New York City has reduced the debt payments for taxi medallion owners who borrowed to buy a medallion.

One of several contributing causes of the medallion owners' problem is the arrival of Uber, which was prepared to lose billions of dollars a year for many years to wipe out the taxi companies.

Uber would have been an injustice simply for the concentration of the industry of replacing many small local companies with one large company, even if there were nothing else wrong with it. But its biggest wrong is to its customers: it makes them run a nonfree app on a nonfree operating system, and they can't pay anonymously since the company does not accept cash.

Uber was compelled to stop running at a loss, and raise its prices. Uber drivers make less than taxi drivers now. Uber is now weak. So choose a real taxi, and pay in cash!

60% of people from India and vicinity have a particular allele (gene variant) that doubles the chance of death from Covid-19. However, the allele is also found (though less frequently) in other human populations.

I wonder whether people should get tested for this allele.

*Q&A: how fast do we need to cut carbon emissions?*

If global heating continues, the Great Barrier Reef will be toast.

*A secret document distributed by Israel to justify its terrorist designations of six prominent Palestinian human rights groups shows no concrete evidence of involvement in violent +activities by any of the groups.*