Democrat Ralph Northam won the Virginia’s governor race last night amid a broad sweep for Democrats.

Interesting stories from the elections: Maine expanded Medicaid by ballot initiative; Danica Roem of Virginia became America’s first openly transgender state legislator, defeating an avowed homophobe; Vi Lyles is Charlotte’s first African-American female mayor.

Basically, Democrats are excited about 2018.

In other news, America’s leading “bump stock” manufacturer started reselling the devices yesterday. The Texas shooting won’t affect that much.

Mass shootings in America are claiming more lives today than they have in the last 35 years.

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” Some weeks, certain things bear repeating. Gun control in the States right now is hopeless.

And here’s an attractive cabin where Dutch forest rangers live. (In case you need a little escapism.)

“I hate everyone you hate, was Trump’s message over and over again, and these numbskulls who can’t even tell the differences between an honest man and a crook nudged each other, knowing exactly whom he had in mind.” Charles Simic contributes to a series of essays trying to assess our first year in the tenure of Mr. Trump.

Extremism can be a conscious, rational strategy—when you're trying to out-compete other rebel groups.

During his trip to Korea, Trump tried to make a surprise trip to the DMZ, but was grounded by fog.

Wednesday’s water cooler fact: America's true "fly-over people" live in Virginia, not Kansas.

“In some ways, I’m doing better than ever.” The woman who flipped off Trump lost her job.

The Supreme Court voted unanimously yesterday to permit the execution of a man who doesn’t remember shooting a police officer 32 years ago.

To create a more human AI, "distributed Thompson sampling" best mimics our social interaction and innovation rate.

An armed group in Libya shut down a comic book convention for breach of "morals and modesty."

Ajuan Mance’s great comic "Requiem for a Hot Comb" is about straightening black women's hair.

Kids' YouTube is saturated with trolls, ripoffs, and creepy automation—a kind of "infrastructural violence."

Here’s an amusing animated look at Radiohead’s history and mythos.

"What was needed...was not more communism, but more public-spirited pigs." T.S. Eliot rejects Animal Farm.

“If even a fraction of those $117,000-a-year gigs went to people who looked like L.A. we’d have a much different city. Instead, the film and TV business only serves to exacerbate the divide between rich and poor and between brown and white in this town.” Making a many-pronged case for kicking Hollywood out of Los Angeles. After all, Hollywood doesn’t even like Los Angeles.