Waiting

Out here on the coast, you can sense it when the rain is coming. There’s a slight change in the air, the light, the breeze.

They all converge and at some point will start squeezing moisture out of the heavy ocean atmosphere rolling in from the coast.

Until then we wait on what is to come.

Sort of like the midterm elections. We all know they will arrive as well, but what will they bring?

Is it to be a new season with fresh blooms, hope and renewal?

Or the continuation of the dark stormy seas of the past year, with all the hate, fear, destruction, and elimination of much of what is decent?

The midterms are as yet nine months off. The rains only a few hours away. We have time to prepare for both.

Call it a dress rehearsal. 

HEADLINES:

• ‘Take the vaccine, please,’ a top US health official says in an appeal as measles cases rise (ABC)

• How America Got So Sick (Atlantic)

• 3 Policy Moves Likely to Change Health Care for Older People (NYT)

• Legality of Trump’s $400M private funding for White House ballroom at issue (WP)

• FBI launches missing-person billboards for Nancy Guthrie in Houston (Chron)

• Maxwell refuses to answer questions about Epstein in congressional hearing (BBC)

• Pressure grows on UK PM Starmer as Scottish Labour leader urges him to quit (Al Jazeera)

• China critic and former media tycoon Jimmy Lai is sentenced to 20 years in a Hong Kong security case (AP)

• ICE Has Been Detaining Irish Man With Valid Work Visa for Months (TNR)

• Masks emerge as symbol of Trump’s ICE crackdown and a flashpoint in Congress (AP)

• Trump plans to keep Democratic governors out of traditionally bipartisan meeting (WP)

• The Mark Kelly Case Is Bigger Than It Seems (Atlantic)

• GOP leaders fret as Trump sits out the party’s nastiest primary battles — with Senate control on the line (CNN)

• Congress braces for DHS shutdown as funding bill negotiations stall – US politics live (Guardian)

• A new kind of violent extremism is on the rise, rooted in 19th-century philosophy (WP

• Oil, tariffs and farming: What we still don’t know about US-India trade deal (BBC)

• As US Olympians call for tolerance and LGBTQ rights, some face Trump attacks and online hate (NPR)

• Russia’s Federal Security Service said that the men suspected of shooting one of the country’s most senior military intelligence officers had confessed that they were carrying out orders from the Security Service of Ukraine.(Reuters)

• In the Arctic, the major climate threat of black carbon is overshadowed by geopolitical tensions (AP)

• San Francisco Teachers Walk Out for the First Time Since 1979 (NYT)

• Grant Guidelines for Libraries and Museums Take “Chilling” Political Turn Under Trump (ProPublica)

• China’s ‘micro drama’ industry emerges as jobs lifeline in tough graduate labour market (SCMP)

• Fed on Reams of Cell Data, AI Maps New Neighborhoods in the Brain (Quanta)

• Trump wants AI everywhere in government. See the 1,300 new ways it’s used. (WP)

• Study Finds 98% Recidivism Rate Among Americans Who Burn Mouths On Hot Food (Onion)