PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
How Crime Guns Are Traced in the US: One Page at a Time (Maria)
The authors write, “The process of tracing every single firearm used in a crime in the US goes through a facility in West Virginia that houses millions of paper records of gun sales that staff page through one at a time as they trace thousands of guns each day — while prohibited from creating any kind of searchable database of the information within those records. The facility is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ National Tracing Center, located in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The facility is on track to receive more than 540,000 firearms trace requests from law enforcement agencies this fiscal year alone — a record.”
The Facebook Files (Dan)
From The Wall Street Journal: “Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands. That is the central finding of a Wall Street Journal series, based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management. Time and again, the documents show, Facebook’s researchers have identified the platform’s ill effects. Time and again, despite congressional hearings, its own pledges and numerous media exposés, the company didn’t fix them. The documents offer perhaps the clearest picture thus far of how broadly Facebook’s problems are known inside the company, up to the chief executive himself.”
Biden Infrastructure Bill Could Give a Jolt to EV Charging (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “The Biden administration is seeking to address the lack of public EV chargers in its $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill making its way through Congress. Biden, who ran for president promising to tackle climate change, is proposing to spend $7.5 billion to expand the nation’s EV charging network, particularly in low-income and rural areas. If passed, the bill would bring this country’s first major investment aimed at EV infrastructure and put a charge in an industry key to the energy transition.”
The Curious Case of the COVID-Free Conservatives (Dana)
The author writes, “Another anti-vaccine conservative radio host has died of COVID-19: Bob Enyart, the Denver personality infamous for once reading the obituaries of people who had died of AIDS on the air while playing Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust.’ By my count, that makes five such deaths in the past couple months: Enyart, Florida’s Marc Bernier and Dick Farrel, and Tennessee’s Phil Valentine and Jimmy DeYoung. Each one refused to get vaccinated and paid with his life. Elderly unvaccinated men dying of COVID-19 is sadly unremarkable in America today. What’s noteworthy is who has been spared: the most elite ranks of conservative media.”
Stumbling Into the Next Stage of Your Pandemic Life (Sean)
From Greater Good: “This is hard, what we are trying to do. The pandemic continues to rage, but adults live in a post-vaccination world. Kids are returning to school; their parents are returning to work. We’re all socializing more. We should be happier, right? But in the offices of the group psychotherapy practice I founded, people of all ages aren’t sure what chapter we’re in, or how to feel about it. How do we make this kind of comeback?”
Reducing Sugar in Packaged Foods Can Prevent Disease in Millions (Mili)
The author writes, “Cutting 20 percent of sugar from packaged foods and 40 percent from beverages could prevent 2.48 million cardiovascular disease events (such as strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrests), 490,000 cardiovascular deaths, and 750,000 diabetes cases in the U.S. over the lifetime of the adult population, according to a new study.”
Cow Pee Is an Environmental Problem. But Now Scientists Say Calves Can Be Potty-Trained. (Russ)
The authors write, “A herd of ‘clever cattle’ in Germany have successfully been potty-trained and can now relieve themselves in a designated area nicknamed the ‘MooLoo,’ scientists say — a move that they hope will help lower greenhouse gas emissions amid the global warming crisis. There are an estimated 1.4 billion cows on Earth and they happen to emit a lot of harmful waste products — through burping, urination and defecating — making the animals a major driver of climate change.”
