Citizen Cartwright

John Boehner — and everybody else — who hates Ted Cruz

Now that he’s no longer House speaker, Ohio Republican Bohener has “gleefully” released his mute button, says The New York Times, describing Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh.”

“I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life,” Boehner said at Stanford University on Wednesday.

Boehner, who suffered as Cruz wooed rebellious House conservatives into a government shutdown in 2013, saw Cruz as a self-aggrandizer who put himself above the institution of Congress and even the good of his party. To an institutionalist like Boehner, there’s no greater offense, says the Times.

Cruz, on the other hand, saw Boehner as a symbol of Washington deal-making and the standard-bearer for what Cruz deplores as the “Washington cartel,” a much more ominous way of describing the political establishment.

“It was destined to be a nonrelationship forged where Lucifer resides,” says the Times.

The Boehner comments have generated lots of news stories on others' dislike of Cruz, from The Washington Post, Politico and elsewhere.

Zika damage to babies’ brains ‘far worse’ than expected

The scale and severity of prenatal damage from the Zika virus are far worse than past birth defects associated with microcephaly, a condition characterized by a small head and brain abnormalities, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Scans, imaging and autopsies show that Zika eats away at the fetal brain; shrinks or destroys lobes that control thought, vision and other basic functions; and prevents parts of the brain from developing. Liquid often fills the spaces where there’s no brain tissue.

Outbreaks have been reported for the first time in 42 countries and territories since last year, with most in Latin America, according to the World Health Organization.

Health officials say large outbreaks in the United States are unlikely because of widespread use of air conditioning and window screens, as well as disease tracking.

Why we procrastinate — and what we can do to stop

Procrastination usually happens when people fear, dread or have anxiety about an important task awaiting them, says The Washington Post.

Among tips for dealing with it: Forgiving yourself when you’ve procrastinated, ignoring not being in the mood to do the task and just getting started, and breaking the task into very small steps to get a feeling of accomplishment as each easier step is completed.

Also in the news

Divided Syrian city of Aleppo plunges back into war

With Iraq mired in turmoil, some call for splitting it among Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis

New Chinese law restricts 7,000 non-governmental organizations

Supreme Court approves rule change to expand FBI hacking power

Trump’s gender-based attacks on Clinton have a calculated risk

Clinton superdelegates 'feel the Bern' of angry Sanders supporters

Report: End of golden era for investors means trouble for millennials

Report: Gender wage gap has been getting wider and starting sooner than expected

Teen birth rate in U.S. is at all-time low, CDC reports

Former Montana GOP Sen. Conrad Burns, who influenced energy policy, dies at 81

A fifth of TV election ads have been anti-Trump, but he rolls on

About 60,000 TV ads have been critical of Donald Trump in some way, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of data from Kantar Media/CMAG.

Trump has earned 987 of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination and avoid a contested convention, according to a Bloomberg delegate tracker based on Associated Press data. The tracker shows 583 delegates still up for grabs.

It’s Trump’s nomination to lose if he wins Indiana on May 3, says statistician Nate Silver.

It's interesting (to me, anyway) how low the turnout has been in the GOP primaries recently, compared with earlier states.

Whereas 25.6 percent of the voting-eligible population cast a Republican ballot in Wisconsin, an average of only 9.9 percent of eligible voters have done so in the six Northeastern states to vote over the past eight days, Silver says.

Anti-Trump Republicans may be “discouraged,” Silver says.

Clinton’s 'insider’ survival in an ‘outsider’ election year

While voters in both parties share a frustration with the state of the nation’s economy and politics, Republicans blame their own leaders as much as anybody else and are, therefore, more eager for a radical fix, whereas Democrats still believe their elected leaders can bring change from within, says The Washington Post.

The dynamic played out Tuesday beyond the presidential level as well, the Post says.

In two hotly contested Democratic Senate primaries, establishment favorites — Chris Van Hollen in Maryland and Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania — defeated more liberal, insurgent challengers.

1 minute of all-out exercise may equal 45 moderate minutes

Who has time to exercise? Or wants to?

And now headlines, like mine above, say you can get the benefit of a 45-minute workout in just a minute of pushing yourself to the limit.

But it turns out that the whole process takes 10 minutes:

A two-minute warmup on a stationary bicycle, then pedaling as hard as possible for 20 seconds; riding at a very slow pace for two minutes, sprinting all-out again for 20 seconds; recovering with slow riding for another two minutes; pedaling all-out for a final 20 seconds; then cooling down for three minutes.
 
Scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, conducted the study, which is published in the journal PLOS One.

Also in the news

U.N. envoy urges Obama, Putin to save ‘barely alive’ Syria truce, peace process

House Armed Services Committee approves bill to require women to register for draft

After losses, Cruz names Carly Fiorina as running mate, Sanders campaign lays off hundreds

Trump foreign policy speech gets low marks from experts

Former House Speaker Hastert admits sexual abuse, is sentenced to 15 months in prison

Tennessee governor signs ‘religious freedom’ bill for therapists; critics say it's anti-LGBT

Idea to reduce texting while driving: A Textalyzer roadside test

Apple releases apps to help people manage medical conditions including diabetes, depression 

Nearly one in four infants in neonatal intensive care units gets heartburn drugs, despite risks

Vietnam veterans pushing VA to link bladder cancer to toxic herbicide Agent Orange

Trump says he’s the presumptive GOP nominee after sweep

After winning big in all five primaries Tuesday, the mogul probably is just two states away from getting the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination and avoid a contested convention, says Nate Cohn in The New York Times.

As of 10:55 p.m. Tuesday, The Associated Press projected that Donald Trump had won at least 105 delegates, compared with just five for John Kasich and one for Ted Cruz.

And with Tuesday’s wins, Trump has passed Mitt Romney’s popular vote total from four years ago and is on a trajectory that could get him more Republican votes than any presidential candidate in modern history, says Politico.

At a news conference at Trump Tower in New York, Trump said, “I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely."

Clinton wins 4 states; Sanders’ win is the size of Rhode Island

The former secretary of state all but secured the Democratic nomination Tuesday, after winning the Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut and Delaware primaries, say The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Sanders won tiny Rhode Island — the only state where independents could vote in the Democratic contest. The win earned him 13 delegates, and Clinton got 11, according to Associated Press data in The New York Times.

While not mathematically eliminated, the senator from Vermont now faces nearly impossible odds as the nominating contest draws to a close.

Sanders says he’s staying in the race, but in a statement Tuesday night he suggested motives besides winning the nomination, such as shaping the Democratic party’s platform.