While election laws prohibit vote-buying, the legality of Trump's action depends on the context and intent behind the gesture

'Next to no vetting'

'People like me are the ones that are being persecuted'

'We can’t afford to make a mistake'

Regular coffee or caffeine consumption may offer a protective effect against developing multiple cardiometabolic diseases like coronary heart disease and stroke, the most common killers in human society today. Detailed in new research published in the Endocrine Society, three cups of coffee per day were associated with those in the study cohort who had a […] The post Moderate Coffee and Caffeine Consumption Is Associated with Preventing Onset of #1 Killer appeared first on Good News Network.

News The Last of Us It’s The Last of Us Day, So We Get a New Look at The Last of Us Season Two “Say the thing you’re afraid to say.” By Molly Templeton | Published on September 26, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Happy cordyceps outbreak day, folks! In the videogame The Last of Us, September 26th is the day the cordyceps virus goes apeshit on humankind—so, naturally, it’s the day we get a new look at the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us, which jumps five years into Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) future. Do you think everything’s great and all their problems are solved? Nah. There’s a whole horde of infected coming for them—and a whole bunch of new characters with agendas of their own. This trailer gives us a good look at Dina (Isabela Merced), whose intentions are written all over her face as she gazes at Ellie, and also Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), a character so contentious that Dever needed extra security while filming. The rest of the new cast includes Jeffrey Wright (playing Isaac), Young Mazino (Jesse), Ariela Barer (Mel), Tati Gabrielle (Nora), Spencer Lord (Owen), Danny Ramirez (Manny), and Catherine O’Hara, whose character has not been named. Returning cast includes Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy and Rutina Wesley as Maria. O’Hara gets all the dialogue in this trailer, which is framed in much the same way previous footage was: O’Hara and Joel in a tense conversation, with wordless footage interspersed to give a sense of what the gang faces in the next season. Gamers and those of us who read spoilers about the game (for work purposes, obviously) know exactly how heavy things are going to get—and anyone who watched the first season knows there’s a reckoning coming between Joel and Ellie when she finds out about the choice he made. The brief summary offered for season two says, “After five years of peace following the events of the first season, Joel and Ellie’s collective past catches up to them, drawing them into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind.” The Last of Us, which is written and executive produced by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, will return to HBO and Max in 2025.[end-mark] The post It’s <i>The Last of Us</i> Day, So We Get a New Look at <i>The Last of Us</i> Season Two appeared first on Reactor.

Books book culture When Did SFF Get Too Big? Is it possible to pinpoint the moment when readers stopped being able to keep up with their favorite genres? By James Davis Nicoll | Published on September 26, 2024 Photo: Agustin Gunawan [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Agustin Gunawan [via Unsplash] Persons of a certain age—not old, you understand, just mature enough to remember inkwells in school desks, paddle-wheelers plying the Atlantic1, and the days when “computer” was a job description, not a machine—often enjoy making helpful comments on the current scene2, some more useful than others. One that I have heard several times: the number of science fiction and fantasy books now published is too large for any one person to read in timely fashion. Let’s discuss. The average Canadian reader3 reads only about seventeen books a year. A book and a half per month won’t keep up with a single imprint, let alone all of them. Even if we limit ourselves to Books Georg (someone who reads a book or more a day, the literary equivalent of Spiders Georg), the situation isn’t much better. A book a day adds up to 365 books (except in years divisible by four, when it totals 366). That would not even keep pace with the 1,500 or so new speculative fiction books listed in Locus each year. And it is certain that Locus does not document every text that could be classified as speculative fiction. When did SFF transition from a field readers could be expected to have covered thoroughly (thus ensuring common ground for conversation at fannish gatherings) to one in which each reader was aware only of a subset? One might think this question unanswerable, but there is some pertinent data. In 1953’s Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future (edited by Reginald Bretnor), Anthony Boucher estimated that there were forty-one SFF books published in 1949; sixty in 1950; fifty-seven in 1951; and forty-five in the first two thirds of 19524. That seems easily doable, at least for Books Georg. Except, of course, it doesn’t really account for everything published in the SFF magazines of the era, of which there were many. Jumping forward a generation, Lester del Rey’s 1972 Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year asserts that there were 195 new SFF works published that year. By this point, the number of SF magazines had plummeted sharply from the Eisenhower-era high. Still, 195 + Analog + Galaxy + If + The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction probably kept Books Georg busy. In fact, as a Books Georg myself, I know for a fact that there’s lots of stuff I never saw, although here I am inclined to blame spotty book and magazine distribution rather than book and magazine superabundance. Skip forward another generation to Gardner Dozois’ 1993 The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection. Despite 1992 having been a rather grim one for speculative fiction, with publishers cutting back lines in the face of weakening demand, Dozois suggested there were about 710 new speculative fiction novels. Unfortunately, Dozois did not quantify the number of anthologies. Nevertheless, 710 new SFF books + Analog + Asimov’s + F&SF + Omni + Amazing + Weird Tales + an unknown number of anthologies seems insurmountable even for Books Georg. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that sometime between the 1970s and 1990s, SFF became too large for even avid readers to keep pace. Once that happened, it was inevitable that the field’s readers would become overlapping but heterogenous groups. It would be entirely possible for two Books Georg to discover that despite reading a book a day, they had read no books in common. This is all nice and mathy. Too bad for me that I just reread Who Killed Science Fiction, Earl’s Kemp’s Hugo Award-winning essay on the state of science fiction in 19605. Contributor C. L. Barrett, M.D. observed: What we also forget is that from 1922 to ’23, the time I can remember, I knew everything that was being published and read everything up until the 1940s. Since that time, it has been impossible for any one person to read all of it. Barrett asserts the field was too big by the 1940s, when Gernsbackian SF was at most twenty-two years old. Was there ever really a time when people actually could read the whole field? Or is that just a story older readers tell themselves, with the line between “fully known” and “too big for one person” drawn at the moment the reader became aware how large the SFF field is? I suspect the latter.[end-mark] Which is to say, 1969. ︎Such as “modern music is too commercialized and lacks the timeless qualities of classics like ‘Sugar, Sugar’ and ‘Honey,’” “Today’s kids dress weird; what ever happened to paisley, bell-bottoms, and stripes?” and the ever popular “In my day, students didn’t need an app to locate the Austro-Hungarian Empire!” ︎A quick survey of my neighbors suggests that most people live in Canada, so it’s reasonable to use Canadians as a universal measure. ︎Which might mean sixty-seven for 1952 as a whole? Except Boucher felt that the books published per year had plateaued. ︎A general review of which will appear over at Seattle 2025 WorldCon’s Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow blog. ︎The post When Did SFF Get Too Big? appeared first on Reactor.

The House and Senate voted in favor of a measure to fund the government until December on Wednesday evening, averting a government shutdown that was set to begin Oct. 1. While Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La, was ultimately able to muster the votes to avoid a government shutdown, Wednesday night’s vote on the measure, known as a continuing resolution, and a future government funding fight come December carry profound implications for the future of Johnson and the House. The continuing resolution, considered under suspension of House rules and therefore requiring two thirds of the chamber to pass, got through the House with the support of 341 representatives. Eighty-two House members, all Republicans, voted in opposition. It was not how Johnson envisioned funding the government. Initially, Johnson wanted to pass a continuing resolution with the SAVE Act attached, which would have ensured illegal immigrants could not vote in federal elections. This plan was initially delayed and then ultimately failed because a small number of Republicans took issue with the funding mechanism and voted against it, as did nearly all Democrats in the minority. With days left to fund the government, House Republican leaders caved to Senate demands for a “clean” continuing resolution. When the dust settled, 209 Democrats and 132 Republicans voted in favor of the “clean” continuing resolution. Sometimes, politics is simple: the party that votes more in favor of a piece of legislation that passes has scored a win. Throughout this Congress, the speaker has had to rely on Democratic votes to get legislation, whether government funding measures, supplemental appropriations for military aid, or other pieces of legislation, through the House, which has predictably undermined his credibility with more conservative members and weakened his negotiating position with other congressional leaders, namely his Senate counterpart Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Yet, Johnson staved off the worst outcome for his political prospects absent a government shutdown. While more Democrats than Republicans did vote in favor of the continuing resolution, Johnson managed to earn the support of a majority of the Republican conference. Had he failed to garner the support of a majority of Republicans, Johnson might not have found himself the head of the House GOP conference come Jan. 2025. Nov. 5 remains the most important litmus test for Johnson’s leadership. If Republicans fail to retain the House, not only will Johnson not be speaker—it’s possible he’s out of House leadership entirely. Nevertheless, Johnson will face one more test after the Nov. 5 election when the continuing resolution passed Wednesday night expires in Dec. The speaker has resolved to avoid an omnibus entirely. “There won’t be a Christmas omnibus,” Johnson told reporters in a press conference Tuesday. “We have broken the Christmas omni, and I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition,” the speaker claimed, citing the two “minibuses” passed earlier this year. Whether omni- or mini-, that appropriations process, which is supposed to be accomplished through 12 separate spending bills, does not please the GOP conference. Johnson was quick to clarify: “We don’t want any buses. We’re not going to do any buses, OK?” What you want and what you get are two entirely different things—especially in Washington. For Johnson to get what he wants for Christmas, he will have to fight for it. The post Shutdown Averted, But Will It Come Back to Haunt Mike Johnson? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For the first time in half a century, teachers in the nation’s third-largest school district have a chance to choose who will represent them in negotiations with the Miami Dade Public School District. United Teachers of Dade has had a monopoly on labor representation ever since the Dade County Classroom Teachers Association merged with the local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers in the mid-1970s. But that could soon change. Nearly 27,000 educators have a chance to opt for a new alternative: The Miami-Dade Education Coalition, which promises to deliver more effective advocacy at a lower cost. Teachers got the chance to vote on their choice of union representation after UTD failed to get 60% of eligible educators to sign on as dues-paying members. Thanks to a 2023 law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Miami-Dade teachers have a chance to ask: Is our current representation worth nearly $1,000 in annual dues? Or could we be paying less and getting more? The MDEC believes local teachers need local representation, and that UTD sends too much of its members’ dues money to statewide and national groups. Right now, nearly half of UTD’s budget flows to affiliated groups like the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the AFL-CIO. And nearly half of what’s left goes to paying inflated salaries to union officers and employees. The current UTD President, Karla Hernandez-Mats, brings home a lavish $293,127 annual compensation package worth nearly six times the average base salary for a Miami-Dade classroom teacher, which was $70,443 in 2022-23. In 2022, she took time away from her duties to run alongside Charlie Crist in his failed campaign for governor, which raked in a $500,000 campaign donation from the national teachers’ union the week her selection was announced. MDEC’s founders include longtime South Florida teachers like Shawn Beightol who want the union to stop pouring money into statewide or national politics and focus on improving local teacher pay and working conditions. Beightol argues the UTD colluded with Miami-Dade Public Schools administrators to divert funding from teacher salaries to building construction and failed to deliver teacher benefit packages that kept pace with rising health care costs. New representation might be able to drive a better bargain. If teachers choose MDEC, their new representatives will have a chance to immediately open new contract negotiations with the district. They have promised to fight for changes that would cut back bloat in the school district central office, plow more funding into educator pay and benefits, and protect teachers’ planning and classroom time. These are bold promises with the potential to elevate the teaching profession in Miami-Dade. And Florida’s union decertification law means that if the new representation fails to deliver, local educators will have a chance to vote them out, too. This is the power educators deserve. The post Teachers Get to Choose Who Represents Them appeared first on The Daily Signal.

20 Driveway Weeds With Medicinal Benefits