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the World Bank released an extra $5 million (£3.8m) to control the deadly outbreak. The money will allow for the deployment of personnel to battle the outbreak in the affected regions, the disinfection of buildings and fuel for ambulances.

The fraternity members did not call for an ambulance until 10:48 a.m. on Feb. 3, the documents said – nearly 12 hours after Mr. Piazza’s ordeal began.

Nothing matters more than the parliamentary numbers and Theresa May's lack of a majority. The politics of the coming months and perhaps years will be dominated by this one fact.

The easiest way for the government to ensure regular DUP support in Parliament would be to agree what's called a "confidence and supply" arrangement.

They can also be unstable and short lived, if the deal between the parties breaks down and fresh elections have to be called.

The Institute for Government think-tank says that for minority governments to last and work, ministers, MPs and the media have to change the way they think. Ministers have to be less majoritarian in their outlook, and be less ambitious and more realistic about what they can achieve. MPs need to learn how to do deals and make compromises.

Minority governments can linger on, scrabbling around for votes, spraying around taxpayers' money in return for parliamentary support.

This can mean whips - or parliamentary managers - rushing round doing deals with MPs from other parties, threatening some, bribing others. When votes are really tight, it can mean sick MPs being brought from their hospital beds in ambulances so their votes can be counted.

They will be in hock to a party whose views and policies they will not always find palatable. Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's chief of staff in Downing Street, told the BBC: "The Conservatives have made a big mistake. Theresa May has made herself a hostage to the DUP." In terms of the politics of Northern Ireland, it may make it harder for the British government to play its traditional role of neutral mediator.

All sides are worried about the potential impact on the political settlement if border posts and guards are reinstated, a reminder of the divisions and violence of the past.

Hospital patients and schoolchildren and cross-border workers are among those who have to make the daily journey. How do they see the road ahead?

Theresa May called this election because she concluded she could not get Brexit through the House of Commons with a majority of 17. She may struggle to do it with a similar majority that is made up of another party's MPs.

The Egyptian Armed Forces posted to Facebook on Saturday a video of its aircraft targeting "terrorist spots" in northern Sinai.

"The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!" he continued.

The military is using increasingly aggressive tactics to try to maintain order as it arrests protesters throughout the country

The violence isn't limited to the sites of demonstrations. For days, heavy weapon fire has been heard in the evenings as police patrol the streets to enforce an 8 p.m. curfew.

Multiple universities and hospitals are being occupied by police, and security forces often target medical personnel and ambulances, The Associated Press reports. Occupying hospitals lets police easily arrest wounded people, who they would presume to be protesters, the AP said.

Social media posts from the country are full of reports of demonstrators facing tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and even live rounds as they gather in Myanmar's largest cities.

Elsewhere in the city, army troops asked Mandalay Technological University staff members if they could use the institution as a base; after staffers rejected the request, soldiers cleared the area by force, Myanmar Now reported.

"You can see them walking down the streets in Yangon, firing up through the windows as people look in horror down on the streets,"

In February, Myanmar's ambassador to the U.N., who was appointed before the coup, pleaded for international assistance — and was removed from his position the next day

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners reports that at least 54 people have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup, and nearly 1,800 have been arrested. Around 300 of them have been released, but the rest remain in detention, AAPP says.

Meanwhile, state-run media is characterizing the demonstrations as "riots."

The country's deposed civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has had two trial appearances, even as she has been unable to meet with her attorney.

Averting our gaze from the tragedies surrounding us, remaining divorced from reality, in our little bubbles, are political and moral choices. We have been willfully unaware of the ricketiness of our health-care system. The collective well-being of our nation depends on us showing solidarity with and compassion toward one another. No one is safe until everyone is.

Our actions compound, one small act at a time—not pressing for greater attention to the vulnerable, because we are safe; not demanding better hospitals for all Indians, because we can afford excellent health care; assuming we can seal ourselves off from our country’s failings toward our compatriots.

living in Bhopal, and seeing the impact the leak had, I learned early in life that monumental failures, like monumental successes, are collaborative efforts, involving both the actions people take and the signs they ignore.

What has happened since is perhaps more instructive. Indians have by and large forgotten the tragedy. The people of Bhopal have been left to deal with its fallout. Richer Indians have never had to visit the city, so they have ignored it. Yet their apathy signals a choice, a decision to look the other way as their fellow Indians suffer.

However inadvertently, we built the system that is failing us. Perhaps the COVID-19 crisis will teach us, as the gas tragedy should have taught us, that our decisions—to stay silent as others suffer—have consequences.

What happens to people who fall sick overseas can vary widely, in part based upon their pretrip planning. Some countries have mandatory quarantine facilities for those who test positive and people who are sent there are at the mercy of local standards. Even at the nicest hotels, policies for handling those with the virus can vary widely. Not all travel insurance covers illnesses related to the coronavirus, and most doesn’t include evacuation coverage. Some policies require travelers to be hospitalized before their coverage begins while others only require minor symptoms. And traveler expectations play a role, too

When a person gets ill far from home, even if they speak the language, knowing what to do in the midst of a developing crisis is daunting.

As the situation worsened, the couple called the U.S. Consular Agency in Oaxaca, which said no area hospital beds were available. They suggested an oxygen tank. With Mr. Arellano’s condition deteriorating, the couple spent $25,000 for a Mexican air ambulance to take him to the Naval Medical Center in La Jolla, Calif.

Local and state officials begged Californians to not make holiday plans from Thanksgiving through to New Year. But even strict mandates here often go unenforced. Many businesses have collapsed, the film industry is mostly dormant.

And most schools in California have been closed since 13 March, with children isolated at home on computers, often with their parents away at work or trying to work alongside their children on overstretched Wi-Fi. And like most places, Covid-19 has hit Los Angeles' poor the hardest.

"We're sort of a pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of country - we're very individually minded and it's hard for us to think about giving up what we feel is our right to do what we want,"

For every case of Covid in Beverly Hills, there are six times more in Compton. While two people from Bel Air have died, more than 230 people have lost their lives in working-class East LA.

And now, the virus is surging through LA's vast homeless population. People who live in Los Angeles are used to driving past dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people living on the streets every day.At the beginning of the pandemic, they were largely spared from infection - likely because they're so isolated as a population. Cities and counties are using trailers and motels to house Covid positive people without shelter.

Behind the building, a fabric tent meant to house the most vulnerable women on the streets is now a field hospital full of men with Covid, tended to by doctors and nurses covered head-to-toe in the now familiar protective gear."The Covid situation is the worst ever and this is the most horrific battle we've ever been in," says Reverend Andy Bales,

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, Mr Bales was relieved that the homeless population seemed spared from the coronavirus.But then in April, a beloved staff member at the mission, Gerald Shiroma, died of the virus. He was 56.

As exhausted frontline medical workers continue their fight, the fear is that things will continue to get worse.As the virus spreads, it's likely mutating more than we know, says Dr Neha Nanda.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, urban population density does not seem to have been the primary factor in the virus’s spread — note how Asian megacities like Hong Kong and Seoul combated the virus successfully, while many American rural areas suffered major outbreaks.

But in New York and other American cities, overcrowding within residences, caused by a lack of affordable housing, did exacerbate the contagion. So let’s fix that: In addition to loosening our antiquated zoning rules, perhaps vacant office buildings and retail space can be turned into apartments, lowering the cost of housing.

This is also our chance to remake crumbling urban infrastructure — to create more engaging outdoor public spaces and to radically improve public transportation.

Then there is climate change. Think of the coronavirus as a trailer for the horror flick of natural disasters to come. We have a chance to fortify urban space against future outbreaks of disease as well as the coming calamities caused by the changing weather — we can even do both at the same time

The coronavirus does not have to kill cities — just our old idea of what cities were, how they worked, and who they were for.

Despite their economic and cultural importance, cities in the United States are often marginalized in politics and, more deeply, in our picture of how America should work. About 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas, but most say they’d rather live somewhere else.

Democrats depend on big cities and their surrounding suburbs for the bulk of their voters, but when was the last time you heard a national Democratic politician make a forceful case for the beauty, creativity and importance of cities

“Cities were once the most helpless and devastated victims of disease, but they became great disease conquerors,” wrote Jane Jacobs, the great urbanist, in “The Death And Life of Great American Cities.”

“All the apparatus of surgery, hygiene, microbiology, chemistry, telecommunications, public health measures, teaching and research hospitals, ambulances and the like, which people not only in cities but also outside them depend upon for the unending war against premature mortality, are fundamentally products of big cities and would be inconceivable without big cities.”

Goni was the 18th tropical cyclone to hit the country this year, which faces an average of 20 typhoons annually. And number 19 could come later this week: Tropical Storm Atsan, officials said, entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility early Sunday.

Citing local officials, Reuters reported that the 10 recorded fatalities and three people reported missing were all in the region of Bicol, which encompasses the southern part of Luzon. Nine of those deaths were in the province of Albay.

The AP reports that in one Albay community, the typhoon triggered volcanic mudflows that "engulfed" about 150 houses.

Philadelphia officials issued a citywide curfew on Wednesday after consecutive nights of protests — which at times turned violent — following the fatal police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr. He was holding a knife when police shot him.

"By looting, people are not only hurting retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they're doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,"

City officials said Wednesday afternoon that 81 people had been arrested during the previous night's demonstrations, including 53 for burglary, seven for disorderly conduct and eight accused of assaulting police.

Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage

City officials urged residents in certain districts to remain indoors Tuesday night due to "widespread demonstrations that have turned violent with looting."

A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.

The gathering featured speeches and preceded a march, Philadelphia member station WHYY reported, adding that one speaker noted there were "far too many comfortable white people here tonight."

"Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN. "It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.

Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police

A police spokesperson said Monday that officers were responding to a report of a man with a knife. They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers." Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage

Community members gather in West Philly

A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.

"far too many comfortable white people here tonight."

"Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN.

"It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.

Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police

Wallace's wife told the officers when they arrived that her husband had bipolar disorder and urged the officers to stand down.

They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers."

Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

One way or another, everyone pays for health care. It accounts for about 18 percent of G.D.P. — nearly $11,000 per person. Individuals directly pay about a quarter, the federal and state governments pay nearly half, and most of the rest is paid by employers.

Many Americans think their health insurance is a gift from their employers — a “benefit” bestowed on lucky workers by benevolent corporations. It would be more accurate to think of employer-provided health insurance as a tax.

Rising health care costs account for much of the half-century decline in the earnings of men without a college degree, and contribute to the decline in the number of less-skilled jobs.

Employer-based health insurance is a wrecking ball, destroying the labor market for less-educated workers and contributing to the rise in “deaths of despair.”

We face a looming trillion-dollar federal deficit caused almost entirely by the rising costs of Medicaid and Medicare, even without the recent coronavirus relief bill.

Rising costs are an untenable burden on our government, too. States’ payments for Medicaid have risen from 20.5 percent of their spending in 2008 to 28.9 percent in 2019. To meet those rising costs, states have cut their financing for roads, bridges and state universities. Without those crucial investments, the path to success for many Americans is cut off

Every year, the United States spends $1 trillion more than is needed for high quality care.

executives at hospitals, medical device makers and pharmaceutical companies, and some physicians, are very well paid.

American doctors control access to their profession through a system that limits medical school admissions and the entry of doctors trained abroad — an imbalance that was clear even before the pandemic

Hospitals, many of them classified as nonprofits, have consolidated, with monopolies over health care in many cities, and they have used that monopoly power to raise prices

These are all strategies that lawmakers and regulators could put a stop to, if they choose.

The health care industry has armored itself, employing five lobbyists for each elected member of Congress. But public anger has been building — over drug prices, co-payments, surprise medical bills — and now, over the fragility of our health care system, which has been laid bare by the pandemic

A single-payer system is just one possibility. There are many systems in wealthy countries to choose from, with and without insurance companies, with and without government-run hospitals. But all have two key characteristics: universal coverage — ideally from birth — and cost control.

In the United States, public funding is likely to play a significant role in any treatments or vaccines that are eventually developed for Covid-19. Americans should demand that they be available at a reasonable price to everyone — not in the sole interest of drug companies.

We are believers in free-market capitalism, but health care is not something it can deliver in a socially tolerable way.

They choose not to. And so we Americans have too few doctors, too few beds and too few ventilators — but lots of income for providers

America is a rich country that can afford a world-class health care system. We should be spending a lot of money on care and on new drugs. But we need to spend to save lives and reduce sickness, not on expensive, income-generating procedures that do little to improve health. Or worst of all, on enriching pharma companies that feed the opioid epidemic.

Medical device manufacturers have also consolidated, in some cases using a “catch and kill” strategy to swallow up nimbler start-ups and keep the prices of their products high.

Ambulance services and emergency departments that don’t accept insurance have become favorites of private equity investors because of their high profits

Britain, for example, has the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which vets drugs, devices and procedures for their benefit relative to cost

At the very least, America must stop financing health care through employer-based insurance, which encourages some people to work but it eliminates jobs for less-skilled workers

Our system takes from the poor and working class to generate wealth for the already wealthy.

passed a coronavirus bill including $3.1 billion to develop and produce drugs and vaccines.

The industry might emerge as a superhero of the war against Covid-19, like the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain during World War II.

illions have lost their paychecks and their insurance

Wallace was experiencing a psychological episode on Monday, according to a family attorney. His mother attempted to calm him, the lawyer said, but was unable to and called 911 for an ambulance. But the police arrived first.

"As Black Lives Matter protests demanding justice for Walter Wallace Jr. will likely converge with demonstrations related to the elections, Philadelphia's history of using tear gas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray against its own citizens also looms large," according to a statement from the council.

The Philadelphia City Council on Thursday approved a measure that would bar the use of non-lethal crowd dispersal tactics, including the use of rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray on those peacefully protesting.

This spring, the pandemic prompted unprecedented polling place consolidations during the primaries in jurisdictions across the U.S., sparking an outcry over images of voters standing in hours-long lines in places such as Milwaukee and Atlanta. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for election administrators to "maintain or increase the total number of polling places available to the public on Election Day to improve the ability to social distance." The guidance also says to avoid increasing the number of potential registered voters assigned to each polling place "unless there is no other option."

Everything about the act of voting in 2020 has been shaken by COVID-19. A record number of ballots have been cast early, either by mail or in person. All over the country, sports teams are turning over their arenas to be used as large-scale, socially distanced polling places.

Iowa voters won't be able to cast their ballot at any of those polling places this Election Day because of hundreds of closures and consolidations that have rippled across the state due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"I'm certain that it's going to make it harder for people to vote. But I am seeing a resolve right now, where people are determined," Brown said. "Whatever you do, we're going to counteract it."

Philadelphia, still on edge following days of protests and unrest that engulfed the city in response to the police killing of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr., experienced a relatively quiet night Wednesday.

Rulennis called a county crisis intervention line to see if Ricardo could be committed for inpatient care. It was Sunday afternoon. The crisis worker told her to call the police to see if the officers could petition a judge to force Ricardo to go to the hospital for psychiatric treatment, in what's called an involuntary commitment. Reluctant to call 911, and wanting more information, Rulennis dialed the non-emergency police number.

It was a tragedy for the Muñoz family — but it's not that unusual. According to a Washington Post tracker, police killed about a thousand people in the U.S. in the past 12 months. Like Ricardo, a quarter of those people had a diagnosis of a serious mental illness.

When the dispatcher questioned Deborah further, she also mentioned that Ricardo was trying "to break into" his mom's house. She didn't mention that Ricardo also lived in that house. She did mention that her mother "was afraid" to go back home with him.

The Muñoz family has since emphasized that Ricardo was never a threat to them. However, by the time police got the message, they believed they were responding to a "domestic disturbance."

"Within minutes of ... that phone call, he was dead," Rulennis says.

A Lancaster police officer walked toward the house. Ricardo saw the officer approach through the living room window, and he ran upstairs to his bedroom. When he came back down, he had a hunting knife in his hand.

In video from a police body camera, an unidentified officer walks toward the Muñoz residence. Ricardo steps outside, and shouts "Get the f—k back." Ricardo comes down the stairs of the stoop and runs toward the officer. The officer starts running down the sidewalk, but after a few steps, he turns back toward Ricardo, gun in hand, and shoots him several times. Within minutes, Ricardo is dead.

After Ricardo crumples to the sidewalk, his mother's screams can be heard, off camera. Police made the body camera video public a few hours after Ricardo's death, in an effort to dispel rumors about Ricardo's death and quell rioting in the city. The county district attorney has since deemed the shooting justified, and the officer's name was never made public.

A recording and transcript of the 911 call show that the dispatcher gave Deborah three options: police, fire or ambulance. Deborah wasn't sure, so she said "police." Then she went on to explain that Ricardo was being aggressive, had a mental illness and needed to go to the hospital.

Across the U.S., people with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely than the overall population to be killed by police, according to one study from the mental health nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center.

Miguelina Peña, says she tried for years to get help for her son.

Among the problems, the family couldn't find a psychiatrist who was taking new patients, Peña says. Additionally, Peña speaks little English, and that made it difficult to help Ricardo enroll in health insurance, or for her to understand what treatments he was receiving. Ricardo got his prescriptions through a local nonprofit clinic for Latino men, Nuestra Clinica.

Instead of consistent medical care and a trusted therapeutic relationship, Ricardo got treatment that was sporadic and fueled by crisis: He often ended up in the hospital for a few days, then would be discharged back home with little or no follow-up. This happened more times than his mother and sisters can recall.

Laws in Pennsylvania and many other states make it difficult for a family to get psychiatric care for someone who doesn't want it; it can only be imposed on the person if he or she poses an immediate threat, says Angela Kimball, advocacy and public policy director at National Alliance on Mental illness. By that point, it's often law enforcement, rather than mental health professionals, who are called in to help.

"Law enforcement comes in and exerts a threatening posture," Kimball says. "For most people, that causes them to be subdued. But if you're experiencing a mental illness, that only escalates the situation."

"Dialing 911 will accelerate a response by emergency personnel, most often police," she says. "This option should be used for extreme crisis situations that require immediate intervention. These first responders may or may not be appropriately trained and experienced in de-escalating psychiatric emergencies."

The National Alliance on Mental Illness continues to advocate for more resources for families dealing with a mental health crisis. The group says more cities should create crisis response teams that can respond at all hours, without involving armed police officers in most situations.

There has been progress on the federal level, as well. Kimball was happy when President Trump signed a bipartisan Congressional bill, on Oct. 17, to implement a three-digit national suicide prevention hotline. The number — 988 — will eventually summon help when dialed anywhere in the country. But it could take a few years before the system is up and running.

"And instead of a cop just being there, there should have been other responders," Rulennis says. "There should have been someone that knew how to deal with this type of situation."

Johnson, however, noted the onus is not on the family to pursue charges. It is up to District Attorney Larry Krasner. The family does intend to file a wrongful death suit.

The attorney described the final moments of Wallace's life as they were captured in the body cam footage, saying the officers made no attempt to diffuse the chaotic situation upon their arrival. On the contrary, he said, it was clear the officers intended to kill the mentally unstable man.

According to the family, they called 911 to summon an ambulance that would help them calm Wallace who was experiencing a psychological episode. But instead of healthcare professionals trained to handle such situations it was the two officers who showed up.

Johnson said he looked like a person in "obvious mental health crisis." "You will see a person walking around not even speaking," said Johnson, remarking that it looked as if Wallace was "in a cloud."

"I understand he had a knife ... and I think that does not give you carte blanche to execute a man," he said.

Wallace was approximately a car and a half-length away.

Johnson also claims the video shows Wallace was incapacitated after the first shot.

The video captures audio of one officer telling the other to "shoot him" before both opened fire, Johnson said.

The officers involved in the shooting claim Wallace advanced toward them with the knife but the family disputes that account. Several videos recorded by bystanders show at least one officer shouted for Wallace to put down the weapon.

The officers' names have not been released. Both have been suspended from active patrol and remain on desk duty.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw has pledged to release the video and audio tapes.

Mayor Jim Kenney and District Attorney Larry Krasner released a joint statement Thursday night saying the footage and 911 audio files will be released by the end of next week.

The road also services a major police academy and a compound where United Nations and foreign government staff members and officials live.

The bombing, part of a string of attacks blamed on the Qaeda-linked Al Shabab extremist group that have gripped Somalia in recent months, comes as the country’s leaders struggle to resolve a political crisis that has distracted the government from the deteriorating security situation.

Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, a government spokesman, condemned what he described as a suicide attack, calling it “cowardly.”

“Such acts of terrorism will not derail the peace & the ongoing development in the country,” he wrote on Twitter. “We must unite in the fight against terrorism.”

Witnesses said the explosion could be heard in many of the city’s districts.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia condemned the attack, and said none of its “personnel or contractors” were in the targeted convoy.

The explosion has hit the country as it undergoes a tense election period that has seen growing infighting among its political leaders.

The political struggle has threatened to tip the country into violent conflict, like the clashes that broke out in April, and reverse the modicum of peace and stability Somalia has achieved in recent years.

As disagreements over the elections have persisted, Al Shabab have stepped up their attacks, particularly in the capital. Over the past two months, the group has carried out car bomb explosions, assassinated government officials and attacked election centers — efforts analysts say are aimed at undermining the electoral process.

The security situation in Somalia is deteriorating, and parts of the country are facing their driest season in around four decades. An estimated 3.8 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity, according to the United Nations, with almost three million displaced within the country.

“As long as the election cycle and current tensions drag on, the attention of the political elite will be more inwardly focused, while other priorities lag behind,”

“This unfortunately creates greater space for Al Shabab to operate.”

48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in 2021. (The U.S. population is about 20 times that of the Netherlands; U.S. gun homicides are more than 1,777 times the number in the Netherlands.)

“Since 2014, 23 prisons have been shut, turning into temporary asylum centres, housing and hotels. … The number of prison sentences imposed fell from 42,000 in 2008 to 31,000 in 2018 — along with a two-thirds drop in jail terms for young offenders

Registered crimes plummeted by 40% in the same period, to 785,000 in 2018.”

in the United States, “Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of over 350,000 people

possession arrests each year, many of which lead to prison sentences.”

the United States has 163 times the number of incarcerated people as the Netherlands, more than eight times as many per 100,000 people.

“The United States spends nearly $300 billion annually to police communities and incarcerate 2.2 million people.”

“The societal costs of incarceration — lost earnings, adverse health effects, and the damage to the families of the incarcerated — are estimated at up to three times the direct costs, bringing the total burden of our criminal justice system to $1.2 trillion.”

These two very different systems didn’t just happen. Each country made choices.

In real terms, the U.S. criminal justice system and ubiquitous guns require an industry — ambulances, emergency room personnel, police, courts, judges, prisons, lawyers, private security and more — that the Dutch system does not

As I walked down the streets of Amsterdam, I imagined what we could have bought with the money we spend on the criminal justice system: universal college education, universal medical care, a strong social safety net.

The human cost of crime in America — a family driven into poverty because a breadwinner is murdered, a child permanently disabled from a gunshot, children terrorized in schools — is astronomically higher than in the Netherlands.

there is the opportunity cost in the United States — the murdered child who doesn’t grow up to invent the next cancer cure, the school that is forced to use resources on lockdown drills and grief counselors rather than reading teachers

We are very good at feeding a criminal justice system; we’re not so adept at eliminating crime

Understand, then, that we have our current criminal justice system because we have fetishized guns, criminalized addiction, neglected mental and emotional health, and resisted addressing social factors driving crime.

We could do it differently. We simply don’t want to