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Commentary: Politicians have failed to deal with gun violence. Give medical officials a chance
The past three months have seen mass shootings of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, and July Fourth celebrants in Highland Park, Illinois. Cries for greater gun control to stop such avoidable, premature deaths grow after each event. President Joe Biden recently signed a gun control measure into law, but overall, little substantive change has occurred and is unlikely to occur anytime soon. Politicians have had their chance. Let someone else take the wheel — namely, the medical community. I’m a data scientist, and data informs much of my thinking and decisions. A few years ago, I studied trends i...
Chicago Tribune
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John M. Crisp: First, let’s stop calling it a raid
If you search the internet for the term “raid,” two results precede all others: The second one refers to the popular bug-killing product Raid, which has been almost synonymous with the term “insecticide” since 1956. The first is the execution last week of an FBI search warrant at former President Donald Trump’s seaside mansion Mar-a-Lago, which nearly everyone is calling a “raid.” On the far right, the clientele at Gab.com, a social media site that specializes in complaint and grievance against just about everything, were outraged. One Gab poster fulminated: “This unelected, illegitimate regim...
Tribune News Service
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Jay Ambrose: The Mar-a-Lago raid points to larger issues than itself
One day, when he wasn’t around, a couple of the only FBI agents who were friends with former President Donald Trump raided Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office to produce evidence that he knew some of his actions had been unconstitutional, or so goes a made-up tale of mine. Hey, you can’t do that, screeched other FBI and Secret Service agents as they circled the credentialed vigilantes, causing one of them to reply, “Nobody is above the law.” Garland said as much about Trump when defending the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home to gather up classified records while Garland himself has ...
Tribune News Service
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Editorial: A cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie and free speech
New York’s Chautauqua Institution describes itself as “a community of artists, educators, thinkers, faith leaders and friends dedicated to exploring the best in humanity.” On Friday morning, the worst in humanity came calling on Chautauqua, New York, when an assailant rushed the stage and attacked the great author Salman Rushdie, stabbing him several times, it appeared, in the neck. It was immediately apparent that his injuries were grievous. Rushdie, who refused to be cowed by a 1989 fatwa from the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who did not care for one of Rushdie’s books, lived a profoundly se...
Chicago Tribune
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Helen Ubiñas: Grief over gun violence is weighing down Philly students
PHILADELPHIA — In a couple of weeks, Jessica Blair’s three sons will walk into their Philadelphia schools with fresh haircuts, new backpacks, and crisp outfits. But they will also carry with them something else: the grim and invisible burden of having witnessed Blair’s partner and the father of her two younger boys fight for his life after being shot right outside their South Philadelphia home last August. Rasheem Ferron, 29, was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Blair’s best friend, who was also shot, survived. The episode was chillingly familiar for the young family — in 2018, Hafiz Hendr...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Commentary: In Kenya, cautious optimism for the country’s presidential election
Kenyans went to the polls on Tuesday to vote in a highly anticipated presidential election, as well as dozens of contests for governors, senators, and other positions across the country. The outcome won’t just matter to Kenyans either. The fraught East African region looks to Kenya as a source of stability, so its neighbors are eager to see peaceful results too. Kenyan elections have a troubled history, but with democracy declining across so much of the globe, Kenya this year stands out as a possible ray of hope. Local and international media have presented voter turnout as a bad news story be...
Chicago Tribune
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Editorial: Conservation alone won't solve California's water crisis. We need more infrastructure.
The question persists even though it shouldn't: Can California conserve its way out of this drought? The answer is clearly no. But then again, if water policy in California were as clear as water itself, Jake Gittes would never have been told to "forget it." Oh, conservation can help. That's why Gov. Gavin Newsom has called on Californians since July to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15 percent (as compared to 2020 levels) and why the city of San Diego's Public Utilities Department director is urging locals to contribute to the conservation efforts in a new commentary in The San Diego U...
The San Diego Union-Tribune
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Editorial: A pro-police reform official gets fired. Is City Hall truly committed to fixing CPD?
Reforming this city’s police force within the framework of the federally mandated consent decree should never become a second tier priority. A recent personnel move at the department suggests it already has. Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown recently fired Robert Boik, CPD’s executive director of constitutional policing and reform. Boik was Brown’s point man for keeping the department on course with implementing the consent decree, the 2019 court order that mapped out in painstaking detail how the city must reform its Police Department. Boik’s work was critical for two reaso...
Chicago Tribune
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Editorial: Spending bill's EV subsidies won't work
The ill-named Inflation Reduction Act is being touted by Democrats and others as, among other things, the fast track to a zero-emissions future. They argue the slowing manufacturing industry and curtailed automotive production calls for more government stimulation, particularly so electric vehicles are able to take hold and lead the nation into a green energy future. Key to this, they say, are tax credits to make EVs more affordable for low-to-middle income buyers. But it will be fortunate if the package moves even a single EV off the lot. Stipulations in the bill will make the majority of EVs...
The Detroit News
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Martin Schram: Defund the no-longer law-and-order party!
Suddenly, news screens throughout our land are flooding us with new fears. Once again, it feels like we may be trapped in a reoccurring national nightmare that threatens to divide us and shatter our democracy. It all seems frightening, yet familiar – like a melding of the shocking violence of Jan. 6 and the looping lunacy of Groundhog Day. Except this week our news screens seemed to have become de facto radios. No videos of shocking violence against our government’s protectors of law and order. Just words of anger, attacking our government’s law and order protectors – and inciting violence aga...
Tribune News Service
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