Новости за 19.07.2021

The Biden administration went to war with Facebook late last week, blaming it for the persistent and dangerous anti-vax sentiment gripping a significant chunk of the country. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy blamed “technology platforms” for spreading misinformation, while White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called for more strident social media policies, saying, “You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation.” The president himself was even more direct, saying on Friday that Facebook is “killing people... Читать дальше...

Last Friday, a video went viral of a bemused German driver navigating through floodwaters, laughing at a floating car before realizing that he had lost control himself. It was a lighthearted moment amid flooding that has killed at least 110 in Europe, a devastating drought in Brazil, deadly landslides in India, and heat waves and wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. We are all navigating a climate-changed century in very different vessels. Twenty-one lawmakers from across the world, however, say there’s a better, more collaborative option. Читать дальше...

In a sizable executive order released earlier this month, President Joe Biden asserted his determination to rein in prescription drug prices, higher in the United States than anywhere else on earth. The directives included measures intended to boost competition between insurers, ease generic drug entry into the market, and more. But one dictate received special attention from commentators: the continuation of a Trump-era shift toward facilitating large-scale drug importation from Canada, with... Читать дальше...

Political pundits seem united in their belief that Democrats will struggle to hold the House of Representatives in 2022.

Katie Kitamura’s 2017 novel A Separation tells the story of a woman, a literary translator living in London, who flies off to Greece to track down her estranged husband and ask him for a divorce. For a translator like Kitamura’s unnamed narrator, her husband’s infidelity constitutes both an unforgivable transgression (“Translators are always worried about being faithful to the original”) and the most aesthetic of moral failings. Fidelity is, she reflects, “an impossible task because there are... Читать дальше...