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Double Take: How Twins Are Unlocking the Molecular Mysteries of Obesity

A susceptibility to gain weight may be written into molecular processes of human cells, according to a research study from Washington State University.

The proof-of-concept study with a set of 22 twins found an epigenetic signature in buccal or cheek cells appearing only for the twins who were obese compared to their thinner siblings. With more research, the findings could lead to a simple cheek swab test for an obesity biomarker and enable earlier prevention methods for a condition that affects 50% of U.S. adults, the researchers said.

“Obesity appears to be more complex than simple consumption of food. Our work indicates there’s a susceptibility for this disease and molecular markers that are changing for it,” said Michael Skinner, a WSU professor of biology and corresponding author of the study published in the journal Epigenetics.

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SciTechDaily.com

Spokane County, Mead school board races generating big campaign cash

Heading into election day this week, school board candidates in Spokane’s surrounding suburbs are raising money not often seen for a local volunteer board.

Though they were once sleepy contests where longtime incumbents often sailed to re-election without a challenger, they have become some of the most hotly contested races. In Eastern Washington, such attention is not focused on Spokane itself but its surrounding suburbs of Mead and Central Valley.

The race between Mead School Board candidates Jaime Stacy and Jennifer Killman has amassed more money than any other school board contest in Washington state this year.

The tens of thousands of dollars in each campaign’s coffers underscore the ideological – if not partisan – tint of the campaign. Stacy is a self-identified progressive focused on diversity and inclusion, while Killman is endorsed by the Spokane GOP and skeptical of the way race is addressed in public schools.

Cornell Clayton, Washington State University political science professor and director of the Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, said the large campaign war chests in Mead and elsewhere in Eastern Washington are an example of how the previously “sleepy endeavor” of a local school board election has become the “current battleground for the culture wars.”

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The Spokesman-Review

American Evangelicals Await the Final Battle in Gaza

For most observers, the war in Gaza is a horrifying escalation of tensions in the Middle East, pitting a heavily armed Israeli state in a self-styled “existential” crusade against a stateless civilian population, bringing a brutal toll of casualties and the prospect of permanent displacement. Yet for many in the American evangelical world, the news out of Gaza is a crucial foretaste of redemption—the prelude to the final battle for earthly power, to be followed by Armageddon and the Rapture.

American evangelicals have long prided themselves on their undeviating support for Israel—but the basis of this alliance is not a standard convergence of diplomatic interests, and it’s certainly not a flourish of faith-based solidarity with the Jews. Instead, it’s a matter of the opportunistic choreographing of the foreordained final act of history.

Donald Trump’s 2016 election helped to move the evangelical right into the vanguard of Republican politics—while Trump brokered key points of contact between American evangelicals and Likud leaders, such as the embassy move and the failed diplomatic framework of the Abraham Accords.

“The reason for Netanyahu to realize how important evangelicals are is clear, since their political influence has done nothing but grow in the last 20 years, especially within Congress,” says Washington State University historian Matthew Avery Sutton, author of American Apocalypse, a study of modern prophecy faith. And as the pronouncements of Hagee and his son make clear, the evangelical right, unlike many other religious Americans, has zero interest in a negotiated settlement to the Israeli occupation. “In their ideal world, there would be no two-state solution, no Palestinian state,” Sutton notes. “The idea is that Jews should control the entire land that King David controlled.”

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The Nation

 

Shining a light on political ads

WSU’s Travis Ridout and others are working to bring more transparency to the sophisticated, evolving advertising campaigns politicians are doing online

With a little more than a year to go until the 2024 general election, voters can expect to see a tsunami of political ads in the coming months.

AdImpact, a firm that tracks ad spending, recently projected political advertising will top $10.2 billion during the 2023-24 election cycle. That’s an increase of 13% compared to 2020, and nearly four times the amount spent in 2016.

Travis Ridout, the director of Washington State University’s School of Politics, Philosophy and Public [Affairs], said much of the spending will go toward digital ads on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

In recent years, campaigns have also begun allocating a larger and larger percentage of their budgets to online video streaming services.

This explosion in digital advertisements is raising concerns among democracy advocates. Because the online platforms are largely unregulated, it’s hard to track who’s paying for the ads, what they’re saying or how they’re trying to influence voters.

Ridout is part of a multiinstitute team of researchers who want to bring more transparency to the issue. They recently received a National Science Foundation grant to help expand their efforts to monitor online political advertising.

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The Lewiston Tribune
Pullman-Moscow Daily News

FTX chatted about $500K in ‘dark money’ support after Sen. Murray fundraiser

Last August, as she was seeking reelection to a sixth term against a well-funded Republican challenger, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray stopped by an intimate political fundraiser at a swanky Washington, D.C., town house. The host of the event benefiting Murray’s campaign was Gabe Bankman-Fried, the younger brother of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

A few months later, Gabe Bankman-Fried, his brother, and other top executives at FTX discussed a $500,000 “dark” money transfer “to help Murray,” according to encrypted chat messages revealed by prosecutors this week at the federal fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried in Manhattan.

Campaign finance experts say there are a range of legal options for wealthy donors to discreetly employ dark money to influence politics and policy. Dark money donors can engage in fundraising conversations with a super PAC that’s supportive of a candidate, rather than a candidate’s direct campaign staff, said Anna Massoglia, editorial and investigations manager at OpenSecrets.

Donations can also be routed to dark money groups that spend on thinly veiled “issue” advertising campaigns, rather than ads that directly urge people to vote for a certain candidate. This money would not be reported as a donation for a candidate to the FEC.

A line campaigns must not cross is a promise of money in exchange for policy change, said Washington State University political science professor Travis Ridout.

Ridout, who reviewed the Signal chats filed in the Bankman-Fried trial at the request of The Seattle Times, said it was difficult to tell what exactly was going on with “Murray folks” and the $500,000.

“One concern that I think would be illegal is a quid pro quo,” Ridout said. “You give this money, presumably a 501(c)(4) gets this money in exchange for you doing something for me. I don’t know if anything like that happened or not.”

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The Seattle Times