Anna Edwards

You can analyze the circus in the House of Representatives in terms of personalities (the bland ambition of Kevin McCarthy colliding with the antic, made-for-television career of Matt Gaetz) or in terms of the nature of the Republican coalition (united only by anti-liberalism and rabble-rousing, and therefore held hostage to the most shameless rabble-rouser).But the substance in the standoff, the posturing over what kind of spending cuts House Republicans should demand or accept, isn’t incidental either. Along with decrepit presidents and creepy deathwatches around senators and Supreme Court justices, chaotic clown-show debates over fiscal policy are part of what you…

On Wednesday morning, two Republicans who hours earlier had toppled Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House made a well-worn trek to a 19th-century brick townhouse a few blocks away from the Capitol and entered the cluttered sanctuary of Stephen K. Bannon’s recording studio.Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida, the instigator of the rebellion, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of seven other Republican defectors, huddled with Mr. Bannon for a morning meeting ahead of a joint appearance on his “War Room” podcast.“Tectonic plate shift here in the imperial capital,” Mr. Bannon told his listeners at showtime, while directing them…

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for being pioneers of the nanoworld. The new laureates discovered and developed quantum dots, semiconductors made of particles squeezed so small that their electrons barely have room to breathe.Semiconductors are crystals that help power our electronics. But while traditional crystals may be quite large at the molecular level, a quantum dot consists of just a few thousand atoms squished into a space just a few nanometers across. The difference in size between a quantum dot and a soccer ball is…

Read the latest updates about Senator Dianne Feinstein’s death and her possible replacement here.Dianne Feinstein, the grande dame of California Democrats who became the mayor of San Francisco after a horrific double assassination at City Hall in 1978 and then gained national stature as an influential voice in the United States Senate for more than 30 years, died early Friday at her home in Washington. She was 90 and the Senate’s oldest member.Her death was confirmed by family members, who did not cite a cause. Ms. Feinstein had returned to the Senate in May, appearing frail and using a wheelchair,…