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Glass Doctor Player of the Week: Oak Ridge’s Zayden Williams
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WATE) — Helping to keep Oak Ridge’s undefeated streak alive, junior Zayden Williams turned in a performance that earned him the honor of Glass Doctor Player of the Week. Williams had 88 receiving yards, three touchdowns, four tackles, and two pass breakups in a narrow 42-38 Wildcats victory over Dobyns-Bennett. Williams being […]
ASU-TV to host debates in October
Arkansas State University’s ASU-TV will host three political debates in October for candidates vying for office. The debates will be on Oct. 1, 8 and 22. The Oct. 1 debate...
Three-Star Class of 2028 Center Announces Northwestern Hoops Offer
Chris Collins' program has extended an offer to a seven-footer with upside potential.
DOL/EBSA Narrows Mental Health Parity Enforcement Focus to Three Priority Areas
On September 8, the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-03, outlining how it
Luminis Health Care cyberattack class-action lawsuit claims unencrypted patient data exposed at AAMC
Three patients have filed a class-action lawsuit against Luminis Health Care over its cybersecurity attack.
Official: Manchester United confirm three players have signed new deals
1 Manchester United have announced that the talented trio of Fred Heath, Dante Plunkett and Will Murdock have signed brand-new deals.StatementAn official club statement reads, “Goalkeeper Fred Heath...
Jon Kyl, long-serving lawmaker from Arizona who shaped water policy, dies at 84
Kyl spent almost three decades in Congress, serving in both chambers, and watched his party undergo a drastic transformation, with his career spanning Ronald Reagan’s presidency to President Donald Trump’s first term.
Texas Business Court Denies Former CEO's Request for Emergency Relief Against Fermi's Board
Court denies all three of the former CEO's requests for a temporary restraining order, including requests to block the Board's bylaw amendments and the...
Three Major Takeaways From UConn Women's Basketball Big East Schedule
The Huskies saw their full schedule released on Thursday morning.
Know the Foe: UT Martin
After losing to Boise State by 18 points on the road, Memphis returns to Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium for its final non-conference game of the season against UT Martin. Like the Tigers, the Skyhawks have played three games this season, and they’re 1-2.
Candidates in SECU election share thoughts
Five members are vying for three board seats at Raleigh-based SECU, the nation’s second-largest credit union with $60 billion in assets. Three were recommended by a board-led nominating committee.
Kevin Warsh just defied Donald Trump. Now what?
The Federal Reserve’s first rate hike in three years has ushered in a new twist to the already unusual relationship between President Donald Trump and the world’s most powerful central bank.
Ole Miss vs LSU: A Magnolia Bowl Preview
It's a matchup roughly nine months in the making, but at long last, we've finally made it. Week three of the college football season gives us Ole Miss vs. LSU, and this year it's a Magnolia Bowl with massive storylines. Number one is obviously former Rebel head coach Lane Kiffin returning to Oxford as the …
Boise’s Hyde Park Street Fair to be biggest ever, with a ‘major change’ all weekend
Tens of thousands are expected to flood the North End over three days for this annual — perpetually growing — end-of-summer tradition.
2026 MILK Business Award Winners: Three Dairy Leaders Moving the Industry Forward
A tech-forward Colorado dairy, a Wisconsin producer growing her farm and giving back to her community, and a nearly 30-year farm veteran show three sides of dairy leadership.
3 keys for Bears defense vs. Vikings in Week 2
Here are the top three defensive keys for the Chicago Bears ahead of their Week 2 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings.
NWCCD board approves bachelor of applied science in human service
When Kyle Rice was hired three and a half years ago as a Sheridan College human services faculty member, he had one long-term dream for the college.
3 Local Libraries Bringing Short Film Festival to Mohawk Valley
Three local libraries are teaming up to bring the MANHATTAN SHORT 2026 Film Festival to the area, giving film lovers a chance to watch and judge international short films.
iPhone 15 Pro vs. iPhone 18 Pro Buyer's Guide: Should You Upgrade?
Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max earlier this month, arriving three years after the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Three generations of changes make for a substantial upgrade, bringing larger displays, an all-new design, improvements to every camera, significantly longer battery life, and faster charging. The iPhone 16 Pro introduced larger displays with thinner borders, the Camera Control, a 48-megapixel Ultra Wide camera, and improved video and audio recording.
Inside SJSU football’s blueprint for discipline under pressure
San Jose State has struggled to start fast and now has to slow down a Fresno State team that hits hard and plays physical as any of the Spartan’s previous three games. SJSU head coach Ken Niumatalolo isn’t calling that a discipline problem, as much as it is a discipline system, one built all camp, […]
NEW RESEARCH: Staples Business Reveals Where SNFs Leave Savings on the Table
Sixty-three percent. Over the next three years, 63% of long-term care (LTC) organizations are likely to consolidate non-clinical suppliers. Another
G.O.P. Representative Breaks With Trump in Ad: Hispanics ‘Feel Betrayed’
Representative María Elvira Salazar, a three-term representative from Miami, won re-election by 20 percentage points in 2024. Her ad suggests worry among some Republicans about their standing with Hispanic voters.
Why will September international break last three weeks?
BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team explain the major changes happening to football's international breaks starting in September 2026
These former collegiate athletes, and brothers, are helping train the next generation of athletes
Meet Bo, Coley and Pat White - three brothers who took their love of college football and turned it into a playbook for the next generation of athletes at Blueprint Performance.
Maryland warns of possible measles exposure at 3 Ocean City locations
BALTIMORE — Maryland health officials are warning residents about possible measles exposure after a person from another state who had the disease visited three Ocean City businesses this month. The
Plan to bring more maternal health care to Alabama
IN-DEPTH WITH SARAH WALL: Health officials say one in three counties in Alabama is considered a maternal health desert. That means there are no health services in the counties for pregnant women or new moms. But, a plan is underway to change that. We’re talking to the folks at the March of Dimes about their Mom and Baby Mobile Health Units - why they are so important, how they work and how you may be able to use them. For more information on the Mom and Baby Mobile Health Units, you can go to the March of Dimes website: www.marchofdimes.org/our-work/mobile-health-centers. If you would like to sign up for an appointment with the mobile health unit, you can click here: https://www.healthservicesinc.org/. And, for more information on UAB’s mobile unit that works in other areas of Alabama, you can go to: https://www.uab.edu/nursing/home/partnerships/clinical/moms-and-kids-mobile-health-unit.
Snoop Dogg is hosting the 2026 MTV VMAs — and of course, it’s a West Coast party
Snoop Dogg will host the 2026 MTV VMAs in Los Angeles, marking a full-circle moment for the three-time winner as the ceremony returns to the West Coast.
Boma Bango, Carson Lewis, Three Thirty Seven and more live music in the Acadiana area this week
Looking for live music?
Clark calls for more discipline from Hartlepool
Hartlepool United are on a run of five losses in six league games, and have had players sent off in three of those defeats.
Jon Kyl, an Arizona political giant, dies at 84
Jon Kyl, a giant in Arizona politics who served the state in Congress for nearly three decades, has died, his family announced Thursday.
I met my pen pal in person after 30 years
In second grade, I was matched with a pen pal from Ghana. We exchanged letters over the years, but three decades later, we finally met in person.
Three Reasons Bucks Could Exceed Expectations This Season
Everyone has written off Milwaukee after the Giannis trade, but the roster has more ways to win than the projections admit.
Kilmarnock v Hearts: Pick of the stats
Kilmarnock have lost all three of their home league games this season, last losing four in a row in the Scottish Premiership in August 2017, and last doing so within a single campaign in May 2015. Hearts have scored a league-high four goals from set-pieces (excluding penalties) in the Premiership this season, while Kilmarnock have conceded the most from non-penalty set-pieces (5). After their 1-0 victory in March, Kilmarnock are looking for back-to-back home wins over Hearts in the league for the first time since March 2014.
Rangers’ Top Prospects Headline Strong Arizona Fall League
The Texas Rangers will send three of their top 30 prospects to the Arizona Fall League.
Mekies Praises Liam Lawson’s Maturity in Formula 1
The Austrian team's director highlights the New Zealander's evolution in his three races as Hadjar's substitute. He underlines his calmness, his focus on the essentials and the points scored in Zandvoort and Madrid, far from his inconsistent first stint in 2025.
Dundee v Motherwell: Pick of the stats
A Dundee player leads the 2026-27 Scottish Premiership for tackles (Ryan Finnigan, 23), interceptions (Owen Bevan, 12) and possession won (Ethan Hamilton, 38). Motherwell have lost their past two league games by an aggregate score of 5-0. The Steelmen could lose three in a row for the first time since February 2025 (5), and could do so without scoring for the first time since December 2018 (3).
Gonçalo Ramos’ stats fuel fears of Milan’s No. 9 curse
New Milan signing Gonçalo Ramos has not registered a single shot on target in his last three games and, against Benfica, lost possession 16 times.Pressure mounts on Milan striker Gonçalo Ramos, who ...
Mercy Health launches plan to boost healthcare access in Clark, Champaign counties
Mercy Health – Springfield has launched a new three-year plan targeting four major drivers of local health in Clark and Champaign counties: healthcare access, chronic disease, health behaviors, and social conditions.
DICE owner Fever raises $250M led by EQT, at a $5.2B valuation, in ‘largest ever’ round for a
Fever says it has more than tripled its revenue over the past three years while remaining EBITDA-positive.
Scottdale lines up entertainment, activities for annual fall festival
Scottdale will host its 52nd annual fall festival Friday through Sunday. The three-day celebration will feature a variety of handmade crafts, local and ethnic foods, a parade, live entertainment and a children’s area. It is held at the gazebo on the corner of Pittsburgh and Spring streets. Festival hours are
Klopp calls up 44 players in huge first Germany squad
Germany coach Jurgen Klopp handed 16 players their first call-ups on Thursday as he unveiled a 44-man squad for his first camp since taking over as coach in the summer. Teams are restricted to naming 20 outfield players and three goalkeepers for each match but the former Liverpool manager took the unusual step of naming a larger squad.
2. Bundesliga Preview: Karlsruher SC vs. 1. FC Nürnberg
Nürnberg will hope to bolster their promotion hopes with three points from Karlsruhe just before the extended international break. The visitors have only dropped points once this season – the 2-2 d...
GLE partners with ACOLAP in Latin America
Strategic collaboration brings Global Leisure & Entertainment's international development expertise closer to a region with significant potential for the next generation of leisure and entertainment destinations
Valakari reveals chats helped Taylor and Finlayson
St Johnstone manager Simo Valakari has revealed that Taylor Steven explored his options away from McDiarmid Park this summer before the 21-year-old winger earned a starting place for the last three matches. St Johnstone manager Simo Valakari has admitted that he felt the need to have a "strong conversation" with Daniel Finlayson after leaving the 25-year-old defender out his side for three games before his return against Celtic.
3 Health Care Stocks Built For Higher Rates
When the Federal Reserve lifts rates and signals they may stay elevated for years, the easy-growth playbook breaks. Cash flows today matter more than promises tomorrow, and investors start to care a lot about balance sheet strength, pricing power and dependable dividends. This article walks through three large cap quality defensive stocks that screen well under those rules and explains how the latest Fed move could affect each one. The three stocks below are a sample of what this quality...
Brewers' nightmare seeding, matchup scenarios for 2026 MLB Playoffs
The Milwaukee Brewers have already completed their first objective by clinching a fourth consecutive National League Central title. Their remaining games are not ceremonial. Milwaukee still needs to secure the postseason route most likely to keep its historic season alive. The Brewers head into Thursday at 95-57, three games ahead of the Los […] The post Brewers' nightmare seeding, matchup scenarios for 2026 MLB Playoffs appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Denver board faces ongoing governance and civility issues
It’s mostly impossible to herd cats. So imagine how hard it is to herd a pride of snarling lions. That’s the task of Xóchitl Gaytán, president of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. She was re-elected in 2025 along with three new board members: Monica Hunter, Dr. D.J. Torres and Anne Klein Molk. Unexpectedly, […]
MJ Companies expands Phoenix benefits team with ThreeFlow veteran
The hire brings placement technology experience to MJ's consulting capabilities as employer demand for advisory grows
Team effort puts Galo trio top of the scoring charts
Galo has three of its main attacking players at the top of the scoring charts this season. And on the night Atlético needed its forwards the most, Cuello, Reinier, and Bernard stepped up to score the...
72-Hour Film Challenge returns for 12th year
Filmmakers of Key West, it’s time. The 12th Annual 72 Hour Film Challenge is back! Three days, zero sleep, and whatever footage you can wrangle before the clock runs out.
Wynne business rebounds three years after tornado
Wynne’s high school is not the only one recovering from the tornado three years ago. Local businesses are also coming back.
Bats Cold as Astros fall to Royals 5-2.
So much for the winning streak, it’s been halted at one. Kansas City 5 Houston 2. It was another three hit night for Jeremy Pena. Unfortunately, there was little else. Over the course of two nights against the Royals, Pena has six of the Astros 12 total hits. Yikes. Aside from the […]
Huron takes care of business in 6-1 win over Clyde
The Tigers scored the first three goals of Wednesday's win over Clyde.
Wynne business rebounds three years after tornado
The Cordial Cottage was destroyed in the tornado but now has a new home, along with other businesses on Murray Avenue, about a mile and a half from its original location on Falls Boulevard.
As shortfall looms, Pillen installs allies on board meant to keep politics out of budget forecast
In an unprecedented move, Gov. Jim Pillen has reshaped the state board that predicts Nebraska’s tax revenues for budget writers, replacing three members with appointees that include two former Republi...
Mitch McConnell’s Senate Vote Under Scrutiny After Lengthy Health Absence
Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate this week after a three-month absence.
First gameplay revealed for Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 on Nintendo Switch 2
Some of the first gameplay has surfaced for the newly-announced Nintendo Switch 2 versions of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4. For those that missed the news, Capcom announced during last week’s Nintendo Direct that ports of all three remakes are on the way to the platform. Now, however, we have a proper look with footage. A 30-minute video has...
No. 1 Nebraska volleyball sweeps in-state rival No. 20 Creighton
No. 1 Nebraska (8-0) volleyball squared off and swept (25-13, 25-15, 25-19) No. 20 Creighton (5-5) at Pinnacle Bank Arena on Wednesday, Sept. 16. This was the 25th meeting between the two teams, and the Huskers have been a perfect 24-for-24 against the Bluejays, but the two teams have pushed each other to five-set thrillers in three of the last four contests. Entering the game, Creighton was on a two-game losing streak, with losses to No. 5 Louisville (1-3) and Rice (1-3). However, the Bluejays’ 5-4 record is somewhat misleading, as they have quality wins over No. 9 Purdue (3-2) and No. 20 USC (3-1).
Three takeaways from Nebraska volleyball’s sweep against Creighton
It was business as usual for the Huskers as they sent the Bluejays home in three sets for the first time since 2021. Nebraska remains perfect with a 25-0 record all-time in the I-80 Rivalry. The Huskers now move to 8-0 on the year and continue to prove that they are the best team in the country.
Maryland health officials warn of possible measles exposure at 3 Ocean City locations
The Maryland Department of Health is warning about possible measles exposure at three locations in Ocean City earlier this month.
Should You Buy PayPal Stock For Its Credit Business?
PayPal (PYPL) has gained 27% over the past three months while the S&P 500 returned 0.7%. Over the trailing twelve months, the stock is still down 18.7%, so the whole gain is recent. A gain that recent still needs an operating reason to hold, and management points to what PayPal lends, not to the checkout button.
Wednesday practice report for Steelers
Steelers list three players on first practice report of the week
Bring open science into the classroom
To truly change science, the next generation of researchers must understand not only open science practices but also the values behind them. Find three ways to introduce them to students
Marlins’ Gusto Looks to Build on Career-Long Start
Ryan Gusto will try to carry the momentum from his best start of the season into Wednesday’s series finale against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix. Gusto will make his 17th start (22nd appearance) of the season and second career start against the Diamondbacks. He allowed three hits and a walk wh
Sport of Kings returns to N.Y.'s historic Belmont Park Friday
Sport of Kings returns to the park for the first time in three years.
WhatsApp may soon let iPhone users add a third account
After recently letting iPhone users add a second account to the same app, WhatsApp is now working on expanding support to up to three accounts.
The Fed hiked rates. Here's what economic experts say could come next.
The Fed raised rates for the first time in three years, and smart voices in finance are weighing in on whether more hikes are coming.
Bucks Get Off Undesirable Contract in Three-Team Trade Idea
A proposed AJ Green trade would bring Wendell Carter Jr. to Milwaukee, but the added salary and crowded frontcourt complicate the Bucks’ return.
Trio of powerful DeSantis appointments will face voters for the first time
Florida voters will decide in November whether to elected three powerful politicians appointed to their positions by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
What Does the Science of Climate Change Really Look Like?
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series on how the Right should think about environmental and climate policy. Read Chris Barnard on Reclaiming Environmental Policy from the Left. More than a decade ago, the world’s governments negotiated and signed the Paris Climate Agreement, committing to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. In the following years, climate had immense cultural power. Greta Thunberg emerged. Fortune 500 companies established net-zero plans. The U.S. got the Inflation Reduction Act. Then the pendulum swung back. President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, speaking of green energy as a “scam” and carbon footprints as a “hoax” and on all matters of international policy emphasizing bilateral engagement and power over globalism and cooperation. The technology companies that had been at the forefront of net-zero pledges and green leadership discovered the importance of all-of-the-above power to their visions for artificial intelligence and began quietly postponing or removing their targets. On the left side of the political spectrum, rising concerns about inflation and cost pushed climate lower down in the stated priorities of voters and stump speeches of politicians. The moment is ripe for a reset on the politics of climate change and for conservatives especially to chart a course that acknowledges and addresses the real challenges in plausible ways. So what should we think about climate change as we enter a post-peak climate era? If it is neither an apocalypse nor a hoax, what will hold up as a durable view of climate change? And how does it project onto the concerns and priorities of the right-of-center’s emerging coalition? New to Commonplace_? Subscribe below to get the magazine in your inbox._ Subscribe A Solid Foundation As the politics and economics of climate careened over the past ten years, the physics carried on regardless. In 2015, the year the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted, the world emitted 41.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. By 2025, emissions had risen only 2.4%, to 42.2 gigatonnes, because falling emissions from land use offset increasing emissions from fossil fuels. But slow growth in annual emissions is not rapid decline, let alone net-zero, so carbon dioxide kept accumulating in the atmosphere, going from 399 to 426 parts per million. Global temperature kept rising too, from about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 average in 2015, to 1.4 degrees above it in 2025. None of this should surprise anyone. Even most prominent skeptics, like the authors of the 2025 report commissioned by the Trump administration’s Department of Energy, accept the basic physics. Carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere at industrial volumes accumulates and traps heat that would otherwise escape to space. That heat warms the upper ocean and increases temperatures at the surface. Increased ocean heat and melting of land ice cause sea levels to rise. Changes in the climate become noticeable to us as subtle shifts in temperature and precipitation, seasons arriving early or late, changes in the surrounding ecosystem, and weather extremes. The much more meaningful debate is not about whether these things are happening, but about what it all means for human societies. (While it is a proxy measure of overall risk, no one experiences global surface temperature.) This debate invokes at least three interesting questions: how much today’s warming is showing up in regional climate trends, how much more warming we should anticipate, and how extreme weather events can be understood in the context of climate change. Recent scientific advances give us new insights into each of these, but there is still much to learn. This is the context in which the next generation of conservative leaders will be the first to deal with significant climate change as a fact, not a forecast. It will be with them for their entire careers. Our evolving scientific picture of climate change will come from weather and climate records stretching further into the past, new kinds of observations in the present, better modeling tools for the future, and simply more time to observe the emergence of climate signals and their tangible effects on ecosystems and communities in the United States and around the world. The policy landscape will be shaped by not only the impacts of changes in the climate, but also by the ways in which societies respond and by the emergence of new technologies for both altering the trajectory of emissions and adapting to new climate realities. Global climate records now show the fingerprints of warming in different phenomena around much of the world. The IPCC, in its most recent assessment report, documents warming trends over all land regions, even as natural variability adds substantial variance to local trends. And the highest temperature extremes have become more intense and frequent, almost everywhere, since the 1950s. Scientists are highly confident that these changes are attributable to human influence. But confidence in detecting trends and attributing them to human influence degrades across heavy precipitation events; drought trends are heterogeneous and not attributable to human activity with great confidence. For hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe storms there is even less confidence in trends or their relationship to climate change. In general, a fair summary of the evidence is that for well-observed phenomena, like surface temperature or heavy rainfall, with a clear relationship to warming, our multidecadal observations are consistent with human influence overcoming natural variability over long time periods and extremes increasing. For regions that are sampled more sparsely, or phenomena with a higher noise-to-signal ratio, we will need to observe them longer to understand the magnitude of the climate signal or improve dynamical understanding using models and observations together. But for Climate For those who can’t wait, we also have new techniques that attempt to understand the role climate change has in influencing particular extreme events. When the climate is changing and disaster strikes, it is natural to ask whether that disaster was somehow “caused” by climate change. For scientists and policymakers acting in good faith, answering that question helps develop a more accurate picture of the problem, how it may be getting worse, and what preparations we should be making to respond to it. It may, at some point, give some weight to how liability is assigned by courts or adaptation funding is distributed by society. But how we ask this question is extremely important. It is easy to get the analysis wrong by discounting the role that meteorology plays. As meteorologist Theodore Shepherd explained in a clear 2016 review of climate attribution methods, “if a weather or climate event is truly extreme in the present climate, then perforce it requires unusual meteorological conditions, which means that climate change is at most a contributing factor.” Share Scientists have two ways to probe climate as a contributing factor, both of which have entered media coverage of extreme weather events. One asks a probabilistic question: How much more likely is a particular event (e.g., a temperature record over a particular area) amid global warming? The answer involves using historical records and computer simulations to estimate the likelihood of such an event in both a changed and a preindustrial climate. The findings are less about the specific event, and more about events of that nature. The other question is: How has the changed climate affected the specific event in question? Here, scientists try to understand what a similar event would have looked like in the preindustrial climate. This is sometimes called the storyline approach, where the story is the specific meteorological details of the event. These methods offer ways to test the intuition of scientists about real weather extremes. In late June and early July of 2021, a persistent high-pressure ridge, or heat dome, set up over the Pacific Northwest and an extraordinary heat wave affected the area from Oregon to British Columbia. For six days, it shattered temperature records across the region and hundreds died from heat-related causes, in an area where such high, and persistently high, temperatures were well outside of experience and many live without air conditioning. Scientists have studied its connection to climate change using multiple approaches. This specific event was created by a rare combination of meteorological factors, a strong high-pressure ridge created the conditions for extreme heat, which occurred on top of higher average temperatures in the region from global warming. Probabilistic analyses showed that climate change increased the likelihood of such an event by at least 8-fold to more than 100-fold. One standout example found that such an event had effectively zero probability of occurring in the preindustrial climate. The enormous range in these assessments reflects how hard it is to estimate probabilities of events at the tail of the historical record. Estimates of the effect on the temperature of the event are more clustered. A recent review paper documents how multiple methodologies have found a positive influence, roughly 1-2 degrees Celsius of an anomaly that exceeded 15 degrees, of climate change on the temperature magnitude of the event. Multiple studies have investigated and found some positive influence of climate change in other extreme events. Attribution studies found climate likely increased the heavy rainfall that accompanied Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and surrounding regions in 2024. The extensive fires that struck Los Angeles in 2025 illustrate how the causal chain can become messy, though. Studies do detect a positive influence of climate on the event’s likelihood, but while climate change likely contributed to underlying aridity, it would not have played a role in the heavy winds or land practices that preceded disaster. These event attribution studies will become more common for extreme, or damaging, weather events. They can be produced quickly, and often are reported before peer review. As the Pacific Northwest heatwave example shows, when multiple methods converge on a positive attribution, the finding should probably carry some weight even if you have to be careful about accepting the results from a single study. I expect that as climate change proceeds and the climate thus departs further from a preindustrial counterfactual, the influence will become more detectable across a variety of extreme events and more easily identified. This will be used to cast blame, but can also be used to inform how communities and society adapt to ongoing change. We May Still Be Surprised One positive development, insofar as less climate change is better, has been that our central estimates for future climate change should probably be revised downward. Mostly, that is because the high-end warmings that scientists regularly analyzed about ten to 20 years ago, driven by high emissions throughout the twenty-first century, now appear to be somewhere between unlikely and impossible. At one time, the upper end of mainstream climate projections extended well into 4 to 6 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of this century, which, models suggest, would have wrought enormous real-world damage. Current energy and policy trends now point toward 2.5 or 3 degrees. Damages and risks are commonly modeled as increasing steeply with more warming, so this is already a better-than-previously-expected outcome for the climate (which is independent of the physical response to emissions). But we should maintain a wide range for plausible outcomes and prepare for the possibility of being surprised. Emissions trajectories are subject to deep uncertainty, the physical climate response is still developing, and whatever change occurs in the climate will then be mediated through unpredictable economic, social, and political institutions. Over the past decade, the pace of warming surprised some keen observers and appeared to accelerate, though not yet outside the range of expectation provided by climate models. The reasons for that apparent acceleration are being actively studied (as was the apparent pause in warming from 1998 to 2012), but no single driver has emerged. Some blame it on the El Niño, variability which would have no bearing on climate. Some think it is a result of factories in East Asia and global shipping fleets cutting aerosol emissions, which in the strongest version of the argument would indicate higher climate sensitivity to carbon-dioxide emissions. Others are more measured, not yet ready to draw solid conclusions as to whether climate projections require revision. We will have to see. Long-Term Thinking Climate change asks us to think over long time scales. But the pace of human-driven warming is compressing a large global change into a century. Changing weather patterns and extreme events are already causing adjustment costs and damages and will do more. Adaptation will help, but it is not free. For some communities, these costs will erode livelihoods and well-being, and may force migration. Are we prepared for large-scale managed retreats in the United States? Thankfully, American wealth, geographical diversity, and moderate climates may leave us better prepared than many around the world. But wealthy countries can still suffer serious disruption from narrowly concentrated costs, even if they appear entirely manageable in aggregate. Readers of Commonplace are familiar with the challenges of rapidly adapting to economic forces. The displacement that came from the China Shock is barely perceptible in aggregate GDP and employment data, but it affected millions of people and those people were far less mobile than economic models tended to assume. Deindustrialization rippled through the nation with enormous effects for not only our economic vitality, but also our national security. The forces surrounding climate change may not be so different; the world gets richer and must accept some diffuse costs. Those may be modest overall, but cause all manner of unpredictable effects with which policymakers must cope. In the case of the China Shock, our faith in a growing pie served us poorly. We’ll need to do better on climate. Leave a comment
High school science teacher discovers rare T. Rex tracks: 'A real pivotal moment'
Kent Hups could not contain his excitement when he came across several giant three-toed track prints that appeared to be T. Rex footprints in North Dakota.
iPhone 18 Pro vs. iPhone Duo Buyer's Guide: Which Should You Choose?
Apple's new iPhone lineup asks buyers a new and challenging question: Is a foldable display worth feature compromises? Alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, which start at $1,199 and $1,299 respectively, there is now the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable iPhone, which starts at $1,999. All three are brand new, all three feature the same A20 Pro chip, and all three sit at the top end of Apple's lineup.
Virginia casinos’ August take is $97.6M
August gaming revenues at Virginia’s three permanent casinos and temporary casinos in Petersburg and Norfolk totaled $97.55 million.
Measles outbreak hangs heavy over Trump administration health nominees' Senate HELP appearance
Three key Trump administration leadership nominees
Disney's Live Action 'Moana' Bows No. 1 on Weekly U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through Sept. 16
Disney’s live-action Moana debuted No. 1 on the Official Chart, the U.K.’s weekly home entertainment sales chart through Sept. 16. Starring Dwayne Johnson and Catherine Laga’aia, the movie generated $321.9 million at the global box office before hitting digital retail channels on Sept. 8. The title supplanted the three-week No. 1 run for Disney’s Toy … Continue reading "Disney’s Live Action ‘Moana’ Bows No. 1 on Weekly U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through Sept. 16"
The happiest states in the US, ranked
A recent study measured Americans' happiness based on three factors: emotional and physical well-being, work environment, and community.
Iran war powers resolution passes House with seven Republican defections
House Democrats successfully passed a resolution directing President Donald Trump to end the Iran war for a third time, with three new Republicans breaking with the president from the usual four. The resolution passed 220-204 with seven Republicans supporting the measure, three more than who backed the legislation in two previous votes. Reps. Thomas Massie, […]
Primary Season Is Over. What Comes Next?
The 2026 primary season came to a close Tuesday night with incumbents and expected challengers both winning easily in Delaware. In the evening’s main race, Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat seeking a third full term in Washington, easily bested three challengers, including one who had legally changed his ...
A-State to host three political debates
Arkansas State University’s ASU-TV will host three political debates in October for candidates vying for office.
3 Wide Receivers Poised to Bounce Back in Week 2
Three wide receivers are poised to bounce back in Week 2: DK Metcalf, Ja’Marr Chase, and Romeo Doubs, after disappointing season openers.
BIRDIE THIRTY: "Window feeders provide endless entertainment for cats" - EWN at 7:30am on 9-13-2026
Window feeders provide endless entertainment for kitties, which pays off twofold: it keeps the cats happy and amused without exposing them to the outdoor dangers of predators and cars, and also lets them watch birds without killing them, thus helping out our feathered friends, too! Feral/outdoor domestic cats are one of the top three reasons for decline in bird populations (i.e bird death) in North America, so a window feeder (and indoor cats) are two big steps in the right direction! As seen here, this parade of curious kitties is enraptured by the idea that a bird might visit momentarily. Once a cat learns that a window feeder will attract these winged wonders, it will often stay pinned at the window for hours, eagerly awaiting the next bird. Sometimes watching the cats watch the birds can be even more entertaining than watching the birds themselves!
Charlotte to host WTA Finals from 2027
The WTA Finals will take place in the American city of Charlotte from 2027 on a three-year deal.
Man Utd need positive end to week
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WTA Finals Moving to an NBA Arena Next Year as Tennis Tour Seeks 'Super Bowl for Women’s Sports'
The WTA Finals, the elite season-ending event in women’s tennis, will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the next three years in a move that organizers hope will create “the Super Bowl for women’s sports.” The tournament will be played at the Spectrum Center, home of the NBA’s Charlotte ...
RAFFAELE PALLADINO TO BE OFFICIALLY INTRODUCED TOMORROW
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Health Foundation of South Florida Invests $225,000 to Establish Overtown Youth Center as a Community Health Access Hub
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Singer Reimagined Keeps The GMT Hits Coming With The 1970 DualTrack
✓ Singer introduces the 1970 DualTrack in three variations ✓ Khaki green, Cobalt blue, and Dark Espresso brown ✓ CHF 23,000 (ex. VAT) ✓
EU membership bid gives boost to Moldova’s fledgling R&D landscape
Moldova’s push to join the EU is having the spillover effect of helping to improve the country’s R&D landscape, which in recent years has suffered from fragmentation, decreasing personnel and a lack of research infrastructure.The country became an EU candidate country in 2022, alongside Ukraine, and officially began accession negotiations in 2024. With a pro-EU government, Moldova has been actively carrying out reforms to align with EU standards. This has helped accelerate the development of R&D, said Igor Chiosa, acting head of the Research and Innovation Policy Directorate at Moldova’s Ministry of Education and Research. “Our R&D landscape is moving up, and we are more and more involved in the European Research Area,” he said. “The support we receive from the EU is very important, not only financially, but also because of incentives, consultation and capacity building.”The R&D landscape in the former Soviet republic is still relatively underdeveloped, despite attempts at improvement going back to a 2004 law on science and innovation and later reforms in 2017 and 2018. But the system remains in a “precarious situation” and “in the process of contraction,” according to an assessment carried out by the government for the current National Programme for Research and Innovation, which runs from 2024 to 2027. The analysis highlights in particular the declining number of researchers and PhDs, which has been continuously falling, as well as limited research funding. This is around 10 times lower than the EU average and “insufficient to maintain a level of research activity that supports higher education and meets the needs of the economy.” The mechanisms for allocating research funds are also described as inefficient, as well as the general fragmentation of the landscape, with research and innovation activities being carried out in 67 different places. The lack of strategic vision for research infrastructure is also noted. The strategy sets out to address these issues and is being fuelled by reforms linked to EU accession. Moldova now has a regulation on open science and gender equality. There is also a new support mechanism for technology transfer offices and a business-academia roadmap. In 2025, the country also became the first Eastern Partnership country to approve a Smart Specialisation strategy, which will coordinate its R&D efforts to focus on strengths, within a European context. “We’ve done a lot in terms of normative acts,” Chiosa said. Horizon Europe successMoldova is also seeing more success in the EU’s flagship R&D programme, Horizon Europe. The country has now won nearly €15 million in funding, already double the amount won under the previous programme, Horizon 2020, and more than the €10 million target set by the government. Chiosa said the priority has shifted now to winning more research-centred projects, rather than those related to support and capacity. Moldova is also targeting further involvement in large European projects. Last year, it joined the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking giving Moldovans access to Europe's supercomputing network. The country is also a member of Danubius-RI, a European research infrastructure focused on river and sea research. Despite these efforts, Moldova’s research capacity is still shackled by its limited R&D budget, which equates to 0.23% of its GDP. This is around half of what its neighbour Romania spends, which is the lowest in the EU. According to Chiosa, the research budget is increasing year-on-year, jumping by €6.34 million between 2024 and 2025. But this doesn’t show up when looking at it as a proportion of GDP. “Of course, it’s difficult,” he said. “That is why we are putting more emphasis on collaboration between business and academia, as well as participation in Horizon Europe, to try to diversify our sources of funding.”A World Bank loan of €30 million, plus a grant of €7.8 million, was agreed in 2025 to support the modernisation of Moldova’s universities. As part of this, a call was launched this year to provide universities grants of up to €900,000 to develop their research infrastructure. Moldova is also collaborating closely with Romania, with which it shares a common language, funding 100 joint projects in 2023 and 2024. This support has been instrumental. “They are helping with sharing their expertise, inviting us into consortia, and lots more,” Chiosa said. Looking forward, Moldova is eagerly anticipating joining the EU. “We are looking closely at what the EU is doing and will shape our future national programme in research innovation accordingly.”EU accession “blocked at a technical level”Moldova is aiming to join the EU by 2028, but despite its swift and eager efforts to meet the accession criteria, there remain obstacles outside of the country’s control. For a country to join the EU, it must have certain legislation in place and meet specific standards in various areas. This is categorised into six thematic clusters containing 33 chapters. Moldova and the EU have so far opened two of the clusters, numbers one and six. The first covers fundamental laws, such as the judiciary, security and financial legislation. The sixth covers external relations. The remaining four clusters are still unopened. This includes the third cluster, on competitiveness and growth, which contains the chapter on science and research.Related articlesQ&A: Albania’s ambition to become a ‘moderate innovator’Data corner: Horizon success rates are droppingThe European Commission has confirmed that these clusters are ready to be opened, with an official saying that the Commission is encouraging EU governments, who have the final say, to move forward on the matter. However, both clusters two and three remain blocked by the EU Council’s working party on enlargement and countries negotiating accession to the EU, a different official, representing the Council, confirmed.This working party is set to meet several times in the coming weeks, with a Council meeting scheduled for mid-October in which enlargement, and Moldova’s bid, will be discussed. But there is no certainty that these talks will lead to progress. According to the Council source, it is “completely impossible to foresee if and when the file will be unblocked,” citing the sensitivity of the matter. Moldova’s situation is particularly complicated. One factor is that it borders Ukraine and is increasingly embroiled in Russia’s war, with drone incursions occurring more often on its territory. Another is Transnistria, a Russian-backed breakaway state that lies within the territory of Moldova. It is unclear how the EU would be able to accept Moldova into the bloc while this situation remains unchanged. While there is no direct reason to delay opening cluster three with Moldova, as it covers matters unrelated to security, it could be that the EU is reluctant to speed through accession negotiations without first resolving broader, geopolitical issues.Chiosa is confident that, if and when the chapter on science and research is opened, Moldova will be able to finalise it quickly. It doesn’t require any legislative changes and is only a matter of proving certain standards, which Chiosa believes Moldova is well prepared to do. “We hope that chapter 25 on science and research will be one of the first chapters opened and closed,” he said.
How to watch San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals
The Giants wrap up this three-game road series against the Cardinals later this morning.
Reading 1-2 Brentord
Ian: The Bees seem to be scraping results at the moment (three Premier League leads ending in draws and a 2-1 win over Reading), however, it is easy to be critical. Douglas: Every Brentford supporter expects them to win by a hatful of goals, but that can't always happen. A professional performance which shows their class.
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For Quality, Environmental And Health & Safety Management: Superstruct Entertainment Earns Three Major ISO Certifications
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Truth and Politics in the Age of Post-Truth
Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber, or make a donation, to support our work. Subscribe This is an excerpt from Global Politics in a Post-Truth Era. You can download the book free of charge from E-International Relations. The term post-truth is by now so ubiquitous in describing the state of politics in the Western world and even beyond that the most pressing issue of the day appears to be about making democracy work in the era of post-truth rather than questioning the normalisation of the term itself in the first place. The critical turning point appeared to have occurred in 2016 when the term was chosen by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘The Word of the Year.’ On its website, the Dictionary notes the transformation of post-truth from ‘being a peripheral term to being a mainstay in political commentary and connects ‘the spike in frequency’ directly with the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States – both occurring in 2016. Paired with the noun ‘politics,’ post-truth is defined as an adjective ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.’ The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the term to a 1992 essay in The Nation by the playwright Steve Tesich as he reflected on the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal and the 1990–91 Gulf War: We are rapidly becoming prototypes of a people that totalitarian monsters could only drool about in their dreams. All the dictators up to now have had to work hard at suppressing the truth. We, by our actions, are saying that this is no longer necessary, that we have acquired a spiritual mechanism that can denude truth of any significance. In a very fundamental way we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world (Tesich 1992, 13; emphasis added). He then continued, The Gulf War is over but the war at home goes on. The gulf between rich and destitute widens – between those of us who live in a modern post-industrial nation and those of us who live in the Third World countries of our inner cities. The present administration’s response to this internal crisis has shifted from benign to malignant neglect. The current levels of misery and decomposition of our cities and the economic gulags of our ghettos are acceptable. Since there is only so much hope to go around, there is a freeze on hope. The have-nots have now been reclassified as never-will-haves (Tesich 1992, 13). In the context of Tesich’s essay, truth includes both facts, as in what happens, and ‘moral absolutes,’ as in the ‘self-evident truths mentioned in our Constitution’ (Tesich 1992, 14). Together, these two notions of truth entail the obligation to both act and react. The two passages cited above show that even in the early post-Cold War years, Tesich was already deeply concerned that the American people are neither prepared to act on truth nor react to truth that is disconcerting, or what he calls ‘bad news’ (Tesich 1992, 12). Accordingly, Tesich’s insight as captured by the term post-truth is not that truth is irrelevant to what we know, but rather it is irrelevant to how we act. In contrast, ‘post-truth politics,’ as defined by Oxford as a term that pitches ‘objective facts’ against ‘emotion and personal belief’ such that the latter appears to have overtaken the former in shaping ‘public opinion’ and thereby, democratic politics. When Tesich’s post-truth politics and its current usage are juxtaposed, the two are in fact not identical in terms of what truth is and how it relates to politics. Against such consideration, this chapter provides a critical survey of selected historical events and theoretical considerations for the purpose of gaining a more nuanced understanding of the relation between truth and politics. Truth and Language One notable impact of post-truth politics is that language is being overtly deployed as a political weapon not only by politicians and those in power, but among the general population. It seems that once facts are irrelevant to the validity of what is being said, language becomes the platform for an all-out political contest in which what is said is no more than an act of will expressed as an assertion of power and/or an exercise in defiance. As early as in the writings of Thucydides (460–400 BCE), the vulnerability of logos – which is the human capacity for rational discourse in tumultuous times – was already noted. Thucydides belonged to a school of Greek thought which maintained that language is conventional and that the association between name and things is a result of ‘human use and habit’ rather than ‘nature or divine dispensation’ (Connor 1984, 99). The conventional nature of language means that it is incapable of providing its users with any independent criteria for judgement. In Thucydides’ study of the Peloponnesian War (431–405 BCE), the subversion of logos as seen in the manipulation of language was introduced through his account of the civil war in Corcyra (Thucydides 1972, 236-245). The war first broke out in 427 BCE between the pro-Athenian democratic faction and the pro-Spartan oligarchic faction before it spread to the rest of the Greek world. There was a general breakdown of law and order, resulting in extreme violence and death. Language underwent changes that were reflective of the events of the time. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) translated Thucydides’ description of the situation as follows: The received value of names imposed for signification of things, was changed into arbitrary. For inconsiderate boldness, was counted true-hearted manliness: provident deliberation, a handsome fear: modesty, the cloak of cowardice: to be wise in everything, to be lazy in everything... he that had been so provident as not to need to do the one or the other, was said to be a dissolver of society, and one that stood in fear of his adversary. In brief, he that could outstrip another in the doing of an evil act, or that could persuade another thereto that never meant it, was commended (Hobbes 1839–1845, 8: 348; Thucydides 1972, 242-243). What concerned Thucydides most was that the meanings of words are no more than linguistic conventions that require logos to support them. The Corcyrean civil war was a reminder that such capacity cannot be assumed. This is why history understood as an authentic account of what happens matters. Guided by logos, the historian’s task is ‘the search after truth’, which is established through ‘the absence of the fabulous,’ including ‘the rejection of myth and unverifiable stories’ (de Jonge 2017, 2). Thus, history plays an important role in facilitating the stability of language – without which distinctions and judgements cannot be rendered communicable. Just like Thucydides, Hobbes was a nominalist who subscribed to the view that there is no inherent meaning to words. Hobbes’ state of nature, where there is no common authority, is precisely one in which distinctions cannot be made. As Hobbes put it, there is ‘no Mine and Thine distinct’ nor is there distinction between ‘the notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice’ (1968, 188; emphasis in original). This is clearly an unsustainable condition for everyone. Behind Hobbes’ famous words that life in the state of nature is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ is his uncompromising argument for the ‘Leviathan’, which is described by the late American political theorist, Sheldon Wolin (1922–2015), as the ‘sovereign definer’ (Hobbes 1968, 186; Wolin 2004, 238–243). Accordingly, the social contract is importantly a ‘linguistic contract’ that binds all parties to ‘general names agreed upon’ (Peters 1979, 125; Hobbes 1968, 111). Through Thucydides and Hobbes, we can identify a line of thinking that sees politics as a contestation over the use of language, which is based on shared conventions and norms. Thus understood, politics is not a collective quest for the true nature of our being or an epistemological exercise in pursuit of true knowledge. Rather, politics is about humans living with one another by finding a shared language to communicate with one another on matters that affect them all. Truth is in that sense contingent on what is being said as opposed to setting the standard for it. In other words, truth is the embodiment of shareability among us. While truth as such ensures the viability of a political entity, truth by no means represents a normative standard to adjudicate among contesting actors in what they say, let alone in what they do. During Thucydides’ times, ancient China was also experiencing a tumultuous time as the ruling Zhou dynasty deteriorated into the period of the Warring States (481–221 BCE). This was when the rulers of Zhou no longer presided over the territories brought under its control through conquest. Instead of professing allegiance to the Zhou royalty, the lords of these territories became kings themselves to rule over their own land. The period was one marked by endless military campaigns as each of the seven major states aimed to conquer the rest (Lewis 1999). Yet, the period was also known for its intellectual vibrancy as different thinkers challenged the restoring of order among these warring states – including offering ideas and advice to rulers on good governance. Among these thinkers was Confucius (551–479 BCE). His thought, which came to be known as Confucianism, went on to become the state ideology of China from the Han dynasty (206 BCE–222 CE) until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911 when China became a republic. The founding text of Confucianism was the Analects, which is a collection of dialogues between Confucius and his students as recorded by them. One key concept Confucius advanced is the ‘rectification of names’. Though the term only appears in one exchange in the Analects, it is considered a major aspect of Confucius’ thought. Generations of Confucian scholars from past and present, including Western academics, have debated over its interpretation (Makeham 2003). The passage in question reads as follows: Zi Lu said: ‘The monarch of the state of Wei wants you to govern the country, what is the first thing you plan on doing?’ Confucius said: ‘First it is necessary to rectify the names.’Zi Lu said: ‘Is that really what has to be done? You are being too pedantic, aren’t you now? How will you rectify these names?’Confucius said: ‘Zhong You, you are too unrefined. A gentleman, faced with a matter that he does not understand, takes a skeptical attitude. If names are not correct, one cannot speak smoothly and reasonably, and if one cannot speak smoothly and reasonably, affairs cannot be managed successfully. If affairs cannot be managed successfully, rites and music will not be conducted. If rites and music are not conducted, punishments will not be suitable. And if punishments are not suitable, the common people will not know what to do. So, when the gentleman uses names, it is necessary to be able to speak so that people understand. If one can say it, one can definitely do it. A gentleman should not be careless with words’ (Analects 13:3 in Cao 2016, 148). This translation is offered by the contemporary philosopher Cao Feng. As Cao notes, the passage is what started the whole debate over ‘exactly what kind of names did Confucius... wish to rectify’ (Cao 2016, 148). Of the three major groups of interpretation examined by Cao, beginning with classical Confucian scholarship, one is arguably the most influential and certainly most pertinent to the issue of language and politics. This is the interpretation that was first associated with the Neo-Confucian master, Zhu Xi (1130–1200), who argued that the ‘rectification of names is simply the rectification of politics’ (Cao 2016, 149). Within this interpretive framework, rectification has the dual functions of correction and prescription by ensuring that predetermined hierarchical roles are strictly adhered to through following ‘the system of rites and propriety’ (Cao 2016, 151). In addition, the rectification of names entails ‘using names to rectify actuality’ (Cao 2016, 151). Yet Cao rejects this whole body of interpretive works by arguing that these were ideas developed later. Instead, Cao suggests the following: The original meaning of Confucius’ rectification of names may, then, be quite simple. Confucius did not mean to establish a concrete, normative system of “names”; rather, Confucius was simply the first person in history to realize or remark upon the importance of language in politics. As a politician, he noticed and foresaw the impact that the indeterminacy, ambiguity, and arbitrariness of names would have on politics. Confucius recognized the political consequences of language’s not accurately expressing meaning or not being accurately received by people. He realized the great role that names, as a means of distinguishing right and wrong and establishing norms, could play in society and politics (Cao 2016, 168). Scholarly debates aside, Cao’s view has the advantage of identifying an interpretation of this controversial exchange in the Analects that enables its readers to extrapolate from it the observation that the meaning of words depends as much on their users as on their interpreters; neither of which can be predetermined. Accordingly, a good ruler is someone who can speak without ambiguity to his subjects and make good his words through actions. Stated differently, Cao’s view on what concerned Confucius then, who was living through times of protracted political upheaval, is that language is an indispensable political tool for those in power and can be deployed by both good and bad rulers alike. To sum up, this historical survey shows that politics as a war of words is by no means a distinctive marker of contemporary politics nor the Western world. Be it ancient or current, east or west, language is subject to manipulation to serve political purposes and when there is an outright war of words that defies existing norms, it is indicative of a political situation in which people no longer share a language and truth becomes irrelevant. Accordingly, political order entails stability in language use. Truth and Politics As previously noted, current use of the term post-truth as an adjective to the term ‘politics’ suggests that once there was a time when politics aligned with truth. Indeed, if we start with Plato’s Republic as the key founding text of Western political thought, we see that the ideal polis (city-state of ancient Greece) is where truth and politics converge, and justice is achieved. Written around 380 BCE when Athens was still coping with its defeat by the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, the Republic is a defence of the rule of the ‘philosopher king’, defined as someone who is ‘guided by the truth’ and is ‘always and in every way’ in pursuit of the truth (Plato 1974, 490a). For Plato, truth converges with virtues and hence, letting the philosopher take charge of politics is to let the wisest and the most virtuous lead the less wise and the less virtuous even if it requires compulsion (Plato 1974, 499b). In Plato’s words, ‘…until the philosophers attain power in a city there will be no respite from evil for either city or citizens…’ (Plato 1974, 501e). The uncompromising rule of philosopher-kings is made palatable by the claim that we are all ‘earth- born brothers’ with random mixtures of gold, silver, bronze and iron, but only the gold can rule (Plato 1974, 414–415). Understandably, academic debates over the interpretation of Plato’s Republic revolve around the question of whether truth as attained in philosophy can be realised in politics as action and whether such a connection is even desirable. Without getting into the details of these scholarly exchanges, I suggest that they all share the concern that truth acquired through the rigorous process of philosophical reasoning is not without problem when applied to the real world of living humans. This is because not all humans are philosophers – and indeed, in Plato’s view, not everyone is capable of becoming a philosopher given the protracted and arduous training that one needs to endure to become one. Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), a highly influential political philosopher of the twentieth century, notes that ‘Plato was the first to introduce the division between those who know and do not act and those who act and do not know’ and that such a separation has remained ‘at the root of all theories of domination’ (Arendt 1958, 223, 225). What Arendt points out in this remark is not the gap between theory and practice, but rather that Plato provides the normative ground for those who know the truth to tell those who do not know what to do. Arendt herself took on the challenge of understanding the relationship between truth and politics through her analysis of Nazism and Stalinism. Arendt’s insight, which was controversial when The Origins of Totalitarianism was published in 1951, was to identify Nazism and Stalinism as representative of a new form of political rule – totalitarianism – making it distinct from ‘other forms of political oppression... such as despotism, tyranny and dictatorship’ (Arendt 1973, 460). Arendt defines totalitarianism as a self- contained system of ideas driven by their ‘logic’ and marked by a mode of reasoning called ‘ideological thinking.’ Ideological thinking as such is a distinctive form of political reasoning defined by three characteristics. First, ideological thinking claims to provide a ‘total explanation’ of all historical happenings, encompassing the past, the present, and the future. Second, while ideological thinking is an attempt to account for ‘factual reality’ in its totality, this mode of thinking is paradoxically divorced from reality and experience. This is because experience, being rooted in specificity, is clearly limited in its claim to totality. It follows that as its third characteristic, ideological thinking aims to emancipate thought from the limitation imposed by experience through a ‘specific method of demonstration.’ The method involves arranging facts into an ‘absolutely logical procedure’ that starts from an ‘axiomatically accepted premise’. It is, in short, a ‘process of deduction from a premise’ – which is the only possible movement in the realm of logic that leads to one definitive conclusion. This is how the ‘logicality of ideological thinking’ provides the basis for total explanation and the ‘principle of action’ for totalitarian movement (Arendt 1973, 468–474). Stated differently, totalitarianism is a form of uncompromising idealism that exists in one’s head irrespective of shared reality as experienced. It is the perverse form of what Arendt later refers to as ‘rational truth’, which is the product of the ‘speculative mind’ that belongs to philosophy, mathematics and the sciences. The ‘speculative mind’ is the mind working on its way to generate axioms and theories by relying on the cognitive capacity of the human brain (Arendt 1977, 231). The presence of others has no bearing whatsoever on rational truth. In contrast, ‘factual truth’ is what happens when humans are ‘living and acting together’ (Arendt 1977, 231). Factual truth is therefore particular and temporal by definition. But more importantly, factual truth is ‘political by nature’ because it can only be validated in the context of the human community (Arendt 1977, 238). In other words, factual truth is about humans in their plurality rather than in their singularity. For factual truth to be sustainable, we need what Arendt calls ‘common sense’ – understood as ‘community sense’ (Arendt 1982, 72). There is also another distinction about truth that Arendt makes which is pertinent to understanding how totalitarianism works. The issue is whether the so-called totalitarian ideology is simply an unnecessarily cumbersome way of saying that it is an all-round and polished lie. Here, Arendt calls totalitarian ideology the ‘modern lie’ – in contrast to the ‘traditional lie’. The latter is restricted by two conditions: that it is a lie about the ‘particulars’ and that it deceives only the ‘enemy’ – which means that the liar is not engaged in self- deception. The modern lie, however, involves a ‘complete rearrangement of the whole factual texture’. It also intends to deceive everyone alike, to the extent that those who initiate the lie eventually ‘fall victims to their own falsehood’ (Arendt 1977, 249–254). This distinction between the traditional and modern lie is important. It indicates that not only is totalitarianism a lie, but the lie is in fact too big to fit into the standard meaning of the word. To tell a lie from truth, we need a common standard. In the case of a traditional lie, the common standard is precisely ‘the fabric of factuality’. As such, a lie always appears as a ‘tear’ to that fabric. Yet, modern lies require making a surrogate reality with a completely different context for facts to fit ‘without seam, crack, or fissure, exactly as the facts fitted into their original context’. Arendt notes that as long as those who concoct the surrogate reality are prepared to engage in self- deception to ‘create a semblance of truthfulness’, there is nothing to prevent ‘these new stories, images, and non-facts from becoming an adequate substitute for reality and factuality’ (Arendt 1977, 253–254). Totalitarianism therefore requires a person to stand outside of the system itself in order to make sense of it. Arendt points out that it is futile for us to argue with (for example) a Nazi or a Stalinist on race or class. To confront totalitarianism requires more than just a confrontation with specific facts. It is a more fundamental confrontation between reality as experienced and its total rejection. This means that Nazism and Stalinism are more than radical ways of conducting racial conflict or class struggle. Rather: Totalitarian politics – far from being simply antisemitic or racist or imperialist or communist – use and abuse their own ideological and political elements until the basis of factual reality, from which the ideologies originally derived their propaganda value– the value of struggle, for instance, or the interest conflicts between Jews and their neighbours – have all but disappeared (Arendt 1973, xv). Accordingly: The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist (Arendt 1973, 474). Who then is the ‘ideal subject’ of totalitarianism? Although there is a revival of interest in Arendt’s observation on truth and politics since the onset of post- truth politics, not enough has been said about her reply to the question (Hyvönen 2018; Klinkler 2018; Lee 2019; Zerilli 2020). Yet if we take a look at Arendt’s portrait of this ideal subject, her view is even more pertinent to our current challenge. As a self-contained system of ideas that is detached from experience, totalitarian thinking offers consistency in ways that reality cannot. Arendt notes that this kind of consistency is especially appealing to those who have lost a sense of bearing in the world (Arendt 1973, 353). They constitute what she calls the ‘masses’. The ‘mass man’ is thus a highly isolated and atomised individual, who is ‘obsessed by a desire to escape from reality’ (Arendt 1973, 318, 352). In his ‘essential homelessness’ the mass man can ‘no longer bear its accidental, incomprehensible aspects’ (Arendt 1973, 352). This longing for escape from reality is a ‘verdict against the world’ in which one is ‘forced to live’ but ‘cannot exist’ (Arendt 1973, 352). Such a situation is ripe for the ‘revolt of the masses’ against ‘common sense,’ which is ‘the result of their atomisation, of their loss of social status’ and with it, the ‘whole sector of communal relationships in whose framework common sense makes sense’ (Arendt 1973, 352). In short, the masses are people who are considered to be ‘superfluous or can be spared … [who] cannot be integrated into any organisation based on common interest’ (Arendt 1973, 311). Whether one agrees with Arendt’s analysis of the social conditions in the interwar years that led to the formation of the ‘masses’, her portrait of the ‘mass man’ is a powerful account of what can happen to an individual who has become disposable to the society that they used to belong to. Hand in hand with this phenomenon is indeed the collapse of ‘common sense’ that leaves the dislodged individual scrambling for reconnection. By offering the masses a substitute reality validated by the ‘logic of an idea’ rather than by experience, totalitarianism makes it possible for them to live in a world where there is no condition of plurality. Between ‘facing the anarchic growth and total arbitrariness of decay’ and ‘bowing down before the most rigid, fantastically fictitious consistency of an ideology’, the masses will likely ‘choose the latter’ (Arendt 1973, 352). A world created by ideology, then, is more attractive to the masses not because ‘they are stupid and wicked, but because in the general disaster this escape grants them a minimum of self- respect’ by conjuring up ‘a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself’ (Arendt 1973, 353). Moreover, it is precisely this ability to guarantee consistency that makes it possible for the leaders of totalitarian movements to demand ‘total, unrestricted, unconditional and unalterable loyalty of the individual member’ (Arendt 1973, 323). While this chapter is not a study of the social factors that led to specific contemporary developments such as the result of the Brexit referendum or the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Arendt’s ‘mass man’ seem to have found their counterparts among the supporters of Brexit and Trumpism. Studies of voters’ profiles in both events point to a disproportionate share of supporters from white male lower income backgrounds without university educations. These are individuals who have either already lost their jobs to globalisation or who are at high risk of losing their job with very little capacity to be retrained for the twenty-first century market economy of advanced industrialised states (BBC 2016; Pew Research Center 2018). In short, these displaced workers are part of the tapestry forming the modern equivalent of Arendt’s ‘mass man’ – ready to be the recruits of totalitarianism. Conclusion If we step back to take a more comprehensive approach to the relationship between truth and politics, both historically and theoretically, it is not so obvious that 2016 is a defining moment. From ancient China and ancient Greece to our so-called post-truth age, the indeterminacy of language appears to be a persistent political challenge. Language is always open to manipulation by its users to serve power. Nonetheless, the tendency these days is to single out the ubiquity of social media and the proliferation of Internet platforms as the incubator for the countless cyberwars of words that in turn fuel the real world of politics. In this context, language is no longer the conveyor of objective facts and accurate information, but rather the medium for expressing subjective opinions and feelings, as captured by the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of the term ‘post-truth politics’. In contrast, the historical approach used in this chapter shows that it is in fact too easy to point the figure at the Internet and digital communication for the political challenge that we face today. What is being suggested here is that with or without the Internet, language, be it used to convey facts or emotions, is simply a tool for communication that humans have invented. While language per se cannot adjudicate what is true or not true, what is right or wrong, it embodies such capacity when language is a shared norm. That shared norm cannot be sustained without some semblance of cohesion in any given community. Any war of words, irrespective of its platform, is indicative of the breakdown of such cohesiveness. Returning to the original context in which the term post-truth politics was first used by Steve Tesich helps to identify the important distinction between truth as the standard for knowledge and truth as the standard for action. The two do not necessarily coincide. Placed in the context of the history of political thought, this distinction is in fact at the heart of Plato’s Republic. Yet when the philosopher as the quintessential bearer of truth becomes king, the polis that he rules over is far from the ideal of a just state that it purports to be. Instead, it is one that is held together by lies and coercion. What Arendt reveals through her study of Nazism and Stalinism is that it is dangerous for the kind of truth that philosophy generates – ‘rational truth’ – to become the guide to politics. Politics guided by rational truth can only be uncompromising and follows a logic of its own that cannot afford the ambiguity and indeterminacy of reality as lived experiences of humans. A world of post-truth politics can be an opportunity for a new kind of politics if it is indeed about dismantling the idea that truth is the ideal that politics should strive for. But as it stands, the post-truth politics of today is more about invoking a past that never exists to judge the presence as a crisis in naming when the real crisis is about rebuilding a shared space that has room for all – be they of the left, right or centre; cosmopolitan or parochial; civic-minded or self-centred; liberal-minded or bigoted. Politics is and always will be about striving for that space, without which no human can thrive. References Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1973. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Arendt, Hannah. 1977. “Truth and Politics.” In Between Past and Future, 227–264. New York: Penguin Books. Arendt, Hannah. 1982. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, edited by Ronald Beiner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. British Broadcasting Corporation. 2016. “Brexit vote: The breakdown.” BBC News, December 7, 2016. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38227674 Cao, Feng. 2016. “A New Examination of Confucius’ Rectification of Names.” Journal of Chinese Humanities 2: 147–171. https://doi-org.subzero.lib. uoguelph.ca/ doi/ 10.1163/23521341-12340032. Connor, W. Robert. 1984. Thucydides. Princeton: Princeton University Press. de Jonge, Casper C. 2017. “Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Thucydides.” in The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, edited by Sara Forsdyke, Edith Foster, and Ryan Balot. Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780199340385.013.17 https://www-oxfordhandbooks-com.subzero. lib.uoguelph.ca/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199340385.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199340385 Hyvönen, Ari-Elmeri. 2018. “Careless Speech: Conceptualizing Post-Truth Politics.” New Perspectives 26 (3): 31–55. https://www.proquest.com/ scholarly-journals/careless-speech-conceptualizing-post-truth/ docview/2204515132/se-2?accountid=11233. Hobbes, Thomas. 1839–1845. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, edited by Sir William Molesworth. London: John Bohn. Vol. 8. Klinkner, Melanie. 2018. “Reasonable Truth.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 14 (3): 393–99. doi:10.1386/macp.14.3.393_7. Lee, Haiyan. 2019. “When Nothing Is True, Everything Is Possible: On Truth and Power by Way of Socialist Realism.” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 134 (5). Cambridge University Press: 1157–64. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2019.134.5.1157 Lewis, Mark E. 1999. “Warring States Political History.” In The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC, edited by Michael Loewe and Edward Shaughnessy, 587–650. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Makeham, John. 2003. “Zheng ming (Rectification of names).” In RoutledgeCurzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism, edited by Xinzhong Yao. Vol. 2: 813-814. New York: Routledge. Oxford Languages, n. d. “Word of the Year 2016.” Accessed 19 August 2017. https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2016/ Peters, Richard. 1979. Hobbes. Westport: Greenwood Press. Pew Research Center. 2018. “An examination of the 2016 electorate, based on validated voters.” Report, August 9, 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/ politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on- validated-voters/ Plato. 1974. Republic. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett. Tesich, Steve. 1992. “Watergate Syndrome: A Government of Lies.” The Nation: 12-14. January 6/13, 1992. Thucydides. 1972. The Peloponnesian War. Translated by Rex Warner. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. Wolin, Sheldon. 2004. Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Westen Political Thought. Expanded Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Zerilli, Linda M. G. 2020. ‘Fact-Checking and Truth-Telling in an Age of Alternative Facts.’ Le foucaldien 6, no. 1: 2, 1–22. Theresa Man Ling Lee is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Guelph (Canada). Lee is a political theorist who specializes in contemporary political thought. Her research and teaching areas include continental philosophy, Marxism and critical theory, feminism, postmodernism, philosophy of social science, psychoanalysis, multiculturalism, human rights, disability studies, modern Chinese political thought and comparative political theory. Lee has published on a wide range of subjects in these areas, including intercultural pedagogy and the challenges of teaching as a person with multiple minority designations in a Canadian university classroom.
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