The Rise and Fall of Vibes-Based Literacy - Is a controversial curriculum, entrenched in New York City’s public schools for two decades, finally coming undone? - link
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Fundamentally Soviet Man - The last leader of the U.S.S.R. attempted to modernize and reform his country, even as he failed to imagine it as anything but an empire. - link
Biden’s Student-Debt Plan Could Chip Away at the Racial Wealth Gap - Loan forgiveness and other measures don’t solve the problem of rising tuition costs, but they could help some Black families start to catch up. - link
The Moments from Serena Williams’s Career That I’ll Never Forget - Williams, who lost possibly her last match on Friday night, made herself felt beyond the game as arguably no player ever has. - link
A Healthy Jobs Report Leaves Republicans Scrambling and Biden Smiling - After creating 1.1 million jobs since May, the economy has now recovered all the jobs lost to the pandemic. - link
From Vox
Is post-Roe voter registration benefitting Democrats? -
Abortion rights activists react inside the Indiana Statehouse as the Indiana Senate votes to ban abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. | Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Preliminary data suggests that enthusiasm is up among women and young voters in the midterms.
Democrats appeared to be heading into the 2022 midterms with a perceived voter enthusiasm deficit brought on by inflation and an unpopular incumbent president. But over the last few months, the party’s outlook for the midterms has significantly improved, and many political strategists attribute the shift at least in part to voters’ outrage over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Many of these strategists — like Simon Rosenberg and James Carville — believe the threat of further restrictions on abortion access should the GOP take control of Congress, governor’s mansions, and statehouses will energize Democratic turnout in the fall. Several recent elections — including in New York’s 19th, where the Democratic winner centered his campaign on abortion access and the resounding rejection of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed state lawmakers to further restrict abortion access in Kansas — have been taken as early signs that Democrats are likely to fare better than expected in the fall.
Voter registration is another factor to consider when making midterm predictions. Tom Bonier, the CEO of the political data firm TargetSmart, has been analyzing publicly available voter files for every state. And he says that the data shows that young people (particularly young women) are registering to vote at a significantly higher rate in states where abortion rights are under threat since the Supreme Court’s June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That includes Kansas, where women registered to vote at more than twice the rate men did in the weeks between the ruling and the August 2 referendum on the constitutional amendment.
I spoke with Bonier about his findings and what they mean for Democrats’ midterm prospects. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Nicole Narea:
I know it’s still only been a few months, but I was hoping that you might be able to step back and give us a sense of what we do know, and we don’t know yet about how Dobbs is affecting voter registration.
Tom Bonier:
Kansas was the first state I looked at to see what had been going on leading up to the ballot initiative there. Voter registration data lags by a little bit, just depending on how and when the state reports it. But we were able to get enough data from Kansas, basically looking at registered voters before Dobbs and after Dobbs, and saw that women were 69 percent of the new registrants post-Dobbs and up to the ballot initiative election, which was crazy. I’ve just never seen anything like it.
Generally, voter registration is split pretty close to 50-50. It varies a little bit by state, but not much. To see a period of time over several weeks where women accounted for almost 70 percent of registered voters — I’ve never seen anything like that.
The Dobbs decision engaged women in Kansas to an unprecedented degree.
This chart shows the percent of new registrants in the state who were women (as a 7 day average). Note the spike after the Dobbs decision leaked, and huge jump after the Supreme Court handed it down. pic.twitter.com/pvi3WpuR86
Then, we started looking at other states. There’s no state that comes close to Kansas in terms of that size of the gender gap, which makes sense. I mean, Kansas seems almost impossible. But in Kansas, they also had an immediate constitutional amendment ballot initiative as a referendum on the future of choice in the state. So it would make sense that women were more energized there than they might be in other states because the pattern that seems to be holding up is that the surges in registration among women seem to be more closely connected to states where choice is more at risk or it’s more relevant to specific elections this year.
To me, that’s interesting because I think people might assume it’s mostly going to be a blue state, big city phenomenon. And it’s just not the case. Kansas is the number one state [in terms of the gender gap], Idaho is number two, Louisiana is in the top five. But then you also have states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, and Michigan and Wisconsin, that all have significant gender gaps, as well. We’re talking more like 12 points, not 40 points, like you had in Kansas. But still, that’s substantial.
Here are the states with the biggest gender gap among new registrants since the Dobbs decision was handed down. This isn’t just a blue state phenomena. In fact, it is more pronounced in states where choice is more at risk, or has been eliminated by the decision. pic.twitter.com/X4Kj2oG550
Do we have a sense of who these women are who are registering? And what about men?
Tom Bonier:
It’s mostly younger women. In Kansas, over half of the women who registered to vote after Dobbs were under the age of 25 — 52 percent. You do see increases in the states among younger men, too. It’s just not keeping up. It certainly is an issue that seems to be energizing younger voters in general, just more so younger women than men.
Texas was an interesting one, because I thought that you would see a similar gender gap just given the political dynamics there. And what was interesting is women and men are registering at almost even rates in Texas. But what we have seen is much higher registration rates among younger voters in general. To me, that doesn’t suggest that women aren’t energized — it just suggests that younger women and younger men in Texas seem to be energized around Dobbs and are registering at high rates.
Nicole Narea:
Do Democrats have more to gain here from these new registrations? The fact that women are registering at a higher rate would suggest that it’s a high salience issue, but not necessarily what their position is.
Tom Bonier:
In every state that I’ve looked at so far, when you look at the under-25 voters who have registered since Dobbs, and then compare them to the under-25 voters who registered this year prior to Dobbs, they’re even more Democratic. You see the same pattern with women who are registering post-Dobbs versus those who registered prior to Dobbs. They’re more likely to be registered as Democrats by a pretty wide margin.
If you want to look at it through the partisan lens, all the data we’re seeing at this point suggests that the registration surge since Dobbs is very much to the benefit of Democrats.
Nicole Narea:
You’ve been talking about this in terms of younger voters and women making up a larger share of newly registered voters. I’m also wondering to what extent we are seeing a surge in the number of registrations generally, or whether that’s hard to measure.
Tom Bonier:
For our analysis, we’re looking at what percent of the new registrants are men and women, [Democrat] versus Republican or unaffiliated or independent. Generally, as we get closer to the election and until we hit registration deadlines in both states, what we’ll see is more people registering in general. So just seeing more women register to vote by itself isn’t meaningful — but seeing women occupy a larger share of the registers is.
It’s not necessarily just relevant in that we’re going to have more new registrants, and therefore, there’ll be this surge of new voters voting in November who can impact the outcome of the election. Certainly, there’s the potential for that to some degree. But even in high turnout presidential elections, first-time voters generally only account for a relatively small share of the electorate, maybe 7 to 15 percent of voters. In a midterm election, it’s generally going to be a smaller share.
What’s interesting to me is, when you see surges in enthusiasm reflected in registration historically, it almost always is then mirrored in surges in enthusiasm and turnout among those groups overall. So it stands to reason that what we’re seeing isn’t just relevant because it means more women are eligible to vote, but it indicates that women in general are far more attuned to this election and therefore far more likely to vote.
We saw it in 2018, when younger voters were registering at a much higher rate than they had in the previous two midterms. And sure enough, younger voters almost doubled their vote share between 2014 and 2018. So the data we’re seeing here is similar.
The housing market slowdown, explained in 7 charts -
A “for sale” sign in Markham, Ontario. The housing market in the United States is slowing down — but rent prices continue to increase. | R.J. Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images
It’s becoming harder for buyers and renters to afford housing with steep mortgage rates and ultra-high prices.
After mortgage rates hit record lows during the pandemic, driving up demand for new homes and pushing up listing prices, the housing market is now slowing down.
That’s good news for buyers who can afford to stay in the market. But many prospective buyers are being priced out as high mortgage rates and steep prices make it unaffordable for some to purchase a new home. At the same time, new home construction has decreased as builders become warier of falling demand — and rent prices have continued to increase.
“Buyers have negotiating power really for the first time in several years,” said Nicole Bachaud, a senior economist at Zillow. “But that’s with the caveat of, only if you can afford home prices right now.”
Here are seven charts that help explain what’s happening with the housing market.
What can the IAEA do in Zaporizhzhia? -
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at Vienna International Airport on September 2, 2022. | Photo by Heinz-Peter Bader/Getty Images
The IAEA observed the damage at Europe’s largest power plant. Now what?
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant Friday to observe damage to the Russian-controlled facility, as fighting continues around the plant. The IAEA intends to keep two experts at the facility on an extended basis, but the agency’s power to change the conditions at the plant — including reported anxiety and exhaustion on the part of the Ukrainian workers, heavy fighting around the plant, and Russian attempts to connect the plant to its own power grid — is limited.
After his five-hour visit Friday, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi briefed reporters back in Vienna at the agency’s headquarters, saying his greatest concern was damage to the building during heavy shelling in August. It’s still unclear who’s responsible for that shelling, as Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations back and forth. However, with the independent IAEA inspectors present, “when there is an allegation that something has happened at the plant, you can turn to us,” Grossi said.
Efforts to get a monitoring team from the IAEA— a UN agency, have been ongoing but were heaviest in August due to the intensifying fighting around the plant. Ukraine has mounted an offensive in recent weeks to reclaim Russian-held territory in the south and southeast; while much of the push is presently focused on the city of Kherson, the Zaporizhzhia plant is still quite close to the front — approximately 60 miles from Kherson itself and on the northern border of Russian-held territory.
Given the potential for catastrophe and the lack of independent insight into the situation at the plant, Grossi addressed the UN Security Council on August 11, calling again for a mission to Zaporizhzhia; the agency has for months been asking to go to the facility to provide oversight and technical assistance.. Since Russia and Ukraine, as parties to the conflict, have given the agency inconsistent information about the safety and operation of the plant, Grossi stressed the need for an independent fact-finding mission. “It is those facts, gathered during a site visit, that are needed for the IAEA to be able to develop and provide an independent risk assessment of the nuclear safety and security risks,” he said at the time.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is Europe’s largest, supplying approximately 20 percent of Ukraine’s electricity before the war and half of its nuclear power, according to the Washington Post. It’s still producing energy, including energy for export to Europe — one of Ukraine’s limited methods of producing revenue in war time, particularly as the conflict is choking the country’s agriculture exports. However, that makes the reactors vulnerable not only to occupation and attack, but also limited supply lines for spare parts and the potential for Russia to divert power from the plant to its own grid — a delicate process which risks cutting off the supply of power to cool the reactors.
“Nuclear is a fear factor, and it’s also a power factor,” Cindy Vestergaard, a senior fellow and director with the nuclear safeguards program at the Henry L. Stimson Center, told Vox on Saturday.“With Zaporizhzhia, we’re getting to something Russia holds very dear, and that is its power over energy sources. And so nuclear is at the heart of geopolitics, it’s at the heart of energy policies, and of course, for the world to keep the lights on.”
What did it take to get the IAEA team to Zaporizhzhia?
As of now, few details about the monitoring mission — and the negotiations enabling it to go forward — are known. The New York Times reported Wednesday that 14 experts left Kyiv to travel to the Zaporizhzhia plant, traveling through military checkpoints and active fighting to reach the facility.
“This is totally unprecedented — we’ve never had an active conflict in a country which also has such a robust nuclear power program. It’s the seventh-largest nuclear power program in the world,” Vestergaard said. “The dance, or the navigation that the agency would have to do is, obviously, between Ukraine and Russia,” she said, and would involve “a lot of details, even down to commas, about how things would be outlined in order for the agency to go.”
One point of negotiations was whether the team would enter and leave the area Ukrainian- or Russian-held territory. The mission opted to travel to the facility from Kyiv via Ukrainian-held territory, possibly to avoid legitimizing Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhia plant. But even something as mundane as the route the mission used to get to the area had consequences for their trip. “[The IAEA mission] will not be provided with a special pass,” Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Russian occupation forces told the Times. “They had a chance to come from Russia through the liberated territory safely, quickly and without obstacles.” Russia has also refused calls to demilitarize the area, putting the plant at continued risk of damage from shelling.
Russia does have a vested interest in allowing the monitoring team to visit, Scott Roecker, vice president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s materials security program told Vox on Saturday. “I think it was in the Russians’ interest to have IAEA come there for a couple of reasons,” he said. “One, so that it could demonstrate that the reactor was still operating, and the plant was operating. Also, to a certain degree, having an international organization at the site, having inspectors there — it legitimizes, to a certain degree, Russia’s presence there.”
Despite the logistical challenges of the mission and the restrictions Russian officials imposed, Grossi said in a press conference Friday that he had open access to everything he asked to see — a positive introductory step that will hopefully yield critical, independent information about the state of the plant for the agency’s report to its Board of Governors when that body convenes next week. From there, Roecker said, information and recommendations can reach the diplomatic level and provide valuable insight and context for further negotiation. But, as Vestergaard stressed, this mission is just a start.
“I’m hoping that one report will not be enough,” she said. “It’s going to be a series of on-the-ground, on-site, continuous surveillance and physical presence at the facility going forward.”
How much can the inspectors change at the plant?
The mission’s mandate is concerned with three elements within the Zaporizhzhia facility— the safety of its operations, the security of the facility overall, and the safeguarding of nuclear material produced there. The mission can collect information about these elements and disseminate it, but, “these are inspectors, they can’t decide to start operating the plant in a certain way if they feel like it’s not being operated in a safe manner,” Roecker said. “They really aren’t going to get between the people who are managing the site from Russian perspective, and the Ukrainian operators.”
The agency also has no oversight or negotiating power regarding the military activity surrounding the facility. However, it can — and has — recommended that the fighting stop immediately.
Though it’s powerless in a legal and logistical sense, the information that the mission could share is powerful, Roecker said. “We’re getting an unbiased source inside that facility, sharing information, and there will be a lot of pressure […] to make sure that any concerns that they raise are somehow rectified. There’s nothing that they can do themselves, but the mere fact that they’re there — the information that they will provide and the recommendations that they give will get a ton of attention and there will be a lot of pressure to make those changes.”
As of Saturday, the concerned parties have agreed to allow two inspectors to remain in the area, though for how long is thus far unclear. “My biggest flag will be, if they leave, can they ever get back in,” Vestergaard said.
But some Ukrainian officials want a stronger response from the agency. “I hope that the IAEA will ultimately be able to fulfill its functions,” Oleksandr Staruhk, the head of Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, told Ukrinform. “There’s hope that the international organization will draw conclusions, taking into account all the threats, and together we will protect the world from the absolutely real threat posed by Russia. Either we solve the existing issues together, or someone else will address them for us.”
In the longer term, as more nations consider nuclear power to mitigate climate change, the agency and the world will have to consider how to deal with the possibility that civilian nuclear power plants could be weaponized. This would require better treaties and agreements around nuclear power generally, and civilian facilities specifically, as well as diversifying the nuclear supply chain. With many countries depending on Russian fuel, technology, and spent fuel reprocessing to maintain their nuclear energy production, some European stakeholders are presently looking at ways to move away from dependence on Russia’s nuclear power dominance.
What the IAEA does in Zaporizhzhia will have ripple effects in the future, Vestergaard told Vox. “This is going to set a precedent for how the agency will interact with facilities under its purview in active conflict zones,” she said. “Hopefully we won’t be in a situation like this again, but as more states acquire nuclear power for civilian purposes, this is something we have to consider going forward. This is a game-changer.”
From The Hindu: Sports
Taimur, Superleggra and Periwinkle impress -
Mumbai girl Anishka Biyani wins gold medal in Malaysian Chess Meet - Participants from as many as eight countries took part in the competition.
Anastasia, Musanda, Sunny Isles, Jawai and La Jefa impress -
La Liga 2022/23 | Barça newcomers lead 3-0 win at Sevilla, Real Madrid beats Betis - Lewandowski made it five goals in four appearances, Raphinha scored first Barcelona goal, and Koundé provided two assists
Serie A 2022/23 | Leão claims Milan derby honours, Napoli retake top spot - Two goals by Milan forward Rafael Leao helped the defending champion fight back from a goal down and earn a 3-2 win over local rival Inter on Saturday in its fifth Serie A match of the season.
From The Hindu: National News
Teenager run over by tractor carrying Ganesha idol for immersion near Bengaluru - A 16-year-old boy was crushed to death under a tractor, which was carrying a Ganesha idol for immersion, in Madahalli on the outskirts of Bengaluru on Friday
Mayor Arya Rajendran weds Sachin Dev MLA - CM, CPI(M) leaders, Ministers attend function at AKG Centre
Russia, India motivated to ensure uninterrupted defence cooperation: Envoy - Russia has been a major supplier of military hardware to India
Andhra Pradesh: West Godavari district faces sand scarcity after recent floods - Construction activity relating to Nadu-Nedu, Jagananna colonies and urban PHCs to be hit
BMTC driver’s death: Depot manager suspended in Bengaluru -
From BBC: Europe
Ukraine war: Russia wants to destroy Europeans’ normal life, Zelensky warns - Russia is trying to attack Europe with “poverty and political chaos”, President Zelensky says.
Ukraine war: Russia to keep key gas pipeline to EU closed - Russia says it has found a leak on Nord Stream 1, but the EU accuses Moscow of using gas as a weapon.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant: Link lost to main power line - The UN nuclear watchdog says the Zaporizhzhia plant is now relying on a reserve line to supply power.
Klyuchevskaya Sopka: Climbers killed during a fall on Russian volcano - Six people are known to have died and rescuers are unable to reach survivors, local media say.
Gibraltar collision: Race to remove fuel from stricken ship - Salvage teams rush to remove hundreds of tonnes of fuel from the ship amid fears of ecological damage.
From Ars Technica
Liveblog: All the news from Apple’s “Far Out” event - Tune in at 1 pm EST on September 7, 2022, to see what’s next from Apple. - link
How a giant eagle came to dominate ancient New Zealand - Evidence suggests eagle was part of a wave of feathered invaders. - link
After careful consideration, NASA ready to launch SLS rocket as is - “There’s no guarantee we’re going to get off on Saturday.” - link
YouTube algorithm pushed election fraud claims to Trump supporters, report says - Researchers analyzed real recommendations to hundreds of YouTube users. - link
Here come the bendable TVs and monitors that no one asked for - Flat-to-curved screens have an identity crisis. - link
From Jokes Subreddit
What do you get if you cross Islam and Capitalism? -
The day after his wife disappeared in a kayaking accident, an Anchorage man answered his door to find two grim-faced Alaska State Troopers. -
“We’re sorry Mr. Wilkens, but we have some information about your wife,” said one trooper…
“Tell me! Did you find her?” Wilkens shouted.
The troopers looked at each other. One said, “We have some bad news, some good news, and some really great news. Which do you want to hear first?”
Fearing the worst, an ashen Mr. Wilkens said, “Give me the bad news first.”
The trooper said, “I’m sorry to tell you, sir, but this morning we found your wife’s body in Kachemak Bay.”
“Oh my God!” exclaimed Wilkens. Swallowing hard, he asked, “What’s the good news?”
The trooper continued, “When we pulled her up, she had 12 twenty-five pound king crabs and 6 good-size Dungeness crabs clinging to her and we feel you are entitled to a share in the catch.”
Stunned, Mr. Wilkens demanded, “If that’s the good news, what’s the great news?”
The trooper said, “We’re going to pull her up again tomorrow.”
Her 9-year old grandson came in from outside and asked, -
“Grandma, what’s that called when two people sleep in the same bedroom and one is on top of the other?” Taken aback, she decided to be honest, “It’s called sexual intercourse.” “Oh, okay,” and he went back to play with his friends. A few minutes later he returned saying angrily, “Grandma, it isn’t called sexual intercourse. It’s called Bunk Beds and Jimmy’s Mom wants to talk to you.”
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