Monday, October 31, 2022

And another day of fixing inflation, affirmative action in jeopardy, Rs mocking the attack on Paul Pelosi, a quiet Bolsonaro, a National Day of Action on Abortion, Taylor Swift makes history, ‘planet killer’ asteroids, and finally learning more about the clitoris comes to a close:

“The attempted kidnapping of Nancy Pelosi and attack on Paul Pelosi mark a turning point in American political discourse. Here's why: We are witnessing the GOP not only refuse to widely condemn this attack, we are watching them mock and joke about it. They are normalizing it. Republicans, from the Trump family to right-wing news sites and current elected officials candidates, are using this opportunity to MOCK Democrats and are laughing about this on the campaign trail. This is it. This is the beginning of the GOP soft-walking such violence.” -- Philip Germain

Deaths

US: 1,095,315

World: 6,594,520

Cases

US: 99,374,721

World: 635,657,893

You know what’s scary? Every one of these real-life villains.

What aren’t we doing to fix inflation? There’s no one weird trick to tackle inflation overnight…Efforts to tame high prices in the United States — largely through interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve — aren’t bringing prices down much yet, though the hope is that eventually they will. Still, it’s not a perfect approach. Much of what’s contributing to inflation — Russia’s war in Ukraine, Covid-19, continued supply chain issues — is really out of the US central bank’s sphere of influence altogether. Interest rate increases take time to work their way through the economy, and the Fed’s rate hikes are likely to cost jobs and could even push the country into a recession. This means they’re going to make things worse before, at some point, they get better. I reached out to seven experts across the ideological spectrum to ask where we go from here. While monetary policy — the Fed’s decisions about interest rates — is typically seen as the main tool for bringing down inflation, is there more that policymakers can and should be doing to help address this mess? Their answers, edited for length and clarity, are below.

Affirmative action in jeopardy after justices raise doubts. The court’s six conservative justices all expressed doubts about the practice, which has been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978. The court’s three liberals defended the programs, which are similar to those used by many other private and public universities. Getting rid of race-conscious college admissions would have a “destabilizing” effect that would cause the ranks of Black and Latino students to plummet at the nation’s most selective schools, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, said.

Suspect in Paul Pelosi attack planned to break House speaker's kneecaps, DOJ says in filing charges. The San Francisco district attorney announced state charges against David DePape, 42, that included attempted murder. The DA said the attack appeared to be "politically motivated." The suspect also allegedly told investigators that "by breaking Nancy's kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions."

Of Course Republicans Are Mocking the Brutal Attack on Nancy Pelosi’s Husband. Everything from the rush to define political motives to the GOP’s despicable taunting is simply the way we live now. Of course, to call this out is to also play the game; it’s almost impossible to condemn the right’s response without enriching their hopes of getting “canceled.” The political finger-pointing, even when the ledger sinks so heavily to one side, feels like a pantomime. All of it is bile—and it’s the hallmark of this political era, however you want to define that.

Brazil’s brash President Bolsonaro mum after election loss. Nearly a full day after President Jair Bolsonaro lost his bid for reelection, the usually brash right-wing leader had neither conceded defeat nor challenged the results of the country’s closest political contest in more than three decades. Bolsonaro hadn’t spoken a word to reporters camped outside the official residence or the supporters who regularly gather nearby. Nor did he post on his otherwise prolific social media platforms.

Doctors Call for National Day of Action on Abortion: 'We Can't Just All Get Thrown Into Jail. Highlighting the community-wide harms of criminalizing abortion providers is the basis for a new campaign called Doctors for Abortion Access. The collective is leading a national day of action on November 3, when medical workers will protest in Washington, DC, their own hometowns, and on social media. They will highlight the dangers of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) proposed nationwide abortion ban and ask politicians to untie their hands. Specifically, they will urge Congress to restore providers’ ability to provide care by codifying the protections of Roe into federal law via the Women’s Health Protection Act. In short: “Leave the medicine to those of us who trained for that,” Irobunda said. They’re asking more doctors, abortion providers, and medical students to sign up to join the action.

Trump asks justices to keep tax returns from House committee. Former President Donald Trump is going to the Supreme Court, again, this time to try to stop his tax returns from being handed to a congressional committee. In an emergency appeal filed Monday, Trump wants the court to order at least a temporary hold on the Treasury Department turning over his returns to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee. Trump said the handover could happen as soon as Thursday, without the court’s intervention.

GOP seizes on voter hesitancy to attack EVs as costly to US. Heading into next week’s midterm elections, many Republican candidates are seeking to capitalize on voters’ concerns about inflation by vilifying a key component of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda: electric vehicles. -- There are no good Republicans. None.

Musk floats paid Twitter verification, fires board. Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating major changes for Twitter — and faces major hurdles as he begins his first week as owner of the social-media platform. Twitter’s new owner fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Does adversity make you stronger? Scientists say not always. There’s an old saying that adversity makes you stronger. Real life shows that’s not always true, but the adage highlights an evolving debate among scientists about resilience. After traumatic events and crises such as child abuse, gun violence or a pandemic, what explains why some people bounce back, while others struggle to cope? Is it nature — genes and other inherent traits? Or nurture — life experiences and social interactions? Decades of research suggest both play a role, but that neither seals a person’s fate.

Scientists Finally Learned More About the Clitoris. On average, they counted 5,140 dorsal clitoral nerve fibers among their samples. And since the clitoris, like most body parts, is symmetrical, that ought to mean that the average dorsal nerve of the clitoris contains 10,281 fibers. Because there are other relevant nerves in the clitoris, the authors note, even this count is an underestimate of how many nerve endings the organ truly has…They note that a commonly cited figure of the clitoris having 8,000 nerve endings seems to originate from a single study of cows—about 20% less than their clitoral count.

Taylor Swift Makes History as First Artist With Entire Top 10 on Billboard Hot 100. Taylor Swift scores one of the most historic weeks in the 64-year history of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as she becomes the first artist to claim the survey’s entire top 10 in a single frame.

‘Planet killer’ asteroid spotted hiding in the sun’s glare. Astronomers have spotted three near-Earth asteroids that were lurking undetected within the glare of the sun. One of the asteroids is the largest potentially hazardous object posing a risk to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Sunday, October 30, 2022

And another day of elections in Brazil, threats to US democracy, Republicans trying to stop you from voting, churches breaking the law and endorsing elections, FL bans gender-affirming care, and Elon turns Twitter into a hellscape of disinformation comes to a close:

“REMINDER: Inflation is temporary, losing your democracy is permanent.” -- Dean Obeidallah

“I need someone to explain to me why it’s legal for armed, masked men to threaten people who want to vote, but illegal for people to give voters water to drink. Explain it to me like I’m in kindergarten.” -- Andrea Junker

Deaths

US: 1,095,204

World: 6,593,685

Cases

US: 99,345,927

World: 635,450,458

Lula defeats Bolsonaro to again become Brazil’s president. Brazil’s electoral authority said Sunday that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the leftist Worker’s Party defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the country’s next president. With 98.8% of the votes tallied in the runoff vote, da Silva had 50.8% and Bolsonaro 49.2%, and the election authority said da Silva’s victory was a mathematical certainty. -- Thought we’d start off with a little good news today. Of course, with the vote being as close as it was, I expect Brazil to have their own version of January 6 fairly soon.

“They defeated extremism and fascism in Brazil. Let’s do it in America.” -- George Takei

“It will be really terrible if Brazil rejects fascism two weeks before America embraces it.” -- John Pavlovitz

Pelosi attack shocks country on edge about democracy threats. An America that can already feel like it’s hurtling toward political disintegration has been jolted yet again, this time by the violent attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi less than two weeks before Election Day.

Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, tweeted out an unfounded conspiracy theory Sunday morning about the attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from a website that has a history of publishing false information...“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Musk wrote to Clinton, linking to a story published on a right-wing website called the Santa Monica Observer that questioned the circumstances of the attack on Pelosi, according to an archived version of the story. (The website was no longer accessible late Sunday morning.) -- The story that the trash that is Elon Musk shared claimed that Nancy Pelosi’s assassin was a prostitute and that Paul Pelosi was “drunk again” and the two had a dispute. Musk has since deleted his tweet.

MTG says Biden better resign before a Republican majority in the House starts their investigations of him in Jan 2023. — They are telling us exactly what they plan to do if they gain power. Are you listening?

In 5 key battlegrounds, most GOP state legislative nominees are election deniers, report finds. Experts warn that if enough are elected, Republican majorities in the state houses of these crucial battlegrounds could have the power to rewrite election laws. Nearly 6 in 10 Republican state legislature nominees in five key battleground states deny the results of the 2020 election, according to an analysis by a group tracking the races. Of those 450 Republican nominees — including incumbents running for re-election and nonincumbents — in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Minnesota, 58% of them have echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, according to research shared exclusively with NBC News by The States Project, a left-leaning group that tracked state legislative races in battleground states.

Republicans Want to Stop You From Voting. Here’s How to Fight Back. Voter suppression is racism in action, and the GOP is counting on it to win in November. Supposedly, these rules are to prevent voter fraud, but countless studies have shown that there is no significant voter fraud in America.  Rather, from its origins in 19th Century Jim Crow laws to the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, “voter fraud” is a lie told for ulterior motives. What motives? Well, that’s where the “certain people” part comes in.  Republican voting restrictions just so happen to disproportionately impact people who are Black or Brown, young, poor, queer, or marginalized – in other words, people who just so happen to favor Democrats and oppose  nationalistic, white-male-dominated, Christian-fundamentalist-majority party that doles out tax cuts to the ultra-rich and cuts services for everyone else.  It really is that simple. — Yes. It really is that simple. Stop voting for Republicans. Unless of course you are a racist, in which case then own up to it.

Churches are breaking the law and endorsing in elections, experts say. The IRS looks the other way. For nearly 70 years, federal law has barred churches from directly involving themselves in political campaigns, but the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen about publicly backing candidates. Burden’s sermon is among those at 18 churches identified by the news organizations over the past two years that appeared to violate the Johnson Amendment, a measure named after its author, former President Lyndon B. Johnson. Some pastors have gone so far as to paint candidates they oppose as demonic. At one point, churches fretted over losing their tax-exempt status for even unintentional missteps. But the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen. In fact, the number of apparent violations found by ProPublica and the Tribune, and confirmed by three nonprofit tax law experts, are greater than the total number of churches the federal agency has investigated for intervening in political campaigns over the past decade, according to records obtained by the news organizations...The Johnson Amendment does not prohibit churches from inviting political speakers or discussing positions that may seem partisan nor does it restrict voters from making faith-based decisions on who should represent them. But because donations to churches are tax-deductible and because churches don’t have to file financial disclosures with the IRS, without such a rule donors seeking to influence elections could go undetected, said Andrew Seidel, vice president of strategic communications for the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. -- Organized religion is such a con game.

Florida medical board votes to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The Florida Board of Medicine voted to start drafting a rule that will ban puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for trans youths under 18. -- Republicans are literally trying to kill trans youth.

Colleges dabble in real estate to help US staff afford housing. The lack of affordable housing is threatening school administrators' ability to attract and hire employees. So now the University of Vermont and a number of schools across the country are tackling the housing crunch head-on with a new strategy: building homes targeting faculty and staff. — Housing is a human right. 

S. Korea in shock, grief as 153 die in Halloween crowd surge. Concerned relatives raced to hospitals in search of their loved ones Sunday as South Korea mourned the deaths of more than 150 people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who got trapped and crushed after a huge Halloween party crowd surged into a narrow alley in a nightlife district in Seoul.

Twitter is planning to start charging $20 per month for verification. And if the employees building it don’t meet their deadline, they’ll be fired by Elon Musk. The directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users, according to people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence seen by The Verge. Twitter is currently planning to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription. Under the current plan, verified users would have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue checkmark. Employees working on the project were told on Sunday that they need to meet a deadline of November 7th to launch the feature or they will be fired.

Powerball grand prize climbs to $1B without a jackpot winner. The Powerball jackpot keeps getting larger because players keep losing. It happened again Saturday night as no one matched all six numbers and won the estimated $825 million grand prize. That means the next drawing Monday night will be for a massive $1 billion, according to a statement by Powerball.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Friday, October 28, 2022

And another day political violence, voter suppression, young girls being sold in India to repay loans, no PDA for LGBTQ+ World Cup fans in Qatar, the shifting mood at Twitter, ‘moderation councils,’ and same-sex marriage in Mexico comes to a close:

“Democracy is not billionaires buying elections.” — Bernie Sanders

“I’m waiting for the police briefing, but i want to be clear:  when you convince people that politicians are rigging elections, drink babies blood, etc, you will get violence.  This must be rejected. This is why the Jan 6th committee is so important.” -- Rep. Adam Kinzinger

Deaths

US: 1,095,166 (+570)

World: 6,592,278 (+2876)

Cases

US: 99,331,610 (+49,656)

World: 635,047,235 (+436,404)

Assailant shouted ‘Where is Nancy?’ in attack. The intruder who attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their San Francisco home was searching for the Democratic leader, shouting “Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?” before assaulting Paul Pelosi with a hammer. That was a chilling echo of the chants during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, when rioters trying to stop Joe Biden’s election searched menacingly through the halls for the speaker. Paul Pelosi was attacked and severely beaten by an assailant with a hammer who broke into the Pelosi home early Friday, according to people familiar with the investigation. The intruder confronted him shouting for the speaker’s whereabouts, according to another person briefed on the situation. -- So it was an assissination attempt.

“Political violence is a hallmark of the MAGA movement. We must put an end to it on November 8th.” -- The Lincoln Project

New US state voting laws present most intense voter suppression threat in decades. The proliferation of election crime legislation represents the most intense voter suppression threat in decades and comes in direct response to former president Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent. In the last two years, at least 130 bills have been introduced across 42 states that would increase the involvement of law enforcement in the voting process, the analysis shows. Of those bills, 28 have passed in 20 states.

How the Left Lost Faith in SCOTUS and Learned to Love Packing the Court. Climate, abortion, LGBTQ, and gun control groups want to expand the court—before it is too late. Staring down the court’s new term, which began last week, reform feels even more urgent. The court stands poised to allow more pollution of America’s water, to end affirmative action in college admissions, to give businesses the right to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and to green light gerrymandering schemes that disempower people of color. And that’s just the big cases in the term’s first three months. This is worse than a nightmare for the left, as SCOTUSBlog founder Tom Goldstein explained in July, because “you wake up from a nightmare and it’s over at some point.” But this court’s rulings will shape American life “for the next quarter century.” -- My children’s future is very, very bleak.

Herschel Walker Isn’t Everybody’s Hero in His Hometown. Of all the residents willing to talk to me, half told me they felt Walker had turned their back on them and their needs in Wrightsville, where the median annual income is $26,250, and the main attractions are a Confederate soldier memorial and a diner called Cornbread Cafe. The other half —those who supported Walker—were all white. — And that fact speaks volumes about Herschel fucking Walker.

US gathered intel on Oregon protesters, report shows. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in the Trump administration compiled extensive intelligence dossiers on people who were arrested, even for minor offenses, during Black Lives Matter protests in Oregon.

Young girls being sold in India to repay loans, says human rights body. People living in many rural areas in India often have to borrow money from fellow villagers when a family member falls seriously ill and needs medical treatment. Local media reports say that in half a dozen districts around Bhilwara, if a family cannot repay a loan, the aggrieved creditor has complained to the “caste panchayats” or caste councils. By way of “settlement”, the councils have ordered the family to hand over their daughter – sometimes more than one depending on the size of the loan – so that the creditor can sell her to a trafficker to recoup his money. In its notice, the commission said that if the family refuses to sell their daughter, “their mothers are subjected to rape on the diktats of caste panchayats for the settlement of disputes”. -- This pissed me off so much I couldn’t think of anything to say except fucking disgusting. Many humans are just fucking disgusting. Fuck.

LGBTQ+ World Cup fans told hand-holding fine – but no kissing. Qatar’s ambassador to the UK has said LGBTQ+ couples visiting the country for the World Cup can “hold hands”, but should be mindful of “public displays of affection”. — What a bunch of bullshit. 

Twitter’s first full day under Elon Musk is here, and the mood has already shifted. Expectations for change were almost everywhere, with many conservative influencers already celebrating what they saw as a tectonic shift. -- Let’s be very clear: MAGA Republicans have many platforms where their voice is heard. They are not oppressed in any fucking way. Twitter may soon be another one they have.

Musk took over Twitter. Then some users began testing chaos. But the jury is still out on what will become of the social media platform — and what it will tolerate. Observers are eyeing who stays, who goes and who might potentially come back from the list of people the platform has banned over the years. They range from Trump, to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke — none of whom have returned to the platform so far.

Elon Musk says Twitter will form a 'moderation council' before it reinstates banned accounts. There won't be any "major" content decisions or ban reversals until that council meets, the entrepreneur says.

Massive learning setbacks show COVID’s sweeping toll on kids. The analysis found the average student lost more than half a school year of learning in math and nearly a quarter of a school year in reading – with some district averages slipping by more than double those amounts, or worse.

Mexico celebrates as same-sex marriage becomes law of the land. Same-sex marriage has been fully legalised across Mexico, after the final state, Tamaulipas, voted in favour of the law on Wednesday (26 October).

Flu hospitalizations are rising dramatically, and earlier than ever, CDC says. Flu hospitalizations are rising across all age groups, especially children. The increase comes as other respiratory viruses, including RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, are also spiking in kids. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 76% of pediatric hospital beds nationwide are full.

RIP Jerry Lee Lewis. He was 87.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Thursday, October 27, 2022

And another day of dismantling democracy, dying younger in red states, the ‘irreversible’ climate breakdown, US economy grows, the US should be a ‘Christian nation,’ complicated feelings about parents, and Musk officially takes over Twitter comes to a close:

“On the other hand, I think the richest person on earth, who has recently expressed affinity for the hard right, taking over the most politically influential website in the world is probably very bad news.” -- Max Berger

“Astounding number of white people who think they would have been a hero of the past while being a villain in the present.” — saira rao 

“What that says to me is that democracy is dying.” — Dale Schultz, who served as a Republican in the (WI) state senate from 1991 to 2015, including as majority leader.

Deaths

US: 1,094,596

World: 6,589,402

Cases

US: 99,281,954

World: 634,610,831

How Wisconsin Became the GOP’s Laboratory for Dismantling Democracy. Republicans are trying to make state politics voter-proof. If they prevail, the next coup attempt may well succeed. “What we’ve seen over and over is that Republicans use Wisconsin as a Petri dish, as a testing ground, for anti-democracy innovations that they then export nationwide.”…That nightmare scenario, which Trump haphazardly tried to pull off in 2020, is now dangerously close to becoming a reality. Wisconsin Republicans are laying the groundwork to potentially overthrow the election in 2024 through more sophisticated and ostensibly legal means. “If we’re talking about things that are anti-democratic and concerns about the integrity of our elections,” says state Rep. Greta Neubauer, the Democratic leader in the assembly, “the threat that the legislature would decide who won the presidency rather than the voters should be at the top of the list.”…The lame-duck session showed how much power the legislature could exercise without public support—the very type of power grab Republicans are now hoping to replicate across the country. In hindsight, the soft coup in Wisconsin seems like a practice run for the full-on coup attempted by Trump in 2020. Evers sees the lame-duck session as a precursor to January 6 and says “there hasn’t been a peaceful transition of power” in Wisconsin since 2018…“Thus far, we have seen Republicans make no effort to discuss or consider overturning the abortion ban or even modifying it,” says Neubauer, the assembly minority leader. “This is not what would happen if we had a fair map. Because Republicans would know that they couldn’t get away with holding this position.” The GOP’s steadfast support for the abortion ban could very well cost Republican candidates in Wisconsin votes in close races this year, but Republicans in the legislature worry far more about primary challenges from the right than a general election defeat because of the deep red districts they represent due to gerrymandering. In an assembly with 99 members, only six races are truly competitive, according to Marquette’s Johnson. — And this is why the GOP does what it does. They know they can do whatever they want, regardless of public opinion, because they know they cannot lose the next election. They have rigged the maps in their favor, and we will all suffer because of it.

More Americans die younger in states with conservative policies, study finds. The United States has a working-age mortality problem: Americans die younger than people in most other high-income countries. While many blame drug overdoses, rising suicide rates and bad health habits, a new study suggests policymakers may play a bigger role than previously thought. Researchers looked at policies relating to criminal justice, marijuana, the environment, gun safety, health and welfare, private labor, economic taxes, and tobacco taxes, and scored them on a 0-to-1 continuum, where the maximum conservative score is zero and the maximum liberal score is one. They merged that information with mortality data spanning from 1999 to 2019, and found liberal policies were associated with lower deaths among people aged 25 to 64, according to the study published Wednesday in PLOS ONE. The analysis revealed changing state policies to fully liberal could have saved more than 171,000 lives in 2019, while changing them to fully conservative may have cost over 217,000 lives…Woolf said the policies could be split into two camps: One, lower working-age mortality was associated with policies that invested more in human capital, focused on family investments, and promoted economic opportunity in an equitable way. Two, higher working-age mortality was associated with policies that put more emphasis on “helping the private sector to thrive in hopes that the economic gains would trickle down to those who need more assistance,” he said. "State policy matters," Gaskin said. “We always get the promise from conservative states that we’re going to cut your taxes and regulation and make the environment better for business, and it comes with a cost."

World close to ‘irreversible’ climate breakdown, warn major studies. The climate crisis has reached a “really bleak moment”, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has said, after a slew of major reports laid bare how close the planet is to catastrophe. Collective action is needed by the world’s nations more now than at any point since the second world war to avoid climate tipping points, Prof Johan Rockström said, but geopolitical tensions are at a high. He said the world was coming “very, very close to irreversible changes … time is really running out very, very fast”. Emissions must fall by about half by 2030 to meet the internationally agreed target of 1.5C of heating but are still rising, the reports showed – at a time when oil giants are making astronomical amounts of money. -- Those profits won’t mean shit if the planet can’t sustain life. Such shortsighted greed.

Shell announces $4 billion share buyback as profits double. Shell will buy back $4 billion worth of shares and increase its dividend by 15% after posting another gigantic quarterly profit thanks to strong oil and gas prices. — And yet MAGA supporters blame Biden for high gas prices.

The COVID symptoms you get depend on how many vaccine jabs you’ve had, major study says. In an update to the ongoing Zoe Health Study, which has collected data from almost 5 million participants since 2020, researchers said they had identified symptoms that had emerged in recent weeks, noting that they appeared to differ depending on vaccination status.

U.S. economy returned to growth last quarter, expanding 2.6 percent. Thursday’s estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation’s gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of economic output — grew in the third quarter after having shrunk in the first half of 2022. Stronger exports and steady consumer spending, backed by a healthy job market, helped restore growth to the world’s biggest economy.

GOP’s Cheney endorses Michigan Democrat Slotkin in a first. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday endorsed and plans to campaign for Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, the first time that the critic of former President Donald Trump, who lost her GOP primary, has crossed party lines to formally support a Democrat.

University of Florida to enforce protest ban after anti-Sasse rally. The University of Florida is going to start enforcing a decades-old prohibition against indoor protests following a raucous demonstration earlier this month against the selection of U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse as a finalist for the school president’s job. Sasse, a Republican in his second Senate term, has drawn criticism from some at the school for his opposition to same-sex marriage.

45% of Americans Say U.S. Should Be a ‘Christian Nation’. But they hold differing opinions about what that phrase means, and two-thirds of U.S. adults say churches should keep out of politics. This raises the question: What do people mean when they say the U.S. should be a “Christian nation”? While some people who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation define the concept as one where a nation’s laws are based on Christian tenets and the nation’s leaders are Christian, it is much more common for people in this category to see a Christian nation as one where people are more broadly guided by Christian values or a belief in God, even if its laws are not explicitly Christian and its leaders can have a variety of faiths or no faith at all. Some people who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation are thinking about the religious makeup of the population; to them, a Christian nation is a country where most people are Christians. Others are simply envisioning a place where people treat each other well and have good morals. — Christianity is neither necessary nor sufficient to be a good person.

Elon Musk has officially taken control of Twitter after finalising a $44bn deal to buy the social media network. Musk’s interest in the platform has become a lightning rod for the debate around free speech in the digital age, with critics expressing fears his control of the platform could mean open slather for hate speech and misinformation. Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist”, has criticised Twitter’s moderation policies and objected to censorship that goes beyond the requirements of the law.

Musk doesn’t seek a “free-for-all hellscape” for Twitter. Elon Musk is telling Twitter advertisers he is buying the platform to “help humanity” and doesn’t want it to become a “free-for-all hellscape” where anything can be said with no consequences. The message to advertisers posted Thursday on Twitter came a day before Musk’s deadline for closing his $44 billion deal to buy the social-media company and take it private.

Mortgage rates top 7% for the first time since 2002. Mortgage rates have risen almost every week since late August and more than doubled since the beginning of the year.

WHO: Tuberculosis cases rise for the first time in years. The number of people infected with tuberculosis, including the kind resistant to drugs, rose globally for the first time in years, according to a report Thursday by the World Health Organization. The U.N. health agency said more than 10 million people worldwide were sickened by tuberculosis in 2021, a 4.5% rise from the year before. About 1.6 million people died, it said. WHO said about 450,000 cases involved people infected with drug-resistant TB, 3% more than in 2020.

"I'm Expected To Take Care Of Them When They Didn't Take Care Of Me": Gen X'ers Are Having Complicated Feelings About Their Parents, And It's Sadly Relatable. "Now our parents are older and they need us, and many of us are struggling because we were not taken care of. But now we are expected to take care of [them], and that's creating a lot of issues."…She continued, "This wasn’t everyone’s experience, but it was a lot of people’s experience. Also, corporal punishment was still the main way kids were disciplined, and many were abused because their parents thought that was the best way to get kids in line. 'Gentle parenting' was not heard of. Gen X are now parents themselves and have remarked to me that they used to give their parents excuses but now realize 'it wouldn’t have been that hard' to show up for us the way we show up for our kids." She said that these clients tend to come to her because they are experiencing exhaustion, guilt, frustration, anger, and resentment.

Hawaii’s Big Island gets warning as huge volcano rumbles. Hawaii officials are warning residents of the Big Island that the world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa, is sending signals that it may erupt. Scientists say an eruption isn’t imminent, but they are on alert because of a recent spike in earthquakes at the volcano’s summit. Experts say it would take just a few hours for lava to reach homes closest to vents on the volcano, which last erupted in 1984.

Space rock slams into Mars, forming a crater that revealed chunks of ice. The space rock also revealed boulder-size ice chunks when it slammed into Mars. They were found buried closer to the warm Martian equator than any ice that has ever been detected on the planet.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

And another day of riskier births, returning to the pre-1973 definition of ‘obscenity,’ wanting more action on climate change, video games and brain function tests, and creative ‘anti-cheating’ exam hats comes to a close:

“Hate is the defining feature of the MAGA Republican movement. Remember that when you vote in 14 days.” — The Lincoln Project

Deaths

US: 1,093,338

World: 6,585,852

Cases

US: 99,141,254

World: 633,775,234

Abortion ruling means more and riskier births in Mississippi. In Mississippi, where health officials expect 5,000 more births each year as a result of the Supreme Court ruling upending abortion rights, children are more likely to die before their first birthday than in any other state.

Utah Republican Argues for Return to Pre-1973 Definition of 'Obscenity'. A Republican member of the Utah state legislature is arguing for a return to the pre-1973 standard for determining what speech or expression is “obscene” and therefore not protected by the First Amendment. Utah Rep. Ken Ivory (R-West Jordan), whose “Sensitive Materials in Schools” bill HB 374, banning what he considers “pornographic and indecent books” in the state’s public schools, was signed into law in March, last week demanded a total reversal of the last 50 years of legal and judicial practice. Ivory dismissed the “Miller test,” which has been the nation's legal standard for a half century, as merely the opinion of a few Supreme Court justices at the time. -- Stop voting for Republicans.

“They want to take away our abortions, birth control, books, porn, privacy! Our gay marriage, our drag queens, and ultimately our freedom. Vote like you mean it.” -- Mistress Matisse

Three dead, including gunman, after shooting at St. Louis high school, officials say. The shooter, who appears to be about 20 years old, was taken into custody inside the performing arts school, according to a tweet from St. Louis Public Schools. He was pronounced dead a short time later, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said during an afternoon news conference.

U.S. student test results document pandemic's toll on learning. U.S. students have experienced historic learning setbacks with math and reading scores falling to their lowest levels in years, national exam results released on Monday showed, the latest sign of the damage the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought on schoolchildren. Math scores saw their largest drop on record, a trend consistent across most U.S. states and almost all demographic groups, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the "Nation's Report Card," which tested hundreds of fourth- and eighth-graders nationwide.

Most in US want more action on climate change: AP-NORC poll. Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the federal government is not doing enough to fight climate change, according to a new poll that shows limited public awareness about a sweeping new law that commits the U.S. to its largest ever investment to combat global warming. Democrats in Congress approved the Inflation Reduction Act in August, handing President Joe Biden a hard-fought triumph on priorities that his party hopes will bolster prospects for keeping their House and Senate majorities in November’s elections. Biden and Democratic lawmakers have touted the new law as a milestone achievement leading into the midterm elections, and environmental groups have spent millions to boost the measure in battleground states. Yet the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 61% of U.S. adults say they know little to nothing about it. -- Stop voting for Republicans--all Republicans--to have any kind of chance of fighting climate change.

Doctors say ‘fossil fuel addiction’ kills, starves millions. Extreme weather from climate change triggered hunger in nearly 100 million people and increased heat deaths by 68% in vulnerable populations worldwide as the world’s “fossil fuel addiction” degrades public health each year, doctors reported in a new study. Worldwide the burning of coal, oil, natural gas and biomass forms air pollution that kills 1.2 million people a year, including 11,800 in the United States, according to a report Tuesday in the prestigious medical journal Lancet.

The soundtrack to the climate crisis is apocalypse pop. Gen Z is channeling climate anxiety and anger into music. A 2021 survey in The Lancet showed that 56 percent of people ages 16 to 25 believe “humanity is doomed,” and 75 percent describe the future as “frightening,” highlighting a generational divide in outlook on climate change…For young fans feeling like they’re watching the end of the world, Strange offers up the possibility that letting go of one idea of the future makes room for a new one to begin. He hints at what Ray calls the “radical imagination” needed to see a future that lies just beyond certain doom. That imagination is crucial for finding climate solutions, but the trick is that it can’t be accessed by trying to bypass climate emotions with dismissal or detachment.

Adidas ends partnership with Ye over antisemitic remarks. Adidas ended a partnership that helped make the artist formerly known as Kanye West a billionaire and lent the German sportswear an edgy appeal, but ultimately couldn’t survive a mounting outcry over the rapper’s offensive and antisimetic remarks.

Russian court rejects Griner appeal of her 9-year sentence. A Russian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner of her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession, a step that could move her closer to a possible high-stakes prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.

Kids who play video games score higher on brain function tests. Kids who play video games have better memory and better control over their motor skills than kids who don’t, according to a new study looking at adolescent brain function. Video games might not be responsible for those differences — the study can’t say what the causes are — but the findings add to a bigger body of work showing gamers have better performance on some tests of brain function. That lends support to efforts to develop games that can treat cognitive problems.

Philippines: Student 'anti-cheating' exam hats go viral. Students at one college in Legazpi City were asked to wear headgear that would prevent them peeking at others' papers. Many responded by creating homemade contraptions out of cardboard, egg boxes and other recycled materials. -- Check out the hats. Very creative.

The hunt for habitable planets may have just gotten far more narrow, new study finds. Scientists had long hoped and theorized that the most common type of star in our universe — called an M dwarf — could host nearby planets with atmospheres, potentially rich with carbon and perfect for the creation of life. But in a new study of a world orbiting an M dwarf 66 light-years from Earth, researchers found no indication such a planet could hold onto an atmosphere at all.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.