US measles count rises to 764, driven by New York outbreaks

I was reading The Guardian the other day, which is one of the best, if not the best, newspaper for climate change coverage. I say this, despite the fact that it still silos the subject into a special section called “Climate Crisis and Environment.”

And it continues to publish front page headlines like “May and June heatwave kills about 2,700 in England and Wales, data suggests,” with no reference to climate change, until you hit the body of the story.

Which, quite frankly, is better than most newspapers do.

Indeed, in a recent issue of The Guardian, there’s an article about just that — the fact that an analysis of British newspapers revealed that 72 per cent of articles covering the U.K.’s June heatwave failed to even mention the climate crisis.

A Good Samaritan who was trying to help a woman who appeared to be suffering from a drug overdose on Tuesday night was instead stabbed by her companion, police say.

The victim, a 51-year-old man, came across the woman near Jubilee Avenue and Osborne Street at about 9:15 p.m. on Tuesday and tried to assist her, before a suspect came up and stabbed him in the upper body. Police say the suspect knows the woman.

The 51-year-old was rushed to hospital in unstable condition, where he was given medical treatment. The woman, too, was taken to hospital for medical attention. Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service personnel alerted police to the incident.

Patrol officers, along with a police dog unit, found the suspect on the 400 block of Brandon Avenue just before 11 p.m. He tried to run, but officers made the arrest and seized two knives, police said.

‘Amor mundi’, love of the world, is a basic tenet of Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of life and closely related to her idea of republican (i.e., democratic) politics. Currently, Western democracies have strayed far from the ideals stressed in this view.

Our leaders seem more preoccupied with self preservation and personal aggrandizement than public service, sometimes leaning heavily toward authoritarianism. Our supposed political priorities seem wildly out of whack with the public interest or good. “Contemptus mundi,” scorn for the world, appears to be winning. Democracies would benefit from an Arendtian rebirth of principles.

Key to Arendt’s ideas are the complex concepts of plurality, natality and action based on responsibility — the very premises upon which democracy is built. In their simplest forms, plurality means acknowledging that human reality rests on living respectfully with others. Natality implies that the uniqueness each new birth brings into the world offers hope for original beginnings and societal renewal. Action means political participation based on shared responsibility for making the world better.

By the world, Arendt envisaged the relationships formed by the interactions between people. The love she imagined is not self-serving, manipulative, abusive or exclusionary. Absent are the racial and gender discrimination, religious divisiveness, coercion and control that presently dot our political landscapes.