‘Flu vaccines should not be this hard’
Katherine J. Wu at The Atlantic
In a “typical year, the process of bringing a new seasonal flu shot to market is one of the United States’ most predictable vaccine routines,” but this is “not a typical year,” says Katherine J. Wu. The job would normally “fall to the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, which guides the agency’s recommendations,” but “currently, no functional ACIP exists to guide this autumn’s immunization campaigns.” This “could further undermine ACIP’s role as a key scientific check on government policy.”
‘How women are shaping Minnesota’s cannabis industry’
Clemon Dabney at The Minnesota Star Tribune
Cannabis legalization “created a market in Minnesota. Women are helping create its culture,” says Clemon Dabney. While women are “still underrepresented in cannabis ownership,” the “women who are launching dispensaries across the state” are “doing far more than opening stores.” These women are “claiming space in an industry where they have too often been overlooked, underestimated or asked whether a man is really behind the business.” They “are setting the tone for what this market becomes.”
‘Is Britain getting a new prime minister?’
Eliot Wilson at The Hill
In “America, changes of leaders are predictable,” but “in Britain, it is more nuanced,” says Eliot Wilson. It is “impossible to predict whether Sir Keir Starmer will still be prime minister at the end of this year, this month or perhaps even this week.” There is “no bar to a party in office changing its leader, who then becomes prime minister.” Will the United Kingdom “have a new prime minister by autumn? Yes. Or possibly no.”
‘AI leaders are cosplaying James Bond villains’
Gautam Mukunda at Bloomberg
“Shark Tank impresario Kevin O’Leary wanted to build data centers on 40,000 acres in rural Box Elder County, Utah,” the “latest battle in the war that might determine the future of artificial intelligence,” says Gautum Mukunda. AI “might unleash miracles of productivity, cure cancer or make energy too cheap to meter,” but it “can’t do any of those things — or at least it can’t do them in the United States — if the public rejects the technology.”
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