Новости за 17.08.2021

The news about how social media companies might handle the resurgence of the Taliban is fragmented and conflicting. According to early reporting, Twitter and Facebook intended to let Taliban representatives use official Afghanistan government accounts on those platforms. But Facebook is also banning the Taliban, calling them a terrorist organization; among its prohibitions are posts supporting the group, which it has a dedicated team monitoring. WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, may follow suit... Читать дальше...

While the United States lost the Afghanistan War a long time ago, the scale of the defeat became undeniable when Kabul fell to the Taliban on Sunday. The Afghan government, built in the awkward image of Western liberal democracies, floundered and collapsed as the Taliban captured one provincial redoubt after another over its steady three-week march to the nation’s capital city. The Afghan military, into which the U.S. poured 20 years of training, funding, and equipment, was unable to halt their advance. Читать дальше...

Former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon, indicted on charges of fraud and money laundering last summer, is plotting a political comeback. And going by his appearance last week at a madcap “cyber symposium” hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, he seems to have his sights set on Brazil. South America’s largest and most populous country could be on the precipice of seeing its 2022 election turned into MAGA’s last stand.

In 1992, an electrician named Robert Joiner sued Monsanto, the immense and powerful agrochemical corporation that had, for many years, manufactured the toxic chemical compounds polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. For more than a decade, Joiner had worked in a Georgia utilities plant, which used dielectric fluid containing PCBs as a coolant. As he tinkered with the machinery, the fluid splashed into his eyes and mouth; sometimes, he was forced to plunge his arms and hands directly into the fluid to make repairs. Читать дальше...

The dust had seemed to settle on questions of school reopenings—one of the most polarizing political debates of the pandemic. In the spring of 2021, as vaccine shots were administered into arms, and with Congress having authorized billions of new funds for K-12 budgets, it seemed that, for the first time, parents, teachers, and staff could breathe a bit easier. Hope was here, and safe in-person learning was in reach.

The term “Stockholm syndrome” comes from a 1973 bank heist that started out perfectly normally. An experienced robber named Jan-Erik Olsson entered Kreditbanken in Norrmalmstorg square, Stockholm, wearing a disguise, and demanded money at gunpoint. Police arrived on the scene quickly, and Olsson reacted by taking four bank employees hostage. In return for their freedom, he demanded three million kronor, a getaway vehicle, weapons, and for his friend Clark Olofsson to be released from prison and brought to the scene. Читать дальше...

Joe Biden delivered Monday’s speech with grim determination as he tried to both take—and deflect—responsibility for the greatest American military debacle since the fall of Saigon.