7 stories to know: Hunter Biden's trial, marriage isn't magic, and touring the Dark Ages

“7 stories to know” is a new Monday series showcasing stories that may have been ignored in the crush of news over the past few weeks, and stories that have continued to evolve over the weekend. Expect to read coverage about health, science, and climate that frequently take second chair to what’s happening at the top of the page, plus information from local sources that the national media may have overlooked.

1. Republicans are really hoping that Hunter Biden’s trial will distract from their criminal nominee

Jury selection begins Monday in Hunter Biden’s trial for three felony indictments all related to his purchase of a gun while allegedly making false claims to the dealer and on his federal firearms application. And Fox News will begin continuous live coverage of trial proceedings, including the jury selection. 

The trial dominates the top of Fox News’ homepage, with multiple front page stories. It is also currently on the front page of The New York Times and Washington Post, and the Post is even providing live updates. But for Fox and other conservative outlets, this trial holds a special significance: They hope it will distract from Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to deceive the public and protect his 2016 campaign.

As the Post points out at the beginning of its coverage, there’s a fundamental difference between these two trials over paperwork “because one defendant is seeking the presidency and the other is a private citizen.”

That doesn’t mean Republicans aren’t going to hop on every nugget of information that emerges from the trial to swoon over how devastating it is both for Hunter Biden and for President Joe Biden.

CNN runs through the basics of the charges of Hunter Biden’s case. It also notes that, unlike the Trump case, the potential sentencing is much more serious. Should Hunter Biden be found guilty, Judge Maryellen Noreika could sentence him to as many as 25 years in federal prison, even if that is unlikely.

A year ago, the gun charges were to be wiped from the record as part of a plea deal between Hunter Biden and U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Delaware prosecutor appointed by Trump. However, that deal fell apart after Noreika—also appointed by Trump—expressed concerns that ultimately resulted in the deal being withdrawn.

On Sunday, Norieka blocked a key piece of evidence that Hunter Biden’s legal team had hoped to use in his defense. The judge also granted a request from Weiss to block a defense expert witness from appearing.

The blocked evidence is reportedly an altered version of the form that Hunter Biden filled out in 2018, which the defense believes is exculpatory and shows that the form was changed at a later date.

Unlike Trump’s trial in New York, in front of a judge and prosecuted by an attorney who had nothing to do with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden actually is being tried before a Trump-appointed judge by a Trump-appointed prosecutor.

Despite the way that Republicans are hoping to use this trial to tarnish Joe Biden, the president has not shied away from spending time with his son and has repeatedly expressed pride in his son and made it clear he supports him as this trial begins.

2. After 20 years, there’s no sign that legal same-sex marriage causes harm

Some stories can be summed up with one classic phrase: “Well, duh!”

That’s certainly the case with this story from the Los Angeles Times looking at the societal effects of legalizing same-sex marriage. Researchers at the RAND Corporation must have wanted relief from investigating something dark and dire, and thankfully they found it with this research. Despite claims that same-sex marriage would destroy the American family or House Speaker Mike Johnson’s prediction that it would lead to people marrying their pets, the apocalypse remains on hold.

“If there were negative consequences in the last 20 years of the decision to legalize marriage for same-sex couples, no one has yet been able to measure them,” researcher Benjamin Karney told the Times.

Not only were there no negative consequences, there were plenty of positive results—including one that might finally shut up a few of the doomsayers.

The headline from our new analysis is no negative impacts and some positive ones.

We see an increase in marriage, and that increase is driven not just by newly marrying same-sex couples, but also by an increase in marriage among different-sex couples. That was a bit surprising to us.

Well, duh.

3. Measuring cities by parks and recreation

There are many different ways to measure cities, from size to diversity to who has the best toasted ravioli (answer: St. Louis, and scoff all you want—they’re delicious). But this Axios article may have the best way to measure any city’s bragging rights: Who has the best parks?

The survey by the Trust for Public Land doesn’t just look at acreage and quality of greenspace: It also considers accessibility. After all, what good is a fantastic park if the space is located somewhere hard to reach, or in an area that lacks public transportation?

Unsurprisingly, Washington, D.C., tops the list with great parks and good access. But people may be surprised to find Minneapolis-St. Paul right on the heels of the nation’s capital. Other surprising locations like Irvine, California, and Arlington, Virginia, are also near the top. Irvine was boosted by its Great Park project, which is bringing 800 more acres of recreational space to the city by transforming an old Marine Corps air station.

While the Trust for Public Land indicated that most cities were increasing their park space and amenities, there are still some laggards. 

Port St. Lucie, Florida, didn’t do badly on acreage, but it came in dead last overall because only 25% of its residents are within walking distance of a park. Black neighborhoods in the city were 72% less likely to have a nearby park than white neighborhoods.

On the other hand, Irving, Texas, scored near the bottom simply for a lack of parks. Only 5% of the space was given over to greenspace and public recreation. That’s three times less than chart-topping cities like Minneapolis.

Check here to find your favorite city’s ParkScore.  

4. Marriage is one of the most important cancer outcome predictors

This is one of those stories where statistics aren’t exactly lying; it’s just easy to draw the wrong conclusion.

An article from the Journal of Clinical Oncology looked at the effect of marital status on patient outcomes in connection to the 10 leading causes of cancer-related death in the United States. What it found is absolute bait for headlines even more deceptive than the one just above.

Married patients were less likely to present with metastatic disease, more likely to receive definitive therapy, and less likely to die as a result of their cancer after adjusting for demographics, stage, and treatment than unmarried patients. These associations remained significant when each individual cancer was analyzed. The benefit associated with marriage was greater in males than females for all outcome measures analyzed. For prostate, breast, colorectal, esophageal, and head/neck cancers, the survival benefit associated with marriage was larger than the published survival benefit of chemotherapy.

That last sentence in particular is just asking to be taken out of context and slammed across the front page of your local tabloid. So let’s get this out of the way quickly: Marriage is not a magical cure for cancer, and simply being married will not allow you to skip the treatment and go straight to recovery.

Go back to the first sentence of that blockquote for the real answer. Married people are more likely to be diagnosed sooner, before cancer has spread to other parts of the body, and more likely to receive treatment. 

Dealing with cancer is, to put it gently, hard as fuck. Chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation treatments can all leave you feeling desperately ill, and that’s on top of whatever the cancer was doing in the first place. It’s unsurprising that having a dedicated partner in this situation—someone to drive you to appointments, pick up medications, and generally see that you get some basic level of home care—represents a huge advantage.

It’s also not surprising to see that men benefit more than women. 

The biggest lesson to be pulled from this isn’t that marriage is magic. It’s that everyone facing cancer needs a caring partner who is willing to put in the energy and effort it takes to stick with someone through the hardest time in their life.

5. Using AI to fight conspiracy theories rather than create them

By now, everyone is familiar with how easy it is to spread conspiracies through social media, and … hang on a second.

Me: Hey there, ChatGPT. Create a new conspiracy theory, please.

ChatGPT: A new theory suggests that smart garden tools, such as automated sprinklers and robotic lawnmowers, are secretly gathering data on homeowners' habits and preferences. The collected information is allegedly sent to large corporations and governments to influence consumer behavior and monitor private lives. Proponents of this theory claim that these devices, under the guise of convenience, are part of a broader scheme to control and surveil the public.

Wait … are we sure that’s not a real thing? Anyway, a preprint paper from a trio of research psychologists indicates that AI can do more than just speed up the propagation of conspiracy theories. It could also be employed to bring people back to reality.

Here, we raise the possibility that previous attempts to correct conspiracy beliefs have been unsuccessful merely because they failed to deliver counterevidence that was sufficiently compelling and tailored to each believer’s specific conspiracy theory (which vary dramatically from believer to believer). To evaluate this possibility, we leverage recent developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver well-argued, person-specific debunks to a total of 15N= 2,190 conspiracy theory believers.

Participants in the study went through three rounds of chats with an AI debunker based on GPT-4 Turbo. The results showed that “conversation with the AI reduced belief in conspiracy theories by roughly 20%.”

It’s unclear exactly what it means to be 20% less sure that smart garden tools are coming to get you, or that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. But if it’s the difference between quietly grumbling at home and shopping for an additional AR-15, maybe it’s enough.

6. New antibiotic treats tough infections but spares gut biota

Researchers have developed a new antibiotic, lolamicin, that targets notoriously antibiotic-resistant gram-negative bacteria. That wouldn’t be that unusual. Several dozen new antibiotics are tested each year, though only 12 have become available for broad use since 2017. 

What makes lolamicin special is that it can tackle infections elsewhere in the body while sparing the beneficial microbes in the gut microbiome. As a new paper in Nature explains, lolamicin has demonstrated efficacy against an astonishing 130 multidrug-resistant bacterial strains and proved effective in mouse models of pneumonia and sepsis. 

But the ability to avoid disrupting the gut flora may be the most exciting feature. This not only avoids issues like follow-up infections with Clostridioides, which can happen when gut bacteria are wiped out by other antibiotics, but it should also mean that treating an infection doesn’t lead to weeks of discomfort.

7. Were the Dark Ages really darker than the Roman Empire?

I haven’t made it to London in almost 25 years, which is a pretty good reason that I’ve never hired J. Draper to guide me through the city. But if I had the time and money, I certainly would. 

Fortunately, I do have the internet, so I’ve been able to follow Draper around the city as they dig deep into the history of the London area and how events tie into history elsewhere. Often those videos are dedicated to small neighborhoods or even individual homes. But this one sums up a whole empire, and the thousand years that followed.

Campaign Action