Saudi Arabia Says 1,300 Died Making This Year’s Hajj | NPR News Now

Climate change-driven heat waves, flooding, and droughts are plaguing the globe. What’s worse, the extreme weather events are exceeding climate scientists’ projections—which suggests we’re unprepared for what’s to come. It’s too late to reverse the effects of climate change. All we can do is to keep things from getting worse and adjust to our new normal with adaptations like green technology, updated building codes, and better infrastructure. Private industry is getting more involved with adaptation efforts, as it’s becoming increasingly clear that severe weather will impact business.

Last year was the hottest year on record for the planet, with over 6,500 daily heat records broken in US cities alone—and 2024 is expected to be one of the top five hottest years ever recorded. Forecasters say that regions across the US will experience a significant heat surge, with the Northeast, Midwest, Great Plains, and Southwest seeing temperatures rise by up to 4 degrees more than past averages.

A record-breaking storm hit California in early February 2024, causing widespread flooding in major cities. Researchers predict that as global temperatures continue to rise, California will experience more intense storms with increased dry spells between them, creating challenges for water managers to maintain adequate supply year-round.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a 2012 nonfiction account of the lives of residents of a slum in Mumbai called Annawadi, which sat adjacent to the Mumbai International Airport. U.S. author and journalist Katherine Boo follows the stories of a handful of the slum’s residents, including that of Abdul Husain, whose family’s fight with a neighbor changes the course of his life.

The poverty and hardship faced by the slum’s people reflect a globalized world—offering more wealth and supposedly more opportunity, but where many still struggle to survive day to day. The poor try to exploit one another to get ahead, and government officials and agencies exploit the poor, leaving them with little power and few resources.

Published in 1965, The Autobiography of Malcolm X chronicles how Malcolm X rose from a life of poverty and crime to become a significant leader of the civil rights movement. Malcolm X was a controversial figure—his views were often considered extreme and changed radically throughout his life. In telling his story (with the help of writer Alex Haley), Malcolm X explains why he believed what he believed—and why he fought for racial justice, even though he knew it would lead to his death.

This guide discusses the impact that early experiences of racism, pro-Black radical traditions, and Islam had on Malcolm X as well as his achievements as a civil rights activist. We’ll go into the historical and sociological context surrounding Malcolm X’s life and explore the civil rights movement (and Malcolm X’s relationship to other activists, like Martin Luther King Jr.) in more depth. We’ll also connect historical and present-day racism, and we’ll provide an update on the circumstances leading up to Malcolm X’s murder and his legacy.

For millennia, humans struggled with three serious problems—famine, plagues, and war—which led to the deaths of millions of people and to the rise and fall of global empires. People coped with these problems and answered life's questions with religion. However, in the modern era, we no longer rely on prayer—we’ve mostly overcome these three problems through the development of technology and medical knowledge.

In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, envisions a future in which technology replaces humanist ideals and liberal government. Dissecting the concepts of religion, immortality, and technology, Harari argues that the world of the future may be run by advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence, not human beings.

From racially motivated mass shootings, to threats to elected officials, to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, political violence and hate crimes have been on the rise in the US. Some psychological experts point the finger at stochastic terrorism. In this article we’ll explain what that is and how to spot it.

The 21st century will bring changes and challenges unlike any humans have encountered before. Globalism and technological innovations are changing the structures of societies worldwide—and the changes are happening quickly. If people don’t face these challenges and help shape the future, the world could have a class of obsolete workers whose jobs have been automated and people could lose their ability to make their own decisions. In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari highlights the biggest challenges in the modern world, and he offers advice on making sense of and navigating such transitional times.

In this summary, you'll learn how algorithms like Netflix movie recommendations are teaching you to distrust your own judgment, why religion can’t solve 21st-century challenges, and how automation will threaten the jobs of humans in every industry.