Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• Who’s Left Out of the Learning-Loss Debate - Critics of school closures undermine the two groups who could do the most to help students recover—parents and teachers. - link

• A Timely Economics Nobel—and a Warning - As Wall Street gets jittery, Stockholm honors three economists who warned about fragilities in the banking system. - link

• How Close Is Vladimir Putin to Using a Nuclear Bomb? - A Russian attack would terrorize the Ukrainian population and shatter a seven-decade-old international taboo, all while bringing few benefits on the battlefield. - link

• Tua Tagovailoa’s Injury Wasn’t Just a Failure of Protocol - The N.F.L. has amended its rules for allowing players back on the field, and a medical specialist has reportedly been fired, but some of football’s problems aren’t fixable. - link

• The Political Scene Live with Jamie Raskin: January 6th and Accountability for Donald Trump - In the lead-up to the final January 6th hearing, Evan Osnos, Susan B. Glasser, and Jane Mayer discuss the stakes of the case against the former President with the House-select-committee member. - link

From Vox

• Neil deGrasse Tyson gets political -

  

  Why the influential astrophysicist is increasingly worried about scientific ignorance.

  As a kid, I loved watching reruns of Carl Sagan’s PBS series Cosmos.

  It was one of those rare shows that found a way to communicate the importance and the beauty of science at the same time. And Sagan, for his part, was so good at evoking a sense of wonder in the audience.

  If there’s an heir to Sagan’s legacy in our time, it’s the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. In addition to reviving Cosmos in 2014, Tyson has become the most influential science communicator in the country. As of this writing, he has nearly 15 million Twitter followers; he’s a constant presence on TV; and he’s the longtime director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

  But his new book, Starry Messenger, represents a kind of shift in his public mission. More than anything else he’s done, it’s an explicitly political — though not exactly partisan — book. Tyson’s goal is to show how science can inform our politics and maybe even assuage some of our deepest divisions.

  I’m fascinated by the turn in Tyson’s work, so I invited him to join me for the first episode of my new podcast, The Gray Area, to talk about his ideas — and push him a little bit. I do, after all, think he might be a little naive about how our political world really works.

  Below is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.

  ---

  Sean Illing

  You’re really leaning into politics in this book in a way I don’t think you have before. Am I right to see it that way?

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Yeah, this book is very different from my other books in that regard. But in a way, it has more science in it than anything I’ve ever written. Because it’s about all the things that matter to us — society, culture, politics, love, hate, life, death — and what those things look like through the lens of reason.

  There are so many occasions in your life where you dig in your heels with a strongly held opinion to fight someone else who’s digging in their heels with a strongly held other opinion. And the book is an attempt to get warring factions to realize that there are places to stand, to look back on what you were arguing and say, Oh, my gosh. I wasn’t arguing about anything at all. Or I thought this was a strongly held view, but look at all the holes in the view that I didn’t even know were there because my bias blinded me to them.

  So this book is an exercise in how to live in this world with a scientific outlook. My hope is that if anyone’s gonna buy it at all, they get it before Thanksgiving dinner when the crazy uncle and the weird aunt come in and share their views of the world. This will totally equip you to have those exchanges!

  Sean Illing

  Oh, Neil, you’re so naive! Seriously, though, are you doing this because you feel like our political dysfunction or scientific illiteracy has brought us to some kind of tipping point?

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  It’s not that warring political factions is a new thing — that’s as old as democracy and elections. And even before elections, there were kings and queens that were killed for the sake of power of those who wanted to rise up. So if that’s not the ultimate expression of political conflict, I don’t know what is.

  What is different, I think, is I remember a day when I would express an opinion and you would calmly listen and you’d say, Oh, that’s interesting, or Here’s what I think about that. And then we would discuss the differences. And then when we were finished discussing, we’d go out and have a beer.

  Now, if you post any opinion at all on social media, it gets attacked by people who don’t want you to have an opinion that differs from their own. If that’s the world you seek, then what you’re really after is a world where everyone has exactly the same opinion you do. Last I checked, this is what dictators create in their inner circles, where everybody has the opinion of the dictator, and that is not the foundation of a pluralistic democracy.

  What I’ve learned in my social media postings is if I’m gonna say anything political, I have to do it in a way where it’s not an opinion. And even when you do it that way, there are people who will think it’s an opinion. That’s what fascinates me.

  Sean Illing

  All right, let me see if I can get to the point where you and I may diverge a little, because I think we agree about most things. If I have a conservative instinct, it’s that I think it’s generally wise to be very humble about human nature and the limits of politics, which is to say, I think we have to accept, as I think you do, that human beings are not rational creatures, that human life can never be made entirely or even mostly rational, and that any attempt to do so will probably go disastrously. And I think you think that with the help of science or the scientific perspective, we can maybe grow out of our primitive impulses —

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  I don’t know if it’s possible that we completely grow out of it in the sense that the species evolves so that our irrational conduct is in the past, but we can mature, and widespread enlightenment can happen and does happen.

  Though there is surely slavery still in the world, there is no government that matters in this world that explicitly supports slavery in their doctrines. But that was widespread just a few centuries ago. I would say we have matured culturally and socially to recognize that this is not how we should behave.

  So I think it is possible to progress (with whatever fits and starts it involves), that overall society can have a more progressive, rational outlook on its present and on its future, for having learned from our mistakes in the past.

  Sean Illing

  I think we agree there, so let me try this another way —

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  You’re still trying to pick a fight, aren’t you?!

  Sean Illing

  No, no, no, you think I’d pick a fight with America’s favorite astrophysicist?

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  America’s personal astrophysicist. I don’t know if I’m anybody’s favorite!

  Sean Illing

  But when you write that “When people disagree in our complex world of politics, religion, and culture, the causes are simple, even if the resolutions are not,” I think I know what you mean, and it’s at least partially right. But I don’t think the causes are simple at all. I think human beings are remarkably primitive and impossibly complicated at the same time. Protons and electrons, by comparison, are so much simpler. That’s why we can predict the way they’re gonna behave. But people are weird and convoluted and contradictory and puzzling —

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  I would say for individuals, yes, but collectively, not so much. If you look at the causes of wars, sure you can say it was this king, or this queen, or this line in the sand. But at the end of the day, it’s about power. It’s about access to resources. There aren’t a hundred reasons why humans have engaged in organized warfare.

  The details are distinct, of course. We have Hitler rising up in the 1930s Germany, and he was in jail and he was elected and he was charismatic. But at the end of the day it was a charismatic, power-hungry person who managed to create an enemy and bring his people against what he perceived as an enemy.

  That’s pretty simple to me. Now, how you resolve that given the complexities of a culture and society, and how you end it and how you create longer-lasting peace — that’s very complicated.

  Sean Illing

  I’m glad you used the word “power” just now. Because I don’t think we have a knowledge problem, and while I do think most of us lack perspective, the real problem in my mind is fundamentally political. Our inability to tackle climate change, something you talk about in the book, is not a knowledge problem. The issue is that power is concentrated in ways that make it difficult for us to do what we know we have to do. I don’t pretend to have the answers. I just know more data ain’t it.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  I see it differently.

  Sean Illing

  How so?

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  I see it as people do not understand what an objective truth is. I actually think it’s that simple. They see various published scientific research. One in a hundred of [those studies] denies human-caused climate change and 99 of them show that we are the cause. They cherry-pick it because it fulfills a worldview that they have and they’re not self-aware of the bias that is infused within that worldview. And they happen to also be in power — either political power or financial power — and then they act on it.

  So you’re right, it’s not a matter of knowledge. It’s a matter of a self-awareness, of not seeing how you’re arriving at what you think is true and what is not.

  You need to know what science is and how and why it works.

  Sean Illing

  Okay, you’re gonna hate me for saying this, and I annoy myself when I say it, but I really think we overstate how important objective truth is for many people. It’s not that a lot of people have lost sight of what distinguishes facts from opinions. I think the problem is worse than that. People become attached to certain beliefs, values, certain cultural poses, and these things seem small from a cosmic perspective (and they are!), but they’re the things that anchor our identities and our social lives. That’s the stuff that drives us. And it’s beyond truth and falsehood. It’s beyond facts and opinions. It’s deeper than that.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  I thought you were more optimistic than that!

  Sean Illing

  I’m trying, Neil, help me out here!

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Okay, let me see what I can do with what you just said.

  So in the book, I quote language from the actual platform of the Texas Republican Party. I don’t remember the words exactly, but there was an explicit sentence in there not too long ago that actively denied the scientific claims about human-caused climate change. And then two years later — ’cause they update the platform every couple of years — that sentence was softened. It no longer actively denied the scientific claims. It said, “We support the defunding of climate justice initiatives.” So that’s actually progress. Because it’s not coming at the scientists and scientific consensus. It is possible for the truth to get through among people who actually didn’t think it was objectively true.

  So now, getting back to your point, there are things that people just want to believe, no matter the evidence, such as those who think Earth is flat. I don’t chase them down. We live in a free society with free ideas and free expression. And if you wanna think Earth is flat, go right ahead. There’re plenty of jobs for you — including NBA professional basketball player, one of whom was a big exponent of the flat Earth [theory] — where you don’t have to know or understand that Earth is spherically round.

  I’d say that your susceptibility to thinking this way is enabled by how science is taught. You’re taught that it’s just some facts that happen to be true today but might not be true tomorrow. And then there are these boldface words in the chapter that you memorize and you recite them back for the final exam.

  At no time is science really taught as a process, as a means of querying nature, as a way to know what is and is not true in this world. And if you have power, your power and money, it will be more likely sustained if you make decisions based on objective truths than in anything that you wish were true without the benefit of evidence to support it.

  Sean Illing

  I think people in power already know what’s true, and if they don’t care, it’s because they’re invested in falsehood. But the real question here is about the public and whether we think human nature has really changed all that much. Or have we just gotten better at building institutions and structures that channel our worst instincts in more constructive directions? And if it’s the latter (and I think it is), then once those trappings melt away, we revert pretty quickly to our barbarian past.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  That’s a very important and perceptive comment. So let me just agree and further reflect on it.

  Earlier, you said we’ve never been exposed to more access to knowledge. That’s correct. But there’s nothing more bias-feeding than typing a crazy idea into Google, and Google will find every other crazy person who thinks exactly the way you do, giving you a false sense of authenticity, or a false sense of truth about your crazy idea.

  You can type in “hollow Earth” and up will come websites of people who are all into the idea that Earth is hollow and that there’s an inner Earth and that there’s civilizations within that. So our system of access to knowledge does not have a tandem set of filters to allow you, unless you have other kinds of training, to judge what is more likely to be true. And you need ways to have your belief system unraveled in the face of some truths versus others.

  If you’re not ready to have that happen, you don’t have the tools to receive conflicting information and change your mind; you become ossified. And that tribalizes people. So, yeah, in the old days, your tribe were people who looked like you and lived a few blocks around you. Now if you have an idea, you can find everybody else in the world with that idea and that is the new tribe, and we’re gonna fight everybody else who resists us.

  Sean Illing

  Yes, and that’s kind of what I’ve been driving at in this conversation. It’s often not about truth so much as tribe and community and purpose and these sorts of things. You know, no one has ever blown themselves up in defense of string theory or whatever, right?

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Never.

  Sean Illing

  But people have always died and killed over their ideas about freedom or God or whatever. And I don’t know if enough scientists think really seriously about why that is and what it says about us. I imagine a lot of scientists would say, Yeah, I get that. We just have to give people more facts and data so their ideas about freedom are coherent. But I don’t think that acknowledges the problem here —

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  It’s more complicated than that. I would say that the less data the individual has available to them to support their belief system, the more strenuously they will defend their belief system. Of course there are exceptions to that, but that’s an extraordinary fact.

  I spend a fair amount of time distinguishing these various truths. I would call those “personal truths.” Is Jesus your savior? In a free, open country where religion is protected, no one is gonna take that from you. But if you want to require that others think the same way, that requires an act of persuasion and in the extreme an act of violence.

  And then you have “political truths,” the truths that just exist cause they’re repeated so often. The weakness of the brain makes us think, Wow, I heard it a lot. It must be true. Without any reference to evidence or repeated evidence. Again, we had to learn that evidence mattered.

  The objective truths are what really matter here. And once people understand what role they play in establishing something that applies to everyone — ’cause an objective truth is true whether or not you believe in it — we can at least let the laws we create be founded in objective truths. That way, your personal truths don’t collide with it. But if you have strong personal truths and you rise to power, that’s dangerous for a pluralistic democracy.

  To hear the rest of the conversation, click here, and be sure to follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This October on The Gray Area, you’ll hear from guests like Reza Aslan, a leading expert in world religions, Luke Mogelson, a combat reporter for the New Yorker who was in the Capitol building on January 6, and Judith Butler, a pioneering gender theorist.

• How the Pennsylvania Senate race got so close -

  

  The state of the Oz-Fetterman Senate race, explained by three Pennsylvania pollsters.

  This past summer, polling had Lt. Gov.John Fetterman up by as much as 12 points in the Pennsylvania Senate race, a sizable lead in a swing state that’s typically pretty close.

  Fetterman’s support raised Democrats’ hopes of flipping the seat, particularly since President Joe Biden won there in the last cycle. Since then, however, the race has tightened considerably, a byproduct of Republican voters “coming home” to candidate Mehmet Oz, and GOP investments in attack ads going after Fetterman’s record on crime. Fetterman now leads Oz by six points, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling roundup.

  “I think [the crime messaging] is what has changed the trajectory of the race so far,” says Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Pennsylvania’s Franklin and Marshall College. In a sign of how close the race has become, Cook Political Report also shifted its rating from Lean Democrat to Toss Up.

  These changes come as Republicans have spent millions criticizing Fetterman on the decisions he made as the Chair of the state’s Board of Pardons, including an increase in commutations and pardons. Republicans have argued that Fetterman is “soft on crime” and releasing dangerous criminals, while the Fetterman notes that he’s focused on those who were wrongly convicted and nonviolent offenders.

  “The spending by the Oz campaign … has helped get that race closer to where we expected it to be,” said Yost.

  Vox talked with Yost and two other Pennsylvania pollsters to get a sense of how the race has shifted in the last few months, how it could still change, and which voters remain persuadable. Their answers were edited for length and clarity.

  What is your reaction to the polls tightening in the Pennsylvania Senate race? How much of that is expected and how much of it has been surprising to you?

  New rating change: #PASEN moves from Lean D to Toss Up
  
  Read @JessicaTaylor’s latest: https://t.co/D6jBkwjQxs

  — Cook Political Report (@CookPolitical) October 4, 2022

Berwood Yost, Director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin and Marshall College: First, Senate races in Pennsylvania, traditionally are tight. So it’s not unusual. You go back to 2000, I think the average margin in the Senate races is about three points.

And then on top of that, we knew that there was going to be a lot of money spent given what’s at stake. The spending by the Oz campaign really, I think, has been effective in the last month and has helped get that race closer to where we expected it to be. Frankly, there wasn’t much being done over the summer, which allowed the race to probably be more one-sided.

There was [also] a very divisive [Republican] primary. Oz won the primary with the smallest share of the statewide vote in 100 years for one of these elections. There were a lot of candidates, and it would take some time to bring Republicans home, so to speak, because of that. But what he started doing since really the end of summer is effectively spending his money primarily talking about crime issues.

Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling and Research (a firm that includes Republicans as clients): We’ve never believed the polling that shows that this was a double-digit race for Fetterman. So our last poll, we had Fetterman up by five.

He had done a really good job of solidifying his base. I mean, he was getting almost 90 percent of the Democratic vote in our mid-August poll, whereas Oz was underperforming with Republicans because he had such a brutal primary.

What’s changed is, if you’re watching the ads here, it’s all about Fetterman’s record as Chairman of the Board of Pardons.

Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion: Oz certainly maintains his high unfavorables. But Fetterman’s unfavorables have risen, making for a number of voters a choice between two unfavorable candidates, and when that happens … sometimes it’s the out party that does best in those situations because it’s a vote for a different direction.

How effective have you seen the attacks on crime be against Fetterman, and have you seen him provide a decisive response?

Berwood Yost: I think it’s what has changed the trajectory of the race so far. There were a number of early ideas, and maybe some attacks and nothing really resonated.

The constant drumbeat of the crime messaging, I think, does a lot of things for the Oz campaign. It helps define Fetterman in a way that he hadn’t been defined before. So it isn’t just that they’re talking about him and his time on the Pardons Board. But it opens up a broader range of issues that maybe Fetterman is too liberal for the state as a whole. So crime is sort of the entree to that discussion, but it makes people think about what else is going on.

Last week, Fetterman issued a rebuttal that I thought was pretty good, where he has a police officer talking about the kinds of people he wants to let out of jail, and how that’s going to not harm public safety, and in fact, save taxpayer money. So, I think that was an effective ad, and he needs to get out more of that messaging.

Jim Lee: We’ve seen constantly in all of our polling and all the states we’ve been serving [that] crime, inflation, abortion, and gas prices are really the top issues that voters most care about right now. And three of those four, with the exception of abortion, seem to be ones that Republicans are better positioned on. So I think that that’s going to be a very, very consequential issue.

In terms of the ads, [Fetterman] had an ad running. And it’s people in uniform, like law enforcement, saying that Oz is lying, and that he only is letting people out who are nonviolent, who have minor drug offenses, and that he’s not soft on crime.

Chris Borick: People, especially older voters in key areas like Southeastern Pennsylvania, are concerned about crime and feel that it’s a growing problem. And so you target the issue and create a frame that paints the worst possible picture of your opponent, and that’s what Oz has done and I would argue fairly successfully over the last month.

What about Republicans’ attempts to go after his health and fitness after he had a stroke earlier this year?

Berwood Yost: I’m sure that for some people, that line of attack works. But, frankly, that line of attack was something we were hearing all summer long. And it didn’t seem to change much.

I mean, the race really seemed to change when the discussion was centered around Fetterman’s crime policies and crime positions. That’s when it seemed to me that things changed. I mean, everybody knew he had a stroke. Everyone knew about his health. I mean, our polls indicate that 80 percent of voters know about that. So I didn’t think it made a big difference. I think it was the crime messaging that really sort of changed things.

With that in mind: Could it still make a difference? Of course it could. Because if we get to the debate, and voters see Fetterman perhaps not performing well to the point they don’t think he can represent their interests, well, then it becomes an issue. But I think at this point, it’s sort of been secondary.

Jim Lee: To me, it’s the crime message that is really probably resonating and helping to solidify Oz’s support and winning back some of those swing voters.

Chris Borick: I don’t think it has been effective [so far]. I think actually when more of the attention from the Oz campaign was focused on Fetterman’s work in criminal justice areas and positions on a variety of positions related to crime and incarceration, I think those attacks have been much more impactful than some of the attacks that were coming about Fetterman’s health.

I think the [NBC News] interview will only focus more attention on Fetterman’s health concerns and elevate the importance of the debate later this month. There is a modest pool of voters that have not locked in yet with either Oz or Fetterman, and the health issue is a factor that may creep into their final decision.

Conversely, what attacks have stuck with Oz?

Berwood Yost: I still think that he’s susceptible to the question about his recent move to Pennsylvania.

I think, in a state like Pennsylvania where people do take pride in their local communities, I think that’s still an avenue that could be a problem for him.

Jim Lee: I think that really, the ads that I’ve seen that paint him as an extremist because he’s pro-life will be a very, very effective message. And that’s why I think the Philly suburbs will be so important because when they look at Oz from a resume standpoint, he is one of them. And Oz, to me, never came off screaming right on abortion, like the way [GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug] Mastriano does. [Attacks on this issue still have] the potential to really hurt him with women and suburban voters.

Chris Borick: This continues to be the hurdle for Oz to get over, the attacks that have been throughout the year, actually, starting last January, December, about him being this TV doctor, with homes in Jersey and California and Turkey, trying to claim that he can represent Pennsylvania.

And then you layer in that it’s all smoke and mirrors, right? That ultimately, Oz is a charlatan in the sense that he doesn’t really connect to Pennsylvania and he uses his medical status to fool people and … he’s not to be trusted.

Who are the persuadable voters at this point?

Berwood Yost: You’ve got a sizable share of independent voters, which in Pennsylvania is about 13 or so percent of our registered voters. I think when we talk about candidates in this race, both of them probably have to make some appeals to independent and moderate voters. And at the moment, I think Fetterman has the advantage among those groups. So that’s why he’s leading, but there’s still ground to be made up.

I think the other thing that I’m looking at closely is the vote in Philadelphia and the suburbs, and seeing which candidate really can draw voters out of those suburban counties, out of Montgomery, Delaware, Chester, and Bucks County … and engage and encourage urban voters to come out.

Jim Lee: Latino [voters] are not a big constituency in Pennsylvania, they only represent 6 or 8 percent of the state’s total votes on Election Day, but they just don’t seem as reliable anymore for the Democratic Party. So I see them as being approachable.

I think in the suburbs, you’re gonna see Oz probably overperform because, not necessarily suburban women, but suburban voters, particularly in the collar counties around Philadelphia, these are more highly educated, more affluent areas. He’s almost a prototypical suburban Philly candidate, like perfect for the Philly suburbs. He’s not your red-rock Republican kind of guy. He’s your country club Republican.

Chris Borick: There are voters that split tickets in Pennsylvania. And I think that’s a group that I’m really fascinated with this cycle. For example, is there a group of Oz-Shapiro voters in the Philly suburbs?

How are you accounting for the differences between the gubernatorial and Senate races? Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro is leading Doug Mastriano by a much larger margin compared to Fetterman and Oz in the Senate race.

Berwood Yost: I think, actually, you can go back to 2016 and see the way that Trump won the state versus the way Pat Toomey won the state to see that you can put together slightly different electoral coalitions. (Editor’s note: Trump won by roughly 0.7 percentage points that year, while Toomey won by 1.5 percentage points.) And so I think that it’s possible for Oz to appeal to more suburban voters than Mastriano will, but perhaps underperform among the rural voters. So that’s where we’ll see this split ticket come in.

There’s a lot of issues [on which] your traditional Republican might [think Mastriano is] going too far.

Jim Lee: This state does not have a history of electing extreme far-right candidates.

And Shapiro, let’s face it, he’s done just a hell of a job building an image in the state as a likable guy.

Chris Borick: [There’s a] group that you’re looking at that might be able to say, well, I can never support Doug Mastriano. He’s of the Trump ilk. But Oz, well, he got Trump’s support, but he seems not to be all-MAGA all the time.

• 6 questions with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg -

  

  Recode spoke with the secretary of transportation about winning over rural drivers and surmounting other roadblocks to the EV transition.

  The electric vehicle revolution has a problem: There aren’t enough EVs or chargers. General Motors’ planned production of the electric GMC Hummer pickup and SUV sold out just 10 minutes after reservations opened, and prices on used EV models, like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Bolt, are now higher than they were last year. Though as much as 25 percent of prospective car owners are interested in EVs, electric vehicles represent just 4 percent of the new cars produced in the United States.

  The EV revolution promises to replace gas-powered vehicles with cars that are powered by batteries. Automakers are retooling their factories and building new plants so they can manufacture electric vehicles, and the government is investing heavily to speed up the transition and prepare the country’s infrastructure for their arrival. Leading figures of the Biden administration, including Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, have urged people to start buying EVs and have started to electrify the hundreds of thousands of vehicles used by government workers, too.

  But as the transition to electric vehicles takes off, automakers are racing to produce more of them. As with internal combustion cars, supply chain challenges have made it difficult to manufacture EVs during the pandemic, and shortages of raw materials have made it harder to build the batteries that power them. This situation is far from ideal. EVs need to be more convenient to buy and own if they’re going to replace gas-powered vehicles, including the vehicles used in commercial fleets and public transportation. Until that happens, every internal combustion vehicle purchased in lieu of an EV could be on the road for years, continuing to emit carbon dioxide and exacerbating climate change.

  “It’s true that in this particular season, the automakers can’t make them fast enough,” Buttigieg told Recode in a recent interview. “Nothing has happened in the auto industry as game-changing as this.”

  Drew Angerer/Getty Images

  While the car industry shifts gears to produce more EVs, the government’s campaign to get people to use them is underway. The Department of Transportation, led by Buttigieg, recently approved plans to distribute $5 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC, to build a nationwide EV charging network that will cover 75,000 miles of highway. Another $2.5 billion has been set aside to install chargers in rural and underserved areas. The Department of Energy is also spending $3 billion to develop the US battery supply chain and is investing in chargers for heavy-duty vehicles while working with the DOT on the national charging network.

  There’s a long road ahead, though. Take the government’s delayed efforts to electrify its own vehicles. Biden has called for all new light-duty vehicles purchased for the federal fleet to be electric by 2027, but only about 1,800 of the more than 600,000 vehicles in this fleet are currently zero-emissions, according to the Associated Press. In addition to struggling to acquire EVs, the government only has 2,000 of its own EV chargers. “We’re still just releasing these products into the market,” said Kevin Riddell, a senior manager at industry forecaster LMC Automotive. “Once you release it, that’s great, but the factory can’t instantly just start making 70,000 vehicles a year.”

  There are other challenges ahead. Plans for a nationwide charging network could be delayed by “Buy America” rules (these rules encourage companies to use materials and manufacture products in the US), which may make it harder for states to find the chargers they need. The Federal Highway Administration said late last year that it was “not aware of any EV chargers” that meet these requirements, and recently proposed a new waiver that would let these rules kick in more gradually. There are also cultural roadblocks, Buttigieg told Recode, including shifting some peoples’ perceptions that EVs are only for liberal city-dwellers. Then there’s the matter of convincing consumers that EVs — which generally cost more to purchase but are cheaper to power and maintain — are more affordable and convenient compared to gas-powered cars.

  “If someone made a decision that they’re ready to switch to an 100 percent pure battery electric vehicle, they’re willing to wait,” said Gabe Shenhar, an auto engineer who oversees purchasing at Consumer Reports. “But if you’re in a situation where you need a car immediately, then it’s probably not going to be an EV unless you luck out.”

  Still, you have to start somewhere. Buttigieg told Recode that the EV transition is well on its way. Extensive government investment will help make EVs a more regular part of life for most people, he argues, and automakers won’t always be facing the same production challenges they are now.

  This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

  Rebecca Heilweil

  The Department of Transportation recently approved plans to install EV chargers across the interstate highway in all 50 states, as well as DC and Puerto Rico. There’s the eventual goal of installing at least 500,000 chargers in the US by the end of the decade. What are the biggest challenges you see right now for building this network?

  Drew Angerer/Getty Images

  Secretary Buttigieg

  It’s no small task. We’re talking about a major, major transformation in terms of the way that we fuel our vehicles and a different model from what we have. The best thing we have to compare it to is gas vehicles. In some ways, it can be easier, in the sense that people with single-family homes can charge their vehicles in a way that you obviously can’t fill up with gas at home. On the other hand, it’s much harder in the sense that it can take longer to charge a vehicle than it can to fill it up. And it just takes a different infrastructure to make sure that you can get the electricity to where it needs to be.

  But it’s gonna take a lot of work. And there are a lot of places now where chargers are needed, whether we’re talking about in a dense urban area or along the stretch of the highway somewhere, that don’t automatically pencil out in terms of being profitable but does need to happen. That’s where the federal funds can really come in.

  Rebecca Heilweil

  Logistically, what’s going to be difficult to do during this transition?

  Secretary Buttigieg

  Issues include siting and getting that right. We have some basic requirements, but it’s really up to the states to work out questions around that. It’s certainly the availability of the chargers themselves. Making sure that we’re supporting our Buy America policy goals, and also getting these things out to where they need to be.

  Workforce can be an issue. We’ve got to make sure that we have the right-trained workforce of skilled workers to install these chargers. It’s an exciting thing. It’s good news, since it’s a lot of good-paying jobs. But we’ve really got to ramp up and be ready for that.

  There’s the grid, which is — in many places — going to have to be upgraded or adjusted in order to meet the demand. At a global level, it’s certainly more efficient to produce power in utility-scale, and get it over to a vehicle, than it is to put a fuel into millions of vehicles and combust them individually in those vehicles. But actually capturing that efficiency? That takes a distribution system that we don’t have today. And that’s something we have our eyes open about. It’s one of the reasons why you see grid improvements and highway improvements as part of the same bill because increasingly, you can’t separate the two.

  Rebecca Heilweil

  What messages are you most struggling to get across to apprehensive EV buyers?

  Secretary Buttigieg

  First is realistic assumptions about range. The truth is, for most drivers, it is rare that you’re going to need to go 300 miles without being able to fill up. But also for most drivers, we feel like we at least want that option. And so I think we need to make sure that we can speak to that so-called “range anxiety,” both in terms of the resources to be able to charge up whenever you need to and thinking through what the true needs actually are.

  Another challenge is cost, so making sure that there are good apples-to-apples comparisons out there. Because right now, typically in an electric vehicle, your car payments are going to be higher because the sticker price of the car is higher, but your cost of fuel and your cost of ownership in terms of maintenance is going to be lower. Making it really easy to see how you could come out ahead is something that I think is important. But then again, I’m not sure that anything and everything that officials like me do will matter as much as what car dealers and car commercials can do to help educate the public about the economics here.

  And then there’s a bit of a cultural issue, which is just making sure people understand that this is not just something for urban, presumptively liberal drivers taking short trips around big coastal cities. But on the contrary, actually, the more rural your environment, the more gas money you’re probably going to save by having one of these things. The performance of the cars and our pickup trucks is very compelling. But you have to have driven one or talk to somebody who has to really know that.

  Rebecca Heilweil

  Relatedly, we’re seeing increasingly that people do want to buy these electric vehicles, and on some models, we’re seeing demand outstripping the supply that’s available. Were automakers behind in making the switch to EVs? Why are we seeing slower manufacturing of EVs than what we would have liked?

  Secretary Buttigieg

  It’s true that in this particular season, the automakers can’t make them fast enough. I think that it will rise and fall over time, in terms of what the real limiting factor is going to be and it won’t always be production. But I do think what we’re seeing is an industry that is having to adjust in a very profound way.

  Nothing has happened in the auto industry as game-changing as this, really since they settled on combustion in the first place 100 years ago. Notably, that was an open debate 110 years ago. If you go to the Studebaker Museum in my hometown (Editor’s note: Buttigieg is from South Bend, Indiana, where he previously served as mayor), you can see 1903 [and] 1904 model horseless carriages that were actually battery-operated. So in a way, this is a full-circle moment for the industry.

  Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images

  But look how quickly they’re gearing up. At least one company, Ford, has reorganized their entire business around this. You got a company like GM that’s declared that it’s not even gonna make combustion cars past 2035. Stellantis is making a lot of big moves that deeply commit them to EVs. And then you have the newer companies, the Teslas, Rivians, and so on that had been set up for this the whole time, but are themselves going through the evolution that would be required for them to hit the next level in terms of scale.

  Rebecca Heilweil

  What do you think needs to happen to reach a tipping point where EVs are so convenient that people are just going to instinctively want to buy them instead of gas-powered vehicles?

  Secretary Buttigieg

  It’s really going to depend on where you are [living], and part of that is even geographically. I’ll give you an example: So for where Chasten and I (Chasten Buttigieg is Buttigieg’s husband) live when I’m not in Washington — where we live in Michigan — we’re already well past the point where it’s a better choice because we’re fortunate to have a single-family home with a garage. And the main charging infrastructure that we count on is just a plug in the wall. We also have a plug-in hybrid, which means that if we were to go past the 30 miles or so that our minivan runs on electric — which we rarely do going to Target and back— but if we do, then the gas kicks in, and that’s fine for a road trip.

  That’s completely different from being in a city where maybe you even have less range anxiety, but also you’re in a multifamily building where the charging infrastructure may not be there. Or being in a rural area where maybe you have the benefit of a single-family home and plug in your garage, but you really are driving more than a couple hundred miles a day.

  In terms of the economic side, we’re pretty close to that tipping point already. In other words, depending on the model, we are fast approaching the point where the cost of buying, owning, and fueling a car, taken together, it’s cheaper for an electric model than a corresponding gas model. We’re roughly there or very close.

  So now the question really will be making sure it can reach everybody, [including] lower-income drivers, who will really benefit from those gas savings but need to be able to afford it in the first place. That’s why the used tax credit being part of the IRA (Editor’s note: The updated EV tax credit includes a credit for buying previously owned electric vehicles as well as new ones) is so important. And this question of charging range anxiety, and making sure that it works functionally and not just financially.

  Rebecca Heilweil

  The Associated Press put out a report that fewer than 1,800 of the more than 600,000 vehicles in the federal fleet are zero-emissions right now. Are there lessons to be learned from the transition of the federal fleet to EVs? Does this raise concerns about this being slower than ideal and not boding well for the transition for everyone’s cars?

  Secretary Buttigieg

  The other way to look at it would actually be that if you look at the growth from 2021 to 2022, for example, if that were to happen in the consumer market, we’d be in great shape. We moved from I think [approximately] 1 percent in 2021 to 13 percent in 2022 (Editor’s note: This number does not include the Postal Service, which purchases about a third of the government’s overall fleet). That level of growth is, to be honest, not quite realistic on the consumer side. But it does suggest that when you’re talking about fleets, it can be slower to start, but then quicker once you get underway. That’s likely what we’ll see on the federal side. But it is a process. This is new for federal acquisitions, too.

  Craig Hudson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

  Again, it’s pretty beneficial pretty quickly, especially because a commercial vehicle might pencil out even quicker than a consumer one because you’re driving it more and it burns more gas. But we just weren’t historically set up for that. We need the charging infrastructure in our own federal buildings, and we need to make sure that people are equipped to acquire them and that our vendors are prepared to produce them.

  So the president’s goal is by 2027, every passenger vehicle we buy is electric. By 2035, even the heavy-duty trucks are. It’s definitely a process. Even the DOT fleet, we’ve got some work to do.

  We did take delivery on the vehicle that I get around in. That’s an electric car. My favorite moment about that was when they handed — as is standard practice — the keys and then the gas card, from the General Services Administration, to my security detail. It gives me a lot of pleasure to know that taxpayers will never have to put a penny on a purchase of gas for this EV.

From The Hindu: Sports

• Sathiyan and Sharath keen to improve their performances in the Asian Cup - The latest edition, to be held in Bangkok in November, will have a direct knock-out format

• Lovlina keen to add more power to her punches in the lead-up to the Asian Games - The boxer feels that the gold in the 75kg category at the National Games will hold her in good stead in future international events

• T20 World Cup 2022 | Shaheen Shah Afridi is 90% ready: PCB chief Ramiz Raja - Shaheen Afridid will be available for selection for the warm-up games against England and Afghanistan on October 17 and 19 respectively

• India lose second warm-up game to Western Australia by 36 runs - Inaugural edition champions India laboured to 132 for eight in 20 overs chasing 169.

• Kings Ransom, Claudius and Prinia catch the eye -

From The Hindu: National News

• Andhra Pradesh RTA officials seize 67 vehicles for not paying taxes in Anantapur - The RTA officials conduct a special drive to identify vehicles plying without valid documents

• A sensor system that sounds flood alerts accurately - Shibu George, a researcher in disaster management, has prepared the system for alerting increasing water levels in rivers

• BJP leader urges Union Coal Minister to ensure adequate supplies to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant in Andhra Pradesh - Production at Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, suffered due to non-availability of domestic coal and high cost of imported coal, G.V.L. Narasimha Rao tells Prahlad Joshi

• IIM-Kozhikode records 100% summer internship placements -

• Woman murdered -

From BBC: Europe

• Nato countries to boost Ukraine’s missile defence after massive Russian strikes - Advanced air defence weaponry will be delivered in the wake of devastating Russian missile strikes.

• Gas taps can still be turned on to EU, says Vladimir Putin - The Russian president says the “ball is in the EU’s court”, but Germany quickly rejects the offer.

• What is Vladimir Putin thinking and planning? - Getting in his mind is a thankless task - but we should try, writes the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg.

• Crimea bridge attack arrests as market in Donetsk region attacked - Russia detains eight over Saturday’s incident, as seven die in an attack on a market in eastern Ukraine.

• Amnesty accuses Latvia of abusing migrants on Belarus border - Amnesty International accuses Latvian authorities of violence and even torture against migrants.

From Ars Technica

• Carmack: “There’s a bunch that I’m grumpy about” in virtual reality - Lonely lecture as a VR avatar is a far cry from last year’s “thousands of people” goal. - link

• New Apple services and apps are rolling out on Windows 11 and Xbox - Music for Xbox is here now; Music and TV for Windows will come later. - link

• Microsoft fights to save Activision merger, says Sony protest is “self-serving” - Microsoft says UK relied on Sony’s “exaggerated” claims about Call of Duty. - link

• TikTok wants to be Amazon, plans US fullfillment centers and poaches staff - TikTok to launch live shopping in the US over the holidays. - link

• Kids 5-11 can now get the bivalent, BA.5-targeting COVID booster - Federal officials urge Americans to get their boost by Halloween. - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• Someone got 25 years in prison for saying Putin was an idiot -

  5 years for insulting the leader and 20 years for revealing state secrets.

  submitted by /u/vect77
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• Imagine if Americans switched from pounds to kilograms suddenly -

  There would be mass confusion.

  submitted by /u/ManEatingSloth
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• A man with a 25-inch long penis -

  goes to his doctor to complain that he is unable to get any women to have sex with him. They all tell him that his penis is too long.

  “Doctor,” he asks in total frustration, “Is there any way you can shorten it?”

  The doctor replies, “Medically son, there is nothing I can do. But, I do know this witch who may be able to help you out.”

  So the doctor gives him directions to the witch. The man calls upon the witch and relays his story.

  “Witch, my penis is 25-inches long and I can’t get any women to have sex with me. Can you help me shorten it?”

  The witch stares in amazement, scratches her head, and then replies, “I think I have a solution to your problem. What you have to do is go to this pond deep in the forest. In the pond, you will see a frog sitting on a log who can help solve your dilemma. First you must ask the frog, will you marry me? Each time the frog declines your proposal, your penis will be five inches shorter.”

  The man’s face lights up and he dashes off into the forest. He calls out to the frog, “Will you marry me?”

  The frog looks at him dejectedly and replies, “NO!”

  The man looks down and suddenly his penis is 5 inches shorter. “Wow,” he screams out loud, “This is great!!”

  But he is still too long at 20 inches, so he asks the frog again." “Frog, will you marry me?” the guy shouts.

  The frog rolls its eyes back in its head and screams back, “NO!”

  The man feels another twitch in his penis, looks down, and it’s another 5 inches shorter. The man laughs, “This is fantastic.”

  He looks down at his penis again, 15 inches long, and reflects for a moment. Fifteen inches is still a monster, just a little less would be ideal. Grinning, he looks across the pond and yells out, “Frog, will you marry me?”

  The frog looks back across pond shaking its head, “How many times do I have to tell you? NO, NO, and for the last time, NO!”

  submitted by /u/Kneedeeppain
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• Drunk guy climbs into bed with his wife.. -

  A drunk guy climbs into bed with his wife. He’s so drunk he instantly passes out. A while after passing out he is awoken by a bright light emanating from the end of the bed. He struggles to get himself into a sitting position and after doing so sees that there is a figure in or behind the light.

  He asks, “who’s there?”

  “It is I, Saint Peter and I am here to inform you that you passed away in your sleep and I am here to let you into the gates of Heaven.”

  The guy is totally shocked and exclaims, “Whaa? I can’t be dead, I’m young & have a young family who need me! - Can you let me stay here with them, please.. I’ve lived a good life & have been kind”

  St. Peter considers this & replies, “There is only one way to do that I’m afraid.. You can stay but it will have to be in the body of another nearby creature.. the nearest ones are: the neighbours dog, a chicken on the farm next door or the mouse in your shed”

  The guy thinks about it… “The dog is out since the kids are afraid of them and it can’t be the mouse as my wife is petrified of them, so it’ll have to be the chicken, which is ok as my my wife walks by the farm everyday with my kids on the way to school, so at least I’ll get to watch them grow”

  And in an instant he is in the farm yard pecking away at the scattered seed.

  He catches his reflection in a puddle - and he is indeed, a chicken!

  While involuntarily pecking the seed he suddenly feels an incredible urge to ‘bear down’ - something in him feels like it is trying to get out so he screams. A passing rooster hears his scream and (in chicken language), asks what’s wrong.

  The guy explains his involuntary urge to bear down & the rooster goes, “Oh that’s just an egg coming out, just squat & push - that thing will just pop out..but you’re a chicken so it’ll happen often”

  So the guy stops fighting it and pushes down and lo and behold out pops an egg! He’s so proud of this fact and the moment he feels it happening again he instantly pushes and pop! out comes another egg.

  He is so happy with himself and the feeling of relief that he doesn’t at first notice the person yelling, "Brian! BRIAN!! BRIAN!!

  He looks to his right and sees no one - he looks straight ahead he sees no one - he looks behind him and sees no one and then he looks to his left and sees his wife. He’s confused… He asks her what’s wrong and she screams, “Brian wake up you drunk asshole, you’re shitting all over the bed!!”

  submitted by /u/IrishStw
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• A man was sitting next to a woman on an airplane who after everytime she coughed she would loudly moan -

  After the 3rd time the man asked the woman if she was ok.

  The woman responsed that she had a condition where after every time she coughed she would have an orgasm.

  The man said that’s terrible and asked the woman if she was taking anything for it.

  The woman responsed just pepper.

  submitted by /u/lordbryce95
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