Comment on Iannetta to DL; Phillips called up

There’s a lot of fear around spending time alone. Alone time can make people itchy with boredom. It can carry a stigma (especially if you’re single). Worse, recent articles and studies warn us about the dangers of loneliness—one 2017 study by Julianne Holt-Lunstad at BYU’s Social Connection & Health Lab claims claims loneliness is as bad as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.

The Age of AI has also ushered in the Age of Debates About AI. And Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, and one of our foremost big-picture thinkers about the grand sweep of humanity, history and the future, is now out with Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Harari generally falls into the AI alarmist category, but his thinking pushes the conversation beyond the usual arguments.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once told a reporter at a protest against the Vietnam War that he was there because he couldn’t pray: “Whenever I open the prayer book, I see before me images of children burning from napalm.” This week marks one year since the October 7 attacks, and a year of unfathomable loss since.

“I’m a one-issue voter, and it’s Bitcoin,” yells Jonathan Martin, a former NFL offensive lineman and current MBA student at the Wharton School, his voice rising above the pounding dance music of a Philadelphia nightclub. It’s a gray Monday evening in September, and in a couple hours, many Philadelphians will turn their attention to the Eagles game.

WASHINGTON — A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis raised alarms about the continuing dangers of lead in tap water, President Joe Biden is setting a 10-year deadline for cities across the nation to replace their lead pipes, finalizing an aggressive approach aimed at ensuring that drinking water is safe for all Americans. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Biden is expected to announce the final Environmental Protection Agency rule Tuesday in the swing state of Wisconsin during the final month of a tight presidential campaign.

One year on from the appalling, unjustifiable Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s ongoing, disproportionate military assault and atrocities in Gaza, the whole Middle East is on the brink of a catastrophic regional war. The most urgent priorities are to secure a full and immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, wider de-escalation by Israel and Iran, and the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas as well as arbitrarily detained Palestinian prisoners. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But beyond this, bold, principled actions, and long-view leadership are needed to bring a permanent end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has raged for over 75 years and remains at the heart of regional tensions and instability.