The Week Evening Review
Trump's WHO withdrawal, a new women's basketball league, and animal adaptations

 
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION

America is leaving WHO. What next for public health?

The Covid-19 pandemic's outbreak was five years ago, but it still reverberates through American politics. After President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization, it's clear that his anger toward WHO could "reshape global health," said The Washington Post. 

During his first term in office, the president blamed the organization for "fueling the coronavirus pandemic." His new order "immediately terminates" America's relationship with the organization. That leaves WHO, which has fought to eliminate malaria and is currently tracking an outbreak of the Marburg virus in Tanzania, in a precarious position.

What did the commentators say?
Trump is "wrong to leave the World Health Organization," former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at The Guardian. The president's order directed U.S. agencies to find new partners to "assume necessary activities previously undertaken by WHO." The problem is there's "no similar organization ready" to take its place. Meanwhile, global health threats continue to proliferate. Without it, "we leave ourselves unprepared."

The organization's leaders have used their influence to "impose woke cultural agendas on the world," Wesley J. Smith said at the National Review. It needs to make big changes "so that Trump feels comfortable in rescinding his decision."

America should "reform WHO, not leave it," Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said at Stat News. Yes, it's an institution with "deep cultural problems." But the real question should be how to make it more effective at "serving the public health needs of people around the world." It may be flawed, but it's also a "source of crucial coordination and collaboration." 

What next?
Reform won't be easy if the U.S. leaves. America provides a "huge amount of money" to it, Paul Spiegel, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said to Time. Withdrawing that support means "hobbling" WHO instead of helping it make changes. 

Leaving also means that the U.S. won't have access to its database of influenza strains, endangering health at home. In the meantime, organization officials are trying to persuade the U.S. not to make the break. A reconsideration, they said in a statement, would "benefit the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe."

 
 
QUOTE OF THE DAY

'I'm going to do Russia, whose economy is failing, and President Putin a very big favor!'

President Donald Trump on the war in Ukraine, via his social media platform, Truth Social. He has been "escalating his rhetoric" against Vladimir Putin, said Politico. During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to end the war on his first day in office.

 
 
In the Spotlight

New league builds on WNBA's success

Women's basketball has shot up in popularity over the last few years thanks to WNBA superstars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Cameron Brink. Now, a new league looks to capitalize on this success. The 3-on-3 women's basketball league named Unrivaled began play last Friday and hopes to provide another option for fans.

Unrivaled's initial nine-week season will run from mid-January through mid-March. Since the WNBA season goes from May to October, Unrivaled's organizers hope the league will become a U.S.-based alternative for WNBA players, who often play overseas during the offseason. 

How did Unrivaled get its start?
It's the brainchild of WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. Carmelo Anthony, Coco Gauff, Alex Morgan and Michael Phelps are athlete investors. Alongside "businesses and other organizations," they have "ponied up a combined $35 million to fund the league's debut season," said The Guardian. Corporate sponsors including Samsung, TNT Sports, Under Armour, Wayfair and Wilson will broadcast the games.

How does it work?
Unrivaled is a 3-on-3 league, and games will be played on a smaller court, said Yahoo Sports. The league comprises "six teams, each with six players." Unlike standard basketball, the game's final quarter will be "played to a target score that's 11 points higher than the highest score at the end of the third quarter." The league is "hoping to produce a game reminiscent of the fast-paced pickup style that hoopers are used to playing on a street court," said ESPN. 

What does the league mean for women's basketball?
Proponents of the league hope it will open more doors for women's sports. The six teams all play in the same building near Miami, meaning that "everybody is in the same place, playing and learning from each other, instead of dispersing for offseason, individual overseas assignments," said The Guardian. This can eliminate the "isolation many of the athletes say they experience abroad."

The league has "goals to break barriers in women's sports and sports leagues in general," said USA Today. Unrivaled's total salary pool is about $8 million, said SB Nation, making the average salary about $242,000 for a nine-week season; the average salary for the WNBA's 16-week season is reportedly $102,000. For "so long, we have tried to fight against the narrative that women's sports is a charity," said Collier to Time. But it's a "great business investment."

 
 

Statistic of the day

$64.82 trillion: The amount of money the British Empire extracted from India during its colonial rule, according to an analysis from Oxfam International. Between 1765 and 1900, more than half of this wealth was accrued by the top 10% of British society — enough to cover the area of London in 50-pound notes nearly four times.

 
 
the explainer

Nimble beasts: the animals adapting to climate change

Animals, like humans, have been experiencing the effects of climate change, with many species at risk of extinction. But some animals have been showing signs of adaptation and are changing their ways to survive in a shifting climate. Some of those survival methods include morphing body sizes and characteristics, migratory patterns, and diet. Here are a few of those transforming animals.

American pika
This "grayish-brown, rabbit-like creature" is the "size of a grapefruit and nearly as round," said the BBC. The American pika (Ochotona princeps) lives primarily in "mountainous environments in piles of broken rock called talus," Andrew Smith, a professor emeritus of life sciences at Arizona State University, said at The Conversation. In taluses, the temperature is often around 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than surrounding areas, and the animals have adapted to only venture out a few feet for food. 

Dragonfly
Some male dragonflies (Anisoptera) have a waxy coat on their wings that helps to keep them cool while pursuing mates in a warming climate, according to a study published in the journal PNAS. The coat is "bright, waxy and UV-reflective," with a "thick frosty-looking layer that can cover the whole body" called pruinescence, said Science News. The data also found that "waxless dragonflies are more likely to disappear from areas that are most rapidly warming and drying."

Kodiak brown bear
Living in the Kodiak Archipelago of Alaska is the appropriately named Kodiak brown bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi), a relative of the grizzly bear. Warming temperatures have shifted food seasons for the bear, according to a study published in the journal PNAS. 

Kodiak bears are omnivores and no strangers to eating berries, although another element of their diet, salmon, has a much higher protein content. Eating berries seems like a poorer nutritional choice. But "red elderberries are unique in that they contain almost the perfect amount of protein (~13%)." Even though they "contain less energy than salmon, they probably allow bears to gain more weight than they can eating salmon," the lead author of the study, William Deacy, said to Carbon Brief.

 
 

Good day 🎞️

… for "The Brutalist." The A24 film starring Adrien Brody was nominated today for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. The film depicts the journey of a Holocaust survivor who immigrates to the U.S. after the war and tries to start a new life. The film has won three Golden Globe awards, including Best Motion Picture — Drama.

 
 

Bad day 🥩

… for meatpacking companies. JBS and Perdue Farms, two of the country's biggest meatpackers, have to pay a combined $8 million in fines after the Department of Labor found they relied on migrant children to work in their slaughterhouses for years. The payments to the affected children and charities are part of a "flurry of child labor settlements that have come in the last days of the Biden administration," said The New York Times.

 
 
Picture of the day

Holding the line

Firefighters form a line along a hillside as they work to extinguish a brush fire near the Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego. More than 100 firefighters rushed to the scene and were able to contain the blaze after it had scorched over 15 acres. While the cause of the flames remains unknown, evacuation orders have since been lifted.
Gregory Bull / AP

 
 
Puzzles

Test your general knowledge with The Week's daily crossword, part of our puzzles section, which also includes sudoku and codewords

 
 
The Week recommends

From classic sci-fi adaptations to original dystopian tales, "depicting chilling visions of things to come has long been a go-to for television producers," said The Times. With "Severance" back on Apple TV+ for a second season, sparking uncomfortable questions about whether we should "separate our work and home lives a little more surgically," it's a good time to explore the best dystopian television shows streaming right now.

Fallout 
The "bouncy eye-popping energy" of this "post-apocalyptic action-comedy" makes for "perfect binging," said The Telegraph. Based on the video game of the same name, "Fallout" is set in the year 2296, two centuries after the "downfall of humanity," in a post-war America "devastated by a nuclear conflagration." 

Severance 
Following a "fantastically stylish, clever, trippy and compelling" first series, "Severance" (pictured above) is back on the small screen. And somehow it's even better than before, said The Guardian. 

Squid Game
The second series of Hwang Dong-hyuk's dystopian survival thriller was released on Netflix last month, with the third and final season due to hit the streaming platform later this year. While the "shock value of the first series has inevitably been diluted," the second installment "swaps cheap thrills for a more nuanced depiction" of morality, with a "whole lot of plot twists thrown in just for the gleeful fun of it," said The Standard.

 
 

Poll watch

Almost six in 10 Americans (58%) did not want President Donald Trump to unilaterally pardon all the Jan. 6 rioters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey. The poll of 1,077 adults was conducted the same day Trump did just that, pardoning nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

 
 
INSTANT OPINION

Today's best commentary

'Why fining airlines for chronically late flights is a bad idea'
Sheldon H. Jacobson at The Hill
How flights are "scheduled contributes to flight delays," says Sheldon H. Jacobson, but there's "so much out of airlines' control that using the Department of Transportation measure for 'chronically late flights' misses what are the primary causes of flight delays." Using "blunt penalties to discourage airline flight delays is misdirected." This is the "time to right-size airline scheduling and work toward a solution that serves the best interests of all passengers."

'Actor behind Call of Duty's first nonbinary character sticks to their guns'
Louie Villalobos at USA Today
The "hate and rush to dismiss anything different is so engrained in conservative dogma that it has reached the video game industry and is quickly taking hold," says Louie Villalobos. Gamers "accustomed to playing as elves, ogres and all manner of creatures have suddenly decided people of color and LGBTQ+ characters are now to be hated as 'woke.'" You "would think they would focus on stuff that might make people's lives better."

'TikTok lives on. So does its harmful effect on kids.'
Chicago Tribune editorial board
We "need to determine the appropriate course of action" on TikTok but "not just as it relates to legal compliance," says the Chicago Tribune editorial board. TikTok and the like are "poisoning American kids" and "fail to gatekeep sensitive content, with significant percentages of explicit and suggestive 'violative content' that's not moderated." Parents should "think twice before giving their teens unfettered access to these confidence-killing distractions," and we should "limit our kids' access to social media platforms."

 
 
WORD OF THE DAY

boomerasking

The practice of asking someone a question and then bringing the topic of conversation back to yourself after they answer. It's a tactic "used by crashing bores who want to drone on at you," said The Times. 

 
 

Evening Review was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Irenie Forshaw, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Joel Mathis, Summer Meza, Devika Rao and Anahi Valenzuela, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images; Carmen Mandato/Getty Images; Just_Super / Getty Images; Alamy / Pictorial Press Ltd.