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New clinical trial shows daily GLP-1 pill significantly improves sleep apnea

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Foundayo, an oral antiobesity pill, significantly improved obstructive sleep apnea, according to new clinical trial data. The results signal the potential uses of the GLP-1 (glucagonlike peptide 1) drug beyond weight loss.

Foundayo is the brand name for the drug orforglipron, which is made by Eli Lilly. It was approved for treating obesity by the Food and Drug Administration in April. At the same time, the pharmaceutical company has been probing the drug’s potential to treat other obesity-related conditions, including obstructive sleep apnea. The condition is characterized by pauses in air flow to the lungs during sleep that are longer than 10 seconds; it can cause loud snoring, choking, sleep deprivation, headaches and other symptoms. Globally, as many as 936 million adults are estimated to experience the condition, although most are never formally diagnosed.

Because it causes drops in oxygen, obstructive sleep apnea can also increase the risks of heart problems. That suggests treatment with Foundayo may also have cardiovascular health benefits, says Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Ontario. Drucker was not involved with the new trial but has previously worked as a consultant for Eli Lilly.

“Every time we tinker with the GLP-1 backbone, the question of overall safety and cardiovascular safety resurfaces,” he says.

“We know there’s a two-way relationship between sleep and cardiovascular health, and the repeated drops in oxygen that happen with obstructive sleep apnea can strain blood pressure and the heart over time,” said study co-author Vaishnavi Kundel, an associate professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who has also consulted for Eli Lilly, in a statement. “Foundayo significantly reduced breathing interruptions and drops in oxygen during sleep, while also improving blood pressure and inflammation.”

In the new clinical trial results, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, after 52 weeks, the drug reduced the severity of sleep apnea by 43.8 percent in participants who were clinically classified as being overweight or having obesity and did not use a positive airway pressure (PAP) machine—such devices are commonly employed to treat sleep apnea. The GLP-1 pill reduced severity of sleep apnea symptoms by 27.5 percent in participants who were overweight or had obesity who did use a PAP machine. Both groups also lost around 28 pounds of weight on average over the course of the study.

The results add to other evidence suggesting that Eli Lilly’s injectable GLP-1 medications may improve obstructive sleep apnea, too, Drucker says. “If approved, orforglipron may represent a new option for individuals preferring once-daily administration of a GLP-1 medicine for treatment of [obstructive sleep apnea],” he adds.

Eli Lilly plans to submit the drug for FDA review for the treatment moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults who are overweight or have obesity by the end of the year, according to a company statement.

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https://static.scientificamerican.com/dam/asset/3c8958d4-7b98-4ada-883b-35af65aa24b6/eli-lilly.jpg?m=1794249907.196&w=900

Eli Lilly will submit Foundayo to the FDA as a sleep apnea treatment before the end of the year. Tada Images/Shutterstock

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eli-lilly-shows-glp-1-weight-loss-pill-foundayo-can-dramatically-improve-sleep-apnea/

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American Scorecard

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Country profile

The United States is a vast North American country with a diverse geography that includes mountains, plains, and bustling urban centers, known for its democratic ideals and cultural innovation.

Its history is marked by indigenous heritage, colonial settlement, a revolutionary struggle for independence, and rapid industrial growth that reshaped the nation.

Today, the United States is a global leader in technology, entertainment, and politics, continually evolving while celebrating a rich tapestry of cultural and regional identities.

Its capital city is Washington, D.C.

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Click Link Below for All Charts

Country Progress Score

14 out of 27 (52%) performance indicators improved in the United States

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://worldscorecard.com/scorecards/american-scorecard/

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Hegseth Impeachment Charges Say He Violated the Constitution

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could face an impeachment vote in the House as early as this week, as lawmakers return to Washington after an election in which voters delivered a sweeping rebuke of the Trump administration and the president’s handling of the war with Iran.

The effort is being led by

Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, who on Monday called up a resolution accusing Mr. Hegseth of violating federal law and the Constitution, and abusing his authority on a number of fronts.

Democrats have signaled broad support for the effort, and several Republicans have expressed discontent with Mr. Hegseth, though the outcome remains uncertain in a narrowly divided House.

Here is what to know about the charges, the process and what could happen next.

Mr. Massie, who lost his primary in May to a challenger backed by President Trump, has introduced eight articles of impeachment against Mr. Hegseth, three of them focused on his conduct of the war with Iran.

The articles accuse the defense secretary of waging war without congressional authorization and continuing the military campaign after Congress voted to direct the president to terminate the conflict or seek authorization to continue it. The resolution also accuses Mr. Hegseth of violating deadlines under the War Powers Resolution, which requires the withdrawal of American forces from unauthorized hostilities after 60 days, with a possible 30-day extension.

The remaining charges accuse Mr. Hegseth of carrying out unlawful military strikes against suspected drug traffickers; unlawfully capturing Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro; conducting unauthorized military operations in Yemen; disregarding laws intended to minimize civilian casualties; and abusing his power by retaliating against Senator Mark Kelly for protected speech.

It is up to Speaker Mike Johnson to decide whether the chamber will vote on each of the eight articles or if they will be considered as a package.

Mr. Hegseth has rejected the allegations, calling the impeachment effort a political sham. He is scheduled to hold a news conference on Tuesday morning to respond to the charges.

“Secretary Hegseth will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score partisan points or launch phony investigations where no wrongdoing exists,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement on Monday in which he said Mr. Hegseth intended to serve until the end of President Trump’s term.

Mr. Trump has backed his defense secretary and said he intends to keep Mr. Hegseth in his job.

The Constitution lays out the process for Congress to impeach and remove presidents, judges and other federal civil officers, including cabinet secretaries.

The first step is in the House, which considers articles of impeachment alleging treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. A simple majority is required to approve any article. Impeachment amounts to a formal accusation by Congress, which is then sent to the Senate for a trial to determine whether the official should be convicted and removed from office.

House rules allow any member to propose impeachment articles and require that the body consider them within two legislative days. Congressional leaders — in this case Republicans — have no power to block a vote, but they can try to head off the impeachment by either moving to send the charges to a committee, delaying final action, or to table them, which would effectively kill the effort.

If the House were to impeach Mr. Hegseth, it would take a two-thirds vote of senators present to convict and remove him.

Democrats are widely expected to support impeaching Mr. Hegseth, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, declared on Sunday that he was a “hard yes.” With Republicans holding a razor-thin majority, as few as three Republican defections or a few absences could be enough to put the resolution over the top.

Apart from Mr. Massie, several Republicans have expressed frustration with the secretary without committing to impeachment. Representative French Hill, Republican of Arkansas, said Sunday that he wanted to hear the arguments but cautioned that poor performance alone did not necessarily constitute an impeachable offense.

“I don’t know if we have enough votes,” Mr. Massie told reporters on Monday. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do.”

Beyond the political calculations, many lawmakers are considering whether policy decisions ordered by the president warrant impeachment. When House Republicans impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, who served as the homeland security secretary under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., over his handling of immigration enforcement, Democrats opposed the charges, arguing that policy choices did not constitute impeachable offenses. The Republican-led House impeached Mr. Mayorkas, but the Senate dismissed the charges.

If the House were to impeach Mr. Hegseth, he would remain defense secretary while the articles were pending, and it would be up to House leaders to decide when to send the matter to the Senate for a trial.

Unlike legislation, however, impeachment resolutions do not die at the end of a Congress, so Democrats, who will control the House and Senate starting Jan. 3, would be able to take up the matter when they assume power.

More on the Middle East


  • Israeli Claims of Iranian Chemical Weapons: Israel has shared intelligence with the United States asserting that Iran is considering the use of chemical weapons against its adversaries, information met with alarm by some American officials and deep skepticism by others, according to U.S. and regional officials.

  • U.S. Strike on Qeshm Island: American officials described the attack as a small-scale defensive measure against Iranians accused of planning missile strikes.

  • Aid to Israel: Trump said that the bulk of American aid to Israel would be “cut off at the end of the year,” under an agreement reached with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu months ago. Instead, Trump said the United States would continue selling weaponry to Israel, but Israel would pay for it.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/11/09/multimedia/09dc-hegseth-wtk-gjkp/09dc-hegseth-wtk-gjkp-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=avifRepresentative Thomas Massie called up a resolution accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of being “a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.” Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/09/us/politics/hegseth-impeachment-massie.html

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Isaiah 59:14, Jeremiah 5:21

25 Comments

 

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“It is not 

Necessary for a presidential candidate to be able to read or even write even a congenital idiot can run for the presidency of the United States of America and serve if you were elected “

Edgar Rice Burroughs 

 

Proverbs 27:22
New Living Translation
22 You cannot separate fools from their foolishness,
    even though you grind them like grain with mortar and pestle.

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EVIL PEOPLE

They had been long accustomed to do evil. They were taught to do evil; they had been educated and brought up in sin; they had served an apprenticeship to it, and had all their days made a trade of it. It was so much their constant practice that it had become a second nature to them. – Matthew Henry

“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king, the palace instead becomes a circus. — Turkish proverb,”

 

Hmmmmm…History is repeating itself yet again!

 

Isaiah 59:14

New Living Translation

14 Our courts oppose the righteous,
and justice is nowhere to be found.
Truth stumbles in the streets,
and honesty has been outlawed.

 

Jeremiah 5:21

New Living Translation

21 Listen, you foolish and senseless people,
with eyes that do not see
and ears that do not hear.

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Isaiah 59:9-15

11 Comments

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This sounds just like today’s World although it was written about Israel in Babylonian captivity.

History repeats itself

Isaiah 59:9-15

New Living Translation

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So there is no justice among us,
and we know nothing about right living.
We look for light but find only darkness.
We look for bright skies but walk in gloom.
10 We grope like the blind along a wall,
feeling our way like people without eyes.
Even at brightest noontime,
we stumble as though it were dark.
Among the living,
we are like the dead.
11 We growl like hungry bears;
we moan like mournful doves.
We look for justice, but it never comes.
We look for rescue, but it is far away from us.
12 For our sins are piled up before God
and testify against us.
Yes, we know what sinners we are.
13 We know we have rebelled and have denied the Lord.
We have turned our backs on our God.
We know how unfair and oppressive we have been,
carefully planning our deceitful lies.
14 Our courts oppose the righteous,
and justice is nowhere to be found.
Truth stumbles in the streets,
and honesty has been outlawed.
15 Yes, truth is gone,
and anyone who renounces evil is attacked.

The Lord looked and was displeased
    to find there was no justice.

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Words From a Follower of Christ

8 Comments

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You might find these videos enlightening!

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A. R. Bernard: one of many

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Click the link below for the videos:

https://www.youtube.com

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Parkinson’s may be driven by ‘vicious cycle’ that disrupts brain waste drainage

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Inflammation of lymphatic vessels, which drain brain waste, may be involved in the onset of Parkinson’s disease. The condition is associated with the build-up of a misfolded protein called alpha-synuclein, which may not be efficiently removed from the brain if the lymphatic vessels are impaired. But the accumulation of alpha-synuclein seems to further damage these vessels, creating a self-reinforcing chain of events where each problem worsens the other.

“It is a vicious cycle,” says Justin Rustenhoven at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. This may also help explain why Parkinson’s disease is a progressive condition that worsens over time, he says.

Parkinson’s disease, which affects more than 10 million people worldwide, is characterised by a loss of neurons in brain regions that control movement. This causes symptoms such as tremor and muscle stiffness. The condition is thought to be caused by alpha-synuclein, which occurs naturally in the brain, misfolding and forming clumps that damage neurons.

In 2021, researchers showed that accumulation of alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease may partly result from impaired drainage of brain waste via meningeal lymphatic vessels. These are found in the outermost layer of three membranes, called meninges, surrounding the brain. The vessels receive waste from a network of channels surrounding the brain’s blood vessels, called the glymphatic system, before transporting it to other parts of the body for disposal.

But what causes the lymphatic impairment in Parkinson’s disease was unknown. Rustenhoven and his colleagues wondered whether it may result from alpha-synuclein clogging up the meninges. “No one had really looked at that before,” says Rustenhoven, with most research focusing on changes to the regions that control movement, which are located deep within the brain.

The team analysed post-mortem samples of the meninges from seven people who’d had severe Parkinson’s disease and seven people who hadn’t had the condition. Only the Parkinson’s samples had alpha-synuclein clumps. “For the first time, we showed that these aggregates accumulate at the brain’s borders in people with Parkinson’s,” says Rustenhoven.

To determine whether such protein accumulation impairs clearance of brain waste, the researchers injected mice with a virus that infected cells called fibroblasts in the meninges. This caused them to continually produce alpha-synuclein at elevated levels, similar to those seen in people with Parkinson’s disease. At such high levels, alpha-synuclein misfolded and formed toxic clumps that spread across cells in lymphatic vessels in the meninges, but not inside the brain.

Two months later, brain imaging revealed that these mice’s meningeal lymphatic vessels drained waste fluid half as rapidly as those of control mice, which were injected with a virus encoding for an inert protein. What’s more, in the former group of mice, immune cells called macrophages had engulfed the alpha-synuclein clumps at the brain’s borders. This caused the macrophages to double in number and produce about triple the amount of TNF-alpha, an inflammatory molecule.

Next, the team exposed sheets of human cells, found in meningeal lymphatic vessels, to either alpha-synuclein or TNF-alpha. Both molecules caused gaps to form between the lymphatic cells, making them leaky, says Rusterhoven.

“The accumulation of alpha-synuclein in the brain borders basically drives an immune response that pokes holes in those lymphatic vessels, making them ineffective at draining,” he says. “We already know from other studies that those lymphatics are important for draining alpha-synuclein, so impaired lymphatic drainage [due to alpha-synuclein] means even more of the protein is going to build up.”

This feedback loop keeps reinforcing itself, which may cause the worsening of brain damage and symptoms associated with Parkinson’s, says Rusterhoven.

The same mechanism probably applies to other neurodegenerative conditions where proteins accumulate, such as Alzheimer’s disease, says Camille Carroll at Newcastle University in the UK. But this understanding also creates new treatment opportunities. It suggests that “therapies that dampen or modulate that immune response could prevent lymphatic dysfunction to treat Parkinson’s”, says Rusterhoven.

The team now plans to carry out similar experiments where mice are studied after they develop Parkinson’s symptoms, not just its associated brain changes. These mice will also be tracked for longer, he says.

“Their mouse model was appropriate for the question they were asking, which was looking specifically at the effects of alpha-synuclein at the brain border on lymphatics,” says Carroll. “But linking their findings to symptoms will be important.”

In ongoing work, the researchers are collecting more brain-border samples from people who died with Parkinson’s disease of varying severity. This will enable them to determine how often alpha-synuclein clogs up the brain’s borders during the condition and at what stage it may start causing lymphatic impairment.

They are also trialling, in mice and human cells, whether drugs that block TNF-alpha can reverse lymphatic damage during Parkinson’s. A prior study looked at people with inflammatory bowel disease, which is linked to a higher risk of Parkinson’s, and found that those who took drugs that block TNF-alpha were 78 per cent less likely to develop Parkinson’s.

An ongoing trial is also giving people with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep behaviour disorder, which often precedes Parkinson’s disease, a drug that blocks TNF-alpha, to determine whether this affects Parkinson’s progression. “This will be very interesting evidence to support our findings,” says Rustenhoven.

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https://www.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/SEI_319524460.jpg?w=840

Abnormal aggregates of a protein called alpha-synuclein form inside nerve cells in Parkinson’s diseaseJuan Gaertner/Shutterstock

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2597911-parkinsons-may-be-driven-by-vicious-cycle-that-disrupts-brain-waste-drainage/

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When murder’s your job in the world’s safest country

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When a single mother named Marianne vanished into the blistered, soot-stricken lava fields outside Reykjavik in 2019, it was unusual. Iceland isn’t a place where people just disappear.

When, seven months later, two boys stumbled across her body, weathered from the frost and lying in a cave, it was utterly shocking. She’d been brutally murdered, and Icelandic police needed to know why.

There was only one problem. The murder wasn’t real.

The disappearance is the premise of bestselling novel Girls Who Lie, and the details included by author Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir on how months out on the frozen lava fields would affect human remains came straight from the country’s singular expert on such matters.

These days, Petur Gudmann Gudmannsson, Iceland’s only full-time forensic pathologist, contends with as many fictional murders as real ones.

As a medical detective in one of the world’s safest countries, he’s found himself in the midst of an unlikely upswing: the Icelandic literary crime boom. And he’s not entirely comfortable with it.

‘It’s always about what you see’

Petur Gudmann Gudmannsson never planned to be Iceland’s sole forensic pathologist, or a pathologist at all. Initially, he hoped to be a psychiatrist. But after a year in the speciality, he knew it wasn’t for him.

“In psychiatry, you have nothing to hold onto,” he says. “You don’t even have blood tests or anything to guide you.”

His mind began to wander back to the thing he’d loved about medical school in the first place: anatomy. Unlike psychiatry, anatomy felt real and reachable.

“It’s like a map,” he says. “It’s the landscape you’re working in. It’s always about what you see.”

He remembered a course in forensic pathology from early in med school, taught by an Icelandic doctor who studied and lived in the US.

Didn’t Iceland need a forensic pathologist of its own? He thought it did, and Reykjavik’s National Hospital agreed.

Iceland is so small — just under 400k people — that the only medical school in the country didn’t offer the necessary courses. He went to Sweden instead.

Iceland’s lava fields make for some thrilling Gothic settings. (Photo by Cris Toala Olivares/Getty Images)

In 2018, he moved back, and became the only full-time forensic pathologist in the country. Today, he works from an office in the old blood bank in the National Hospital. His days often start in the autopsy room — surrounded by clamps, knives, scissors and a saw — and end doing paperwork for the ~300 autopsies he conducts annually for the police.

Each time a death is unexpected, sudden, or suspicious, it crosses Gudmannsson’s desk.

“You don’t really know sometimes what you are looking for, but the interesting things… they’re there, even if in the moment you don’t know what they are,” he says.

“But you just examine the scene or the body very thoroughly, and then you find everything that matters.”

An influx of writers

Two years into his job, something unusual happened.

He’d decided to do a seminar on forensic medicine for professionals in the justice and healthcare systems. Through the University of Iceland, Gudmannsson launched a continuing education course. He’d hoped to build a bridge between his profession and theirs, explaining the intricacies of investigating sudden death.

Most of the uptake wasn’t from police and prosecutors, though. It was from writers.

For four years, he taught a course for writers every semester, ~25 bright-eyed students staring back at him as he explained mummification and traumatology.

Reykjavik’s streets are considered some of the safest in the world. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Bongarts/Getty Images)

After he stopped the course — he had the sense that it was veering too close to entertainment for his pupils — the questions from writers kept coming.

Because Iceland is so small, and considered one of the safest countries in the world, it has more fictional murders than real ones. You’re more likely to give birth to twins, be born on February 29, or die by a killer bee than you are to be a victim of homicide in Iceland. Gudmannsson estimates he sees just two to four a year.

By contrast, literary crime is popping off: Ragnar Jonasson, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, and Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir are a few of the bestselling authors from the tiny nation, and have helped to spawn the creation of Nordic Noir, a genre all its own.

Gudmannsson, who speaks with a detached solemnity, isn’t quite sure what to make of it. He prefers to stay focused on the medicine.

“There is some kind of a thirst there in people for this kind of stuff. They have to do with very basic and deep common human factors. I think the explanation must lie somewhere in that area,” he says.

“It’s disturbing in a mild way.”

Bach like an autopsy

Still, every few months, like clockwork, the questions come in. How would a body look if it were left for a year on a lava field or stuck for three years in an airtight suitcase? What does a body smell like as it decomposes? How many times does someone have to be stabbed to be really stabbed?

“Being in this business that revolves around violence, I don’t really get the feeling that there is a low rate of violence in Iceland because I’m in contact with each and every case,” he says. “It’s more than enough for me.”

These days, he tries to remind his inquiring writers that fiction is fiction for a reason and not everything needs to perfectly resemble reality.

In the Reykjavik home Gudmannsson shares with his wife, also a doctor, and their six children, he sits quietly and reads, though not about crime. Most often, he’s reading about Bach, his favourite composer, deconstructing his sonatas with surgical precision. He likens Bach’s music to conducting an autopsy: both are intertwined with voices and details that weave together a story, if you know where to look.

“It’s a real introvert nerdy thing to do,” he says. “But it’s my relaxation method.”

As for the cases that continue to haunt him, he leaves the ghost stories to the writers.

“I usually forget the cases when I walk out in the afternoon,” he says.

“I don’t have a really hard time emotionally with any type of case. If that is the case, I don’t think it’s a career that you would choose.”

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https://thehustle.co/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-Oct-01-2026-03-16-27-9086-PM.jpeg?width=524&height=393&name=undefined-Oct-01-2026-03-16-27-9086-PM.jpegHe got into pathology for the medicine. Now he’s helping writers.

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://thehustle.co/originals/when-murders-your-job-in-the-worlds-safest-country?hubs_content=thehustle.co/&hubs_content-cta=when-murders-your-job-in-the-worlds-safest-country

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For Trump and America, a Clear Election Verdict Leaves a Murky Future

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In the days since his defeat, he has sounded like a man in denial.

With his party still picking through the wreckage of a political earthquake, a seemingly oblivious President Trump signed a steel beam for his new White House ballroom and flew to Florida to give a speech on the space program. He seems flat these days, maybe a little dazed.

If Donald Trump is still processing the election that swept his party from power in Congress last week, so too is Donald Trump’s America. Both parties are still absorbing the stunning reality of sweeping Democratic victories in states like Texas, Kansas and South Carolina that were long G.O.P. strongholds — and possibly even Mississippi.

But as clear as the midterm verdict was, the future is cloudier. After a decade in which Mr. Trump has dominated national politics, the country now faces a period of profound uncertainty, an interregnum between the time that Americans effectively decided that they were done with Mr. Trump and the time when he is actually done.

How does an unpopular, lame-duck president spurned by the electorate govern in his final two years in office? How does a shattered Republican Party rebuild itself for a post-Trump era while Mr. Trump himself is still around and unwilling to cede the stage? How do newly empowered Democrats use their new majorities in Congress and define themselves beyond simply being the anti-Trump party?

To those who wondered whether Mr. Trump would choose conciliation or confrontation in response to his party’s defeat, his decision on Friday to install Stephen Miller, his top ideological warrior, as the next White House chief of staff provided an answer — and it was not conciliation. In case the message was not received, on Saturday he posted an offer on social media for Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive, to be his press secretary. Mr. Trump may be wounded, but a wounded animal can thrash around powerfully.

Yet those in his circle wasted no time looking past him. Two senior members of his team, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, quickly went public with sharply divergent views of the Iran war and the wisdom of prosecuting it. In effect, they began to set the parameters for a debate that will consume their party for the next year.

On Capitol Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson promptly indicated that he would step down, opening a leadership contest for the vanquished Republicans. And Democrats began mapping a path forward balancing the desire to investigate and hold Mr. Trump’s team accountable with the imperative of passing legislation addressing voter concerns about the cost of living.

“People are conveying: ‘Yes, we feel joy, we feel relief,’” said Representative Hillary Scholten, Democrat of Michigan. “But also: ‘Get to work, Congress. We do not want political theater, we don’t want drama, we don’t want infighting.’”

One thing seems certain — the days of virtual one-man rule are over. In the nearly 22 months since Mr. Trump took office again, he has sought to impose his will not just over the executive branch but also over big business, the tech industry, major universities, law firms, the central bank, private banks, entertainment, sports, museums, the news media, national parks, the financial sector, the energy sector, the military and nonprofit foundations.

He has turned the prosecutorial power of the F.B.I. and Justice Department against his adversaries and, while he has been blocked at times by judges and grand juries, the Supreme Court has validated many of his assertions of authority. He has sent the National Guard into the streets of Washington and other cities, while turning ICE into a paramilitary force to haul away not just criminals but also otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants with deep roots in their communities.

He has even sought to remake the face of Washington, tearing down the East Wing of the White House to make room for his new ballroom-qua-drone-launcher, building a helipad on the South Lawn, proposing a new triumphal arch, renovating the Reflecting Pool, overhauling Lafayette Square and replacing the East Potomac golf course. By his own count the other day, he has created or restored 83 statues, fountains and monuments in the city.

He can still be expected in these final two years to exert power in ways that previous presidents did not, but he will now face pushback from an opposition Congress armed with subpoenas and the power of the purse. Moreover, the fear that consumed private institutions in the early part of his second term and prompted them to buckle under to demands for money, policy changes and personnel decisions has certainly eased. If anything, some of them will now worry about offending the ascendant Democrats by appearing too deferential to Mr. Trump.“The spell is broken, and the veil of invincibility pierced,” said Daniel M. Price, a former international economic adviser to President George W. Bush. “The genuflection is likely to cease, and those who paid tribute — whether for ballrooms or meme coins or to settle frivolous lawsuits or to make ‘documentaries’ or to secure regulatory favors or government contracts — may well be called to account.”

Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, said that no other commander in chief in the past 80 years had touched so many sectors of society, leaving many nervous about what would come next. “It’s hard to find any precedent for that kind of sweeping, unpredictable change in any other post-World War II administration,” he said. “As a result, you could see apprehension on more than a few faces in this capital.”

This might be the most overwhelming moment of whiplash in an era that has been defined by sharp swings: Mr. Trump came out of nowhere in 2016 and shocked the world by winning the presidency, then crashed in defeat four years later and spread lies in an effort to overturn the election and hold onto power. He was indicted, put on trial and convicted, then staged an audacious comeback to reclaim the White House and now has endured what by some measures is the most devastating midterm repudiation of a president in half a century or more.

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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/11/08/multimedia/08dc-assess-lphq/08dc-assess-lphq-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=avifAlex Kent/The New York Times

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/08/us/politics/trump-midterm-election-america-future.html

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The polar vortex is about to go haywire

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Something “unprecedented” is happening in the atmosphere: the Arctic polar vortex, a spinning mass of air high above the North Pole, is collapsing. This disruption isn’t unusual, but it is happening at what may be the earliest point in the year on record, climate experts say.

Every winter the polar vortex strengthens in the stratosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that stretches from about 10 to 30 miles above Earth’s surface, explains Andrea Lopez Lang, an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Like a fast-spinning top, the polar vortex’s tight rotation helps keep cold air trapped over the pole, says Judah Cohen, a climatologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But if the vortex is disrupted, it can push cold air down to other parts of the world, such as North America and Europe.

That disruption is happening far earlier than expected, the experts say.

“As a weather fan, this is a big event because it’s so unprecedented,” Cohen says. “It’s a lot of excitement. Everybody’s hair is on fire in the climate or meteorologist community.”

In the Northern Hemisphere, the polar vortex typically begins forming in the late summer and reaches “peak intensity” in December and January, Lopez Lang says. Waves in the atmosphere known as “Rossby waves” can cause the polar vortex to wobble and weaken. During a big polar vortex disruption—what scientists call a “sudden stratospheric warming”—the vortex can drift, stretch, split into multiple swirls or change direction.

This indirectly influences the polar jet stream, a band of wind that circles the entire polar region in the troposphere—the lowest layer of the atmosphere, where most of our weather happens.

Polar vortex disruptions normally occur deep into the winter, Cohen says, so a sudden stratospheric warming in November is unusual. Before now, the earliest it had ever been recorded was November 28 in 1968.

What that means for our weather forecast in the U.S. is still unclear. It’s an El Niño year, so meteorologists had expected winter in North America to be relatively mild. A polar vortex split could bring cooler temperatures across the continent in the coming weeks, but exactly when and where that will happen—and whether it will happen at all—remain unanswered.

“It looks like we’re going to have a disruption,” Lopez Lang says. “Where everything sets up is still in question.”

Not all polar vortex disruptions look the same. “You have minor and major sudden stratospheric warmings,” Cohen adds. This could end up being a “minor” event, and “everybody will forget about it,” he says. “Or it will be major, and then it’ll go in the record books.”

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Cold air movements during a polar vortex disruption in January 2019. NASA/JPL-Caltech AIRS Project

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Click the link below for the complete article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-polar-vortex-is-about-to-go-haywire/

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