Republicans have held a narrow lead over Democrats this year in polls asking which party voters would support in a congressional election. But FiveThirtyEight, which aggregates top public-opinion surveys, reported that Democrats grabbed a half-percentage point advantage this month.
FiveThirtyEight attributes the gain and surprise wins for Democrats in two New York special elections earlier this month to anger about the Republican-hailed death of Roe v. Wade. “If the midterms were tomorrow, the Republicans might be in trouble,” one of FiveThirtyEight’s recent podcasts noted.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s approval rating has also ticked up. A recent Gallup survey put Biden’s job approval rating at 44%, the highest in a year.
In terms of House seats, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report lowered its projection for GOP pickups to between 10 to 20 seats — down from its previous 15 to 30 seats.
Cook also didn’t rule out the possibility that Democrats could hold on to the majority with an increased voter turnout, which is widely expected this year from an agitated electorate.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, is now 74 days into its longest and most intense heatwave in more than 60 years, with about 4.5 million sq. km or nearly half of its total land area under the grips of extremely high temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. This is compounded by a severe drought that has shrunk several rivers including Asia’s longest and the world’s third largest river, the Yangtze, leading to the closing of shipment ways in sizable tranches of the crucial trade waterway.
On Tuesday, August 23, four government departments issued a joint warning that China’s autumn harvest, which constitutes 75 per cent of the country’s annual grain produce, was under “severe threat” from the heatwave and drought. [snip]
The scathing regional heatwave which started on June 13 has now spread across Sichuan in the South and Henan in the central region to the Jiangsu province on the East Coast. More than 200 national weather observatories have registered record high temperatures, with the heat having touched 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in the Beibei district in Southwest China’s Chongqing last week. The heatwave has affected more than 900 million of China’s 1.4 billion population and led to a power crunch as people use more air conditioning to battle the heat.
The Duke volleyball player who was subjected to racial slurs during a match at BYU said Sunday that officials onsite didn’t react quickly enough when they were made aware of the behavior during play.
Nor did they adequately address the situation immediately after the match, Rachel Richardson said in a statement posted to her Twitter account.
“No athlete, regardless of their race should ever be subject to such hostile conditions,” said Richardson, the only Black starter on the Blue Devils team.
BYU banned a fan from all athletic venues on campus Saturday, a day after the match. The fan was not a student but was sitting in the student section.
Richardson, a 19-year-old sophomore from Ellicott City, Maryland, wrote that she didn’t believe the fan’s actions were a reflection of BYU athletes, saying her opponents showed respect and sportsmanship, adding that BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe had reacted quickly once he was notified.
The poise and grace of Ms. Richardson stands in sharp contrast to the racist goober and the apathetic (to be generous) officials overseeing the game. Good for her and for those who were in solidarity with her.
