We must unite to preserve democracy against an authoritarian movement

We must unite to preserve democracy against an authoritarian movement

Joe Trippi writes: America is exhausted. We’ve gone through the worst presidency in our history, when the very concept of what it meant to be an American was challenged. A pandemic has killed over 600,000 of our fellow Americans, more than we lost in both world wars of the last century. There is a desperate longing for normalcy. At last we have a normal president with a competent administration. But this is not a normal time. American democracy is in…

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Six months after January 6, Republicans have a new message: Insurrection? What insurrection?

Six months after January 6, Republicans have a new message: Insurrection? What insurrection?

HuffPost reports: Six months after their leader tried to overturn the election he had lost by more than 7 million votes, Republicans have settled on a message about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol: Insurrection? What insurrection? From calls to let bygones be bygones, to punishing dissidents who dare criticize former President Donald Trump for instigating that day’s attack, to literally describing the mob as no different from everyday “tourists,” the Republican Party ― with notable exceptions ―…

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Racism and reactionary politics kept Nikole Hannah-Jones from joining UNC

Racism and reactionary politics kept Nikole Hannah-Jones from joining UNC

UNC’s Hussman Faculty writes: Today, we learned that Ms. Nikole Hannah-Jones has declined a tenured appointment as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. While disappointed, we are not surprised. We support Ms. Hannah-Jones’s choice. The appalling treatment of one of our nation’s most-decorated journalists by her own alma mater was humiliating, inappropriate, and unjust. We will be frank: It was racist. Our school highly regards Ms. Hannah-Jones’s work, ability, and…

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Iceland tried a four-day work week. It was an overwhelming success

Iceland tried a four-day work week. It was an overwhelming success

ZME Science reports: Among the many things the coronavirus pandemic has affected, our work-life balance has also taken a hit. Most people are simultaneously working from home while doing their day-to-day activities, with many reporting they actually work more than they did before the pandemic struck in 2020, which leaves many feeling burnt out and stressed — but also unwilling to return to the office. This has raised discussions over a four-day working week as a way to increase productivity…

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Rudy Giuliani’s legal defense fund is $4,990,410 underfunded

Rudy Giuliani’s legal defense fund is $4,990,410 underfunded

Vanity Fair reports: When we last checked in with Rudy Giuliani, things weren’t looking so hot for Donald Trump’s former personal attorney. Aside from having gone from “America’s mayor” to “what the hell happened to that guy”—which is a big aside!—Giuliani was facing a whole bunch of very serious legal issues including but not limited to: his apartment and office being raided as part of a criminal investigation into his Ukraine dealings; a Justice Department probe of his work involving…

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51,000-year-old bone carving suggests Neanderthals were true artists

51,000-year-old bone carving suggests Neanderthals were true artists

Gizmondo reports: Patterns deliberately etched onto a bone belonging to a giant deer are signs that Neanderthals possessed the capacity for symbolic thought. Neanderthals decorated themselves with feathers, drew cave paintings, and created jewelry from eagle talons, so it comes as little surprise to learn that Neanderthals also engraved patterns onto bone. The discovery of this 51,000-year-old bone carving, as described in Nature Ecology & Evolution, is more evidence of sophisticated behavior among Neanderthals. “Evidence of artistic decorations would suggest…

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Sixty years of climate change warnings — the signs that were missed (and ignored)

Sixty years of climate change warnings — the signs that were missed (and ignored)

Alice Bell writes: In August 1974, the CIA produced a study on “climatological research as it pertains to intelligence problems”. The diagnosis was dramatic. It warned of the emergence of a new era of weird weather, leading to political unrest and mass migration (which, in turn, would cause more unrest). The new era the agency imagined wasn’t necessarily one of hotter temperatures; the CIA had heard from scientists warning of global cooling as well as warming. But the direction in…

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What’s keeping democracy experts up most at night? An overturned election

What’s keeping democracy experts up most at night? An overturned election

NBC News reports: Congress is just beginning a new investigation into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, but the movement behind it remains as active as ever. Former President Donald Trump is frequently repeating false claims of victory, plotting revenge against politicians who opposed his efforts to overturn the election, attacking key Republicans who refuse to back him up now and hinting at a return to power, either through another presidential run or some other means. There’s no legal…

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Anti-critical race theory laws are un-American

Anti-critical race theory laws are un-American

Kmele Foster, David French, Jason Stanley and Thomas Chatterton Williams write: What is the purpose of a liberal education? This is the question at the heart of a bitter debate that has been roiling the nation for months. Schools, particularly at the kindergarten-to-12th-grade level, are responsible helping turn students into well-informed and discerning citizens. At their best, our nation’s schools equip young minds to grapple with complexity and navigate our differences. At their worst, they resemble indoctrination factories. In recent…

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Birthday parties as virus vector

Birthday parties as virus vector

Margot Sanger-Katz writes: At the height of the pandemic, it was easy to worry that strangers would give you the virus. But a new study of what happened after people’s birthdays suggests that people we trust were also a common source of viral spread. Private gatherings have been harder for researchers to measure than big public events — they’re private, after all. And there has been a fierce debate for months among epidemiologists about just how big a factor they…

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China’s big plan for post-U.S. Afghanistan

China’s big plan for post-U.S. Afghanistan

The Daily Beast reports: As the U.S. exits Afghanistan, Beijing is preparing to swoop into the war-torn country and fill the vacuum left by the departed U.S. and NATO troops. China is poised to make an exclusive entry into post-U.S. Afghanistan with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source close to government officials in Afghanistan told The Daily Beast that Kabul authorities are growing more intensively engaged with China on an extension of the…

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America’s obsession with self-help

America’s obsession with self-help

Chris Lehmann writes: Books about an idealized American character often make for a body of elusive, exasperating speculations, delivered either on the fly or from a special-pleading pulpit of one sort or another. So there’s something appealing about reversing the polarity of such inquiries, and pursuing the fugitive American character through a series of allegedly representative books. That’s the task literary journalist Jess McHugh has set herself in Americanon, gathering a baker’s dozen of influential and top-selling books that have…

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An artificial network kept on the ‘edge of chaos’ acts much like a human brain

An artificial network kept on the ‘edge of chaos’ acts much like a human brain

Science Alert reports: Researchers have demonstrated how to keep a network of nanowires in a state that’s right on what’s known as the edge of chaos – an achievement that could be used to produce artificial intelligence (AI) that acts much like the human brain does. The team used varying levels of electricity on a nanowire simulation, finding a balance when the electric signal was too low when the signal was too high. If the signal was too low, the…

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The Weisselberg indictment is not a ‘fringe benefits’ case

The Weisselberg indictment is not a ‘fringe benefits’ case

Daniel Shaviro writes: In the days before the July 1, 2021 issuance of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Weisselberg-Trump Organization indictment, public anticipation was positively underwhelming. It would just be a fringe benefits case, we were told – meaning, a dispute, of a picayune sort that almost never yields criminal charges, regarding whether or not an employee’s use of, say, a company car or apartment yielded taxable income, in the face of admitted personal benefit but also with plausible claims of…

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