"Inside the climate battle quietly raging about US homes… Away from the headlines, there’s an important fight happening that is pitting real estate developers and utilities against efforts to make America’s new homes more climate friendly."
"Telescopes have captured the rare light flash from a dying star as it was ripped apart by a supermassive black hole." Spaghettification has a definite Pastifarian ring to it.
"The head of Russia’s space agency said that the lunar Gateway, part of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program, is too “U.S.-centric” for it to participate in, even though the Gateway leverages the existing International Space Station partnership."
"SpaceX's first regular operational mission (meaning not a test mission) to ferry astronauts to the ISS has been pushed back to no sooner than early to mid November, NASA announced Saturday."
The Throughline podcast with… "Health insurance for millions of Americans is dependent on their jobs. But it's not like that everywhere. So, how did the U.S. end up with such a fragile system that leaves so many vulnerable or with no health insurance at all? On this episode, how a temporary solution created an everlasting problem."
"A Nevada man who had already gone through a bout of COVID-19 was infected a second time with even worse symptoms, doctors say… They believe it is the first documented case of reinfection in the US, a rare occurrence that nonetheless suggests having had COVID-19 does not automatically confer immunity."
"Just as predicted, the US is now grappling with a new Covid-19 surge -- one that could overwhelm hospitals, kill thousands of Americans a day by January and leave even young survivors with long-term complications." Ta-da!
"Governments across Europe are ratcheting up restrictions in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus as the continent recorded its highest weekly number of new infections since the start of the pandemic."
"Far more Americans have died as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic than have been counted and reported, according to new research published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association… 'For every two Americans that we know of who are dying of Covid-19, another American is dying,' said Dr. Steven Woolf, author of the new research and director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University." Despite what the conspiracy theorists think, we don't have enough tests for the living. We are not testing the dead.
"'Don't be afraid of it. You're going to beat it.'… This was US President Donald Trump's advice to the public if they were worried about catching coronavirus… But, as many have pointed out, this was a man with a helicopter, a large medical team and experimental drug treatments at his disposal. How does the picture change for Americans with Covid-19 who do not reside at the White House?"
"The head of the World Health Organization warned Monday against suggestions by some to just allow COVID-19 to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity, saying this was 'unethical.'… 'Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it,' Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a virtual press briefing. He explained that 'herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached.'"
"Michigan’s COVID-19 executive orders are officially toast… But there are new state rules in their place… After the executive orders were invalidated Oct. 2 by the state Supreme Court, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services revived some of the orders as emergency epidemic orders."
"Social Security beneficiaries will see a 1.3% increase to their monthly checks in 2021… The amount was announced on Tuesday by the Social Security Administration, and was in line with previous estimates."
"This is a training ground of a group of men who plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, according to the FBI. Buried deep in the northern Michigan woods, 30 miles southwest of Cadillac, it also was allegedly used by the group as a meeting place and possible launching pad for their scheme."
"Michigan locals are calling for Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf's resignation after it emerged he shared a stage at a rally with members of the Michigan Liberty Militia group—one of whom was recently arrested for allegedly plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer." Yeah, that probably isn't going to happen.
"Russia on Monday urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to immediately start observing a ceasefire agreed over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as intense fighting between the two Caucasus rivals cast fresh doubt over the accord."
"Criticised by challenger Amy McGrath in a debate Monday night for blocking a new coronavirus relief bill, Mitch McConnell laughed… 'Trying to figure out what he is laughing about,' tweeted Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic senator from Missouri who now works for NBC News."
"Remember all the hope and hype during the last presidential election about how the United States would soon spend a lot of money on infrastructure no matter who won? Four years later, we're still waiting for Washington to take action… But with many investors now betting that Joe Biden will defeat Trump -- and some experts even pricing in the possibility of a blue wave that gives Democrats control of the Senate -- a big infrastructure deal could have a better chance of getting done sometime next year." It must be infrastructure week again.
"GOP Senator Mike Lee tweeted this week that 'we are not a democracy.' On this week’s On the Media, why the Republican party’s political future may depend upon anti-democratic — small-’d’ — ideas. Plus, how the good luck of the so-called “silent” generation has shaped the politics of Joe Biden. And, how the bad luck of the millennial generation might shape our collective future." Still no love for Gen X.
"In his first rally since his own bout with Covid-19, Trump painted a deeply dishonest picture of the nation's battle with the disease, mocked former Vice President Joe Biden over social distancing and vowed victory on November 3 as he began a frantic push to Election Day, marked by multiple rallies a day that could act as superspreader events."
"A U.S. federal appeals court panel on Monday upheld Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to shut down dozens of mail ballot drop-off sites weeks before November’s election… The ruling comes after a federal judge on Friday halted the order, which allowed for only one absentee ballot drop off location for every county, regardless of its size."
"California Republicans in the fall of 2020 reportedly set up their own drop-off boxes for voters to leave mail-in ballots for the upcoming November general election… Jordan Tygh, a regional field director for the California GOP, posted on Oct. 8, 2020, a picture of himself posing with thumbs up in front of one of the drop-boxes on Twitter, along with a message encouraging other voters to contact him for details on the drop-box locations. The post has since been deleted, but a cached version was still available as of this writing…" They can't win unless they cheat.
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