Author: Reporter

Fall has arrived in Scandinavia, which means Nobel Prize season is here. The start of October is when the Nobel committees get together in Stockholm and Oslo to announce the winners of the yearly awards. First up, as usual, is the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology, which was awarded on October 2 to two scientists for discoveries that enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. The prizes in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and economics will follow, with one announcement every weekday until October 9. Here are some things to know about the Nobel Prizes: AN IDEA MORE...

The Environmental Protection Agency is delaying plans to tighten air quality standards for ground-level ozone, better known as smog, despite a recommendation by a scientific advisory panel to lower air pollution limits to protect public health. The decision by EPA Administrator Michael Regan means that one of the agency’s most important air quality regulations will not be updated until well after the 2024 presidential election. “I have decided that the best path forward is to initiate a new statutory review of the ozone (standard) and the underlying air quality criteria,” Regan wrote in a letter to the EPA advisory...

Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second hottest month measured, behind only July 2023, WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced in September. August was about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than pre-industrial averages. That is the threshold that the world is trying not to pass, though scientists are more concerned about rises in temperatures...

Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job on October 3 in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history, forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and throwing the House and its Republican leadership into chaos. It was the end of the political line for McCarthy, who has said repeatedly that he never gives up, but found himself with almost no options remaining. Neither the right-flank Republicans who engineered his ouster nor the Democrats who piled on seem open to negotiating. McCarthy told lawmakers in the evening he would not run again for speaker, putting the gavel...

A national Democratic law firm on October 2 challenged Wisconsin’s witness requirements for absentee voting, arguing that the state is violating the federal Voting Rights Act by demanding a witness signature on ballot envelopes. Elias Law Group, representing four Wisconsin voters, called the requirement a “burden” to voters in the lawsuit, which they filed in federal court against the Wisconsin Elections Commission and other elections officials. State law requires clerks to reject absentee ballots that are missing a witness’ address or signature. A Wisconsin judge ruled last year that elections officials cannot correct or fill in missing information on...