The talk had been planned a month ago; tickets had been sold and many people eventually showed up, but now there was a big problem. The staff at Powerhouse, an arty but not aggressively political bookstore on the waterfront in Dumbo, where the discussion was being held, was objecting on the grounds that Rabbi Bachman was “a Zionist.” (Bellafante, The New York Times)
Read MoreOklahoma’s state superintendent, Ryan Walters, said when he announced the directive that “immediate and strict compliance is expected” for the 2024-25 school year. But as schools open around Oklahoma this month, there’s little evidence that the Bible’s presence is any changed from last year, or the year before. No Bibles appear to have been purchased, and no curriculum changes have been announced. (Graham, The New York Times)
Read MoreChick-Fil-A is moving aggressively into the entertainment space with plans to launch a slate of originals for its own streaming platform. Deadline understands that the fast-food firm has been working with a number of major production companies, including some of the studios, to create family-friendly shows, particularly in the unscripted space. (White, Deadline)
Read MoreUkraine’s parliament has banned the activities of religious groups tied to the Russian Orthodox Church or any other faith group supporting Russia’s invasion — a measure widely seen as targeting a Ukrainian religious body, despite its claim to independence from Moscow. The bill creates the legal tools for the government to ban the activities of any religious group deemed to be too closely connected to Russia or to support its invasion of Ukraine. (Smith, AP News)
Read MoreJean Hébert, a new hire with the US Advanced Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), is expected to lead a major new initiative around “functional brain tissue replacement,” the idea of adding youthful tissue to people’s brains. President Joe Biden created ARPA-H in 2022, as an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, to pursue what he called “bold, urgent innovation” with transformative potential. (Regalado, MIT Technology Review)
Read MoreThe report analyzed alcohol and psychoactive drug usage in 2019 across 145 countries. While rates of alcohol-related deaths had decreased since 2010, the overall number is still “unacceptably high,” WHO officials said in the report released in June. Deaths linked to alcohol consumption made up about 4.7 percent of all deaths worldwide. (Docter-Loeb, The Washington Post)
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