*100 out of [the total of] 229 [UK local government] councils have used or are using automated decision-making programmes, many without consulting at all with the public on their use.*

Right-wing cult leaders deal with weakness by scapegoating someone in the name of some religious cult. In Poland, the targets are women that are carrying dead fetuses.

St Augustine, Florida, floods frequently and can expect almost a meter of sea-level rise by 2060.

I think it would be wiser to move the city's landmarks to high ground, even though that may be in Georgia.

Two Philadelphia cops shot and killed a black man, Walter Wallace Jr. But it does not seem that they rushed to kill.

He walked towards two cops while carrying a knife. They did not shoot immediately; they shouted at him to drop the knife. This is not a fabricated excuse; the article says it was visible on video.

The article does not say how far he was from them when they shot. Perhaps they didn't need to shoot. Perhaps they could have used a taser instead of a gun. Perhaps they could have tackled him and grabbed the knife, or talked him down. Perhaps medical personnel could have talked him down.

I think the death was probably avoidable, but that doesn't mean those cops had no grounds to shoot.

Most jails in the US use one of five companies to provide medical "care" to prisoners, and those companies do a measurably bad job.

These companies are successful because they charge less, and they reduce costs by cutting corners — for instance, by being slow to approve permitting a prisoner to be seen by a professional. This is the standard problem with privatizing all or part of a public activity.

Therefore, I suggest that contracting a public function to a private activity should be forbidden by law if the activity involves doing things specifically for, or to, individual members of the public.