Reading archive 2024-08-26

Opinion Justice Gorsuch’s book of fish tales: A new book by the Supreme Court conservative raises the question: Does having all the facts matter?

Elon Musk’s X reveals investors in court filing: A court filing obtained by The Post lists which firms and individuals have a financial stake in the platform.

Canadian government ends major railway stoppage, ordering arbitration: Canada’s two largest railroads shut down early Thursday, jeopardizing deliveries of crucial supplies to the United States.

Where mosquito season is getting longer

Trump takes it upon himself to decide who is a proper Jew: In an interview and a late-night social media post, the former president railed against and disparaged Jewish Democrats, largely for being anti-Trump.

A close race brings fresh fears of election interference by Trump allies: The euphoric mood at the Democratic National Convention this week came alongside growing concern that the former president’s backers could attempt to undermine the results. - "The new certification rule in Georgia may be only the beginning. The majority has proposed 11 additional rules that will come up for approval close to the state’s Oct. 14 early-voting start date. Among the proposals is one requiring a hand-count of ballots in precincts to make sure the number of votes recorded equals the number of ballots. It’s a task that voting machines already do."

Some Giant stores in D.C. are banning unaccompanied minors after 6 p.m.: The grocery chain’s new policy also modifies a previous effort to prohibit customers with large bags.

Traffic fatalities have doubled since D.C.’s promise of zero: Thirty-three people have lost their lives in traffic crashes this year.

Indian Americans conflicted about Kamala Harris pose campaign challenge: In an immigrant community stratified by religion, language and class, Kamala Harris’s background is embraced by some but rings hollow for others.

DeSantis in middle of Florida feud pitting marijuana against hemp: Voters in Florida will soon decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana. DeSantis is against it and getting support from an unlikely ally: the hemp industry.

Tim Walz’s upbringing in rural Nebraska seemed idyllic. Then came tragedy.: Uprooted from a small city, Walz and his family moved to a remote town of a few hundred to deal with his father’s cancer.

Opinion A big problem for young workers: 70- and 80-year-olds who won’t retire: With five generations in the workforce, it’s harder for beginners to get hired or promoted.

Opinion Ukraine’s Kursk offensive isn’t just a raid. It’s upending assumptions.: Russia, stunned by the incursion, has been slow to respond, while Ukraine gains battlefield maneuverability.

Opinion Sam Bankman-Fried, a personal verdict: A few thoughts on how Americans thought about the crypto trial of the century. - "When confronted by older experts in some complicated field in which he had zero experience, Sam’s first step was always to doubt the value of their advice and think about the complicated field on his own."

Environmental group calls for RFK Jr. to be investigated for reportedly sawing off whale head: In a resurfaced 2012 interview, his daughter shared he had once used a chain saw to cut off a dead whale’s head to bring it home, reportedly to study.

Trump vowed to release all remaining JFK files. What could they contain?: Despite their differences about what they suspect happened on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, two prominent researchers agree the remaining files should be released. - "When he was president in 2017, Trump announced that he planned to publicly disclose the remaining documents but ultimately delayed the release of some files for national security reasons, saying they would be released by October 2021. In 2018, Trump authorized the disclosure of 19,045 documents, many of which contained redactions."

Ukraine keeps crossing Russia’s red lines. Putin keeps blinking.: Ukraine’s punch through Russian defenses in the first foreign invasion since World War II has laid bare Moscow’s apparently illusory red lines.

How a gay beach oasis flourished in Michigan’s Bible Belt: Gay artists, club owners and nude bathers have found a safe haven in Saugatuck and Douglas since the 1890s.

Public service, secret payments: FBI says Trayon White had two sides: On days FBI says he took bribes, D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) took to social media and posted about serving constituents.

The balloon drop at the DNC had more meaning than you might know: More than 50 balloon artists volunteered to make the display in honor of their colleague who is fighting cancer.

Australia offers U.S. a vast new military launchpad in China conflict: Australia is expanding its northern military bases, with U.S. support, to counter China's growing threat. Critics quip it’s become the “51st state.”

RFK Jr. suspends his campaign — with an appropriately bizarre theory: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. insisted he can somehow still be elected president. Let’s count the holes in his reasoning.

Trump allies try to energize him as he struggles to adapt to Harris: The Republican nominee has fixated on Biden’s withdrawal: “It feels like he’s lost his mojo.”

Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris: The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to do with one of the major networks.

Endangered lynx makes its first appearance in Vermont in years: Wildlife officials said it was the first confirmed Canada lynx sighting in the state since 2018.

The fact-vs.-fiction election: The alliance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump makes sense from an epistemological standpoint, if not a policy one. - "Because, at the end of the day, Trump and Kennedy are aligned on the most fundamental aspect of their politics: that what you believe is more important than what is. That they are right and that the people saying they’re wrong are wrong.

...

"This reflects the through-line between him and Trump: that there is no expertise or authority that should be given deference over what you want or believe to be true. That scientists and military experts and researchers have opinions that can sit alongside your own. Or, in many cases, have opinions that are inferior to your own, since they are part of informational systems that are inherently untrustworthy by virtue of including those experts."

Scientists may have found a radical solution for making your hamburger less bad for the planet: Researchers in California are working to genetically engineer the cow microbiome -- and in the process, eliminate methane emissions. - "Such a probiotic could also improve a farm’s productivity. Cows can lose up to 12 percent of their energy through burping up methane; other ruminants, like sheep and goats, also lose energy in this way. “If there is a way to redirect that hydrogen and convert it into milk, meat, wool — it would be much more accepted by farmers,” Kebreab said."

Reading archive 2024-04-25

The Morning: Chaos and oppression - "Arnold Kling, an economist, published a book a decade ago that offered a way to think about the core difference between progressives and conservatives. Progressives, Kling wrote, see the world as a struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed, and they try to help the oppressed. Conservatives see the world as a struggle between civilization and barbarism — between order and chaos — and they try to protect civilization."

Aid to Ukraine seemed dead. Then secretive talks revived it.: In one meeting, Biden and others sprang a surprise effort to persuade Speaker Johnson to pass the aid package

Meadows, Giuliani and other Trump allies charged in Arizona 2020 election probe

How cleaning product chemicals called ‘quats’ may affect the brain: A common ingredient in household disinfectants has been shown in lab studies to affect certain brain cells

In Australia, ‘Cats Are Just Catastrophic’: Feral cats take a heavy toll on the world’s wildlife, especially Down Under. The solution? Smarter traps, sharpshooters,

As bird flu spreads in cows, fractured U.S. response has echoes of early covid

Bird flu in humans, explained: How it spreads, the symptoms and more

Opinion  Why we shouldn’t panic if bird flu becomes the next pandemic

Some Jewish Students Are Targeted as Protests Continue at Columbia: After reports of harassment by demonstrators, some Jewish students said they felt unsafe. Others said they felt safe, while condemning antisemitism. - "Those demonstrations took a dark turn on Saturday evening, as protesters targeted some Jewish students with antisemitic vitriol that was captured in video and pictures, both inside and outside the campus. The verbal attacks left a number of the 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia fearful for their safety on the campus and its vicinity, and even drew condemnation from the White House and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.

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"In one instance, video captured a person holding up a sign that said, 'Al-Qasam’s Next Targets,' referring to Hamas’s armed faction, near several Jewish counterprotesters.

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"A video posted on X shows a masked protester outside the Columbia gates carrying a Palestinian flag who appears to chant 'Go back to Poland!' One Columbia student wrote on social media that some protesters had stolen an Israeli flag from students and tried to burn it, adding that Jewish students were splashed with water."

The ‘Mother Tree’ idea is everywhere — but how much of it is real?: A popular theory about how trees cooperate has enchanted the public and raised the profile of forest conservation. But some ecologists think its scientific basis has been oversold.

Invading plants remain undetected in a lag phase while they explore suitable climates

Can Gardeners Learn to Love Snags? These Pros Think So.

Where the Pros go to Source Native Plants

Senior ‘skip day’ was an annual tradition. Then 5 teens were shot.: Greenbelt officials and community members are grappling with how to move forward after five teenagers were wounded at a “senior skip day” outing

Reading archvie 2024-01-03

Ready to discard your Christmas tree? You could eat it instead.

Opinion  How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won

Opinion  They opened the door. The dictators were waiting. - "The GAO has also suggested pressuring perpetrators that benefit from U.S. arms exports by using a provision of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 barring arms sales to countries engaged in a pattern of intimidation or harassment directed at individuals in the United States. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are among the top 25 arms-transfer recipients."

Opinion  Is this who we are?

Fentanyl super labs in Canada pose new threat for U.S. opioid epidemic

A sinking nation is offered an escape route. But there’s a catch.

Complaints about home birth midwives languish amid Maryland backlog: After their babies died, Maryland parents sought help from the state Board of Nursing, which regulates midwives. They’re still waiting. - "The Maryland Board of Nursing licenses certified professional midwives, referring to them as direct-entry midwives. Distinct from certified nurse midwives, who have graduate degrees and nursing credentials, certified professional midwives have no hospital privileges and primarily learn through apprenticeships. They attend the majority of home births in the United States.

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"A physician had delivered Naomi Puckett’s first child via Caesarean section in 2012. When she became pregnant again in late 2014, she wanted 'bodily autonomy, and a natural birth.'" [ed. note: hey, dumbass: stillbirth and dying in childbirth is "natural"]

Florida teen kills sister during fight over Christmas gifts, sheriff says

A rare deer became legendary in Richmond. Then poachers showed up.

After Sandy Hook, they voted no. Now these senators want new gun laws.: Reflecting on a decade of mass killings and surging AR-15 sales, four current and three former senators recant some or all of their 2013 positions on gun laws in emotional interviews with The Post - "In the meeting with the families, Portman told the group that he would not support the background checks measure even though he believed it could save lives. 

"Hockley said that she responded with a piercing personal question: 'So, you can vote to protect your son, but you can’t vote to protect mine?'

"Portman, who retired from the Senate this year, declined to comment for this story." [ed. note: Portman is truly gutless]

Genetic engineering was meant to save chestnut trees. Then there was a mistake.: A potential labelling error was the latest in a series of concerns for the American Chestnut Foundation, driving the nonprofit to pull support for a genetically engineered tree meant resurrect an iconic American species.

Rep. Lauren Boebert switches Colo. districts, avoiding likely tough rematch

Long after violent arrests, Ocean City keeps reviews from the public: A police leader testified that he could not recall in his 18 years at the department a routine review finding a use of force improper

Her story fueled anti-trans bills. Now, she’s fighting them.: Carey Callahan was once a prominent critic of gender-affirming care for minors. Then she began to worry her words were leading to outcomes she didn’t support.

CAN FLOW BATTERIES FINALLY BEAT LITHIUM?: Nanoparticles may boost energy density enough for EVs

50 YEARS LATER, WE’RE STILL LIVING IN THE XEROX ALTO’S WORLD The Alto transformed computing. And the changes stuck - "As should now be apparent, how the Alto came to shape our lives with computers a half century later isn’t the story of any one individual. In our culture, however, the history of technology is habitually presented as a sequence of remarkable individual achievements. But this is wrong. Innovation is the work of groups, of communities." [ed. note: or, how Steve Jobs most assuredly did not create desktops, laptops, or tablets]

D.C.’s troubled crime lab wins back accreditation

Plan for new Caps, Wizards arena in Va. stirs up its would-be neighbors: Just weeks after an official announcement, the sports complex proposed for Alexandria’s Potomac Yard has become the city’s biggest source of debate

What China’s new defense minister tells us about Xi’s military purge

Russia is working to subvert French support for Ukraine, documents show - "For part of the French establishment, the vision of France leading a grand Europe together with Moscow is 'a dream which will never go away,' said Sylvie Kauffmann, editorial director at Le Monde and author of the recent book 'Les Aveuglés,' or 'The Blinded Ones,' about how France and Germany misread Putin in seeking to build close ties with him. 'In this dream we are a big power and Russia is a big power and we are two big nuclear powers treating each other on an equal footing,' she said."

Trump says Liz Cheney deleted evidence of Jan. 6 troops. There isn’t any.

Water-hungry golf courses plague Arizona’s native javelina-filled landscape: A herd of javelinas damaged a ritzy golf course in Arizona. Golf courses have done more damage.

A global synthesis and assessment of free-ranging domestic cat diet

Want to help birds this winter? Plant native berries.: Many birds turn to calorie-packed berries in autumn for an energy boost

Bird-Friendly Plants for Winter Forage

Pollen theft by honey bees from wild bees

Reading archive 2023-11-02

Australian woman charged in suspected mushroom poisoning deaths

As climate disasters mount, the world isn’t spending nearly enough to adapt: This so-called “adaptation finance gap” is between $194 billion and $366 billion per year, United Nations experts said in a new report

Scientists have found a ‘sleeping giant’ of environmental problems: Earth is getting saltier: Salt used to de-ice roads is the single biggest source of salt in the U.S. - "From 2013 to 2017, road salt made up 44 percent of the country’s entire salt consumption."

Beet it, beet it, beet it, beet it: Then the snow will be defeated (on D.C. roads)

Senate Republicans erupt in anger over Tuberville’s military freeze: A surprising public confrontation made clear that some of Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s colleagues have hit their limit as hundreds of senior military promotions remain stalled

Years into a climate disaster, these people are eating the unthinkable: In South Sudan, war and semi-permanent flooding have left people to scavenge for food, with long-term consequences for their health

Virginia parents are over Youngkin’s old classroom culture war playbook: They want to address teacher shortages, mental health and learning loss when they go to the polls next week

Critics blast plan to remove 1,200 trees from Rock Creek Park golf course: Proposal would seriously damage ecosystem, environmentalists say

Who's tracking the weapons and money the U.S. is sending to Ukraine? "60 Minutes" went to find out.

Reading archive 2023-05-24

More super rich names are coming up in the Jeffrey Epstein cases: Elon Musk and Larry Page are among those subpoenaed as the U.S. Virgin Islands pursues its case against JPMorgan Chase. Here’s what you need to know.

Man who crashed U-Haul truck near White House had Nazi flag in vehicle

Anti-Putin militias mount cross-border incursion in western Russia

Texas pushes church into state with bills on school chaplains, Ten Commandments: The bills, and others around the country, come in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling for a high school football coach who prayed with players

Driver in D.C. crash that killed 3 had blood alcohol above limit, police say: Nakita Marie Walker, a 43-year-old from Washington, was arrested and charged Monday with second-degree murder in the March 15 crash on Rock Creek Parkway

‘Big Earth energy’: A new era of nature spirituality is here: But growing interest in nature spirituality doesn’t necessarily lead to more climate activism, experts say

A man went to CIA Headquarters and said, ‘I’m here and I have a gun,’ source says. He was later arrested at a preschool with an AK-47 in his car

Four Forces Bind Trump’s Supporters More Tightly Than Ever - "A fourth justification that supporters of Donald Trump have constructed is that his presidency was an unqualified success, that Trump did practically everything right. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary: failing to build the wall or to get Mexico to pay for it, to reduce illegal immigration, to handle the coronavirus pandemic, to close the trade gap, to narrow the deficit or, pre-pandemic, substantially grow the economy and real wages. The Trump presidency, however, did witness health-care costs and drug prices increasing; income inequality growing; abortions rising after a three-decade decline; homicides spiking, including the largest single-year increase in murders in more than a century; the erosion of U.S. credibility worldwide; a posture of petty feuding with allies and abject capitulation to dictators; and a U.S.-Taliban agreement and subsequent announcement that the American military would withdraw, which had a devastating effect on the Afghan military’s morale and was a “catalyst” for its collapse, according to a May 2022 interim report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Yet all of these things, and more, are either ignored or explained away." [ed. note: links embedded in article]

Opinion  These 8 proposals from Bowser would help D.C. fight violent crime

How Far-Right Hindu Supremacy Went Global: An extremist ideology from India is fuelling rising division and hate speech in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. -"The ideology says Hindus are more than just a religious group, they are a distinct and pure ethnic race, while Muslims are an inferior people who put Hindus under threat. Hindu nationalism, which is led by India’s upper castes, aims to maintain the country’s strict caste system, an ancient Hindu social hierarchy that strictly divides people in the subcontinent into four occupational communities, while ostracising those who fall outside of the system as 'untouchables.' ...

"But Hindutva is not just an idea. It’s a movement armed with its own all-male, volunteer, paramilitary wing, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS was once modelled on the Nazis and banned in India three times in 1948, after one of its members assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, in 1975, and in 1992, after they destroyed a 400 year old mosque. Its mission statement criticises secularism in India and the 'endless appeasement of Muslims'. It is a group that many believe has the primary aim of turning India into a country where Muslims are either treated as second class citizens, banned or removed. ...

"Religious hate crime data does not back up the notion, put forward by extremists, of rampant Hinduphobia in the UK. Between 2020 and 2021 there were 5,627 religious hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales. Just under half of these crimes, 2,703, were committed against Muslims, 1,288 against Jews, 521 against Christians and 166 were against Hindus. In Leicestershire, between 2019 and 2021, there were 246 religious hate crimes recorded against Muslims compared to 34 against Hindus."

Reading archive 2023-03-12

D.C. housing officials say they will stop overpaying landlords - "D.C. Housing Authority officials say they plan to comply with local and federal rules requiring the agency to ensure rents for low-income voucher holders are not paid at above-market rates, but they are not ready to detail how." [ed. note: lol]

3D analysis shows how Israeli troops fired into group of civilians: In an incident last month that left two Palestinians dead, troops shot at least 14 times in four seconds while civilians would have been visible.

China and Australia are starting to get along. Will AUKUS torpedo it?

The Pundits Are Wrong About D.C.’s Crime Bill: A cynical freakout stretching from Fox News to the Washington Post is utterly bogus. - "The legislation that D.C. passed in January is not a traditional reform bill, but the result of a 16-year process to overhaul a badly outdated, confusing, and often arbitrary criminal code. The revision’s goal was to modernize the law by defining elements of each crime, eliminating overlap between offenses, establishing proportionate penalties, and removing archaic or unconstitutional provisions. Every single change is justified in meticulous reports that span thousands of pages. Each one was crafted with extensive public input and support from both D.C. and federal prosecutors. Eleventh-hour criticisms of the bill rest on misunderstandings, willful or otherwise, about its purpose and effect. They malign complex, technocratic updates as radical concessions to criminals. In many cases, criticisms rest on sheer legal illiteracy about how criminal sentencing actually works. 

"The D.C. bill is not a liberal wishlist of soft-on-crime policies. It is an exhaustive and entirely mainstream blueprint for a more coherent and consistent legal system."

Lawsuits pile up as U.S. parents take on social media giants

How To Build Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time: Step By Step Explained (Body Recomposition)

Reading archive 2021-05-07

Liz Cheney Has Only Herself to Blame: The representative from Wyoming is taking a stand against an authoritarian streak in the Republican Party that she helped cultivate. - "The Times reported that Republican leadership, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, hoped that “after surviving [a] February vote of no confidence, Ms. Cheney, as an elected leader, would make like the rest of the party and simply move on.” This is a ridiculous claim; the Republican Party has not moved on at all. The falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump has become the justification for voter-suppression laws in Republican-controlled states across the country. A majority of Republicans voted against certifying the election even after the Capitol riot; fully 60 percent of Republicans believe that the election was stolen.

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"Even a lifelong conservative Republican like Cheney becomes The Enemy if she is willing to uphold essential democratic rights—such as the opposition’s right to govern if it wins the most electoral votes—above the whims of King Trump. Cheney’s brave stand looks likely to cost her the leadership position she holds, and has left her isolated within the caucus, one of the few Republicans who have chosen their vow to the Constitution over their loyalty to the party. Yet the party’s rejection of the rule of law is also an extension of a political logic that Cheney herself has cultivated for years. 

"During the Obama administration, Cheney was a Fox News regular who, as was the fashion at the time, insisted that the president was secretly sympathetic to jihadists. She enthusiastically defended the use of torture, dismissed the constitutional right to due process as an inconvenience, and amplified the Obama-era campaign to portray American Muslims as a national-security threat."

Accused Capitol rioter had ‘Foxitis,’ his attorney says: He ‘started believing what was being fed to him’

China says out-of-control space rocket booster probably won’t cause any harm

An Australian mom was convicted of killing her 4 babies. Scientists say she’s innocent.

‘She didn’t deserve to die the way she did,’ says family of cult leader found dead and mummified

Opinion: This is why MAGA nativists are in a panic

Inside the housing showdown in D.C.’s Ivy City, where kids have no place to play

Only a few hundred California condors live in the wild, but about 20 teamed up to trash one woman’s deck

Pennsylvania man admits he voted for Trump with his dead mom’s name: ‘I listened to too much propaganda’

Reading archive 2021-04-30

Bombshell Letter: Gaetz Paid for Sex With Minor, Wingman Says

Opinion: Chloé Zhao represents the American Dream — and the Chinese Communist Party’s nightmare - "A bigger problem for Disney, though, is that Zhao represents a very real manifestation of the American Dream: She’s a foreign national who has come to America, broken into a difficult industry and found enormous success. This is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party fears the most: Zhao is a talented citizen who has left her homeland, has found greater freedoms in the United States and, perhaps most importantly, has not returned to China after achieving greatness. This, more than her comments about China being a land of lies, is what terrifies the CCP, according to Hollywood exec Chris Fenton."

In India’s devastating coronavirus surge, anger at Modi grows

FBI warned Giuliani, key Trump ally in Senate of Russian disinformation campaign targeting Biden

Opinion: Australia’s ‘mice plague’ is horrific. Consider yourself warned.

Mouse plague, environmental improvement leads snakes to thrive in Central West

Chinese workers allege forced labor, abuses in Xi’s ‘Belt and Road’ program

How China is choking the Mekong: A river journey reveals displaced villages and a ruined ecosystem

From memes to race war: How extremists use popular culture to lure recruits - "'How many of these people are really reading books about neo-Nazism? Hardly any,' she said. 'The far right has its own culture. They have their own world, their own language, their own music. Many of them are completely ideologically incompatible, but they use conspiracy theories and culture to try to create cohesion where it doesn’t exist.'

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"'The only thing I’m grateful for these days is that Trump allowed us to reach a much broader population and to use a gentler way of bringing people into the fold,' Black said. [ed. note: founder of Stormfront] 'For years, I was pretty demoralized by the number of people turning out to our Columbus Day demonstrations. Then Trump comes along and gets tens of thousands of people and a certain percentage of them look further into our ideas.'"

Reading archive 2020-11-29

Iran’s political establishment faces a serious test of will. So will Joe Biden. - "We know that, following his loss in the U.S. election, President Trump asked his advisers to offer options for strikes on Iranian military installations. The intelligence community and top military advisers oppose the idea. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — America’s top 'diplomat' — shares with his boss the attitude that expertise doesn’t matter nearly as much as finding people to agree with you."

For Trump advocate Sidney Powell, a playbook steeped in conspiracy theories - At the Nov. 19 news conference, before a national television audience, she asserted that “communist money,” the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and a manipulated computer algorithm were all connected in a secret plot that had altered potentially millions of ballots and stolen the election from Trump.

Powell did not stop there. In an interview two days later with the conservative outlet Newsmax, she said she had been given evidence — which she said she could not disclose — that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican and an ally of the president, had taken bribes and conspired to orchestrate Trump’s defeat. Nationwide, she estimated that “thousands” of local elections officials knowingly helped carry out the master scheme to tamper with ballots. In fact, Powell claimed, if anyone bothered to look, they’d probably find that U.S. elections had been rigged for decades.

America needs an epic narrative right now. Painters are working on it.

Iran’s president blames Israel for killing nuclear scientist and vows to respond at the ‘right time’

Marco Rubio is already suiting up for the politics of destruction

Why they fight: The Democrats are a big-tent party. The GOP isn’t. That explains everything. - "In the short term, Democrats clearly have a coalition-management challenge: Big-tent politics requires a lot of work and leads to inevitable bickering. But over the long run, Republicans are confronting decline, not only because the Democrats' diversity better reflects the country, both now and in the future, but also because the GOP's coalition is aging. Among Trump's voters, 65 percent were 45 or older; only 56 percent of Biden's were — and Biden captured voters under 30 by a better than 3-to-2 margin. In fact, the only thing that has saved Republicans in presidential elections over the past three decades is an electoral college that privileges White and conservative voters. The GOP has won the popular vote in only one of the past eight elections. Republicans took heart in their gains among Latinos, but the Hispanic vote was nonetheless key to Biden's success in Arizona and Nevada — and to the Democrats' ongoing advantage in California, New Mexico and elsewhere.

"Still, 2020 did not bring about the larger-scale realignment that the Democrats hoped for (and that was mistakenly forecast by many polls). To nurture that possibility, Biden and the Democrats must find their inner Job, with a little help from Machiavelli. For starters, each camp within the party can acknowledge the truth of what their internal rivals say. The left is right that it provides a lot of energy, especially among young voters and in the urban areas that turned out big for Biden. But the moderates are right that, to win power, the party needs middle-of-the-road voters, particularly from swing districts. This may produce more cautious officeholders, but they are essential to building a congressional majority. 

"Progressives are right that the quest for racial justice should not be compromised — and is, in fact, an electoral asset. (After all, 85 percent of Biden voters told the exit pollsters that the criminal justice system treats Blacks unfairly.) But moderates are right that slogans like 'Defund the police' can bring down moderate lawmakers, such as Staten Island's defeated Rep. Max Rose. Here's a rule for the future: Any slogan that requires five minutes to explain what it really means is not a good slogan."

A Geneticist’s Dilemma: A growing number of scientists believe that the cure for disease can be found in our DNA. But that poses a unique problem for some Native Americans.

An unusual snack for cows, a powerful fix for climate: Feeding them seaweed slashes the amount of methane they burp into the atmosphere

What hunting Bigfoot taught a Republican congressman about politics

China sharply ramps up trade conflict with Australia over political grievances

20 days of fantasy and failure: Inside Trump’s quest to overturn the election - "The 20 days between the election on Nov. 3 and the greenlighting of Biden’s transition exemplified some of the hallmarks of life in Trump’s White House: a government paralyzed by the president’s fragile emotional state; advisers nourishing his fables; expletive-laden feuds between factions of aides and advisers; and a pernicious blurring of truth and fantasy.

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"A simple and clear refutation of the president came Friday from a Trump appointee, when Judge Stephanos Bibas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit wrote a unanimous opinion rejecting the president’s request for an emergency injunction to overturn the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results. 

"'Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,' Bibas wrote. “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.'"