...These similarities are not coincidental. They’re the result of a deadly game of global copycatting whose origins lie in the United States. Prison is not only one of America’s most catastrophic national experiments—it’s also among the country’s most vile exports.
The most glaring example of this dynamic involves the supermax model I explored in Brazil. America invented this model. In 1787, the Quakers experimented with solitary cells at the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia; in 1829, Eastern State Penitentiary was opened nearby as an all-solitary facility, modeled after monasteries (those incarcerated covered their heads with monk-like hoods and were given Bibles to read). In 1983, a Marion, Illinois, prison became America’s first to adopt a 23-hour-a-day cell-isolation policy in its designated “control unit.” As the U.S. prison population soared and tough-on-crime rhetoric intensified over the next two decades, other states followed suit. California built Pelican Bay, where as of last year over 200 incarcerated men have been in solitary for over a decade; Colorado’s so-called Alcatraz of the Rockies, ADX Florence, is home to a man who has spent 32 years in solitary, mostly under a “no human contact” order that at times bars him from interacting even with prison officials. By 1999, there were 57 supermaxes in 34 U.S. states.
Today, iterations of the supermax exist in at least nine countries, from Australia to Mexico. In Brazil, where the 550,000-strong prison population is among the fastest-growing in the world, they come at a tremendous cost to taxpayers: I was told by the superintendent that the annual price per prisoner at Catanduvas is a whopping $120,000 a year, compared to an average of $36 per prisoner per year in Brazil’s impoverished state system, where the incarcerated are often left to feed and clothe themselves.
The authors examined the dietary data of 36,400 Americans between 1971 and 2008 and the physical activity data of 14,419 people between 1988 and 2006. They grouped the data sets together by the amount of food and activity, age, and BMI.
They found a very surprising correlation: A given person, in 2006, eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amount as a person of the same age did in 1988 would have a BMI that was about 2.3 points higher. In other words, people today are about 10 percent heavier than people were in the 1980s, even if they follow the exact same diet and exercise plans.
Drug pricing has taken center stage in U.S. politics, and it's high time that it should. The soaring prices for drugs like Sovaldi ($1,000 a pill) and the recent hike of Deraprim from $13.50 to $750 a pill after the supplier was bought by a shady hedge-fund manager, have caused white-hot fury in the public. Corporate lobbyists and their friends in the media spout free-market platitudes about why the sky-high prices are necessary to promote innovation. It's time for a serious understanding of the policy issues.
Drug pricing is not like the pricing of apples and oranges, clothing, or furniture that well and good should be left to the marketplace. There are two major reasons. First, the main cost of drug production is not the cost of manufacturing the tablet but the cost of producing the knowledge embedded in the tablet. Second, there is often a life-and-death stake in access to the drug, so society should take steps to ensure that the drug is affordable and accessible.
Trump isn’t just a symbol of voter frustration or outrage with an unresponsive system—the conservative counterpart to Sen. Bernie Sanders. No, from his attacks on President Obama’s citizenship in 2011 to his rhetoric against Latino immigrants and Muslim Americans today, Trump is an avatar of the ugliest impulses in American political life. And while it’s tempting to treat this as simple ignorance, the truth is that Trump comes out of a long tradition of American illiberalism, from the 19th-century “Know-Nothings” who raged against the influx of Irish and Catholic immigrants, to the Reconstruction-era vigilantes and “redeemers” who terrorized black and white voters and overturned elected governments in the postwar South.
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...For the GOP—much like the Democratic Party in the 1960s—a successful Trump would force a reckoning. Either Republicans cut him out of the party, even at the risk of losing in a three-way race, or they follow Nixon’s example and co-opt his basic message for the party’s use, shrinking his base enough to win if he runs an independent campaign.
In which case, by leaving the mark of white nationalism on the Republican Party, Trump wins regardless of his ultimate fate.
Russian aircraft carried out a bombing attack against Syrian opposition fighters on Wednesday, including at least one group trained by the C.I.A., eliciting angry protests from American officials and plunging the complex sectarian war there into dangerous new territory.
On Sunday, Spain will get a glimpse of how far the movement that first took root in small villages such as Gallifa has spread, as Catalans cast their votes in a regional election billed as a quasi-referendum on independence.
The results could launch Spain into uncharted territoryand plunge the country into one of its deepest political crises of recent years, as Madrid squares off against an openly secessionist government of a region that accounts for 16% of Spain’s population and a fifth of its economic output.
Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its controversial attempts to drill for oil off Alaska's northwest coast, citing disappointing results from exploratory wells. According to a report from The New York Times, the company said that while it had found "indications of oil and gas" in the region's Burger prospect, "these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration." The decision, which will be welcomed by environmental campaigners, means billions of dollars of writedowns for Shell, which spent $7 billion — or around 20 percent of its exploration budget — since 2007 developing prospects in the Arctic.
Afghan forces attempted to strike back Tuesday in the northern city of Kunduz but faced stiff resistance from the Taliban, whose fighters overran the city a day earlier in a major blow to Afghanistan’s Western-backed government.
On Tuesday evening, Taliban units threatened the city’s airport, thwarting efforts by Afghan troops to overcome one of the militant group’s biggest offensives in the 14-year war.
As part of the counteroffensive, Afghan forces were backed by at least two U.S. airstrikes, including one intended to consolidate their positions around the airport.
The fight to reclaim Kunduz — Afghanistan’s sixth-largest city and a strategic gateway to Central Asia — is one of the Afghan military’s biggest tests in its campaign against the Taliban, and it raises questions about the withdrawal timetable for U.S. and other coalition troops.
