China now has the world’s largest fleet, alarming its Pacific rival

A SLEEK GREY trimaran that cuts through the water at 27 knots, the Sea Hunter is capable of sailing from San Diego to Tokyo, and back again, on a single tank of diesel—all by itself. The ship is an “autonomous unmanned surface vehicle”—a fancy name for a sailing drone—operated by America’s navy. The air conditioning on board is for the benefit of...

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What does Amy Coney Barrett think?

SPEAKING ON FOX NEWS, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, conveyed the state of the battle to fill the Supreme Court seat of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “We’ve got the votes to confirm Justice Ginsburg’s replacement before the election,” he said. “That’s what’s coming.” Mr Graham had promised in 2016 to await election results...

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Democrats are doing less badly among rural voters

TWO MEN chuckle while hammering metal posts beside a road in Cresco, a sleepy town in northern Iowa. These will support the 70th Trump-Pence door-sized “barn sign” they have put up in Howard County in past weeks. Already they have erected ten times more signs and flags than four years ago, says Neil Shaffer, Republican county chairman, as he twists...

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Hope turned out black voters for Barack Obama

IT WAS INTERESTING to recall, while Lexington was observing some canvassing of black North Carolinians last week, that only three months previously America had been convulsed by the biggest racial-justice protests since the 1960s. On the doorsteps of poor black neighbourhoods in Greenville and the countryside east of the city, nobody raised them. Nor...

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The knife fight over Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement

THE PARTIES to a civil war almost never agree on why it began—and the parties to America’s decades-old fight for control of the Supreme Court are no different. For Republicans, the cause of the conflict is a Democratic Party that has tried to block conservative justices, starting with Robert Bork’s failed nomination in 1987, by underhand means. In...

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Global warming and the presidential election

THIS WEEK America’s oldest magazine offered its first-ever presidential endorsement. “We do not do this lightly,” said Scientific American, in explaining its decision to come out for Joe Biden. But what choice did it have? The country is gripped by two science-related catastrophes, a global pandemic and global warming. Donald Trump downplays the first...

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Assessing Donald Trump’s use of the Homeland Security department

GEORGE W. BUSH and Barack Obama each had three secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in their eight years in office—two Senate-confirmed, and an acting secretary between. In less than four years, Donald Trump has had five. The last Senate-confirmed secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, resigned in April 2019. Mr Trump reportedly told her she...

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The virus and America’s resort towns

SUN VALLEY, the remote and idyllic swathe of land sandwiched among the mountains of central Idaho, is one of the better places to see out a pandemic. America’s first ski resort, as the place styles itself, has drawn those seeking an alpine retreat since Ernest Hemingway, an author and outdoorsman, first decamped to the town of Ketchum in the 1930s....

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Reports that the president’s campaign faces a crisis are exaggerated

SCENTING BLOOD, Donald Trump’s detractors have leapt on the news that his campaign has run down its huge cash reserves with gusto. After the New York Times reported last week that the campaign had ripped through $800m in the 18 months to July, headline-writers jostled to predict the serially indebted president was headed for yet another “cash crunch”....

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Why is interest growing in America’s black colleges and universities?

SIX MONTHS ago prospects looked dire for many historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs): around 100 institutions, mostly in the South, which together boast 290,000 students. A few stars in the sector dazzled, such as Howard University in Washington (where both Kamala Harris and the actor Chadwick Boseman studied) or Morehouse in Georgia....

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