Election of a black president created violent backlash we’re witnessing in the US
Watching the storming of the Capitol last week, many progressive critics of American foreign policy concluded that the country’s chickens were finally coming home to roost. This was the blowback from America’s many military interventions, forever wars and coup attempts. Regime change had returned to Washington. For these critics, the...
Covid re-infections are rare, but can still spread the virus
Most people who catch and recover from Covid-19 are likely to be immune for several months afterwards, a study of more than 20,000 health-care workers in the United Kingdom has found. The study – called SARS-CoV-2 Immunity and Reinfection Evaluation (SIREN) – concluded that immune responses from past infection reduce...
Threats of violence force Biden to change travel plans to his inauguration
Almost every other detail of that day, however, is in flux, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the impeachment of his predecessor on Wednesday and the attempted insurrection on the very spot where President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in. After last week’s failed insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters...
How coronavirus vaccine rollout faces a two-shot problem in the US
More than nine million shots have been given, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and just shy of 400,000 people have received the second dose that confers 95 per cent protection against the virus. That seems like good news – but just about everyone watching the process...
House passes motion to invoke 25th Amendment and kick Trump out of office
The House of Representatives passed a nonbinding measure Tuesday night calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Donald Trump from office. One Republican, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, joined all Democrats in voting 223-205 to pass the largely symbolic measure. The nonbinding measure...
Plan to build a global network of floating power stations on oceans
Early last year, just a few weeks before the pandemic brought life in the United States to a standstill, Yi Chao and a small team of researchers dropped a slender metal tube into the Pacific Ocean off the Hawaiian coast. After nearly two decades as an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet...
House Democrats introduce article of impeachment against Donald Trump
House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Monday for “incitement of insurrection,” in the wake of last week’s deadly riot at the US Capitol. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Democratic-Md) told Punchbowl News that he expects a vote on the article could come as early...
In bizarre American drama, fiction preserves systemic structures of imbalance
Fiction is a useful currency in the stories we tell ourselves. In the arts especially, fiction is fundamental to awakening universal, human truths – be it your favourite prestige TV thriller, the dystopias of Ray Bradbury’s imagination or one of the countless parodies posted on TikTok every day. In real...
Zuckerberg to Trump: Go away quietly, don’t undermine law and order
As of Thursday morning, following a day in which a mob of the president’s supporters violently invaded the US Capitol, the president’s Twitter account was temporarily frozen. YouTube had taken down his latest video and most remarkably, Mark Zuckerberg had announced that Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended indefinitely....
Now Trump pledges ‘orderly’ transition after riot and Biden win certification
President Donald Trump on Thursday finally pledged to an orderly transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden while repeating false claims about the 2020 election that led a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol and delay Congress’ affirmation of Biden’s Electoral College win. “Even though I totally...
