Stephen Sondheim, and so it goes.
"It's the first study of its kind, the scientists said, that combines Einstein's theory of general relativity with realistic models of the densities of main-sequence stars. The results will help us understand what is happening when we observe the flares of light from distant black holes shredding unfortunate stars… And the simulations, supporting a paper that was published last year, are also gorgeous as heck."
"The World Health Organization is warning that the new omicron variant of the coronavirus poses a 'very high' global risk because of the possibility that it spreads more easily and might resist vaccines and immunity in people who were infected with previous strains."
"Dutch border police have said they’ve arrested and detained a couple who left a coronavirus quarantine hotel and were trying to leave the country… The couple, a man from Spain and woman from Portugal according to Dutch media reports, had been asked to quarantine after one of them tested positive for Covid on arrival in the Netherlands on a flight from South Africa." Again, it's too late for travel bans (but quarantines are still good), more than likely the Omicron (Persied 8) variant has already spread worldwide and we don't know if South Africa was actually where it emerged.
"Before she became sick with a coronavirus infection in January, Semhar Fisseha was a healthy, active 39-year-old… She took walks every day and planned summer vacations with her nine-year-old daughter. Now, even activities that many people take for granted can come at a big cost." The Long COVID story, lots of people are going to learn about Spoon Theory.
"Jack Dorsey is stepping down as CEO of Twitter, the social media company he co-founded in 2006. He will be replaced by Twitter's chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, a 10-year veteran of the company."
"For nearly a half century abortion has been a constitutional right in the United States. But this week the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in a Mississippi case that directly challenges Roe v. Wade and subsequent decisions… Those rulings consistently declared that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy in the first two trimesters of pregnancy when a fetus is unable to survive outside the womb. But with the abortion right now in doubt, it's worth looking back at its history."
"So for an entire decade, whether Ohio voters tilted to Democratic or to Republican or a toss-up, when it came to Congress, nothing changed. The makeup was the exact same 12-4 split no matter how the voters voted. In the world’s oldest democracy, the voters basically didn’t matter."
"Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has signed into law a congressional map that creates 15 new districts in the state, but anti-gerrymandering advocates are slamming the map saying it was drawn to keep a Republican stronghold in Ohio… The plan has 12 seats that either heavily favor or lean in favor of Republicans. That's 80% of the districts in a state that voted for former President Donald Trump with 53% of the vote in 2020… Voter rights groups say Republican lawmakers went out of their way to carve the map in a way that gives them an advantage."
"Lawmakers return to Washington with a familiar end of the year agenda — a pile up of important bills and not a lot of time to act on them… The most immediate issue is avoiding a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, but they also need to address the nation's borrowing authority and annual defense policy bill."
"Specifically, the lawmaker said a number of moderates are upset with how McCarthy, of California, has embraced some of the extremists in the GOP conference and warned it could hurt the party in swing districts and undermine their chances of winning back the majority." Dear "moderate" Republicans (formerly the "hard right"), the party has left you. It's not coming back.
"Democrats in Congress are banking that President Biden's Build Back Better agenda — the largest expansion of the social safety net in decades that includes a wide range of programs to address health care, child care, elder care and climate change — is the ticket to keeping their majorities in the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections."
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