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            <h1 class="hed" itemprop="headline">How Hurricane Harvey Could Cause Long-Term Devastation</h1>
            
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                        <span class="caption">Traffic lights in Corpus Christi, Texas, are knocked down as Hurricane Harvey approaches.</span>
                    
                    
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        <section id="article-section-1"><p>Beyond the Category-4, 130-mph winds, the devastating eye wall, and the storm surge hundreds of miles wide, the most destructive part of Hurricane Harvey as it bears down on the Texan Gulf Coast might be the rain.</p><p>The storm is projected to basically sit over the region as it runs its course, in the process pouring biblical amounts of rain—<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-flooding/538044/" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'0',r'538080'">30 inches or more</a>—on Texan coastal areas from Corpus Christi to Houston. Even outside the area of truly catastrophic rainfall predictions—which were so high that some weather maps had to add brand new colors to their legends—places like the lower half of Louisiana seem likely to receive a foot or more of rain.</p><aside class="callout" data-omni-click="r'article',r' ',d,r'related',#data-omni-index,@data-article-id"><hr><h4>
        
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    <ul><li><a href="/science/archive/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-flooding/538044/" data-omni-index="0" data-article-id="834081" data-omni-click="inherit">What 35 Inches of Rain Dredges Up</a>
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        <li><a href="/national/archive/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-predictions/537933/" data-omni-index="1" data-article-id="834084" data-omni-click="inherit">Is Texas Ready for Hurricane Harvey?</a>
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    </ul><hr></aside><p>The most likely outcome, unless the storm takes an unexpected turn, appears to be tragedy. The region is already inundated. Houston’s already seen <a href="http://www.weather.gov/hgx/climate_iah" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'1',r'538080'">abnormally high amounts of rain this August</a>, and parts of Louisiana are still flooded after rain storms earlier this month, a situation that left parts of New Orleans under several feet of water <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/24/us/new-orleans-harvey-flooding/index.html" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'2',r'538080'">after some of the city’s water pumps failed</a>. For now, the best case scenario is to hope that most people have evacuated, and that the storm and flood’s ravages will come against property and not human lives. After all, houses can be rebuilt.</p><p>But this time, even that may not be true. Although Texas and Louisiana—owing to the constant threat of floods—are among some of the places in the United States where flood insurance is most prevalent, there are few places where even a quarter of all homes are covered. In Houston, <a href="https://bsa.nfipstat.fema.gov/reports/1011.htm#TXT" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'3',r'538080'">just over 119,000 places</a> are covered by flood insurance policies backed by the National Flood Insurance Program, which helps fund most flood insurance policies. There are just over 800,000 occupied housing units in the city, which means that somewhere under a sixth of all homes in the city have flood insurance. The situation is the same in Corpus Christi, where 19,183 buildings are insured of around 115,000 occupied housing units.</p></section><div class="ad-boxinjector-wrapper"><gpt-ad id="boxinjector1" targeting-pos="boxinjector1" class="ad ad-boxinjector" lazy-load="2" data-object-pk="1" data-object-name="boxinjector"><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[0, 0]" sizes="[[300, 250], [320, 350], [300, 350], [1, 3], [320, 520], [320, 430], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[760, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [1, 3], [768, 350], [768, 520], [640, 360], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[1010, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [970, 250], [1, 3], [768, 350], [768, 520], [640, 360], [970, 350], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[1050, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [970, 250], [1024, 350], [1, 3], [970, 350], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset></gpt-ad></div><section id="article-section-2"><p>The dearth of flood insurance policies makes the result obvious: Most people who lose homes or have them damaged in Harvey won’t have money to replace or repair them. There are a number of reasons why people might go without insurance. Flood protection is expensive, especially in at-risk areas—indeed, that’s how a flood insurance system <em>should</em> work. And although people in especially high-risk flood areas have to purchase flood insurance when they purchase homes as per NFIP guidelines, for people outside of those extreme-risk areas, <a href="http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/library/WP201408-What-Drives-Households_AA-SF-EMK.pdf" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'4',r'538080'">lack of recent flooding</a> can persuade many homeowners and renters from taking on the additional expense.</p><p>For a place like Houston, where the number of extreme-risk areas <a href="http://www.houstonpress.com/news/your-houston-home-may-now-be-in-a-higher-risk-fema-flood-zone-8811748" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'5',r'538080'">has skyrocketed</a> over the past few years as floods have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/16/texas-flooding-houston-climate-change-disaster" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'6',r'538080'">become much more common</a>, many people without insurance may simply not know that their homes have a 25 percent chance or more of facing flood damage in a year.</p><p>But even for homeowners who do have flood insurance, the prospect of receiving full support for their future claims seems dicey. To say the NFIP has been beleaguered <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/congress-flood-insurance/535731/" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'7',r'538080'">would be a euphemism</a>—the program has been in debt since its inception 50 years ago, and now sits at least $24 billion in the hole. The premiums many homeowners pay are not enough to cover expenditures, the program has just started utilizing reinsurance for catastrophic costs, and the structure of the program is such that there’s never a disincentive to building homes in flood-prone areas, which means that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/congress-flood-insurance/535731/" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'8',r'538080'">30 percent or so of the NFIP’s hemorrhaging of money</a> goes to a handful of houses on floodplains that just get rebuilt every year.</p><aside class="pullquote instapaper_ignore">No amount of reform will save the lives or homes of people living in the path of the storm now.</aside><p>Additionally, after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the program has been dogged by allegations that it has <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/05/24/478868270/business-of-disaster-insurance-firms-profited-400-million-after-sandy" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'9',r'538080'">repeatedly shortchanged homeowners</a> and that the private insurers that administer policies backed by NFIP have been negligent in their business practices. Essentially, the program has appeared to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/magazine/when-rising-seas-transform-risk-into-certainty.html?_r=1" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'10',r'538080'">one Sandy-level event</a> away from total disarray. And after constant already-catastrophic flooding around Louisiana and eastern Texas, Hurricane Harvey seems to be much more than a Sandy.</p></section><div class="ad-boxright-wrapper" data-pos="boxright"><gpt-ad id="boxright1" targeting-pos="boxright1" class="ad ad-boxright" lazy-load="2" data-object-pk="3" data-object-name="boxright"><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[0, 0]" sizes="[[300, 250]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[1010, 0]" sizes="[[300, 250], [300, 600]]"></gpt-sizeset></gpt-ad></div><section id="article-section-3"><p>In an email to me on Friday evening, Roy Wright, NFIP administrator and acting FEMA associate administrator for insurance and mitigation, noted that floods are the most common form of disaster. “Flood insurance—whether purchased from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) or through private carriers—enables insured survivors to recover more quickly and more fully after flood events,” Wright said. “It is one way Americans can financially protect themselves from losses caused by floods.”</p><p>But this protection might not be possible if the critical instability of NFIP continues. That’s the main reason why politicians have tried—and failed—multiple times to reform the program, and perhaps to create a disincentive for constant rebuilding, and a way to increase premiums on the riskiest bets. But, as environmental justice scholar Robert Bullard noted in his book <em>Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina</em>, especially in the Gulf region, the people who are already lapsing on NFIP policies or have avoided them by technicality or grandfather clauses tend to be lower-income and often people of color.</p><p>Indeed, historically the most vulnerable populations of people have tended to inhabit land on the riskiest plots flood-wise, which means that efforts to make NFIP more fiscally responsible could also have the effect of stripping marginalized people from the only available tracts of land they can afford.</p></section><div class="ad-boxinjector-wrapper"><gpt-ad id="boxinjector2" targeting-pos="boxinjector2" class="ad ad-boxinjector" lazy-load="2" data-object-pk="1" data-object-name="boxinjector"><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[0, 0]" sizes="[[300, 250], [320, 350], [300, 350], [1, 3], [320, 520], [320, 430], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[760, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [1, 3], [768, 350], [768, 520], [640, 360], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[1010, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [970, 250], [1, 3], [768, 350], [768, 520], [640, 360], [970, 350], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[1050, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [970, 250], [1024, 350], [1, 3], [970, 350], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset></gpt-ad></div><section id="article-section-4"><p>The conundrum of federal flood insurance has been such that it’s allowed some bipartisan movement in a Congress that is currently polarized to the point of rigidity. NFIP expires in September, and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy, and West Virginia Republican Shelley Moore Capito have introduced a reauthorization bill that might keep the program from collapsing. The reauthorization would decrease barriers to privatization of flood insurance, would allow NFIP administrators to identify the most expensive beneficiaries, <a href="https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibrand-cassidy-capito-introduce-national-flood-insurance-program-reauthorization-bill" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'11',r'538080'">and would strengthen flood mitigation and flood-plain reporting</a>.</p><p>But even that reauthorization appears not to be able to grasp the fundamental instability of flood insurance—right now, as a concept, flood insurance is simply not a profitable venture, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/07/us-coastal-flooding-carbon-emissions-study" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'12',r'538080'">as climate change alters weather patterns</a>, there are more and more catastrophic flood events.</p><p>Catastrophic flood events like the next few days of Hurricane Harvey, which will create problems that none of the ongoing flood-insurance reforms can fix. No amount of reform will save the lives or homes of people living in the path of the storm now. Many people—perhaps even those with insurance—will be left without recourse when the storm is over. But the thousands of people who will likely lose homes in Hurricane Harvey are reminders of the dire problems caused by flooding, and of the need to create a new, workable program that might be able to cope with the next Katrinas and Sandys and Harveys. Because the evidence indicates there will be many more to come.</p></section>
    
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            <p>The mob was unusually vociferous, even for Twitter. After the California-born ice skater Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics, the <em>New York Times</em> writer Bari Weiss <a href="https://twitter.com/splinter_news/status/963191268917567489">commented</a> “Immigrants: They get the job done.”</p>

<p>What followed that innocuous tweet was one of the sillier, manufactured controversies I have ever seen on Twitter. Twitter’s socially conscious denizens probably only realized they should be outraged at Weiss after they saw other people being outraged, as is so often the case. Outside of Twitter, some of Weiss’s <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-times-diversity-bari-weiss-tweet_us_5a833d4ee4b0cf06751f3f44"><em>Times</em></a><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-times-diversity-bari-weiss-tweet_us_5a833d4ee4b0cf06751f3f44"> colleagues</a> were also offended by the tweet—and even hurt by it. <a href="https://splinternews.com/can-someone-explain-this-bari-weiss-tweet-to-me-1822942452">The</a><a href="https://splinternews.com/can-someone-explain-this-bari-weiss-tweet-to-me-1822942452"> critics’</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/964009334178009088">objection</a> was that Nagasu isn’t herself an immigrant, but rather the child of immigrants, and so calling her one was an example of “<a href="https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/963232760868425728?ref_src=twsrc%255Etfw&amp;ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%252Fentry%252Fchrissy-teigen-bari-weiss-mirai-nagasu_us_5a830bbbe4b00ecc923ed36d">perpetual othering</a>.”</p>


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<p>What made Parkland different were the people who stepped forward to describe it. High-school students—the survivors of the calamity themselves—became the voice of the tragedy. Tweets that were widely reported as coming from the students expressed grief for the victims, pushed against false reports, and demanded accountability.</p>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">We are too young to be losing friends like this.</p>
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        <p class="dek">The clear goal of the special counsel is to speak to the American public about the seriousness of Russian interference.</p>
        
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            <p dir="ltr">With yet another blockbuster indictment (why is it always on a Friday afternoon?), Special Counsel Robert Mueller has, once again, upended Washington. And this time, it is possible  that his efforts may have a wider effect outside the Beltway.</p>

<p dir="ltr">For those following the matter, there has been little doubt that Russian citizens attempted to interfere with the American presidential election. The American intelligence agencies  publicized  that conclusion more than a year ago in a report issued in January 2017, and it has stood by the analysis whenever it has been questioned. But some in the country have doubted the assertion—asking for evidence of interference that was not forthcoming.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Now the evidence has been laid out in painful detail by the special counsel. If any significant fraction of what is alleged in the latest indictment is true (and we should, of course, remind ourselves that an indictment is just an allegation—not proof), then this tale is a stunning condemnation of Russian activity. A Russian organization with hundreds of employees and a budget of millions of dollars is said to have systematically engaged in an effort (code named “Project Lakhta”) to undermine the integrity of the election and, perhaps more importantly, to have attempted to influence the election to benefit then-candidate Donald Trump. Among the allegations, the Russians:</p>


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        <p class="dek">The special counsel indicted the Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly interfering in the 2016 presidential election, the Department of Justice announced Friday.</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p dir="ltr"><em>On Friday, February 16, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein announced that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, had indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities on charges that including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft. This is the full text of that <a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download">indictment</a>.</em></p>

<hr><p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT</p>

<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA</p>

<p><br>
* * CRIMINAL NO. v. * * (18 U.S.C. §§ 2,371, 1349, 1028A)</p>

<p>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p>

<p>v.  </p>

<p>INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY LLC</p>

<p dir="ltr">        A/K/A MEDIASINTEZ LLC A/K/A</p>

<p dir="ltr">        GLAVSET LLC A/K/A MIXINFO</p>

<p dir="ltr">        LLC A/K/A AZIMUT LLC A/K/A NOVINFO LLC,</p>

<p dir="ltr">CONCORD MANAGEMENT AND CONSULTING LLC,</p>

<p dir="ltr">CONCORD CATERING,</p>

<p dir="ltr">YEVGENIY VIKTOROVICH PRIGOZHIN,</p>


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    <a href="/politics/archive/2018/02/mueller-roadmap/553604/" class="article-link" data-article-id="553604" data-omni-click="inherit" itemprop="mainEntityOfPage">
        
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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">What Mueller's Indictment Reveals</h3>
    </a>
    <ul class="metadata">
        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/david-a-graham/" itemprop="url" title="David A. Graham" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">David A. Graham</span></a></span></li>
        

    </ul>
    <meta itemprop="datePublished" content="2018-02-16T15:30:36" />
    <meta itemprop="dateModified" content="2018-02-17T16:34:09" />

    <div itemprop="description" class="article-content ">
        <p class="dek">The special counsel detailed how a Russian effort to widen divisions in American society launched in 2014 morphed into active support for the candidacy of Donald Trump.</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p>A <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/rosenstein-mueller-indictment-russia/553601/">37-page indictment </a>filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday lays out the most detailed picture of how the Russian government sought to interfere in the 2016 election, meddling with voters to sow division in American society, and encouraging the election of Donald Trump in what the defendants referred to as “information warfare against the United States of America.”</p>

<p>“The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable the Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” the indictment states. There are 16 defendants, including three organizations and 13 individuals, who are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States by impairing enforcement of election law as well as wire fraud and bank fraud.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">Why Don't More Female Figure Skaters Wear Pants?</h3>
    </a>
    <ul class="metadata">
        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/ashley-fetters/" itemprop="url" title="Ashley Fetters" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">Ashley Fetters</span></a></span></li>
        

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    <meta itemprop="datePublished" content="2018-02-17T09:30:00" />
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    <div itemprop="description" class="article-content ">
        <p class="dek">Leggings and yoga gear are common sights at practice rinks. But in competition, gender-coded costumes still prevail.</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p>Last weekend, one of the buzzier stories out of the Olympic ladies’ figure skating short program competition was one you might call … surprisingly surprising. The French figure skater Maé-Bérénice Méité made headlines: for the fact that she skated to a Beyoncé medley, and even more so, for the fact that she did it in pants.</p>

<p>More accurately, she did it in a bedazzled black unitard, but that didn’t stop news outlets and viewers on Twitter from pointing out Méité’s eye-catching, subtly subversive pants. “This French figure skater may not have won a medal, but her pants took people's choice,” <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/french-figure-skater-may-not-won-medal-pants-took-peoples-choice-181422813.html">raved</a> Yahoo! News, and AOL <a href="https://www.aol.com/article/lifestyle/2018/02/12/pyeongchang-2018-figure-skating-outfits-from-the-winter-olympics/23359525/">named</a> Méité’s bodysuit to its list of “most dazzling figure skating outfits” of these Olympic Games.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">The Swiss Have Liberal Gun Laws, Too</h3>
    </a>
    <ul class="metadata">
        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/krishnadev-calamur/" itemprop="url" title="Krishnadev Calamur" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">Krishnadev Calamur</span></a></span></li>
        

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    <div itemprop="description" class="article-content ">
        <p class="dek">But they also have fewer gun-related deaths than the U.S.</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p>In February 2011, Swiss citizens voted in a referendum that called for a national gun registry and for firearms owned by members of the military to be stored in public arsenals.</p>

<p>“It is a question of trust between the state and the citizen. The citizen is not just a citizen, he is also a soldier,” Hermann Suter, who at the time was vice president of the Swiss gun-rights group Pro Tell, told the BBC then. “The gun at home is the best way to avoid dictatorships—only dictators take arms away from the citizens.”</p>

<p>Apparently many of his fellow Swiss agreed. The referendum was easily defeated. Gun ownership in the country<strong> </strong>has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137689?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">deep historic roots</a> and it is tied to mandatory military service for Swiss men between the ages of 18 and 34. Traditionally, soldiers were allowed to keep their weapons at home in order to defend against conquering armies. These fears came close to being realized during the Franco-Prussian War on 1871; as well as World War I, when the Swiss border was threatened; and World War II, when the country feared a Nazi invasion.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">'Show Us the Carnage' </h3>
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    <ul class="metadata">
        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/james-fallows/" itemprop="url" title="James Fallows" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">James Fallows</span></a></span></li>
        

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    <div itemprop="description" class="article-content ">
        <p class="dek">None</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p>After a previous horrific massacre via AR-15, the one in Las Vegas last winter in which a single murderer killed or injured <em>more than 900</em> people<i>, </i>readers wrote about that weapon and its history. For reference, those items were:</p>

<ul><li>“<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/why-the-ar-15-is-so-lethal/545162/">Why the AR-15 Is So Lethal</a>”</li>
	<li>“<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/11/the-nature-of-the-ar-15/545414/">The Nature of the AR-15</a>”</li>
	<li>“<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/11/why-the-ar-15-was-never-meant-to-be-in-civilians-hands/545438/">Why the AR-15 Was Never Meant to be in Civilian Hands</a>”</li>
	<li>“<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/11/on-the-military-and-civilian-history-of-the-ar-15/545660/">More on the Military and Civilian History of the AR-15</a>”</li>
</ul><p>Now we have another massacre; more “thoughts and prayers” and other <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/deeply-saddened/553478/">pious but empty rituals</a> by legislators who will not do a single thing to reduce the chances of the next one; and more reaction from readers.</p>

<p>Can <em>anything</em> be done, by anyone or any organization, to stop the onslaught of gun violence? Readers suggest three approaches, involving: the media, the responsible gun-owning community, and the political opposition to the NRA.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">When Malls Saved the Suburbs From Despair</h3>
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    <ul class="metadata">
        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/ian-bogost/" itemprop="url" title="Ian Bogost" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">Ian Bogost</span></a></span></li>
        

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        <p class="dek">Like it or not, the middle class became global citizens through consumerism—and they did so at the mall.</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p>“Okay, we’ll see you in two-and-a-half hours,” the clerk tells me, taking the iPhone from my hand. I’m at the Apple Store, availing myself of a cheap smartphone battery replacement, an <a href="https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/">offer</a> the company made after taking heat for deliberately slowing down devices. A test run by a young woman typing at a feverish, unnatural pace on an iPad confirms that mine desperately needed the swap. As she typed, I panicked. What will I do in the mall for so long, and without a phone? How far the mall has fallen that I rack my brain for something to do here.</p>

<p>The Apple Store captures everything I don’t like about today’s mall. A trip here is never easy—the place is packed and chaotic, even on weekdays. It runs by its own private logic, cashier and help desks replaced by roving youths in seasonally changing, colored T-shirts holding iPads, directing traffic.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">Airbnb and the Unintended Consequences of 'Disruption'</h3>
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    <div itemprop="description" class="article-content ">
        <p class="dek">Tech analysts are prone to predicting utopia or dystopia. They’re worse at imagining the side effects of a firm's success.</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p dir="ltr">The U.S economy is in the midst of a wrenching technological transformation that is fundamentally changing the way people <a href="https://www.cydiageeks.com/best-sleep-tracking-apps-for-apple-watch.html">sleep</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wework-story-how-adam-neumann-changing-way-we-work-live-aman-mehta">work</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-restaurant-robot-waiters-2016-7">eat</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/future-retail/546119/">shop</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/style/tinder-relationship-dating-study.html">love</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/the-rise-of-speed-listening/396740/">read</a>, and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/">interact</a>.</p>

<p dir="ltr">At least, that’s one interpretation.</p>

<p>A second story of this age of technological transformation says that it’s mostly a facade—that the last 30 years have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/books/review/the-powers-that-were.html">a productivity bust</a> and little has changed in everyday life, aside from the way everyone reads and watches videos. <a href="https://som.yale.edu/blog/peter-thiel-at-yale-we-wanted-flying-cars-instead-we-got-140-characters">People wanted flying cars</a> and got Netflix binges instead.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Let’s call these the Disrupt Story and the Dud Story of technology. When a new company, app, or platform emerges, it’s common for analysts to divide into camps—Disrupt vs. Dud—with some yelping that the new thing will change everything and others yawning with the expectation that traditionalism will win out.</p>


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