The Supreme Court
Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The Supreme Court’s new term begins Monday with the focus not on the court’s docket but on the court itself and a future that will be defined by the presidential election.

For the first time in decades, there will be only eight justices, not nine, to begin the new term. Also absent are the kind of big-ticket cases — involving immigration reform, affirmative action, abortion, same-sex marriage and the Affordable Care Act — that in recent years have catapulted the Supreme Court to the fore of American civic life.

Instead, the short-handed court has assembled a docket of more-modest cases — albeit ones that touch on contemporary controversies such as the role of race in criminal justice and politics, free speech and perhaps the treatment of transgender students.

Of far greater consequence is the fate of the court’s ideological balance. And on that question, the court finds itself like the rest of the country: waiting to see what happens on Nov. 8.

It has been […]

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Robert P. Jones (or Robby, as most of his friends and colleagues call him) is the founding CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Jones has earned a reputation as a sterling pollster of religious trends in America and how they affect politics, elections and the social fabric. His work is quoted by dozens of journalists and media. His new book, The End of White Christian America, has been called “quite possibly the most illuminating text for this election year.” The book offers some fascinating insights into the fears of white Christians in this election, as their presence and influence wanes, and why so many have flocked to Donald Trump.

AlterNet met up with Robby Jones in a Manhattan hotel lobby several weeks ago to explore his findings and discuss what they tell us about the election. (Read an excerpt from the book.)

Don Hazen: The best question I have to start with is what does your book mean for understanding Trump? What is the fundamental appeal? People are angry and aggrieved, and how does that translate? 

Robbie Jones: Ironically, Trump does not appear in the book. The Trump thing took off very fast. I was pretty skeptical that Trump was actually going to be able to appeal […]

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Houston Chronicle printing press
Credit: www.britannica.com

Most voters believe news organizations play favorites when it comes to fact-checking candidates’ statements, but this skepticism is much stronger among voters who support Donald Trump than those who back his rival Hillary Clinton.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 29% of all Likely U.S. Voters trust media fact-checking of candidates’ comments. Sixty-two percent (62%) believe instead that news organizations skew the facts to help candidates they support. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Eighty-eight percent (88%) of voters who support Trump in the presidential race believe news organizations skew the facts, while most Clinton backers (59%) trust media fact-checking. Among the supporters of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, sizable majorities also don’t trust media fact-checking.

These findings are no surprise given that voters think it’s far more likely reporters will try to help Clinton than Trump this election season.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls).  Rasmussen Reports updates are also available […]

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Parts of a skeleton found at Lant Street Museum of London Credit: The Independent

Two ancient skeletons unearthed at a cemetery in London may have been of Chinese origin, overturning longstanding assumptions about the history of the Roman Empire and Britain’s capital city.

Using cutting-edge techniques, a team of archaeologists and scientists examined dental enamel samples from over 20 sets of human remains dated from between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD.

Dr Rebecca Redfern, curator of human osteology at the Museum of London, revealed two of the skeletons found at the site in Lant Street, Southwark, had been identified as possibly being of Chinese origin.

“This is absolutely phenomenal. This is the first time in Roman Britain we’ve identified people with Asian ancestry and only the 3rd or 4th in the empire as a whole”, she told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One,

The find challenges the dominance of the traditional view that Roman Britain, and specifically “Londinium” as it was then known, was a […]

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In the centuries to come, history books will likely look back on September 2016 as a major milestone for the world’s climate. At a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide is usually at its minimum, the monthly value failed to drop below 400 parts per million (ppm).

That all but ensures that 2016 will be the year that carbon dioxide officially passed the symbolic 400 ppm mark, never to return below it in our lifetimes, according to scientists.

Because carbon pollution has been increasing since the start of the industrial revolution and has shown no signs of abating, it was more a question of “when” rather than “if” we would cross this threshold. The inevitability doesn’t make it any less significant, though.

September is usually the month when carbon dioxide is at its lowest after a summer of plants growing and sucking it up in the northern hemisphere. As fall wears on, those plants lose their leaves, which in turn decompose, releasing the stored carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. At Mauna Loa Observatory, the world’s marquee site for monitoring […]

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