lay ahead. Just after 6 p.m., a Gulfstream G200 jet touched down on the tarmac. One of the Koch network’s…

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If a government shutdown hits next week, here’s what would happen

If a government shutdown hits next week, here’s what would happen

The Washington Post reports: Millions of federal employees and active military service members will stop receiving paychecks — but many will be forced to report to work anyway. Some national parks may close, museums could shutter, and airports nationwide might see new disruptions and delays. And the most pivotal federal aid programs — including those assisting the victims of the deadly wildfires in Maui — could struggle to provide urgently needed support. In only eight days, the U.S. government is…

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Senator Robert Menendez accused of brazen bribery plot, taking cash and gold

Senator Robert Menendez accused of brazen bribery plot, taking cash and gold

The New York Times reports: Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the powerful Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged on Friday with taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes — including gold bars — to wield influence abroad and at home, aiding the government of Egypt and businessmen in New Jersey. The three-count federal indictment, which also charges the senator’s wife and three New Jersey businessmen, accuses him of using his official position in a wide…

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Luddites saw the problem of AI coming from two centuries away

Luddites saw the problem of AI coming from two centuries away

Gabriela Riccardi writes: To cast someone as a Luddite today is to do so with bemusement, to suggest they’re small-minded, a bit quaint, or fearful of technology. A Luddite cold-shoulders not only new tech, but of all the progress and potential it hastens forward. That’s where journalist Brian Merchant would object. His new book, Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, surfaces the forgotten story of the original Luddites—and why it should be recalled today….

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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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