The Cost of Superbugs & A Power Shift In Japan

Hi readers, Happy Tuesday! Today we’ve got a shortened edition – we’ll be covering more aid attacks in Gaza, Japan’s parliamentary elections, a strange car crash, and the future of drug-resistant bacteria.

Daily Pnut will be taking a brief two-week summer break and will be back on August 7. Enjoy your summer, take a break from the headlines, and we’ll be back in a jiffy!

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.” ― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Firing On Food Lines

On Sunday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed at least 73 people – injuring 150 others – as they lined up for humanitarian aid in Gaza. 67 of those deaths, which were reported by the Palestinian health ministry, occurred in northern Gaza, though it’s not fully clear if the shootings took place in one location or were spread out across the enclave. The shootings are the latest in a series of “incidents” carried out against aid seekers by IDF soldiers.

The Israeli military justified the killing by saying IDF soldiers had “fired warning shots in order to remove an immediate threat posed to them,” without disputing the Gaza Health Ministry’s casualty numbers. The threat supposedly consisted of “a gathering of thousands of Gazans was identified in the northern Gaza Strip.” The U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP), which was in charge of the aid delivery that drew the crowd, offered its own account of the events. “Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing point into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,” the WFP wrote. “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.”

On Monday, Israel expanded its campaign in Gaza, driving tanks into the city of Deir al-Balah for the first time in this conflict. The IDF has avoided operating in the area because it believes Hamas is holding hostages in the area, and many Palestinians have been pushed into the city thanks to the IDF’s offensive across the rest of Gaza. While Israel hasn’t commented on the Deir al-Balah campaign, the families of some hostages are worried that it might be endangering their loved ones. “The people of Israel will not forgive anyone who knowingly endangered the hostages - both the living and the deceased,” the Hostage Families Forum Headquarters said yesterday. “No one will be able to claim they didn't know what was at stake.”

Your reputation is on the line when your personal data is discoverable online.

LDP Stands For “Losing the Diet, Pronto”

• Over the weekend, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) – which has controlled the country almost continuously since 1955 – lost its majority in Japan’s 248-seat upper chamber. The loss means that the LDP no longer controls either house of Japan’s Diet (the country’s national legislature), as it lost its majority in the lower house in elections held last October.

• The weekend’s election saw half of the seats in the House of Councillors up for grabs, and the LDP needed to win 50 to maintain control. Combined with Komeito, its coalition partner, the LDP won 47, falling just shy of its goal. Despite the LDP’s disastrous results, party head Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he would not resign from his post. 

• As the older conservatism of the LDP loses its grip on Japan, a new far-right upstart group has begun gobbling up parliamentary seats. The Sanseito party secured 14 seats in the upper house in this weekend’s election, a big jump from the single seat it held on Friday. Sanseito, known for its “Japanese First” anti-immigrant rhetoric, has peddled conspiracy theories about Japan’s own “deep state” and also pushed an anti-vaccine, anti-mask agenda during the Covid pandemic.

Additional World News

• At least 20 killed as Bangladesh air force jet crashes into Dhaka school (CNN)

• Caught between a fossil fuel past and a green future, China’s coal miners chart an uncertain path (Guardian)

• For the first time in modern history a capital city is on the verge of running dry (CNN)

• How Trump Is Bringing Europe Together Again (NYT, $)

• China begins building world's largest dam, fuelling fears in India (BBC)

• US envoy doubles down on support for Syria's government and criticizes Israel's intervention (AP)

A Confusing Crash Case

• Richard Tillman, the youngest brother of Pat Tillman, was arrested for ramming his car into a post office in San Jose on Sunday. Local police currently have Tillman in custody on suspicion of arson, and the Postal Inspection Service has announced that it’s  “investigating the incident as a potentially intentional act.”

• Here’s a rundown of Pat Tillman’s story, in case you’re wondering why we’re even writing about this. Tillman was a well-known NFL player who enlisted in the U.S. Army after 9/11. He graduated as an Army Ranger in 2003, and was deployed to Afghanistan soon after – his story was pushed by the Bush administration as a shining example of post-9/11 American patriotism. 

• Tillman became increasingly anti-war over the course of his deployment, calling the war in Iraq “#@$%ing illegal” and planning to meet with anti-war advocate Noam Chomsky after his tour. In April 2004, Tillman was killed in the line of duty – at first, the military claimed he was shot by enemy combatants, but it was later revealed that his death was the result of a friendly-fire incident. One doctor who examined Tillman’s body said the bullet wounds were consistent with M16 shots fired from less than 10 yards away, and his unit reportedly burned his body armor, uniform, and diary to hide the incident. 

• But back to his brother – in the wake of Pat’s death, Richard Tillman was one of many family members to question why the military had covered up the truth about the incident. He appeared in a documentary examining his brother’s story, and made a living as an actor and children’s book author. But in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s post office incident, Richard began describing himself as the “second coming” and pushing anti-government theories in social media posts. “I never saw that side of him,” said one of his friends, “The Richard Tillman that I know — good people, good heart.”

Additional USA News

• An Accuser’s Story Suggests How Trump Might Appear in the Epstein Files (NYT, $)

• Wide Open: A Look Ahead at the 2028 Democratic Presidential Race (Intelligencer, $)

• Why CBS Snatched Its Talk-Show King’s Crown (Atlantic)

• Should ICE Agents Be Allowed to Wear Masks? It Depends Whom You Ask. (NYT, $)

• Alaska Airlines grounds flights after IT outage (Guardian)

• Harvard and Trump lawyers take funding fight to court (BBC)

The Super-Costs Of Superbugs

• According to a new study funded by the U.K. government, superbugs – antibiotic resistant bacteria – could cause millions of excess deaths worldwide and also cost the global economy trillions of dollars. The research, conducted by the Center for Global Development, shows that superbugs are becoming increasingly problematic, and (in the worst-case scenario) might cause $1.7 trillion annual GDP losses by 2050.

• Making matters worse is the fact that the U.K. and U.S. are slashing funding for superbug research. “When we conducted our research on the economic impacts of antimicrobial resistance, it was anticipated that resistance rates would continue to follow historical trends,” said the report’s lead author. “However, the sudden cuts to Official Development Assistance by the US, which has cut its aid spend by roughly 80%; the UK, which has announced aid cuts from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income; and substantial reductions by France, Germany, and others, could drive up resistance rates in line with the most pessimistic scenario in our research.”

• When bacteria are able to resist antibiotic treatments, they can make hospital stays longer and more complicated, leading to more deaths and higher healthcare costs – on average, a drug-resistant infection costs twice as much to treat as a normal one. While the report predicts that the current trajectory of superbug research will likely damage economic growth and shrink workforces, increased investment in superbug research might actually grow the U.S. and U.K. economies.

Additional Reads

• The tech that the US Post Office gave us (Verge)

• Where Are All the AI Drugs? (Wired)

• Perplexity’s Comet is the AI browser Google wants (Verge)

• I Swear, They’re Flying in Nobu Sushi for Their Kids (The Cut) 

• The real reason everyone’s so mad over the Gen Z stare (Vox)

• Why tech billionaires want a 'corporate dictatorship' (Verge)

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