A new way to think about clean air

A new way to think about clean air

Sarah Zhang writes: When London vanquished cholera in the 19th century, it took not a vaccine, or a drug, but a sewage system. The city’s drinking water was intermingling with human waste, spreading bacteria in one deadly outbreak after another. A new comprehensive network of sewers separated the two. London never experienced a major cholera outbreak after 1866. All that was needed was 318 million bricks, 23 million cubic feet of concrete, and a major reengineering of the urban landscape….

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The top 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes, the Treasury finds

The top 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes, the Treasury finds

The New York Times reports: The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are the nation’s most egregious tax evaders, failing to pay as much as $163 billion in owed taxes per year, according to a new Treasury Department report released on Wednesday. The analysis comes as the Biden administration is pushing lawmakers to embrace its ambitious proposal to beef up the Internal Revenue Service to narrow the “tax gap,” which it estimates amounts to $7 trillion in unpaid taxes over a…

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Twenty meat and dairy firms emit more greenhouse gas than Germany, Britain or France

Twenty meat and dairy firms emit more greenhouse gas than Germany, Britain or France

The Guardian reports: Twenty livestock companies are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than either Germany, Britain or France – and are receiving billions of dollars in financial backing to do so, according to a new report by environmental campaigners. Raising livestock contributes significantly to carbon emissions, with animal agriculture accounting for 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Scientific reports have found that rich countries need huge reductions in meat and dairy consumption to tackle the climate emergency. Stew…

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Packaging generates a lot of waste — now Maine and Oregon want manufacturers to foot the bill for getting rid of it

Packaging generates a lot of waste — now Maine and Oregon want manufacturers to foot the bill for getting rid of it

Packaging for consumer products represents a large share of U.S. solid waste, and barely half of it is recycled. iStock via Getty Images By Jessica Heiges, University of California, Berkeley and Kate O’Neill, University of California, Berkeley Most consumers don’t pay much attention to the packaging that their purchases come in, unless it’s hard to open or the item is really over-wrapped. But packaging accounts for about 28% of U.S. municipal solid waste. Only some 53% of it ends up…

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The next attack on the Affordable Care Act may cost you free preventive health care

The next attack on the Affordable Care Act may cost you free preventive health care

A provision of the Affordable Care Act makes it easier for patients to receive preventive care. Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Digital Vision via Getty Images By Paul Shafer, Boston University and Alex Hoagland, Boston University Many Americans breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in place following its third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision left widely supported policies in place, like ensuring coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, coverage for dependents…

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Mexico’s Supreme Court rules that criminalizing abortion is unconstitutional

Mexico’s Supreme Court rules that criminalizing abortion is unconstitutional

The New York Times reports: Criminalizing abortion is unconstitutional, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, setting a precedent that could lead to legalization of the procedure across this conservative Catholic country of about 130 million people. The unanimous ruling from the nation’s top court follows years of efforts by a growing women’s movement in Mexico that has repeatedly taken to the streets of major cities to demand greater rights and protections. The decision, which opens the door for Mexico to…

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These corporations bankrolled the sponsors of Texas’ abortion ban

These corporations bankrolled the sponsors of Texas’ abortion ban

Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria report: Texas just enacted the nation’s most draconian abortion ban, prohibiting all abortions after six weeks — before many women even know they are pregnant. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Further, the law places a $10,000 bounty on anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion in Texas after six weeks. Private citizens can collect the bounty by filing a lawsuit. The politicians who sponsored Texas’ abortion ban are backed by some…

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More than 200 health journals call for urgent action on climate crisis

More than 200 health journals call for urgent action on climate crisis

The Guardian reports: More than 200 health journals worldwide are publishing an editorial calling on leaders to take emergency action on climate change and to protect health. The British Medical Journal said it is the first time so many publications have come together to make the same statement, reflecting the severity of the situation. Doctors for Extinction Rebellion demonstrate in front of the World Health Organization in Geneva earlier this year. The editorial, which is being published before the UN…

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Hardliners get key posts in new Taliban government

Hardliners get key posts in new Taliban government

BBC News reports: The Taliban have announced an interim government in Afghanistan, declaring the country an “Islamic Emirate”. The new cabinet, entirely male, is made up of senior Taliban figures some of whom are notorious for attacks on US forces over the last two decades. It will be led by Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, one of the movement’s founders, who is on a UN blacklist. The interior minister is the feared FBI-wanted leader of the Haqqani militant group, Sirajuddin Haqqani….

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Shot-up SUVs, teens manning checkpoints: A reporter’s return to Kabul weeks after the fall

Shot-up SUVs, teens manning checkpoints: A reporter’s return to Kabul weeks after the fall

Yaroslav Trofimov reports: Clad in body armor and helmets, Uzbekistan’s border guards took positions in the middle of the bridge spanning the wide Amu Darya river on Monday morning, examining the papers of a handful of Afghans coming their way. Beyond them, the Taliban’s new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan began. A small minivan, carrying me and three Afghan men heading home, pulled up by the customs office on the Afghan side of the river. A white Taliban flag flew above…

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Can progressives be persuaded that genetics matters?

Can progressives be persuaded that genetics matters?

Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes: [Kathryn Paige] Harden understands herself to be waging a two-front campaign. On her left are those inclined to insist that genes don’t really matter; on her right are those who suspect that genes are, in fact, the only things that matter. The history of behavior genetics is the story of each generation’s attempt to chart a middle course. When the discipline first began to coalesce, in the early nineteen-sixties, the memory of Nazi atrocities rendered the eugenics…

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Number of daily steps to good health

Number of daily steps to good health

Science Alert reports: In the latest study to explore this territory, a team led by physical activity epidemiologist Amanda Paluch from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst tracked a cohort of over 2,000 middle-aged Black and White men and women, sourced from four different US cities. The group, with an average age of just over 45, wore accelerometers that tracked their daily step count and step intensity during waking hours, as they went about their lives. The experiment began back in…

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Why ordinary Afghans gravitated towards the Taliban during the American war

Why ordinary Afghans gravitated towards the Taliban during the American war

Anand Gopal writes: Both sides of the war did make efforts to avoid civilian deaths. In addition to issuing warnings to evacuate, the Taliban kept villagers informed about which areas were seeded with improvised explosive devices, and closed roads to civilian traffic when targeting convoys. The coalition deployed laser-guided bombs, used loudspeakers to warn villagers of fighting, and dispatched helicopters ahead of battle. “They would drop leaflets saying, ‘Stay in your homes! Save yourselves!’ ” Shakira recalled. In a war…

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In second regime, both the Taliban and the world face a new reality

In second regime, both the Taliban and the world face a new reality

Faisal Devji writes: Most accounts of the Taliban’s emergence in the 1990s attribute it to a Saudi-funded and Pakistani-led project. Its aim was to create an Islamic state in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, one that would keep Iran at bay for the Saudis and India for the Pakistanis. This was necessary because the mujahedeen, who had routed the Soviets with help from the United States, were too riven by internecine quarrels to form a government. But the Taliban were…

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