On 8 November, US voters will decide whether Democrats maintain their slim majority in both houses of Congress. This, in turn, will determine whether the administration of President Joe Biden will be able to pursue its agenda for the next two years. The midterm election – which takes place halfway through each presidential term – is also set to change the balance of power in state governments, with races in every state legislature and 36 gubernatorial elections. Here is how the election results could affect three key scientific issues: climate change, reproductive healthcare and covid-19 policy. Climate change The Inflation…

Throughout his remarkable public career, one of George Washington’s foremost wishes for his country was that it would remain free of political parties and partisanship. All of America’s founders at least professed an aversion to “factions,” as they were frequently called, but none loathed them more fiercely, consistently, and sincerely than he did. As Washington saw it, partisans are necessarily partial, meaning that they favor the interests of a parochial group over the public good. Partisans could not be true patriots. Parties were also, in his view, fatal to republican government. By sowing conflict, they divided the community and subverted public…

The following passages are from Dr. Raphael's book Jews and Judaism in the United States: A Documentary History (New York: Behrman House, Inc., Pub, 1983), pp. 14, 23-25.  "Jews also took an active part in the Dutch colonial slave trade; indeed, the bylaws of the Recife and Mauricia congregations (1648) included an imposta (Jewish tax) of five soldos for each Negro slave a Brazilian Jew purchased from the West Indies Company. Slave auctions were postponed if they fell on a Jewish holiday. In Curacao in the seventeenth century, as well as in the British colonies of Barbados and Jamaica in the…

Security source says attacks being perpetrated by a large number of settlers, including women and children There have been more than 100 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over the last ten days, according to local media. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said on Friday that most of the attacks it had documented had taken place in the northern West Bank, especially in the town of Huwwara in Nablus governorate. Last week, dozens of settlers attacked Palestinian property and vehicles in the Huwwara area.  Witnesses told Middle East Eye that masked settlers threw rocks at Palestinian vehicles near the…

The potential benefits of cooperation on climate are essentially limitless for the region.  That India and Pakistan are engaged in backchannel track 2 diplomacy is the worst kept secret in South Asia. It does not take a vivid imagination to guess what dominates the agenda at these talks: Kashmir, terrorism, trade, perhaps crisis behavior under the shadow of nuclear weapons. Welcome as such conversations are, they are almost assuredly lacking focus on the biggest crisis facing the region’s inhabitants: climate change. South Asia’s Climate Change Vulnerability This year has served as a living, heaving reminder of the World Bank’s dire warnings about…