Talk about revolution always comes cheap on the campaign trail. And thanks largely to Bernie Sanders, this year is no exception. Though Sanders and his supporters sure like to talk about overthrowing government structures, it’s never been clear that his oft-promised “political revolution” has more practical heft than the usual insurgent sloganeering.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
In a speech about the Orlando atrocity on Monday (June 13), Donald Trump doubled down on his plan to protect America from future mass shootings by blocking the flow of certain immigrants into the US. Nixing immigration from countries with a “proven history of terrorism,” is the best way to avoid a future Omar Mateen, Trump implied, adding that the 29-year-old Orlando shooter was, after all, “born in Afghan.”
“Real estate mogul,” the press used to call him. Or “billionaire businessman,” when that wore thin, along with the odd “reality TV show star.” By February, however, the description had morphed into “presidential frontrunner.” And then, an exciting new boilerplate: “presumptive Republican nominee.”
To hear him tell it, Donald Trump’s seizure of the Republican nomination was borne of record-high primaries turnout. Here’s what he said earlier this week after the official end of the 2016 GOP primary (transcript via Vox):
It looked, at first, like Donald Trump’s campaign was handling his latest spectacle of offense-giving—saying a federal judge’s Mexican heritage made him incapable of fairly ruling on the Trump University fraud case—the way any normal presidential campaign would.
It’s official: Zika has not only arrived in the US, but hundreds of pregnant women are probably infected, with more undoubtedly to follow.
A whopping 94% of respondents in Germany said other countries should welcome those fleeing war or persecution, according to a new Amnesty International survey of attitudes toward refugees—more than any other country. Of course, that probably won’t surprise many people given that, during the current refugee crisis, Germany has accepted more refugees than any European country.
More people have been forced from their homes by war and violence than at any time since World War II. But while the 20 million refugees in that group tend to attract a lot of attention, another segment is often overlooked.
Discrimination can get expensive, it turns out. The sticker price for North Carolina’s HB2—a hastily made law that bans transgender people from using public bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, and bans cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances protecting LGBT people—is pretty shocking. The law will cost North Carolina nearly $5 billion a year.
To most people, opera is spear-wielding women in helmets, or maybe hefty people over-emoting in Italian. Not a plaid-clad recovering alcoholic writer’s descent into homicidal madness at a snowbound hotel in the Rockies. But with this month’s world premiere of The Shining, an opera adapted from Stephen King’s 1977 horror novel, the art form just got a little broader. And maybe for non-opera fans, a little more relevant too.
Drop an ordinary lab mouse in tank of water and, unsurprisingly, the little guy will first panic, swimming furiously before simply giving up. Then infuse its gut with a certain kind of bacteria, and, just like that, the freaked-out little swimmer relaxes. Other research on mice suggests something similar: that gut bacteria can lower stress levels. The findings have tantalizing implications for helping chronically stressed humans.
How did the monkey cross the sea? What sounds like a corny joke is actually an evolutionary puzzle. Take the monkey whose fossilized teeth were just discovered etched into a hunk of ancient rock in Panama. The monkey (or its forebears) had to have arrived there in Central America from South America, which at the time was separated from it by a stretch of sea at least 100 miles wide—the equivalent of about five English Channels.
Thousands lined up in the cold in Bethpage, Long Island, last night (April 6) to welcome Donald Trump home to New York.
Most Americans don’t have to worry much about the Zika virus for the simple reason that the mosquitoes thought to spread the disease don’t live where they do. But many more Americans might be at risk than scientists and public health officials realize.
Over the span of three days in March, in far-flung corners of Ohio, more than 20,000 people—retired schoolteachers, hair stylists, chinos-clad Young Republicans, Nicaraguan immigrants, Vietnam vets, primly coiffed soccer moms—braved downpours, traffic, muscle spasms, hunger, and protesters for a chance to behold, in the very tanned flesh, Donald J. Trump, billionaire, business genius, TV star, and, very possibly, the next president of the United States. One of those people was me.
Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown, Ohio
Columbia, South Carolina
Updated 9:48pm ET.
Columbia, South Carolina
Bennettsville, South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
Aiken, South Carolina
