Events

Citylab has two complementary stories today. First, the bad news. A new study in Science shows that climate change will cost the southeast U.S. a lot more than the northeast: Overall, the paper finds that climate change will cost the United States 1.2 percent of its GDP for every additional degree Celsius of warming, though that figure is somewhat uncertain. If global temperatures rise by four degrees Celsius by 2100—which is very roughly where the current terms of the Paris Agreement would put the...

Maybe, if enough Republicans show up to the Illinois House for this afternoon's veto override vote: [S]tate government is two years into a record budget impasse that has universities on the brink of losing their accreditation, many social service nonprofits too broke to serve the needy and roadwork at a standstill. Without a budget deal by mid-August, many elementary and high schools will have to scrape the barrel of their reserves in order to be able to open their doors for the new school year. The...

Two stories today about science, one implicitly about how money influences reported outcomes, and another about how people don't really understand science. First, the New York Times reported Monday on a $100m National Institutes of Health clinical trial that is getting $67m indirectly from five major alcohol producers: [T]he mantra that moderate drinking is good for the heart has never been put to a rigorous scientific test, and new research has linked even modest alcohol consumption to increases in...

Perhaps, if more people had history classes in school in America, something this stupid would be less likely: For 29 years, National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” has celebrated the Fourth of July with a reading of the Declaration of Independence by hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators. This historically uncontroversial testament to the nation’s founding document proved uncontroversial-no-more in the year 2017. After NPR tweeted the accompanying text of the declaration line by line, Donald...

The top story from this past weekend is that Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed the state budget the legislature proposed, and within an hour the Illinois Senate had voted to override. We haven't had a state budget in more than two years. The governor is an ideological Republican in a majority-Democratic state. Crain's Greg Hinz explains: Statements from two of the main antagonists, Rauner and Senate President John Cullerton, underlined just how wide the political and philosophical gap remains. "The package...

By boasting, it turns out. And writing in the New York Times, Mayor Rahm Emanuel carries on the tradition of thumbing New York's eye: On Thursday, in the wake of a subway derailment and an epidemic of train delays, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York declared a state of emergency for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the busiest mass transit system in America. That same day, the nation’s third-busiest system — the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority — handed out coupons for free coffee to...

On this Canada Day, let's pause and reflect that populists of the Trumpian variety just don't get traction in Canada. Why? Because the Canadian identity is one of tolerance, according to New York Times columnist Amanda Taub: n other Western countries, right-wing populism has emerged as a politics of us-versus-them. It pits members of white majorities against immigrants and minorities, driven by a sense that cohesive national identities are under threat. In France, for instance, it is common to hear that...

The freest and most polite English-speaking nation on earth turned 150 today, and, being Canadian, the country isn't sure what that means: The year 2017 marks 150 years since Confederation. Or rather, what we've come to call Confederation. Canada is actually a federation, but the term Confederation caught on in the in the 19th century and it stuck — we've named squares and bridges after it, we refer to the "Fathers of Confederation" (and the Mothers too!), and the word has come to represent the country...

McMansionHell.com suffered a really bad week that had an awesomely good outcome thanks to the EFF. It's worth reading about. But last week, she published a great essay on the architectural styles (or lacks thereof) of the modern wealthy and how we should look at middle-class architecture as well (emphasis hers): Architecture as a field has always been captivated by the houses of the elite - those who can hire architects, build large and high quality homes, and set trends for the next generations. While...

Via Bruce Schneier (again), Fortune takes a look at Google's security project: Google officially formed Project Zero in 2014, but the group’s origins stretch back another five years. It often takes an emergency to drive most companies to take security seriously. For Google, that moment was Operation Aurora. In 2009, a cyberespionage group associated with the Chinese government hacked Google and a number of other tech titans, breaching their servers, stealing their intellectual property, and attempting...