‘What America can learn from its largest wildfire of the year’
M.R. O’Connor at The New Yorker
The “federal government may be on the verge of regressing into a twentieth-century attitude about fire policy,” says M.R. O’Connor. Many “fire scientists believe that a patchwork of fire intensity — low in some places, high in others — increases the dynamism and resilience of a landscape.” Only “half a percent of unplanned ignitions are allowed to burn as managed wildfires,” and “scientists worry that, at a time when they should be getting more widespread, they will only become rarer.”
‘My state is the fentanyl funnel for the rest of America. Trump is turning his back on it.’
Kris Mayes at MS NOW
Arizona is “on the front lines of a deadly drug crisis,” but the “federal government is effectively abandoning its fight against drug and human trafficking as it prioritizes immigration enforcement,” says Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. Arizona is the “fentanyl funnel for the rest of the nation,” and “now is not the time to let up on drug-fighting efforts, particularly because a new drug is making its way into our communities: Carfentanil, an analog of fentanyl.”
‘When disaster hits, civilians save lives first’
Dubi Weissenstern at The Jerusalem Post
When “disaster strikes, the first responders are often the people already there,” says Dubi Weissenstern. They are “neighbors, local volunteers, community security teams, and ordinary citizens who refuse to wait for help,” and “increasingly, they are the backbone of emergency response worldwide.” Across the “globe, the same pattern is emerging: Civilians are no longer spectators in crises; they are the first and often the most critical responders.” Their “courage is both inspiring and heartbreaking.”
‘Want to understand OpenAI becoming a public benefit corporation? Look to “KPop Demon Hunters.”’
Rosanna Garcia at The Philadelphia Inquirer
The “nonprofit OpenAI Foundation controls a for-profit company that just restructured into a public benefit corporation,” and it “says this new form will ‘benefit everyone,’” says Rosanna Garcia. But using the “analogy of ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’” OpenAI “sees itself as the savior.” To have the “power to fight evil, HUNTR/X needed K-pop songs, whereas OpenAI just needs capital, and lots of it.” If “it’s all for the public good, why does a nonprofit need to own the for-profit version of itself?”
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
