It is extremely aggravating to remember, but it remains the case that we could at least keep a lid on this thing, and save tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives, by following the same pandemic control strategies experts have been advocating since March. None of that will happen at the federal level until January at the earliest, but individuals, state, and local governments can at least take partial steps to limit the damage.

We know now that the third wave will be worse than the second, which was far worse than the first, when cases peaked at 9.7 per 100,000 on April 7. The twin threads of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 Presidential Election that have cornered the headline market all year were perhaps destined to converge, but the timing couldn’t have come any more conspicuously…

…as the air grows crisp here in Boston and the nation endures an average of 59,000 new cases a day — levels that we have not seen since August — the threat of a “third wave,” or a winter surge, of this virus builds. And we find ourselves once again in limbo, haunted by the ghosts of the spring while steeling ourselves for the resurgence of illness and isolation that might come.

The shame is that the left is portraying all this as partisan when the law and Constitution are clear. Both parties benefit from clear and widely understood election rules before the counting begins. So does the cause of democratic legitimacy, no matter who wins.

…while this decision may not change the result of the 2020 election, its impact is still likely to be felt for years or even decades — assuming that Republicans retain their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. American election law has entered a chaotic new world, one where even the most basic rules are seemingly up for grabs.

While the Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett on Monday night, Justice Brett Kavanaugh handed down a startling opinion that laid out how the Supreme Court could steal the election for Donald Trump. Kavanaugh’s opinion was an assault on the integrity of America’s upcoming election; it was also extraordinarily sloppy, riddled with errors that would make even a traffic court judge blush.

…while Palestinian unity is necessary for a host of reasons, from presenting a unified stance in order to negotiate with Israel to paving the way for critical Palestinian governance reforms, any unity agreement that is effectively sponsored by Turkey is necessarily going to shift power away from Fatah and toward Hamas.

The question that should really concern Israel and its Arab allies, however, is whether they ought to let Turkey and/or Qatar fill the PA’s empty coffers, thereby granting them influence over the PA’s actions. This is also a dilemma for Abbas, who must make a strategic decision that will have significant implications for the PA’s future and the future of any diplomatic solution.

A combination of factors — Turkey’s ambitions in the Middle East, the increased Hamas presence in Istanbul, and the dramatic shift in Israeli-Arab ties that deprives Fatah of financial props and deepens its despair — has raised Turkey’s profile, but how far its role could go is open to question.

Those who are interested in promoting a reformist vision of Islam should challenge the foundations of Salafism within these institutions and movements — not “Islam” as a whole, as Macron did, nor the already stigmatized Muslim minorities who are struggling with racism and discrimination in Western countries… Challenging these institutions and movements will help, not undermine, the debate among Muslims over what Islam is — the debate that will shape the future of Islam.

The priority will be to track down any accomplices or supporters of Mr Paty’s killer. But Mr Macron must not allow his anti-extremism policies to be derailed by psychopathic ideology. He was right to say recently that the challenge is “to fight against those who go off the rails in the name of religion” while protecting other French Muslims.

To imply that France is more culprit than victim — as Erdoğan and some Western critics do — is dishonest and dangerous. France has suffered more from Islamist terrorism than any other European country in the last decade. The great majority of the attacks have had no direct connection with Charlie Hebdo magazine’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Casting a vote is a sacred deed: an expression of faith in tomorrow, in our neighbors’ humanity, God’s image in us all.

For Jews of an earlier America, voting was a sacred privilege. Our immigrant forebears would dress for the polling place as though for shul on Yom Kippur. The responsibility to participate in the electoral process in their new homeland they deemed a holy act. It still is.

Torah is clear that the requirement for civic engagement applies not just to our Jewish communities, but to society writ large.

As the prophet Jeremiah wrote during the exile to Babylonia, we are to engage deeply in the communities where we find ourselves, to build houses and put down roots, and to “seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to God in its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper” (Jeremiah 29: 4-7).

…what does it all mean? Just this: Ice, whether in frozen puddles or as frozen beads mixed in with the regolith, can supply a lunar colony no matter where you decide to build it… In other words, yes, finding abundant ice on the moon really matters. In 2019, Elon Musk talked about putting humans on the moon within two years. NASA says it will take a little longer, but it still foresees settlements in the 2030s.

It’s nice to know that we’ll be able to take a shower when we arrive.

The discovery is not as earth-shattering—or rather, moon-shattering—as the hype suggested: Scientists have detected the presence of water in sunlit parts of the moon’s surface. See? It’s fine… At a time when so many things aren’t fine, it is a comfort to be reminded of something that is.

The accumulated layers of ice could record billions of years of the solar system’s history, almost like tree rings. “Where did Earth’s water come from?” Dr. Hayne said. “That’s still an open question.”

Knowledge of water on the moon “helps us understand the origins of Earth’s water,” he said.