Op-Ed: Thinking of buying a gun for self-defense? Don't do it

Steven J. Sainsbury
Mon, January 31, 2022

Demonstrators attend a rally in support of gun control

 on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. (Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)

During my more than 25 years as an emergency medicine physician, I treated hundreds of patients with gunshot wounds. I treated criminals who shot each other. I treated gun owners who killed their family members in drunken rages. I pronounced dead suicide victims who shot themselves with an easily accessible handgun in their home.

Yet in all those years of emergency medicine, I never treated a single patient who was shot by a law-abiding citizen in self-protection. Not one.

Multiple reputable studies and surveys bolster what I observed: Choosing to have a gun in your home, because it will keep you safe, is a myth. And a deadly one at that.

Yet surveys of gun owners show they consistently cite self-protection as the primary reason for 67% of gun purchases. Suppose you have the same fears and obtain a handgun. Which of these two scenarios is more likely?

Choice one: That gun you just bought will save your life from criminals or home invaders. This is known as defensive gun use.

Choice two: That gun will be used to kill you or a family member, whether that means the murder of a family member, an accidental shooting or suicide.

It’s choice No. 2 by a landslide. In 2017, for example, according to FBI reports, for every justifiable homicide — a defensive gun-use death — there were 35 criminal homicides. And that doesn’t even include the thousands of deaths each year by suicide or the accidental deaths that occur when there is a handgun in the home.

Where did this “a gun will keep you safe” myth originate? In my estimation, it began with the powerful U.S. gun lobby. Criminologist Gary Kleck and economist and gun rights advocate John R. Lott Jr. are often quoted on the subject. Both rely on surveys regarded as highly flawed to claim that over 2 million gun-use deaths occur each year. Yet reputable analysis put such deaths at around 2,000 a year, not 2 million.

Kleck also suggests that hundreds of thousands of criminals are shot annually by law-abiding citizens. Not surprisingly, there appears to be an absence of hospital records to validate this figure.

The Harvard School of Public Health reports that guns are not used millions of times in self-defense, most purported self-defense uses are to intimidate and frighten intimates — not to thwart crime — and few criminals are shot by law-abiding citizens.

On its website, the school refers to a survey in which five criminal court judges from different states were asked to examine 146 self-reported accounts of defensive gun use. The judges determined more than half of the gun usages were illegal, even assuming that the respondent described the event honestly and that the person had a legally owned gun.

In an analysis of victims of gun violence from 2007 to 2011, the Department of Justice found that people were nine times as likely to be injured or killed by a firearm rather than protected by them.

But enough of statistics. Let’s just use some common sense. What’s more likely? That someone will break into your home and threaten your family, or that a member of your family, in a moment of anger or drunkenness, will resort to wielding that same weapon against you? Or that in a moment of despair, a loved one will turn that easily accessible gun on themselves? Or that your 5-year-old, who knows exactly where you keep your gun, will accidentally shoot himself?

Certain behaviors — not wearing a seat belt and shoulder harness, or smoking cigarettes, for example — increase your risk of injury and death. Having a handgun in the home is no different. The presence of a gun in your home dramatically increases the risk of homicide, suicide and accidental deaths.

Be responsible and be wise. Don't buy into the myth of owning a gun for self-defense. The life you save may be your own.

Steven J. Sainsbury is a hospice and geriatric physician in San Luis Obispo.

U.S. states, other nations back Mexico's lawsuit against gun makers

FILE PHOTO: Mexico seeks $10 billion in damages from gun makers in U.S. lawsuit

Mon, January 31, 2022
By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) - Thirteen U.S. states and two Latin America and Caribbean nations on Monday threw their support behind a lawsuit from Mexico that accuses several major U.S. gun makers of facilitating the trafficking of weapons to drug cartels, leading to thousands of deaths.

The states and the countries of Antigua and Barbuda and Belize filed separate briefs urging a federal judge in Boston to not dismiss Mexico's $10 billion lawsuit against companies including Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co.

The companies have argued Mexico has failed to establish its harms were attributable to them and that a U.S. law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, protected gun makers from lawsuits over their products' misuse.

Mexico's lawyers in a filing on Monday countered that the law only precludes lawsuits over injuries that occur in the United States and would not shield the companies from allegations over the trafficking of guns to Mexican criminals.

Democratic attorneys general from 13 states including Massachusetts, California and New York along with the District of Columbia agreed, saying even if that law applied extraterritorially, the statute would not bar Mexico's claims.

Representatives for the companies did not respond to requests for comment. Other defendants include Beretta USA, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Colt's Manufacturing Co and Glock Inc.

In a lawsuit filed in August, Mexico claimed the companies undermined its strict gun laws by designing, marketing and distributing military-style assault weapons in ways they knew would arm drug cartels, fueling murders, extortions and kidnappings.

Mexico's lawsuit said over 500,000 guns are trafficked annually from the United States into Mexico, of which more than 68% are made by the manufacturers it sued.

Lawyers for Antigua and Barbuda and Belize argued countries in their region had likewise faced violent gun crimes and that U.S. gun manufacturers "must not be permitted to hold hostage the law-abiding citizens of an entire region of the world."

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

Is this how life emerged from stuff that was anything but alive?

Elizabeth Rayne
Sun, January 30, 2022

How life crawled out of primordial ooze is a mystery literally as old as Earth itself. There must have been something that switched on the transition from inanimate to alive — but what?

What life even is might be the better question. There could be extraterrestrial life-forms out there which could change our entire idea of what it means to be a living thing (and we might not even recognize them). Before anything lived on Earth, it was a mess of proteins and other potential ingredients for life, some of which ended up creating the first microorganisms which kept evolving and diversifying and re-evolving into everything from single-celled algae to dinosaurs.

For us Earthlings, being alive means the ability to capture energy and put it to use, at least if you ask researcher Yana Bromberg of Rutgers University, who recently led a study published in Science Advances. She and her team were trying to figure out what might have turned life on billions of years ago when they realized that there was a real possibility in proteins that could bind metals. Something that used those proteins might have been the first forms of life.

“All biotic activities, like the cellular functions that are necessary for life, require acquiring, using, and storing energy,” she told SYFY WIRE. “For this, electrons need to be moved around. Thus, any first ‘life’ would need to be able to handle electron transfer.”

Metal-binding proteins can bind metal ions for different purposes. Some of these proteins are stabilized by these ions, while others use them to regulate cell processes in different ways. Then there are proteins which bind to metals which are able to catalyze. Catalysis is the process that accelerates chemical reactions and is important for life. Remember that. Bromberg and her team went through all the existing metal-binding proteins to see what they had in common, because that could lead to their ancestors which might have been around on nascent Earth.

The researchers found that most of the proteins they compared have similar cores that bind metal, no matter what metal it is that they bind themselves to, even if the actual proteins were nothing alike. Substructures in these cores tend to keep repeating themselves and were curiously observed in other parts of the proteins and proteins that do not bind metal. This may not sound like much, but what it revealed was that the vast range of proteins and protein functions which now exist must have emerged from no more than a few common ancestors.

Translation: the ancestral proteins had the potential to bring about what we know as life.

“There was a small number of ways (or even just a single one) of using peptides for metal binding for electron transfer,” said Bromberg. “This original peptide may have been then reproduced and diversified to provide for the set of metal binding functions we currently observe.”

Proteins are made of peptides, which are made of amino acids. Amino acids are necessary for life but can exist outside of living organisms. Whenever these organic compounds are found somewhere else besides Earth, it goes viral, because aliens, but organics do not necessarily mean life is there, though the inverse is true: the presence of life means organics. We still have no idea how life spawned out of nowhere. What went into creating living things out of abiotic substances is unknown, but this can give us further insight into what might have happened.

Another thing Bromberg’s study could help with is what to search for as we keep scouring the universe for signs of life. There are plenty of organics out there, which may or may not be indicators that something is creeping around on a faraway exoplanet. Alien life-forms continue to elude us. If we can go way back and get some idea of how life may have emerged on early Earth, and what that might have looked like, it can at least help astrobiologists identify a planet on which life is just starting to open its eyes, whether or not it actually has them.

“If we can identify similar peptides elsewhere, this would indicate that life may appear (or previously existed) where we see them,” Bromberg said. “Our findings also provide a new direction for understanding the appearance of life on Earth, which may apply to other planets.”

Dearth of Explosive Experts to Drivers Hurt Top Australia Miners




James Thornhill
Sun, January 30, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- From explosives experts to truck drivers, labor shortages are becoming an increasing challenge for mine operators across Western Australia after the state abandoned plans to end Covid-related border controls.

The state’s resources industry, which is a crucial source of revenue for Australia, relies on flying in workers to remote sites. Many of the workers come from other states and it has become increasingly difficult for them to travel given border restrictions enforcing quarantine on arrival in Western Australia, which is more than three times the size of Texas and comprises mainly of barren Outback.

The impact is also being felt beyond the mining and energy industries, with some top executives based in the Western Australian capital Perth signaling they intend to leave the state permanently. They’re exasperated by Premier Mark McGowan’s decision this month to back-flip on a plan to reopen domestic and overseas borders on Feb. 5, extending an isolation from the rest of the world that began at the pandemic’s start two years ago.

McGowan raised the ire of companies suffering labor shortages and cost rises due to supply-chain blockages by saying he will keep the state isolated from the rest of Australia indefinitely. He says that’s needed to support his bid to keep out the omicron outbreaks that are hitting eastern cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.

“It’s definitely having an impact,” Elizabeth Gaines, chief executive officer of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd., said in an interview last week about the border closure. The iron ore miner reported a 20% rise in costs over the past 12 months, driven in part by increased labor overheads.

Many east coast-based workers had delayed returning to work for Fortescue on the expectation the Western Australian border would reopen on Feb. 5. There was some uncertainty on when they would now return, she added.

Other miners are also getting hurt. BHP Group Ltd., the world’s largest, reported that temporary rail labor shortages caused by the border restrictions had been a headwind to production in the December quarter.

Gold Road Resources Ltd., which shares the giant Gruyere gold mine in a 50:50 joint venture with Gold Fields Ltd., said December quarter production missed expectations partly as a result of “labor availability-related scheduling delays.” Specifically, Gold Road referred to difficulty in sourcing key personnel for blast work at the mine.

Another gold producer, Ramelius Resources Ltd., singled out shortages in the haulage industry as hampering its activities. Its costs also rose more than 3% in the December quarter.

And on Monday, lithium producer Pilbara Minerals Ltd. said its guidance for production in fiscal 2022 was under review after December quarter output missed expectations.

Key Personnel

The extended border closure was “exacerbating the ability of all mining companies in Western Australia to access key personnel in construction, production, and maintenance roles,” Pilbara Minerals said in a statement.

Meanwhile, national carrier Qantas Airways Ltd. has said it will reduce its planned domestic capacity by about 10% from Feb. 5 through to March 31 due to McGowan’s border decision. There have also been reports of pilot shortages at the ports servicing the Pilbara iron ore region.

Some top executives are voting with their feet. Rob Scott, head of Perth-based conglomerate Wesfarmers Ltd. which owns retailers such as Coles and Bunnings Warehouse, has signaled his intention to leave the state.

And Richard Goyder, chairman of Qantas and Woodside Petroleum Ltd., told the Australian Financial Review in an interview that he plans to leave the state indefinitely, adding: “I just feel I want to take control of my life.”

Shrinking U.S. Cattle Herd Means No Relief for Soaring Beef Prices




Michael Hirtzer and Dominic Carey
Mon, January 31, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Drought is shrinking the American cattle herd, meaning consumers are unlikely to get relief from near-record beef prices anytime soon.

Abnormally dry conditions last year in the northern U.S. Plains squeezed supplies of hay and feed for cattle, prompting some ranchers to sell to slaughterhouses animals usually held for breeding. Now, deepening drought in the southern part of the Plains -- where most cattle in the U.S. are raised -- could force another round of herd reductions later this year.

“Drought is looming large,” Derrell Peel, extension livestock marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University, said in a phone interview.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture in its biannual cattle inventory report Monday said the herd was 2% smaller than a year ago. It’s the third straight yearly drop and the smallest herd since 2016. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected only a 1.1% decline.

“The cycle we are in right now is a liquidation phase,” Peel said.

Meat prices have been surging ever since the Covid-19 outbreak sickened workers at slaughterhouses, forcing shutdowns that slowed the amount of food moving into the supply chain. Meanwhile, demand stayed strong even at the higher prices. The smaller cattle supplies may raise costs for meatpackers and potentially consumers as well.

“I don’t really expect beef prices to decline very much,” Peel said.

(Adds USDA data in fourth paragraph)

Reuters has finally dropped the misleading 'Houthi rebels' narrative

January 28, 2022 

Houthi supporters take to the streets of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, during a demonstration following a reported air attack by the Saudi-led coalition on a prison in the country's rebel-held north, on 21 January 2022. [MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP via Getty Images]


Omar Ahmed
January 28, 2022


After several years in being at the forefront of Western mainstream media's coverage of the war on Yemen, describing it as being between the Saudi-led coalition and the "Iranian-backed Houthi rebels", the news agency Reuters appears to have stopped using this phrase, and even ceased referring to the Houthis as "rebels" altogether.

With the exception of some image captions, the last time the news agency used the phrase in a body of text was as recent as a month ago, with subsequent articles now referring to the group as the Iran-aligned "Houthi movement"(formally the Ansar Allah). Though they have on occasion previously referred to the group as such, throughout the course of the seven-year war the dominant narrative has been that of troublesome "rebels". Reuters, of course, is not alone in this regard as a plethora of news sites and agencies continue with this slant, including the Associated Press. Leading news services such as Reuters influence other news organisations and therefore how we perceive events, in effect acting as "wholesale news providers".

While this slight editorial amendment may not seem like that much of a big deal, for those of us who have been monitoring the developments of the conflict over the years, including its coverage in the media, this is quite a significant step forward in how members of the international community perceive and understand the war in Yemen. Crucially, this also could be a nod towards the eventual recognition of the Houthi-led National Salvation Government (NSG), which has been the de facto revolutionary government for most of the densely populated north of the country since it was established in 2016.

The shift away from the framing of the Ansar Allah movement as a rag-tag bunch of rebels is important, because contrary to what has often been stated, the conflict wasn't sparked by the mere seizing of the capital Sanaa by Houthi militiamen alone in 2014. They had the support of most of Yemen's armed forces – once long-time former foes following six round of wars since 2004 when the Houthis were indeed a rebel faction. Many of these armed forces were loyalists to the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh and have remained in this alliance despite Saleh's demise at the hands of Houthis over attempts to return to the Saudi fold.

OPINION: Why Yemen's was the only real revolution, post-Arab Spring

This event, the fall of Sanaa, is referred locally and popularly at least in the north, as the September 21 Revolution and itself was ignited by the failures of the so-called Gulf Initiative whereby President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was to serve as an interim leader for two years (which was extended to the present after he won an uncontested election), and the fateful decision by Hadi to cut fuel subsidies, which the Houthis and other oppositionists united against in mass protests.

This was actually the region's sole genuine "revolution" in so far as post-Arab Spring political upheavals are concerned, despite being incomplete and not supported in the south, which has its own complex history and political aspirations. The potent mix of military support and alliances with the majority faction of political elites of the old order belonging to Saleh's former ruling General People's Congress (GPC) party has helped explain and maintain the Houthis' hold on power over the capital and elsewhere in the north, with most of the media attention focused on an exaggerated role of Iran, which recognises and supports the NSG authorities.

However the fact that Yemeni armed forces are fighting against the Saudi-led coalition and its disparate mercenary and militia forces on the ground is more often than not overlooked or omitted from reports by press agencies who tend to simplify the conflict as being one between the Saudi-led coalition – which was called upon by the Saudi-based, exiled President Hadi – against an Iranian-backed rebel group. While it could be that the average consumer of these reports are not looking for in-depth, political analysis, which of course can be found elsewhere, it certainly doesn't help in our comprehension of who is who, and therefore obscures the political reality and helps prolong the conflict.

The obfuscation caused by painting the joint military and Houthi "popular committees" forces as mere "Houthi rebels" in the mainstream media is an issue I have raised and have written about on several occasions since writing for MEMO and it is promising to finally see this being corrected.

What really caught my attention recently on this change, was a Reuters explainer piece on the war in Yemen, which has also been republished on the MEMO site. It states: "In late 2014, the Houthis seized Sana'a with help from pro-Saleh army units, initially forcing Hadi to share power, then arresting him in early 2015", which as far as I'm aware is the perhaps the closest the agency has come to acknowledging the Yemeni military's role in the revolution.

It has only been a month since Reuters has dropped the "Houthi rebels" trope and is still early days, but there is a chance that discontinuing this unhelpful and inaccurate narrative will be replicated in other news sites and international organisations. The recent retaliatory attacks against coalition partner the UAE – an important global hub, by Yemen's Houthi-aligned armed forces, has brought the world's attention back onto the movement and their increasingly sophisticated military capabilities. They are clearly being taken more seriously, with further warnings that the Dubai Expo could be targeted if the Emiratis continue their war efforts against Yemen, which includes occupying Socotra and backing the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC). Strategically and a major escalation for the Houthis, the UAE is also supporting the formidable Giants Brigade forces who have been undermining the Houthi advance onto Marib city, the last pro-Hadi stronghold in the north.

This all contributes to the renewed interest in the Houthis, who they are and where they stand in this war. As the NSG wields the most power and authority in the country, and most of the armed forces are fighting with the Houthis against foreign aggressors amid continued war crimes and a humanitarian crisis, it becomes more imperative than ever for the world to be more informed and at least get a better idea of the conflict. Moving on from the idea that this is a war against a group of rebels is a start in the right direction, albeit long overdue.

OPINION: Are the UAE's chickens coming home to roost in its ongoing war against Yemen?

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Omar Ahmed

US film documents Israel's killing of 77 Palestine children in 2021

Palestinians mourn for 14-year-old Palestinian child Amjad Abu Soltan who was killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank on 26 November 2021 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu Agency]

January 29, 2022

As part of its campaign to stop US financial support for the Israeli occupation, If Americans Knew launched a short film documenting the Israeli killing of 77 Palestinian children in 2021.

The two-minute film, posted on social media and the group's website, conveys how many Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli occupation and how.

If Americans Knew details in the film how much the US pays to Israel and the Palestinians as financial, military and humanitarian aid.

The organisation stated: "During Fiscal Year 2020, the US is providing Israel with at least $10.5 million per day in military aid and $0 in military aid to the Palestinians."

If Americans Knew has called for Congresspeople to show the film during the meetings of the different Congress committees to educate people about the continuous Israeli violations and crimes against Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Defence for Children International has recently published a detailed report about the Israeli atrocities against Palestinian children in 2021.

It stated that the Israeli occupation had killed 77 Palestinian children in 2021, with one more child being killed after the report was published.

The group also stated that the Israeli occupation authorities put between 500 and 700 Palestinian children before military courts annually.

According to the group, since 2000, the Israeli occupation has killed around 2,200 Palestinian children.

Between October 2015 and October 2021, the group reported that Israel kept 41 Palestinian children under administrative detention, including four still enduring illegal detention until today.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, since 2000, the Israeli occupation has detained more than 19,000 Palestinian children.

Into the Deep: Photos of Incredible Creatures from the Ocean’s Depths

 JAN 24, 2022

 JARON SCHNEIDER

The creatures that can be found in the dark depths of the midwater and seafloor range from breathtakingly beautiful, to curious, to terrifying.

From football-sized giant isopods to transparent jellies that glow, the deep sea is brimming with life. In a collaboration with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), the Monterey Bay Aquarium has provided a look at a few of the more interesting creatures that call the dark depth of the ocean home.

A Look at Some of the Ocean’s Residents

Below are a series of photos of some of these incredible creatures, courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

A Bloody-belly comb jelly glides through the water. | ©Monterey Bay Aquarium

A bloody-belly comb jellyfish. | ©Monterey Bay Aquarium

Lumpfish | ©Monterey Bay Aquarium

A Brisingid sea star. | ©Monterey Bay Aquarium

A giant isopod, Bathynomus giganteus, crustaceans | ©Monterey Bay Aquarium

Sea angel, sometimes referred to as a sea butterfly. | ©Monterey Bay Aquarium

Bioluminescence in the Deep Sea

MBARI, which operates separately but in coordination with the Aquarium, has published a video about bioluminescence and why animals create their own light.

MBARI Senior Scientist Steve Haddock and his team are working to decipher the secret language of light in the deep sea. His team’s work has revealed that bioluminescence is actually quite common in the deep. From zooplankton to jellies, fishes, and squid, deep-sea animals have adapted to use light in a variety of ways. MBARI’s work is helping biologists understand how and why these remarkable animals produce their own light.

The information that MBARI has collected is a part of the Into the Deep exhibition that the Monterey Bay Aquarium will launch later this year. The groundbreaking exhibition will offer a rare look at the animals that thrive in the least explored area of the planet and will feature an immersive experience recreating the world of deep-sea bioluminescence.

Into the Deep

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is gearing up for a new exhibition that will focus on some of the creatures that can be found in the largest living space on Earth. Called “Into the Deep,” the exhibit will take visitors through multiple levels of the ocean, starting with the surface waters that are filled with the sun’s light down to the seafloor where giant crabs, bone-eating worms, and giant isopods make their homes near hydrothermal vents.

Most of these creatures have never been seen by a majority of the population up close or in-person and the goal of the Aquarium is to bring attention to these creatures who, while invisible and unknown to so many, nonetheless play a critical role in the health of the planet.

The Aquarium says the exhibition represents a breakthrough in aquarium animal care and life support. Innovations — like the most sophisticated water treatment system the Aquarium has ever designed — replicate the varied conditions needed by deep-sea animals. While all the animals on exhibit can survive at surface pressure, the life support systems created for the exhibition lower water temperatures, adjust pH, and reduce oxygen levels to sustain animals.

“Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean” will open on April 9, 2022.

Image credits: Photos copyright and provided courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

McConnell wants a policy-free midterm campaign. Others in the GOP are less sure.

"AN ELECTION IS NO TIME TO DEAL WITH SERIOUS ISSUES." 

KIM CAMPBELL, CONSERVATIVE PM OF CANADA

Peter Nicholas and Leigh Ann Caldwell and Frank Thorp V

It’s the minimum that voters often expect of congressional candidates: Spell out what it is they would do if elected.

© Provided by NBC News

Yet inside the Republican Party, key leaders are split on whether to roll out any sort of governing agenda ahead of the midterm elections in November. With President Joe Biden’s approval rating tumbling, one GOP faction, headed by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, is betting that skewering the Democrats is all that’s needed to wrest control of the Senate. Another, led by House GOP chief Kevin McCarthy, is drawing up positions meant to persuade Americans that voting Republican might improve their lives.

Beneath the dueling approach to the midterms lies a more basic question about the party’s direction. Donald Trump first ran for office promising a sharp break from party orthodoxy. He questioned the merits of free trade and called for withdrawing U.S. forces from prolonged Middle East wars. As his presidency wound down, the party devolved into more of a vehicle for Trump to air grievances and punish foes. A candidate eager for Trump’s endorsement in the GOP primaries now stands a better chance by showing fealty to him rather than committing to a set of principles.

In Alaska, Trump endorsed Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy for re-election — so long as Dunleavy, in turn, refused to back Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial last year. The party’s Trump-centric identity is far removed from the time when Paul Ryan, then House speaker, led a candidate debate in 2016 focused on lifting people out of poverty.

“McConnell, I assume, is hoping that anger with Democrats will carry his members over the finish line,” said Frank Luntz, a pollster who worked with Newt Gingrich, then-GOP House whip, to develop the “Contract with America.”

That 1994 campaign manifesto pledged to cut taxes, curb crime and impose congressional term limits, among other issues. It helped to nationalize the midterm election in ways that helped Republicans capture both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years.

“I know from the work I’ve done dating back to 1994 that it’s not enough to be the opposition party,” Luntz said. “You have to give people a reason to vote for you or they stay home.”

When Trump ran for re-election in 2020, the party didn’t release a platform laying out Republican priorities; Trump was the platform. Heading into the midterm campaign season, McConnell is similarly opaque when it comes to his caucus’s priorities should it retake the majority.

“That is a very good question,” he told NBC News. “And I’ll let you know when we take it back. … This midterm election will be a report card on the performance of this entire Democratic government: the president, the House and the Senate.”

The calculation Senate Republican leaders appear to have made is that any proposals they put forward might divert attention from Biden’s troubles. How much to emphasize substance versus personal attacks is a perennial question. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats recaptured the House by keeping a sharp focus on health care — not Trump. Rather than follow that model, Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia governor’s race last year through a failed attempt to make the election in some ways a referendum on Trump.

No matter what path the GOP follows, the party finds itself in a strong position. Historically, the president’s party tends to fare poorly in midterm races, and even loyal Democratic fundraisers and operatives anticipate a drubbing come November. An NBC News survey this month suggested that by a 31-point margin, people believe Biden’s performance is worse than expected as opposed to better — the widest gap in the last 30 years. (Fifty-nine percent said the Biden presidency has gone as expected.) Biden opens his second year in office with nearly three-quarters of Americans believing the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Explaining McConnell’s reasoning, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican whip, said, “You don’t want to make yourself the issue. … I think right now they [Democrats] are a target-rich environment. They’re just giving us a lot of stuff to shoot at.”

Taking a different tack, McCarthy is relying on seven House task forces and committees to develop a platform by summer that Republican candidates can present to voters. Several House Republican leaders met at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Miami over two days this week to consider different proposals, including preparing for the next pandemic, combating threats posed by China and defending against cyberattacks.

One who took part was Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the House Rules Committee.

“We intend to have a positive agenda,” he said. “We still feel the election is, to some degree, a referendum on the Democrats. But to be fair, you have to recognize there’s skepticism about both parties and Washington’s ability to accomplish anything.”

McCarthy has been consulting privately with Gingrich, who became House speaker in 1995 on the strength of the Republican majority that his Contract with America helped create. McCarthy has similar ambitions.

“We chat regularly because he [McCarthy] wants to develop a positive momentum,” Gingrich, a close ally of Trump, said in an interview. “It’s very likely that he’ll end up as speaker. Well, he doesn’t want a speakership that is totally absorbed in being negative, which is very easy to do. I would draw a real contrast with McConnell, who said recently that they don’t need an agenda.”

Those distinctions aren’t quite so tidy. McCarthy’s grip on the House Republican caucus hinges on Trump, and he risks losing the speaker’s race to a further-right rival should he run afoul of the ex-president. If the conservative House Freedom Caucus expands its ranks in the midterms, McCarthy could face a serious challenge from Trump loyalists who see him as too moderate.

It may be no accident that the policies that he and his GOP colleagues are devising are, in important respects, protective of Trump’s interests and responsive to his peeves. Should it gain subpoena power, a House GOP majority is likely to use it to try to weaken Democrats in the run-up to 2024, when Trump may again be on the ballot. Trump has complained repeatedly that he’s been muzzled by social media companies; McCarthy’s office is vowing to confront tech companies “who we see as attacking free speech, going woke, or cozying up to China.”

Trump has derided Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan pullout. On “Day One,” McCarthy’s office says, Republicans would deploy “various tools at our disposal” to examine Biden’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Critics said they weren’t holding their breath for a serious agenda — from McCarthy, or any other Republican.

“It’s impossible to take seriously the notion that McCarthy, who is firmly ensconced in the Trump cult, is going to come out with anything that resembles a series of ideas,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way.

Meanwhile, a recent appearance by Gingrich on Fox News highlighted another consideration: attacking Democrats, not talking policy, may be the way to excite Trump’s base. He predicted that a newly formed Republican majority would use the chamber’s investigative muscle to turn members of the committee examining the Jan. 6 Capitol riot from “wolves” into “sheep.”

“They’re the ones who in fact I think face a real risk of jail for the kinds of laws that they’re breaking,” Gingrich told host Maria Bartiromo.

Kim Campbell | The Canadian Encyclopedia

1993 Federal Election

Problems arose on the campaign’s first day. In an accurate but complex analysis of current economic challenges, Campbell said that unemployment would remain high until the turn of the century. She later answered a reporter’s question about social programs by saying, “This is not the time, I don’t think, to get involved in a debate on very, very serious issues.” The media and many Canadians interpreted her statement to mean that she was secretly planning to cut social programs. It was a turning point. Support for Campbell and her party plummeted. The downward trend became worse when outrage greeted a Progressive Conservative television ad that appeared to mock the partial paralysis of Liberal leader Jean Chrétien’s face. Campbell had not sanctioned the ad (it was approved by her campaign chairman, John Tory) and ordered it be withdrawn. But significant political damage was done.

'After Yang' explores the meaning of life through a broken android

Devindra Hardawar 

In the film After Yang, a father goes to great lengths to save his daughter's best friend. It just so happens this bestie is a humanoid robot, or technosapien, named Yang. He's practically a member of the family, but at the end of the day, he's basically an appliance. Can he be easily replaced, and what’s the value of his artificial life? Like a cross between Black Mirror and Spike Jonze's Her, After Yang explores humanity and existence through the lens of technology, while director Kogonada (Columbus) crafts a vision of the future that feels truly distinct.

After a virtuoso opening sequence, where families compete in a virtual dance contest in their living rooms, Yang (Justin H. Min) malfunctions. He's not just some robotic butler; he's a culture technosapien meant to help Jake's adoptive daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), learn about her Chinese heritage. Mika has a stronger relationship with Yang, who practically raised her. And for reasons that aren't clear at the start, Jake is a bit disconnected from his family and struggling through a mid-life crisis. (Running a traditional tea shop in the future would do that to you.) Saving Yang is both an attempt to connect to Mika, and to appease his overworked wife Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), who's concerned about her listless husband.

Stories around artificial beings and androids aren't anything new — they stretch back to early Jewish legends of golems, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis. But these days, it feels as if it's only a matter of time until we're living alongside our own personal androids. Robotic vacuums are smarter and more affordable, we're regularly shouting voice commands at our phones and smart appliances, and even Tesla claims it's working on an AI-powered humanoid robot (though at this point, that's basically just a marketing stunt). So it's worth exploring how androids could affect our family lives, where they take on roles of childcare and companionship.

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Jake's journey to fix Yang isn't much different than what we'd go through to get a computer or smartphone repaired today. He tries to contact the store he bought it from, but it's no longer in business. Yang was also refurbished, which opens the door to surprising issues (something used electronics buyers are all too familiar with).

It turns out Yang had more than one previous owner, and he basically lived a long (and somewhat tragic) life. He was also an experimental model that could record small portions of memories, similar to the small bits of videos we see in Apple's Live Photos. As Jake learns more about Yang, he realizes that he was a thinking being with a fully formed personality. He's not just a helper bot following his programming, he was also endlessly curious about the world around him.

After Yang is a quiet film, filled with contemplative silences and Farrell's forlorn eyes (not a bad thing, to be clear). Kogonada manages to build a world that feels dramatically different from our own, without the flashy holograms and special effects we see in lesser sci-fi films like the Ghost in the Shell remake. Everyone wears loose, robe-like outfits. There's a strong Japanese influence throughout all of the environments, from the Muji-esque minimalism and organic materials in their homes, to natural wood and small gardens in self-driving cars. It's a world far more advanced than ours — genetically optimized clones also appear — but it's also in harmony with nature, like near-future sci-fi through the eyes of Hayao Miyazaki.

The fusion of the natural and man-made world mirrors the way an artificial being like Yang starts to become more human. It's clear that he's driven by some sort of artificial intelligence, but the film doesn't say if his designers also managed to replicate a form of consciousness. Yang is programmed with facts about China, as well as language lessons for Mika, but he speaks more like a wise friend than a robotic teacher.

Like Blade Runner, it seems as if Yang is fully aware of his own limitations. He can show emotion and feelings towards people, but he probably doesn't have the full range of human emotion. He also chases the unknowable, like the way Farrell's character finds himself drawn to sell and explore the world of tea, even though he's not a huge tea fanatic. It’s clear that both characters are searching for some meaning in their lives, but Yang has made peace with his existence in a way that Jake admires (and struggles with himself).

In a world where we actually have robotic companions, it’s not hard to imagine that we’d form deep bonds and mourn them when they’re gone. Losing your robot could eventually be as traumatic as losing a dear pet. But that would also reflect a world where our androids can also profoundly affect our lives. They’d be more than appliances – they’d be family.