Author: nick

The Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the DRC. Licensed vaccines such as Merck’s Ervebo have since shown strong protection against the Zaire strain of Ebola. But no approved vaccine or specific antiviral treatment yet exists for the Bundibugyo strain, which is responsible for the latest outbreak. As health officials work to contain a growing Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, questions are resurfacing about why some strains of the virus still lack approved treatments nearly 50 years after Ebola was first identified. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 900 suspected infections and 220 deaths…

This week brings starkly different artificial intelligence visions from President Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). Thankfully, only the former has the force of law. Couched in the language of giving power to “the American people,” Sanders’ plan actually presents a frighteningly authoritarian vision in which the federal government gains significant control over private AI companies and the future of output. In contrast, the White House’s AI vision is—at least this week—admirably restrained. You are reading Sex & Tech, from Elizabeth Nolan Brown. Get more of Elizabeth’s sex, tech, bodily autonomy, law, and online culture coverage. Trump’s executive order…

United States Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. Aerial. The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the Federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall. Several House Democrats expressed anger with Rep. Rashida Tlaib after the Democratic Congresswoman introduced a War Powers Resolution that would force President Donald Trump to halt Israel’s war against Lebanon.  The War Powers Resolution introduced by Tlaib in late March says, Tlaib unveiled her legislation in late March that requires the “removal of…

The United States Trade Representative’s office proposed a minimum 10 percent tariff on 54 economies following an investigation, the first step to rebuild the President’s tariff policy after the Supreme Court struck down its “Liberation Day” tariffs. The investigation found that 54 economies had failed to prohibit or enforce prohibitions on imports of goods produced with forced labor.The proposal would impose a 10 percent tariff on five countries including Canada and Mexico and the European Union for failure to enforce prohibitions on those imports. Forty-eight other countries, including China, India, Japan, and Brazil, would face a 12.5 percent tariff for…

Last night, the Trump Administration revealed plans to use Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose massive new tariffs on imports from some 60 countries around the world, under the pretext that this is necessary to combat their importation of goods that use forced labor: The Trump administration has taken a key step toward rebuilding a tariff wall around the U.S. economy, announcing new restrictions on goods from 60 trading partners that U.S. officials say lack sufficient prohibitions on the use of forced labor. Under the plan, goods from nations that the U.S. says have not banned…

When Robert Trivers died this year, I lost a friend and the world lost one of the few people who genuinely understood why we lie to ourselves. Skeptic readers know his work even if the name sits just out of reach—his fingerprints are on half of modern evolutionary psychology. Bob once let me fly him out to lecture my state pharmacy association on the science of deceit: a room full of pharmacists learning, from the man who worked it out, that the mind is built to fool its own owner before it fools anyone else. He was generous like that,…

Is your business “needed”? Bizarrely, in many states, if you want to start a business, you first must convince bureaucrats that your business is “needed.” Four years ago, Louisiana blocked social worker Ursula Newell-Davis from helping kids with special needs. Bureaucrats said she hadn’t proved her business was needed. “Why does the state of Louisiana have the right to stop me from doing what I love?” she asks in this update video. Good question. Newell-Davis has a master’s degree and a social work license. For two decades, she’s helped kids with special needs. One, Kamal, told us he struggled to…

Kuwait reports that its airport suffered significant damage during an Iranian drone attack. Iran launched the attack shortly after the US targeted an Iranian ship.  “A number of hostile drones targeted today the passenger building (T1) at Kuwait International Airport, which resulted in significant material damage to the building and injuries to a number of individuals,” The Official Spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Brigadier General Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, said on Wednesday.  Central Command said that it was able to defend US soldiers in Kuwait from the Iranian attack. “US forces successfully defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones,” CENTCOM…

On Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that the Justice Department will not implement President Donald Trump’s politically and legally contentious “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which would have allocated $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to compensate purported victims of “an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration” (as Trump put it). But Blanche said another element of Trump’s “settlement agreement” with the IRS—a provision that shields him and his family from liability for tax violations and other federal offenses—remains in place. The Anti-Weaponization Fund, which was described in a May 18 agreement signed by Trump’s personal lawyers, Associate Attorney General Stanley E.…

In the U.S., the average college professor who donates to political candidates is “only slightly less left on the political spectrum than Bernie Sanders.” That’s the top-line finding from a new study of American academics’ political donations, commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The study scored academics’ political ideologies based on the voting records of the candidates to which they donated. It found that academics are increasingly donating to far-left politicians like Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The study also found that the vast majority of politically active faculty cluster in that far-left neighborhood. “The figures suggest…