September 19, 2016

By The Morning News — 19 Sep 2016

“The impact of the crimes may be assessed in light of… the increased vulnerability of victims, the terror subsequently instilled, or the social, economic and environmental damage inflicted on the affected communities.” The International Criminal Court in the Hague, in a significant shift, expands its jurisdiction to cover environmental and land rights laws. / International Criminal Court

Extensive profile of Carl Malamud, who has lead a one-man effort to make public government information freely open and available for the public for 25 years, and is none too popular for it. / Backchannel

Balls or books? A university librarian left his secret fortune to the University of New Hampshire, whose students are upset they’ll spend $1 million of it on a fancy football scoreboard instead of academics. / mprnews.org

Tesla enters utility market with a bang, announcing huge battery deal to store energy for Southern California. / Bloomberg

After a Washington Post review of the 15 Maryland cannabis cultivation license applicants that cleared one level of the state regulatory hurdles found that none of them are run by people of color, black state lawmakers are considering ways to ensure diversity in its medical cannabis industry. / The Washington Post

Male producers give lame excuses when asked why, even as strong women are more often written into scripts, the upswing in representation masks dismal numbers for women behind the camera. / The Guardian

Monsanto’s sale to Bayer would be the biggest corporate merger of the year, but the steep price already has analysts skeptical it was worth it. / NPR, barrons.com

Urban police departments around the country have amassed huge, semi-permanent databases of innocent citizens by digitizing “field contact interview cards,” also known as what a cop has to fill out after stopping and frisking you. / data.postandcourier.com

“A sizable part of the planet is living in what, for us, is the past. They not only lack the Internet, they don’t even know it exists. They use firewood, eat what they grow, go barefoot, and have a very direct relationship with the natural world, without thinking about whether the Yuan or NASDAQ goes up or down. Of course this real situation, which many find logical, is total sci-fi.” In a Cuba stuck between two worlds, sci-fi writer Yoss explores his metal, Marxist visions in sparkling Spanglish. / Bomb

Major pharmaceutical companies like Purdue and Pfizer have spent nearly $900 million on lobbying efforts in all 50 states in the past decade to stop legislation that would limit access to addictive, profitable opioid painkillers. / Associated Press

Related: Studies show that states with medical cannabis programs have less opioid-related fatal car crashes, less opioid overdose deaths, and less opioid prescrptions written, so pharmaceutical companies have been pouring money into anti-medical cannabis politicians, advocacy groups, and academics. / mailman.columbia.edu, archinte.jamanetwork.com, content.healthaffairs.org, The Intercept, Vice

“The volume of hacking is a moment we all have to do a little soul searching.” A former National Security Council spokesperson reflects on the panic of Washington elites in the time of regular email hacks. / The New York Times

The FBI, part of the intelligence community anonymously speculating to the press that the Russian government is behind the recent hacks of the DNC, Colin Powell, the World Anti-Doping Agency, and others, is attempting to build a legal case with which to indict individual Russian hackers. / The New York Times, NBC News, Reuters

Shortly after the Times recently published a lengthy—and largely anonymously-sourced—report making the case that Russia often benefits from WikiLeaks’ actions (which was criticized as “McCarthyist” by Glenn Greenwald and others, a claim supported by lines in the Times story like “United States officials say they believe with a high degree of confidence that the Democratic Party material was hacked by the Russian government, and suspect that the codes may have been stolen by the Russians as well”) the Daily Dot unearthed evidence in sealed court records that WikiLeaks elected not to release a €2 billion money trail from the Syrian regime to a Russian government-owned bank in its “Syria Files” cache. / The New York Times, YouTube, The Daily Dot, search.wikileaks.org

The ceasefire’s future is in doubt after a mistaken United States airstrike wiped out a Syrian Army company. / Al Jazeera

“The problem is that Assad cannot win, and at the same time he is not losing.” The ceasefire has brought a moment of calm to Aleppo, but it doesn’t address the outstanding question of the Syrian Civil War: What is going to happen with Assad? / New York Times

“No possible subsidy was left untapped. After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Mr. Trump lined up a $150,000 grant for one of his buildings near ground zero, taking advantage of a program to help small businesses in the area recover, even though he had acknowledged on the day of the attacks that his building was undamaged.” Trump has received nearly $900 million in tax breaks on his New York properties, often obtained by the means you’d expect from him. / The New York Times

“How can people distance themselves from a group that fights both Assad and ISIS?” is a frequent question in Aleppo today. / PRI

People tend to escape poverty by moving to cities. Why does this not work great in Africa? From the Economist: “Better roads typically do not reach into slums; new apartments are never targeted at people earning a few dollars a day. Politicians across Africa often seem to see the poor as a problem to be swept away, rather than people whose lives need improving.” / The Economist

Robin Givhan comes to the defense of Marc Jacobs in the Washington Post, over his being lambasted for putting dreadlocks on models: “Folks are angry because neither the hairstylist, Guido Palau, nor Jacobs, mentioned black culture or Rastafarians specifically as a source of inspiration. Instead, they mentioned street style, director Lana Wachowski, punk, Boy George and an enormous mishmash of cultural references. All of those references are legitimate and real. And there was nothing about the clothes or the set—a stage filled with hundreds of dangling lightbulbs—that suggested the designer had disrespected black culture and its connection to black people, black politics, black struggle.” / The Washington Post

A post-Emmys highlight: Jeb Bush, after appearing in Jimmy Kimmel’s opening as an Uber driver, quotes Caddyshack in a follow-up tweet: / YouTube

“In the eyes of physics, a big hit on the field can be just as devastating as a car crash—or in many cases, worse.” Why football helmets will never be concussion-proof. / Fast Company

Data hacked from internet-connected dildos has apparently become a legal matter. / Motherboard

It’s rare that we come across “immersive experiences” on the web that actually pique our interest, but this is one: Two Billion Miles, in which you experience the plight of refugees with a lot of, well, immersive video and storytelling. / twobillionmiles.com

Washington, D.C., the seventh-richest city in the United States, with three of the top five wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, now has a restaurant where dinner for two costs about $1,000—and people are pissed. / The Washington Post

“I have a serious problem. My neighbour sold me a deep freezer. I just opened it and there’s a body in there. I am freaking out.” A woman has been arrested in North Carolina after her mother’s body was discovered in a freezer she sold at a yard sale. Buyer paid $30, incidentally, for mother + freezer. / The Telegraph