Back From the Dead
News Roundup
Back From the Dead
The voices came over the phone:
“In 2017, I was shot and killed. You heard that right, killed…”
“I’m a fourth-grader at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, or at least I was when a man with an AR-15 came into my school and killed 18 of my classmates, two teachers and me…”
“My parents re-created my voice using AI so I could ask you to finally do something to protect kids from guns…”
“Other victims of gun violence will be calling too. We’ll keep calling again and again until you pass gun reform laws…”
Weary of legislative paralysis, the parents of slain children had let a marketing firm resurrect the voices of their beloved dead using artificial intelligence. The voices were used in calls that flooded Congressional offices last month in support of guns-control legislation.
The process was “heartbreaking,” the parents told press. Some wondered if they would be able to stand the sound of their child’s voice again, or if it would break them. But they all hoped it will shock legislators to act.
FIVE FAST THINGS
MOVE FAST AND BAN SHIT: The U.S. House passed a bill that would ban TikTok unless ByteDance — the platform’s Chinese parent company — sells. Legislators worry about Chinese influence and data access as tensions rise between the two countries. China called it “an act of bullying” that will “backfire.” The bill will still have to pass in the U.S. Senate and survive legal challenges if it’s to become law.
HOW ‘IVF’ BECAME A LIVE GRENADE: The Alabama Supreme Court nearly exploded fertility treatments in the state when it extended personhood to in vitro embryos, meaning that unsuccessful treatments could be treated like wrongful deaths of children based on an old law that predates in vitro fertilization treatments. Facilities shut down. And in response, lawmakers rushed a bill that extended immunity to IVF providers and patients, restarting this form of reproductive care in the state. The problem? In their haste, legislators may have bestowed too much protection, offering blanket indemnity. That could actually make IVF treatments less safe in the long run if it erodes industry standards.
DRUG BALLAD: When Oregon decriminalized drugs three years ago, it was a daring experiment. The state removed criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of drugs. But overdoses have grown. Decriminalization advocates argue that it’s because the country is in the swing of a severe opioid crisis: Accidental fentanyl deaths in Oregon have climbed from 280 to 956 between 2019-2022, according to data from the Oregon Health Authority. But whether decriminalization is to blame, the effect is the same: Lawmakers have moved to bring back criminal penalties.
THE TALIBAN’S HEALTH PLAN: When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban stepped into the power vacuum. Since then, they have done what they can to prevent women from working or learning. That’s included preventing women from getting or giving healthcare. Foreign donors have also reduced aid. The cumulative effect has been to spike prices for what healthcare is even still available, imperiling health for those in the country, according to a recent report from the nonprofit Human Rights Watch.
CEASE AND DESWIFT: Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, publishes a celebrities flight tracker using public data, allegedly an attempt to draw attention to the impact of private flights on climate change. But Taylor Swift’s legal team has threatened “any and all legal remedies” for what it calls harassment in what’s probably a baseless cease and desist letter. Whatever Sweeney’s intentions, using public information to track climate impact is in the public interest.
Quick Provocations
BESTIES: Inside the peculiar friendship between Johnny Depp and Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian ruler Mohammed Bin Salman. (Vanity Fair) — There’s often an unsettling affinity between artists and tyrants… Film pitch: ‘Pirates of the Ara-bian,’ where the pair travels around quashing MBS’ enemies.
LAND THEFT: Public universities live on the largesse of land theft from Native Americans. (The Grist) — How much of that pro-Indigenous talk is just reputation management by universities?
THE WORLD IN NUMBERS
320,000
The number of cosmetic procedures — mostly nose jobs — performed in Iran in 2022. It’s likely an undercount. The country’s medieval dress codes for women make noses one of the few visible body parts in public.
74
How many lashes a woman gets for cosmetic surgery under Iranian law.
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