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Author: John Hanno
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Bogan High School. Worked in Alaska after the earthquake. Joined U.S. Army at 17. Sergeant, B Battery, 3rd Battalion, 84th Artillery, 7th Army. Member of 12 different unions, including 4 different locals of the I.B.E.W. Worked for fortune 50, 100 and 200 companies as an industrial electrician, electrical/electronic technician.
Scientists are sounding the alarm about a dangerous problem that will soon affect 2 billion people — here’s what to know
Laurelle Stelle – September 15, 2023
As the world has gotten hotter, more people are exposed to dangerously high temperatures each year. Recent findings published in Nature Sustainability show that without policy changes, the world will heat up enough by the end of the century that more than 2 billion people will live in life-threatening hot climates, as Science Hub reported.
What’s happening?
So far, the world’s average temperature has risen by just under 1.2 degrees Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial level due to human activity, according to Science Hub. The Paris Agreement — an international treaty to limit heat-trapping gases produced by each country and stop the world from getting hotter — proposed to cap the increase at 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, the new study found that with the current laws, population growth, and environmental conditions, the world will likely reach about 4.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the preindustrial benchmark, per Science Hub.
The researchers then looked at which areas would be most affected if the temperature increased to that level. They defined “unprecedented heat” zones as areas where the average temperature throughout the year, counting all seasons, is 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.
Science Hub reported that 40 years ago, only 12 million people worldwide lived in regions with temperatures surpassing that heat. Today, thanks to the warming we’ve already experienced, about 60 million people are affected.
The study found that by 2100, 2 billion out of the world’s projected population of 9.5 billion will live in areas with an average temperature higher than 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit. The most affected areas will be countries around the equator, noted Science Hub: India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Pakistan.
Why is this heating worrisome?
The hotter the world gets, the more heat waves, droughts, and wildfires we experience. As Science Hub reported, studies have also linked the rising heat to everything from more contagious diseases to lower labor efficiency and more conflict between people.
“That’s a profound reshaping of the habitability of the surface of the planet, and could lead potentially to the large-scale reorganization of where people live,” study author Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, told ScienceAlert.
What’s being done?
Science Hub reported that if the global community reaches the goal set by the Paris Agreement, the affected population would be limited to half a billion people instead of 2 billion.
In the meantime, individuals can protect themselves from heat waves with these tips for cooling off.
Our excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Mitt Romney has many people talking about the Utah senator’s principles and character, but we should be deeply alarmed by Romney’s warning about the Republican Party.
The End of Pretenses(Charles Ommanney / Getty)
My colleague McKay Coppins has spent two years talking with Mitt Romney, the Utah senator, former Massachusetts governor, and 2012 Republican presidential nominee. An excerpt from McKay’s forthcoming book confirmed the news that Romney has had enough of the hypocrisy and weakness of the Republican Party and will be leaving the Senate when his term expires; other stunning moments from their conversations include multiple profiles in pusillanimity among Romney’s fellow Republicans. (I am pleased to know that Senator Romney holds as low an opinion of J. D. Vance as I do; “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more,” he told McKay.)
But I want to move away from the discussion about Romney himself and focus on something he said that too many people have overlooked.“Some nights he vented,” Coppins wrote of their conversations; “other nights he dished.” And then came a quiet acknowledgement that should still be shocking, even after seven years of unhinged right-wing American populism:“A very large portion of my party,” [Romney] told me one day, “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” He’d realized this only recently, he said. We were a few months removed from an attempted coup instigated by Republican leaders, and he was wrestling with some difficult questions. Was the authoritarian element of the GOP a product of President Trump, or had it always been there, just waiting to be activated by a sufficiently shameless demagogue? And what role had the members of the mainstream establishment—people like him, the reasonable Republicans—played in allowing the rot on the right to fester?
I think every decent Republican has wondered the same thing. (The indecent ones have also wondered about it, but as Romney now accepts, people like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz have figured out that playing to the rot in the GOP base is a core skill set that helps them stay in Washington and far away from their constituents back home.)
But enough about the hollow men of the GOP. Think about what Romney is saying: “Millions of American citizens no longer believe in the Constitution of the United States of America.” This is not some pedestrian political observation, some throwaway line about partisan division. Leave aside for the moment that Romney is talking about Republicans and the hangers-on in the Trump movement; they are also your fellow Americans, citizens of a nation that was, until recently, one of the most durable democracies on Earth. And they no longer care about the fundamental document that governs our lives as Americans.
If Republicans no longer care about the Constitution, then they no longer care about the rule of law, secular tolerance, fair elections, or the protection of basic human rights. They have no interest in the stewardship of American democracy, nor will they preserve our constitutional legacy for their children. Instead, they seek to commandeer the ship of state, pillage the hold, and then crash us all onto the rocks.
It would be a relief to find out that some of this is about policy, but for many of the enemies of the Constitution among the new right, policy is irrelevant. (One exception, I suspect, might be the people who, if faced with a choice between a total ban on abortion and the survival of the Constitution, would choose theocracy over democracy; we’d all be better off if they would just admit it.)
The people Romney is worried about are not policy wonks. They’re opportunists, rage-junkies, and nihilists who couldn’t care less about policy. (Romney describes one woman in Utah bellowing at him, red-faced and lost in a mist of fury while her child stood nearby, to the point where he asked her, “Aren’t you embarrassed?” She was not.) What they want is to win, to enjoy the spoils and trappings of power, and to anger and punish people they hate.
There is no way to contend, in a rational or civic way, with this combination of white-hot resentment and ice-cold cynicism. Romney describes multiple incidents in which his colleagues came to him and said, You’re right, Mitt. I wish I could say what you say. I wish we could stop this nightmare. And then all of them belly right back up to the table in the Senate Dining Room and go on pandering to people who—it bears repeating—no longer care about the Constitution.
This is the seedbed of authoritarianism, and it is already full of fresh green shoots. And yes, at some point, if someone is clever enough to forge a strong and organized party out of this disjointed movement, it can become a new fascism. So far, we should be grateful that Donald Trump and those who surround him have all been too selfish and too incompetent to turn their avarice into a coherent mass movement.
If you’ve ever served in the military or as a civilian in the U.S. government, you’ve taken the oath that requires you, above all—so help you God—to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” Romney is warning us that many of his Republican colleagues and much of their base will do no such thing. They would rather turn their personal misery and resentment into mindless political destruction—even to the point of shredding one of humanity’s greatest political documents.
I have written before that we can no longer indulge Republicans and their various media enablers in the fantasies that Trump is a normal candidate, that we are heading into a normal election, that the Republican Party is a normal party (or, indeed, a political party at all). How we each defend the Constitution is an individual choice, but let us at least have no pretenses, even in our daily discussions, that we live in normal times and that 2024 is just another political horse race. Everything we believe in as Americans is at stake now, and no matter what anyone thinks of Mitt Romney, we owe him a debt for saying out loud what so many Republican “leaders” fear even to whisper.
Earth’s mysterious core may be encased by an ancient ocean floor that has mountains 5 times taller than Everest
Marianne Guenot – September 14, 2023
An artist’s impression inspired by scientists’s discovery that a structure, made of ancient ocean, might wrap around the Earth’s core, shielding the mantle from its intense heat.Edward Garnero and Mingming Li at Arizona State University
Scientists have created a detailed map of the geology beneath Earth’s southern hemisphere.
They believe an ancient ocean floor may be wrapped around our planet’s mysterious core.
The new findings could explain why the core is so much hotter than the mantle above it.
There’s a lot we still don’t know about our planet’s core, which lies about 1,800 miles beneath our feet.
Now, a new study has revealed a discovery that could help researchers piece together its mysterious inner workings.
The research suggests that Earth’s core could be encased in an ancient ocean floor that features giant mountains five times the size of Mount Everest.
Researchers made the discovery after creating the most detailed map yet of the geology beneath our planet’s southern hemisphere.
If confirmed, this “recycled” ocean floor would act almost like a “blanket” that keeps heat trapped inside the core, Samantha Hansen, study lead author and geological sciences professor of the University of Alabama, told Insider in an email.
Earth is like a giant recycling plant
Scientists have long been confused by the boundary between the mantle and the core.
About 2,000 miles under the Earth’s surface, conditions shift dramatically: temperatures shoot up drastically, and the rock composition changes abruptly from a solid bulk of rock in the mantle to gooey iron sludge inside the core.
To understand more about this boundary, scientists have looked at seismic waves coming from earthquakes. As these waves spread from the epicenter of the quake through the inside of our planet, they provide information about the Earth’s innards.
“Admittedly, to most people, seismic data is probably not that interesting to look at. It is a wiggly line that varies with time. But that wiggly line contains an amazing amount of information!” Hansen told Insider.
Researchers are seen placing their seismic equipment under the snow in Antarctica. Scientists have found looking at data from earthquakes that there may be a layer of ancient ocean floor coating the Earth’s core.Lindsey Kenyon
Scientists had previously spotted areas of so-called ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZ) — areas where the seismic waves unexpectedly slow down — near the core-mantle boundary.
But they had only found patches of this unknown structure.
Hansen and her team headed to Antarctica to understand how far that ULVZ could go. They placed seismic equipment at 15 stations on the continent and collected data for three years.
They found the ULVZ was much more widespread than previously thought. Indeed, it was present “over a significant portion of the southern hemisphere,” suggesting this layer coats the entirety of the core, said Hansen.
The layer may come from recycled bits of ancient ocean floor
Hansen and her team used modeling to understand how this layer may have appeared.
For them, the answer was clear: the layer was likely bits of ancient ocean floor, gobbled up over the ages from the surface as tectonic plates stretched and squished together.
“As the results came together – both from the seismic work and the geodynamic models – it was quite exciting to see the similarities between them,” she said.
“Together, they make a compelling case for subducted oceanic materials being the main source of ULVZs,” she said.
Due to its composition, the ocean floor is a perfect candidate for this layer, Hansen said. It’s very dense, which means it is heavy enough to sink through the mantle. It’s also likely to become more heat resistant as it faces intense pressure deep inside the Earth.
This could explain why the changes seen at the boundary between the core and the mantle are so stark.
“By having this additional layer blanketing the core, the heat won’t be able to escape as easily/readily,” Hansen said.
It’s quite important to understand how heat moves around and escapes the core. The core’s temperature variations control “where we have mantle plumes,” the pools of lava that create archipelagos like Hawaii, for instance, said Hansen.
It also influences the Earth’s magnetic field, she said.
Before we can add this new layer to science books, more research will be needed to rule out other explanations.
Some have suggested that the ULVZ could be due to another, completely unknown, material, generated by the unique chemical reactions that could be happening at the boundary. Others think the bizarre seismic data seen at the boundary is due to a specific state of melting we don’t quite understand, said Hansen.
Still, if Hansen’s team is correct, this could provide a new chapter to the story of Earth’s formation.
“If ULVZs are associated with these subduction materials, they could help us get a better understanding of how the overall plate tectonics cycle works and how our planet has evolved through time,” said Hansen.
The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advance in April.
As cancer rises in young people, man, 35, details symptoms he ignored: ‘Can’t be me’
Meghan Holohan – September 14, 2023
In 2015, JJ Singleton, then 27, felt a throbbing pain in his abdomen. He thought he pulled a muscle — until the pain started intensifying. Then he noticed blood in his stool, started getting acid reflux and developed fatigue so bad that he went to bed by 6 p.m.
“I still kept ignoring it. I always had an excuse in my head about what was going on,” Singleton, 35, of Canton, North Carolina, tells TODAY.com. “I started getting dehydrated every day because everything I ate or drank, I would just throw it up.”
Singleton’s mom made him visit the doctor. By that time, the doctor could see his abdomen pulsating. Singleton soon learned why: He had stage 4 colorectal cancer, and that throbbing was the tumor.
“Looking back, I was that stupid typical male who’s like, ‘Nothing’s wrong,’” he says. “I would Google my symptoms, like what was hurting, and at the bottom, it was always stomach or colon cancer. And I was like, ‘That can’t be me.’”
J.J. Singleton (Courtesy J.J. Singleton)
Singleton is part of a growing trend of more young people in the U.S. developing cancer.
August 2023 research published in JAMA Network Open found that cancer diagnoses increased in people under 50 from 2010 to 2019, with gastrointestinal cancers, like Singleton’s, rising fastest. In the same time frame, rates of cancer in people over 50 decreased. A report from the American Cancer Society published in March 2023 found that people under 55 accounted for 11% of colon cancer diagnoses in 1995, compared to 20% in 2019.
The reason for the spike in colon cancer in young people, as well as other types of cancer, is currently not known. But in Singleton’s case, the cause of his illness is clear: He has Lynch syndrome, a genetic mutation that increases the risk of a variety of cancers for young people with it. Lynch syndrome also may be a factor in the growing rates of cancer in young people overall, experts say.
Singleton discovered he had Lynch syndrome after undergoing a test from Myriad Genetics. Suddenly, the premature cancer deaths of his relatives made sense.
“(My family has) a lot of family members that died young, but that was just God’s will. They didn’t question the thing. It happened and you move on with life,” Singleton says. “We had no indication that there was a genetic problem. I (had) never even heard or talked about genetics.”
What is Lynch syndrome?
Lynch syndrome is a genetic condition that increases a person’s risk of many kinds of cancer, often at a young age. Parents can pass Lynch syndrome to their children.
It “is a common form of inherited cancer risk,” Dr. Matt Yurgelun, director of the Lynch Syndrome Center at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, tells TODAY.com. He estimates, based on recent studies, that about one in 300 people has some version of Lynch syndrome, putting it “on par,” he says, with BRCA gene mutations, which increase breast and prostate cancer risk, among others.
Colorectal and uterine cancers are the most common in people with Lynch syndrome, Yurgelun says.
J.J. Singleton (Courtesy J.J. Singleton)
Genetic testing can tell you if you have Lynch syndrome, though sometimes people do not find out until after they develop cancer.
For those who do undergo genetic testing — often because of a high number of young cancer deaths in their family — regular screenings help detect cancer in earlier stages. For example, people with known Lynch syndrome should undergo colonoscopies earlier and more often, every one or two years instead of every 10 years for those without an increased risk.
“(Colonoscopy) substantially reduces somebody’s chances of getting colorectal cancer if they have Lynch syndrome,” Yurgelun says. He also points out that research shows taking a daily aspirin can reduce colon cancer risk by 40% to 50% for those with Lynch syndrome.
To reduce uterus and ovarian cancer risk for those with Lynch syndrome, the best course of action is to remove them, Yurgelun says. Patients usually do this in their 40s or later, depending on the specifics of their Lynch syndrome, he explains, adding that it’s “a decision that everybody comes to at their own speed.”
The lack of awareness of Lynch syndrome means many people who could benefit from genetic testing do not get it.
“We’ve been trying to get the word out for a while,” Yurgelun says. “I don’t think it’s penetrated public consciousness as much as we would have liked.”
But before you spring for a genetic test without consulting your doctor, know that you shouldn’t be overly worried about Lynch syndrome, Yurgelun stresses. He recommends asking about your family history of cancer and that anyone diagnosed with cancer, especially if it’s at a young age, undergo genetic testing.
That’s because having Lynch syndrome can change how to treat the cancer. For example, chemotherapy works less well, but some new immunotherapies, which help the immune system fight the cancer, work “exceptionally well,” Yurgelun says.
“A big area in the field right now is figuring out how and when to use things like immunotherapy to treat cancers that arise in the setting of Lynch syndrome,” he adds.
Lynch syndrome changes lives
Dana, 51, who asked not to use her last name to protect her privacy, has had many family members die young from cancer. In fact, she and her sister believed they weren’t going to live past their 30s.
Dana’s father died of colon cancer when she was 2 years old, and it was “very far along when they found it,” she tells TODAY.com.
Her paternal grandfather died of cancer when her father was also 2, but the family knows little about it. They were living in Ireland at the time, and her grandmother moved to the U.S. after his death.
“They only knew it was cancer,” Dana says. “When they did autopsies on (my grandfather) — or anyone prior (in my family) — the cancer was always so far along they didn’t really identify the source.”
Dana’s great-grandmother was said to have died of stomach cancer, but it’s not clear if the cancer started or was just first found there.
For a long time, no one in Dana’s family would “even say the C-word. They were just afraid of it,” Dana says. “They didn’t know what was causing it. Nobody really shared any information.”
So, Dana and her sister enrolled in a clinical trial, where they both learned they had Lynch syndrome. Now, Dana undergoes an annual colonoscopy, and she took birth control for years with the goal of decreasing her uterine cancer risk. At 45, she had a hysterectomy. Every two to three years, she gets a procedure to check her stomach for cancer and even gets her urinary tract tested. Dana hasn’t had cancer, but her sister was diagnosed with colon cancer at 53.
“We’re just screening all the time,” she says. “Most people have been having a better quality of life since finding out (they have Lynch syndrome) versus (their older) relatives.”
Caroline Yost (Courtesy Caroline Yost)
After Caroline Yost was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer in 2018 at age 49, she underwent genetic testing and learned she had Lynch syndrome. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, so Yost had been seeing a breast specialist for her increased risk.
“I made up my mind (when my mom had cancer) that if I were ever diagnosed with breast cancer, I was going to do a double mastectomy and be done with it,” Yost, who lives outside Atlanta and works for genetic testing company Invitae, tells TODAY.com.
A genetic counselor helped her understand her increased risk for cancers, and Yost decided to have a total hysterectomy, as she’d “finished having children,” she says.
Yost said her three kids were tested for Lynch syndrome, and they do not have it, so they cannot pass on the genes to their own kids.
To reduce her risk, Yost also undergoes yearly colonoscopies, frequent checks of her stomach and visits a urologist every year. But she prefers this cycle to not knowing about her health.
“(My Lynch syndrome diagnosis) put my mind at ease, and having that knowledge continued to let me be proactive,” she says.
September marks eight years that Singleton has lived with cancer. At first, doctors treated his cancer with a variety of chemotherapy cocktails. None of them worked.
“I was pretty much bedridden for most of the day because the cancer … grew around my stomach and completely closed it off so I wasn’t able to eat or drink,” he says. He relied on IV nourishment.
Then, Singleton faced two choices: starting hospice care or joining a clinical trial for an immunotherapy drug. He didn’t “want to die,” he recalls, so he knew which to choose. The experimental treatment shrunk his tumor, allowing him to undergo surgery, and now he can eat and drink again. Every three weeks, he receives an infusion of the medication.
Now, Singleton shares his experience as a patient advocate. He recently spoke about having cancer at a conference.
“(The immunotherapy) allows me to live my life more than I was before,” he says. “Having cancer changed me. … I’m a lot better person because of what I went through.”
Earth is outside its ‘safe operating space for humanity’ on most key measurements, study says
Seth Borenstein – September 13, 2023
A woman is silhouetted against the setting sun as triple-digit heat indexes continue in the Midwest, Aug. 20, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)Haze blankets the main business district in Jakarta, Indonesia, Aug. 11, 2023. Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three, one being air pollution, are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)
Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.
Earth’s climate, biodiversity, land, freshwater, nutrient pollution and “novel” chemicals (human-made compounds like microplastics and nuclear waste) are all out of whack, a group of international scientists said in Wednesday’s journal Science Advances. Only the acidity of the oceans, the health of the air and the ozone layer are within the boundaries considered safe, and both ocean and air pollution are heading in the wrong direction, the study said.
“We are in very bad shape,” said study co-author Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “We show in this analysis that the planet is losing resilience and the patient is sick.”
In 2009, Rockstrom and other researchers created nine different broad boundary areas and used scientific measurements to judge Earth’s health as a whole. Wednesday’s paper was an update from 2015 and it added a sixth factor to the unsafe category. Water went from barely safe to the out-of-bounds category because of worsening river run-off and better measurements and understanding of the problem, Rockstrom said.
These boundaries “determine the fate of the planet,” said Rockstrom, a climate scientist. The nine factors have been “scientifically well established” by numerous outside studies, he said.
If Earth can manage these nine factors, Earth could be relatively safe. But it’s not, he said.
In most of the cases, the team uses other peer-reviewed science to create measurable thresholds for a safety boundary. For example, they use 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air, instead of the Paris climate agreement’s 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times. This year carbon in the air peaked at 424 parts per million.
The nine factors are intermingled. When the team used computer simulations, they found that making one factor worse, like the climate or biodiversity, made other Earth environmental issues degrade, while fixing one helped others. Rockstrom said this was like a simulated stress test for the planet.
The simulations showed “that one of the most powerful means that humanity has at its disposal to combat climate change” is cleaning up its land and saving forests, the study said. Returning forests to late 20th century levels would provide substantial natural sinks to store carbon dioxide instead of the air, where it traps heat, the study said.
Biodiversity – the amount and different types of species of life – is in some of the most troubling shape and it doesn’t get as much attention as other issues, like climate change, Rockstrom said.
“Biodiversity is fundamental to keeping the carbon cycle and the water cycle intact,” Rockstrom said. “The biggest headache we have today is the climate crisis and biodiversity crisis.”
University of Michigan environmental studies dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn’t part of the study, called the study “deeply troubling in its implications for the planet and people should be worried.”
“The analysis is balanced in that it clearly sounds a flashing red alarm, but it is not overly alarmist,” Overpeck said. “Importantly, there is hope.”
The fact that ozone layer is the sole improving factor shows that when the world and its leaders decide to recognize and act on a problem, it can be fixed and “for the most part there are things that we know how to do” to improve the remaining problems, said Carnegie Mellon chemistry and environment professor Neil Donahue.
Some biodiversity scientists, such as Duke’s Stuart Pimm, have long disputed Rockstrom’s methods and measurements, saying it makes the results not worth much.
But Carnegie Mellon environmental engineering professor Granger Morgan, who wasn’t part of the study, said, “Experts don’t agree on exactly where the limits are, or how much the planet’s different systems may interact, but we are getting dangerously close.”
“I’ve often said if we don’t quickly cut back on how we are stressing the Earth, we’re toast,” Morgan said in an email. “This paper says it’s more likely that we’re burnt toast.”
The Mighty American Consumer Is About to Hit a Wall, Investors Say
Reade Pickert and Vildana Hajric – September 11, 2023
(Bloomberg) — After staving off recession for longer than many thought possible, the US consumer is finally about to crack, according to Bloomberg’s latest Markets Live Pulse survey.
More than half of 526 respondents said that personal consumption — the most important driver of economic growth — will shrink in early 2024, which would be the first quarterly decline since the onset of the pandemic. Another 21% said the reversal will happen even sooner, in the last quarter of this year, as high borrowing costs eat into household budgets while Covid-era savings run down.
The finding is at odds with the optimism that’s permeated US equity markets for most of the summer, as cooling inflation and low unemployment bolstered hopes for a so-called soft landing. Should the economy stop growing — a scenario that’s quite likely if consumer spending contracts — it could mean more downside for stocks, which have already slipped from late-July highs.
“The likelihood of a soft landing, falling inflation, an end to Fed tightening, a peak in interest rates, a stable dollar, stable oil prices — all those things helped drive the market up,” says Alec Young, chief investment strategist at MAPsignals. “If the market loses confidence in that scenario, then stocks are vulnerable.”
‘It Is Not Sustainable’
Right now, the US economy appears to be speeding up rather than stalling. Growth is forecast to accelerate in the third quarter on the back of a recent pickup in household spending, which jumped in July by the most in six months.
To some analysts, it looks a bit like a last hurrah.
“The big question is: Is this strength in consumption sustainable?” says Anna Wong, Bloomberg Economics’ chief US economist, who expects a recession to start by year-end. “It is not sustainable, because it’s driven by these one-off factors” – notably a summer splurge on blockbuster movies and concert tours.
Read More: Barbenheimer, Swift, Beyonce = Mirage of US GDP Boom
The enduring strength of the US job market has propped up household spending in the face of the biggest price increases in decades. It’s led some analysts to push out their expectations for a recession — or even scrap them altogether.
Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expect the consumer to outperform yet again in 2024 — and keep the economy growing — amid steady job growth and pay hikes that beat inflation.
‘Really Struggling’
But there are plenty of headwinds looming.
Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco say the excess savings that have helped consumers get through the price spike will run out in the current quarter — a sentiment that three-quarters of the MLIV Pulse respondents agreed with.
“There’s increasingly an issue where the lower end of the income and wealth spectrum is really struggling with the accumulated inflation of the last couple years,” while wealthier Americans are still cushioned by savings and asset appreciation, said Thomas Simons, Jefferies’ US economist.
In the aggregate, consumers have been able to bend under the weight of higher prices, he said. “But there will come a point where that’s no longer feasible.”
Read full results: Savings Dwindle, US Student Debts Come Due: MLIV Pulse Results
Delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans are rising, as households feel the financial squeeze after the Fed raised interest rates by more than 5 percentage points.
And another kind of debt — student loans — is about to come due again for millions of Americans who benefited from the pandemic freeze on repayments.
A majority of investors in the MLIV Pulse survey pointed to the declining availability and soaring cost of credit — mortgage rates are near two-decade highs — as the biggest obstacle for consumers in the coming months.
Some three-quarters of respondents said auto or retail stocks are the most vulnerable to declining excess savings and tighter consumer credit – a concern that’s not entirely priced in by the markets. While General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. have essentially missed out on this year’s wider stock rally, Tesla Inc. more than doubled in value.
‘Just Taking Longer’
Since the economy’s fate hinges on what US consumers will do next, investors are looking in all kinds of places for the answer.
Asked what they consider a good leading indicator, MLIV Pulse respondents pointed to everything from the most standard measures – like retail sales or credit-card delinquencies — to airline bookings, pet adoptions, and the use of “Buy Now Pay Later” installment plans.
That’s perhaps because conventional guides have often proved to be unreliable amid the turbulence of the past few years.
“The traditional playbook for the economy and markets is challenging in this post-pandemic environment,” said Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer at Truist Wealth. “Things are just taking longer to play out.”
The MLIV Pulse survey of Bloomberg News readers on the terminal and online is conducted weekly by Bloomberg’s Markets Live team, which also runs the MLIV blog. This week, the MLIV Pulse survey asks whether investors have fully regained the confidence in UK assets that they lost during the short-lived premiership of Liz Truss. Click here to share your views.
Kim Jong Un reportedly hops on his bulletproof, drab green train for meeting with Putin
Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY – September 11, 2023
A luxury armored train believed to be carrying Kim Jong Un appeared to depart Pyongyang Monday for Vladivostok, Russia, where the reclusive North Korean leader may rendezvous with President Vladimir Putin.
South Korean state media reported that the train Kim uses, bulletproof but notoriously slow possibly because of its heavy weight, left North Korea. The Kremlin confirmed in a statement he will visit Russia “in the coming days.”
The White House previously said they were expecting a meeting between the two leaders this month as Moscow looks to its former ally from Soviet Union times to help it rearm for its war in Ukraine. The meeting could take place as early as Tuesday. It would be Kim’s first overseas trip in more than four years.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un leaves a train carriage after arriving at the border station of Khasan, Primorsky Krai region, Russia, on April 24, 2019.
The White House said last week arms negotiations between North Korea and Russia were “advancing.” It also warned that Kim’s regime would “pay a price” if it strikes an arms deal with Putin’s government.
The encounter between Kim and Putin could take place on the sidelines of the annual Eastern Economic Forum. It runs in the far eastern Russian port city through Wednesday, according to its website.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency has reported that Kim’s train has up to 20 bulletproof carriages and has a top speed of approximately 37 miles per hour. It is painted a drab green color and is rarely photographed. The train was used by Kim’s father and grandfather, both former North Korea leaders.
The isolated Asian country could help resupply Moscow with artillery shells and rockets. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank, describes North Korea’s munitions industry as “highly developed.” In return, North Korea could seek access to some of Russia’s high-tech weapons systems.
North Korea continues to test and develop long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. The U.S. and North Korea have held on and off nuclear nonproliferation talks stretching back to the 1980s.
SEPTEMBER 6th 2023: A New York federal judge rules that former president Donald Trump is liable for defamation in the second E. Jean Carroll case and must go to trial to determine damages. – AUGUST 7th 2023: A New York judge dismisses a defamation countersuit brought by Donald Trump against columnist E. Jean Carroll. – JULY 19th 2023: A New York judge denies the request from former President Donald Trump for a new trial in the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse, rape and defamation civil case. – MAY 9th 2023: A New York federal jury finds former President Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in civil lawsuit and awards $5 million in damages to accuser E. Jean Carroll. – MAY 1st 2023: A New York judge has denied the request from Donald Trump’s legal team for a mistrial in the rape and defamation lawsuit brought columnist E. Jean Carroll. – NOVEMBER 24th 2022: Ex-magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll files a new lawsuit against former President Donald Trump for battery and defamation under the provisions of a new New York State law that allows adults alleging sexual assault to bring claims years after the attack. – SEPTEMBER 20th 2022: Former President Donald Trump to face a new lawsuit alleging sexual assault to be filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll who claims Trump raped her in the 1990s. – File Photo by: zz/Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx 2015 6/16/15 Donald Trump announces his 2016 candidacy for President of The United States of America on June 16, 2015 at Trump Tower in New York City. (NYC) (zz/Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx)More
The early polls show Donald Trump and President Joe Biden tied nationwide. Does that mean Trump has a clear advantage in the battleground states that decide the Electoral College?
It’s a reasonable question, and one I see quite often. In his first two presidential campaigns, Trump fared far better in the battleground states than he did nationwide, allowing him to win the presidency while losing the national vote in 2016 and nearly doing it again in 2020.
But there’s a case that his Electoral College advantage has faded. In the midterm elections last fall, Democrats fared about the same in the crucial battleground states as they did nationwide. And over the last year, state polls and a compilation of New York Times/Siena College surveys have shown Biden running as well or better in the battlegrounds as nationwide, with the results by state broadly mirroring the midterms.
The patterns in recent polling and election results are consistent with the trends in national surveys, which suggest that the demographic foundations of Trump’s Electoral College advantage might be fading. He’s faring unusually well among nonwhite voters, who represent a larger share of the electorate in noncompetitive than competitive states. As a consequence, Trump’s gains have probably done more to improve his standing in the national vote than in relatively white Northern states likeliest to decide the presidency, like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Midterm results typically don’t tell us much about the next general election. Polls taken 15 to 27 months out don’t necessarily augur much, either. But the possibility that Republicans’ Electoral College advantage is diminished is nonetheless worth taking seriously. It appears driven by forces that might persist until the next election, like Biden’s weakness among nonwhite voters and the growing importance of issues — abortion, crime, democracy and education — that play differently for blue and purple state voters.
Of course, there is more than a year to go. Biden may regain traction among nonwhite voters or lose ground among white voters, which could reestablish Trump’s Electoral College edge. Perhaps his Electoral College edge could grow even larger than it was in 2020, as some Democrats warned after that election.
But at this point, another large Trump Electoral College advantage cannot be assumed. At the very least, tied national polls today don’t mean Trump leads in the states likeliest to decide the presidency.
There are three basic pieces of evidence suggesting that Trump’s key advantage might be diminished today: the midterms, the Times/Siena polls and state polls.
The Midterms
The 2022 midterms were a surprise. Republicans won the national vote, just as the polls anticipated. With Republicans usually faring better in the battlegrounds in recent cycles, a national popular vote advantage might have been expected to yield a “red wave.”
But Democrats held their ground in the battleground states, allowing them to retain the Senate and nearly hold the House. Nationally, Republican House candidates won the most votes by about 2 percentage points (after adjusting for uncontested races). The margin was almost identical in the presidential battlegrounds, like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Republican House candidates also won by 2 points.
The shrinking gap between the key battleground states and the national popular vote wasn’t just because of Democratic resilience in the battlegrounds. It was also because Republicans showed their greatest strengths in noncompetitive states like California and New York as well as across much of the South, including newly noncompetitive Florida. Democratic weakness in these states was just enough to cost them control of the House of Representatives, but did even more to suppress Democratic tallies in the national popular vote, helping erase the gap between their strength in the battlegrounds and the national vote.
Does the House popular vote tell us much about the Electoral College two years later? Possibly, though not necessarily. The 2018 midterm results showed House Republicans running well in key battleground states, foreshadowing Trump’s expanded Electoral College advantage two years later. Republican strength by state in the House mirrored the presidential race in 2020 as well. Perhaps it should be expected to foreshadow the presidential vote by state again.
But today, it’s harder than it was at this time in the last cycle to connect voter attitudes about the House with presidential preference. One major issue: the House results weren’t highly correlated with Biden’s approval rating. In contrast, the tight relationship between the House vote and Trump’s approval rating back in 2018 made it reasonable to believe the distribution of the House vote told us something about his strength heading into 2020.
The midterms are an important clue, but additional data is probably needed to connect what happened last November to what might happen next November.
Times/Siena Polls
Times/Siena polling over the last year offers additional evidence of such a connection.
Overall, Trump has gained in the places where Republicans fared well in the midterms, while Biden is holding up well in the states where Democrats fared well in the midterms, based on a compilation of 4,369 respondents to Times/Siena polls.
On average, Biden continues to match his 2020 performance in the states where Democrats fared better than average in the midterms, a group that includes every major battleground state. Instead, all of his weakness in Times/Siena national polling is concentrated in the states where Democrats fared worse than average last November.
In the sample of 774 respondents in the battleground states, Biden leads Trump, 47-43, compared with a 46-44 lead among all registered voters nationwide. On the other hand, Biden leads by 17 points, 50-33, in a sample of 781 respondents in California and New York — the two blue states that primarily cost Democrats the House last November — down from a 27-point margin for Biden in 2020.
In general, I am loath to look at geographic subsamples in our polling; results by state are just so sensitive. For this analysis, it makes a huge difference whether Biden is tied in the battlegrounds or up 5 points.
But in this particular case, the specific findings are part of the broader pattern supported by larger samples. Splitting our sample into two groups, we have over 2,000 respondents in states where Republicans did well and states where Democrats held up. The trends in both groups align with those of the midterms, and, while the sample is small, the pattern also appears to filter down to the crucial battlegrounds.
State Polls
There aren’t too many polls of the key battleground states at this early stage. But the available survey data doesn’t show any sign of an Electoral College advantage for Trump, either.
Over the last year, Biden leads by 1.3 points in national polls, while he leads by at least 1 point in the average of polls taken in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — three states that would probably be enough to reelect him.
In contrast, Biden won the national vote by 4.5 points in 2020 while winning Wisconsin by just 0.6 points. The key measure of Electoral College strength, relative to the national vote, is the difference between the national vote and the “tipping-point state” — the state that pushes a candidate over the Electoral College threshold. That difference was roughly 3.8 percentage points in Republicans’ favor in 2020 and 2.9 points in 2016, with Wisconsin the tipping-point state in each case. In the state polling today, that gap is essentially nonexistent.
On the other end of the competitiveness spectrum is New York, one of the most solidly blue states in the country. Biden will surely win the state, but he may not do as well there as he did in 2020. He holds a 48-35 lead in eight polls over the last year, including a 47-34 lead in a Siena College poll last month. For what it’s worth, you can add a 49-36 margin in the Times/Siena compilation of 256 respondents in New York.
In one sense, New York was the worst state in the nation for House Democrats in 2022, based on their mere 9-point aggregate House win compared with iden’s 23-point win in the state in the 2020 presidential election. The state numbers today look as reminiscent of the midterms as the last presidential election. Results like these in blue states will hurt Biden in the national polls and popular vote, but won’t do anything to hurt his chances in the Electoral College.
The New Issues
Together, the midterms, the state polling and the Times/Siena polls offer three serious if imperfect data points suggesting Trump isn’t faring much better in the battleground states compared with nationwide, at least for now.
But why? Broadly speaking, there are two major theories: the issues and demographics.
First, the issues. In the aftermath of the midterms, Democratic strength in key battleground states appeared attributable to specific issues on the ballot, like abortion, crime and democracy. This helped explain some aspects of the election, including the failures of anti-abortion referendums and stop-the-steal candidates — and perhaps New York Democrats.
It’s possible these new issues are helping to shift the electoral map heading into 2024 as well. New issues that have emerged since 2020 — abortion rights, trans rights, education, the “woke” left and crime — are primarily state and local issues where blue, red and purple state voters inhabit different political realities, with plausible consequences for electoral politics.
Moderate voters in a blue state — say around Portland, Oregon — have no need to fear whether their state’s conservatives will enact new restrictions on transgender rights or abortion rights, but they might wonder whether the left has gone too far pursuing equity in public schools. They might increasingly harbor doubts about progressive attitudes on drugs, the homeless and crime, as visible drug use among the homeless in Portland becomes national news.
But moderate voters in a purple state — say those who live around Grand Rapids, Michigan — might have a different set of concerns. The “woke” left could be a very distant worry, if they understand what it is at all. They’ve probably never heard of the gender unicorn. Their city’s crime, homelessness and drug problems don’t make national news.
What does make national news is the conduct of their state’s Republican Party, which not only tried to ban abortion last fall but also embraced the stop-the-steal movement. The “threat to democracy” is not an abstraction for Biden voters here: It was their votes that Trump and his allies tried to toss out.
This is a plausible explanation, if one that’s hard to put to the test. The apparent relationship between the midterms and presidential polling is perhaps the best piece of evidence, if we stipulate that the pattern in the midterms was indeed explained by the varying salience of these state and local issues.
Shifts Among Demographic Groups
Trump’s Electoral College advantage was built on demographics: He made huge gains among white voters without a college degree in 2016, a group that was overrepresented in the key Northern battleground states. It let him squeak by in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, even as his weakness among college-educated voters cost him votes — and ultimately the popular vote — in the Sun Belt and along the coasts.
The polls so far this cycle suggest that the demographic foundations of Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College might be eroding. Biden is relatively resilient among white voters, who are generally overrepresented in the battleground states. Trump, meanwhile, shows surprising strength among nonwhite voters, who are generally underrepresented in the most critical battleground states. As a consequence, Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters nationwide would tend to do more to improve his standing in the national vote than in the battleground states.
Overall, 83% of voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were white in the 2020 election, according to Times estimates, compared with 69% of voters elsewhere in the nation. Or put differently: If Biden struggled among nonwhite voters, it would do a lot more damage to his standing outside of these three states than it would in the states that make up his likeliest path to 270 electoral votes.
Is this enough to explain Trump’s diminished advantage? It could explain most of it. If we adjusted Times estimates of the results by racial group in 2020 to match the latest Times/Siena polls, Trump’s relative advantage in the Electoral College would fall by three-quarters, to a single point.
In this demographic scenario, Biden would sweep Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He would lose Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, just like in the state polls conducted so far. It would be a narrow Biden win if everything else went as expected: He would earn 270 electoral votes, exactly the number needed to win.
There’s also a chance that maybe, just maybe, Democrats might defy these unfavorable national demographic trends in states like Arizona and Georgia. After all, these two states lurched leftward in 2020, even though nonwhite voters shifted to the right nationally in that election as well. Clearly, other state-specific trends canceled out Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters: White voters moved more toward the left than elsewhere in the country; the nonwhite share of the electorate grew more than it did elsewhere; and Democratic support among nonwhite voters appeared relatively sturdy, for good measure.
If those state-specific trends prevail over the national ones again, perhaps Biden can hope to get the best of both worlds: good results in the Northern battlegrounds, thanks to his national strength among white voters, with resilience in the blue-trending Sun Belt states where idiosyncratic factors might cancel out unfavorable national demographic trends.
With more than a year to go, none of this is remotely assured to last until the election. But at least for now, a tied race in the national polls doesn’t necessarily mean that Mr. Trump has a big lead in the Electoral College.
Expert reveals super easy way to legally dispose of electronics: ‘Was anyone going to tell me it’s illegal?’
Laurelle Stelle – September 11, 2023
While many Americans don’t know it, throwing your electronics in an ordinary trash can for pickup is actually illegal in some states. Thankfully, there’s still a low-effort way to recycle these items without leaving your house.
TikToker Love of Earth Co. (@loveofearthco) posted a video in March introducing followers to Redwood Materials, an e-waste recycler in partnership with Panasonic that will let you mail your electronics and accessories straight to them for disposal.
How does recycling with Redwood Materials work?
As Love of Earth Co. explains, Redwood Materials accepts a wide range of materials, including old power cables.
“We’re in the middle of a move, and I just keep finding cord after cord after cord,” she says. “Since electronics are considered prohibited waste, meaning you can’t just toss them away in the trash, I will instead be responsibly recycling them.”
She then shares a shot of Redwood Materials’ website.
“I just quickly created a profile on their website to let them know what I’m sending, boxed up all my cords, slapped a shipping label on there, and put it out on my porch for the postman to pick up.”
Redwood Materials accepts a wide range of electronics, appliances, and rechargeable devices. A list of examples on their web page includes everything from laptops to hearing aids to electric power tools.
Love of Earth Co. calls the process “easy-peasy” and “guilt-free.”
“I feel so much better not sending our e-waste off to the landfills,” she says.
TikTok users were shocked by how easy the process was, with some admitting they didn’t know cords and other e-waste aren’t supposed to go in the trash.
“Was anyone going to tell me it’s illegal or were you all just going to let me keep living as a CRIMINAL,” one user wrote.
“What else can you not just put in the trash?!?!?” said another.
Why should I recycle with Redwood Materials?
For residents of states where throwing out e-waste is illegal, Redwood Materials offers a simple way to get rid of unwanted electronics without the hassle of transporting them to a local recycling center. If you aren’t sure whether this applies to you, you can check out this state-by-state breakdown on Recycle Nation.
Even if you can throw out e-waste normally, recycling it is a great way to keep the materials in circulation, which helps keep the cost of electronics down. In 2022, Panasonic and Redwood Materials expanded their partnership to supply the manufacturer with cathode materials and copper foil, Electrive.com reported. Arrangements like this reduce the need for costly mining.
Recycling electronics also helps protect the environment by keeping toxic materials out of landfills, reducing the need for mines that damage the environment, and reducing the energy used in manufacturing.
Are there similar programs to Redwood Materials?
Other companies also offer recycling and trade-in options for your used electronics. For example, Best Buy has a trade-in calculator that will tell you how much store credit you can get for your items, and other retailers like Target and Costco also offer deals for electronics.
New tool reveals swaths of American coastline are expected to be underwater by 2050: ‘Time is slipping away’
Brittany Davies – September 11, 2023
If you ask Climate Central — which has a coastal risk screening tool that shows an area’s risk for rising sea levels and flooding over the coming decades — Texas’s coastline is in trouble.
The new map-based tool compiles research into viewable projections for water levels, land elevation, and other factors in localized areas across the U.S. to assess their potential risk.
The predictive technology indicates that, under some scenarios, many of Texas’s coastal areas, such as much of Galveston Island, Beaumont, and the barrier islands, will be underwater during floods by 2050.
What’s happening?
Coastal areas face threats from rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps and warming oceans, as well as flooding from storms intensified by changing temperatures. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates more than 128 million people live in coastal communities, many of which will be severely impacted by the effects of higher tides and dangerous storms.
CNN reports that coastal flooding could cost the global economy $14.2 trillion in damages, not including loss of life and well-being, by the end of the century. The loss of land due to sea level rise is also detrimental to the entire ecosystem, disrupting important wetlands and freshwater supplies.
Why is this concerning?
The coastal risk screening tool provides startling insight into how many areas will likely be affected by rising tides and floods, especially if nothing is done to mitigate Earth’s rapidly rising temperatures. As 2050 quickly approaches, time is slipping away to prepare and protect communities and ecosystems from the rising waters.
Planning, approving, and implementing new infrastructure and other major projects to keep communities safe can take years to complete. Because the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, cities need to start planning now before they find themselves in too deep.
What’s being done to reduce the risk?
Many of the most vulnerable regions are densely populated and people are already dealing with personal and economic damages from intensified flooding. While some may be able to move or make changes to their homes and communities to prepare for rising waters, not everyone has the means or desire to make these changes.
Several actions may be taken by individuals, organizations, municipalities, and the government to reduce the impacts of coastal flooding. The first step is understanding where the vulnerabilities are, indicates Peter Girard of Climate Central. Protecting existing wetlands and utilizing nature-based solutions such as living shorelines or sand dunes can lessen the impacts of flooding, storm surges, and erosion.
Community developers are encouraged to consider those most vulnerable when implementing coastal resiliency strategies such as shifting populations or building flood walls. Individuals living in flood zones should learn about the risks and obtain insurance protection if available.
(Charles Ommanney / Getty)
