| 86% of Air Force pilots are white men. Here’s why this needs to change. Posted: 20 Oct 2020 08:50 AM PDT  Pursuing equality in the military requires attracting the most capable people from all races and walks of life, says Air Force Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas.
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| CDC criticizes White House medical adviser's discredited mask claim Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:12 AM PDT  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is criticizing a White House coronavirus adviser for spreading misinformation about facial coverings, in a potential escalation of the feud between the administration and public health officials within the federal government.
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| Florida company warns employees they might lose jobs if Trump doesn’t win Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:52 PM PDT  Boss has given hundreds of thousands to Republican political causes
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| Fact check: True claim about Harris failing bar exam on first try and Barrett's law school rank Posted: 18 Oct 2020 12:32 PM PDT  A post compares the early career qualifications of Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Sen. Kamala Harris. We rate this claim true.
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| Andrew Cuomo: Americans ‘Should Be’ Skeptical of Coronavirus Vaccine Posted: 19 Oct 2020 07:31 AM PDT  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday said he is "not that confident" in the approval process for a coronavirus vaccine and that Americans "should be" skeptical of any vaccine for the virus put forth by the FDA.Cuomo appeared on Good Morning America to discuss New York's efforts in fighting the coronavirus. The state has largely remained at a 1 percent positivity rate for months, but is tightening restrictions in areas of the state where cases have spiked as colder weather pushes people back indoors.When asked by George Stephanopolous if he was "confident" in the FDA's approval process for a vaccine, Cuomo expressed skepticism. > Gov. @andrewcuomo: Americans "should be" skeptical of any Covid vaccine the CDC/FDA clear for use pic.twitter.com/yBkVsXIOWn> > -- Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 19, 2020"I'm not that confident but my opinion doesn't matter," he said. "But I don't believe the American people are that confident. You are going to say to the American people now, 'Here's a vaccine, it was new, it was done quickly, but trust this federal administration, their health administration that it's safe, and we're not 100 percent sure of the consequences,' I think it's going to be a very skeptical American public about taking the vaccine, and they should be."Stephanopolous asked Cuomo what it would take for him to be convinced that it's safe, effective and should be distributed."What I said I'm going to do in New York is we're going to put together our own group of doctors and medical experts to review the vaccine and the efficacy and the protocol, and if they say it's safe, I'll go to the people of New York and I will say it's safe with that credibility," Cuomo said in response. "But I believe, all across the country, you are going to need someone other than this FDA and this CDC saying it's safe."The Democrat said he believed the FDA and the CDC have "lost their credibility.""You have Dr. Fauci saying that they tried to muzzle him, and he has the highest credibility in the nation on this issue," he said.Dr. Fauci, for his part, has said he would trust an eventual vaccine approved by the FDA.Cuomo also accused the administration of "learning nothing from the past," in giving Americans false hope that a vaccine will bring about an immediate end to the pandemic. "They are saying the day we get the vaccine that's when this ends," Cuomo said. "That's not true. The day we get the vaccine, we then have to prove to the American people that it's safe, we then have to administer millions of doses and that is a massive undertaking that this administration hasn't even talked about and is going to take months."
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| French police raid homes of dozens of suspected Islamists to send message to 'enemies of the republic' Posted: 19 Oct 2020 01:44 AM PDT  French police raided the homes of dozens of suspected Islamist militants on Monday as the government moved to ban groups accused of spreading extremism following the beheading of a teacher. The authorities plan to search the premises of more than 51 groups this week, including NGOs suspected of using campaigns against Islamophobia as a cover for Islamist propaganda. "Some of these groups will be banned," said Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister. He added that there would not be "a minute's respite for the enemies of the Republic". The brutal murder of Samuel Paty has stunned a nation already traumatised by terror attacks that have killed more than 250 people since 2015. Mr Paty was decapitated by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee influenced by an online campaign against the history and geography teacher for discussing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a class about freedom of expression. Muslims regard depictions of the prophet as blasphemous. President Emmanuel Macron, under pressure from Right- and Left-wing parties to root out extremism, vowed on Sunday: "Islamists will not sleep peacefully in France. Fear will change sides." Mr Darmanin on Monday ordered the closure of a mosque in north-eastern Paris suspected of spreading militant Islam. The authorities have launched more than 80 investigations into online hate speech and people who posted messages of support for the killer, Abdoullakh Anzorov, who was shot dead by police. The government plans to tighten social media regulation amid growing public anger that the teacher was targeted in what Mr Darmanin described as an "online fatwa". Social media bosses have been summoned to a meeting at the interior ministry on Tuesday. Government legislation banning hate posts was overturned by France's Constitutional Council in June on the grounds that it infringed free speech. The government believes it would have forced social media to remove a video in which Brahim Chnina, the father of a pupil, denounced and identified the teacher. It will now table another version of its bill. Fifteen people have been arrested since the murder, including Mr Chnina and Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a preacher flagged as a suspected radical, and four teenage schoolchildren. Anzorov contacted Mr Chnina and Mr Sefrioui on social media after seeing the video, investigators said. The presumed killer's parents, grandfather and 17-year-old brother were also arrested.
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| 12 Everyday Household Items That Are Worth the Investment Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:31 AM PDT |
| Expect a price jump, and new COVID-19 rules, when booking your next cruise Posted: 19 Oct 2020 06:45 AM PDT  Cruise companies say pent-up demand, once the U.S. no-sail order is lifted, will lead to higher ticket costs.
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| As White House eyes 'herd immunity,' Sweden's no-mask approach is failing to contain COVID-19 Posted: 20 Oct 2020 08:18 AM PDT  Early on in the pandemic, Sweden was slammed for being reckless, refusing the lockdowns adopted by its Scandinavian neighbors and keeping most everything open. But with the ascendancy of President Trump's coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, herd immunity is getting another look.
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| ‘It never happened.’ Exxon says of Trump’s hypothetical fundraising call Posted: 20 Oct 2020 06:08 AM PDT  "I don't want to do that because if I do that I'm totally compromised," the president said.
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| Georgia: two rightwing Republicans face Democrat in special election debate Posted: 19 Oct 2020 08:30 AM PDT  * GOP's Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins face Raphael Warnock * Virtual debate for Senate seat race with no primaryKelly Loeffler, the Republican US senator from Georgia who has embraced a follower of the toxic rightwing conspiracy theory QAnon in a desperate bid to hang on to her seat, squared off with her Trump-supporting rival and the leading Democratic candidate in their first debate on Monday.The virtual debate, staged through separate video links to ensure safety amid the pandemic, was a chance for voters to get to grips with one of the most volatile and chaotic races in the nation. Some 20 candidates are standing in a race which, as a special election, had no primary.Loeffler, who was appointed to the seat in January following the resignation of Johnny Isakson, is having to fend off a fierce challenge from Doug Collins, an avidly Trump-supporting congressman. The pair have been scrambling over each other in a rapid dash to the right, trying to outdo the other in their radical conservative credentials.An exchange between Collins and Loeffler featured sparring on a personal angle."You've attacked my hair, my makeup, how I talk, my clothes, where I'm from," Loeffler said, adding: "I am the true conservative. I don't have to have a record I have to lie about," the Gainesville Times reported.Collins shot back: "I've never mentioned anything personally – her fixtures, hair or anything else. But it's amazing what she [says] about me." Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King preached for eight years, asked Collins if he would condemn QAnon.That is the virulent conspiracy theory rapidly which claims a cabal of Democrats and billionaires is running a paedophile and human trafficking ring and which the FBI has warned is a domestic terrorism threat."I don't agree with QAnon … and don't support them," Collins said.Loeffler said: "I don't know anything about QAnon."However, last week Loeffler appeared at a press conference with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has spoken favorably about QAnon in the past, to accept the latter's endorsement.Greene, who has no Democratic opponent in a staunchly conservative House district in north-west Georgia, has made racist statements and was an early adopter of QAnonFrom 2017 Greene was an active proponent of QAnon, publicly praising its anonymous originator as a patriot who "very much loves his country" and is "on the same page as us". More recently she claimed to have moved away from the movement, telling Fox News she was not a QAnon candidate.At last week's event, Loeffler tried to bat away the controversy, telling reporters: "No one in Georgia cares about the QAnon business."Warnock, by contrast, has successfully united his party. Recent polls put Warnock at around 31%, Loeffler at 23% and Collins at 22%. Under special election rules, the race will go into a January run-off between the top two should none of the candidates secure at least 50% of the vote.Most observers expect a head-to-head between Warnock and the winner of Loeffler and Collins's bitter fight on the right.QAnon's fantasies have caused considerable difficulties for Republicans in the 2020 election cycle. Last week Trump declined to denounce the conspiracy theory, praising it for being "strongly against paedophilia".On Sunday, the chair of the Republican national committee, Ronna McDaniel, similarly sidestepped questions on QAnon during an appearance on ABC News. Asked if she would condemn it, she replied: " I knew you were going to ask me that question. I knew it because it's something the voters are not even thinking about. It's a fringe group. It's not part of our party."The Loeffler battle is one of two US Senate races in Georgia that goes to the polls on 3 November. In the second contest, the incumbent Republican David Perdue is in an exceptionally tight fight against the Democrat Jon Ossoff.Perdue he took the stage at a Trump rally last week and mangled Kamala Harris's name, which unleashed a flood of almost $2m into Ossoff's already swollen campaign coffers.Perdue's insulting jab also earned a riposte from Doug Emhoff, Harris's husband. He said: "Let me help what's-his-face pronounce this: M-V-P. If he can't remember her name, how about Madam Vice-President?"
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| 7.5 magnitude Alaska earthquake triggers tsunami advisory Posted: 20 Oct 2020 04:48 AM PDT  The powerful earthquake struck off the Alaska Peninsula on Monday afternoon. There were no immediate reports of damage.
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| Meadows Warns of Lawsuits against Social Media Companies over Censorship of Hunter Biden Reports Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:13 AM PDT  White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows warned Monday of "additional lawsuits" against social media companies over their censorship of political material including news articles on Hunter Biden's business dealings."They have two standards: one for one campaign, one for the other. But I do believe that additional lawsuits will be filed perhaps as early as today to go after that," Meadows said during an interview on Fox News."Listen, it's not just the campaigns," Meadows continued. "They're now starting to censor, actually, reporters. That's a dangerous place for them to go when they're the arbiter of what they deem to be the truth."Meadows's remarks come after Twitter on Wednesday blocked users from tweeting out the link to a New York Post story detailing leaked emails revealing high-dollar negotiations between Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and foreign companies, although the authenticity of the Biden emails has not been independently confirmed.In leaked emails from 2014, Biden appears to try to leverage his influence with his father, then vice president, in negotiations regarding his lucrative position on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma. He refers to his father, who was heavily involved in U.S. policy on Ukraine at the time, as "my guy."The younger Biden also entered into a consulting contract with China's largest private energy company that initially earned him $10 million a year "for introductions alone," according to the emails.The leaked emails and other data were found on a MacBook Pro laptop that was dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in April of last year but was never retrieved, according to the owner of the shop, and has since been seized by the FBI.On Thursday, Twitter also suspended the Trump campaign's account for attempting to tweet out a video calling Joe Biden a "liar" and citing Hunter Biden's emails.President Trump last week also warned of consequences and said that he expects the controversy to trigger a lawsuit against the social media giant."It's going to all end up in a big lawsuit," Trump said."There are things that can happen that are very severe that I'd rather not see happen," the president continued. "But it's probably going to have to."Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged Wednesday before the Trump campaign's account was locked that, "our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we're blocking: unacceptable."A group of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee said last week that they would subpoena Dorsey for his testimony on the decision to censor the Post article/
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| Killer dubbed ‘Black Widow’ gets prison release 30 years after hit on estranged husband Posted: 19 Oct 2020 03:50 PM PDT  Barbara Kogan organised killing to secure life insurance payout
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| Watch the US Navy stealth destroyer Zumwalt fire off a missile for the first time Posted: 20 Oct 2020 09:10 AM PDT  USS Zumwalt went years without a working combat system, but now the Navy is starting to put its weapons to the test.
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| An idle Venezuelan tanker with millions of gallons of oil is creating panic in Trinidad Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:23 PM PDT  More than 20 months after a Venezuelan oil tanker carrying nearly 55 million gallons of crude oil was abandoned off the country's northern coast following tightened U.S. sanctions, inspectors from neighboring Trinidad and Tobago will finally get a chance to see for themselves if the idle vessel's cargo could lead to a major ecological disaster off the Caribbean coast of South America.
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| The clock is ticking on Republicans' Senate advantage Posted: 20 Oct 2020 02:45 AM PDT  For years the conventional wisdom has been that Republicans enjoy a healthy structural advantage in the race for the U.S. Senate. It's how Republicans were able to expand their majority in that chamber despite a brutal national environment in 2018, and it's how senators representing a minority of the U.S. population will be able to plow forward with Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination before the election, confident that even if they kick away the Senate this year, it won't be long before they are back in power. That edge is one of the many reasons I've long advocated for making Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico the 51st and 52nd states as the first order of business should Democrats ever recapture the House, Senate, and presidency at the same time.The conventional wisdom is due for a revision either way. Unfortunately for Mitch McConnell and his allies, the same demographic trends that threaten to relegate the national Republican Party to long-term minority status are coming for the GOP's Senate power too. All over the country, young people are in open revolt against the GOP. Tired of the racist culture wars, furious with an economic system that has failed to deliver prosperity to the millennial and 'Zoomer' generations, and disgusted by the GOP's climate denialism, the youngest voters have broken for Democrats by double digits more than the electorate as a whole since 2004. The trend long predates the rise of the odious Donald Trump, but it has certainly been exacerbated by his ugly antics.Republicans have now spent a decade governing and campaigning as if they don't have any interest in winning a national majority and clearly believe that the long-run redoubts of their power are in the U.S. Senate and the federal court appointments it controls. They may receive a wake-up call in two weeks, but even if they don't, their long-term outlook is grimmer than is commonly understood. Judging by the 2018 exit polls and the numbers we see so far this year, some of the states they take for granted as part of their minoritarian hold on the Senate are slipping away.Take Montana. In a state that Donald Trump carried by more than 20 percent, 18-29 year-olds saved the seat of incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in 2018 by giving him a 38-point margin in a race he won by fewer than four. In Texas, Democrat Beto O'Rourke did 45 points better with the youngest cohort than the 2018 electorate as a whole, which narrowly voted for Republican Ted Cruz. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill did 20 points better with this group. In Mississippi, a low-profile Democratic Senate candidate named David Baria outperformed his statewide margin with these voters by 25. These are all states that are currently out of reach for Democrats but form a critical part of the GOP's Senate majority.The first two columns in the chart below show the 18-29 split for the 2018 Democratic and Republican Senate candidate. The third shows the overall Democratic margin in the race, and the fourth calculates the 'swing' away from the results and toward Democrats for the youngest voters. As you can see, Democrats did better with 18-29 year-olds than the electorate as a whole in every 2018 Senate race for which there is exit polling, ranging from 7 points in Ohio to nearly 50 points in Tennessee.Source: CNN exit pollsIf it was just one age bloc of voters tilting Democratic, Republicans might be tempted to dismiss it as the product of President Trump's unique repulsiveness. But in most of these states, Republican candidates lost the 30-44 cohort as well, comprised of millennials and younger Gen Xers. In Tennessee, Democrat Phil Bredesen won them by 15; in Texas it was Beto O'Rourke by 4, and in Missouri, it was Claire McCaskill by 7. The Arizona data is not broken down by cohort, but Democrat Kyrsten Sinema beat Republican Martha McSally by 21 points overall among voters under 45. In fact, the only race where the GOP won 30-44 year-olds was in North Dakota. Not to belabor the obvious here, but the Republican Party cannot survive as any kind of national force if its candidates continue to decisively lose two generations of voters with no sign that they are making inroads with rising 18-year-olds.The trends of 2018 look like they will repeat themselves in a similar national environment this year. A recent New York Times/Siena poll of the South Carolina Senate race has Democrat Jamie Harrison leading Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham by 27 points with 18-29s. A Quinnipiac poll of Iowa had Democrat Theresa Greenfield leading Republican incumbent Joni Ernst by 19 points with 18-34 year-olds. A Civiqs poll of North Carolina had Democrat Cal Cunningham leading Republican Sen. Thom Tillis by 19 points with voters under 35. I'm not intentionally cherry-picking — it's just that there's no good news for Republicans with this age group. Not in the Sun Belt. Not in Alaska. Not in the Midwest. Not anywhere. It really raises the question of whether any states at all are trending red.Republicans might be tempted to laugh their struggles off with some recitation of the old nostrum that "if you're not a liberal at 25 you have no heart and if you're not a conservative at 50 you have no brain." There is a widespread and mistaken assumption that young voters have always been more liberal than the rest of the electorate only to shift right when they have families, acquire property, and start resenting their tax rates. But there is almost no data to back this presumption up — just a handful of high-profile left-to-right party switchers that happened to include the most renowned Republican president of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan.In fact, Reagan won the youngest voters in 1984 by a much larger margin than he tallied overall against Walter Mondale. Republicans were competitive with young voters throughout the second half of the 20th century, and as recently as 2000, there was no meaningful difference between age cohorts for Al Gore and George W. Bush. It was the twin policy disasters of the Bush years — the Iraq War and the financial crisis — that turned millennials into a solidly Democratic cohort. And President Trump was repulsing 18-year-old voters even before the COVID-19 nightmare, suggesting that the GOP's inability to appeal to young people on a variety of policy issues was more important to them than the relatively strong pre-virus economy.There's no sugarcoating how terrible this is for Republicans. The balance of the scholarship on this questions suggests that partisanship tends to harden with age, and that only major life disruptions like a divorce or a move to an area with dramatically different partisanship can shake adults out of their party preferences. As Pew puts it, "generations carry with them the imprint of early political experiences." How do you think today's high schoolers and young adults are going to feel about the Trump era?Of course, millions of people will still change their ideas and ultimately their party preferences, but that movement happens in both directions. The best data you can find for the GOP is that perhaps a slightly larger number of people turn conservative as they age rather than the other way around. But that's not going to put much of a dent in a 30-point deficit. And it means that the aggregate commitment of millennials and Zoomers to voting for Democrats (if not identifying as such) is unlikely to shift more than a few points right in the coming years.That's why Republicans are gravely mistaken to think that they can lock in their power through the federal judiciary long after their ill-gotten 'majority' has vanished. Without an ongoing advantage in the Senate, that project will come to ruin.More stories from theweek.com Will Kansas go blue? What happened to third party candidates? If Roe falls
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| Taliban conflict: Afghan fears rise as US ends its longest war Posted: 20 Oct 2020 08:39 AM PDT  As part of our coverage of the US election and the world, the BBC's Lyse Doucet reports from Afghanistan.
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| How to watch the Orionids meteor shower this week Posted: 20 Oct 2020 07:48 AM PDT  The Orionid meteor shower — one of two showers every year caused by Halley's Comet's return to the inner atmosphere — is peaking this week. Here's the best way to see it.
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| As the Arctic's attractions mount, Greenland is a security black hole Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:06 PM PDT  On a windy August afternoon in 2017, Akitsinnguaq Ina Olsen was relaxing in the old harbour of Nuuk, Greenland's capital, when a Chinese icebreaker sailed unannounced into the Arctic island's territorial waters. The Chinese ship was one of a growing number of unexpected arrivals in Arctic waters as shrinking sea ice has fast-tracked a race among global powers for control over resources and waterways. Both China and Russia have been making increasingly assertive moves in the region, and after the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last year said now is "America's moment to stand up as an Arctic nation and for the Arctic's future," military activity is stepping up.
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| Submarine murderer Peter Madsen surrounded by armed officers after escaping Danish prison Posted: 20 Oct 2020 03:55 AM PDT  Danish submarine killer Peter Madsen took a female psychologist hostage and then escaped from prison in Copenhagen on Tuesday, keeping police at bay for nearby two hours after he wore what police feared was an explosives belt strapped around his abdomen. The 49-year-old escaped from Herstedvester prison at around 10am, seizing the woman and brandishing a "pistol-like object". "He used her as a shield to threaten the staff to open the gate. It was very violent and the staff, therefore, chose to back off," Bo Yde Sorensen, Chairman of the Danish Prison Federation, told Ekstra Bladet newspaper. "The weapon was life-like so the prison guards at the gate did not dare take any chances in relation to the hostage, who they judged to be in life danger. He threatened to kill her if they did not open the gate." Madsen, who murdered a Swedish journalist on his submarine in 2017, made it little more than half a mile from the prison gates.
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| Jill Biden: From her secret identity to how Joe Biden’s wife could become first career First Lady, everything you need to know Posted: 20 Oct 2020 02:35 AM PDT  Educator says she wants to keep on teaching if Joe Biden beats Donald Trump
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| Journalists Share Deceptively Edited Clip of GOP Michigan Senate Candidate John James’ Answer on Health Care Posted: 19 Oct 2020 01:28 PM PDT  A number of prominent journalists shared a deceptively edited video that purported to show Republican Michigan Senate candidate John James fumbling his response to a question about protecting patients with pre-existing health conditions."I don't see a full health care plan on your website. What do you want to replace it with?" anchor Devin Scillian of Detroit's Local 4 News asked James during an interview on Sunday."So here's the thing. I'm not a politician," James begins his response, at which point the video ends.During the rest of his answer that was not included in the clip, James goes on to outline his vision for health care and the proposals he believes could replace the Affordable Care Act."Health care is unaffordable for too many Americans, and I believe that by increasing competition, increasing choice, increasing quality of care, lowering costs, I think we can do that with some of the ways I proposed," James said.The Michigan Republican said he proposes "broadening the risk pools across state lines," as well as reforming the tort and regulatory hurdles that raise costs and allowing business association health plans "so people can make their own choice.""Those are the types of things through a legislative requirement that must protect preexisting conditions," James said.The video was put out by Michigan Democrats and subsequently shared by several prominent journalists and others with large Twitter followings.CNN White House correspondent John Harwood shared the video, as did Emily Singer and Oliver Willis of the American Independent and veteran broadcast journalist Soledad O'Brien. Several former government officials and entertainment personalities also shared the video along with Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's communications director and incumbent Gary Peters, James's opponent in the Senate race.The Michigan Senate race is now considered a toss up between James and Peters, according to RealClearPolitics.James has been advocating for replacing Obamacare since his first unsuccessful run for Senate in Michigan three years ago.In November 2017, James called the Affordable Care Act a "monstrosity" and declared Washington needs "someone who will go and work their tail off" to repeal and replace it."Our failure to repeal and replace Obamacare is the surest sign that we need new conservative leadership in Washington," James said at the time.
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| U.S. Postal carrier charged with stealing Miami-Dade mail-in ballot, debit cards Posted: 19 Oct 2020 01:45 PM PDT  A U.S. Postal Service carrier has been arrested on charges of stealing one Miami-Dade County mail-in ballot that was sent to a Miami Beach resident earlier this month, federal authorities said Monday.
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| First lady Melania Trump's return to the campaign trail is postponed Posted: 20 Oct 2020 10:16 AM PDT  The president's wife on Tuesday was scheduled to attend her first campaign rally in more than a year before cancelling for lingering cough.
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| Sen. Schumer, McConnell spar over COVID relief bill Posted: 19 Oct 2020 02:12 PM PDT  Schumer is not impressed with McConnell's latest proposal. The Senate minority leader, Charles Schumer, believes Republicans and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell are the reason an agreement on a COVID-19 relief hasn't been made. On a call with reporters on Sunday, The Hill reports that Schumer says Senate Republicans are the "No. 1 reason there's no agreement," and they "won't even go along with what Trump is willing" to get done.
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| China-Taiwan tensions erupt over diplomats' fight in Fiji Posted: 19 Oct 2020 09:37 AM PDT  Both sides say their officials were injured at an event organised to mark Taiwan's national day.
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| Infectious diseases specialist challenges airlines' COVID safety analysis Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:50 AM PDT  A campaign by coronavirus-stricken aviation giants to persuade the world it's safe to fly has been questioned by one of the scientists whose research it draws upon.
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| Marines Will Be Seeing More of These Red Patches on Utility Covers. Here's Why Posted: 19 Oct 2020 01:24 PM PDT |
| Trump mocks Hunter Biden’s drug addiction while praising his own children Posted: 20 Oct 2020 02:10 AM PDT  Team Trump is ramping up attacks on former VP's son
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| They Accused a Pakistani Megastar of Sexual Harassment. Then They Were Sued for Defamation Posted: 20 Oct 2020 06:03 AM PDT  Women in Pakistan came forward with allegations of sexual harassment as the MeToo movement took hold. Now, they're facing defamation lawsuits
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| Singapore Airlines is launching the new world's longest flight that will see flyers spending almost 19 hours on a plane nonstop Posted: 20 Oct 2020 07:41 AM PDT  Singapore Airlines is known for its ultra-long-haul flights with this latest addition securing the top spot on the list of the world's longest flights.
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| Tourist seen hand-feeding a bear on TikTok has been charged, Tennessee officials say Posted: 19 Oct 2020 08:47 AM PDT  She appeared to give the animal chocolate and watermelon, footage from a mountain town shows.
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| Electoral college explained: how Biden faces an uphill battle in the US election Posted: 20 Oct 2020 06:42 AM PDT  Trump won the presidency in 2016 despite Clinton receiving almost 3m more votes, all because of the electoral college. How does the system work? Who elects the US president?When Americans cast their ballots for the US president, they are actually voting for a representative of that candidate's party known as an elector. There are 538 electors who then vote for the president on behalf of the people in their state.Each state is assigned a certain number of these electoral votes, based on the number of congressional districts they have, plus two additional votes representing the state's Senate seats. Washington DC is also assigned three electoral votes, despite having no voting representation in Congress. A majority of 270 of these votes is needed to win the presidency.The process of nominating electors varies by state and by party, but is generally done one of two ways. Ahead of the election, political parties either choose electors at their national conventions, or they are voted for by the party's central committee.The electoral college nearly always operates with a winner-takes-all system, in which the candidate with the highest number of votes in a state claims all of that state's electoral votes. For example, in 2016, Trump beat Clinton in Florida by a margin of just 2.2%, but that meant he claimed all 29 of Florida's crucial electoral votes.Such small margins in a handful of key swing states meant that, regardless of Clinton's national vote lead, Trump was able to clinch victory in several swing states and therefore win more electoral college votes. Biden could face the same hurdle in November, meaning he will need to focus his attention on a handful of battleground states to win the presidency.A chart showing electoral college votes by state The unequal distribution of electoral votesWhile the number of electoral votes a state is assigned somewhat reflects its population, the minimum of three votes per state means that the relative value of electoral votes varies across America.The least populous states like North and South Dakota and the smaller states of New England are overrepresented because of the required minimum of three electoral votes. Meanwhile, the states with the most people – California, Texas and Florida – are underrepresented in the electoral college.Wyoming has one electoral college vote for every 193,000 people, compared with California's rate of one electoral vote per 718,000 people. This means that each electoral vote in California represents over three times as many people as one in Wyoming. These disparities are repeated across the country. A visual of population per electoral vote by state Who does it favour?Experts have warned that, after returning two presidents that got fewer votes than their opponents since 2000, the electoral college is flawed.In 2000, Al Gore won over half a million more votes than Bush, yet Bush became president after winning Florida by just 537 votes.A chart showing recent election outcomes by popular vote and electoral college marginsProfessor George Edwards III, at Texas A&M University, said: "The electoral college violates the core tenet of democracy, that all votes count equally and allows the candidate finishing second to win the election. Why hold an election if we do not care who received the most votes?"At the moment, the electoral college favours Republicans because of the way Republican votes are distributed across the country. They are more likely to occur in states that are closely divided between the parties."Under the winner-takes-all system, the margin of victory in a state becomes irrelevant. In 2016, Clinton's substantial margins in states such as California and New York failed to earn her enough electoral votes, while close races in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan took Trump over the 270 majority.A visual showing margins and electoral votes by state gained by Trump and Clinton in 2016As candidates easily win the electoral votes of their solid states, the election plays out in a handful of key battlegrounds. In 2016, Trump won six such states - Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – adding 99 electoral votes to his total.The demographics of these states differ from the national average. They are older, have more white voters without college degrees, and often have smaller non-white populations. These characteristics generally favour Republicans, and made up the base of Trump's votes in 2016.For example, 67% of non-college-educated white people voted for Trump in 2016. In all six swing states, this demographic is overrepresented by at least six percentage points more than the national average.default The alternativesSeveral alternative systems for electing the president have been proposed and grown in favour, as many seek to change or abolish the electoral college.Two states – Maine and Nebraska – already use a different method of assigning their electoral college votes. The two "Senate" votes go to the state-wide popular vote winner, but the remaining district votes are awarded to the winner of that district. However, implementing this congressional district method across the country could result in greater bias than the current system. The popular vote winner could still lose the election, and the distribution of voters would still strongly favour Republicans.The National Popular Vote Compact (NPVC) is another option, in which each state would award all of its electoral college votes in line with the national popular vote. If enough states signed up to this agreement to reach the 270 majority, the candidate who gained the most votes nationwide would always win the presidency.However, the NPVC has more practical issues. Professor Norman Williams, from Willamette University, questioned how a nationwide recount would be carried out under the NPVC, and said that partisanship highlighted its major flaws. Only Democratic states are currently signed up, but support could simply switch in the future if a Republican candidate faces winning the popular vote but not the presidency.The NPVC is a solution that would elect the president with the most votes without the difficulty of abolishing the electoral college that is enshrined in the constitution.In 1787, the Founding Fathers could not decide on the best system to elect the president. Some delegates opposed a straight nomination by Congress, while others wanted to limit the influence of a potentially uninformed public and the power a populist candidate could have with a direct popular vote. The resulting electoral college, with electors acting as intermediaries for their states, is their compromise.This system also invoked a clause known as the three-fifths compromise between northern and southern delegates, as they debated how slavery would affect a state's representation. Their agreement was that three-fifths of enslaved individuals (who could not vote) would count towards a state's population, awarding a disproportionate amount of power in the electoral college to the southern states. While the 13th amendment which abolished slavery in effect removed the three-fifths clause, the impacts of an unbalanced electoral college with unequal representation remain.The current system is still vulnerable to distorted outcomes through actions such as gerrymandering. This practice involves precisely redrawing the borders of districts to concentrate support in favour of a party. The result being abnormally shaped districts that disenfranchise certain groups of voters.Today, an amendment that would replace the college with a direct national popular vote is seen by many as the fairest electoral system.According to Professor Edwards III, "There is only one appropriate way to elect the president: add up all the votes and declare the candidate receiving the most votes the winner."default
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| US pitches Greece on a frigate co-production deal Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:22 PM PDT  American shipbuilder Onex, based in Greece, could help construct new frigates for the Hellenic Navy.
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| China is reaping the economic benefits of its COVID-19 policies Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:45 AM PDT  China reported Monday that its gross domestic product expanded by 4.9 percent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, putting the country on track for economic growth of between 1.9 percent and 2.5 percent in 2020. The U.S., meanwhile, will see its economy shrink by 4.3 percent this year, while European nations will contract by 8.3 percent, according to International Monetary Fund projections.China, like most of the world, saw its economy contract sharply in the second quarter, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that started in Wuhan. "But since then, China has staged a dramatic economic recovery due to extensive, mandatory testing and quarantine policies," NPR reports. "Daily new cases of the coronavirus have dropped to single digits. Subsequent outbreaks were contained by strict, city-by-city lockdowns that have allowed the national economy to continue operating even as some regions were temporarily sealed off."Beijing paved the way for a return to economic growth "in roughly three stages," The Wall Street Journal reports: Shutting down its economy from January through March, firing up its factories starting in April, and — "having almost entirely stamped out the coronavirus within its borders — encouraging consumers to begin venturing outside of their homes and opening up their wallets." This resumption of manufacturing has increased China's share of global exports and economic influence, and has widened its trade surplus with the U.S.Because consumption is still soft in China and other countries, the country is now making more goods than people are able or willing to buy. Economists will be watching China's inventories for signs that its economic expansion is sustainable.More stories from theweek.com Will Kansas go blue? What happened to third party candidates? If Roe falls
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| California's feared surge of virus cases hasn't happened Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:43 PM PDT  Near the end of September, with coronavirus cases falling and more schools and businesses reopening, Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration urged restraint, citing a statistical model that predicted a startling 89% increase in virus hospitalizations in the next month. Instead, state data shows hospitalizations have fallen by about 15% since that warning while the weekly average number of new cases continues to decline even as other more populous states like Florida, Ohio and Illinois see increases. California's good news isn't enough to change what Newsom calls his "slow" and "stubborn" approach to reopening the world's fifth-largest economy.
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| Trump’s former national security adviser says president ‘will not leave graciously if he loses’ Posted: 19 Oct 2020 06:41 AM PDT  'If it is clear what the outcome is, it is up to Republicans, not Democrats, to say, 'This is on us. He has to go'
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| Sudan trial defence rejects case against ousted Bashir Posted: 20 Oct 2020 05:03 AM PDT  The trial of Sudan's ousted president Omar al-Bashir and others over a 1989 coup heard defence arguments Tuesday dismissing charges of illegal use of military force.
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