Election

NBC News - Change in turnout in 2020 and 2024 elections

Ballot Access -  The voters of the District of Columbia approved an initiative to use ranked choice voting in future primaries and general elections. 

HuffPost -  Ranked choice voting, the controversial balloting method in which voters select candidates in the order of their preference, saw voters in Colorado unexpectedly reject it Tuesday.  Similar measures in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada were also losing as of early Wednesday morning, according to partial results from state election departments. 

Wall Street Journal: “One reason Republicans performed so well is because of the major inroads Trump made with younger male voters. Voter survey numbers from Tuesday showed Trump won 18- to 29-year-old men by 11 percentage points, securing 54% of that group compared with 43% for Kamala Harris. In 2020, VoteCast data showed that President Biden won those voters by 15 percentage points, 56% to 41%.”

AP News -  Voters for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump who cast their ballots for Tuesday’s presidential election had vastly different motivations — reflecting a broader national divide on the problems the United States faces. AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of more than 115,000 voters nationwide, found that the fate of democracy appeared to be a primary driver for Vice President Harris’ supporters. It was a sign that the Democratic nominee’s messaging in her campaign’s closing days accusing Trump of being a fascist may have broken through. By contrast, Trump’s supporters were largely focused on immigration and inflation — two issues that the former Republican president has been hammering since the start of his campaign. Trump has pledged that tariffs would bring back factory jobs and that greater domestic oil production would flow through the economy and lower prices. 

NY Times - Senator Ted Cruz of Texas fended off Representative Colin Allred, dashing hopes among some Democrats that years of demographic changes and urbanization could start to flip the state. Read more 

Susan B, Glasser, New Yorker -   Electing Donald J. Trump once could be dismissed as a fluke, an aberration, a terrible mistake—a consequential one, to be sure, yet still fundamentally an error. But America has now twice elected him as its President. It is a disastrous revelation about what the United States really is, as opposed to the country that so many hoped that it could be. His victory was a worst-case scenario—that a convicted felon, a chronic liar who mismanaged a deadly once-in-a-century pandemic, who tried to overturn the last election and unleashed a violent mob on the nation’s Capitol, who calls America “a garbage can for the world,” and who threatens retribution against his political enemies could win—and yet, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, it happened.

CNN - World leaders are reacting to Donald Trump's election victory today by offering congratulations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump's win "history's greatest comeback" and said Trump's return to the White House "offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America." Additionally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he appreciates "Trump's commitment to the 'peace through strength' approach in global affairs" and expressed interest in developing "mutually beneficial political and economic cooperation." During his campaign, Trump suggested he would end support for Kyiv's war effort and claimed he could settle the conflict "in one day."

NBC- After Trump carried white women by 11 points in 2020, Harris narrowed the gap to 5 points, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Biden beat Trump by 9 points among white women with college degrees four years ago. Harris expanded that advantage to 20 points, arguably her most significant demographic triumph among a historically Republican-leaning cohort.The education divide also grew overall: Harris gained a few points among college graduates, while Trump picked up a few points among voters without college degrees.And the generational divide flattened somewhat, as Trump gained among men under 30, winning 47% of them, compared to 49% for Harris...

Without a doubt, the issue of abortion and the backlash to overturning Roe v. Wade helped Harris. The NBC News Exit Poll found that abortion ranked as the third-most-important issue for voters, and Harris won those who cited it by 52 points.

But abortion wasn't the defining issue of the cycle, with the economy and democracy trumping it. Trump handily won those who cited the economy as their top issue, while Harris comfortably won those who said they prioritize the state of democracy. 

MSNBC -  We can expect Trump will pardon the Jan. 6 rioters and summarily fire the prosecutors who tried to hold him accountable. Having been immunized by the Supreme Court, he may instruct the Department of Justice to go after his political opponents. He will likely abandon Ukraine and begin the process of weakening our alliances. A newly empowered Trump can, if he wishes, go about trying to gut or kill Obamacare outright, while also trying to impose massive new tariffs on the economy.

We also know that the guardrails will not be sufficient, because they were not before. If they had been, none of this would have happened. Neither the impeachment process nor the justice system blocked his return to power. And now the ultimate guardrail has failed.

Whatever the final outcome, the American people (or enough of them) have returned this unfit man to power. In the end, nothing mattered. Not the sexual abuse, the fraud, the lies or the felonies. Not the bigotry of his campaign; not insults, not threats. In the most graphic terms imaginable, the American people were warned of the danger. His previously loyal vice president refused to endorse him; his top general called him a “total fascist”; some of his closest aides and Cabinet members described in detail his erratic character and his indifference to the Constitution. 

MSNBC - We must worry about a possible significant uptick in political violence. By making not-so-veiled public threats, like his recent comments about former Rep. Liz Cheney, Trump risks putting a target on the back of anyone who opposes him. People can make excuses and say he didn’t mean it, but the reality is that he could have called her a “war hawk” without saying there should be “nine barrels shooting at her.”The free press could increasingly face intimidation: comply or else.

And should he pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, as he has promised to do, he would effectively grant immunity to extremists who could commit acts of violence on his behalf...

The media landscape could change dramatically. We’ve already seen anticipatory obedience by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and other outlets that declined to make presidential endorsements this year, and Trump has filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against CBS, which he has threatened to shut down. 

NBC News - Latino voters swung toward Trump by a staggering 25 percentage points compared with four years ago.Trump won the support of 45% of Latino voters nationally compared with 53% for Harris, the NBC News Exit Poll found. That's far better than the 33-point loss Trump suffered among Latinos in 2020, when he won 32% to Joe Biden’s 65%. And it may end up being the strongest GOP performance among Latinos in a presidential race since George W. Bush carried 44% in 2004. Nationally, Latinos accounted for 12% of the electorate, and Trump’s gains are boosting his margins across a host of battleground states, from Pennsylvania to Arizona, which complicated Harris’ path. 

NPR - Former President Donald Trump has been elected president again, according to a race call by the Associated Press. Trump won the key states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with a combined 29 electoral votes to clinch more than the 270 necessary to win the presidency. As of 6:15 a.m. ET Wednesday, Trump had 277 electoral votes total. Several states, including Michigan, Arizona and Nevada are still outstanding...

Trump said he won the popular vote, but those results have not been tabulated.

He will return to the White House after falsely claiming the 2020 election was rigged and stoking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He is also the first convicted felon to win the White House.

Republicans have retaken the Senate. They could very well have in the neighborhood of 55 to 56 Senate seats when all the counting is done.

The House will not be determined for some time. It could take a week or so, as there are many close races. Sixty-two seats remain uncalled at this hour. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control of the House. It appears they may come very close. But whoever wins control will do so by a very small margin.

Now that Republicans have reclaimed a Senate majority, Trump will have the opportunity to appoint more judges and increase his influence over the courts...

 Two Black women will serve together in the Senate for the first time in U.S. history. Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks and Delaware’s Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester doubled the number of Black ever women elected to the U.S. Senate from two to four. Both are Democrats.

Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride also made history. She is the first openly transgender person elected to serve in Congress. About McBride

 

Arizona voters have approved a GOP-backed immigration measure allowing state and local law enforcement to arrest undocumented migrants.

 

 

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Just a reminder

 Undernews is so good it is banned from the X site

Braggadocio

While, along with other media and based on past polling, we projected a one point Harris win, the results so far have Trump ahead by 3.5%. On the other hand, we also gave Harris a projected 228 electoral votes and as of now she has 224.

Bikes

Planetizen -  A study of temporary bike lanes installed at an intersection in Asbury Park, New Jersey shows that both painted and delineated bike lanes (those separated with bollards) slow drivers and reduce the risk of collisions with people on bikes. As Maylin Tu explains in Next City, “For the experiment, researchers temporarily removed nine parking spaces to create 6-foot wide bike lanes with a 3-foot buffer between bike and car travel lanes. Car travel lanes were reduced by at least one foot each, a decrease that has been shown to reduce crashes. In addition, the bike lanes created a sharper turning radius for drivers turning right, another intervention that might force drivers to slow down.”

Delineated lanes made the biggest impact. “For vehicles turning right, top speeds were reduced by 28% and average speeds by 21%. Paint-only bike lanes slowed driver speeds by up to 14% and drivers going straight slowed down by up to 8%.”

 

Weather

Newsweek -  A powerful winter storm system is sweeping across parts of the United States, prompting the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue winter storm warnings for Alaska, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Forecasters anticipate significant snowfall, icy conditions, and high winds, potentially causing hazardous travel and impacting communities in these states. Local authorities have warned of likely delays in travel and encouraged residents to exercise extreme caution on the roads.  

NPR - Rafael has strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane. It's expected to batter the Cayman Islands and Cuba before moving into the Gulf of Mexico.

Abortion

How Americans in 10 states voted on abortion access measures

Word

Via Daily Comics USA 

 

Word

Via Valerie Felicione

 

Trump administration

Huffpost -  Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz issued a dire warning Tuesday for concerned Democratic voters ahead of Donald Trump’s reelection. He said the president-elect will likely select two more U.S. Supreme Court justices after having already chosen three during his first presidential term. Luntz shared his prediction live during NewsNation’s election coverage after officials called two swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, as well as the Senate, in Trump’s favor — and noted that the latter would make his Supreme Court influence more impactful than ever. 

What Trump means for schools

Everything RFK Jr. Has Said About What He'll Do If Named Trump Health Czar

Word

Via Mindful Quotes

Donald Trump

Tom Nichols -  “Paradoxically ... Trump’s reckless venality is a reason for hope. Trump has the soul of a fascist but the mind of a disordered child. He will likely be surrounded by terrible but incompetent people. All of them can be beaten: in court, in Congress, in statehouses around the nation, and in the public arena. America is a federal republic, and the states—at least those in the union that will still care about democracy—have ways to protect their citizens from a rogue president. Nothing is inevitable, and democracy will not fall overnight.”

“Do not misunderstand me. I am not counseling complacency: Trump’s reelection is a national emergency. If we have learned anything from the past several years, it’s that feel-good, performative politics can’t win elections, but if there was ever a time to exercise the American right of free assembly, it is now—not least because Trump is determined to end such rights and silence his opponents. Americans must stay engaged and make their voices heard at every turn.”

Robert Reich - Reminder: Trump's tax plan would lead to a tax increase for all taxpayers except the richest 5 percent.

CNN - Journalists from multiple news organizations [were] denied credentials to former President Donald Trump’s election night watch event in West Palm Beach, Florida, in retaliation for their coverage of Trump’s campaign. Reporters at Politico, Axios, Puck, Voice of America and Mother Jones were among those denied credentials. Some, like Politico, had been previously granted access to the Tuesday night event only to have the decision reversed.  Politico’s team of reporters and a photographer were initially approved to attend the event, but on Tuesday morning were surprised to find they had been denied credentials, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. The person suggested the decision was made in response to an article in Politico magazine, which reported that a Trump campaign field director was fired for being a White nationalist.

Ukraine

 North Korean Troops Accidentally Kill Russian Soldiers After Shooting in Wrong Direction

Seniors

Study explores effective strategies to combat loneliness in older adults

CNN-  Starting next year, everyone will be allowed to save a little more for retirement. If you’re in your early 60s, you’ll be able to stash away a lot more. Here’s what you need to know about the new limits.

Trump's health

National Archives -  There is no Federally-required process to follow if a candidate who is projected to receive electoral votes dies or becomes incapacitated between the general election and the meeting of electors. However,  individual States may have their own requirements that govern how electors must vote at the meeting of the electors. In 1872, when Horace Greeley passed away between Election Day and the meeting of electors, the electors who were slated to vote for Greeley voted for various candidates, including Greeley. The votes cast for Greeley were not counted due to a House resolution passed regarding the matter.

We don’t know what would happen if a candidate who, dies after or becomes incapacitated between the meeting of electors and the counting of electoral votes in Congress. The Constitution is silent on whether this candidate meets the definition of “President elect” or “Vice President elect.” If the candidate with a majority of the electoral votes is considered “President elect” before the counting of electoral votes in Congress, §3 of the 20th Amendment applies. That section states that the Vice President elect will become President if the President-elect dies or becomes incapacitated.

If a winning Presidential candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the counting of electoral votes in the Congress and the inauguration, the Vice President-elect becomes President, according to §3 of the 20th Amendment.

Colleges & Universities

Nice News  -  There’s lots of talk about rising tuition and the increasing inaccessibility of higher education in the United States. But amid all that noise, it seems that the average cost of college has been quietly trending downward — a welcome surprise for prospective students and parents.
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A recent report from the College Board found that the average in-state tuition for a four-year public university is $11,610 a year when adjusted for inflation, compared to $12,830 five years ago. For private schools, the net price (taking financial aid into account) is $16,510, down from $18,340 in 2019.
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“The notion that the cost of college is out of control is not accurate,” Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, told USA Today. “And the College Board data show that.”  The annual report also notes that the share of students taking on debt is declining

Businesses

National Cooperative Busienss Assn -  On November 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in partnership with the Reinvestment Fund, announced an investment of $5.8 million across 45 projects to improve access to healthy foods in underserved communities with limited access to grocery stores. Of the $5.8 million investment, $2.6 million has been awarded to 20 food co-op development projects selected through a competitive process. 

Rudy Giuliani

NY Daily News -  Rudy Giuliani is playing hide-and-seek with "the vast majority" of belongings he was ordered to hand over to the Georgia mother and daughter he was found liable for defaming, the women's lawyers said in court filings Tuesday

Health

Time - Millions of people in the U.S.—about 6% of the adult population, according to health-research organization KFF—take Ozempic or a drug like it, including Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. These drugs are collectively known as GLP-1 agonists because they mimic the body’s natural hormone GLP-1, which regulates appetite and digestion. The medications control blood sugar and help people eat less, which makes them highly effective treatments for both diabetes (for which Ozempic and Mounjaro are approved) and obesity (the target of Wegovy and Zepbound). They can also slash risks of heart attack, stroke, and chronic disease, studies suggest. And research continues to uncover new and surprising potential uses for GLP-1s, from addiction treatments to fertility boosters.

“Everybody wants to be on these drugs,” which are often seen as “magic,” says Clipper Young, a clinical pharmacist at Touro University California. But there’s a catch.  While most patients take GLP-1 drugs with few or no serious side effects, it's common to experience at least mild gastrointestinal issues like nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, constipation, and diarrhea. In some studies, more than half of patients reported nausea and roughly a third reported vomiting. And as the drugs get more popular, the list of potential side effects is growing longer. Researchers have recently found links between GLP-1 drugs and gastroparesis, intestinal blockage, inflammation of the pancreas, blood clots, and an eye disease that can lead to blindness. Research has also long raised concerns about a potential increased risk of thyroid tumors among susceptible patients.

Dr. Sandeep Palakodeti, a personalized health care entrepreneur who has written about the need for unbiased research and education about GLP-1 drugs, says these emerging reports are "definitely a signal that we need to investigate a little bit more."

 

Restaurants

 Time - Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy in May. TGI Fridays closed nearly 50 locations abruptly in October, then filed for bankruptcy in early November. Hooters shut down dozens of stores in June, while Buca di Beppo declared bankruptcy in August. Even budget standby Denny’s said in October that it would close about 150 stores in the next two years, citing “choppy economic conditions” and the fast pace of inflation for food away from home.Sit-down chain restaurants may be the quintessential American business, beginning with the expansion of Howard Johnson's after World War II as families got in the car and started to travel. But the economy is challenging the business model. Although inflation is slowing, cost-conscious consumers are eating more at home or at lower-cost fast-food restaurants, where the average check is $7.92, about half the average check at a sit-down restaurant, according to CREST, a database from consumer insight firm Circana. Many sit-down (or full service) chain restaurants came into this economic climate deep in debt, and are now struggling to stay afloat.

 

Election

When some state returns will be in

The New York Times

How Philadelphia students are participating in the 2024 election

Getting Out the Native Vote 

Axios - Security fences have gone up around the White House, the vice president's residence and the venues for both candidates' election-night parties, as authorities brace for post-election unrest. MORE

NBC News - Some of the first polls will close at 6 p.m. ET. Early results could offer clues into how certain voting blocs are leaning. Here are the bellwethers to watch. 

NBC News - A Pennsylvania judge allows Elon Musk’s super PAC to dole out one last cash prize to registered voters. A lawyer for Musk said yesterday in court that the $1 million daily prizes aren’t given away at random. That disclosure, which one legal expert called “absolutely, unambiguously illegal,” could lead to more legal fallout.  

Interesting Facts -  As implied by its name, Election Day is, well, a single day. That wasn't always the case, however: States used to hold elections whenever they wanted within a 34-day period leading up to the first Wednesday in December. This ultimately created some issues, as you might imagine — early voting results ended up holding too much sway over late-deciding voters, for one thing. The current date was implemented by the Presidential Election Day Act of 1845, and federal elections now occur every two years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

An hour-by-hour guide on how to watch election night like an expert

Interesting Facts - As human space exploration has evolved, trips off world have grown longer and longer. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin spent less than two hours in orbit; today, it’s common for astronauts to stay in space for six months to a year. Because astronauts are spending larger portions of their lives hundreds of miles above us, the voting process has had to adapt. A pivotal moment occurred in September 1996, when NASA astronaut John Blaha went to the Russian space station Mir for a 118-day stay and completely missed voting in the 1996 presidential election. In response, Texas state Senator Mike Jackson proposed legislation to allow astronauts to vote in space. (Notably, many astronauts live in Texas because they train at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.) In 1997, NASA astronaut David Wolf, who was also aboard the Mir, became the first astronaut to successfully vote in space. Wolf told The Atlantic in 2016 that he was particularly moved by the experience, saying that voting “mak[es] a person feel like part of a civilization somewhere.”

Although the idea of voting from a tin can some 254 miles above the planet may sound complex, the actual process is relatively straightforward. The county clerk from the astronaut’s home state (usually Texas) sends an electronic ballot to NASA; at the same time, an encrypted electronic ballot is sent to the orbiting astronaut via NASA’s Space Network, which manages all data and communication from the ISS to ground crews. The astronaut fills out the ballot (even putting “low-Earth orbit” on the address line) and sends it back using NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite to a ground antenna in New Mexico. NASA sends the ballot to Johnson Space Center, and then on to the appropriate county clerk. Throughout, only the clerk and the astronaut have access to the encrypted ballot to preserve its security. This entire process unfolded during the 2020 election, when NASA astronaut Kate Rubins submitted her ballot, calling it “an honor to be able to vote from space.”

Donald Trump

In These Times - Former President Donald Trump rose to national prominence publicly humiliating workers by firing them on television, posing for cameras as a big tough guy in a spectacle of macho bravado and cruelty. A career boss with a long history of cheating workers, his long-running reality show in a prime-time slot on NBC elevated his profile from a braggart white-collar criminal in the New York tabloids to a savvy boss.

As the current Republican presidential nominee, he reprised that billionaire boss role, using the spotlight of the party’s national convention on July 18 to call for United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain to be ​“fired immediately.”

“Last night, Donald Trump once again attacked our union on a national stage. That should tell you everything you need to know about the man, and the candidate,” Fain said. ​“As we’ve said for many months, he stands for everything we stand against.”

The Nation -  Project 2025 has become synonymous with former president Donald Trump’s campaign. If Trump were to win the election, his supporters, advisers, and enablers would have free rein to inflict their draconian Christian nationalist policies upon the public, from banning abortion pills and brutalizing protesters to decimating trans rights, eliminating the Department of Education, and enacting mass deportations. The authors of Project 2025 seek to sink their claws into nearly every single aspect of American life—including peoples’ most private moments. That’s right: Under a Trump administration, not even your porn is safe.

NPR -  If Trump is reelected, he'll be the second president in U.S. history to win non-consecutive terms. Grover Cleveland was the first. Take a look at how Cleveland made it happen.

MSNBC -The Electoral College results could determine whether the Republican presidential nominee spends the next several years in the White House or in courtrooms fighting to fend off prison terms. Indeed, if Trump wins, his criminal caseload would almost certainly be cut in half. Here’s where his four prosecutions stand.

 

Trump's health

WhoWhatWhy -  There’s a forensic psychiatrist at Harvard who argues that the deeply dangerous behavior of Donald Trump and his MAGA followers can best be understood — and combatted — as a national mental-health crisis.  Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a faculty member in Harvard’s Program in Psychiatry and the Law, minces no words in labeling Trump a pathological liar:

The effect of pathological lying … is to inundate public discourse until … truth no longer matters, the public is “gaslit” to disorientation, and his audience conditioned to accept fantastical assertions that are no longer tethered to reality.

Lee has a few critics in psychiatric circles; they claim she violates a principle of her specialty, or skirts too close to the line, by diagnosing a public figure whom she has never privately interviewed as a patient. Lee says she does not do that (and ‘pathological liar’ is not an official diagnosis in the field’s manual).

Moreover, to Lee, and the many psychiatrists and other professionals who take her side, silence is not an option with the fate of the nation at stake. “No one with Donald Trump’s impairments,” she says, ”would be hired by a private corporation or by the military, the police, or the government civil service.”

Walking

 USA Facts

• Eleven percent of the population, or 34.9 million people, live in what the EPA calls the “most walkable” areas. Another 121.7 million live in places with “below average walkability," and 75.1 million are in the “least walkable” areas.  
  
  
• Most pedestrian fatalities — 74% — happen at non-intersection locations. The rate rose from a recent low of 68% in 2013 to 74% in 2021. 
  
  
• The Safe Streets and Roads for All program is offering $5 billion through fiscal year 2026 for projects that add sidewalks, crosswalks, lights, pedestrian islands, signal improvements, and other enhancements.  

Stupid stuff

 Tucker Carlson -   People are like, oh, well, we had another hurricane, must be global warming. No, it's probably abortion, actually. Just being honest. Like, you can't do that. You can't kill children on purpose knowing that you're doing that in exchange for power or freedom or happiness, whatever you think you're getting in return. You can't participate in human sacrifice without consequences.

New Republic - Herschel Walker is back and ready to lead our country’s missile defense system. That is not some cruel joke, but a very real thing Donald Trump proposed at his Georgia rally on Sunday—minutes after Walker confused Trump with his eldest son while encouraging people to go out and vote

“We will build a missile defense shield, all made in the USA—wrapped around our country to defend ourselves and our country. It’s all gonna be made in the United States, and a lot of it in your great state. We’ll put Herschel Walker in charge of that little sucker.” 

Walker, a devoted Trump acolyte, is one of the most famous Black men in Georgia. The college football legend was thrust into the national political eye when he ran against and lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock in the heated 2022 Senate race.  That campaign was plagued by countless gaffes and scandals of Walker’s own creation. He lambasted absent Black fathers while lying to his campaign about being one himself. He criticized abortion rights, even as it was revealed he paid for his girlfriend’s abortion. He lied about his college degree, where he lived, a charity he claimed to have founded, and so much more. As a Black Republican, he denied racism even existed, as he told a crowd of (mostly) white voters that “we use Black power to create white guilt.”...

On Sunday, Walker kept the gaffes going, as he ended his speech by telling rallygoers to “get to the polls and vote for my friend, and your friend, Donald Trump Jr.” Walker awkwardly tried to correct himself afterward, speaking back into the microphone. “Donald Trump—Donald J. Trump.”

“Bringing back Herschel Walker is the kind of shit I would do if I were trying to lose an election but what do I know,” journalist Louis Peitzman said on X.

 

Women

NBC News - It’s been nearly seven decades since women in the U.S. have had a hardball league of their own.By summer of 2026, however, the organizers of the newly announced Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) hope to have six teams of women in caps and cleats, competing on diamonds that have been used almost exclusively by men for nearly a century and half.

The explosive growth of women’s college and pro basketball, along with the now-decadeslong popularity of women’s soccer, played a role in boosting baseball at this moment in sports history, WPBL co-founder Justine Siegal told NBC News on Friday.

“This is definitely a great time for women’s sports and pro sports as men and others have finally figured out how great women are as athletes,” said Siegal, who was the first woman to coach a Major League Baseball team when she joined the Oakland Athletics organization in 2015 and now runs Baseball for All, a nonprofit that promotes baseball for girls. Siegal added: “So it’s just great time to showcase our baseball players."

The Ruthian task of securing franchise owners, six Northeastern cities, stadiums and sponsors might pale in comparison to the league’s most basic need: players with experience in America’s pastime.

No state offers girls baseball as a high school sport, according to representatives at the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). The NCAA and the NAIA have softball for women but not hardball. Still, there were 1,372 high school girls who played on boys baseball teams across America last academic year, according to NFHS data.

 

Abortion

Where abortion is on the ballot in 2024. States marked with an ✖ are where abortion is mostly restricted or banned. (The Washington Post)

 

Weather

 NBC News - A tropical storm watch was issued for the lower and middle Florida Keys and for the Dry Tortugas as Tropical Storm Rafael churns through the Atlantic. After moving over Jamaica, Rafael is expected to pass near or over the Cayman Islands today, over Cuba tomorrow and parts of Florida later this week. The storm is expected to strengthen into a hurricane today, the National Hurricane Center said. Read more about Rafael's projected path.

Middle East

NPR -  Israel’s government announced it will cancel its agreement with UNRWA, the primary United Nations agency providing aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Israel claims the agency, which employs 13,000 people in Gaza, has been infiltrated by Hamas. UNRWA dismissed nine staff members. The U.N.’s investigative body says those nine staffers may have been involved in attacking Israel, but it could not verify the information Israel used to support its allegations.

The U.S. is concerned about the laws passed last week that ban contact between Israel and UNRWA, NPR's Aya Batrawy says. The outcome of the presidential election will influence how this situation develops moving forward. With less than 90 days until the legislation goes into effect, Israel has not provided an alternative plan to the UNRWA. “In short, people are going to suffer because there is already hunger and starvation across Gaza,” Batrawy says.

Climate change

Guardian - Standing in blinding sunlight on an archipelago above the Arctic Circle, the photographer Christian Åslund looked in shock at a glacier he had last visited in 2002. It had almost completely disappeared.Two decades ago Greenpeace asked Åslund to use photographs taken in the early 20th century, and photograph the same views in order to document how glaciers in Svalbard were melting due to global heating. The difference in ice density in those pictures, taken almost a century apart, was staggering.

This summer he visited those same places again, 22 years later, to find that the glaciers had visibly shrunk again. “In 2002, climate change wasn’t as well known as it is now, so that was a compete shock when we saw it,” he says. “And then I didn’t know what to expect going back this time. But seeing all the glaciers, we really saw the difference from these last 22 years. There is a massive amount of glacier ice that has disappeared.”

The disappearance of glaciers was one of the first signs that global heating caused by fossil fuel burning was rapidly affecting conditions on Earth. “It is sad,” says Åslund, “especially when you’re holding the historical picture in your hand and you see the whole fjord was from the glaciers and where the glaciers met, and you’re standing in the landscape when they were almost gone, in the same fjords.”