Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Analyzing the risk

    The Colorado Pretrial Assessment Tool uses a formula to weigh the risk of releasing someone from jail while they await trial. While prosecutors say the tool is better than nothing, critics, backed by a study of the tool's effects, say it disproportionately harms people of color and people experiencing homelessness. Risk assessment algorithms consider a number of facts about a defendant's past and present to predict whether they can leave jail without committing new crimes or failing to make court appearances. But because they penalize already-overpoliced populations, they are not considered objective.

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  • A Lesson in Learning to Live With Fire, and Each Other

    A collaboration between former adversaries over forest management and preservation in the Sierra National Forest led to a $9 million investment into making 154,000 acres healthier, and able to withstand destruction in one of the largest wildfires in California history. The Creek Fire largely spared land in the Dinkey Landscape Restoration Project, despite severe damage in hundreds of thousands of adjacent acres. Years of strategic tree-thinning and intentionally set small fires proved effective.

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  • How effective are China's attempts to reduce the risk of wildlife spreading disease to humans?

    In order to get a handle on the spread of COVID-19, and to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks, China introduced temporary regulations banning commercial breeding of wildlife for meat consumption. These have hit farmers hard, with at least 20,000 farming operations shutting down by the end of February. With the bans on their way to fully becoming a law, local governments are trying to provide training and loans to help farmers transition to new products, but some claim the process is slow and doesn’t go far enough to prevent the breeding of the banned creatures for fur farming and traditional medicine.

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  • A Better Option For the Gig Economy

    Platform co-ops are providing a third option to the gig economy and traditional employment. Stocksy United is a photography cooperative which is owned by the independent contractors who are members of the platform coop. All major decisions are made through voting by photographers and each member benefits from the flexibility of being a contractor without the uncertainty typically associated with gig work.

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  • Electronic ballots are effective, fast and used all over the world — so why aren't used in the U.S.?

    Electronic voting, used in 25 countries, has proven safe and efficient. In Brazil, with about 150 million voters, the 2018 presidential results were announced just over two hours after polls closed. Election officials test the system regularly, which even the machine manufacturers are not allowed to do, and hacking the machines is almost impossible because of at least 30 digital barriers to overcome. The machines are not connected to the internet, which means a hacker would have to physically possess the machine to breach it. Electronic receipts for each ballot also allow for an easy recount if needed.

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  • Los Angeles voters just delivered a huge win for the defund the police movement

    By framing their police-reform proposal as an investment in community services rather than a bid to take money away from policing, the Re-Imagine L.A. County coalition of racial and criminal justice advocacy groups won voter approval for what could be the most significant realignment of public safety spending since the 2020 policing protests began. Los Angeles County voters approved Measure J, which mandates that the county allocate 10% of its $8.8 billion discretionary local budget to "direct community investment," and not to law enforcement. The Sheriff's Department accounts for $2 billion of that budget.

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  • HIV/AIDS Clinical Trial Network builds Black Clevelanders' trust in COVID-19 studies

    The HIV/AIDS clinical trial network’s 30 sites have spent years building trust among historical marginalized communities so that more clinical trial participants come from communities of color. Educational outreach, awareness-raising efforts, and one-on-one conversations are among the strategies used to make the scientific process more transparent. The engagement model is upfront about abuses from the past and uses straightforward explanations with no medical jargon. Infectious disease experts are using the trust-building model to increase the racial diversity of participants in COVID-19 vaccine trials.

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  • Social Media Companies Survived Election Day. More Tests Loom.

    Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube implemented pre-planned measures that limited the ability to use their sites to spread election-day disinformation. Twitter quickly added warning labels to election day tweets from political figures, including the president, that falsely claimed vote fraud or victory. Sharing and commenting on the tweets was also limited. Facebook also labeled disinformation posts but did not prevent commenting, liking, or sharing them. Some election-related videos on YouTube were removed for spreading disinformation, violating the company’s policy prohibiting deceptive practices and scams.

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  • 2020 is a curveball for civics. How Chicago classrooms are responding

    Chicago-area high school teachers are approaching the mental-toll of election cycles on their students by rethinking curricula. Some teachers are approaching election anxiety by hosting empathetic dialogues by addressing students' anxieties and exploring their individual powers. Students also completed lessons that required them to have conversations with the adults in their lives regarding general voting information. Other educators are placing emphasis on exploring media literacy and understanding online propaganda with students.

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  • Indigenous Colombians mount a spiritual defense of the Amazon

    Five different Indigenous groups formed an alliance known as the Union of Traditional Age Medics of the Colombian Amazon to practice spiritual ceremonies and community healing based on the ingestion of a potent hallucinogenic tea known as yagé. These groups are at risk of physical and cultural extermination due to deforestation. By engaging in traditional yagé ceremonies, they use their traditional knowledge and spiritual wisdom to help make decisions and retain their autonomy in the rainforest.

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