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Push to ban highly profitable TV drug ads will face strong resistance

Push to ban highly profitable TV drug ads will face strong resistance

The New York Times reports: Since the late 1990s, drug companies have spent tens of billions of dollars on television ads, drumming up demand for their products with cheerful jingles and scenes of dancing patients. Now, some people up for top jobs in the incoming Trump administration are attacking such ads, setting up a clash with a powerful industry that has long had the courts on its side. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for health secretary,…

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The race to translate animal communication into human language

The race to translate animal communication into human language

Arik Kershenbaum writes: In 2025 we will see AI and machine learning leveraged to make real progress in understanding animal communication, answering a question that has puzzled humans as long as we have existed: “What are animals saying to each other?” The recent Coller-Dolittle Prize, offering cash prizes up to half-a-million dollars for scientists who “crack the code” is an indication of a bullish confidence that recent technological developments in machine learning and large language models (LLMs) are placing this…

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With Assad’s fall, Putin’s dream of world domination is turning into a nightmare

With Assad’s fall, Putin’s dream of world domination is turning into a nightmare

Peter Pomerantsev writes: As Bashar al-Assad fell, Russian nationalist military bloggers turned on the Kremlin. “Ten years of our presence,” fumed the “Two Majors” Telegram channel to its more than one million subscribers, “dead Russian soldiers, billions of spent roubles and thousands of tonnes of ammunition, they must be compensated somehow.” Some didn’t shy away from lambasting Vladimir Putin. “The adventure in Syria, initiated by Putin personally, seems to be coming to an end. And it ends ignominiously, like all…

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Syria has been liberated from Russia and Iran – but outsiders still threaten its new freedom

Syria has been liberated from Russia and Iran – but outsiders still threaten its new freedom

Robin Yassin-Kassab writes: The liberation of Syria was long hoped for, but unexpected. Over the past weeks, Syrians have experienced the full range of human emotions, with the exception of boredom. On the first two Assad-free Fridays, millions of celebrants swelled the streets to chant and sing and speak formerly forbidden truths. There was a huge presence of women, who had been less visible during the years of war. Relatives are meeting again and assuaging their pain as hundreds of…

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Assad’s fall is the Middle East’s 1989

Assad’s fall is the Middle East’s 1989

Lina Khatib writes: The spectacularly rapid fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his regime is the Middle East’s 1989. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of 54 years of Assad family rule signals an earthquake in the regional order—with tremors that will be felt for decades to come. Just as 1989 was marked by a series of falling dominoes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and elsewhere, the collapse of the Syrian regime is part of a chain…

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In the post-Assad Middle East, Iran’s loss is Turkey’s gain

In the post-Assad Middle East, Iran’s loss is Turkey’s gain

Vali Nasr writes: Israel’s celebration for all but ending Iran’s presence in the Levant will be cut short by the challenges inherent in facing a Turkish sphere of influence there. An ascendant HTS-led government, once it consolidates power in Syria, will reject Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and will likely not remain neutral on the plight of the Palestinians. Its Sunni Arab links with Palestinians are more organic than those of Iran and Hezbollah. The menace on Israel’s borders…

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How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic

How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic

By Amy Maxmen, December 20, 2024 Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack. But the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy…

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Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media

Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media

The Washington Post reports: For many years, Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to sue the press but often didn’t follow through. When he did, he almost always lost. But Trump’s recent settlement with ABC News and a cascade of lawsuits and other complaints against media entities from him and his allies signal a ramped-up campaign from the president-elect. Together, the action has spurred concerns that his efforts could drastically undermine the institutions tasked with reporting on his coming administration, which Trump…

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Optimism survives even in beleaguered Venezuela

Optimism survives even in beleaguered Venezuela

Anne Applebaum writes: Late last year, Venezuela’s democratic opposition set out to choose, jointly, someone who could challenge Nicolás Maduro, the country’s autocratic president, in an election that was sure to be violent and unfair. Hundreds of thousands of participants from different political parties voted in a primary held across Venezuela and in exile communities abroad. Although they risked harassment and arrest, people donated space in private homes and offices to make the vote possible. Others stood in line for…

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The GOP’s Musk problem

The GOP’s Musk problem

Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes: For almost a decade, conservatives have insisted that we should take Donald Trump seriously, not literally. But how seriously should we take Elon Musk? Musk, who funnelled more than two hundred and seventy million dollars into Trump’s Presidential campaign, has become somewhat ubiquitous in the weeks since the election: co-chairing a budget-cutting advisory commission called DOGE, touring Congress, and vociferously supporting the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, in Germany. Questioned about that last one—about his support…

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John Amaechi: Elon Musk is a ‘capricious, cruel, deviant man who wants without need’

John Amaechi: Elon Musk is a ‘capricious, cruel, deviant man who wants without need’

  John Amaechi has been outspoken in his criticism for Elon Musk and why he is a dangerous individual. He calls out his founder title of Tesla and journey as a grifter. A year ago, Alex Shephard wrote: Elon Musk is evil. While he has mostly made headlines for his incompetence, he has unleashed and legitimized truly heinous forces on Twitter: He has welcomed back some of the world’s most toxic people—Alex Jones, Donald Trump, innumerable Nazis and bigots—and has…

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Trump and allies are waging campaign against media to stifle dissent, experts warn

Trump and allies are waging campaign against media to stifle dissent, experts warn

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump and his allies have started to wage a campaign against media organisations in the US that are critical of the president-elect by launching lawsuits that media experts warn are designed to stifle dissent and potentially put them out of business. The tactic appears to be to aggressively pursue legal action against news organisations – which Trump has long dubbed “enemies of the people” – by asking for often hefty sums in damages. The cases are…

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Inside Aleppo, the city Assad left to rot as a lesson in the price of rising up

Inside Aleppo, the city Assad left to rot as a lesson in the price of rising up

The Guardian reports: Bashar al-Assad’s face has been ripped away from posters at the abandoned checkpoint that separates Sheikh Maqsoud, a neighbourhood in the north of Aleppo, from the rest of the city. No cars dare use the wide boulevard any more because the road is still watched by Kurdish snipers allied to the regime. The units retreated into the warren of bombed and burnt-out buildings when Islamist rebel groups launched an unprecedented attack on the city at the end…

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IDF shoots at Syrian villagers protesting against being blocked from accessing their own farmland

IDF shoots at Syrian villagers protesting against being blocked from accessing their own farmland

The Times of Israel reports: Israeli troops wounded one person after opening fire Friday on demonstrators in southern Syria, with the military saying the soldiers did so to remove “a threat.” According to the local Daraa 24 outlet, residents of towns in the Yarmouk River basin gathered near a former Syrian army post close to the village of Maariya to protest against the IDF presence in Syria. The outlet said the soldiers opened fire in the air to stop the…

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