Новости за 08.03.2022

As displaced Ukrainians continue to pour out of their besieged country, which has become a theater of war since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full invasion late last month, observers in the United States have wondered whether a significant number of refugees could end up here, in keeping with our well-established—though far from equitable—reputation as a haven for the globally wretched. The extent to and manner in which a wave of Ukrainian refugees may reach U.S. shores depends on a number of still open questions... Читать дальше...

Since Russian forces launched the invasion of Ukraine in the early hours of February 24, more than two million people have already fled the country seeking refuge as the Russians target civilians. The United Nations estimates up to four million people may flee Ukraine, creating the largest refugee crisis since World War II.  At the Romanian border, Isaccea, a town of about 5,000, is taking in thousands of refugees. Eight Ukrainians tell the story of their experience and their escape to safety.

Two years ago, as Joe Biden’s campaign pulled far ahead in the presidential primary and the United States settled into a lockdown to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, I felt fairly certain about one thing: The global pandemic we were about to live through would surely make a powerful case for Medicare for All. Early reports had begun rolling in about mass layoffs, which seemed poised to drive up the rate of uninsurance from the already high baseline of around 30 million people. Pricey... Читать дальше...

Just as there are von Neumann machines and von Neumann algebras, there are von Neumann anecdotes. Here’s a well-worn favorite. Late in the 1940s, years after he left Hungary for the United States and became a lionized mathematician, John von Neumann met a group of Rand Corporation scientists who wanted to use a computer he’d helped design. They had a particular problem to solve, and it was—as they explained using blackboards and graphs—beyond the capacity of von Neumann’s computer at the moment. Читать дальше...

As Democrats across the country warn about the delicate state of American democracy and the importance of voting for candidates who will protect voting rights, the chair of the umbrella committee for Democratic secretaries of state has found herself in the most important and serious campaign of her career.

When President-elect Barack Obama was preparing to enter office in the throes of the Great Recession, he faced a momentous decision before he even moved into the White House: How much money would it take to fill the hole Wall Street’s implosion and the collapse of the housing market had blasted through the economy? Christina Romer, then an incoming member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, ran three estimates, and her analysis suggested that a stimulus package should be at least $1.2 trillion... Читать дальше...