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Month: April 2018

Why is it so stressful to talk politics with the other side?

Bridge Agents

(Conversation) – People disagree all the time, but not all disagreements lead to the same levels of stress. Even though people can be passionate about their favorite sport teams, they can argue about which basketball team is the best without destroying friendships. In the workplace, co-workers can often dispute strategies and approaches without risking a long-term fallout. Political conversations, on the other hand, seem to have become especially challenging in recent years. Stories of tense Thanksgiving dinners and of Facebook friends being unfriended have become commonplace. Why does this happen?…

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If You Want to Kill Drug Dealers, Start with Big Pharma

Bridge Agents

US (OtherWords) – At a recent rally in New Hampshire, Donald Trump called for the death penalty for drug traffickers as part of a plan to combat the opioid epidemic in the United States. At a Pennsylvania rally a few weeks earlier, he called for the same. Now his administration is taking steps toward making this proposal a reality. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo on March 21 asking prosecutors to pursue capital punishment for drug traffickers — a power he has thanks to legislation passed under President Bill Clinton. Time and…

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How do you tell the kids that Grandma is in jail for resisting nuclear weapons?

Bridge Agents

(WNV) – “Our grandma is in jail,” Madeline tells a woman wrestling a shopping cart at Target. “She went over a war fence and tried to make peace,” Seamus adds helpfully. “They arrested her, and she is in jail now.” “Where?” the woman asks, looking from them to me in disbelief and maybe pity. “We don’t remember,” the kids say, suddenly done with their story and ready to make passionate pleas for the colorful items in the dollar section over the woman’s shoulder. “Georgia,” I say, but I don’t have…

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Is Crime Really on the Rise in the United States?

Bridge Agents

If you were to read or watch the news, you would get a very bleak picture of what is going on in the world right now. Every time you turn around, you hear another story of someone being murdered, a break-in, or some other criminal spree. Whether these are happening near you or not, it can be demoralizing. But is crime really on the rise in the United States right now? How is Crime Reported To understand if crime is on the rise, you need to understand how crime is…

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Could Venomous Snails be Part of the Solution to the Opioid Epidmic?

Bridge Agents

(Ensia) – Opioids are powerful pain relievers, but their addictive nature also creates powerful trouble for those who misuse them. Worldwide, millions of people suffer from opioid dependency. Each day more than 1,000 people are treated in emergency rooms across the United States for misusing prescription opioids. In the U.S, alone, roughly 46 people died each day from overdoses involving prescription opioids in 2016. Researchers across the world are searching for solutions to the opioid epidemic. In looking for safer and more effective painkillers, some now are making use of…

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For First Time in Decades, Some Pakistani Women Vote

Bridge Agents

(HRW) – For the first time in more than 40 years, women turned out in significant numbers to vote in one of Pakistan’s districts. The vote for local government in Upper Dir district of Pakistan’s northern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, held last week, was necessary because the previous election, held in 2017, was annulled by the Election Commission of Pakistan because no women had participated. The country’s election law requires at least 10 percent of voters to be women in each constituency for an election to be valid. In October, Pakistan enacted…

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What Was The Informant Program That Killed Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar?

Bridge Agents

(TFC)— As 2017 ended, news outlets briefly covered the death of Green Beret Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar. According to NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service), Melgar was strangled after discovering at least two SEAL Team 6 operatives stole money fueling an informant program. Coverage then vanished before anyone examined the silent mammoth in the story. What was the informant program that got Staff Sergeant Melgar killed? Short of talking to an operative that was there, those are tough questions to answer. The Fifth Column News attempted to put some bits together…

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What You Need to Know About Moving Outside of the US

Bridge Agents

With the job market increasing on a global scale, more and more people are looking to move abroad. Whether the motivation stems from escaping the United States or the attraction of a foreign land, there are some tasks that need to be taken care of during the move. Here are a few things you need to know about moving outside of the US. 1. Visas Visas are the permission granted by a sovereign nations to a traveler permitting entry for a specific purpose (Travisa). Visas range in focus from work-permits,…

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Today’s youth reject capitalism, but what do they want to replace it?

Bridge Agents

United States (Conversation) – Today’s youth are increasingly unhappy with the way their elders are running the world. Their ire was most recently expressed when thousands of teenagers and others across the country marched on March 24 demanding more gun control, a little over a month after more than a dozen of their peers were shot and killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida. But there’s growing evidence that today’s young adults, ranging in age from 18 to 29 or so, are strongly dissatisfied with other fundamental aspects of…

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Immigration judge says quota mandate will do more harm than good to an already clogged system

Bridge Agents

US (TT) – A mandate handed down by the Trump administration designed to speed up activity within the country’s clogged immigration court system will instead create a larger backlog of cases, immigration judges and their supporters said on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that the country’s immigration judges must complete at least 700 cases annually in order to earn a satisfactory job rating. The effort comes as the backlog of cases has swelled and President Donald Trump’s administration continues its effort to crack down on illegal immigration and the alleged…

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