Overnight News Digest: Biden quietly makes history with confirmed circuit court judges

729,038 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. 219.4 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. HAVE RECEIVED A VACCINATION DOSE

The Washington Post

All eyes on Manchin after Republicans again block voting rights legislation

Democrats’ months-long drive for muscular new federal voting rights legislation hit a new roadblock Wednesday, with options for progress dwindling as Senate Republicans remained united in blocking debate on the issue. […]

The vote was meant, in part, to demonstrate the depth of the Republican opposition to one of the holdouts over changing the filibuster rule, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who played a leading role in crafting a narrower alternative to the sprawling bill that Senate Republicans blocked in June.

The new bill, called the Freedom to Vote Act, keeps some provisions of the earlier bill, including national standards for early voting and vote-by-mail, new disclosure requirements for “dark money” groups and the establishment of Election Day as a federal holiday. But it also discards or scales back controversial provisions such as a reworking of the Federal Election Commission, a major new public financing system for congressional elections and a mandate for nonpartisan redistricting commissions. It also omits major revisions to the ethics regime for federal officeholders.

Rep. Jim Jordan tells House panel he can’t recall how many times he spoke with Trump on Jan. 6

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Wednesday struggled to answer questions about his communications with … Donald Trump during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, telling a House panel that he doesn’t recall the number of times he spoke with Trump that day.

“Of course I talked to the president,” Jordan told members of the Rules Committee on Wednesday, in response to questioning from the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). “I talked to him that day. I’ve been clear about that. I don’t recall the number of times, but it’s not about me. I know you want to make it about that.”

NBC News

With public defenders as judges, Biden quietly makes history on the courts

While President Joe Biden's economic agenda is mired in Democratic infighting, the Senate is quietly making history with his judicial nominees.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 52-41 Monday to confirm Gustavo Gelpi to be a judge on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, making him the fifth new circuit judge with a background as a public defender on Biden's watch.

Set against recent history, that is a remarkable statistic. President Barack Obama confirmed five former public defenders to the appeals courts over his entire eight years, according to the progressive judicial group Demand Justice. Biden has matched that in his first nine months.

Overall, Gelpi is Biden's eighth new judge with experience as a public defender. That is as many as presidents Donald Trump, Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton landed in their first years combined, said Chris Kang, the chief counsel of Demand Justice.

"It really is amazing how far Biden has shifted the paradigm," Kang said. "This is going to be an important part of his legacy."

Bloomberg

Sen. Sinema refuses to support increases on corporate and individual tax rates

After months of focusing on proposals to increase tax rates on income and capital gains, Democrats are exploring alternatives to fund President Joe Biden’s social spending expansion, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The White House, in a call with top Democrats Wednesday, floated a billionaires’ wealth tax and a tax on stock buybacks as alternatives to rate increases. A person familiar with the call said higher corporate taxes seemed less likely now than individual income-tax increases but talks remain fluid.

Congressional Democrats and the Treasury Department are considering ways to avoid increasing top-line tax rates, according to the people, who requested anonymity because the discussions are not public. The talks come as Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a moderate Democrat, has continued to she say won’t vote for a package with increases on the corporate and individual tax rates, according to one of the people.

FDA Clears Moderna, J&J Boosters and Backs Vaccine Mixing

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared a path for millions more Americans to receive Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, as the nation looks to bolster its defenses and prevent another virus surge.

The agency said in a statement on Wednesday that Moderna Inc. vaccine recipients 65 and over can receive a third shot, as can adults 18 and up who are at high risk of severe Covid or with frequent institutional or occupational exposure to the virus that causes the disease.

Additionally, all J&J recipients 18 and older are eligible for a booster shot at least two months after receiving their first dose.

Los Angeles Times

Sen. Manchin opposes clean energy in Democrat’s climate bill

The centerpiece of President Biden’s climate agenda is running into opposition from key moderate Democrats, raising questions about whether Congress will pass legislation that significantly slows global warming.

Biden has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 50% within a decade, a potentially insurmountable task without major changes in the way the country generates electricity. […]

The plan’s Clean Electricity Performance Program, which would encourage utilities to increase their use of renewable energy through a combination of payments and fines, is opposed by Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key Democrat from a coal- and gas-producing state. Last year, he reported about $492,000 in dividends on stock from his family’s coal brokerage business, according to his latest financial disclosure.

Most Democrats consider the clean electricity proposal dead unless it is significantly weakened.

Appeals court tosses order aimed at protecting immigration detainees from COVID-19

A federal appeals court decided 2-1 Wednesday to overturn a nationwide order requiring federal immigration authorities to monitor and possibly release detainees at high risk of dying or suffering long-term complications from COVID-19.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said a Riverside-based federal district judge overreached when he issued a preliminary injunction in April, 2020 requiring the government to identify and track immigration detainees with certain health risks and establish directives for release during the pandemic.

“That the plaintiffs and district court may have desired more detainees be released, and on a potentially quicker basis, does not mean that the government’s approach — which involved early release determinations — reflected reckless disregard on a national basis,” wrote Judge Daniel A. Bress, a Trump appointee. He was joined by Judge Eric D. Miller, whom Trump also appointed.

The Guardian

Planned fossil fuel output ‘vastly exceeds’ climate limits, says UN

Fossil fuel production planned by the world’s governments “vastly exceeds” the limit needed to keep the rise in global heating to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, a UN report has found.

Despite increasing pledges of action from many nations, governments have not yet made plans to wind down fossil fuel production, the report said. The gap between planned extraction of coal, oil and gas and safe limits remains as large as in 2019, when the UN first reported on the issue. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called the disparity “stark”.

The report, produced by the UN Environment Programme (Unep) and other researchers, found global production of oil and gas is on track to rise over the next two decades, with coal production projected to fall only slightly. This results in double the fossil fuel production in 2030 that is consistent with a 1.5C rise.

Bolsonaro should be charged with crimes against humanity, Covid inquiry finds

Jair Bolsonaro should be charged with crimes against humanity and jailed for his “macabre” reaction to a Covid outbreak that has killed more than 600,000 Brazilians, including a disproportionate number of indigenous citizens, a congressional inquiry has found.

Two of the most dramatic accusations against the Brazilian president – murder and genocide of the country’s indigenous populations – were removed from a previous draft of the report on Tuesday night after talks between opposition senators serving on the inquiry.

But the final draft suggests the committee will recommend Brazil’s populist president be charged with nine separate offenses including charlatanism, incitement to commit crimes, the propagation of pathogenic germs, and crimes against humanity.

The New York Times

House Democratic Retirements Pile Up as Party Fears Losing Majority

The quickening pace of Democratic retirements in the House may be the clearest indication yet that the party’s hopes of maintaining its narrow majority are fading amid President Biden’s sagging approval ratings, ongoing legislative struggles and the prospect of redrawn congressional districts that will put some seats out of reach.

In recent days, Representatives John Yarmuth of Kentucky, David E. Price of North Carolina and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania have announced they will not seek re-election. In all, a dozen House Democrats have said they will retire or seek other offices next year, including powerful lawmakers like Mr. Yarmuth, the chairman of the Budget Committee, and members from the most politically competitive districts, such as Representatives Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona.

In interviews, the three representatives who most recently announced their retirement said personal issues were paramount in their decisions — they have served 72 years in the House between them. But they also cited three political factors: redistricting ahead of the 2022 elections, Donald J. Trump’s continued power over Republicans, and the rising Balkanization of the Democratic Party, that they said had made governance increasingly difficult and frustrating.

Small Needles and Short Lines: Biden’s Plan to Vaccinate Young Children

The campaign to vaccinate young children in the United States against the coronavirus will not look like the adult version. There will be no mass inoculation sites. Pediatricians will be enlisted to help work with parents. Even the vials — and the needles to administer doses — will be smaller.

Biden administration officials, anticipating that regulators will make the vaccines available to 5- to 11-year-olds in the coming weeks, laid out plans on Wednesday to ensure that some 25,000 pediatric or primary care offices, thousands of pharmacies, and hundreds of school and rural health clinics will be ready to administer shots if the vaccine receives federal authorization.

AP News

Democrats warn against family leave cuts from spending bill

More than a dozen Senate Democrats are imploring President Joe Biden and congressional leaders to keep a national paid family leave program in his sweeping social services and climate change package.

In a letter Wednesday to Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 15 senators from the moderate and progressive wings of the party warned Democratic leaders that a program offering paid family leave for all workers must be included in the proposal as negotiators work to cut its $3.5 trillion price tag. […]

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who spearheaded the letter, told The Associated Press that she thinks there is wide support for a paid leave program but wants to make sure it’s not placed on the chopping block as Democrats on Capitol Hill work to get the legislation’s spending down to about $2 trillion.

Australia branded worst climate performer ahead of UN summit

Australia was the worst climate performer among comparable developed countries since nations pledged in the 2015 Paris agreement to take action to limit global warming, a think tank said Thursday ahead of a key climate conference in Scotland later this month.

The U.N. summit in Glasgow, known as COP26, will bring together thousands of diplomats, scientists and environmental campaigners to assess progress since nations agreed in the Paris accord to limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The meeting in Glasgow is widely seen as the last chance to hold global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison plans to attend the conference starting Oct. 31, but lawmakers in his governing coalition are arguing over adoption of a tougher national carbon reduction target.

NPR News

Climate change is bad for your health. And plans to boost economies may make it worse

It may seem obvious: Heat kills. Wildfires burn. Flooding drowns.

But the sprawling health effects of a rapidly warming world can also be subtle. Heat sparks violence and disrupts sleep. Wildfire smoke can trigger respiratory events thousands of miles away. Flooding can increase rates of suicide and mental health problems. Warmer winters expand the range of disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks.

A new report from the medical journal The Lancet finds that human-caused climate change is worsening human health in just about every measurable way, and world leaders are missing an opportunity to address it.

Yeah but Manchin’s got to get his annual half milly from coal so you have to balance these things https://t.co/ILxx01mBDv

— Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) October 20, 2021

Vienna museums' social media posts got rejected for nudity, so they're on OnlyFans

OnlyFans hosts over two million creators, some of whom share nude and pornographic content. Now, the Vienna Tourist Board is one of them.

It's posting some of the city's historical 18+ artwork on the subscription service, including pieces by Egon Schiele and Amedeo Modigliani that depict nude or partially nude people.

The board and some of Vienna's museums had previously posted images of the artwork on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok for promotional purposes, but the images were removed and in some cases, the accounts were closed, according to Helena Hartlauer, a spokesperson for the Vienna Tourist Board. That's when it made sense to move to the less restrictive OnlyFans.

"We question this kind of censorship, because we believe it's not a good idea to let an algorithm determine our cultural legacy," Hartlauer told NPR.

Minneapolis StarTribune

Feds hit brakes — again — on copper mining near Boundary Waters

The Biden administration is seeking a 20-year moratorium on copper mining in Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters National Canoe Area Wilderness, repeating a process that started, and stopped, under previous administrations.

In a joint announcement Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture — which together regulate mining — said that the Forest Service has applied to the Bureau of Land Management for a mineral withdrawal. That starts deliberations for a 20-year withdrawal of more than 200,000 acres of federal land in the Rainy River Watershed in northern Minnesota from new mining permitting activity.

A final decision on the request could take two years. If it takes effect, the moratorium could jeopardize the $1.7 billion Twin Metals copper-nickel mine that Chilean copper king Antofogasta wants to build next to the Boundary Waters. But Wednesday's announcement did not clarify the exact impact on that project.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Abrams’ group launches campaign pushing Georgia Medicaid expansion

As the state’s healthcare system regroups after the latest surge in coronavirus cases, the advocacy group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams is launching a new seven-figure ad campaign that urges Gov. Brian Kemp to give struggling Georgians a shot in the arm by supporting an expansion of Medicaid.

The volley of ads released Wednesday by Fair Fight features three front-line healthcare workers who accuse Kemp of “playing politics” by opposing an expansion of the program, which he said would be too costly in the long run and would deny state health officials flexibility.

“Georgians are dying while we play politics with people’s lives,” said a hospital executive identified as Rose in a 30-second spot. “There’s federal money out there to help us, and Gov. Kemp refuses to take it. I wish he could see what I’ve had to see.”

Vox

Democrats are banking on the popularity of social programs to keep them around.

Democrats, it seems, are looking to pare down their budget bill by going the route favored by progressives. While they’re weighing some big cuts to the $3.5 trillion package, the general approach — which isn’t yet finalized — skews toward funding more programs for a shorter period of time, rather than fewer programs for longer.

Pushback from moderates over the size of the package has meant tough decisions about what to cut and what to keep. Progressives argued for preserving as many of the proposal’s policies as possible, while saving money by having them expire sooner than initially planned. […]

Opponents of this thinking emphasize that this approach could mean that many of these programs simply expire after funding runs out. Provisions in the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan, like the eviction moratorium and expanded unemployment insurance, ended after Congress opted not to renew them.

The Supreme Court floats a startling expansion to police immunity from the law

The Supreme Court handed down a brief opinion on Monday holding that a California police officer is immune from a lawsuit alleging he used excessive force while helping arrest an armed suspect.

Though the Court’s decision in Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna is fairly straightforward — the justices held that Officer Daniel Rivas-Villegas “did not violate clearly established law” when he briefly used his knee to hold down a suspect who was armed with a knife and who had allegedly threatened his girlfriend and her two children with a chainsaw — it contains two sentences that should alarm police reformers. Both sentences suggest that there is support at least among some of the justices to significantly expand police officers’ immunity from federal civil rights lawsuits.

BuzzFeed News

Leaked Oath Keepers Data Shows At Least 28 Elected Officials Have Ties To The Group

Over the past dozen years, at least 28 people who currently hold elected office joined or financially supported the Oath Keepers, the extremist group that figured prominently in the violent Jan. 6 storming of the US Capitol, a BuzzFeed News analysis of data from the organization shows.

In the months since the Capitol insurrection, as two dozen people linked to the Oath Keepers have been charged with crimes, including conspiracy, for their roles, several of those elected officials have continued to voice support for the organization. And at least two officials — David Eastman and Mark Finchem of the Alaska and Arizona Houses of Representatives, respectively — were in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6 to protest the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory. Neither of the men has been charged.

The Atlantic

Kyrsten Sinema Isn’t Hitting the Panic Button

’Tis the season of Kyrsten Sinema. The wig-wearing triathlete senator from Arizona has quickly become one of the most hated figures in present-day American politics. She’s blocking her own party’s agenda; she’s shutting down questions from reporters; she’s schmoozing with lobbyists and jetting off to Europe. Sinema is “not demonstrating the basic competence or good faith of a member of Congress,” Representative Ro Khanna of California told Rolling Stone. Progressive activists have committed to “bird-dogging” Sinema until she caves. And as Democrats devote countless column inches to deciphering Sinema’s motivations, progressives have vowed revenge in the form of a primary challenge. Sinema is not doing what her voters want, liberals argue, so Arizonans should elect someone who will.

But Sinema does not seem rattled by any of it—and it’s not clear that she should be. Unseating her would be difficult. She isn’t up for reelection until 2024, so any primary challenge is years away. Voters’ memories are short, and the political landscape will be different by then. Ousting a sitting senator is a dubious project, and even if lefties were to defeat Sinema with one of their own, a more progressive candidate might find it harder to win a general election. Arizona is still a purple state, and Sinema’s popularity among independents and Republicans remains fairly high. “I’ve seen [progressives] throw everything at her to create this narrative that she’s in this very perilous situation,” Mike Noble, the research chief at the Arizona-based nonpartisan polling firm OH Predictive Insights, told me. But “I don’t see a need for her to be hitting the panic button.”

The Mystery of Why Our Ancestors Left Africa

On a searing-hot summer day at ‘Ubeidiya, an ancient site in northern Israel, an undulating expanse of dry grasses and thistles stretches into the distance. Far on the horizon, the mountains of Jordan shimmer through the haze; nearby stand cultivated olive groves and a date-palm plantation.

Just south of the Sea of Galilee, and up a rocky dirt road, ‘Ubeidiya seems like a secret, with no sign to indicate its archaeological riches. About 1.5 million years ago, ‘Ubeidiya’s panorama would have looked dramatically different, says the archaeologist Omry Barzilai, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, as he tramps through hillside brambles. “You would have seen a large lake that extends all the way to the Jordanian hills,” he says.

Hippopotamuses would have grazed on aquatic plants. The landscape was thickly wooded by wild oak, olive, and pistachio trees. And on the lakeshore, one might have glimpsed some of modern human’s relatives, a band of Homo erectus, using sharpened-stone hand axes to rip up the carcass of a deer or hippo slaughtered by a saber-toothed tiger.

‘Ubeidiya is one of the earliest-known sites settled by H. erectus (sometimes called Homo ergaster) en route out of Africa. The ancient site—named after a nearby Palestinian Arab village and discovered in 1959 by members of a local farming collective, Kibbutz Afikim—may be key to understanding why H. erectus migrated from its place of origin.

What exactly pushed—or pulled—H. erectus out of Africa is a matter of fierce debate.

Columbia Journalism Review

The Metric Media network runs more than 1,200 local news sites. Here are some of the non-profits funding them.

As local news outlets across the US struggle to stay afloat, pop-up newsrooms are filling the void. Organizations with ties to political parties, special-interest groups, and lobbyists have emerged under the guise of news.

One of the biggest such networks, Metric Media, operates more than 1,200 local news sites across the United States, and encompasses multiple corporate entities including non-profit charities. The Tow Center has previously reported on Metric Media, but until now, little was known about the finances or partners of this network that claims to give “every citizen a voice in their community” and publishes “over 5 million news articles every month.”

A new investigation by the Tow Center has discovered that this network has ties to founders of the Tea Party movement , to a non-profit described by Mother Jones as “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement,” and to a Catholic political advocacy group that launched a $9.7 million campaign in swing states against the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden six weeks before the 2020 election.

CNBC

Koch network spends big to lobby against Biden agenda

The political network backed by billionaire Charles Koch spent a record amount of money directly lobbying Congress, with a focus on opposing crucial elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda while supporting some bills backed by Democratic lawmakers.

Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, supported by the libertarian-leaning Koch, spent $350,000 between July and September as they separately committed millions of dollars on advertisements that, at times, took aim at pieces of Biden’s proposals.

One of the network’s lobbying targets this year has been moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. The total also does not include the millions spent on lobbying by the separate Koch Industries, a conglomerate that’s been owned and run by the family for decades.

Reuters

Biden concerned over Chinese hypersonic missiles

President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he is concerned about Chinese hypersonic missiles, days after a media report that Beijing had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide weapon.

Asked by reporters as he was boarding Air Force One for a trip to Pennsylvania whether he was concerned about Chinese hypersonic missiles, Biden said, "Yes."

Hypersonic weapons travel in the upper atmosphere at speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kph (3,853 mph).

The Financial Times said at the weekend that China had tested a weapon in August that flew through space and circled the globe before cruising down toward a target that it missed. China's foreign ministry denied the report.

Vikings crossed the Atlantic 1,000 years ago

Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, eight timber-framed buildings covered in sod stood on a terrace above a peat bog and stream at the northern tip of Canada's island of Newfoundland, evidence that the Vikings had reached the New World first.

But precisely when the Vikings journeyed to establish the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement had remained unclear - until now.

Scientists on Wednesday said a new type of dating technique using a long-ago solar storm as a reference point revealed that the settlement was occupied in 1021 AD, exactly a millennium ago and 471 years before the first voyage of Columbus. The technique was used on three pieces of wood cut for the settlement, all pointing to the same year.

The Viking voyage represents multiple milestones for humankind. The settlement offers the earliest-known evidence of a transatlantic crossing. It also marks the place where the globe was finally encircled by humans, who thousands of years earlier had trekked into North America over a land bridge that once connected Siberia to Alaska.

EuroNews

How not being 'bound by history' helped Copenhagen become the world's number one city for food

In early October, organisers of The World's 50 Best Restaurants confirmed what many in gastronomy had known for years - there’s no beating the Vikings.

By naming Copenhagen’s Noma and Geranium as no. 1 and no. 2, respectively, judges crowned the Danish capital a global centre of fine dining.

“I was very happy and I'm still very happy,” Geranium’s visionary head chef and co-owner Rasmus Kofoed tells Euronews.

“I'm a human being and we all need this hug or shoulder clap. That's a big one, that's a big gastronomic hug that we got there and that's amazing.”

Two ex-soldiers arrested in Germany accused of forming mercenary group

Two former soldiers in Germany have been arrested, accused of trying to form a mercenary group with the aim of intervening in the military conflict in Yemen. […] Both are German citizens and former soldiers in the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces. […]

Together they are alleged to have decided in early 2021 to create their own mercenary group made up of between 100 and 150 former soldiers or members of the police.

The men's primary motivation was to earn about €40,000 each per month by offering the group's services to third parties, specifically Saudi Arabia, prosecutors said.

Deutsche Welle

Taliban pleads for recognition at Moscow talks

Russia hosted the Taliban for talks in Moscow on Wednesday in an effort to boost its influence across Central Asia. Moscow officials also called for action against "Islamic State" (IS) fighters, who Russia says have started to increase their presence in Afghanistan since the Taliban's takeover.

Officials from 10 different countries, including China and Pakistan, attended the talks. They are the Taliban's most significant international meeting since seizing power over Afghanistan in mid-August.

At the talks, the Taliban's Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi said that the extremist group did not pose any security threat to any other country and asked the international community to recognize its government, which no nation has done so far.

COVID: UK hospitals on the brink amid warnings of 100,000 cases a day

The UK could soon be experiencing as many as 100,000 coronavirus cases per day, Britain's Health Minister Sajid Javid said on Wednesday, as the country's health service said hospitals were already on the brink with winter just beginning.

The stark warning came 24 hours after the UK recorded its highest COVID death toll since March. And despite the gloomy outlook, Javid is resisting calls for a return to the restrictions that have gradually been relaxed since the spring.

Ars Technica

EPA: Chemicals called PFAS will see more research and new regulations

On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced what it called a "comprehensive national strategy" to handle pollution by a group of industrial chemicals that are collectively called PFAS. These chemicals are relatively inert and persist for decades in the environment; as a result, there are many sites where they pollute the ground or water. And there are some indications that they can cause health issues if they accumulate at sufficient levels.

But the fact that the family of chemicals is so large has made them difficult to study—and their pollution difficult to manage. The EPA's announcement indicates that the agency has started an expansive program to handle these challenges, from expanding the study of individual PFAS chemicals to tracing contamination and limiting future pollution.

Could search engines be fostering some Dunning-Kruger?

Many of us make jokes about how we've outsourced part of our brain to electronic devices. But based on a new paper by the University of Texas at Austin's Adrian Ward, this is just a variation on something that has been happening throughout human history. No person could ever learn everything they need to know. But that's OK, according to Ward: "No one person needs to know everything—they simply need to know who knows it."

Over time, we've developed alternatives to finding the person who has the information we need, relying on things like books and other publications. The Internet simply provides electronic equivalents, right?

Not entirely, according to Ward's latest results. Based on data he generated, it seems that search engines now return information so quickly and seamlessly that we tend to think we remembered information that we actually looked up. And that may be giving us unjustified confidence in our ability to pull facts out of our brain.