“there are two main reasons Americans tend to overestimate the extent to which crime happens: Media coverage of crime can often overstate trends and sometimes sensationalizes incidents that grab people’s attention. And law-and-order campaigns — the kind of campaigns that Trump ran, for example — are a mainstay of American politics and appear in virtually every election cycle in local, state, and national races.”
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“The United States is, after all, a relatively violent country and has a higher homicide rate than its peers. But while crime is a problem, lawmakers tend to react too quickly to crime trends, often by passing shortsighted tough-on-crime laws that bolster the perception of public safety by, say, putting more cops on the streets, but end up exacerbating the existing flaws of the criminal justice system, including sending poorer and more marginalized people to prison.”
“Zheng Wei is a fairly common Chinese name. A tennis player, a movie director, an archaeologist, and multiple Chinese-American academics all share that name. So do an inventor at the consumer drone company DJI and a professor at China’s National University of Defense Technology.
And the U.S. government mixed up the last two people, with serious consequences, according to a recent lawsuit by DJI. The drone manufacturer is suing the U.S. Department of Defense for designating DJI as an arm of the Chinese military”
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“Similarly, the Pentagon claimed that DJI software engineer Zhang Tao was listed on a patent for a temperature-sensing device designed by China’s Military Science Academy. Again, DJI provided a declaration from its own Zhang Tao stating that he is not the same person as the Military Science Academy’s Zhang Tao.”
Saudi Arabia has withdrawn its goal of an alliance with the U.S. in exchange for recognizing Israel. Its people and the region are too heavily against it during the continued Israeli war in Gaza.
The Georgian people protest against their pro-Russia leader while the government cracks down. The protestors want the country to lean toward the EU, not Russia.
“A new study by the Costs of War Project at Brown University pinned down exactly what that cost is: at least $22.76 billion from October 7, 2023, to September 30, 2024. The bulk of the money, $17.9 billion, was spent on U.S. aid to the Israeli military—both financial grants given to Israel to purchase weapons, and the cost of replacing munitions such as artillery shells sent directly from American stockpiles to the Israeli army.”
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“The study only counts the direct burden on the U.S. military budget. It doesn’t include indirect costs, “such as increased U.S. security assistance to Egypt, Saudi Arabia or any other countries, and costs to the commercial airline industry and to U.S. consumers.” Nor does it count the $1 billion in U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinians.”