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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>After Affirmative Action Ends</strong> - The next big question for school admissions will likely be the legality of “race-neutral” methods that are designed with the continuing goal of producing diverse student bodies. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/after-affirmative-action-ends">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Donald Trump Was So Mad at Mark Milley That He Confessed to a Crime</strong> - The backstory on the tape that could get the ex-President convicted in the classified-documents case. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/why-donald-trump-was-so-mad-at-mark-milley-that-he-confessed-to-a-crime">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Saudi Arabias Vanished Princesses</strong> - King Abdullah allegedly imprisoned four of his daughters. After his death, the princesses supporters say, they disappeared. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/saudi-arabias-vanished-princesses">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Supreme Court Overturns Fifty Years of Precedent on Affirmative Action</strong> - A conservative Court holds that student-body diversity is not a “compelling interest.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-supreme-court-overturns-fifty-years-of-precedent-on-affirmative-action">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Is No Labels Trying to Do?</strong> - The group maintains that a third-ticket nominee may be what the country needs in 2024—but it may just be what Donald Trump needs. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-is-no-labels-trying-to-do">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Why scientists havent cracked consciousness</strong> -
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<img alt="Illustration of a ladder leading into the middle of a burgundy brain against a pale orange backdrop, with a person exploring inside a tunnel leading deeper into the brain." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6RHwqNJOqYVlsVNG2fNisDGNqCM=/0x94:6000x4594/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72415285/GettyImages_1332534552.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Boris SV/Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The science of consciousness still has no theory.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qj7GuJ">
In 1998, at the conference of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC), the neuroscientist Christof Koch made a bet with the philosopher David Chalmers: by 2023, science would be able to explain how the brains tangle of neurons gives rise to the phenomenon we call consciousness. The winner would get a case of wine.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qtq4qS">
Koch was a professor of cognitive biology who helped pioneer the mechanistic study of the <a href="https://authors.library.caltech.edu/40352/1/148.pdf">“neural correlates of consciousness,</a>” which maps the relationship between brain activity and subjective experiences. He believed that consciousness was fundamentally measurable and that it was only a matter of time before science identified how it arose in the brain.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fg12ex">
Chalmers was both a philosopher and cognitive scientist who was skeptical that science would be able to build explanatory bridges between neural correlates in the brain and the subjective experience of consciousness. Famously, he called consciousness “<a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/david-chalmers-thinks-the-hard-problem-is-really-hard/">the hard problem</a>,” which he believed was sufficiently challenging to keep any explanation of consciousness at bay for at least a quarter of a century.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wv9WNV">
At the 26th ASSC conference this past weekend, 25 years after the initial wager, the results were declared: Koch lost. Despite years of scientific effort — a time during which <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0531-8">the science of consciousness shifted</a> from the fringe to a mainstream, reputable, even exciting area of study — we still cant say how or why the experience of consciousness arises.
</p>
<h3 id="3CXMHo">
Galileo split consciousness away from science 400 years ago
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vNGWuL">
While the Western science of consciousness only grew into a reputable field over the past few decades, part of the reason answers remain so elusive may be buried in the deep structure of scientific inquiry itself, reaching back to the 1600s.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eex2WL">
The Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei <a href="https://en.unesco.org/courier/news-views-online/ibn-al-haytham-s-scientific-method#:~:text=In%20all%20textbooks%20of%20the,father%20of%20this%20scientific%20method.">is widely credited</a> with inventing the scientific method. As the philosopher Philip Goff recounts in his 2019 book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/599229/galileos-error-by-philip-goff/"><em>Galileos Error</em></a><em>, </em>in order to formalize the study of objective qualities like size, shape, location, and motion, Galileo bracketed out the fuzzier domain of conscious experiences. The modern scientific endeavor he helped create is a study of the universe shorn of what Galileo called the soul, and what we today might call sensory qualities, the gestalt of what consciousness <em>feels like.</em><em><strong> </strong></em>The scientific method can explain the electrical activity that sparks in the brain when you jump into a freezing lake, but it cant explain why a subjective experience of invigoration comes along with it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WfxVM7">
“Those sensory qualities have come back to bite us,” Goff writes. “Galileos error was to commit us to a theory of nature which entailed that consciousness was essentially and inevitably mysterious.”<em> </em>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hr3xo0">
In other words, Galileos scientific method required walling off the study of consciousness itself, which is why its perhaps not surprising that even centuries later, his methods inheritors still struggle to explain it.
</p>
<h3 id="ZHANau">
New avenues in the science of consciousness
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bYs29q">
As the years passed, Chalmers and Koch forgot about their bet, but in 2018, the science journalist Per Snaprud <a href="https://consc.net/consciousnesswager.pdf">brought it back to their attention</a>. A few years later, as part of a $20 million project supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, <a href="https://www.templetonworldcharity.org/accelerating-research-consciousness-our-structured-adversarial-collaboration-projects">a series of “adversarial experiments</a>” were designed to pit <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-022-00587-4">theories of consciousnes</a>s against each other, including global workspace theory (GWT) and integrated information theory (IIT).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TwmHTL">
GWT imagines consciousness as a theater: The brain is populated by a crowd of local information streams, but only what gets broadcast to the whole crowd — put onstage — becomes conscious. IIT identifies consciousness with the degree of, yes, integrated information, represented by the Greek character phi (Φ). The more phi, the more consciousness.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6vJxU4">
Preliminary findings from <a href="https://www.templetonworldcharity.org/projects-database/0389">one Templeton-sponsored gauntlet</a> comparing GWT and IIT were presented at the recent ASSC conference and ultimately used to settle the Koch/Chalmers bet. Six independent laboratories followed a shared protocol <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/neuroscience-readies-for-a-showdown-over-consciousness-ideas-20190306/">designed to test</a> how well each theory could predict brain activity. IIT fared slightly better than GWT, but neither made entirely accurate predictions. This uncertainty was enough to make Chalmers the victor, while scattering researchers off to update the theories or consider new ones altogether.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3OnjZW">
Goffs preferred resolution is to reintroduce consciousness into our understanding of nature by way of a secular version of panpsychism, the theory that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous element of the physical world. In this view, physical sciences à la Galileo describe matter from “the outside.” Consciousness is also a property of matter, but matter as experienced from the inside.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JM4cxV">
Meanwhile, Karl Friston, the worlds <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/computer-program-just-ranked-most-influential-brain-scientists-modern-era">most-cited living neuroscientist</a>, has an idea called the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn2787">free-energy principle</a>. Stripped of all the math, it suggests that the behavior of all living systems follows a single principle: To remain alive, they try to minimize the difference between their expectations and incoming sensory input. (Other terms for that difference include <em>surprise </em>and <em>free energy</em>.)<em> </em>In this model, human brains minimize surprise by generating internal models that predict the outside world. Here, consciousness is basically the experience of an internally generative model complex enough to imagine states of the world that have not yet happened.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FUjWkt">
The process by which brains generate these internal models has a theory of its own, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13164-022-00666-6#ref-CR4">known as predictive processing</a>, perhaps most associated with the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/the-mind-expanding-ideas-of-andy-clark">philosopher Andy Clark</a>. To grasp the idea, think of whats happening during a dream. Youre lying in bed, eyes closed in a dark room, completely still. But your brain is generating a rich internal dream world that feels entirely convincing (lucid dreams aside). Well, predictive processing claims that the same sort of thing is happening during waking consciousness, with a few caveats.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GlUtv4">
In other words, the kind of world youre experiencing when awake is basically the same kind of world you experience in a dream: a hallucination. The difference is that our brains are constantly comparing our waking hallucinations to the sensory input they receive from the outside, fine-tuning the waking dream to keep it in line with what the incoming sensory data suggests is going on beyond our skulls. Thats what the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23591527/consciousness-census-perceptual-diversity-anil-seth-neurodiversity">neuroscientist Anil Seth</a> means when he calls consciousness <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo">a “controlled hallucination</a>.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fKGwR1">
Okay, so living systems want to minimize surprise, and predictive models help brainy creatures do so. But what makes consciousness <em>feel </em>the way it does? How can we explain why some states of consciousness feel so rich and alive while others feel so dreary? One interesting idea hovering on the periphery of consciousness science is the <a href="https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf">symmetry theory of valence (STV)</a>, first proposed by the independent philosopher Michael Johnson and his collaborators at the <a href="https://qri.org/">Qualia Research Institute</a>, a nonprofit focused on the science of consciousness.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FXNJxt">
The STV starts with the idea that you can map every state of consciousness onto a perfect mathematical representation, like a unique objective signature for each subjective state (it shares this idea with IIT). Next, it claims that the valence, or positive/negative feeling of any given state of consciousness, depends on the <em>symmetry</em> of that representation. In practice, drawing on the work of neuroscientist Selen Atasoy, they use the underlying neural activity as that representation.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zGt4UR">
Every conscious state has an associated orchestra of neural activity that <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10340">gives rise to harmonic patterns across the brain</a>. QRI co-founder Andrés Gómez Emilsson <a href="https://qualiacomputing.com/2017/06/18/quantifying-bliss-talk-summary/">figured out how</a> to decompose that activity in a way that deciphers how much consonance exists across the brain harmonics, which works as a proxy for the symmetry. The more symmetry in the brain, the more positive the experience. Inversely, the more dissonance and less symmetry, the more negative the experience. While the STV hasnt received much mainstream attention, <a href="https://qualiacomputing.com/2021/05/08/healing-trauma-with-neural-annealing/">its ideas</a> are beginning to crawl their way into citations <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390822004579#bib262">on papers at the forefront</a> of the science of consciousness.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O0UYx5">
So we have a growing constellation of relevant theories, though as the result of the Koch/Chalmers bet suggests, we still lack a definitive, falsifiable explanation. We even lack consensus on whether one may ever exist.
</p>
<h3 id="CJegES">
Toward a paradigm of consciousness science — or not
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XQY3IR">
Still, some neuroscientists argue that we are living in the dawn before a theory of consciousness arises, like those who lived in the time shortly before Darwins theory of natural selection. This paints the current field as “<a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/preparadigmatic-science">pre-paradigmatic</a>,” a term developed by the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn to describe an immature science where competing schools of thought do not share the same basic understanding of their subject. Everything from methodologies to metaphysics can differ in a pre-paradigmatic science of consciousness.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vlx2nF">
Eventually, in this view, the field might coalesce around a unified theory and the first true paradigm of consciousness science would begin. This is the view Koch continues to hold (despite being down a case of fine Portuguese wine). He doubled down at the recent ASSC conference, renewing the bet on the same 25-year horizon. Chalmers, too, reports plenty of progress, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02120-8?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&amp;utm_campaign=cb0a8cb22a-briefing-dy-20230626&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-cb0a8cb22a-43905957">telling <em>Nature</em></a> that the problem of consciousness “has gradually been transmuting into, if not a scientific mystery, at least one that we can get a partial grip on scientifically.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4YxoNr">
But theres no guarantee that some critical mass of correlations between brain states and feelings can ever tell us <em>how </em>or <em>why</em> consciousness happens. Chalmers suspects that at the conclusion of their renewed bet in 2048, despite all the surrounding progress of insight thats sure to unfold, the mystery may remain as perplexing as ever.
</p></li>
<li><strong>White women benefit most from affirmative action — and are among its fiercest opponents</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Jennifer Gratz was one of the first to successfully argue against race in affirmative action." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/23Z8EdLXn8HTMpQj2XOV1zMjB0I=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49664057/GettyImages-184696530.0.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Jennifer Gratz was one of the first to successfully argue against race in affirmative action. | <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/184696530">Andrew Burton via Getty Images</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The willingness to erase white women from the story of affirmative action is part of the problem.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f9WIm3">
<em><strong>Editors note, June 29, 2023: </strong></em><em>The Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ended affirmative action in higher education in a pair of cases concerning admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Read </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/6/14/23761092/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-admissions-race"><em>our latest coverage here</em></a><em>. The original story, on a separate 2016 case out of Texas, follows.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EdWC7N">
The University of Texas Austin was Abigail Fishers dream school. Fisher, from Sugar Land, Texas, a wealthy Houston suburb, earned a 3.59 GPA in high school and scored an 1180 on the SATs.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nCWt6P">
Not bad, but not enough for the highly selective UT Austin in fall 2008; Fishers dreams were dashed when she was denied admission.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Uo1Eh">
In response, Fisher sued. Her argument? That applicants of color, whose racial backgrounds were included as a component of the universitys holistic review process, were less-qualified students and had displaced her.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7amaqq">
Students graduating in the top 10 percent of any Texas high school are granted an automatic spot at UT Austin. Other students are evaluated through a holistic review process including a race-blind review of essays and creating a personal achievement score based on leadership potential, honors and awards, work experience, and special circumstances that include socioeconomic considerations such as race.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G1YZ3x">
A few are accepted through <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/vp/irla/Documents/Brief%20for%20Respondents.pdf">provisional slots</a> that include attending a summer program prior to the fall. One black student, four Latino students, and 42 white students with lower scores than Fisher were accepted under these terms. Also rejected were 168 African-American and Latino students with better scores than Fisher.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pfswYk">
According to <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/vp/irla/Documents/Brief%20for%20Respondents.pdf">court documents</a>,<strong> </strong>even if Fisher had received a perfect personal achievement score that included race (which, in itself, oversimplifies the admissions process), she still would not have necessarily qualified<strong> </strong>under UTs admission rubric.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7ZulC1">
In fact, when she applied for the class of 2012, the admission rate for non-automatic admits was more competitive than that of Harvard University.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EOXb7z">
Nonetheless, Fisher spent the past <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5902791/fisher-v-texas-supreme-court-affirmative-action-fifth-circuit">seven years </a>in court, and Thursday the <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11713770/supreme-court-cases-decisions-rulings-2016">US Supreme Court</a> ruled 4-3 that <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/6/23/11743972/fisher-texas-affirmative-action-supreme-court">UTs admissions policy procedures are constitutional</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MBUPl2">
But the battle to erase race from the application review process for admission comes with an interesting paradox: “The primary beneficiaries of affirmative action have been Euro-American women,” <a href="http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/crenshaw.pdf" style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.65; background-color: #ffffff;" target="_blank">wrote</a> Columbia University law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw for the <em>University of Michigan Law Review</em> in 2006.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cn3roB">
<span>A 1995 </span><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/State-Study-Tracks-Diversity-Affirmative-action-3040217.php" style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.65; background-color: #ffffff;" target="_blank">report</a><span> by the California Senate Government Organization Committee found that white women held a majority of managerial jobs (57,250) compared with African Americans (10,500), Latinos (19,000), and Asian Americans (24,600) after the first two decades of affirmative action in the private sector. In </span><a href="http://www.buffalonews.com/columns/rod-watson/more-white-women-than-minorities-are-benefiting-from-affirmative-action-20150422" style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.65; background-color: #ffffff;" target="_blank">2015</a><span>, a disproportionate representation of white women business owners set off concerns that New York state would not be able to bridge a racial gap among public contractors.</span>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tsrhCv">
<span>A 1995 report by the Department of Labor found that 6 million women overall had advances at their job that would not have been possible without affirmative action. The percentage of women physicians tripled between 1970 and 2002, from 7.6 percent to 25.2 percent, and in 2009 women were receiving a majority of bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees, according to the </span><a href="http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/position-on-affirmative-action-112.pdf" style="font-size: 19.5px; line-height: 32.175px; background-color: #ffffff;">American Association of University Women</a><span>. To be clear, these numbers include women of all races; however, breaking down affirmative action beneficiaries by race and gender seems to be rare in reported data.</span>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YbpKvV">
Contrary to popular belief, affirmative action isnt just black. Its white, too. But affirmative actions white female faces are rarely at the center of the conversation.
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<h3 id="s66ESj">
Gender was a blind spot in the original affirmative action policy
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b7WLHV">
Sex discrimination protections were not included when affirmative action policy was initially institutionalized in the 1960s.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c1BmHp">
The <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act">National Labor Relations Act in 1935</a> was one of the first federal documents to use the term “affirmative action” to correct unfair labor practices. While the Public Works Administration <a href="http://shfg.org/shfg/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/4-MacLaury-design4-new_Layout-1.pdf">temporarily followed racially proportional hiring practices</a> (which were dismantled at the end of World War II), it wasnt until President John F. Kennedy issued an <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/35th/thelaw/eo-10925.html">executive order</a> in 1961 requiring affirmative action to counter employment discrimination among federal contractors, with specific attention to race, that affirmative action was institutionalized.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RKEcHd">
In some ways, the narrow focus on “race” and “color” was the governments response to the demands of the burgeoning civil rights movement that brought racial discrimination front and center in America.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sj1T9p">
However, affirmative action was <a href="http://shfg.org/shfg/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/4-MacLaury-design4-new_Layout-1.pdf">ambiguous</a>, referring, at the very least, to federal contractors taking a step or gesture in opposition of discriminating against groups of people, but one of the limits of the order was that penalties were not enforceable.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2GTLzv">
Kennedy created a Presidents Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity to monitor the order, chaired by thenVice President Lyndon B. Johnson.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TaqMtZ">
However, it was not until October 1967, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7Ae2BvGX4jQC&amp;pg=PA143&amp;lpg=PA143&amp;dq=women+affirmative+action+1967+women%27s+movement+pressure+johnson&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=GMEyKksaFz&amp;sig=rdir0IIw8-ym9EJtbO0G0K14_MM&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwivuN-h4uHMAhWE4D4KHftqANwQ6AEIJjAC#v=onepage&amp;q=women%20affirmative%20action%201967%20women's%20movement%20pressure%20johnson&amp;f=false">following pressure from the surging Womens Movement</a>, that President Johnson amended <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/35th/thelaw/eo-11246.html">an earlier order</a> to include gender provisions. Further actions would be taken in 1973 and 1974 to address anti-discrimination protections for people with disabilities and Vietnam veterans, respectively.
</p>
<h3 id="RV5rse">
White women have become some of affirmative actions fiercest opponents
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X9EI6i">
In general, women today are <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1350164/11familyworkfacts.pdf">more educated and make up more of the workforce</a> than ever before, in part because of affirmative action policies. Indeed, from the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/diversity-guru-discusses-white-women-2016-2">tech industry</a> to <a href="http://blog.leeandlow.com/2016/01/26/where-is-the-diversity-in-publishing-the-2015-diversity-baseline-survey-results/">publishing</a>, diversity has emerged as an overwhelming increase in the presence of white women, not necessarily people of color.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="adEAly">
Incidentally, over the years white women have become some of affirmative actions most ardent opponents.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dsSruK">
According to the 2014 <a href="https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi%3A10.7910/DVN/XFXJVY">Cooperative Congressional Election Study</a>, nearly 70 percent of the 20,694 self-identified non-Hispanic white women surveyed either somewhat or strongly opposed affirmative action.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nGlsZs">
White women have also been the primary plaintiffs in the major Supreme Court affirmative action cases, with the exception of the first — <em>Regents of the University of California v. Bakke </em>in 1978 — that was brought to the courts by a white man.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xZyi4T">
Twenty-five years after <em>Bakke</em> found that race can be one but not the only criterion for evaluating admissions applications, four white women have filed lawsuits seeking retribution for admissions rejections based on the premise that they were denied a spot over less-deserving students of color.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C9u2Z1">
The first successful case to challenge affirmative action policy was <a href="http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions%5Cpub%5C94/94-50569.CV0.wpd.pdf"><em>Hopwood v. Texas</em></a><em> </em>in 1996. Cheryl Hopwood claimed that despite excellent scores and fitting the profile of a surefire admit, the University of Texas School of Law<strong> </strong>admitted 62 people of color, only nine of whom had better LSAT and GPA scores than she did.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AFbKIZ">
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that diversity alone was not enough to justify racial preferences. For example, only Mexican-American and African-American students racial backgrounds were taken into consideration at UTs law school. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, but the decision dismantled UTs earlier racial affirmative action policy and catalyzed UTs 10 percent policy to admit the best students in a state that still suffers from <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/12/09/supreme-court-affirmative-action-university-texas-race/77031400/">de facto segregation</a> according to UTs Supreme Court briefs for the <em>Fisher</em> case.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AzDl5X">
But in 2003, two other white women approached the Court in parallel cases citing a misuse of race in admissions policies. In <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/02-241.pdf"><em>Grutter v.</em> <em>Bollinger</em></a>, Barbara Grutter<strong> </strong>argued that she was denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School as a direct result of the law schools consideration of race in the admissions process. In <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/02-516.pdf"><em>Gratz v. Bollinger</em></a>, Jennifer Gratz argued similarly that she was denied acceptance to the University of Michigans flagship university in Ann Arbor as an undergrad because of race.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yum0bZ">
The Supreme Court decisions were <a href="http://www.npr.org/news/specials/michigan/">split</a><strong> </strong>between the two cases. In <em>Gratz</em>, the justices ruled that race was being valued in ways that violated the Constitutions Equal Protection Clause — students received 20 points if they were from an underrepresented racial group compared with 5 points for artistic achievement. However, the justices ruled in <em>Grutter</em> that there was nothing unconstitutional about the way race was included in the law schools holistic admissions policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F49PPD">
The primary distinction between the two decisions had to do with the weight given to race in affirmative action admissions policies. Nonetheless, Justice Sandra Day OConnor had high hopes for such programs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g1cOgF">
“We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today,” OConnor<strong> </strong>wrote for the majority in <em>Grutter</em>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7jfFYN">
Justice Anthony Kennedy, while recognizing the Universitys complex policy, reiterated OConnors sentiments in <em>Fisher.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u1UjlQ">
“The Courts affirmance of the Universitys admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement,” Kennedy <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-981_4g15.pdf">wrote for the majority opinion</a>. “It is the Universitys ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admission policies.”
</p>
<h3 id="5IoK7J">
Racial affirmative action doesnt undermine merit
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xp4fjs">
“Im hoping that theyll completely take race out of the issue in terms of admissions and that everyone will be able to get into any school that they want no matter what race they are but solely based on their merit and they work hard for it,” Fisher <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/us/supreme-court-to-hear-case-on-affirmative-action.html">told</a> the New York Times in 2012.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s8pFMn">
But does race inherently undermine an admits qualifications?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RzRdF3">
The question itself is dubious considering the fact that other forms of affirmative action, including gender, are rarely mentioned. The aforementioned CCES survey, which only asked about racial affirmative action, is just one example.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3gLB1g">
Yet its a widespread assumption that even Justice Antonin Scalia brought to the fore last December during oral arguments for the <em>Fisher</em> case. He <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/12/10/9885594/scalia-affirmative-action-mismatch">asserted</a> that affirmative action hurts African-American students by putting them in elite institutions they are not prepared for. <a href="http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/2013-06.pdf">Study</a> after <a href="http://www.margaritamooney.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/academicconsequencesofthreeaffirmativeaction.pdf">study</a> shows theres simply no evidence for the claim.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RO6Fbj">
A look at the effects of affirmative action bans also suggests the idea is based on a false dichotomy. Since California passed Prop 209 in 1996 barring racial considerations for college admissions at public universities, UC Berkeley witnessed a significant drop in the number of black students, from 8 percent preProp 209 to an average of <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/why-black-students-are-avoiding-uc-berkeley/Content?oid=3756649">3.6 percent</a> of the freshman class from 2006 to 2010.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aWDon4">
But that drop isnt necessarily tied to underqualified students of color. Rather, <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/why-black-students-are-avoiding-uc-berkeley/Content?oid=3756649">58 percent</a> of black students admitted from 2006 to 2010 rejected Berkeleys offer of admission. Alumni, administrators, and current students noted that a possible reason could be a feeling of isolation, or lack of other students of color, at UCs flagship campus — an ironic consequence of the affirmative action ban.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IriYDp">
Asian-American applicants also challenge the colorblind meritocracy myth. According to a <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9072.html?version=meter+at+22&amp;module=meter-Links&amp;pgtype=article&amp;contentId=&amp;mediaId=&amp;referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&amp;priority=true&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=meter-links-click">sociological study</a> in 2009, white applicants were three times more likely to be admitted to selective schools than Asian applicants with the exact same academic record. And a 2013 <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/5/22/11704756/affirmative-action-merit">survey</a> found that white adults in California deemphasize the importance of test scores when Asian Americans, whose average test scores are higher than white students, are considered.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8vTxjb">
Furthermore, existing race-neutral admissions policies like legacy admissions show that taking race out of the equation doesnt make admissions processes any more just.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YcfjYZ">
According to a 2011 <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Legacys-Advantage-May-Be/125812/">study</a> by the Chronicle of Higher Education, a review of 30 elite universities admissions processes found that a legacy connection gave an applicant a 23.3 percentage point advantage over a non-legacy applicant. For applicants who had a parent who was an alum, the average advantage was 45.5 percentage points.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kBgaHV">
Many college campuses, however, have historically had predominantly white student bodies — <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/are-legacy-preferences-affirmative-action-white-students-how-supreme-court-case-could-2361713">84 percent</a> of college students in the US<strong> </strong>were white in 1976 compared with only 60 percent in 2012 — which makes it far more likely that the beneficiaries of legacy admissions practices are white applicants like Fisher, whose sister and father went to UT Austin.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="83h04M">
Fisher advocated for a colorblind, meritocratic admissions process for which she, as an individual, may still not have been qualified. But a look at the marginalized group that has most benefited from affirmative action shows that race was never a barrier for that group to begin with.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MIAHYX">
White women, like Fisher, stand as a testament to affirmative actions success. If anything, the dismantling of affirmative action is launched at people of color, but it affects white women, too. And the willingness to erase them from the story is part of the problem.<strong> </strong>
</p></li>
<li><strong>Frances protests over a police killing, briefly explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bFO_Rv4sZDP3x2POYRl97okz5-U=/372x0:5779x4055/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72413734/1267097979.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Crowds protest during a memorial march for a French teenager, named Nahel, on June 29, 2023 in Nanterre, France. | Abdulmonam Eassa/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
France finds itself at the center of the global reckoning over police violence.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="049UbV">
Widespread protests have continued for days across France after police killed a 17-year-old in a Paris suburb when he refused to comply with a traffic stop, prompting a national reckoning on racism and excessive force in policing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wb254i">
The victim, who was of French-Algerian descent, has been identified by police as Nahel M. In the wake of his death, protests have broken out in the cities of Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, and Nanterre, the suburb where Nahel was reportedly from. Some of them have turned violent, with protesters throwing stones, bottles, and fireworks at police and setting fire to garbage bins and vehicles. Police in turn have used tear gas to try to disperse the crowds.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mfTg80">
The French interior minister has reported that at least 180 protesters were arrested and 170 law enforcement officers injured as of Thursday morning. He said that 40,000 officers would be deployed across France Thursday night in anticipation of further clashes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ov47Hz">
“Its an explosion of general anger” directed not just at police oppression, but also at economic and racial inequities, said Mathieu Rigouste, a researcher in social sciences and the author of <em>La Domination Policière</em>, a book examining how French policing practices are rooted in colonialism.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sBlP28">
Many in France see Nahels killing as a reflection of racism against Arab and Black communities in the country, given that its not the first time something like this has happened. In 2020, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/world/europe/Paris-police-beating-video.html">four police officers beat a Black music producer</a> inside his studio in a viral video, just as French President Emmanuel Macron was considering legislation that would impose new restrictions on posting videos of police online. And in 2005, teens <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/world/europe/behind-the-furor-the-last-moments-of-two-youths.html">Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré</a> — who were of Tunisian and Mauritanian origins, respectively — died after fleeing a police identity inspection and running into an electricity substation where they were accidentally electrocuted.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dYQhtK">
“You have a kind of immediate feeling among the public that this is symptomatic of more global trends in terms of police violence,” said Jacques de Maillard, a political science professor at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin who studies comparative policing. Those trends include, as the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/08/un-experts-call-end-police-brutality-worldwide">UN pointed out in 2021</a>, “a steady increase in the use of excessive force, police brutality, and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, as well as arbitrary detention” around the world — and often reflect factors including racial tensions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fhfXM5">
The circumstances of Nahels killing certainly seem to mirror many deadly traffic stops in the US and elsewhere. The public prosecutor in the case <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-66049895?ns_mchannel=social&amp;ns_source=twitter&amp;ns_campaign=bbc_live&amp;ns_linkname=649d4b54f2e5745fd8a78c22%26Prosecutor%20gives%20a%20recap%20of%20events%20that%20led%20to%20Nahel%27s%20death%262023-06-29T09%3A17%3A26.843Z&amp;ns_fee=0&amp;pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:b28b7b64-1c7a-40c1-8e83-269dff27cbf4&amp;pinned_post_asset_id=649d4b54f2e5745fd8a78c22&amp;pinned_post_type=share">said</a> that police tried to stop the vehicle because of erratic driving and the driver was young. But Nahel refused to stop, ran a red light, committed additional traffic violations, and endangered pedestrians, they said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hYviDz">
Police pursued him, and in a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66052104">video</a> of the incident released Tuesday morning, approached his car on foot, one officer pointing a gun. Nahel starts to drive away, but the officer fatally shoots him in the chest. That officer is now under <a href="https://au.sports.yahoo.com/french-police-teen-shooting-death-200944943.html">formal investigation for voluntary homicide </a>— the French equivalent of being charged with a crime in the US legal system.
</p>
<h3 id="afxCw1">
Frances longstanding police brutality problem
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b5Zf7d">
France is seen as one of the worst offenders in Europe when it comes to police brutality.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iLBZI2">
After Macron rammed through controversial reforms to raise the retirement age earlier this year, French police used tear gas and batons, as well as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/france-protests-police-violence-5a2e01ed4fbcfeee6a3ac098db94339c">stun grenades and rubber bullets</a> — which are banned in most other European countries — to disperse the mass protests that broke out. That prompted the UNs Human Rights Council in May to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/5/1/france-criticised-at-un-over-police-violence-racism">criticize</a> Frances use of excessive force in law enforcement. Members of the council also urged France to address more general “racial profiling by security forces.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Pneqls">
The existence of racial discrimination in French policing is also well-documented. The French governments own human rights watchdog found in a 2016 survey of over 5,000 people that men and boys perceived as Black or Arab were 20 times more likely to be stopped by police than others.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qm5pnG">
Civil society organizations have filed a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/27/france-end-systemic-police-discrimination">class action suit </a>challenging ethnic profiling in policing in France, and the French government was ordered to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/france-ordered-pay-fine-case-involving-3-teens-subjected-identity-checks-1598715">pay a fine</a> in a case brought by three teens of color who were stopped and searched by police while returning from a school trip in 2021. Aside from Nahels encounter with police, there have been many more such incidents of law enforcement targeting people in diverse suburban areas — including in Beaumont-sur-Oise, where Adama Traoré, a Black man, died in 2016 due to police <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/08/europe/adama-traore-medical-report-new-intl/index.html">restraint methods</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tGGuvs">
“In spite of international criticism and local struggles, the French state has continually reinforced its police, prisons, and borders (multiplying weapons, laws, and units specialized in ferocity) as well as judicial impunity over the last 30 years,” Rigouste said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="54cRZm">
Attempts at reform have been met with fierce opposition by French police unions. In response to French solidarity protests over the killing of George Floyd in 2020, Macrons administration weighed the possibility of disciplining officers guilty of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/world/europe/france-police-opposition-proposed-reforms.html">proven suspicions of racism</a>” and banning the use of chokeholds. The first of those provisions was softened and the second was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53062357">abandoned</a> on account of pressure from police unions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VPSygH">
Again after Nahels killing, Macron seemed to be careful not to anger police unions in public remarks. While he called the killing inexcusable, he has also criticized the violent reaction from protesters and come to the defense of the police: “Our police and gendarmes are committed to protecting us and serving the Republic. I thank them every day for that. They do so within an ethical framework that must be respected,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1674016056883441666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1674016056883441666%7Ctwgr%5E25e23ef9d1e9f4002c51cacf45b9b469afda8b37%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.france24.com%2Fen%2Ffrance%2F20230628-france-braces-for-protests-as-macron-laments-unforgivable-police-shooting">tweeted</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kJCwGu">
Even so, de Maillard said that Nahels killing might mark a turning point in actually getting some measure of real police reform enacted.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xCMlAP">
“The calls for reform have not been heard — until now,” he said.
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rapidus, Slainte, Starkova and Balor impress</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Arcana and Cest LAmour work well</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier and his son detained in racism probe</strong> - Christophe Galtier, who is on his way out at PSG, maintains that he did not make racist and anti-Muslim comments when he was in charge of French club Nice</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Ashes 2023 | Lyon out for rest of second Test with “significant” calf strain</strong> - Australian spinner Nathan Lyon was hurt while running to the ball after tea on June 29. He took Englands first wicket.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Boxing champion Mary Kom named Global Indian Icon at U.K.-India Awards</strong> - The awards, now in their fifth year, honuors leaders who strengthen bilateral ties in various sectors</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>443 cases booked against people for engaging child labour in Andhra Pradesh</strong> - Labour Department rescues 727 children, reunites many with parents; show-cause notices served on 143 establishments</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Telangana CM assures lifting of cases filed against tribal families for taking up cultivation on podu lands</strong> - He says cases cannot continue as the government itself is distributing pattas to tribals</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>99.07% secure Plus One allotment in main phase</strong> - 2,99,309 students have got allotment till now; 80,694 students have got fresh allotment in third list alone</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pipeline row: Kerala Water Authority constitutes team of engineers, prepares fresh schedule for completing work</strong> - The work was halted several weeks ago after the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) machine, used for laying the pipes beneath the ground, developed a snag on its hydraulic motor.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BDL works manual released</strong> -</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>France shooting: Policeman charged over teens traffic stop death</strong> - France sees a third night of mass unrest, triggered by Tuesdays police shooting of a teenager.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What we know about killing of Paris teen… in 55 seconds</strong> - The BBCs Hugh Schofield investigates at the scene where police shot dead 17-year-old Nahel.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Paris riots: France is changing but suburban scars are not healed</strong> - Frances suburbs were very different during the 2005 riots but they are still a risk to the president.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>France shooting: Who was Nahel M, shot by French police in Nanterre?</strong> - He was learning to be an electrician and played rugby league but died at a police check near Paris.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Finlands economy minister resigns after 10 days over Nazi references</strong> - The nationalist Finns Party member lasted just 10 days in office after the extremist remarks emerged.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Into the rivers and through the woods: Specializeds e-mountain bike</strong> - Specializeds electric mountain bike was more than good enough to hook our reviewer. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1943379">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Motorolas “Satellite Link” hotspot lets you send messages via outer space</strong> - Following the announcement in February, the $150 device is available today. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1951133">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>30 years later, Myst demake for Atari 2600 reminds us how far weve come</strong> - Unofficial <em>Myst</em> port for 8-bit Atari 2600 gives the 90s adventure a 70s makeover. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1950582">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Heres what happens when a swim team competes with an intestinal pathogen</strong> - Outbreak among Mass. swim teams spread to a Rhode Island team after a meet. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1951178">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Christopher Walken is an evil emperor in latest trailer for Dune: Part 2</strong> - “He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1951121">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Forging A Return To Productive Conversation: An Open Letter to Reddit</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
To All Whom It May Concern,
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
For fifteen years, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes">/r/Jokes</a> has been one of Reddits most-popular communities. That time hasnt been without its difficulties, but for the most part, weve all gotten along (with each other and with administrators). Members of our team fondly remember Moderator Roadshows, visits to Reddits headquarters, Reddit Secret Santa, April Fools Day events, regional meetups, and many more uplifting moments. Weve watched this platform grow by leaps and bounds, and although we havent been completely happy about every change that weve witnessed, weve always done our best to work with Reddit at finding ways to adapt, compromise, and move forward.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
This process has occasionally been preceded by some exceptionally public debate, however.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
On June 12th, 2023, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes">/r/Jokes</a> joined thousands of other subreddits in protesting the planned changes to Reddits API; changes which despite being immediately evident to only a minority of Redditors threatened to worsen the site for everyone. By June 16th, 2023, that demonstration had evolved to represent a wider (and growing) array of concerns, many of which arose in response to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/16/reddit-ceo-blackout-moderators-steve-huffman/">Reddits statements to journalists</a>. Today (June 26th, 2023), we are hopeful that users and administrators alike can make a return to the productive dialogue that has served us in the past.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
We acknowledge that Reddit has placed itself in a situation that makes adjusting its current API roadmap impossible.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
However, we have the following requests:
</p>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Commit to exploring ways by which third-party applications can make an affordable return.
</li>
<li>
Commit to providing moderation tools and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/14ds81l/rblinds_meetings_with_reddit_and_the_current/">accessibility options</a> (on Old Reddit, New Reddit, and mobile platforms) which match or exceed the functionality and utility of third-party applications.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Commit to prioritizing a significant reduction in spam, misinformation, bigotry, and illegal content on Reddit.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Guarantee that any future developments which may impact moderators, contributors, or stakeholders will be announced no less than one fiscal quarter before they are scheduled to go into effect.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Work together with longstanding moderators to establish a reasonable roadmap and deadline for accomplishing all of the above.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Affirm that efforts meant to keep Reddit accountable to its commitments and deadlines will hereafter not be met with insults, threats, removals, or hostility.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Publicly affirm all of the above by way of updating Reddits User Agreement and Reddits Moderator Code of Conduct to include reasonable expectations and requirements for administrators behavior.
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Implement and fill a senior-level role (with decision-making and policy-shaping power) of “Moderator Advocate” at Reddit, with a required qualification for the position being robust experience as a volunteer Reddit moderator.
</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Reddit is unique amongst social-media sites in that its lifeblood its multitude of moderators and contributors consists entirely of volunteers. We populate and curate the platforms many communities, thereby providing a welcoming and engaging environment for all of its visitors. We receive little in the way of thanks for these efforts, but we frequently endure abuse, threats, attacks, and exposure to truly reprehensible media. Historically, we have trusted that Reddits administrators have the best interests of the platform and its users (be they moderators, contributors, participants, or lurkers) at heart; that while Reddit may be a for-profit company, it nonetheless recognizes and appreciates the value that Redditors provide.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
That trust has been all but entirely eroded… but we hope that together, we can begin to rebuild it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In simplest terms, Reddit, we implore you: <strong>Remember the human</strong>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
We look forward to your response by Thursday, June 29th, 2023.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Theres also just <a href="https://i.imgur.com/xLmTxcR.jpg">one other thing</a>.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/JokeSentinel"> /u/JokeSentinel </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14jn9rg/forging_a_return_to_productive_conversation_an/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14jn9rg/forging_a_return_to_productive_conversation_an/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>There were three kingdoms, each bordering on the same lake…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
For centuries, these kingdoms had fought over an island in the middle of that lake. One day, they decided to have it out, once and for all. The first kingdom was quite rich, and sent an army of 25 knights, each with three squires. The night before the battle, the knights jousted and cavorted as their squires polished armor, cooked food, and sharpened weapons. The second kingdom was not so wealthy, and sent only 10 knights, each with 2 squires. The night before the battle, the knights cavorted and sharpened their weapons as the squires polished armor and prepared dinner. The third kingdom was very poor, and only sent one elderly knght with his sole squire. The night before the battle, the knight sharpened his weapon, while the squire, using a looped rope, slung a pot high over the fire to cook while he prepared the knights armor.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The next day, the battle began. All the knights of the first two kingdoms had cavorted a bit too much (one should never cavort while sharpening weapons and jousting) and could not fight. The squire of the third kingdom could not rouse the elderly knight in time for combat. So, in the absence of the knights, the squires fought.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The battle raged well into the late hours, but when the dust finally settled, a solitary figure limped from the carnage. The lone squire from the third kingdom dragged himself away, beaten, bloodied, but victorious.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
And it just goes to prove, the squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Rusty_Phoenix"> /u/Rusty_Phoenix </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14mufei/there_were_three_kingdoms_each_bordering_on_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14mufei/there_were_three_kingdoms_each_bordering_on_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inflation in the USA is so high at this point that……</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">I recieved a predeclined credit card in the mail.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">CEOs are now playing miniature golf.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Exxon-Mobil fired 25 Congressmen.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">McDonalds is selling the amazing 1/4 ouncer.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Angelina Jolie adopted a kid from the US.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Moms and Dads in Beverly Hills let go of their nannies and finally learned their childs names.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">A busload of Yanks were apprhended sneaking into Mexico.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">A picture is now only worth 100 words.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates.
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">I called a car dealer to get the book value on my used car. They asked if the gas tank was full or empty
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Paladium9999"> /u/Paladium9999 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14mg03y/inflation_in_the_usa_is_so_high_at_this_point_that/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14mg03y/inflation_in_the_usa_is_so_high_at_this_point_that/">[comments]</a></span></li>
</ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Three men had a very late night drinking Guiness.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Three men had a very late night drinking Guiness.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They left in the early morning hours and each went to their home. The next day, they all met for an early pint, and compared notes about who was drunker the night before.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The first guy claims that he was the drunkest, saying, “I drove straight home and walked into the house. As soon as I got through the door, I blew chunks.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The second guy said, “You think that was drunk? Hell, I got into my car and wrapped it around the first tree I saw. And I dont even have insurance!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The third guy proclaimed, “Damn, I was the drunkest by far. When I got home, I got into a big fight with my wife, knocked a candle over, and burned the whole house down!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The room was silent for a moment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Then, the first guy spoke out again, "Listen, guys, I dont think you understand…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Chunks is my dog."
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DooleyMTV"> /u/DooleyMTV </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14mijhb/three_men_had_a_very_late_night_drinking_guiness/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14mijhb/three_men_had_a_very_late_night_drinking_guiness/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I have a friend who has sex 3-4 times a week. Works out every day. And reads at least two books a week.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But all this guy ever does is complain about prison.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/docvoit"> /u/docvoit </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14m5i2q/i_have_a_friend_who_has_sex_34_times_a_week_works/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/14m5i2q/i_have_a_friend_who_has_sex_34_times_a_week_works/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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