City primary: Incumbents, personalities and populists vie for attorney and council seats

Jobs, Journalism, Justice

Opinion

It’s hard to resist a good long list

By Dr. Wes Browning | July 28, 2021

As if California doesn’t have enough problems with drought and wildfires, now CNN is telling us people are stealing massive quantities of public water to grow marijuana plants. Authorities estimate 12 billion gallons have been stolen during this drought. Among other things, the thieves are stealing water from fire hydrants at night, forcing communities to padlock their hydrants or remove them altogether. ...

Systemic erasure and anti-intellectualism

By Oscar Rosales Castañeda | July 28, 2021

Late last week, the Texas Senate advanced a bill that restricts how the nation’s history — and race especially — can be taught in schools. This is yet another volley in the emergent ideological battle against the teaching of elements of critical race theory, which appears to be the most recent anti-intellectual cause célèbre among right-wing politicians. For those unfamiliar, CRT are works from civil rights scholars critiquing how U.S. law in historical and contemporary context intersected with racial issues. ...

Arts

Finding the cracks in DNA: Leading biochemists explain the importance and trials of gene editing

By Dave Gamrath | July 28, 2021

Book review: ‘A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution’

In “A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution,” biochemists Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg describe how stunning advancements in their field can bring a wide array of benefits, as well as the risks they pose to our society and planet. Doudna is a professor of biomedical science at University of California, Berkeley and in 2020 won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, for their work in genome editing. ...

Seattle

Medicare for All gaining grassroots traction

By Hannah Krieg | July 28, 2021

In January, Ricky Dunlop and Shareef Snuggs held signs on the streets of Queens, just the two of them, advocating for Medicare for All. According to Dunlop, their efforts came when Sen. Bernie Sanders’ loss in the 2020 Democratic primary appeared to squash hopes for universal health care and when COVID-19 ravaged the globe. Dunlop said the issue could not wait for another candidate like Sanders to bring the topic back to the forefront. ...