From family teas to fancy parties, the best baking treats to see you through the festive season

Yotam Ottolenghi’s orange and saffron shortbread stars. Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian

It’s holiday season soon, a time for winter feasting, for baking Christmas treats. If you want simple and savoury – Jeremy Lee’s definitive soda bread, a smart twist on cheesy straws, or something eye-catching and adventurous such as Justin Gellatly’s monumental croquembouche – you need look no further. From Dan Lepard to Dominique Ansel, Anna Jones to Claire Ptak, Yotam Ottolenghi to Nigel Slater, our experts have your back. There are also crisp shortbread stars, a Christmas pudding, perfect mince pies, Mont Blanc tarts, a luxurious meringue cake, even Anja Dunk’s gingerbread house. Top recipes for a family tea or a posher party. Merry Christmas everyone.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s orange and saffron shortbread stars

Gloriously festive, these fragrant star biscuits are perfect to have on hand for cups of tea over Christmas, and make a great present.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s orange and saffron shortbread stars. Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian

① 新版微信朋友圈评论可以发表情包

② 消费升级，中国18年后解禁日本牛肉

③ 沙特记者卡舒吉被杀案宣判：5人死刑

【热议】微信iOS版出新功能，朋友圈评论可以发表情包了

微信iOS版7.0.9正式版今天迎来更新，支持发消息时可以引用之前的内容。此外，新版本还新增朋友圈自定义表情评论功能，可以用表情评论别人的朋友圈内容了。据悉，安卓最新版也支持该功能。详情>>

【热议】中国18年后解禁日本牛肉，专家称与消费升级有关

12月23日，海关总署和农业农村部发布公告，中国解除日本口蹄疫禁令及对日本30月龄以下剔骨牛肉的禁令。在此之前，受疯牛病影响，中国自2001年起开始禁止进口日本牛肉。专家表示，时隔18年后的解禁是由中国消费升级和对外贸易关系共同助推而成。详情>>

【国际】沙特记者卡舒吉被杀案宣判：5人死刑，3人被判24年监禁

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【时事】孙小果，被判处死刑

12月23日，云南省高级人民法院对孙小果1997年犯强奸罪、强制侮辱妇女罪、故意伤害罪、寻衅滋事罪再审案件依法公开宣判，维持1998年2月一审判决，决定对孙小果执行死刑，剥夺政治权利终身，并处没收个人全部财产。 详情>>

【科技】小红书回应黑产刷量：一经查实严厉处罚

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红板报编辑部

2019.12.23

① 法工委：有建议“同性婚姻合法化”写入民法典

② 诺华抽签送210万美元天价药，引争议

③ 故宫创新纪录，年接待观众超1900万人次

【时事】澳门特别行政区第五任行政长官贺一诚宣誓就职

12月20日是澳门回归祖国20周年。上午，由国家主席习近平监誓，澳门特别行政区第五任行政长官贺一诚宣誓就职。详情>>

【热议】法工委发言人：有意见建议“同性婚姻合法化”写入民法典

12月20日，全国人大常委会法工委发言人岳仲明在第三次记者会上表示，民法典婚姻家庭编草案三次审议稿征求意见过程中，有意见认为，同性婚姻合法化应该写入民法典婚姻家庭编。详情>>

【热议】单价210万美元基因药物免费，诺华抽签送患者天价药引争议

跨国药企诺华旗下的天价基因药物Zolgensma，给脊髓性肌肉萎缩症患儿带来了生的希望，但目前该药物仅在美国获批，其他国家的患者依然求药无门。近日，诺华表示，将以类似彩票形式为美国以外的患者免费供药，这一举措引发了医学伦理上的争议。详情>>

【时事】重大突破，我国成功实现地月精确测量

就在我国成功发射“天琴一号”首颗引力波探测试验星前夕，天琴团队成功实现了地月距离的激光精确测量，并且获得了月面上全部五个反射镜的回波信号。成为世界上第五个实现地月激光精确测量的国家，也是世界上第三个成功测得全部五个反射镜的国家。 详情>>

【热议】1900万人次，故宫博物院年接待观众数量创新记录

据故宫博物院官方微博消息，2019年12月19日10时47分，随着一名来自浙江省湖州市的杨姓观众从午门检票入院，故宫博物院年接待观众数量首次突破1900万人次。 详情>>

红板报编辑部

2019.12.20

There’s little reason to think 5G frequencies are any more harmful than other types of electromagnetic radiation, like visible light.

Even as carriers around the world race to build 5G networks, some government officials are reaching for the throttle, citing fears that the new generation of wireless technology could pose health risks.

Earlier this year the Portland, Oregon, city council passed a resolution asking the Federal Communications Commission to update its research into potential health risks of 5G. (In 2013, the American Academy of Pediatrics made a similar request to the FCC about its research on cell phone use more generally.) In May, Louisiana’s House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for the state Department of Environment Quality and Department of Health to study the environmental and health effects of 5G. Meanwhile, a few Bay Area towns, including Mill Valley and Sebastopol, want to block carriers from building 5G infrastructure.

“The impending rollout of 5G technology will require the installation of hundreds of thousands of ‘small cell’ sites in neighborhoods and communities throughout the country, and these installations will emit higher-frequency radio waves than previous generations of cellular technology,” US representative Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) wrote in a letter to the FCC echoing concerns about the new technologies involved with 5G.

There are real concerns about the way 5G is being deployed in the US, including security issues, the potential to interfere with weather forecasting systems, and the FCC steamrolling local regulators in the name of accelerating the 5G rollout. But concerns over the potential health impacts of 5G are overblown. If you weren’t worried about prior generations of cellular service causing cancer, 5G doesn’t produce much new to worry about. And you probably didn’t need to be worried before.

Few 5G services will use higher frequencies in the near term, and there’s little reason to think these frequencies are any more harmful than other types of electromagnetic radiation such as visible light.

Most concerns about health impacts from 5G stem from millimeter-wave technology, high-frequency radio waves that are supposed to deliver much faster speeds. The catch is that millimeter-wave transmissions are far less reliable at long distances than transmissions using the lower frequencies that mobile carriers have traditionally used. To provide reliable, ubiquitous 5G service over millimeter-wave frequencies, carriers will need a larger number of smaller access points.

That’s led to two fears: That the effects of millimeter-wave signals might be more dangerous than traditional frequencies; and that the larger number of access points, some potentially much closer to people’s homes, might expose people to more radiation than 4G services.

The WIRED Guide to 5G

But millimeter waves aren’t the only, or even the main, way that carriers will deliver 5G service. T-Mobile offers the most widespread 5G service available today. But it uses a band of low frequencies originally used for broadcast television. Sprint, meanwhile, repurposed some of the “mid-band” spectrum it uses for 4G to provide 5G. Verizon and AT&T both offer millimeter-wave-based services, but they’re only available in a handful of locations. The wireless industry is focused more on using mid- and low-band frequencies for 5G, because deploying a massive number of millimeter-wave access points will be time-consuming and expensive. In other words, 5G will continue using the same radio frequencies that have been used for decades for broadcast radio and television, satellite communications, mobile services, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

Even when carriers roll out more millimeter-wave coverage, you still won’t need to worry much. Radio waves, visible light, and ultraviolet light are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The higher-frequency parts of the spectrum, including x-rays and gamma rays, are what’s known as “ionizing radiation.” This is the scary kind of radiation. It can break molecular bonds and cause cancer. Millimeter waves and other radio waves, along with visible light, are considered non-ionizing, meaning they don’t break molecular bonds. They are higher frequency than traditional broadcast frequencies, but they’re still below the frequency of visible light and far below ionizing radiation such as shortwave ultraviolet light, x-rays, and gamma rays.

“Calling it 5G and changing the frequency does not change the relevant biological health factor, which is energy,” says Robert DeMott, a toxicologist specializing in risk assessment at the consulting firm Ramboll.

Visible light is a common source of higher-frequency, higher-energy electromagnetic energy than millimeter waves or other mobile phone frequencies, says Eric S. Swanson, professor of nuclear physics at the University of Pittsburgh.

That’s not to say that overexposure to non-ionizing radiation can’t have negative side effects. Electromagnetic energy produces heat, which is the “one and only” health concern posed by radio waves, says DeMott. That position is backed up by decades of research on the biological effects of non-ionizing radiation, including millimeter waves. A paper published in 2005 by the engineering professional organization IEEE’s International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety reviewing more than 1,300 peer-reviewed studies on the biological effects of radio frequencies found “no adverse health effects that were not thermally related.”

To protect against heat-related effects, the FCC and other regulators set limits on how much energy wireless devices can emit. “The normal consensus is that you don’t need to worry about a temperature increase of less than one degree Celsius because our bodies change by one degree Celsius in and of their own activities all the time, even at a cellular level,” DeMott says.

Researchers have yet to find conclusive evidence linking mobile phone use to cancer or other health problems. Still, fears persist, in part because of inconclusive studies. Many critics of 5G and other wireless technologies point to the fact that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified mobile phones as “possibly carcinogenic” in 2011. What they don’t usually mention is that the organization selected that designation, which also applies to coffee and pickled vegetables, after a 2010 study failed to determine whether cell phones posed a cancer risk. A fact sheet on the WHO website dating back to 2002 is more sanguine. “In the area of biological effects and medical applications of non-ionizing radiation approximately 25,000 articles have been published over the past 30 years,” the fact sheet says. “Based on a recent in-depth review of the scientific literature, the WHO concluded that current evidence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. However, some gaps in knowledge about biological effects exist and need further research.”

There are, of course, individual studies that conflict with the scientific consensus that non-ionizing radiation poses health risks beyond heat. A studypublished last year by the National Toxicology Program noted an increased risk of cancer among male rats exposed to low-frequency radio waves. But the report didn’t find a similar risk for female rats, nor for male or female mice. The researchers said the tumors found in male rats were similar to those seen in previous research of heavy cell phone users, but specified that the results shouldn’t be extrapolated to humans.

These sorts of atypical results are to be expected, says Swanson. If you conduct tens of thousands of studies, he explains, you can expect that hundreds will show an increase in cancer or, or some other health concern, by pure chance. That, along with a number of badly designed studies, provide fodder for critics.

But if you want a little more assurance that your phone probably isn’t giving you a tumor, you can take comfort in knowing that, according to statistics published by the National Cancer Institute, the rate of brain cancer in the US actually went down between 1992 and 2016 even as mobile phone use skyrocketed.

Source Link: https://www.wired.com/story/worried-5g-health-effects-dont-be/#intcid=recommendations_default-popular_56a30fa1-0a90-4fa6-8dcb-ba0067edacb6_popular4-1

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Trump is on the precipice of becoming the third president in US history to be impeached – with one near-miss

Donald Trump is on the precipice of becoming the third president in US history to be impeached. It’s an exclusive club that no one wants to join – but who else is in it, and why?

Here’s a look back at the two prior impeachments and a third near-miss case.

Impeachment #1: Andrew Johnson (1868)

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 unexpectedly elevated his vice-president, Johnson, an outspoken white supremacist but strong anti-secessionist, to the White House. With the aftershocks of the civil war manifesting in bloody voter suppression and racially motivated terrorism across the South, Johnson’s presidency was immediately thrown into tumult by demands that the new president take steps to cement the war’s promise of racial equality. But Johnson vetoed civil rights legislation, unilaterally pardoned hundreds of former Confederate leaders and called for the murder of his political enemies.

Johnson was in essence impeached for undermining the cause of racial equality, the historian Brenda Wineapple wrote in her book The Impeachers.

But the bulk of the impeachment clauses against him were predicated on a relatively narrow charge of violating a contemporary “tenure of office” law (repealed soon thereafter) by removing his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who was instrumental in opposing racist attacks on suffrage for former slaves.

Johnson remained in office after being acquitted in the Senate by one vote – a bribed victory, historians have speculated.

Impeachment #2: Bill Clinton (1998)

While the Clinton impeachment is linked in popular memory to his relationship with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky, he was impeached for lying to a grand jury in a separate case, brought by a former Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones.

In response to a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Jones, Clinton denied in a sworn deposition and a later video interview that he had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. That assertion was contradicted by a report submitted to Congress by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who documented Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky in lurid detail.

Impeachment proceedings against Clinton were opened in October 1998, and the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against him, for perjury and obstruction of justice, in December. Two other proposed articles – for abuse of power and perjury a second time – were voted down.

The Republican-led Senate – stronger than today’s, with a 55-seat majority at the time – acquitted Clinton easily on both counts, with the closer case drawing only 50 votes out of 67 needed.

Near-miss: Richard Nixon (1974)

In November 1972, Nixon won re-election by what was then the largest margin of victory in the history of US presidential elections. But five months earlier, a burglary at Democratic offices in the Watergate hotel complex had set in motion a chain of events that would end his presidency.

In his investigation of the burglaries, special prosecutor Archibald Cox uncovered a dirty campaign to attack Nixon’s political opponents, financed by a secret slush fund and directed by Nixon himself. For months, Nixon publicly denied all involvement.

But an impeachment inquiry was opened in October 1973, after Nixon fired the top two officials in the justice department for their refusal to fire Cox. A fight over evidence ensued, including tapes of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations.

In late July 1974, a third of elected Republicans on the House judiciary committee joined Democrats to approve three articles of impeachment, for obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress. The release of a “smoking gun” tape a week later, fixing Nixon at the center of the conspiracy, sealed the president’s fate.

Under pressure from fellow Republicans, Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974, before the full House could vote on impeachment.

Source Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/18/trump-impeachment-history-andrew-johnson-bill-clinton-richard-nixon

①《自然》杂志2019最佳科学图片，中国采蜂人在列

②工信部通报41款侵害用户权益APP，QQ在列

③特朗普成美国史上第三位遭众议院弹劾总统

【热议】《自然》杂志评选2019最佳科学图片，中国采蜂人在列

《自然》杂志发布了2019年度最佳科学图片，黑洞、乌龟胚胎，漂白的海葵，反偷猎组织成员……内容涵盖了天文、海洋、生物、医学等方方面面，还包括了生活在中国南方的傈僳族人冒着生命危险从蜂箱里采集蜂蜜的照片。详情>>

【时事】工信部通报首批41款侵害用户权益行为APP，QQ等在列

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【时事】香港12岁少年被判24个月儿童保护令 成“修例风波”中最年轻被告

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红板报编辑部

2019.12.19

① 中国儿童少年基金会回应春蕾计划资助性别争议

② 操场埋尸案主犯杜少平一审获死刑

③ 2020全国研考21日开考，341万人报名

【热议】春蕾计划被指资助男生，中国儿童少年基金会回应

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【时事】操场埋尸案主犯杜少平一审获死刑

12月17日至18日，湖南省怀化市中级人民法院一审对被告人杜少平等人故意杀人案及其恶势力犯罪集团案件公开审理当庭宣判。被告人杜少平犯故意杀人等罪，数罪并罚，决定执行死刑，剥夺政治权利终身。详情>>

【热议】2020全国硕士研究生招生考试21日开考 341万人报名

据教育部网站消息，2020年全国硕士研究生招生考试将于12月21日至23日举行，报考人数341万人。教育部今日在官网公布2020年全国硕士研究生招生考试违规违法行为举报电话，提醒广大考生知法守法，诚信考试。详情>>

【时事】香港发生严重车祸，已致5死30余伤

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【科技】我国海水稻区域试验种植平均亩产超400公斤

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红板报编辑部

2019.12.18

① 我国第一艘国产航空母舰交付海军

② NASA安静超音速飞机计划2021年首飞

③ 平台回应《庆余年》点播争议：做得不够好

【时事】中俄向联合国安理会提交关于政治解决朝鲜半岛问题的决议草案

外交部发言人耿爽在今天的记者会上表示，中国和俄罗斯共同向联合国安理会提交了关于政治解决朝鲜半岛问题的决议草案。当前半岛形势处于重要敏感时期，安理会必须履行《联合国宪章》赋予的职责，就此采取切实举措。详情>>

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红板报编辑部

2019.12.17