Kamala Harris for president in ’28? How about Gavin Newsom? Who are the early front-runners?

Kamala Harris for president again? How about Gavin Newsom? Sure, it’s early, but at the moment two Californians, Vice President Harris and Gov. Newsom, lead the list of possible 2028 Democratic contenders in a new Emerson College poll.

Harris, who just lost this year’s presidential election to Donald Trump, was the choice of 37% of registered voters. Newsom was second at 7%. The poll was conducted Nov. 20 to 22.

Others in the potential field: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg with 4%; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, 3%; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, 3%; former first lady Michelle Obama, 2%; and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., 2%. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed were undecided.

Newsom, who is term-limited and can’t run for governor in 2026, has been taking several steps that presidential contenders often take.

—The Sacramento Bee

Internet out? It might not be the weather. Copper thieves disrupting Dallas neighborhoods

DALLAS — It doesn’t take a lot of guesswork for Daniel Jackson to figure out why his internet periodically goes out, and the weather has little to do with it.

He’s caught someone at least twice in the alley behind his Glen Oaks neighborhood home standing on a pickup truck and using a pole saw to cut down overhead wire lines. When police arrive hours later, the damage is done, and he and his neighbors brace themselves for outages that last days — sometimes weeks.

“It’s more than just internet because we have neighbors still on landline phones,” said Jackson, 34, who mostly works from home. “Your whole day is affected because one person wanted to be selfish, knock out half of a subdivision because they wanted to steal copper out of the lines for a quick few $100.”

Copper wire theft has been a growing issue in recent years in Dallas and around the nation, sparked by surging copper prices. The wiring is found in various public and private infrastructure, such as street lights, heating and air conditioning systems, and utility lines.

—The Dallas Morning News

A "yoga pill" to end anxiety? Neuroscientists discover a brain circuit that instantly deflates stress

Your heart is racing, your arms are tingling and your breathing is shallow. You're having an anxiety attack. And you're in a public place, to boot. A crowded restaurant, say, or at the office. Not a space where you can comfortably lay on the ground and do some deep breathing exercises to calm yourself.

What if there were a pill that would instead induce that kind of calm breathing for you? That scenario might be possible after a new scientific breakthrough.

Neuroscientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla have identified a brain pathway that instantly deflates anxiety. The new study, which published earlier this week in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, lays out how the aforementioned brain circuit regulates voluntary breathing — meaning conscious breathing as opposed to automatic breathing that happens without your having to think about it — allowing us to slow our breath and calm our mind.

The discovery opens up the potential for the creation of new drugs that would mimic the relaxed state common during breath work, meditation or yoga. Sung Han, senior author of the study, says he'd like to one day see a "yoga pill," as he calls it, on the market to ease anxiety.

—Los Angeles Times

Why is a global treaty on plastic pollution dividing the world?

SEOUL, South Korea — What on earth to do about all the plastic polluting the oceans, the food supply, even our bodies?

That is the question that the delegates from 175 countries are trying to answer this week in Busan, South Korea, where the fifth and final round of negotiations are underway for a United Nations-led treaty that would regulate the full life cycle of plastic, including production, design and disposal.

Many hoped the initiative, which began two years ago, would result in the most consequential environmental accord since the Paris climate agreement in 2016. Yet over the course of four rounds of talks, sharp divisions emerged, stirring concern that the session in Busan will end with a watered-down treaty far removed from those ambitious goals.

The biggest disagreements center on whether the treaty should focus on reducing overall plastic production or whether it is sufficient simply to improve recycling practices. Meanwhile, the commitment of the U.S., which is one of the world's top producers of plastic waste, has been cast into doubt after the outcome of the presidential election.

—Los Angeles Times