The size and shape of our genitalia has been a racist punchline since long before Amy Schumer and Alec Baldwin adopted it. But the joke’s terrifying history might explain why we’re not laughing

More than 95 million years ago, a mighty river system roared through what is now the Moroccan Sahara, providing a home to one of the most unusual river monsters known to science, the predatory dinosaur Spinosaurus

The Louisville cops who killed Breonna Taylor got away with it — reminding us that the system, not individual cops, is what needs fixing.

Though it might sound like more of a gee-whiz factoid, knowing about this metabolic limit is of particular interest for experts whose bread and butter is pushing the limits of human endurance. In particular, says Speakman, it’s “important for things like military ops and other endurance activities where we expect people to perform for long periods at a high level of expenditure.” But it could inform our understanding of other phenomena as well, like how our ancestral roots might be at play. The 2.5 x RMR limit on metabolic scope that endurance athletes hit isn’t that much higher than the metabolic scope limit women hit during pregnancy, which is roughly 2.2 x RMR. These similarities suggest that the amount of extra energy we’ve got left for non-essential functions is rooted in evolution. But that’s a question for future research. In the meantime, Pontzer is open to seeing if it’s possible they missed the mark with their metabolic limit. “I guess it’s a challenge to elite endurance athletes,” Pontzer says in a press release. “Science works when you’re proven wrong. Maybe someone will break through that ceiling some day and show us what we’re missing.”

The family’s garage, trucks and trailer were burned just after 3 a.m. Wednesday. Graffiti on the garage read, “Biden 2020,” “BLM” — shorthand for Black Lives Matter — and the anarchy symbol of an “A” with a circle around it. Two 3 x 5 Trump flags were on the trailer and truck.

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Bellingcat has acquired several months of chat logs from the Patriot Coalition of Oregon, a network of far-right activists.

Gov. Mike Parson postponed an event in St. Louis Wednesday and a debate on Friday after First Lady Teresa Parson tested positive for COVID-19. Later Wednesday, in a brief statement, Parson said he also has tested positive, but was awaiting the results of a second test to confirm that result. “Myself and the first lady are both fine,” Parson said. “I was tested, the preliminary results have come back as a positive result.... Right now, I feel fine, no symptoms of any kind.”

Thousands of students and teachers have become sick with the coronavirus since schools began opening last month, but public health experts have found little evidence that the virus is spreading inside buildings, and the rates of infection are far below what is found in the surrounding communities. This early evidence, experts say, suggests that opening schools may not be as risky as many have feared and could guide administrators as they charter the rest of what is already an unprecedented school year. “Everyone had a fear there would be explosive outbreaks of transmission in the schools. In colleges, there have been. We have to say that, to date, we have not seen those in the younger kids, and that is a really important observation,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

here is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path. The danger is not merely that the 2020 election will bring discord. Those who fear something worse take turbulence and controversy for granted. The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery.

Neither precedent nor principle, nor even electoral consequences, will sway him from his ultimate goal.

The Times spoke to two dozen experts who said decisions made now would spell the difference between a difficult future and something far worse.

Thirty years ago, the philosopher Judith Butler, now 64, published a book that revolutionised popular attitudes on gender. Gender Trouble, the work she is perhaps best known for, introduced ideas of gender as performance. It asked how we define “the category of women” and, as a consequence, who it is that feminism purports to fight for. Today, it is a foundational text on any gender studies reading list, and its arguments have long crossed over from the academy to popular culture. In the three decades since Gender Trouble was published, the world has changed beyond recognition. In 2014, TIME declared a “Transgender Tipping Point”. Butler herself has moved on from that earlier work, writing widely on culture and politics. But disagreements over biological essentialism remain, as evidenced by the tensions over trans rights within the feminist movement. How does Butler, who is Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature at Berkeley,...

The billionaire helped raise $16 million to pay fees of ex-felons so they can register to vote — despite a GOP-led law that functions as a poll tax.

How a fraud and a wacko convinced two centuries of masturbators that jacking off caused blindness, insanity, gout and hairy palms

President Trump on Tuesday extended his administration's ban on training involving race- and sex-based discrimination to include federal contractors, doubling down on an issue to appeal to his base, and white voters in particular.

For some, harsh attack ads are part of a nationwide “QAnon strategy” that the Republican campaign committee appears to be deploying to exploit the fears and paranoia fueled by the bizarre conspiracy cult convinced that the Democrats are working with “deep state” sex traffickers and pedophiles to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidency.

The government overpaid by hundreds of millions for Philips ventilators, says a House investigation spurred by ProPublica reporting. Now that deal is off and Congress is scrutinizing other coronavirus deals made by trade adviser Peter Navarro.

There’s a ticking time bomb when it comes to wild hogs — and the billions in damage they cause. There are about nine million feral hogs in the U.S. And those numbers are ballooning and increasing the estimated $2.5 billion in damage they already cost in the U.S. each year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says.

Markets are known to be future looking and that is exactly, it is doing by introducing water as the new trading commodity. According to a Bloomberg report, Wall Street is about to start trading futures contracts on the state’s water supply. This is the first of its kind in the U.S. and is being created by CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange. This trade is intended at allowing California’s big water consumers — like almond farms and municipalities — to hedge against surging prices and can act as a benchmark that signals how acute water scarcity is becoming in the state and, more broadly, across the globe. The recent fire in California has brought to light that the climate change issue will not stop anytime soon. Apart from California in the US, large parts of Asia and Africa are displaying early signs of scarcity as temperature soars. Almost two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to face water shortages by 2025, according to the CME.