Most people would agree that it would be better to prevent cancer, if we could, than to treat it once it developed. Yet economic incentives encourage researchers to focus on treatment rather than prevention. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/upshot/why-preventing-cancer-is-not-the-priority-in-drug-development.html?rref=upshot&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=The+Upshot&pgtype=Multimedia&smid=tw-upshotnyt&smtyp=cur The way the patent system interacts with the Food and Drug Administration’s drug approval process skews what kinds of cancer […]

In the twenty-five years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the architecture of liberal modernity has looked relatively stable. Not flawless or wonderful or ideal, to be sure; not free of discontents and decadence. But it’s been hard to imagine the basic liberal democratic capitalist order cracking up, let alone envision what might take […]

Tissues from millions of Americans are used in research without their knowledge. These “clinical biospecimens” are leftovers from blood tests, biopsies and surgeries. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/opinion/your-cells-their-research-your-permission.html?login=email&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0  If your identity is removed, scientists don’t have to ask your permission to use them. How people feel about this varies depending on everything from their relationship to their DNA to […]

The hedge fund magnates Daniel S. Loeb, Louis Moore Bacon and Steven A. Cohen have managed billions of dollars in capital, earning vast fortunes. They have invested millions in political candidates and each has exploited an esoteric tax loophole that saved them millions in taxes. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-wealthiest-private-tax-system-saves-them-billions.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0 The trick? Route the money to Bermuda and back. […]

The 15 JPMorgan Chase bank accounts that were pilfered by bank staff had a few things in common: They had high balances, there was little activity on them and they belonged to elderly clients — indeed, at least eight were dead. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/nyregion/2-bankers-charged-with-creating-atm-cards-to-steal-from-accounts.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news And all 15 of the accounts got regular cash infusions, thanks to direct […]

Licio Gelli, a buccaneering Italian financier and self-professed fascist who was implicated in terrorist crimes, scandals and a secret society that, with him as its grandmaster, was accused of plotting a right-wing coup, died on Tuesday at his villa in Arezzo, Italy at the age of 96.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/world/europe/licio-gelli-italian-financier-and-cabal-leader-dies-at-96.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0 His death was reported by the nation’s […]

When Vice President Joseph R. Biden traveled to Kiev , Ukraine, on Sunday for a series of meetings with the country’s leaders, one of the issues on his agenda was to encourage a more aggressive fight against Ukraine’s rampant corruption and stronger efforts to rein in the power of its oligarchs. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html?ref=world But the credibility […]

A shadowy cyber-espionage group that sent malware to the prosecutor whose mysterious death transfixed Argentina early this year has been hitting targets in left-leaning nations across South America, the Internet watchdog group Citizen Lab reported Wednesday. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fa7618cf36a642fb900a4f35b2c986b1/south-america-hacker-team-targets-dissidents-journalists The breadth and brazenness of the hackers’ activity bear the hallmarks of state sponsorship, the researchers found. So […]

Andrew Rios’s seizures began when he was 5 months old and only got worse. At 18 months a neurologist prescribed him the antipsychotic Risperdal, a drug typically used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults, and rarely used for children as young as 5 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/us/psychiatric-drugs-are-being-prescribed-to-infants.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur When Andrew screamed in his sleep and seemed […]

An international group of scientists meeting in Washington called on Thursday for what would, in effect, be a moratorium on making inheritable changes to the human genome. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/science/crispr-cas9-human-genome-editing-moratorium.html?ref=world The group said it would be “irresponsible to proceed” until the risks could be better assessed and until there was “broad societal consensus about the appropriateness” of […]

A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia that bombed a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Yemen on Wednesday had regularly been provided with the coordinates of the clinic, the medical charity said in a statement on Thursday. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/world/middleeast/doctors-without-borders-says-clinic-hit-in-yemen-was-known-to-coalition.html?ref=world The airstrikes on the clinic, in the war-torn southern city of Taiz, wounded nine people, including two […]

The German government issued an unusual public rebuke to its own foreign intelligence service on Thursday over a blunt memo saying that Saudi Arabia was playing an increasingly destabilizing role in the Middle East. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/world/europe/germany-rebukes-its-own-intelligence-agency-for-criticizing-saudi-policy.html?ref=world The intelligence agency’s memo risked playing havoc with Berlin’s efforts to show solidarity with France in its military campaign against […]

An attack on children’s toy and electronics company Vtech allowed a computer hacker to access pictures of customers’ children, according to Vice Media’s Motherboard section. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34971337 Last week, BBC News reported many children’s addresses had been accessed. And, on Monday<http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34963686&gt;, Vtech confirmed five million customers had been affected and suspended trading in its shares on […]

A Guantanamo Bay prisoner locked up for 13 years has been found to be a victim of mistaken identity, originally thought to be a member of al-Qaeda. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34987558 US officials said in a new report that Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri was a low-level Islamic fighter rather than a significant member of the group. The 37-year-old Yemeni, […]

The Alabama Justice Project has obtained documents that reveal a Dothan Police Department’s Internal Affairs investigation was covered up by the district attorney. http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-documents-reveal-dothan-police-department-planted-drugs-on-young-black-men-for-years-district-attorney-doug-valeska-complicit/ A group of up to a dozen police officers on a specialized narcotics team were found to have planted drugs and weapons on young black men for years.  They were supervised […]