Overnight News Digest: Republican Party Completely Abandons Democracy, Imperils Nation’s Future

Ohio AG Dave Yost files brief criticizing Texas’ lawsuit challenging Biden win

Attorney General Dave Yost on Thursday filed a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing a Texas lawsuit’s goal to effectively delay the Electoral College from voting Joe Biden the next U.S. president.

Yost, a Columbus Republican, stated in the brief that the Supreme Court lacks authority to order state legislatures in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to appoint presidential electors. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit argues such a move is needed because coronavirus-related changes to election rules in those states opened the door to voter fraud (claims of which have so far been unsubstantiated).

“The relief that Texas seeks would undermine a foundational premise of our federalist system: the idea that the States are sovereigns, free to govern themselves,” Yost stated in the brief, adding later: “The courts have no more business ordering the People’s representatives how to choose electors than they do ordering the People themselves how to choose their dinners.”

However, while Yost disagreed with Texas’ call to hold up the Electoral College vote on Dec. 14, he encouraged the Supreme Court to rule on whether the election changes made by the states are unconstitutional.

Des Moines Register

Gov. Kim Reynolds: Iowa wasn't invited to join lawsuit seeking to overturn Trump losses in 4 states

Gov. Kim Reynolds said Iowa has not joined other states who are supporting a lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general that seeks to halt four states from casting electoral votes in favor of president-elect Joe Biden.

Reynolds, a Republican, said since Iowa's attorney general, Tom Miller, is a Democrat, the state wasn't asked by the group of Republican attorneys general forming an amicus brief in support of the suit.

"For the simple fact that Tom Miller is a Democrat, Iowa was not notified or asked to be a part of that brief," Reynolds said Thursday morning on "Need to Know with Jeff Angelo," a talk show on WHO-AM (1040). "We weren't given the opportunity to sign on in support of that."

Iowa AG Tom Miller: "I would not have joined an amicus brief in support of this lawsuit because the 2020 elections were fairly and safely conducted by election officials of both parties ... I cannot support a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the votes of millions of Americans."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 11, 2020

AP News

One-day US deaths top 3,000, more than D-Day or 9/11

Just when the U.S. appears on the verge of rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine, the numbers have become gloomier than ever: Over 3,000 American deaths in a single day, more than on D-Day or 9/11. One million new cases in the span of five days. More than 106,000 people in the hospital.

The crisis across the country is pushing medical centers to the breaking point and leaving staff members and public health officials burned out and plagued by tears and nightmares.

All told, the crisis has left more than 290,000 people dead nationwide, with more than 15.5 million confirmed infections.

Congress stuck as McConnell torpedoes emerging COVID-19 deal

An emerging $900 billion COVID-19 aid package from a bipartisan group of lawmakers all but collapsed Thursday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republican senators won’t support $160 billion in state and local funds as part of a potential trade-off in the deal. […]

The hardened stance from McConnell, who does not appear to have enough votes from his Republican majority for a far-reaching compromise, creates a new stalemate over the $900-billion-plus package, despite days of toiling by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to strike compromise.

Other legislative pile-ups now threaten Friday’s must-pass government funding bill. If it doesn’t clear Congress, that would trigger a federal government shutdown on Saturday.

BuzzFeed News

Here Are The Names Of 106 Members Of The House Who Refuse To Accept That Biden Won

All 50 states have officially certified the results of the 2020 presidential election as of this week, reaffirming what has been known for over a month now: Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

And yet, on Thursday, 106 Republican members of Congress signed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to allow the state of Texas to file a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the election results in the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, all of which … Donald Trump lost.

I hope there's a roll-call vote. It will be a monument to the collapse of the Republican Party and a case study for generations to come on the crisis of American democracy brought about by a bunch of seditious cowards who were afraid of a mentally ill real estate huckster. https://t.co/4JUMxfdrR9

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 11, 2020

The Only Anne Frank Memorial In The United States Was Defaced With Swastika Stickers

Authorities in Boise, Idaho, are investigating after the only Anne Frank memorial in the US was defaced with swastika stickers.

"We take all instances of hate and hate messaging seriously," the Boise Police Department said in a statement Wednesday. "We are committed to ferreting out individuals who would sow hate in our community and seek to cause harm." […]

Nine stickers bearing the Nazi symbol and the words "We are everywhere" were discovered at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial Tuesday morning, the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights said in a Facebook post.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Proposed constitutional amendment would have legislators elect secretary of state

[Georgia] House Speaker David Ralston said Thursday that he will seek a constitutional amendment for state legislators — not voters — to choose Georgia’s top election official, an attempt to blame Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for perceived election problems.

Ralston’s proposal came after a hearing in the state House of Representatives where supporters of Donald Trump made unsubstantiated claims of illegal voting following the president’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden by about 12,000 votes. […]

Raffensperger’s staff called the move “a clear power grab” following a concerted election misinformation effort featuring Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, during the daylong hearing. Both Raffensperger and Ralston are Republicans.

Federal judge hears case challenging Georgia voter purges

A federal judge heard arguments Thursday from voting rights groups that are challenging the removal of what they said were hundreds of thousands of eligible voters from Georgia’s voting rolls last year.

U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones did not make a ruling Thursday but said he would release his decision “as quick as possible.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta by the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Transformative Justice Coalition and the Rainbow Push Coalition. Attorneys for the secretary of state’s office asked Jones to dismiss the case.

ProPublica

Sen. David Perdue Sold His Home to a Finance Industry Official Whose Organization Was Lobbying the Senate

Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., sold his Washington, D.C., home last year to a brokerage industry official whose organization is under the purview of a committee Perdue sits on. The deal was made off market, without the home being listed for sale publicly.

Though an appraisal provided to ProPublica by the buyer found that Perdue sold for slightly under market value, four local real estate experts disagreed, telling ProPublica that the almost $1.8 million sale price Perdue garnered seemed high. Their estimates of the premium ranged from a few thousand dollars to as much as about $140,000. A fifth expert said the price was squarely fair market value.

Ultimately, congressional ethics experts said, their concern was that Perdue sold privately and to someone whose organization that he oversaw as a senator.

Mother Jones

How Kelly Loeffler’s Firm Facilitated an Enron-Like Scandal

At a debate on Sunday night, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Republican vying in one of the two critical January 5 Senate run-offs in Georgia, declared that she has been using her “private sector experience to make sure that Georgians get back to work.” But one of her private sector experiences was an episode in which her company provided a platform for highly speculative unregulated energy trading that ended up causing an Enron-like scandal and costing residents of Georgia millions of dollars.

Before she was appointed in late 2019 to fill a Senate vacancy, Loeffler, a prominent Republican donor, had spent 16 years working in the corporate management of Intercontinental Exchange, a Fortune 500 company that owns the New York Stock Exchange and other financial markets, as well as other businesses, including digital mortgage services. The CEO of the company, Jeffrey Sprecher, is her husband, and together they are worth $800 million. (Loeffler, who has been dogged by questions about her controversial stock trading, is the wealthiest member of Congress.) When she left Intercontinental—which is known as ICE—in 2018, a press release noted that Loeffler had led “all aspects of ICE’s investor relations, communications, marketing strategy, brand, digital platforms and sustainability efforts, among many other contributions.” She still holds between $5 million and $25 million in ICE stock, according to her most recent financial disclosure.

NBC News

In leaked recording, Biden says Republicans used 'defund the police' to 'beat the living hell' out of Democrats

President-elect Joe Biden appeared to blame the "defund the police" movement for contributing to surprising Democratic down-ballot losses last month, telling civil rights leaders this week that they should proceed carefully on criminal justice issues.

"That's how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we're talking about defunding the police. We're not. We're talking about holding them accountable," Biden said Tuesday in a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders, according to audio excerpts posted Thursday in a podcast from The Intercept.

Biden pledged that he would follow through on his promises to address systemic racism, but he warned about getting "too far ahead of ourselves" with critical Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.

"We can go very far. It matters how we do it. I think it matters how we do it," Biden said.

Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine receives key FDA panel recommendation

An independent panel of experts has overwhelmingly voted to recommend that the Food and Drug Administration authorize Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in people ages 16 and older.

The vote Thursday afternoon was 17 in favor of the authorization and four against, with one person abstaining. […]

One of the members who voted no, Dr. David Kim, director of the vaccines division of the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy in the Department of Health and Human Services, told CNBC in an email that he would have voted yes "most enthusiastically" had the vote been limited to recommending authorization to those ages 18 and older.

TIME

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year

As Biden sees it, trusting his instincts and tuning out the naysayers is a big reason why he’s going to be the next Commander in Chief. They said he was too old, too unsteady, too boring. That his pledge to restore the “soul of the nation” felt like antiquated hokum at a moment when Hurricane Trump was tearing through America, ripping through institutions, chewing up norms and spitting them out. “I got widely criticized,” Biden recalls, for “saying that we had to not greet Trump with a clenched fist but with more of an open hand. That we weren’t going to respond to hate with hate.” To him, it wasn’t about fighting Trump with righteous vengeance, or probing any deeper rot that might have contributed to his ascent. Biden believed most voters simply wanted reconciliation after four years of combat, that they craved decency, dignity, experience and competence. “What I got most criticized for was, I said we had to unite America,” he says. “I never came off that message.”

Biden had the vision, set the tone and topped the ticket. But he also recognized what he could not offer on his own, what a 78-year-old white man could never provide: generational change, a fresh perspective, and an embodiment of America’s diversity. For that, he needed Kamala Harris: California Senator, former district attorney and state attorney general, a biracial child of immigrants whose charisma and tough questioning of Trump Administration officials electrified millions of Democrats. The Vice President has never before been a woman, or Black, or Asian American. “I will be the first, but I will not be the last,” Harris says in a separate interview. “That’s about legacy, that’s about creating a pathway, that’s about leaving the door more open than it was when you walked in.”

The Democratic ticket was an unlikely partnership: forged in conflict and fused over Zoom, divided by generation, race and gender. They come from different coasts, different ideologies, different Americas. But they also have much in common, says Biden: working-class backgrounds, blended families, shared values. “We could have been raised by the same mother,” he says. In an age of tribalism, the union aims to demonstrate that differences don’t have to be divides.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME's 2020 Person of the Year #TIMEPOYhttps://t.co/o97QNlSBrlpic.twitter.com/KuoBoebBN4

— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2020

NPR News

House Oversight Committee Chair: Testimony Points To Political Interference At CDC

[…] In a Thursday letter to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Rep. James Clyburn expressed "serious concern about what may be deliberate efforts by the Trump Administration to conceal and destroy evidence that senior political appointees interfered with career officials' response to the coronavirus crisis" at the CDC.

Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. In addition to HHS Secretary Alex Azar, the letter was also addressed to CDC Director Robert Redfield.

Clyburn suggested Redfield may have instructed subordinates to delete an email from an HHS appointee instructing the CDC to alter or rescind reports believed to be damaging to President Trump. The congressman also accused Redfield of pushing back the publication of a report on a coronavirus outbreak among children in Georgia so that the White House could continue to push for school reopenings.

Biden Picks Susan Rice For Top Domestic Policy Position

President-elect Joe Biden said on Thursday he has chosen Susan Rice to lead the White House Domestic Policy Council, a position that does not require confirmation by the Senate.

Rice, 56, is a veteran of the past two Democratic administrations, serving on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration and as ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser under former President Barack Obama.

Rice had previously been on Biden's shortlist for vice president. Her selection to serve in a domestic role is somewhat unexpected given her extensive credentials in foreign policy.

Bloomberg

Boris Johnson Says Prepare for No EU Trade Deal After Brexit

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned business and the public to prepare to leave the European Union’s single market without a trade deal as negotiations with the bloc falter.

Speaking a day after crisis talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ended without a breakthrough, Johnson said Britain will continue to seek a deal. But he also warned that the bloc’s demand that the U.K. follow future changes in the EU’s rules is a major obstacle. […]

With the mood in the Brexit negotiating room suddenly turning pessimistic, any deal with the U.K. is now likely to depend on a last-minute intervention by either German Chancellor Angela Merkel or France’s Emmanuel Macron. Both are in the middle of an EU summit in Brussels and are in a position to make a difference as the two major powerbrokers in the bloc.

Republicans Signal Bipartisan Relief Plan Won’t Get Support

The attempt to draw up a pandemic relief package hit another roadblock Thursday as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenants said key portions of a compromise proposal from a bipartisan group of lawmakers aren’t likely to get backing from a majority of Republicans.

Senator John Thune, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, said the group of GOP and Democratic senators trying to forge a compromise likely cannot produce a solution to limiting the liability of employers in connection with Covid-19 infections that will satisfy Republicans. Democrats probably won’t like the result either, he added.

“My sense is that they’re not going to get there on the liability language,” he said at the Capitol. “They’re just not going to be able to thread the needle.”

Al Jazeera

Ranks of newly US unemployed rise sharply along with virus cases

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits with states jumped to 853,000 last week – marking a 137,000 increase from the previous week’s reading, the United States Department of Labor said on Thursday.

The steep rise in weekly jobless claims signals that layoffs are increasing as measures to contain COVID-19 are implemented across the country, sapping business activity and sowing uncertainty into the outlook.

The number of Americans collecting state jobless benefits overall – a metric known as continuing claims which lags initial ones by a week – rose by 230,000 to 5,757,000 – the first increase since August.

US Senate backs massive arms sales to UAE after Trump veto threat

The United States Senate has defeated an effort to block the Trump administration’s sale of $23bn in advanced fighter jets and drones to the United Arab Emirates.

… Donald Trump had issued a formal threat to veto congressional efforts to block the planned weapons transfer, which is tied to the UAE’s normalisation of ties with Israel under the “Abraham Accords”.

Two procedural votes failed to gain a majority of the 100-member Senate, effectively stopping the effort to block the sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets and Reaper drones.

Vox

An overwhelming majority of Americans want Congress to pass more stimulus — now

According to a new poll from Vox and Data for Progress, 81 percent of likely voters would like to see lawmakers approve another bill before the end of the year. That’s up from 67 percent of people calling on Congress to approve more stimulus before the election in an October Vox/DFP poll.

Right now, it’s unclear whether lawmakers will reach an agreement this month. Although Republicans and Democrats both support several key measures including funding for schools, vaccine distribution, and small-business aid, there are still major hold-ups regarding the inclusion of liability protections and state and local funds.

Meanwhile, Americans are continuing to navigate severe economic fallout from the pandemic. In the Vox/DFP poll, one in five respondents said they’ve applied for unemployment insurance since the pandemic began, about three in 10 have applied for SNAP food aid or gone to a food bank, and one in five have struggled with at least one rent or mortgage payment. This poll was fielded with 1,080 likely voters from December 4 to 6, and has a margin of error of 3 points.

The EU can now punish human rights violators all over the world

The European Union has a new way to punish human rights abusers around the world.

This week, the EU signed off on a law that will give the bloc the power to ban travel and freeze assets of individuals and entities involved or associated with violating human rights, including genocide, slavery, extrajudicial arrests and killings, gender-based violence, human trafficking, and other abuses that are “widespread, systematic or are otherwise of serious concern.”

The EU’s adoption of this law is a big deal, both symbolically and practically. One of the European Union’s foundational principles is a commitment to human rights, democracy, and rule of law. But it has sometimes fallen short. This new tool will put some heft behind those commitments.

Houston Chronicle

Rep. Dan Crenshaw accused of discrediting Navy vet’s sex assault outcry

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw told Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie that a woman who reported sexual assault at a VA hospital had filed frivolous complaints when she and Crenshaw served in the same Navy command, according to testimony by several senior officials in a report by the agency’s watchdog.

Investigators said they were troubled by the way Wilkie and his agency handled the outcry of the woman, who is now a Democratic aide in the House of Representatives.

The Houston Republican’s link to matter, first reported by Newsweek magazine, was included in a report released by the agency’s inspector general on Thursday.

CBS News

American B-52H bombers fly to Middle East in mission to deter Iran

Two American bomber aircraft took off from the United States and flew over a swath of the Middle East on Thursday, sending what U.S. officials said was a direct message of deterrence to Iran. The flight of the two massive B-52H Stratofortress bombers over the region, the second such mission in less than a month, was designed to underscore America's continuing commitment to the Middle East even as … Donald Trump's administration withdraws thousands of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rights groups warn China's persecution of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang "turbocharged" by big data

Muslims in China's Xinjiang were "arbitrarily" selected for arrest by a computer program that flagged purportedly suspicious behavior, activists said Wednesday in a report detailing big data's role in repression in the restive region. The U.S.-based NGO Human Rights Watch said leaked police data that listed over 2,000 detainees from the Aksu prefecture was further evidence of "how China's brutal repression of Xinjiang's Turkic Muslims is being turbocharged by technology."

Beijing has come under intense international criticism over its policies in the resource-rich territory, where rights groups say as many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been held in internment camps.

The Denver Post

Tattered Cover sold to local investment group, making it the U.S.’ largest black-owned bookstore

The Tattered Cover, Colorado’s largest and most prominent book store chain, has been sold to local investors after its rockiest year in memory.

“The notion of buying a bookstore in the middle of pandemic was just about the craziest thing I had ever heard,” said Kwame Spearman, the group’s largest shareholder, in remembering the first pitch from partner David Back. “To David’s credit, he kept reaching out.”

What Spearman — who will become new CEO of The Tattered Cover — and other prominent investors quickly realized was that The Tattered Cover was a community asset, not just an investment, Spearman said in a Wednesday phone interview.

The Guardian

Rebound in carbon emissions expected in 2021 after fall caused by Covid

Greenhouse gas emissions, which plunged by a record amount this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, are set to rebound next year as restrictions are lifted further and governments strive to return their economies to growth, according to a global study. […]

The record 7% global fall in carbon of 2.4bn tonnes reduced emissions from fossil fuels to about 34bn tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2020, according to the Global Carbon Budget report, the most comprehensive analysis of the world’s carbon output, published on Friday.

But a rebound next year is almost certain, according to the scientists behind the study, because the drop was the result of temporary behavioural changes rather than structural reforms. China’s emissions may even be level for this year or have increased slightly since 2019, as the country entered and left lockdown sooner than other countries, according to some of the data that fed into the final assessment.

Human-made materials now outweigh Earth's entire biomass – study

The giant human footprint stamped across the world in 2020 is greater than the impact on the planet of all other living things, research suggests. The amount of plastic alone is greater in mass than all land animals and marine creatures combined, the study estimates.

While human beings might believe in “the immensity of the globe and the seeming infinity of the natural world”, the researchers say they wanted to provide an objective and rigorous measure of the reality of the balance between man and nature.

Their research shows that human activity including production of concrete, metal, plastic, bricks and asphalt has brought the world to a crossover point where human-made mass – driven mostly by enhanced consumption and urban development – exceeds the overall living biomass on Earth.

Mongabay

Hope and peace: Bison return to the Rosebud reservation

The bison circled four times around the holding pen, before the lead animals took them into the 3,400-hectare (8,500-acre) pasture, their new home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota. The thunder of 400 hooves as they crossed through the gate gave way to the whir of cameras and ululations from the crowd, perhaps 20 people gathered to see the return of the bison.

Out in their new pasture, the animals loped, moving in unison as if one organism. Then, they slowed and wheeled to the left against a backdrop of a few lonely trees on a blanket of tan grass stretching to distant hills. They seem to fit into the landscape, as if they’d always been there and always would be. […]

“Bringing them home. That’s what it meant,” said Monica Terkildsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota and WWF’s tribal liaison on the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation, who was at the Oct. 30 release.

Hundreds of elephants return to DRC’s Virunga

For years, Anthony Caere, an anti-poaching pilot at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), peered through the windows of his helicopter to see a landscape mostly devoid of wildlife. But now, Virunga is coming back to life. A herd of about 580 savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) recently crossed over from Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park, and they appear to be staying put.

“Now not only are we seeing the elephants, which is an unbelievable sight from above, but we’re noticing the impact of such a big herd on the park,” Caere said in a statement. “They’re restoring everything back to what it was 50 years ago and doing [it] so much faster than we could have imagined. If the elephants continue to stay here in these numbers, this place will look totally different in just a few years.”

Deutsche Welle

EU breaks deadlock on budget, coronavirus recovery fund

European Union leaders on Thursday reached agreement on a long-term budget and coronavirus recovery package, after weeks of resistance from Poland and Hungary, according to EU Council President Charles Michel.

The two countries had blocked the €1.1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) seven-year budget and €750 billion recovery package  over stipulations that tie the funds to upholding the rule of law.

"Now we can start with the implementation and build back our economies. Our landmark recovery package will drive forward our green and digital transitions,'' Michel said in a tweet.

Researchers find new species of whale off the coast of Mexico

Researchers who were looking for a rare whale instead came across what they believe to be a new species of beaked whale, the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) reported on Wednesday.

The researchers didn't realize at first what they had found when they encountered a group of whales on November 17, just off the remote Mexican San Benito islands.

The scientific team had been sailing with the Sea Shepherd Conservation society in pursuit of the Perrin's beaked whale — so elusive that they have only been observed when dead specimens show up on beaches.

Railway Age

AAR: Another Double-Digit Gain for Intermodal

For the week ending Dec. 5, 2020, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 542,203 carloads and intermodal units—up 4.8% from the same period last year—based on a double-digit intermodal gain, according to an Association of American Railroads (AAR) Dec. 9 report. Total carloads were 244,986, down 1.4% compared with the same period in 2019, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume of 297,217 containers and trailers increased 10.5% compared with 2019.

Five of the 10 carload commodity groups posted an increase compared with the same week in 2019. They were grain, up 4,757 carloads, to 27,950; chemicals, up 4,043 carloads, to 36,294; and farm products excluding grain, and food, up 1,365 carloads, to 17,494. Commodity groups that experienced decreases compared with the same week in 2019 included coal, down 7,535 carloads, to 65,192; nonmetallic minerals, down 3,304 carloads, to 28,714; and petroleum and petroleum products, down 1,871 carloads, to 11,710.

BBC News

Afghanistan violence: Journalist Malala Maiwand shot dead along with her driver

A female journalist has been shot dead in eastern Afghanistan, the latest victim of a spate of assassinations across the country.

Malala Maiwand was on her way to work in Jalalabad on Thursday when gunmen opened fire on her vehicle. Her driver, Mohammad Tahir, was also killed. No group has officially said it carried out the attack. […]

Maiwand, a journalist at Enikass TV and Radio, was travelling to work when her vehicle was attacked by unidentified gunmen.

The woman behind China's Chang'e-5 Moon mission

A 24-year-old female space commander has become a viral sensation on Chinese social media for her work on the Chang'e-5 Moon exploration programme.

Despite being the youngest commander at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, Zhou Chengyu is known at work as "Big Sister" as a sign of respect.

The Chang'e-5 mission is China's third successful Moon landing in seven years. Ms Zhou was in charge of the rocket connector system - described as a pivotal role. […]

The mission is part of Beijing's push to become a space superpower, with the Chinese state media casting the "space dream" - as President Xi Jinping calls it - as one step in the path to "national rejuvenation".

The Sydney Morning Herald

Tasmanian Devil are flattening the curve and likely to survive cancer fight

The Tasmanian Devil has flattened the curve of the spread of the transmissible cancer that has threatened it with extinction and new evidence is suggesting that due to the animal’s rapid evolution it is likely to survive the disease.

Using similar sophisticated methods of genomic analysis used to trace the evolution and spread of COVID-19 through human populations, scientists have established that the reproduction number of the disease has significantly reduced.

The research, published on Friday in the leading journal Science, shows when the disease first emerged in the late 1990s each infected animal passed the facial cancer tumours on to an average of 3.5 other devils, which is a higher reproduction number than for COVID-19, which has a reproduction number of around 2.32.

Facebook breakup would demolish Zuckerberg's social media empire

The US Federal Trade Commission took a major step toward the possible breakup of Facebook by formally filing an antitrust lawsuit against the technology giant, accusing it of abusing its monopoly powers in social networking to stifle competition.

The FTC and a coalition of states also suing the company zeroed in on Facebook's acquisition of photo-sharing app Instagram for $US715 million ($949 million) in 2012, and the $US22 billion deal for messaging service WhatsApp two years later. The deals, which sailed past regulators when they were proposed, were meant to "squelch" competitive threats, the commission wrote in its complaint Wednesday. Now, the FTC wants Facebook to divest the two businesses - an idea that poses an existential threat to the empire built by chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg.

The Washington Post

Supreme Court leaves Delaware system of balancing Democratic and Republican judges in place

The Supreme Court on Thursday left in place Delaware’s system of requiring its judiciary to be roughly balanced between Democrats and Republicans, but only because it said the would-be judge challenging the practice lacked legal standing to advance his argument.

The court did not reach a question on the constitutionality of such a system, because it said James Adams was not “ready and able” to apply for a judicial appointment in the near future.

It was one of a string of unanimous decisions the court issued from hearings it held in October. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was not on the court at the time, so she did not participate in the decisions.

Mnuchin defends controversial loan to private equity-backed firm in contentious Hill testimony

Republicans and Democrats in Congress grilled Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday over his agency’s $700 million loan to a troubled trucking company backed by a massive private equity company with White House ties.

The Treasury Department made the loan to YRC Worldwide in July under a program authorized by Congress to help companies critical to national security suffering because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Congressional Oversight Commission, which is scrutinizing Treasury’s loans, has said the loan to YRC is suspect because the company is not critical to the nation’s defense and was struggling long before the pandemic.

The Pentagon, which also played a crucial part in the national security loans to YRC and other firms, declined to send an official to testify at the hearing, and is resisting the public release of its eventual testimony on the program, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) said at the hearing.

World’s largest iceberg nears collision with South Georgia Island; could imperil penguins

An iceberg larger than the state of Rhode Island that broke off an Antarctic ice shelf in 2017 is closing in on South Georgia Island, a British territory in the south Atlantic Ocean. The iceberg, designated A68a by the National Ice Center, is being steered by ocean currents to a position closer to the island, which is home to large colonies of penguins, seals and other unique wildlife.

The iceberg is less than 31 miles off the coast of South Georgia Island, and a shallow shelf area extending from the island means that a collision could occur within days if ocean currents push the iceberg northward.

The iceberg is more than 650 feet thick, with about nine-tenths of it underwater, according to David Long, director of the center for remote sensing at Brigham Young University who has been tracking the iceberg. Above the water, the iceberg features steep cliffs along its edges.

Ars Technica

4 major browsers are getting hit in widespread malware attacks

An ongoing malware campaign is blasting the Internet with malware that neuters the security of Web browsers, adds malicious browser extensions, and makes other changes to users’ computers, Microsoft said on Thursday.

Adrozek, as the software maker has dubbed the malware family, relies on a sprawling distribution network comprising 159 unique domains with each one hosting an average of 17,300 unique URLs. The URLs, in turn, host an average of 15,300 unique malware samples. The campaign began no later than May and hit a peak in August, when the malware was observed on 30,000 devices per day.

The attack works against the Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Yandex browsers, and it remains ongoing. The end goal for now is to inject ads into search results so the attackers can collect fees from affiliates. While these types of campaigns are common and represent less of a threat than many types of malware, Adrozek stands out because of malicious modifications it makes to security settings and other malicious actions it performs.

New York Magazine

Democratic House Majority May Drop to Two Seats in January

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi already had her hands full dealing with a significantly reduced Democratic majority in her chamber wrought by voters who flipped nine net districts from blue to red in November (Republicans also flipped a Libertarian district). With one race (New York’s 22nd District rematch between Democratic incumbent Anthony Brindisi and his predecessor, Republican Claudia Tenney) still uncalled, Democrats currently hold 222 seats. They need 218 seats for the barest possible majority. Now President-elect Joe Biden has compounded Pelosi’s numbers problem by naming two House Democrats for administration positions: Cedric Richmond of Louisiana (Biden’s transition-team chief), who will head up the White House Office of Public Engagement, and Marcia Fudge of Ohio, who will be nominated to serve as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Both these members of Congress represent heavily Democratic districts, so Richmond and Fudge will be replaced by fellow Democrats. But first they have to resign (Richmond right after Biden takes office in January, Fudge if and when she is confirmed by the Senate), and the governors of their states will choose a date for a special election to fill the vacancies. In the meantime, Pelosi’s majority in the 117th Congress will be down to two or three (depending on what happens in New York). That will give any three or four House Democrats who are inclined to be rebellious some serious leverage over their caucus, and could potentially give House Republicans under Kevin McCarthy more influence than they’ve had since they lost their own majority in 2018.

We Had the Vaccine the Whole Time

You may be surprised to learn that of the trio of long-awaited coronavirus vaccines, the most promising, Moderna’s mRNA-1273, which reported a 94.5 percent efficacy rate on November 16, had been designed by January 13. This was just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public in an act of scientific and humanitarian generosity that resulted in China’s Yong-Zhen Zhang’s being temporarily forced out of his lab. In Massachusetts, the Moderna vaccine design took all of one weekend. It was completed before China had even acknowledged that the disease could be transmitted from human to human, more than a week before the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States. By the time the first American death was announced a month later, the vaccine had already been manufactured and shipped to the National Institutes of Health for the beginning of its Phase I clinical trial. This is — as the country and the world are rightly celebrating — the fastest timeline of development in the history of vaccines. It also means that for the entire span of the pandemic in this country, which has already killed more than 250,000 Americans, we had the tools we needed to prevent it .