But the need for new, cleaner technologies is desperate. There are 35,000 deaths from air pollution in Iran every year, according to the government. “When sanctions are imposed and car manufacturers such as Peugeot and Renault leave, we have to fall back on engines produced locally and of subsequently poorer quality,” Iran’s vice-president Issa Kalantari told AFP in October.

If the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is even partially dismantled, 18 million people could become uninsured within a year, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That number could nearly double to 32 million by 2026, the CBO estimated, if the Medicaid expansion is rolled back and subsidies cut to those who paid for insurance through the marketplaces set up under the ACA.

When GOP presidential contender Donald Trump shouts that he’s the “law-and-order candidate,” he is pilfering the line that George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton worked to death during their White House bids. The law-and-order line is heavy with racially coded images of rampant black crime, and this is a surefire way to pander to fearful suburban whites.

His unapologetic race baiting is a big part of what rocket-launched him to the front of the GOP presidential pack and at a couple of points when he slid a bit, launched him right back to the front. The race-baiting is hardly new. The instant a multimillion-dollar settlement was announced in 2014 with the five young African-American and Latino youths falsely convicted and imprisoned for assault and rape of a jogger in New York's Central Park in 1989, Trump loudly ranted against the settlement and did everything possible to whip up another round of racial hysteria over the case.