A LIVING WAGE

California's senate just passed a 'fast food council' law that could force McDonald's, Starbucks, and other chains to raise wages up to $22 an hour

mmeisenzahl@businessinsider.com (Mary Meisenzahl) - 

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images© Provided by Business Insider
California's state senate just passed a bill that would totally change how fast food is regulated in the state.
The bill still has to be signed by California Gov. Newsom.
Labor advocates say the bill will give workers a voice, while opponents say it could raise prices.

The California state senate just passed a bill that could completely change how the fast food industry is regulated in the state.

If signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, AB 257, known as the FAST Recovery Act, will create a 10-member council of workers, company representatives, and government officials to set pay and safety standards across the state. The council would have the power to increase industry minimum wage to $22 next year, with jurisdiction over chains with more than 100 locations, including Starbucks, Chipotle, McDonald's, and others.

"We know the systemic issues workers in this industry face, and the only way to address them is to give cooks and cashiers a real seat at the table with their employers," president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California State Council David Huerta said in a statement.

Restaurant owners, franchisees, and right-wing politicians voiced opposition to the bill, citing fears that it could raise costs for consumers.

"At the end of the day, it's going to drive up the cost of the products that they serve," state senator and Republican nominee for governor Brian Dahle told the AP. International Franchise Association president Matthew Haller said the bill raised a "fire alarm" to restaurant owners in other states about the potential for similar measures elsewhere.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle noted that the legislation could be replicated in other states.

The fast food bill passed during a unionization wave in the quick service industry, which has been notoriously difficult to organize. Over 200 Starbucks locations across the US have won union elections since December 2021, and Chipotle workers in Michigan just won a vote to form the chain's first union.

Our Teeth Come From an Ancient Sea Predator: Study

Simona Kitanovska, Zenger News - 

All teeth evolved from a single ancient sea predator, according to a new study. The study explains how certain species evolved to grow teeth by pinpointing their likely origin in an armored ray that swam the oceans 100 million years ago.

They evolved from jagged spikes along the snout of the primitive sea predator named Ischyrhiza mira. Known as rostral denticles, they helped the beast forage and fight off bigger fish. The finding is based on an analysis of fossils.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Anatomy in its September issue, under the title Complex enameloid microstructure of Ischyrhiza mira rostral denticles. The study was authored by Todd D. Cook, Jack Prothero, Michael Brudy, and Jerome A. Magraw.


A rostral denticle of Ischyrhiza mira, a species belonging to an extinct group of sawfishes that lived in North American waters during the late Cretaceous period, around 100 to 65 million years ago, pictured in an undated photo. Teeth likely originated in an armored ray that swam the oceans 100 million years ago, according to new research, carried out by a scientific team at Penn State University in the U.S. 

SWNS/ Zenger/Jon Mills

The finding backs the "outside-in" idea that states that scales migrated into the mouths of ancient vertebrates and became adapted for eating. The alternative "inside out" theory suggests teeth developed independently within the oral cavity—and ultimately mounted onto the jaws.

Lead author Professor Todd Cook, a paleontologist at Penn State University in the U.S., explained: "Rostral denticles are believed to be modified scales because of their location on the elongated snout. They have an external morphology and developmental pattern that is similar to scales."

They are made of enamel-like tissue. Human teeth are composed of multiple layers of hard enamel, dentin and cementum, and softer pulp. Just like with scales, for a new rostral denticle to form, an old one must first fall off and make a space available.

Cook said: "Yet, very little was known about the organization of the tissues that make up rostral denticles, particularly the hard outermost layer known as enameloid. Given that rostral denticles are likely specialized body scales, we hypothesized the enameloid of rostral denticles would exhibit a similar structure to the enameloid of body scales, which have simple microcrystal organization."

The origins of teeth have been debated for centuries. Cook and colleagues believe they have settled it—serendipitously. Ischyrhiza mira had a large mouth and nose, and closely resembled a modern-day sawfish.

It reached up to eight feet long and belonged to an extinct group wiped out by the asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs. Remains have been found all over the world–from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to Uzbekistan, Japan, Nigeria and South America.

The researchers were studying the tissue of rostral denticles when Cook noted sawfishes like Ischyrhiza mira belong to the same group as skates and rays—and are closely related to sharks. They examined specimens that had previously been recovered from a rock formation in New Jersey.

To examine the internal microstructure of the fossil rostral denticles, they sliced the samples across the width and length. Next, they used a scanning electron microscope to study the histology—or microscopic anatomy.

Cook said: "Surprisingly, Ischyrhiza mira's rostral denticle enameloid was anything but simple. It was considerably more complex than the enameloid of body scales. In fact, the overall organization of the enameloid in this ancient sawfish resembled that of modern shark tooth enameloid, which has been well characterized."

Both Ischyrhiza mira rostral denticles and modern shark teeth have an enameloid covering that largely consists of fluorapatite microcrystals packed together into distinct bundles, the professor explained.

Toward the outer region of the enameloid, they run parallel to the surface of the tooth and are called the "parallel bundled enameloid." Deeper, they become randomly arranged, a region known as the "tangled bundled enameloid."

Finally, passing through these layers is the "radial bundled enameloid," which is composed of packed microcrystals oriented perpendicular to the tooth surface. In terms of function, having bundles of microcrystals arranged in various orientations enables shark teeth to resist the mechanical stresses associated with feeding.

Cook said: "It is likely the bundled microcrystal arrangement of the enameloid of Ischyrhiza mira's rostral denticles also served as a way to withstand mechanical forces."


A cross section of a rostral denticle showing the bundled enameloid. Teeth likely originated in an armored ray that swam the oceans 100 million years ago, according to new research, carried out by a scientific team at Penn State University in the U.S. 

 Jon Mills/SWNS/ Zenger

But the most surprising and important outcome is the study's contribution to the long-standing mystery regarding the origin of teeth. Prof. Cook added: "This finding provides direct evidence supporting the "outside-in" hypothesis, as it shows scales have the capacity to evolve a complex tooth-like enameloid outside of the mouth.

"It is more parsimonious to suggest scales produced a similar bundled microstructure in teeth and rostral denticles than to conclude that both these structures evolved a similar enameloid independently."

Sawfish, also known as carpenter sharks, are a family of rays characterized by a long, narrow, flattened rostrum, or nose extension. They are lined with sharp teeth arranged in a way that resembles a saw. Today, they are among the largest fish with some species reaching lengths of 25 feet.

Produced in association with SWNS.

Beloved 50ft Humpback Whale Killed by Ship Strike Washes Up in California
Robyn White - 7h ago

A photo shows Fran the whale lying dead on the California coast. The whale was well known in the area.© The Marine Mammal Center

A famous and beloved humpback whale washed up dead in California after being killed by a ship strike.

The whale, measuring nearly 50 foot and nicknamed "Fran," washed up dead on Halfmoon Bay on August 29, Whales of Guerrero said on a Facebook post.

Fran was a well-loved whale known to locals, and was often seen swimming off the coast of California and Mexico. According to Whales of Guerrero, she was one of the most sighted whales in this area.

The Marine Mammal Center carried out a necropsy of the whale and determined she had suffered blunt force trauma in the ship strike.

Ship strikes are one of the most common causes of death in whales. Humpback whales are not endangered or vulnerable, but many other species affected by ship strikes are, such as the North Atlantic right whales.

Research undertaken by non-profit organization Friend of the Sea estimated that 20,000 whales die every year from ship strikes.

Humpback whales can be found in waters worldwide. A population of humpbacks visit the California coast in the summer months to feed. After this, they migrate south towards Mexico.

"This humpback whale had an extensive contusion over her right chest area, a fractured first cervical vertebra and its skull was dislocated from the spinal column," Pádraig Duignan, director of pathology at The Marine Mammal Center, said in a press release. "These findings, combined with overall excellent body condition, strongly implicates blunt force trauma associated with a ship strike as this whale's cause of death."

Fran was first spotted by whale-watchers in 2014, off the coast of Guerrero, Mexico.

"She was the third whale we ever photo IDed and the first whale we resighted in a northern feeding ground. Fran's mom was also known, and this summer, many whale lovers have enjoyed the sight of her feeding with a healthy looking calf from this season. The future is uncertain for her calf, now," Whales of Guerrero said on Facebook. "Hopefully it was already starting to wean and can make it without its mother by now."

Whale expert and research associate at Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Alisa Schulman-Janiger said on a Facebook post that the news was "devastating."

"Struck to my core by the passing of this whale who I have seen many times; hoping that her calf was well on its way to being weaned, and will be resighted soon, with other humpbacks!" she said on Facebook.

Whales of Guerrero said they hope Fran's death "motivates new laws and improved personal practices on the ocean that will keep humpback whales safer in the future."

Newsweek has reached out to Schulman-Janiger and the Marine Mammal Center for more information.

FOR FRACKING THE NORTH SEA

Equinor, Wintershall Dea eye pipeline to capture CO2 under North Sea

OSLO (Reuters) - Equinor and Wintershall Dea will jointly develop carbon capture and storage projects, the oil firms said on Tuesday, with ideas to build a pipeline from Germany to Norway to transport and store carbon dioxide (CO2) under the North Sea.


FILE PHOTO: Equinor's flag flutters next to the company's headqurters in Stavanger© Reuters/Ints Kalnins

The firms would work together to establish technical and commercial solutions for the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) across borders in Europe, they said.

"The partnership intends to connect Germany, the largest CO2 emitter in Europe, and Norway, holding Europe's largest CO2 storage potential," they said in a joint statement.

Equinor and Wintershall Dea eye the construction of a 900-km (560-mile) long pipeline to transport CO2 from northern Germany to storage sites offshore Norway before 2032.

The pipeline is expected to have a transport capacity of 20 million to 40 million tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to around 20% of all German industrial emissions per year, they said.

The project would also consider another solution where CO2 is transported by ship from Germany to Norway.

Wintershall Dea and Equinor also plan to apply for offshore CO2 storage licences to store between 15 million to 20 million tonnes per year under the North Sea.

The move comes a day after Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies signed their first commercial deal to transport CO2 emitted by a Yara fertiliser plant and store it under the North Sea.

The deal involving Yara's Dutch plant was the first commercial agreement on cross-border CO2 transport and storage signed in the world.

The International Energy Agency says carbon capture and storage is vital to reducing global CO2 emissions, including from hard-to-abate sectors such as cement production, to curb global warming.

However, there are few commercial projects in existence.

In addition, some environmentalists say that CCS prolongs the age of burning hydrocarbons for energy and that the world needs to shift to renewables.

REST IN POWER

Camilo Guevara, son of Cuba's rebel hero Che Guevara, dies

HAVANA (AP) — Camilo Guevara March, a son of revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara and director of a center dedicated to studying him, has died, Cuban officials said Tuesday. He was 60.


Camilo Guevara, son of Cuba's rebel hero Che Guevara, dies© Provided by The Canadian Press

The official news agency Prensa Latina said he died during a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, of “pulmonary thrombosis which led to a heart attack.”

He was the third of four children born to Aleida March and Che Guevara, the Argentine physician who became a legendary figure fighting alongside Fidel Castro during Cuba's revolution — and who later led rebel bands in other nations.

Along with his mother, he was director of the Center of Che Guevara Studies in Havana, which houses documents and other items related to the rebel leader.

Camilo Guevara March had a generally low public profile, though he sometimes appeared at events honoring his father and publicly opposed use of Che Guevara's image in marketing campaigns.

“With deep pain, we say farewell to Camilo, son of Che and promoter of his ideas," President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on his Twitter account.

He is survived by a daughter, Camila, product of his marriage to the late singer Suylén Milanés, daughter of singer Pablo Milanés.

The Associated Press

TikTok faces 64,700 euro fine in Russia for feminist and LGTBI «propaganda»

Social network TikTok is facing a fine of four million rubles (about 64,700 euros) for failing to remove content from its platform that, according to Russian law, promotes "anti-traditional values" such as feminism and LGTBI rights, a Moscow court has ruled.


Pride Day march in Warsaw, Poland. - 

Judge Timur Vajrameev, of the Taganski district, has told that this Tuesday that the Federal Service for Communications and Media Supervision--Roskomnadzor--has filed a complaint against the mentioned social network for "propaganda of non-traditional values", as well as for "distorting traditional sexual values".

The next hearing in the case will resume on October 4. The financial penalty of four million rubles is the highest a company can face if it refuses to remove content banned by the legislation, Russian news agencies have reported.

The one that has been sentenced to pay three million rubles (around $50,000) is the Twitch platform for refusing to delete an interview with the advisor to the Ukrainian Presidency, Alexei Arestovich.

The company was found guilty of promoting false information about the invasion of Ukraine, known to Russia as "special operation", and refusing to rectify it.

Armed left and rightwing protesters clash at ‘drag brunch’ in Texas

Martin Pengelly in New York - 

Right- and leftwing protesters, some heavily armed with semi-automatic rifles, faced off outside a “drag brunch” at a restaurant in Roanoke, Texas, video showed.


Photograph: Martin Pope/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian

Related: More than 40% of Americans think civil war likely within a decade

The standoff on Sunday was filmed by a Dallas-based investigative reporter, whose footage spread online, and it comes amid rising tensions in US society, polls show majorities of Americans believe political violence is becoming more likely.

At the state level, Republican governments have passed anti-LGBTQ+ laws, particularly in education. At the national level, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has suggested the rights to same-sex marriage could be overturned, following the removal of the constitutional right to abortion.

As the Guardian reported in July, drag queens are increasingly reporting rightwing harassment.

In Arizona, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, recently tweeted: “They kicked God out of schools and welcomed the Drag Queens. They took down our Flag and replaced it with a rainbow … let’s bring back the basics: God, Guns and Glory.”

In Texas, leftwing activists who stood outside the drag brunch carried semi-automatic rifles.

The brunch was held at Anderson Distillery & Grill. Before the event, the restaurant owner, Jay Anderson, wrote on Facebook: “It was never my intention to host an event that would result in controversy, hate and divisiveness. It is my intention to welcome people from ALL walks of life.”

“… The live entertainment … will be similar to a variety show with professional drag artists lip-synching, dancing and performing comedy routines. The show will be hosted by my son, Bailey (aka Trisha Delish), who will ensure the show remains clean.

“No foul language. No sexual content. No erotic behavior. Performers will be fully clothed. Music will not contain explicit lyrics.”

Steven Monacelli, the journalist who filmed at the event, reported that it sold out.

The Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, a leftwing group named for the 19th-century anti-slavery fighter executed shortly before the civil war, and which says it is “not a militia”, said it organised the armed guard outside the restaurant.

Masked leftwing protesters carrying rifles were confronted by people opposed to the event. One opponent told Monacelli: “I’m here to support people that don’t indoctrinate and groom little eight-year-old kids.”

An organiser of the rightwing counter-protest, Kelly Neidert, recently said people who participate in LGBTQ+ pride events should be “round[ed] up”. Her Twitter account is suspended.

Related: US drag queens stand their ground amid intimidation by the far right

Left- and rightwing activists engaged in what Monacelli called “heated exchanges”. He also reported the presence of a member of the Proud Boys far-right group and photographed a rightwing protester carrying a baseball bat wrapped in razor wire.

Monacelli wrote: “Some may say that it’s hypocritical to note the armed counter-protesters at the drag brunch when there are armed antifascists. But one group is here with weapons because they are seeking to defend a group that feels threatened, while the other group is here for different reasons.”

Sgt Ryan Otero of the Roanoke police told the Dallas Morning News he did not know of any arrests.

“We were there to try to keep the peace and basically keep these two sides apart,” he said.

Pronoun use mostly by younger Canadians: Poll
Postmedia News - Yesterday 

A new poll done by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) suggests there are differences across age groups in the language people find acceptable around race and gender.© Provided by Toronto Sun

Anew poll done by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) suggests there are differences across age groups in the language people find acceptable around race and gender.

The vast majority of Canadians, for example, do not add their gender pronouns to emails or share them at meetings.

Polling found that almost 85% of Canadians don’t add their pronouns to emails, according to a report on the study in the National Post.

But sharing gender pronouns in one’s email signature and on social media is becoming more common as a way to prevent misgendering and show allyship with the LGBTQ+ community. It is a supportive gesture suggested by many organizations.

Of respondents, 84.9% say they do not add gender pronouns to emails or share at meetings; 15.1% say they do.

Most Canadians (85.4%) do not believe adding pronouns should be compulsory.

Those who do use pronouns in emails or social media or share in meetings think it should be required. Of those who do share, 58.8% said it should be compulsory.

The National Post cites Jack Jedwab, president and CEO of the ACS, as saying Canadians need more guidance from academics and policymakers about the language changes, including information on what these terms mean and why it is important to understand their use.

“A lot of people who do use gender pronouns feel very strongly about the need for them to be used as widely as possible,” said Jedwab.

Young people aged 18 to 24 are most likely to share pronouns, with about 30% saying they do so.

After the age of 44, it is less likely that people share pronouns on a regular basis, with only 12.5% aged 45 to 54 saying they do so.

As regards the language around race, that too involves age differences.

Statistics Canada and the Employment Equity Act (EEA) — which promotes equity in workplaces — use the term “visible minorities” to define, “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.”

But in Ontario, the Human Rights Commission recommended “racialized person” or “racialized group” as an alternative, as these terms express race, “as a social construct rather than as a description based on perceived biological traits.”

Another ACS poll found many people don’t like the word racialized. Of those polled, 43.6% favoured “persons of colour” and thought it made the most sense in reference to Black or Asian people.

About 30% thought “visible minorities” was the better term.

Canadians who are Black prefer “visible minorities,” with 44.3% saying this term makes the most sense. Another 11.3 per cent of Black-identifying respondents said “racialized groups” is best.

More than half of Asian respondents say “visible minority” is best.

Again, age plays into it. Persons aged 18 to 24 prefer “racialized groups” to refer to Black or Asian people, and 24 per cent say it makes the most sense.

Very few aged 45 to 54 say it’s the better term.

The poll involved 1764 Canadians and was undertaken between July 8 and 10. A probability sample of 1,764 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

From a Republican 'tsunami' to a 'puddle': Why the forecast for November is changing

Ronald Brownstein - 

For political professionals in both parties, that’s the capsule explanation for why the Democratic position in the midterm elections appears to have improved so much since summer began.

When the election looked to be primarily a referendum on the performance of the Democrats who control the White House and Congress, Republicans were optimistic that a towering “red wave” would carry them to sweeping gains in November.

But with evidence suggesting more voters are treating the election as a comparative choice between the two parties, operatives on both sides are bracing for a closely contested outcome that could include an unusual divergence in results for the House and those in Senate and governor races.

“It feels to me to be more like a shallow red puddle that we’re walking through, rather than a tsunami of sorts,” says Republican strategist John Thomas.

The key to the change in expectations is a shift in the issues motivating the electorate. Earlier this year, the debate between the parties centered on inflation, the economy, crime, immigration and President Joe Biden’s stalled legislative agenda in Congress – all issues that motivated the Republican base and alienated many swing voters from Democrats. But a series of dramatic events over the past few months have elevated an entirely different set of issues: gun violence, threats to democracy, climate change and, above all, abortion rights.

The effect has been the political equivalent to one weather system displacing another.

While the focus on the economy and crime encouraged voters to simply grade the performance of the party in power – the classic “referendum election” frame – the new concerns have highlighted stark differences between the two parties and defined the election more as a choice between antithetical directions for the nation. That new frame has both energized Democratic base voters who earlier appeared disenchanted or tuned out and reminded many swing voters why they have recoiled from the Donald Trump-era Republican Party.

While midterm elections are normally “a referendum on incumbents and economic reality … we are not in normal times,” says Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, vice president and chief strategy officer of Way to Win, a liberal group that funds organizations and campaigns focusing on voters of color. “Republicans have embraced this Trump-ism, these brazen assaults on our freedoms and our families and are rejecting the policies voters actually want. That [creates] an opportunity for us to re-turnout our surge voters from 2018 and to move conflicted voters over.”

The new focus on issues such as gun violence, threats to democracy and abortion has not erased the threats to congressional Democrats from the public’s mostly negative assessments about the economy, or its enduring concern about crime. But to a far greater extent than earlier this year, it has provided Democratic campaigns an opportunity to shift the campaign discussion from how voters feel about Biden’s performance to whether they support the direction Republicans would take the country, especially since the GOP nominated so many Senate and governor candidates who have unreservedly embraced Trump.

“The conditions have changed, and we have to step into that and tell this story as clearly as we can,” says Fernandez Ancona. “We need voters to see the midterm as a crossroads, not a referendum.”

Democratic hopes of avoiding the worst in November will likely pivot on whether they can successfully convince enough voters, particularly voters in their presidential-year coalition who might otherwise skip a midterm election, to see the contest in those terms.

An NBC poll released last week, conducted by the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies and the Democratic firm led by Peter Hart and Geoff Garin, captured the rare split screen dynamic that’s reshaping the campaign. When the pollsters asked respondents to identify their top concerns in the midterm election, they found an unusually wide separation between voters in each party’s coalition.

“It is a really unusual election,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. “Republicans have significant advantages on their set of issues (inflation, economy, crime, border security) and Democrats enjoy significant advantages on issues of concern to their voters (abortion, climate change, guns, health care). There is no overlap, no competitive issues. This means each party has an unusual opportunity to try to create their own narrative to their own voters on what this election is about.”

The poll found that significant numbers of voters remain focused on the issues that dominated the debate earlier this year, and that those voters backed Republicans by wide margins for Congress. Nearly three-fifths of voters who cited the cost of living as one of their top two concerns in the survey preferred Republicans, as did about three-fifths of those focused on crime, two-thirds of those who raised the economy, and nearly 9-in-10 of those who identified immigration as a principal concern, according to detailed results provided by POS.

But Democrats, uncommonly, had comparable advantages on a different set of issues that cumulatively ranked as top-two priorities for nearly as many voters as the concerns that advantaged Republicans. In the survey, Democrats won about two-thirds of voters focused on either gun violence or threats to democracy, over 7-in-10 of those who cited abortion, and more than 8-in-10 who identified climate change.

All of these issues have gained in prominence since the spring: gun violence since the Ulvade, Texas, massacre, abortion since the Supreme Court decision that overturned the national right to the procedure, threats to democracy amid the disclosures of the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection and the revelations about Trump’s mishandling of classified material, and climate since the unexpected passage of the Democrats’ slimmed down reconciliation bill. That increased visibility represents the new weather system that has at least partially pushed aside the dark clouds of inflation and economic discontent that hung over Democrats for most of this year.

“The conversation in the nation has changed,” says Michael Podhorzer, former chief political adviser to the AFL-CIO and chair of the Analyst Institute, a collaborative of progressive groups that conducts extensive public polling. “In 2021, the conversation was about what Democrats were or were not doing – inflation, Afghanistan, crime – the classic context for a party-in-power rout. Since June, the conversation has shifted to what returning Republicans to power would mean.” That shift in the conversation, he argues, is “reminding the 81 million people who voted against Trump in 2020” about why they turned out to oppose him and increasing the odds that more of them will show up again in 2022.

The Way to Win group is arguing that Democrats should crystallize the new issues rising in prominence into a straightforward but sharp message: Americans need to vote for Democrats to “protect our freedoms” against “Trump Republicans [who] want to take away freedom from all who do not look, live, and love like them.” Abortion is an especially powerful symbol of that idea, Fernandez Ancona says.

“We have even heard people in focus groups say, ‘prices go up and down, but I can’t prevent myself from being raped and not being able to have an abortion,’” she said. “The idea that something everyone had is now being taken away is so strong it’s overriding” other concerns.

Like many GOP strategists, Thomas believes economic assessments ultimately will motivate more voters than abortion. But he agrees the campaign no longer revolves solely around the economy.

“The Republicans only hope to regain a wave is if there is a uniting singular issue that refocused all voters” and concentrated discontent with Biden’s performance, the way inflation did earlier this year, he said.

“But right now, with this split in the electorate, there’s not one big thing that the voters are unanimously going, ‘Screw those guys, I want to blame somebody,’” Thomas added. “The fragmentation really has benefited the Democrats.”

Many analysts believe that the traditional referendum dynamics may prove most powerful in House races, while many Senate and governor’s races already show signs of evolving into much more of a choice kind of election. “The difference in statewide races is that the voters know the candidates better and so a combination of good candidates [running against] bad candidates are better able to transcend national tides,” says Garin, the Democratic pollster.

By contrast, Garin notes, “House races in some ways are more parliamentary in nature” –meaning that they turn less on assessments of the individual candidates, who are often not that well defined for voters, than on broader views about the two parties and conditions in the country. The clearest measure of the increasingly parliamentary nature of House races over the past several decades has been the tightening correlation between voters’ attitudes toward a president and their willingness to vote for House candidates from his party.

As I’ve written, in exit polls, the share of voters who disapprove of a president’s performance and vote against congressional candidates from his party has increased from about 75% in the late 1980s, to over 80% from the 1990s through the early 2000s, to fully 90% by 2018. But in multiple polls this year, Republican congressional candidates are not drawing nearly that much support from voters who disapprove of Biden.

That’s a measure of resistance to the Trump-era GOP even among voters disenchanted with the Democrats’ performance. Particularly noteworthy is that a recent Pew Research Center survey found congressional Democrats leading among voters who somewhat disapproved of Biden’s performance, while the NBC survey found them essentially breaking even with those voters. That’s a remarkable divergence from recent experience: the opposition party won about two-thirds of voters who somewhat disapproved of Trump in 2018 and former President Barack Obama in 2010, according to exit poll results provided by the CNN polling unit.

These dynamics (along with a slight but perceptible rise in Biden’s approval rating) help explain why some independent analysts, such as the Cook Political Report, have lowered their expectations on the number of seats Republicans may gain in November. But even so, the tendency of voters dissatisfied with the president to back the opposition party in House elections is strong enough that most analysts still believe Republicans can gain enough seats to capture the majority (even if, for the first time, some Democratic analysts see a path to defying the usual midterm history and maintaining control).

It’s in higher-profile Senate and governor’s races that the new issue dynamics are creating the greatest opportunity for Democrats to rise above general discontent over the country’s direction.

With their greater visibility, those races, as Garin noted, are inherently more of a choice. And, at least for now, multiple statewide Democratic candidates facing Trump-endorsed opponents are running strongly and drawing support that considerably exceeds Biden’s approval rating in their states. Races that now fit that description include the Senate contests in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Ohio, as well as governor’s races in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona.

Democrats are far from guaranteed victory in any of those races. But in all of them, they have fortified their position by shifting the campaign focus from discontent over Biden’s performance and inflation to the personal and ideological vulnerabilities of their GOP opponents, particularly their hardline stances against abortion. “In the House you can have a candidate who can’t put three sentences together and no one finds out,” says Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “But you can’t do that in a Senate race. There’s too much money that’s spent, there’s too much coverage. The governor races [are] the same thing.”

If House races unfold as more of a referendum, and statewide contests play out more like a choice, that creates the possibility of an unusual divergence in the midterm result.

Almost always, the party that wins House seats in a midterm also gains Senate seats, and for that matter, adds governorships. Since World War II, the party that gained House seats simultaneously lost Senate seats only in 2018, 1970 and 1962. Over that nearly eight-decade span, no party ever gained House seats and simultaneously lost ground in both the Senate and governor’s races.

Yet a November outcome in which Republicans add only a modest number of House seats and fail to gain ground, or even lose some, in Senate and governor’s contests, no longer seems impossible. All the dynamics boosting Republicans this year haven’t disappeared. But they are no longer the only forces shaping the campaign atmosphere. And that could mean the midterm election produces far more of a split decision than almost anyone considered possible earlier this year.

UN sees situation in Baghdad as «extremely dangerous», calls for calm

Daniel Stewart - Yesterday 

The UN has appealed for restraint in the face of the mobilizations unleashed on Monday in Baghdad following the announcement by Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr that he is quitting politics, as it perceives "an extremely dangerous escalation" of tensions.


A supporter of cleric Muqtada al Sadr waves the Iraqi flag at an August 8 protest

The United Nations mission in Iraq (UNAMI) has urged the demonstrators to leave the Green Zone "immediately" and vacate the public buildings occupied in recent hours so that the government can continue to carry out its work.

"State institutions must be able to operate without hindrance in the service of the Iraqi population, under any circumstances and at any time," the mission said in a statement in which it called for "respect for the constitutional order".

UNAMI pointed out that "the survival of the State is at stake" and that "Iraqis cannot be held hostage to an unpredictable and unsustainable situation", for which it called for the collaboration of all parties.

In this sense, he exhorted the different political actors to lower the tension and to bet on dialogue - "the only way to resolve differences" - with the ultimate objective of avoiding what could be "an unstoppable chain of events" in Iraq.