London’s knife crime epidemic; Notre Dame Cathedral fire conspiracy theories; climate change & border crisis, and more
How Trump’s border crisis is driven by climate change (Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post)
For months, President Trump has tweeted and raged about the ongoing migration crisis along the U.S. southern border.
What Trump has spent far less time discussing are the driving forces of this current wave of migration — at least not the one whose very existence the president still disputes. But it’s become increasingly clear that climate change has played a significant part in deepening the extreme poverty and insecurity that compels many to head north. According to the World Bank, climate change could lead to at least 1.4 million people leaving their homes in Mexico and Central America over the next three decades.
Central America — where a third of all jobs remain linked to agriculture — is one of the more susceptible regions in the world to the long-term effects of a warming planet. Successive years of drought, extreme fluctuations in temperature and shifting rain patterns have led to failed harvests and forced many Central American farmers to forsake traditional crops.
A recent lengthy exposé by the New Yorker’s Jonathan Blitzer focused on the expanding “dry corridor” — a region in Central America marred by drought that stretches from Panama to the southern reaches of Mexico. Conditions are particularly acute in the highlands that link central Honduras to western Guatemala, where millions of subsistence farmers have seen their livelihoods ravaged not just by lack of rain, but also its excess — floods, landslides and hurricanes. Their plight has been compounded by woeful agricultural infrastructure and national governments that have few resources to help them.
The state of FirstNet, America’s public safety broadband network (Alicia Loh, Lawfare)
On April 1, AT&T announced that the Navy and the Marine Corps had signed up to the FirstNet public safety broadband network, which prioritizes public safety communications over other types of traffic. A policy directive from the secretary of the Navy provides guidance on how the Navy and the Marine Corps should procure and deploy FirstNet devices and services. The government has been working on the creation of a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network for over a decade. Here is what FirstNet is, where its development stands, and why it matters.
Trump administration to withhold bail from asylum seekers in latest border crackdown (Reis Thebault and Michael Brice-Saddler, Washington Post)
As record numbers of Central American families cross the U.S.-Mexico border, Attorney General William P. Barr issued a policy reversal for asylum seekers who have already established “a credible fear of persecution or torture” in their home country.
What’s driving the rise of the anti-vaxxers? (Sophie McBain, New Statesman)
With the World Health Organization listing “vaccine hesitancy” among the ten greatest threats to global health in 2019, unfounded fears are endangering health.
Notre Dame Cathedral fire conspiracy theories flourish after investigators say there’s no proof of terrorism (Will Sommer, Daily Beast)
Notre Dame fire conspiracy theories flourish even after investigators say there’s no proof of terrorism.
A timeline of how the Notre Dame fire was turned into an anti-Muslim narrative (Jane Lytvynenko and Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News)
This is how disinformation spread from fringe message boards and social media to far-right websites and cable news.
Culture of secrecy shields hospitals with outbreaks of drug-resistant infections (Andrew Jacobs and Matt Richtel, New York Times)
The lack of transparency puts patients at risk, some say. Institutions say disclosure could scare some people away from seeking needed medical care.
