Monthly Archives: May 2021

Why Rising Diversity Might Not Help Democrats as Much as They Hope – The New York Times

Posted: May 4, 2021 at 8:25 pm

The Census Bureau released two important sets of data last week that have big implications for American politics and that challenge some prevailing assumptions for both Democrats and Republicans.

The first set of data lays out long-term demographic trends widely thought to favor Democrats: Hispanics, Asian-Americans and multiracial voters grew as a share of the electorate over the last two presidential races, and white voters who historically tend to back the G.O.P. fell to 71 percent in 2020 from 73 percent in 2016.

The other data set tells a second story. Population growth continues to accelerate in the South and the West, so much so that some Republican-leaning states in those regions are gaining more Electoral College votes. The states won by President Biden will be worth 303 electoral votes, down from 306 electoral votes in 2020. The Democratic disadvantage in the Electoral College just got worse again.

These demographic and population shifts are powerfully clarifying about electoral politics in America: The increasing racial diversity among voters isnt doing quite as much to help Democrats as liberals hope, or to hurt Republicans as much as conservatives fear.

The expanding Democratic disadvantage in the Electoral College underscores how the growing diversity of the nation may not aid Democrats enough to win in places they most need help. Just as often, population growth is concentrated in red states like Texas and Florida where the Democrats dont win nonwhite voters by the overwhelming margins necessary to overcome the states Republican advantage.

As for the Republicans, the widely held assumption that the party will struggle as white voters decline as a percentage of the electorate may be more myth than reality. Contrary to what Tucker Carlson says repeatedly on Fox News about the rise of white replacement theory as a Democratic electoral strategy, the countrys growing racial diversity has not drastically upended the partys chances. Instead, Republicans face a challenge they often take for granted: white voters.

One way to think about this is to compare todays electorate with that of the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were winning in landslides. Democrats, no doubt, have benefited from the increased racial diversity of the country since then: Mr. Biden would not have even come close to winning Georgia in November if its voters were as white they were back in the 1980s. Former President Donald J. Trump would have probably won re-election if he could have turned the demographic clock back to the 80s and reduced the electoral clout of nonwhite voters. Todays wave of Republican-backed laws restricting voting rights may be intended to do exactly that.

Yet even a return to the racial demographics of the 1980s wouldnt do nearly as much to hurt Democrats as one might expect. Yes, the November result would have gone from an extremely close win for Mr. Biden to an extremely close win for Mr. Trump. But Mr. Biden would have won more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, even though nonwhite voters had doubled their share of the electorate from 1984 to when Mrs. Clinton sought the presidency. Remarkably, Mr. Bidens fairly modest gains among white voters helped him as much as the last 30 to 40 years of demographic shifts did.

Similarly, Mr. Bush or Mr. Reagan would have still prevailed if they had had to win an electorate that was 29 percent nonwhite, as opposed to the merely 13 to 15 percent nonwhite electorates they sought to persuade at the time.

This is not the conventional story of recent electoral history. In the usual tale, the growing racial diversity of the electorate broke the Reagan and Bush majorities and allowed the Democrats to win the national popular vote in seven of the next eight presidential elections.

And yet it is hard to find a single state where the increasing racial diversity of the electorate, even over an exceptionally long 30- or 40-year period, has been both necessary and sufficient for Democrats to flip a state from red to blue. Even in states where Democrats have needed demographic changes to win, like Georgia and Arizona, the party has also needed significant improvement among white voters to get over the top.

One reason demographic change has failed to transform electoral politics is that the increased diversity of the electorate has come not mainly from Black voters but from Hispanic, Asian-American and multiracial voters. Those groups back Democrats, but not always by overwhelmingly large margins.

In 2020, Democrats probably won around 60 to 65 percent of voters across these demographic groups. These are substantial margins, but they are small enough that even decades of demographic shifts wind up costing the Republicans only a couple of percentage points.

The new census datas finding that the percentage of non-Hispanic white voters in the countrys electorate dropped by about two percentage points from 2016 to 2020 might seem like a lot. But with Hispanic, Asian-American and multiracial voters representing the entirety of the increase, while the Black share of the electorate was flat, the growing nonwhite share of the electorate cost Mr. Trump only about half a percentage point over a four-year period.

Another factor is the electoral map. The American electoral system rewards flipping states from red to blue, but many Democratic gains among nonwhite voters have been concentrated in the major cities of big and often noncompetitive states. By contrast, many traditional swing states across the northern tier, like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, have had relatively little demographic change.

The ability of Democrats to flip red states has been hampered by another pattern: the tendency for Republicans to fare relatively well among nonwhite voters in red states.

Its often said that Latino voters arent a monolith, and thats certainly true. While Hispanic voters back Democrats by overwhelming margins in blue states like New York and Illinois, Republicans are often far more competitive among Latinos and members of other non-Black minority groups in red states including those Democrats now hope to flip like Texas or Florida.

Texas and Florida really would be blue if Latinos voted like their counterparts in New York or Illinois. But instead, Latino population growth has not quite had a strong pro-Democratic punch in the states where the party hoped to land a knockout blow.

At the same time, white voters are easy to overlook as a source of Democratic gains, given that these voters still support Republicans by a comfortable margin. But Democrats probably improved from 39 to 43 percent among white voters from 1988 to 2020. Its a significant shift, and perhaps even enough to cover the entirety of Mr. Bushs margin of victory in the 1988 election, without any demographic change whatsoever.

Its a little easier to see the significance of Democratic gains among white voters at the state level. According to AP/Votecast data, Mr. Biden won white voters in states worth 211 electoral votes. Democrats like Jimmy Carter in 1976, Michael Dukakis in 1988 or John Kerry in 2004 probably didnt win white voters in states worth much more than 60 electoral votes, based on exit poll and other survey data.

Mr. Biden even won white voters in many of the states where the growing diversity of the electorate is thought to be the main source of new Democratic strength, including California and Colorado. And he also won white voters in many big, diverse states across the North where Republicans used to win and where nonwhite demographic change might otherwise be considered the decisive source of Democratic strength, like Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland, which voted almost entirely Republican at the presidential level throughout the 1980s.

According to the AP/Votecast data, Mr. Biden won seven states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia while losing among white voters. In these crucial states, Democratic strength among nonwhite voters was essential to Mr. Bidens victory.

But of these states, there are really only three where Mr. Biden clearly prevailed by the margin of the increased racial diversity of the electorate over the last few decades: Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. He did not need to win any of these states to capture the presidency, but he would not have done so without long-term increases in both nonwhite voting power and Democratic strength among white voters.

The story is quite different in the Northern battleground states. White voters still represent more than 80 percent of the electorate in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the new census data. The nonwhite population in these states is predominantly Black; their share of the population has been fairly steady over the last few decades. But Mr. Biden won these states so narrowly that the relatively modest demographic shifts of the last few decades were necessary for him to prevail in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Its just hard to call it a Great Replacement if Mr. Trump could have won in 2020 if only he had done as well among white voters as he did in 2016.

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Why Rising Diversity Might Not Help Democrats as Much as They Hope - The New York Times

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Is Bioelectricity the Key to Limb Regeneration? – The New Yorker

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Patterns arent the only way to inspire coperation. In 2018, Levins team attached a plastic cuff containing progesterone, a hormone that alters the behavior of ion channels, to the stump where a frog had once had a leg. They left the cuff on for twenty-four hours, then observed for about a year. Ordinarily, a frog thats lost a leg will regrow a cartilaginous spike in its place. But the frogs in the experiment grew paddle-like limbs. About nine months later, little toes started to emerge. Levin thinks that, eventually, the same kind of cuff could be used on humans; you might wear one for a few months, long enough to persuade your body to restart its growth. (Ideally, researchers would find a way to speed development, too; otherwise, youd be stuck with a tiny arm for years.)

Levin was wary of showing me any mouse experiments. He has growntired of hearing his work compared to the sinister alchemy described in Frankenstein. That story is about scientific irresponsibility, he said. Although his research is in many ways unusual, it is ordinary in its treatment of animalsby some estimates, American researchers experiment on more than twenty-five million a year. I get two types of e-mails and phone calls, Levin told me. Some of the people call and say, How dare you do these things? for various reasonsanimal rights, playing God, whatever. And then most call and they say, What the fuck is taking you so long? From time to time, Levin receives a call from a would-be volunteer. Im going to come down to your lab, he recalled one of them saying, and Ill be your guinea pig. I want my foot back.

None of the developmental biologists I spoke with expressed any doubt that we would someday be able to regrow human limbs. They disagreed only about how long it would take us to get there, and about how, exactly, regrowth would work. Other projects explore growing body parts in labs for transplantation; 3-D-printing them whole, using tissue cells; flipping genetic switches (master regulators); or injecting stem cells into residual limbs. The solution may eventually involve a medley of techniques.

Levins vision isnt confined to limb regrowth; hes interested in many other forms of morphogenesis, or tissue formation, and in how they can be modelled using computers. He led me down the hall to a room where an elaborate, waist-high machine glowed. The device consisted of twelve petri dishes suspended above an array of lights and cameras, which were hooked up to a cluster of high-powered computers. He explained that the system was designed to measure tadpole and planarian I.Q.

In a study published in 2018, Levins team bathed frog embryos in nicotine. As they expected, the frogs exhibited a range of neural deformities, including missing forebrains. The researchers then used a piece of software called BETSEthe BioElectric Tissue Simulation Enginethat a member of the Allen Center, Alexis Pietak, had built. In this virtual world, they applied various drugs and observed their effects on both bioelectric signalling and brain development, hoping to find an intervention that would reverse the nicotines damage. The software made a prediction that one specific type of ion channel can be exploited for just such an effect, Levin said. The team tried the drug on real embryos that had been damaged by nicotine, and found that their brains rearranged themselves into the proper shape. The software, the researchers wrote, had allowed for a complete rescue of brain morphology.

The I.Q. machine gave them another way to measure the extent of the rescue. Inside it, colored L.E.D.s illuminate petri dishes from below, dividing them into zones of red and blue; when a grown tadpole ventures into the red, it receives a brief shock. Levin found that normal tadpoles uniformly learned to avoid the red zones, while those that had been exposed to nicotine learned to do so only twelve per cent of the time. But those treated with the bioelectricity-recalibrating drug learned eighty-five per cent of the time. Their I.Q.s recovered.

Researchers disagree about the role that bioelectricity plays in morphogenesis. Laura Borodinsky, a biologist who studies development and regeneration at the University of California, Davis, told me that there are many things that we still need to discover about how the process works, including how the genetic program and the bioelectrical signals are intermingled. Tom Kornberg, a biochemist at the University of California, San Francisco, studies another intercellular system that is similar to bioelectricity; it consists of morphogens, special proteins that cells release in order to communicate with one another. Kornbergs lab investigates how morphogens move among cells and tell them what to do. What is the vocabulary? Whats the language? Kornberg said, in reference to morphogenesis. There is probably more than one.

Tabin, Levins former adviser and the chair of genetics at Harvard Medical School, told me that he is agnostic about how bioelectricity should be understood. Levin describes bioelectricity as a code. But, Tabin said, theres a difference between being a trigger to initiate morphogenesis versus storing information in the form of a code. He offered an analogy. Electricity is required to run my vacuum cleaner, he said. It doesnt mean theres necessarily an electric code for vacuuming. The current flowing through the outlet isnt telling the vacuum what to do. Its just turning it on.

Levin thinks that bioelectricity is more complex than that. The right bioelectrical signal can transform a Dustbuster into a Dysonor a tail into a head. Tweaking the signal produces highly specific outcomesa head thats spiky, tubular, or hat-shapedwithout the need to adjust individual genes, ion channels, or cells. You can hack thesystem to make the changes, Levin said. Currently, theres no competing technology that can do these things.

Levins work has philosophical dimensions. Recently, he watched Ex Machinaa sci-fi film, directed by Alex Garland, in which a young programmer is introduced to Ava, a robot created by his tech-mogul boss. Unnerved by how beguilingly realistic Ava is, the hero slices his own arm open in search of wires. Since childhood, Levin, too, has wondered what we are made of; having become a father himself, he enjoys talking about such questions with his sons, who are now teen-agers. Once, when his older son was six or seven, Levin asked him how a person could be sure that he hadnt been created mere seconds ago, and provided with a set of implanted memories. I didnt really think about what the consequences for a kid might be, Levin said, laughing and a little embarrassed. He was upset for about a week.

Our intuitions tell us that it would be bad to be a machine, or a group of machines, but Levins work suggests precisely this reality. In his world, were robots all the way down. A bioelectrical signal may be able to conjure an eye out of a stomach, but eye-making instructions are contained neither in the cells genome nor in the signal. Instead, both collectively and individually, the cells exercise a degree of independence during the construction process.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett, who is Levins colleague at Tufts, has long argued that we shouldnt distinguish too sharply between the sovereign, self-determining mind and the brute body. When we spoke, Dennett, who has become one of Levins collaborators, was in bed at a Maine hospital, where he was recovering from hip surgery. I find it very comforting to reflect on the fact that billions of little agents are working 24/7 to restore my muscles, heal my wounds, strengthen my legs, he said.

In our discussion of Levins work, Dennett asked me to imagine playing chess against a computer. He told me that there were a few ways I could look at my opponent. I could regard it as a metal box filled with circuits; I could see it as a piece of software, and inspect its code; and I could relate to it as a player, analyzing its moves. In reality, of course, a chess computer offers more than three levels of explanation. The body allows more still: genetics, biophysics, biochemistry, bioelectricity, biomechanics, anatomy, psychology, and finer gradations in between, all these levels acting together, each playing an integral role. Levin doesnt claim to understand the entire system, nor does he maintain that bioelectricity is the only important level. Its just one where hes found some leverage. He likens revising an organisms body through bioelectric stimulation to launching software applications. When you want to switch from Photoshop to Microsoft Word, you dont get out your soldering iron, he said.

In modifying the body, Levin is more whisperer than micromanager; he makes suggestions, then lets the cells talk among themselves. Michael has these brilliant examples of how individual cells communicate with each other, Dennett said. But the reverse is also true: when communication breaks down, cells can go haywire. Consider cancer, Levin said. It can be created by genetic damage, but also by disruptions in bioelectric voltage. In an experiment reported in 2016, Levins team injected cancer-causing mRNA into frog embryos, and found that injected areas first lost their electrical polarity, then developed tumor-like growths. When the researchers counteracted the depolarization, some of the tumors disappeared. In Levins terms, the cancer cells had lost the thread of the wider conversation, and begun to reproduce aimlessly, without coperating with their neighbors. Once communications had been restored, they were able to make good decisions again.

Having built radios as a kid, Levin now hopes to assemble bodies from first principles. His ultimate goal is to build what he calls an anatomical compilera biological-design program in which users can draw the limbs or organs they want; the software would tell them where and how to modify an organisms bioelectric gradients. You would say, Well, basically like a frog, but Id like six legsand Id like a propeller over here, he explained. Such a system could fix birth defects, or allow the creation of new biological shapes that havent evolved in nature. With funding from DARPAa federal research agency contained within the Department of Defensehe is exploring a related possibility: building machines made from animal cells. Recently, Josh Bongard, a computer scientist at the University of Vermont, designed a computer model in which small robotic cubes connect, creating microrobots that might someday clean up toxic waste or perform microsurgery. Levin took stem and cardiac cells from frogs and sculpted them into blobs that approximated the robot designs; they began working together, matching the simulations. Bongard likened Levin to a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. After a while, you start asking not just whats in the hat, he said, but how deep does the inside of that hat go?

On a warm afternoon, Levin and I drove out to Middlesex Fells Reservationa twenty-six-hundred-acre state park with more than a hundred miles of trails. We set out through the woods along Spot Pond, a large reservoir where people sail and kayak in the summer. As we walked, our bodies worked up a light sweat. Occasionally, Levin stopped to wonder at fungi clinging to a tree trunk, or to look under a rock for creepy crawlies. Spotting an ant, he recalled trying to feed ants as a child and being surprised at their stubbornness. He noted that planaria can have different personalitieseven clones of the same worm. He interrupted his comments on neural decoding to study a plant. Look at the colors on these berries, he said. What the hell? Ive never seen that before. It looks almost like candy. Let me get a picture of this.

I jokingly asked Levin if, when looking at nature, he saw computer code raining down, as in The Matrix. Thats a funny question, he said. I do not see the Matrix code, but Im often taking pictures or kayaking or something, and thinking about this stuff. I asked him if he saw squirrels and trees differently from the way others do. Not a squirrel, he said, because everyone recognizes it as a cognitive agenta system with beliefs and desires. But a cell or a plant, for sure.

I look everywhere, and I ask the question Whats the cognitive nature of this system? Whats it like to be a He paused. Whats your sensory world like, what decisions are you making, what memories do you have, if any? What predictions do you make? Do you anticipate future events? Slime molds can anticipate regular stimuli. I look for cognition everywhere. In some places you dont find it, and thats fine, but I think I see it broader than many people.

We stopped to look at a log and found a red splotch that appeared to be a slime mold.

I dont know what it actually is, Levin said. Im not much of a zoologist.

Bending down, he peeled off some bark: a second splotch. Researchers have found that, if a slime mold learns something and then crawls over and touches another mold, it can pass on its memory; in 2016, a pair of French scientists showed how one mold could teach another to find some hard-to-reach food through a gooey mind meld.

That, I think about all the time, Levin said. What does it mean to encode information in a way that, almost like a brain transplant, you can literally give it to another creature?

We left the log and continued on. Lichen spotted the rocks, and chipmunks chattered in the trees. There was electricity all around us.

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Is Bioelectricity the Key to Limb Regeneration? - The New Yorker

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Environmental Factor – May 2021: Intramural Papers of the Month – Environmental Factor Newsletter

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IntramuralBy Nicholas Alagna, Victoria Placentra, Prashant Rai, Janelle Weaver, and Qing Xu

Scientists from the Division of the National Toxicology Program (DNTP) uncovered a new strategy that could estimate the safety of chemicals. Using benchmark concentration (BMC) analysis with human liver cells, the team determined that different concentrations of compounds caused changes in detectable metabolites produced by liver cells. The project used metabolomics, which is the large-scale detection and measurement of metabolites the molecules that are intermediates or end products after the body breaks down food, drugs, or chemicals.

The researchers applied concentration-response modeling using BMC analysis to interpret mass spectrometry-based untargeted metabolomics data. Concentration-response modeling assesses how exposure to various concentrations of toxic chemicals and other compounds leads to changes in metabolites. The team exposed cultures of human liver cells to compounds that included relatively toxic drugs such as the cancer drug tamoxifen and the antiretroviral medication ritonavir.

Rising concentrations of drugs known to cause liver injury resulted in sharp increases in metabolic responses that were expected based on past research. By contrast, this effect did not occur for nontoxic compounds, such as sucrose and potassium chloride. According to the authors, the study shows that concentration-response modeling applied to untargeted metabolomics data accurately captures the potential of chemicals to cause liver injury. (JW)

Citation:Crizer DM, Ramaiahgari SC, Ferguson SS, Rice JR, Dunlap PE, Sipes NS, Auerbach SS, Merrick BA, DeVito MJ. 2021. Benchmark concentrations for untargeted metabolomics vs. transcriptomics for liver injury compounds in in vitro liver models. Toxicol Sci; doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfab036 [Online 22 March 2021].

According to NIEHS researchers and their collaborators, the mosquito protein AEG12 disrupts the lipid envelope that covers some viruses. The study sheds light on the molecular mechanism AEG12 uses to inhibit virus infection, as well as offering potential new strategies to treat dangerous diseases caused by flaviviruses.

Flaviviruses a class that includes dengue, yellow fever, and zika virus are important public health concerns. These viruses are mainly transmitted by mosquitos and typically covered by a protective coating of lipids. Mosquitos produce AEG12 in response to a blood meal or flavivirus infection.

After solving the three-dimensional structure of AEG12 by X-ray crystallography, the researchers identified AEG12 as a lipid-binding protein. They further demonstrated that AEG12 was capable of rupturing membranes of red blood cells and inhibiting the replication of flaviviruses and other enveloped viruses, including human coronaviruses. AEG12 breaks open the cells or virus by swapping the lipid it carries with those in the cell membrane or virus envelop. By doing so, AEG12 contributes to both insect digestion and the antiviral immune response. The study suggests that AEG12, if engineered to target the virus only, may provide a useful tool to treat diseases caused by flaviviruses or coronaviruses. (QX)

Citation:Foo ACY, Thompson PM, Chen SH, Jadi R, Lupo B, DeRose EF, Arora S, Placentra VC, Premkumar L, Perera L, Pedersen LC, Martin N, Mueller GA. 2021. The mosquito protein AEG12 displays both cytolytic and antiviral properties via a common lipid transfer mechanism. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 118(11):e2019251118. (Story)

The progesterone receptor isoform B (PGR-B) mediates suppression of uterine contractibility via the Oxtr-Plcl2-Trpc3 pathway, according to NIEHS researchers and their collaborators. In humans, the progesterone receptor is a nuclear receptor with two isoforms: PGR-A and PGR-B. Elevated PGR-B gives rise to longer gestational periods, extended labor time, greater incidence of labor dystocia, or difficult birth, and a reduction in uterine contractility. PGR-A, however, promotes contractility of the uterus, without altering gestation length. To explore the in vivo role of progesterone signaling and progesterone receptor (PGR) isoforms in childbirth, the team employed transgenic mice with an overexpression of PGR-A or PGR-B in their myometrial smooth muscle.

Gene signature analyses demonstrated that PGR-A acts in a proinflammatory fashion, while PGR-B causes uterine muscle relaxation. Transcriptomic investigation revealed that PGR-B mice exhibit repression of both the Oxtr and Trpc3 genes, which both have a positive effect on uterine contractility. Furthermore, PGR-B mice displayed increased expression of the Plcl2 gene, which can reduce uterine contraction. These findings further explain precise molecular mechanisms by which PGR isoforms govern childbirth, while contributing novel insights into the maintenance of uterine dormancy by progesterone during pregnancy. (NA)

Citation:Peavey MC, Wu SP, Li R, Liu J, Emery OM, Wang T, Zhou L, Wetendorf M, Yallampalli C, Gibbons WE, Lydon JP, DeMayo FJ. 2021. Progesterone receptor isoform B regulates the Oxtr-Plcl2-Trpc3 pathway to suppress uterine contractility. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 118(11):e2011643118. (Story)

NIEHS scientists and collaborators at the National Cancer Institute and Duke University have uncovered the detailed mechanism by which a metabolic enzyme called PPIP5K can directly regulate tumor cell multiplication. The study helps explain the metabolic reprogramming required for multiplication of tumor cells and reveals potential targets for cancer treatment.

PPIP5K, a type of enzyme called a kinase, produces unique cellular metabolites called inositol pyrophosphates. The authors previously showed that colorectal cancer cells deficient in PPIP5K have reduced growth rate despite enhanced energy production. In this study, using high-resolution mass spectrometry and genetics, the authors demonstrated that in cancer cells, PPIP5K was critical to synthesizing nucleotides, which are universal building blocks of DNA and RNA. Absence of precursor materials to synthesize these fundamental biological units inhibits growth in PPIP5K-deficient cancer cells. Furthermore, PPIP5K kinase activity, which synthesizes inositol pyrophosphates, is critical for nucleotide synthesis and cancer cell growth.

In addition, the authors determined two specific pathways of nucleotide synthesis that are regulated by PPIP5K the serine-glycine one-carbon pathway and the pentose phosphate pathway. These results provide insight on how a single metabolic enzyme can have an overarching impact on multiple metabolic processes during tumor development. (PR)

Citation:Gu C, Liu J, Liu X, Zhang H, Luo J, Wang H, Locasale JW, Shears SB. 2021. Metabolic supervision by PPIP5K, an inositol pyrophosphate kinase-phosphatase, controls proliferation of the HCT116 tumor cell line. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 118(10):e2020187118.

A team of NIEHS researchers found that breast cancer relative risk increases for women near the age that an older sister was previously diagnosed with breast cancer. This study was the first to model an age-time-dependent risk for a woman based on her proximity to a siblings age of breast cancer onset.

For this study, researchers used data from the NIEHS Sister Study, which examines familial and environmental risk factors for breast cancer and other diseases in women in the United States and Puerto Rico. The cohort of participants included more than 20,000 women who had one older sister previously diagnosed with breast cancer. Researchers employed several statistical models and methods to assess the pattern of risk over time for these women as they approached and passed their sisters age of diagnosis. The risk increased by 80% when the participant reached the sisters age of diagnosis. This familial clustering indicates there could be important genetic and early environmental factors that contribute to the timing of breast cancer onset. The findings have implications for patient counseling and personalized cancer screening. (VP)

Citation:Von Holle A, O'Brien KM, Sandler DP, Weinberg CR. 2021. Evidence for familial clustering in breast cancer age of onset. Int J Epidemiol 50(1):97104.

(Nicholas Alagna is an Intramural Research Training Award [IRTA] postbaccalaureate fellow in the NIEHS Mechanisms of Mutation Group. Victoria Placentra is an IRTA postbaccalaureate fellow in the NIEHS Mutagenesis and DNA Repair Regulation Group. Prashant Rai, Ph.D., is a visiting fellow in the NIEHS Clinical Investigation of Host Defense Group. Janelle Weaver, Ph.D., is a contract writer for the NIEHS Office of Communications and Public Liaison. Qing Xu is a biologist in the NIEHS Metabolism, Genes, and Environment Group.)

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Democrats eye a creative approach to passing immigration reform – MSNBC

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Congressional Democrats and the Biden White House have made no secret of their interest in passing a sweeping immigration reform package. Among the biggest hurdles, of course, is the same obstacle to passing nearly all legislation: Senate Republicans will try to block any reform bill, and coming up with a 60-vote supermajority is practically impossible.

But what if the Democratic majority could circumvent a GOP filibuster by using the budget reconciliation process -- the same method the party used to pass the COVID relief package?

In early April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Dems are prepared to do exactly that. Two weeks later, a group of Hispanic lawmakers met privately with President Joe Biden, and after the discussion, Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) told Politico that Biden told the group he generally "supports passing certain immigration reforms by reconciliation if we can't get the 10 Republican votes."

Last week, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the #3 Democrat in the Senate leadership, raised a few eyebrows with a press release in which she said, "After years of working to reach agreement on a solution, it's clear to me we can't miss the opportunity to act in this critical moment. We need to look at every legislative path possible to get comprehensive immigration reform done -- including through reconciliation."

It's against this backdrop that the New York Times reported overnight that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is "quietly considering" the procedural gambit.

Mr. Schumer has privately told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in recent weeks that he is "actively exploring" whether it would be possible to attach a broad revision of immigration laws to President Biden's infrastructure plan and pass it through a process known as budget reconciliation, according to two people briefed on his comments.

It's worth emphasizing that this would likely be Plan B for Democratic leaders. Plan A is the ongoing negotiating process underway among a bipartisan group of 15 senators, exploring the possibility of a compromise agreement.

Such a deal appears unlikely. Indeed, the Times' report added that observers have watched the negotiations "drag on with little agreement in sight." There's no great mystery as to why.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the 15 senators involved in the bipartisan talks, said, "Before we can do anything meaningful on immigration, we're going to have to deal with the current crisis at the border."

If this seems like hollow rhetoric, it's not your imagination. For much of the last two decades, conservative Republicans have said there's a "crisis" that needs to be resolved before GOP lawmakers will consider reform legislation. And every time border security is strengthened, those same Republicans insist it's not enough.

Indeed, let's not forget that GOP members promised then-President Barack Obama that they'd consider a comprehensive immigration solution if he vastly improved border security. The Democrat held up his end of the bargain; the Senate passed the "Gang of Eight" bill; but House Republicans ended up killing the reform effort anyway, offering nothing as an alternative. (See Chapter 6 of my book.)

The GOP position has a Zeno's paradox-like problem: There's no way to ever actually reach the point at which Republicans are satisfied that the "crisis" has been fully resolved. As Greg Sargent noted this morning, "Does anybody imagine there will come a point when Republicans will say, 'Okay, Biden's totally got the border under control now, so let's get serious about working with Democrats on legalizing a lot of immigrants'? Of course not."

But then there's an entirely different question to consider: Is it even procedurally possible to pursue immigration reform through the budget reconciliation process, which is supposed to be limited to matters of taxes and spending? I've been skeptical, but the Times' report included an important detail from 16 years ago that I'd forgotten about:

A team of immigration activists and researchers as well as congressional aides is exploring the question, digging into the best way to present their case to [Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough].... They have found past precedents, including one from 2005, in which changes to immigration policy were allowed as part of a budget-reconciliation package, and they are tallying up the budgetary effects of the immigration proposals which total in the tens of billions. Researchers have dredged up supportive quotes from Republicans from 2005, when they won signoff for including a measure to recapture unused visas for high-skilled workers in a reconciliation package.

There's no shortage of unanswered questions related to process, politics, and procedure, and it'll take a while before the answers come into focus. But for now, it's clear that Democratic leaders are committed to the effort, and the door to immigration reform is not yet closed. Watch this space.

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Hybrid Animals Are Not Natures Misfits – The Scientist

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The whales teeth were what had caught molecular ecologist Eline Lorenzens attention. Of the 18 chompers lining the front of the skulls mouth, some were twisted, not unlike a narwhals tusk. But the 30-year-old specimen, hidden away in the basement of the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen, didnt have a tusk at all. When Lorenzen became director of the museum in 2015, she decided to examine the skull more closely. Working with a team of collaborators, she extracted genetic material and compared it with DNA from the teeth of narwhal and beluga specimens in the museum. The skull, it turned out, was the first-ever confirmed narluga, the son of a beluga dad and a narwhal mom.

A deeper dive into the history of the skull (it had been found fixed atop a hunters home) revealed that this animal may not have been the only one of its kind. The hunter said hed seen it with two other similar-looking whale creatures, and he, apparently, isnt the only one to have seen a narluga. In fact, they are common enough that natives of western Greenland have a word for the narwhal-beluga hybrid, itorsaq.

Because several narlugas have been spotted before, researchers suspect that the creatures may be fertile, and that some narlugas may be the product of two narluga parents rather than one beluga and one narwhal. That notion challenges naturalists traditional view of hybrids as the result of maladaptive crossings, such as when a female horse mates with a male donkey and gives birth to a sterile mule. If the hybrids cant reproduce, they would seem to be irrelevant evolutionarily, but studies of the narluga and other naturally occurring hybrids have begun to hint that such offspring may not be the biological misfits they were once thought to be. They are not evolutionary dead-ends, and in some cases, may serve as evolutionary accelerators.

Were beginning to realize that hybridization exists in the evolutionary history of many organisms we didnt expect it to, including Homo sapiens, Scott Taylor, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, tells The Scientist.

At some point in the past, black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) and snowshoe hares (L. americanus) crossbred, with the hybrids mating again with snowshoe hares. A combination of whole-genome and whole-exome sequencing revealed that the resultant hares retained a variation of the Agouti gene that led to brown, rather than white, coat color in hare populations experiencing mild, less snowy winters, allowing them to better blend into the drab surroundings of dirt and dead leaves.

As far back as the 1930s, botanists realized that hybridization plays a role in the evolution of plant species. In 1938, Edgar Anderson and Leslie Hubricht laid out the idea of introgression to describe the hybridization of species of herbaceous perennial wildflowers of the Tradescantiagenus. The crosses led to offspring with an even split of parental genetic material, and typically those offspring then repeatedly bred with one of the original parent species, while still retaining genetic material from the other parent species. Alternatively, hybrids bred with other hybrids, and, eventually, entirely new plant species would emerge.

Zoologists knew about these and other examples of hybridization in the plant world, but there was a perception, Taylor says, that cross-species breeding was much less common in animals. That idea stemmed from biologist Ernst Mayrs description in the 1940s of the biological characteristics that defined speciesessentially, any animal population that could not or did not breed with other, similar populations. For more than two decades, including in his 1963 book Animal Species and Evolution, Mayr argued that the evolutionary importance of hybridization seems small in the better-known groups of animals. But the idea is not universally accepted, Taylor says. I dont know a lot of evolutionary biologists who study hybridization who adhere strictly to that concept.

Despite the dogma that hybrid animals in nature were rare and therefore not catalysts of evolutionary innovation, some biologists continued to study them, curious to uncover the barriers that prevented them from becoming new species, identify the new gene combinations created by hybridization, and understand how natural selection acted upon them. Focusing on animals in what scientists call hybrid zonesgeographical regions in which two species interbreed to produce offspring of mixed ancestryresearchers in the late 1980s and early 1990s began to show that, contrary to the prevailing viewpoint, hybridization was a valid mechanism of evolutionary changeone that could radically influence an animals ability to adapt to its environment.

A genetic analysis of a rare skull found at the Natural History Museum of Denmark showed that in the past few decades a male beluga (Delphinapterus leucas)and a female narwhal(Monodon monoceros) mated, creating a hybrid called a narluga that looked a bit like both. The animals 18 teeth were small, like a belugas, and twisted, like a narwhals tusk. Those teeth may have changed the way the narluga fed, not hunting on cod, squid, and shrimp in the water column as both of its parents did, but instead feeding off the bottom. Its teeth may have allowed it and others like it to occupy a different ecological niche than its parents.

Evidence for hybrid-driven adaptation is perhaps nowhere more profound than in the warm, tropical waters of Lake Victoria in Africa. There, more than 500 species of bony fishes called cichlids that sport brilliant orange, yellow, and blue hues, roam the lakes 2,400 cubic kilometers. Some species eat only plants, others eat invertebrates, the bigger species eat other fish, and still more feed on Lake Victorias detritus. Theres incredible diversity of species that live together in the same ecosystem, evolutionary ecologist Ole Seehausen of the University of Bern tells The Scientist. This struck me as a beautiful system, the interaction between ecology and evolution . . . to study speciation.

When Seehausen began to study the lakes cichlids roughly 30 years ago, it wasnt clear how the hundreds of species there had evolved. They werent geographically isolated, a common driver of speciation. Rather, the fish were all living in the same lake and could interact, yet there was still incredible cichlid diversity. Something else appeared to be driving their speciation.

With continued observation, Seehausen and others found that the barriers preventing the species in the lakes from mating were rather shallow, with some of the major ones being behavioral in nature. Males, for example, were defending their territories from males of both the same and other species, or females were choosing flashing mates of only their own species. That last barrier, based on color signaling, began to break down, Seehausen says, when the clarity of the water diminished in the 1990s, a result of wastewater from farms and other human activities polluting the lake. It turns out that when you change the visual signaling, and the perception of those signals, then not much more is needed to break down reproductive isolation, so many species then hybridize, Seehausen says.

Something similar appears to have happened thousands of years ago in Lake Victoria. Genetic analyses of the cichlids have revealed that their vast diversity can be traced back to a hybridization of two divergent lineages around 150,000 years ago. And Lake Victoria wasnt the only body of water in the region where hybridization appeared to play an important role in speciation. Further investigation revealed that cross-species mating had happened and continued to occur in nearby lakes, where it was driving cichlid diversity. This was replicated in several different lakes across Africa, Seehausen says.

As scientists began to look for other examples of hybridization in the wild, both past and present, they were not disappointed. Genetic analyses have revealed crosses between coyotes and gray wolves, polar bears and brown bears, chimpanzees and bonobos, finches in the Galapagos Islands, fish called sculpin, and even modern humans and Neanderthals.

Researchers suspect that hybridization events are perhaps becoming more common, as human disturbances shift species ranges in ways that promote breeding across similar species. In Colorado, for example, two varieties of small, nonmigratory birdsblack-capped chickadees and mountain chickadeeshave recently hybridized in areas being heavily developed by humans. If you look at the map and squint, the places theyre hybridizing seems to correlate nicely with places that humans have modified, whether thats the front range of the Rocky Mountains or Albuquerque, New Mexico, he says. His team hypothesizes that the species, which split some 1.5 million years ago, breed with each other in modified habitats because a resource needed by both, either breeding grounds or certain food sources, is bringing the birds together.

On occasion, a mountain chickadee (above) may mate with a black-capped chickadee.

Robert Taylor

Climate change may also be driving hybridization between species. Evolutionary biologists have seen pulses of cross-breeding as species shift where they live to higher or lower latitudes or altitudes to find cooler temperatures. When they move into those regions, the barriers to hybridization, such as differences in mate choice or other factors, might disappear. There are definitely compelling examples of climate change or environmental shifts influencing hybridization, says Molly Schumer, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford University, and my suspicion is its pretty widespread.

Obviously not all cases of hybridization involved the equal swapping of genes to form a completely new creature, as appeared to often happen with the cichlids, but in just the last few years, the consensus has been that hybridization in animals in particular is hugely widespread and much more common than was appreciated, Schumer says. The question in the field now, she says, is if this gene swapping is common, what is it doing?

When the waters in Lake Victoria in Africa became increasingly murky in the 1990s after mineral and farm runoff levels increased, two species of cichlids(Haplochromis nyererei and Neochromis sp. Bihiru scraper) no longer selectively mated with conspecifics, whom they had previously identified based on color. They hybridized readily, and others in the lake did too, creating new species, some of which have pervaded the altered ecological niches and adapted to them better than their parent species have.

In the case of cichlid hybrids, Seehausen found that not only did the hybrids have similar developmental and reproductive rates to non-hybrids, in some ways individuals with a genetic mishmash of two distinct species created were actually more suited to a particular environment or food source than their parents were.

A few years ago, Joana Meier, an evolutionary genomicist at the University of Cambridge who did her graduate work and a postdoctoral stint with Seehausen, delved into the genetics of the cichlids and spotted one type of hybrid that caught her attention: dwarf species that combine the body shape of a plant-eating species with the predatory habits of a bigger species that dines on other fish. Genetically, theyre like a mix of both, she says. In some cases, they have higher fitness [than either parent species] in different ecological niches. Seehausen has also shown this in the lab, creating hybrids that dont thrive on the food the parent species ate, but gobble down a new type of food and begin to flourish.

Schumer is seeing something similar in the hybridization of two related species of swordtail fish, Xiphophorus malinche and X. birchmanni. The fish live in the rivers of the Mexican state of Hidalgo and have begun hybridizing within the last 50 to 100 generations, probably as a result of some human disturbance to the river, she explains. The fish rely on their sense of smell and the signals in those scents to choose mates, but the contaminants in the rivers appear to be blocking the fish from picking out their own species, Schumer says, so theyve ended up mating across species boundaries. It turns out, that the mix-up could be helping both species survive by boosting genetic diversity.

Different species of swordtail fish, including Xiphophorus birchmanni (left) and X. malinche (top), can interbreed to form hybrid offspring (bottom).

DAN POWELL

Swordtail cross-breeding is really, really recent and gives us a good snapshot to [see] whats happening right after hybridization, Schumer says. Her genetic studies, along with those from other researchers investigating recent hybridization events, seem to show that right after these crosses occur, the genome of the hybrid undergoes incredible reorganization. Theres a lot of purging of deleterious alleles and rapid evolution happening right after you collide these two divergent genomes. The original swordtail parent species are closely related, differing by only 0.5 percent in their genetic makeup, Schumers studies show. Still, that small bit of genetic variation leads to substantial shifts in the species tolerances to cold, adaptation to elevation, and even an extra-long fin extension, called the sword, seen on X. birchmannibut not onX. malinche.

On the flip side, mushing together the two swordtail species genomes can cause issues in the offspring, with many not being able to reproduce. The combination of genes can even cause the hybrids to develop tumorous melanoma, which the parents dont. One of the biggest questions in the field, Schumer says, is: In this really rapid genome evolution happening after hybridization, how are all of these mechanismspositive effects of hybridization, negative effects of hybridization, interactions with the environment, social interactionsplaying out?

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Hybrid Animals Are Not Natures Misfits - The Scientist

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Colorado Democrats in the US House want nearly $200 million for earmarked projects – The Colorado Sun

Posted: at 8:25 pm

The four Colorado Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have assembled a list of nearly $200 million in special spending on transportation initiatives and community projects in their districts as Congress reopens the door to the controversial practice of earmarking.

The Colorado projects in an expected $2 trillion infrastructure bill range from $20,000 for Denvers Mi Casa Resource Center to $29.2 million to rebuild the Interstate 70 and Airpark Road interchange east of the city.

Its been 10 years since Congress ended earmarks, the practice of allowing individual members to designate funding for projects in their districts. Scandals and controversy surrounding the spending practice led to its demise, and conservatives remain skeptical of earmarks.

Republicans in conservative districts have disavowed the practice, including the three GOP U.S. representatives from Colorado. That could mean Colorado Springs and the states rural areas lose out on some funding opportunities.

Its been a party-line thing, where if you want to show youre a good GOP member you denounce earmarks, said Kevin Kosar, a scholar specializing in governance for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. If they go after earmarks, they may hurt their small-government cred.

But the projects may be key to getting Democratic President Joe Bidens $2 trillion infrastructure plan through Congress.

The House adopted earmark guidelines for community projects and transportation projects prohibiting conflicts of interest and money going to for-profit organizations. Those rules require House members to post information about their projects on their official webpages, which all the Democrats have done.

Kosar praised those measures. I think this system, assuming they continue to roll it out well, is going to be so much better than the old system, not least because it requires transparency.

The Senate has yet to create guidelines for projects, so Colorados Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet have yet to identify any theyll include in infrastructure bills. Both Democrats are expected to have earmarks, too.

There are no guarantees the designated projects will be included in final spending bills. But the earmarks are a good start toward funding.

Kosar said the projects will be reviewed by the Government Accountability Office to see if there are boondoggles in there.

That is going to force members of Congress to be selective, he said.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat, has the most costly list of projects, including a $29.2 million request to rebuild the Interstate 70 and Airpark Road interchange near Denver International Airport.

Crow is also requesting $22.4 million for the Interstate 76 and Bridge Street interchange in Brighton and $10 million for the Interstate 25 and Belleview Avenue interchange in Arapahoe County.

Transit and homelessness is a focus for U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat. Shes asking for $13.5 million to renovate Broadway Station at I-25, and $7.9 million for central corridor rail replacement on behalf of RTD.

Another $10 million requested by DeGette would go toward rebuilding a shelter for Urban Peak, an organization that serves homeless youth in Denver.

The funding requests weve made this year focus on several important issues facing the district including homelessness and improvements to our light rail, DeGette said in a written statement. If approved, this funding will have a significant impact on our community in a wide range of ways.

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The top project for U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, of Arvada, is $10 million to widen Wadsworth Boulevard in Wheat Ridge between West 35th Avenue and I-70.

Congressionally-directed spending provides an opportunity to advocate on behalf of the cities, counties and nonprofits in my district and work to secure the funding they need to make critical investments in our community and better serve Coloradans, Perlmutter said in a written statement.

Lafayette Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse asked for the least amount of funding, at $27.6 million. His most expensive request is $6.7 million for a transit center in Frisco.

Take a look at a searchable list of projects submitted by the four Democrats:

Republican U.S. Reps. Doug Lamborn, of Colorado Springs, Ken Buck, of Windsor, and Lauren Boebert, of Garfield County, didnt submit earmarked projects.

Buck and Boebert signed a pledge against earmarks, along with 27 other Republicans, calling them a corrupting practice.

Congressman Buck does not support carving out earmarks for special interests, Bucks spokeswoman, Lindsey Curnette, said in a written statement. Stakeholders in Colorados 4th District are able to submit requests under the regular appropriations process.

Boeberts been a frequent critic of the spending practice, signing on to another letter in March with 24 House members and 10 senators to emphasize her opposition.

Lamborn didnt sign either anti-earmark letter. But he also didntdesignateany projects.

The Sun inquired with Lamborns office about a blank webpage on his official website titled Community Funded Projects. The page changed to say Page Not Found after The Suns inquiry.

As of now, Congressman Lamborns office will not be working on community-funded projects, Cassandra Sebastian, Lamborns spokeswoman, said in an email.

That may disappoint some of the Republicans constituents.

Cathy Shull, executive director of Pro 15, a group that advocates for northeastern Colorado, said rural counties expect to get some benefits from the infrastructure measures being pushed by Democrats. But getting earmarks would provide even more help, she said.

Our group is not a big fan of earmarks, but we hate being left out, she said. Somebodys going to get them. A little extra boost from the federal government would have been really nice.

CORRECTION: This story was updated at 10:22 a.m. on Tuesday, May 4, 2021, to correct a statement about a news release from Doug Lamborn on earmarks. Lamborn didnt sign either anti-earmark letter signed by other Colorado Republicans in the U.S. House. But he also didntdesignateany projects.

The Colorado Sun has no paywall, meaning readers do not have to pay to access stories. We believe vital information needs to be seen by the people impacted, whether its a public health crisis, investigative reporting or keeping lawmakers accountable.

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Colorado Democrats in the US House want nearly $200 million for earmarked projects - The Colorado Sun

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Biden Address: Can Democrats Keep the House in 2022? – The Atlantic

Posted: at 8:25 pm

There is this recognition of this moment and how fleeting it is, and an evaluation that, absent the trifecta of control, it is very hard to move big policy, said a senior official at one of the partys leading outside advocacy groups, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategizing. So you have to take your shot. I think thats part of what undergirds Go big.

In one sense, past presidents first two years in office offer Biden and congressional Democrats reason to be optimistic about executing their plans. Looked at another way, though, that history is discouraging, dauntingly so.

Whats encouraging is how past presidents have managed to push through important parts of their agenda. Presidents dont get everything they want during that initial two-year period. Clinton, for instance, failed to pass comprehensive health-care reform, and Donald Trump failed to repeal the comprehensive reform that Obama did passthe Affordable Care Act. But presidents whose party controls Congress typically do pass some version of their core economic proposals during their first two years, even if it usually happens after some significant remodeling.

Trump and George W. Bush each pushed massive tax cuts through a Republican-controlled Congress during their first year in office. In his first months, Ronald Reagan muscled through a landmark tax reduction, despite a Congress divided between a Republican Senate and a Democratic House. With the support of a Democratic-controlled Congress, Obama signed both a large economic-stimulus package and the ACA, and Clinton, by the narrowest possible margins, likewise enacted his deficit-reduction and public-investment plans.

David Frum: The Trump policy that Biden is extending

In each of these cases, the president was compelled to abandon or trim key elements of his blueprint. Congress forced Clinton to jettison his BTU tax (an early attempt to tax energy consumption) and accept the creation of a commission to study entitlement cuts. Dissent from two moderate Republican senators forced Bush to slash his tax cut by nearly one-fourth. Obama was compelled to reduce his stimulus spending to win over Senate Republican votes, and to drop the ACAs public option to obtain the last Democratic votes he needed. Even Reagans watershed reductions in personal-income-tax rates were scaled back. Yet while these concessions were seen at the time as major setbacks, they are now remembered, if at all, as merely smudges on legislative achievements that rank among each of these presidents most consequential.

This history augurs well for Congress eventually approving some version of the infrastructure and human-capital plans Biden touted last night, even if the plans are adjusted to win approval from the Democratic Partys most conservative senators, such as West Virginias Joe Manchin. (Democrats can pass most of Bidens economic agenda through the reconciliation process, which requires only a simple-majority vote in the Senate. His noneconomic priorities face much dimmer prospects of passing in the upper chamber, unless Senate Democrats agree to curtail the filibuster.) Democrats often blame the devastating losses Obama suffered in 2010he lost more House seats than any president in a midterm since 1938on his administrations overly cautious approach, and they dont want to repeat that mistake. Trying to placate the Republicans with a bunch of tax cuts and going for a more modest package, thinking that would gain support, turned out to be dead wrong, Price told me. You got a weaker bill and no bipartisan support: the worst of both worlds. We are trying to get a stronger bill and assuming the net effect will be to increase pressure on Republicans who are opposing it.

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Biden Address: Can Democrats Keep the House in 2022? - The Atlantic

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‘Anybody’s game’: Democratic LG candidates still working to introduce themselves to Virginia voters – Virginia Mercury

Posted: at 8:25 pm

If the last public poll was any indicator, Virginia Democrats still have lots of homework to do before making their picks in the primary for lieutenant governor.

A Christopher Newport University poll conducted in mid-April found 64 percent of likely primary voters undecided in the race, with Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, the apparent leader with 12 percent support.

Were glad to see the way things are trending, Rasoul said in an interview, attributing his leading status to a values-based campaign focused on in-person trips to cities and counties throughout Virginia, including areas where voters feel forgotten.

The numbers suggest theres still lots of room for movement in an open field that once stood at eight candidates but has shrunk to six heading into the final month before the June 8 primary.

The other five candidates still in the race Del. Hala Ayala, Del. Mark Levine, former Fairfax County NAACP leader Sean Perryman, Norfolk City Councilwoman Andria McClellan and businessman Xavier Warren all had 1 or 2 percent support, the CNU poll found.

I think its anybodys game, McClellan said in a recent interview.

With a crowded primary for governor happening at the same time, said longtime Virginia political analyst Bob Holsworth, it can be difficult for candidates running in a downballot contest to try to build a statewide profile.

Many of these people are unknown outside of their own region, Holsworth said.

Candidates are just starting to roll out their first TV ads, and the arrival of warm weather is giving them more freedom to do socially distanced events rather than campaigning via computer screen.

Part of the challenge for candidates running for lieutenant governor is explaining just what it is the lieutenant governor does. The mostly ceremonial job involves presiding over the state Senate and breaking ties in the upper chamber, as current Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax recently did to pass legislation legalizing marijuana. The lieutenant governor can advocate for certain causes, but has limited policymaking power. But if the governor becomes incapacitated, the lieutenant governor steps in to run the state, and the role has traditionally been seen as a launchpad to higher office.

Rasoul, a rare western Virginia progressive who has at times criticized his party for what he sees as an inability to connect with voters outside traditional Democratic strongholds, also led the field in the most recent fundraising period, reporting more than $950,000 on hand as of March 31.

I know we have many candidates to choose from, Rasoul said. We feel as though we are a true voice of the people. Thats the way I have legislated and voted over the past eight years.

Shortly after those campaign finance numbers came out, Del. Elizabeth Guzman, D-Prince William, one of two Latinas in the race, announced she was dropping her bid for statewide office to focus on winning another term in her House of Delegates district, where shes facing a strong primary challenge from Democrat Rod Hall.

Paul Goldman, a onetime aide to former Gov. Doug Wilder, dropped out of the lieutenant governor race early last month.

Guzmans departure seemed to free Democratic leaders to jump in and endorse Ayala, D-Prince William, who had already chosen not to seek another term in the House and could help Democrats avoid an all-male ticket in a year when former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Attorney General Mark Herring are trying to keep or return to offices theyve held before. Ayala, who identifies as Afro-Latina and is a member of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, would be the first woman of color to serve in statewide office.

Late last month, Ayala was endorsed by Gov. Ralph Northam, House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn and House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, all of whom are backing McAuliffe for governor over two other competitors, Sen. Jennifer McClellan and former delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy, who are both vying to be the first Black woman elected governor of any state.

In a news release from Ayalas campaign, Filler-Corn said Ayala would bring historic representation to the highest levels of our state government.

Ayala campaign manager Veronica Ingham said Ayala is in a strong position heading into the final month, with the big endorsements underscoring the relationships Ayala, a former activist, has built since joining the House as part of the Democratic wave of 2017.

We know that voters want to make history and elect the first woman of color to the lieutenant governor position, Ingham said.

State Democrats have largely credited women, particularly women of color, as a driving force behind electoral successes that allowed the party to take full control of the statehouse for the first time in decades.

They are the mainstay of the coalition, said Holsworth. In this instance, with McAuliffe being what seems to be a relatively clear favorite at the top of the ticket, the diversity, if the Democrats are going to have it, is going to have to come from the LG race or the AG race. Or both.

In the primary for attorney general, Del. Jay Jones, D-Norfolk, is challenging Attorney General Mark Herring. Jones would be Virginias first Black attorney general, but the CNU poll showed Herring maintaining a fairly comfortable lead, with 42 percent support compared to 18 percent for Jones.

Holsworth said hes usually skeptical of the impact of endorsements, but party leaders rallying behind Ayala could give her a boost in a field of relative unknowns with no incumbent in the mix.

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My sense is that him putting his thumb on the scale there is likely to have an impact, Holsworth said of Northams backing of Ayala. And its certainly not good news for either Rasoul or the other candidates in the race.

Ayala isnt the only candidate who could diversify the Democratic slate in the lieutenant governor spot.

Apart from Ayala, McClellan is now the only other woman in the race and the only Democrat running for the job from the Hampton Roads area. Energizing the partys base there, she said, could be key to holding the House of Delegates this year. Though shed love to break the glass ceiling and be the first woman elected as lieutenant governor, McClellan said, I want people to vote for me because Im the most qualified.

I think diversity of experience, diversity of background, diversity of geography all should be taken into consideration, she said.

Levine, D-Alexandria, a former radio and TV pundit who has served in the House since 2016, would be the first openly LGBTQ person in statewide office.

Though two Black men have served as lieutenant governor before, both Perryman and Warren would also ensure at least one Black candidate on the Democrats 2021 ticket.

In an interview, Perryman said he thinks its premature to call any candidate a frontrunner given the number of undecided voters.

They dont know Sam Rasoul, Mark Levine, me. They dont know anyone, Perryman said. Theyre just sort of going about their lives trying to get by.

Perryman, who has endorsements from most of the county board in vote-rich Fairfax, said he doubts Democratic leaders embrace of Ayala will have a major impact.

Everyone I think saw clearly that it was an attempt to prop up a candidate and pick favorites in this race, Perryman said. And I dont think theres an appetite for that.

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'Anybody's game': Democratic LG candidates still working to introduce themselves to Virginia voters - Virginia Mercury

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Blinken and G-7 Allies Turn Their Focus to Democratic Values – The New York Times

Posted: at 8:25 pm

LONDON The Group of 7 was created to help coordinate economic policy among the worlds top industrial powers. In the four decades since, it has acted to combat energy shortages, global poverty and financial crises.

But as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with fellow Group of 7 foreign ministers in London this week, a key item on the agenda will be what Mr. Blinken called, in remarks to the press on Monday, defending democratic values and open societies.

Implicitly, that defense is against China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. While the economic and public tasks of recovering from the coronavirus remain paramount, Mr. Blinken is also employing the Group of 7 composed of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan to coordinate with allies in an emerging global competition between democracy and the authoritarian visions of Moscow and Beijing.

One twist in the meeting this week is the presence of nations that are not formal Group of 7 members: India, South Korea, Australia and South Africa. Also in attendance is Brunei, the current chair of the Association of South East Asian Nations.

It is no coincidence that those guest nations are in the Indo-Pacific region, making them central to Western efforts to grapple with Beijings growing economic might and territorial ambition. China was the subject of a 90-minute opening session on Tuesday morning, and the schedule concluded with a group dinner on the Indo-Pacific.

The broader context for these meetings is China, and the authoritarian challenge that China presents to the democratic world, said Ash Jain, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Mr. Jain noted the way the group is now emphasizing common values over shared economic interests. The G-7 is being rebranded as a group of like-minded democracies, as opposed to a group of highly industrialized nations. Theyre changing the emphasis, he said.

Many of the countries represented at the meeting do big business with China and Russia, complicating efforts to align them against those nations. Chinas pattern of economic coercion was one specific topic of conversation on Tuesday, participants said.

But those efforts have been simplified by the departure of President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly picked fights with Group of 7 allies and confounded them with calls to restore Russia, which was expelled in 2014 from what was then the Group of 8 after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Nor is it likely a coincidence that the expanded guest list matches, with the additions of South Africa and Brunei, a group of 10 countries and the European Union, collectively short-handed as the D-10 by proponents of organizing them in a new world body. Those proponents include Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, the host of this weeks gathering and architect of its guest list.

Mr. Johnson has also invited India, Australia and South Korea to send their heads of state to this summers Group of 7 summit in Cornwall, citing his ambition to work with a group of like-minded democracies to advance shared interests and tackle common challenges.

President Biden has similarly suggested that the world is grouping into competing camps, divided by the openness of their political systems. In his address to Congress last week, Mr. Biden said that Americas adversaries, the autocrats of the world, are betting that the nations battered democracy cannot be restored.

As a candidate, Mr. Biden also committed to holding a Summit for Democracy during his first year in office, and officials say planning for such an event is underway. Asked in a Tuesday interview with The Financial Times which countries might be invited to such a summit, Mr. Blinken did not answer directly.

And Wednesdays agenda for the gathering includes a session on open societies, including issues of media freedom and disinformation. Other sessions over the two days include Syria, Russia and its neighbors Ukraine and Belarus, Myanmar, and Afghanistan.

Some Group of 7 nations are concerned about the creation of a new global body that might contribute to a Cold War-style polarization along ideological lines.

In a joint news conference on Monday, Mr. Blinken and his British counterpart, Dominic Raab, were cautious not to suggest that they were forming a new club.

Asked whether a new alliance of democracies might be emerging, Mr. Raab said he did not see things in such theological terms, but did see a growing need for agile clusters of like-minded countries that share the same values and want to protect the multilateral system.

Addressing the same question, Mr. Blinken was careful to insist that this weeks meetings did not amount to plotting against Beijing.

It is not our purpose to try to contain China, or to hold China down, Mr. Blinken said. What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades, to the benefit, I would argue, not just of our own citizens, but of people around the world including, by the way, China. (The line is not just for public consumption. U.S. diplomats have relayed the same message privately, almost verbatim, to foreign counterparts.)

But in an interview with CBSs 60 Minutes broadcast the night before, Mr. Blinken made clear how the United States views Chinas rise.

I think that over time, China believes that it can be and should be and will be the dominant country in the world, Mr. Blinken said. China is challenging the international order, he said, adding that were going to stand up and defend it.

Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official in the Obama administration who is now research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that informally expanding the Group of 7 is far easier than constructing a new body.

It is always a pain, from a governmental perspective, to invent a new forum, because you need to have an endless discussion about whos in and whos out, and how it works, and its relationship to the U.N., Mr. Shapiro said.

He added that the Group of 7, whose mission had grown nebulous in recent years, may have acquired a new sense of purpose as it tries to organize a post-Trump democratic world in the face of Chinese and Russian threats.

You would be hard-pressed to look back the past five years or more since they kicked out Russia to name a single thing the G-7 has done of interest, Mr. Shapiro said. It didnt have much to do.

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Blinken and G-7 Allies Turn Their Focus to Democratic Values - The New York Times

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Donald Trump, Facing $590 Million in Debt Payments, Gets …

Posted: at 8:24 pm

Former President Donald Trump, who reportedly has $590 million in debts due over the next four years, is set to receive a $617 million cash payout as part of a bond deal made by Vornado Realty Trust, his longtime majority-stake partners.

Trump apparently scored the massive $600-million plus in cash after investors bought up $1.2 billion of bonds tied to the refinancing of a San Francisco office tower, 555 California. Trump has a 30 percent minority stake in the building, which makes up a massive portion, as much as $800 million, of his entire net worth. Because Vornado holds the majority stake, Trump doesn't have any control over the two properties he owns with them, the second being 1290 Avenue of the Americans in New York City. The windfall he "stumbled into" comes at a great time for Trump, analysts said, because numerous banks and businesses cut ties with him in the wake of the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

The $617 million cash infusion from the Vornado refinancing in San Francisco is likely to precede another large payout for Trump's 1290 Avenue of the Americans office tower. Steve Roth, Vornado's chief executive officer, told investors this past week, that building is "on deck" for refinancing, Bloomberg News reported.

Trump has a lengthy financial record which includes numerous corporate bankruptcies, suing lenders and provoking nearly every bank except for Deutsche to run the other way. But with $617 million of cash and another lucrative refinancing deal about to fall in his lap, analysts said he may have already dug his way out of more than a half-billion of debt his Trump Organization has sat on since entering the White House.

"What the tax records for Mr. Trump's businesses show, however, is that he has lost chunks of his fortune even before depreciation is figured in," according to The New York Times in an eye-opening September 2020 report on Trump's federal income tax payments.

"To see what a successful business looks like, depreciation or not, look no further than one in Mr. Trump's portfolio that he does not manage...he ended up with a 30 percent share of two valuable office buildings owned and operated by Vornado. That's a $176.5 million share of profits for which he has never had to invest more money in the partnership," the Times report said, highlighting Trump as an overall liability to Vornado.

According to financial disclosure forms that first came to light in 2019, Trump has reported holding 14 loans on 12 properties. Six of those loans, representing around $479 million in debt, are due over the next four yearsa debt that a cash-heavy Trump may now be able to pay.

"Trump has been an even less equal partner in the relationship than his 30 percent stake already implies. He more or less stumbled into the arrangement," Mother Jones' Russ Choma wrote Friday, noting that Trump's partnership role was greatly diminished after his "Trump City" project in the 1980s was a "huge flop."

Trump's tax returns, which The New York Times detailed last September, showed that Trump had $6.67 million in taxable interest$6 million of which came from his investment with Vornado.

Newsweek reached out to Vornado's corporate offices as well as those for the Trump Organization Saturday morning.

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Donald Trump, Facing $590 Million in Debt Payments, Gets ...

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Monthly Archives: May 2021

Why Rising Diversity Might Not Help Democrats as Much as They Hope – The New York Times

Is Bioelectricity the Key to Limb Regeneration? – The New Yorker

Environmental Factor – May 2021: Intramural Papers of the Month – Environmental Factor Newsletter

Democrats eye a creative approach to passing immigration reform – MSNBC

Hybrid Animals Are Not Natures Misfits – The Scientist

Colorado Democrats in the US House want nearly $200 million for earmarked projects – The Colorado Sun

Biden Address: Can Democrats Keep the House in 2022? – The Atlantic

‘Anybody’s game’: Democratic LG candidates still working to introduce themselves to Virginia voters – Virginia Mercury

Blinken and G-7 Allies Turn Their Focus to Democratic Values – The New York Times

Donald Trump, Facing $590 Million in Debt Payments, Gets …

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