NOW LIVE ON WhoWhatWhy
Pope, with Green Reforms, Keeps Odd Company
By Carmelo Ruiz
Will the Pope’s courageous stand on the environment extend to challenging those who hypocritically associate themselves with it?
WHO
The US military’s Trillion-Dollar Boondoggle
Scott Beauchamp takes a hard look at the costly, disastrous F-35 “fighter” jet. Many think “the most expensive weapons system in the history of the planet” should go the way of the dodo bird. It’s prone to tracking false targets, cannot fly within 25 miles of bad weather, the helmet display doesn’t work and it’s a maintenance sinkhole. But all those failures haven’t affected the most important factor propelling the F-35—defense contractors’ profits.
‘Jon Stewart Cannot Leave’ – Obama says Goodbye on The Daily Show
With Stewart’s departure quickly approaching, President Obama joked that he’d signed an executive order to keep the beloved host at the helm of The Daily Show. Obama used his appearance to pitch the Iran nuke deal. At a veterans’ event earlier that day, he linked criticism of the deal with the hawkishness that led to the Iraq debacle. Click hereto see Stewart’s full interview of Obama.
The Spirit of Judy Miller is Alive and Well at the NYT, and It Does Great Damage
Glenn Greenwald attacks the New York Times and its penchant for “mindlessly” disseminating claims from anonymous intelligence and military officials. It was a problem in the lead-up to the Iraq War. It’s a problem that its own Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, often criticizes. But, as Greenwald details over and over again in this piece, it’s a problem that isn’t going away.
WHAT
Your Butt-Dials Can Be Recorded, Federal Court Says
A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that “accidental” phone calls are not private. If the mobile phone in your back pocket happens to dial someone, that someone is not only entitled to listen in, but also legally entitled to record it. The judges said accidental calls are similar to leaving window blinds open. It’s not an invasion of privacy to look into an open window. The same goes for an open phone line. Hopefully, you don’t have the NSA on speed dial. As if that really matters, anyway.
WHY
Studies Find Genetic Signature of Native Australians in the Americas
There is broad agreement that Asiatic peoples migrated across a long-gone land-bridgelinking present-day Siberia with what is now Alaska. The details and composition of that influx are hotly debated, but the picture just got a little clearer thanks to ever-cheaper DNA testing. Surprisingly, tribes in the Amazon basin share genetic markers with Australo-Melanesian peoples—like modern-day Australian Aborginals. And now that has opened a whole new debate about how those genes got to the Americas, with competing theories of genetic migration battling it out. Ain’t science fun?
Sign up
Like what you see? Sign up here to subscribe to this newsletter—our daily headlines roundup. You can also sign up for our weekly summary of all things WhoWhatWhy.
