We're back: Biden's January 6 speech.

Plus, everything we missed while on break.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 15 minutes.

First, everything we missed.

Aside from one newsletter promoting our latest YouTube video and a New Year's Sunday edition, we have been on vacation since the Friday before Christmas. So let’s quickly run down all the major stories that happened while we were away. But be warned: This was one of the newsiest holiday seasons I can remember. 

Perhaps the biggest domestic news story was the various court challenges related to Donald Trump's 2024 candidacy. The Supreme Court opted not to take up the question of whether Trump is immune from prosecution for actions he was alleged to have taken as president, but it did decide to hear a case about whether Colorado (and other states) can remove him from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That decision came after Maine’s Secretary of State, a Democrat, also ruled that Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court will hear an appeal to the Colorado ruling on February 8th.

There was quite a bit of other news that could impact the 2024 election, too. As Republicans continue to move the impeachment inquiry into President Biden forward, Democrats are now running some counter programming. Last week, House Democrats released a report documenting $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments they allege President Trump received illegally through his various hotels and properties during his time in office. Days earlier, New York Attorney General Letitia James argued in court that Trump should pay $370 million in penalties for decades of alleged business fraud. As Trump maintains a strong standing in the Republican primary, a wave of Republicans in Congress formally endorsed him for president in 2024, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.

Speaking of Congress, the House and Senate produced quite a bit of news while we were away. House Republicans advanced another impeachment inquiry, this one into United States Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for mishandling the southern border. But their majority keeps thinning. Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) submitted his letter of resignation from Congress to serve as president of Youngstown State University. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) announced he is receiving a stem-cell transplant and will recover outside of Washington until February. With Scalise in treatment, Johnson’s resignation, the retirement of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the expulsion of Rep. George Santos (R-NY), Republicans’ 220-213 House majority will be down to 215-213 at the end of the month, leaving them room for just two defections on any vote. 

Relatedly, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) announced she will be seeking re-election in a different, and more conservative, Colorado district. Her Democratic challenger in the district she is leaving had already shattered fundraising records. The House also announced an investigation into Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) over possible campaign finance violations.

House Leader Mike Johnson (R-LA) led a delegation of 60 Republicans to Eagle Pass, Texas, a border town on the front lines of the immigration crisis. In December, the Department of Homeland Security logged the highest monthly number of migrants processed in U.S. history, and Q1 of this fiscal year set a record as well. Yet the states and feds can't agree on what to do: The Justice Department just sued Texas over its new law that empowers local police and judges to deport unauthorized migrants.

There were lots of other odds and ends. In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a bill that would have banned gender-transition surgeries for minors and prohibited transgender girls from high school sports — then, he signed an executive order banning such surgeries for minors. Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned after evidence of plagiarism was revealed in the wake of her testimony on anti-semitism before Congress. Rudy Giuliani filed for bankruptcy. Nikki Haley faced controversy for not mentioning slavery when asked by a New Hampshire voter about the cause of the Civil War. 

Some numbers made headlines, too. The U.S. homicide rate fell 12% from 2022 to 2023. The year-end world population exceeded 8 billion people. A new report found that just 3% of all journalists are Republicans. The United States proposed to G7 ways that they might be able to seize $300 billion in frozen assets from Russia to pay for Ukraine's defense. The U.S. debt surpassed $34 trillion. U.S. weekly jobless claims dropped to 202,000 and the economy added another 216,000 jobs in December. 

The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement. The FDA approved a plan allowing Florida to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. Names of numerous people who had interacted with Jeffrey Epstein were released in court filings, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, retail mogul Les Werner, and the United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew. Federal prosecutors charged Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) with using his influence to help a friend secure a business deal with a Qatari investment fund.

A sixth grader was killed and five others were wounded when a 17-year-old shooter opened fire in an Iowa school. Wayne LaPierre, the longtime head of the NRA, is stepping down for “health reasons” in the wake of a mismanagement of funds scandal. The Supreme Court said it will take up a case that considers whether hospitals receiving Medicare funds are required to provide emergency abortions in states where abortions are banned. President Biden will deliver a State of the Union address on March 7. The family of Ashli Babbitt, the woman shot by police during the January 6 riots, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. government. And the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized in Walter Reed after complications from an elective procedure. The news sparked controversy as the Pentagon had apparently kept the hospitalization secret for three days. 

And that's just all the domestic news we missed. Looking abroad, an estimated 150,000 people had to flee central Gaza after Israel expanded its operations into refugee camps. For the first time, Israeli officials signaled acceptance that the Palestinian Authority could take over Gaza when their invasion ends, and Israel also said it is beginning to withdraw troops. The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier group left the region to head home after months of extra duty in a show of Israeli support. Israel rejected a hostage deal that Hamas sent through Egyptian mediators, and Hamas co-founder Saleh al-Arouri was killed in an explosion in Beirut. Israel’s Supreme Court also struck down Netenyahu’s judicial overhaul that had caused months of protests in the country before Hamas's October 7 attacks.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera said on Sunday that an Israeli strike killed two more of its journalists working in Gaza, bringing the total number of journalists killed in this war to at least 79. Reporter Hamza al-Dahdouh and freelancer Mustafa Thuraya were killed, which the Qatari-owned media network described an “assassination.” Al-Dahdouh and his father are two of the best known reporters in the Arabic-speaking world. Israel said the journalists were killed while traveling in a car with a drone-operating terrorist. 

ISIS claimed credit for a pair of bombings in Iran that killed nearly 100 people. The bombings occurred during a memorial for Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike four years ago. Meanwhile, U.S. airstrikes in Baghdad, Iraq, killed the commander of an Iran-backed militia group. The U.S. Navy destroyed three small Houthi boats whose crews were attempting to hijack a container ship in the Red Sea, which Iran responded to by moving one of its ships into the Red Sea. The shipping giant Maersk stopped cargo transit through the Red Sea until further notice due to those Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacking ships.

And in Ukraine, Russia launched one of its heaviest bombardments of the war so far, hitting a maternity hospital and killing at least 12 Ukrainian civilians. Shortly thereafter, Ukraine and Russia carried out the largest prisoner swap since the beginning of the war.  

In East Asia, an opposition leader in South Korea was stabbed in the neck and a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck Japan. China’s President Xi Jinping said in his New Year’s address that reunification with Taiwan was “inevitable.”

Today's quick hits.

1. Congressional leaders reached an agreement on $1.7 trillion in spending for the 2024 fiscal year, about $100 billion more than the deal made between Joe Biden and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. (The deal)
2. Boeing grounded its 737 Max jets over the weekend after a chunk of an Alaska Airlines plane's fuselage blew off during takeoff on Friday. (The grounding)
3. SpaceX sued the National Labor Relations Board, arguing that it is an unconstitutional agency. (The lawsuit)
4. Israeli military officials said they have dismantled Hamas’s military framework in northern Gaza. The war hit the three-month mark on Sunday. Separately, a top Hezbollah commander was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. (The fighting)
5. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) denied allegations that she punched her ex-husband in a restaurant after police responded to a domestic violence call. (The allegations)

Today's topic.

Biden's January 6 speech. On Friday, President Joe Biden delivered his first campaign speech of 2024 just outside Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, telling Americans that democracy itself hung in the balance heading into the 2024 election. The speech focused heavily on former President Donald Trump, whose name Biden invoked 44 times in the roughly 30 minute address.

Biden delivered the speech in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, just 10 miles from the Valley Forge National Historical Park where George Washington’s troops encamped during the Revolutionary War in the winter of 1777. He opened his speech by telling the story of George Washington's fight for democracy, and arguing that such a fight is before us again today.

"Today, we gather in a new year, some 246 years later, just one day before January 6, a day forever seared in our memory because it was on that day that we nearly lost America, lost it all," Biden said. "Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? This is not rhetorical, academic or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. And it’s what the 2024 election is all about."

During the address, Biden emphasized that January 6 was a product of Trump refusing to accept that he had lost the 2020 election, calling it an "insurrection" and an "attempt to overturn a free and fair election by force and violence."

"A record 81 million people voted for my candidacy and to end his presidency. Trump lost the popular vote by 7 million," he said. "Trump’s claims about the 2020 election never could stand up in court. Trump lost 60 court cases. Sixty. Trump lost the Republican-controlled states. Trump lost before a Trump-appointed judge, and then judges, and Trump lost before the United States Supreme Court. All of it. He lost. Trump lost recount after recount after recount and state after state."

The speech highlighted the ongoing impact of January 6 heading into the 2024 election. 18 states have attempted to remove Trump from the ballot, arguing that he is an insurrectionist and disqualified from office under the 14th Amendment, an argument the Supreme Court is taking up in February. President Trump, too, continues to focus on January 6, recently calling those in prison for their actions that day “hostages” and promising to pardon people who have been convicted if he is re-elected. Nearly 900 people have been convicted in connection to crimes on January 6. 718 have pleaded guilty, including 89 who pleaded guilty to felony charges of assaulting law enforcement officers.

At the same time, a recent WaPo-University of Maryland poll found that nearly a quarter of the country believes the FBI "probably" or "definitely" incited the January 6 attacks, and are strongly divided on the degree to which Trump is responsible for the day's violence.

Today, we're going to break down Biden's first big 2024 campaign speech and some of the commentary around January 6 with views from the right and left, then my take.

What the left is saying.

• The left is troubled by a growing sense that Republicans no longer see January 6 as a stain on Trump’s presidency. 
• Some argue Biden is right to continue focusing on Trump’s role in the riot and think he should make it a central theme of his campaign. 
• Others say Trump is attempting to change the narrative by lying about what January 6 represents to boost his campaign. 

The Washington Post editorial board criticized “dangerous revisionism of Jan. 6” from the right. 

“A Post-University of Maryland poll published this week shows a sizable share of Americans accept lies about the 2020 election and the insurrection that followed on Jan. 6, 2021,” the board wrote. “These are minority views, but that’s cold comfort. Disproportionate numbers of Republicans hold them, showing just how corrosive Mr. Trump’s repeated lies, amplified by a right-wing media echo chamber, have been. The devotion of the GOP base to this alternative history helps explain why Mr. Trump has avoided meaningful accountability, why he is still the front-runner, by far, for the Republican nomination — and how dangerous he could be back in power.”

“It’s simple political realism to acknowledge that the latest polling suggests that efforts to hold Mr. Trump accountable have fallen short. In 2021, 10 House Republicans voted to impeach him, and seven Senate Republicans voted to convict, for inciting the insurrection. But there weren’t enough votes to disqualify Mr. Trump from running again,” the board added. “For now, a mere 46 percent of Americans said Jan. 6 should disqualify Mr. Trump from the presidency and 33 percent said his conduct that day is ‘not relevant.’ In between, 17 percent say Mr. Trump’s actions ‘cast doubts on his fitness for the job but are not disqualifying.’ That segment could decide the election.”

In The Guardian, Margaret Sullivan said Biden’s speech is about “the future of democracy — yet the press seems reluctant to make that clear.”

Biden’s campaign speech was “intended as a warning and a red alert, delivered on the anniversary of the violent January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The date was chosen for good reason – to make the point that more mayhem and more flagrant disregard for the rule of law and fair elections, are just around the corner if Donald Trump is re-elected. Can the political media in America get that reality across? Or will their addiction to ‘horserace’ coverage prevail? So far, the signs aren’t particularly promising,” Sullivan wrote. 

“The mainstream media is not nearly as comfortable with communicating the larger concepts, even when the stakes are this high. Constantly under attack from the right, they fear looking like they are ‘in the tank’ for a particular candidate or party, so they fall back on those traditional building blocks of coverage — numbers, polls, approval ratings. That may have worked in the past, or at least been relatively unobjectionable. Not any more. Speech coverage is only one part of that. Journalists need to get across to voters in day-to-day coverage — between now and November — what a second Trump presidency would mean.”

In The Daily Beast, Anthony L. Fisher wrote “if the Jan. 6 capitol riot had never happened, Trump still attempted a self-coup.”

In the three years since January 6, “MAGA followers have gone through various stages of grief,” Fisher said. “First, they insisted that the rioters — who viciously beat police officers, chanted things like ‘Where’s Nancy?’ and ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ and ransacked the House Speaker’s office — were actually Antifa supersoldiers planting a false flag. Later, Trump cultists adopted the line that ‘the protesters were right to be angry.’”

“Nowadays, the Jan. 6 deadenders have pretty much settled on ‘OK, they were Trump supporters and the riot looked really bad, but it was all an FBI setup,’” Fisher wrote. “So let’s try a counterfactual: Imagine Jan. 6 never happened… Trump still attempted a self-coup, for months, and Jan. 6 was merely the loudest, most frightening, and nationally embarrassing physical manifestation of his attempt to steal the presidency.” Now, “in focusing only on the Jan. 6 riot (and dismissing it as much ado about nothing), while feigning selective blindness to the much more significant treason, contrarian anti-anti-Trumpers are willing accomplices to the Big Lie.”

What the right is saying.

• The right is critical of how Biden and Democrats have sought to use the events of January 6 for political gain. 
• Some say Biden is trying to use January 6 to distract from his failures as president. 
• Others argue Biden’s campaign speech will only serve to boost Trump in the primary — which could be exactly what the Democrats want. 

In American Greatness, Matthew Boose wrote “Biden’s Valley Forge stunt shows the real threat to democracy.”

“Commemorating January 6 with breathless bombast has become an annual tradition for the left, but Biden’s Valley Forge rant was his most aggressive and audacious performance yet,” Boose said. “The president who has unleashed a massive, hostile, utterly unsustainable invasion of the southern border, whose FBI has raided the homes of political opponents and opposition journalists, whose government has censored ‘disinformation’ on the internet, whose party is, at this moment, trying to have Donald Trump jailed and removed from the ballot, portrayed himself as a champion of the Constitution, freedom, and ‘democracy.’ And he did it by tying himself to one of this nation’s greatest heroes.”

“Trump calls his opponents vermin, Biden said, moments before lashing out at 1,200 Americans whom Biden described contemptuously as ‘insurrectionists.’ Biden neglected to mention that the majority of them have been charged with non-violent offenses, but that didn’t stop him from bragging about the collective 840 years in prison they have received,” Boose wrote. “By laying claim to Washington and Valley Forge, Biden is trying to justify his partisan lust for power as a continuation of the Founders’ noble struggle for independence. He is only half-right: democracy is on the ballot, but you won’t find it next to his name.”

In The Washington Examiner, Jeremiah Poff said “Jan. 6 fearmongering won’t help Biden escape his abysmal record.”

“In the face of uncertain and declining reelection hopes, Biden has resorted to painting Trump as an authoritarian fascist who would become the dictator of the United States if given the opportunity to return to the White House,” Poff wrote. “The truth is that Jan. 6, 2021, is not a date that sticks in the heads of swing voters. And despite his best efforts, Biden’s attempts to sound dire warnings about the ‘death of democracy’ have instead provided visuals that make him look like the 20th-century dictator. 

“For all of Biden’s fearmongering about Dictator Trump, the reality is that two weeks after the chaos of the riot, the former president rode Air Force One to Mar-a-Lago and vacated the White House. Painting an apocalyptic image for the future of the nation by using a riot from three years ago isn’t going to save Biden from having to defend his abysmal record with voters. When the polls close on Nov. 5, 2024, the results will not be a referendum on Jan. 6, 2021, but rather a referendum on sky-high inflation, out-of-control living costs, a catastrophic immigration crisis, and chaos overseas.”

On The Erick Erickson Show, Erick Erickson suggested Biden’s speech is part of a strategy that seeks to boost Trump in the GOP primary. 

“In 2022, Democrats were open and bragging about their strategy. In multiple states, Democrats poured money into Republican primaries to elevate Republican candidates tied to Trump who the Democrats thought were the most vulnerable. The Democrats’ strategy worked,” Erickson said. “Democrats are doing the same thing now… the same opinion polling that shows Trump leading also shows that, in a general election, Trump drives Democrat voter turnout arguably more than Republican turnout.”

“Attacking Trump from stage as a threat to democracy will cause a lot of Republican primary voters to circle the wagons around him. They will stand by their man and turn out to show up Biden. It is what Biden wants,” Erickson added. “It is true that Trump incites Democrats and will get them to turn out in November if he is the nominee. It is also true Trump is beating Biden in almost every poll — something Trump did not do in 2016 when he won or in 2020… Biden might want Trump as the nominee, like Clinton in 2016, but voters just might want Trump in November.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism, or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Biden focusing on Trump’s biggest weakness is just smart campaigning.
• To be clear, I think the non-peaceful transfer of power is the biggest stain on Trump’s record.
• As the Biden-Trump rematch becomes increasingly inevitable, be prepared for more and more talk about January 6.

I think it's a smart strategic play by President Biden.

Before and after the 2022 midterms, I actually criticized Biden and Democrats for making "democracy" a central talking point in the election. While I personally think January 6 and Trump's refusal to accept that he lost the election are the most potent points against him and his Republican allies, I wasn't so sure that Americans felt that way. Instead, I argued that abortion is the primary reason Democrats outperformed Republicans in 2022, and that Democrats would be wise to focus solely on that issue during the midterms, given that Trump wasn't on the ballot.

But in 2024, he will be. And what’s more, exit polling from those midterms showed that democracy was actually a major driving force for voters in 2022, even without Trump's name atop the ticket. The vast majority of Republican candidates in competitive races who claimed the 2020 election results were not legitimate lost their elections. AP VoteCast's exit polling of 94,000 voters found that 44% cited the future of democracy as their primary concern, just behind the economy as the most important issues. Of course, plenty of those voters worried about democracy are Republicans who oppose Biden, but it still makes it a potent issue.

As I've said before, for all the good and bad policies from the Trump administration, the thing that will (and should) be in the first paragraph of the historical record of his presidency is that he was in office for the only non-peaceful transfer of power in U.S. history, and he did more to instigate it than to stop it. In my personal opinion, Trump's refusal to accept that he got out-campaigned and lost independent and suburban voters — instead opting for various delusions about how he was robbed — is the greatest blemish on his entire record. Given that, Biden focusing on the worst of Trump's record is a natural and obvious political tack to take.

I don’t think what happened that day is actually very complicated, and I think the focus on which actions might rise to federal crimes actually takes away from the important points. The reality is that Trump’s speech worked hundreds of people up into a violent mob, and despite some nods to peacefully protesting, much of his rhetoric (“fight like hell,” etc.) evoked actual violent action to physically stop the electoral count. Some of his supporters listened to the speech then desecrated Congress, clashed with police, and forced their way into the Capitol. Many followed in like tourists without causing any mayhem, as evidenced by the large proportion of people who were not charged with violent crimes. This was not some well coordinated plan to take over the government, as even the FBI says, despite the fact several groups of extremists (some present on January 6, some not) had grand delusions about violently overthrowing the incoming Biden administration. In court, those extremists have almost universally testified that they believed they were acting on Trump’s orders. To pretend that isn't significant is to be willfully blind.

Others continue to cling to theories about January 6 that have not panned out. The FBI did not coordinate January 6 riots, nor was it some kind of inside job. Conspiracies about people like Ray Epps have not panned out (and yes, I've looked) and while the violence or organization around that day has at times been exaggerated by the left, it has also been greatly downplayed by the right. Many of the people right-wing influencers have alleged were FBI plants or Antifa agitators have actually been arrested and revealed to be genuine Trump supporters in court. I’m sure some FBI informants were present on January 6 and perhaps some Antifa members were too, but the idea the FBI organized or incited the violence is more absurd than the idea that January 6 was a well planned, intricately organized, Trump-led coup. 

Of course, there will be other retorts. Some (like a few writers above) will “whatabout” on Russia collusion conspiracies (not very relevant, but fair) or Hillary Clinton, who also continues to deny that she lost fairly to Trump in 2016. And it's true that Clinton doesn’t do enough to acknowledge her terrible campaign and the reality that she is not a very good politician. But flattening Clinton and Trump's post-election actions is kind of like comparing two kids who threw temper tantrums when one knocked a glass off the table in a fit (Clinton) and the other lit the house on fire (Trump). They just aren't the same.

All this stuff matters to a lot of people, including me, and it especially matters to moderate Republican voters and independents. So for President Biden, who is operating in an environment with terrible poll numbers, deep concerns about his fitness for office, global instability, and poor economic sentiments, focusing on Trump and his actions — rather than his own record or age — makes political sense.

Biden and Trump need each other. They are two candidates whose political fortunes rest almost entirely on the other's biggest weaknesses, which is why Biden criticizes Trump for making 2024 all about himself and his grievances, and then spends an entire 30-minute speech talking almost exclusively about Trump, too.

A lot is going to happen between now and November 2024, but it’s looking increasingly unlikely that anything will take these two candidates off their crash courses for each other. So, in the sequel nobody (and yet, everybody) seems to want, I'd get ready for a lot more rehashing and revisionism around 2020 and January 6. It’ll be up to the rest of us to try to keep our wits about us along the way.

Your questions, answered.

We're skipping the reader question today to give our main story and round-up of news we missed some extra space. Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to my inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

A new low of 28% of U.S. adults say they are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the country, down 7% from the prior low of 35% measured shortly after the January 6 riots in 2021. In 1984, the number of Americans who were satisfied with democracy was as high as 60%, but that number has been on a steady decline since 1992. Among U.S. subgroups, Republicans (17%) are the least likely to say they are satisfied with democracy, while Democrats (38%) are the most likely to say they are satisfied. Typically, partisan voters are more satisfied with democracy when a president from their preferred party is in office. Gallup has the numbers.

Numbers.

• 12 million. The estimated number of Americans who would support violence to restore former President Donald Trump to power, according to an April 2023 study from the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Threats. 
• 13.9%. The percentage of Americans who would support the use of force to achieve any political goals they support.  
• 51%. The percentage of Americans who say Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 threatened democracy, according to a December 2023 poll from Washington Post-University of Maryland.
• -7. The decrease in percentage of Americans who say Joe Biden’s election as president in 2020 was legitimate between 2021 and 2023, according to a December 2023 poll from Washington Post-University of Maryland.
• 14%. The percentage of Republicans who say Trump bears 'a great deal' or 'a good amount' of responsibility for the events of January 6. 
• 86%. The percentage of Democrats who say Trump bears 'a great deal' or 'a good amount' of responsibility for the events of January 6. 

The extras.

• One year ago today we'd recently published the announcement of our reader interviews series.
• The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was the ad in the free edition for The Daily Upside.
• Undue process: 1,023 Tangle readers responded to our poll asking about the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to remove Donald Trump from the state's primary ballot with 68% disagreeing. 14% mostly disagreed, 8% mostly agreed, and 8% agreed. "I believe that the biggest issue is that Trump was denied his due process rights in regard to the charge of insurrection," one respondent said.
• Nothing to do with politics: For "dry January," 10 facts about alcohol consumption.
• Take the poll. What do you think of Biden's latest campaign speech? Let us know!

Have a nice day.

Louise lost touch with her sister Loretta. After a move from California to Ohio, and then another all the way to Japan, it had been 26 years since she had seen her sibling. But when she saw a photo of Loretta, Louise seemed to recognize her, lingering on the features. Louise is a bonobo, a primate that is one of homo sapiens’ closest living relatives. In a study published in December, researchers say they found that bonobos and chimpanzees that see photos of old friends, family members, and groupmates appear to remember them. Christopher Krupenye, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University who co-wrote the study, likened the apes’ reaction to walking past an old high school classmate on the street. “You might do a double take, and it might catch you off guard,” he said. For Krupenye, the results confirm what he and other humans working for years with apes have experienced. “You have this distinct impression when we return that they very clearly seem to recognize you.” The Washington Post has the story.