'Repatriation is not a favor'

'Let the dead rest. Return these tribal remains.'

Robin Satori at The Washington Post

The University of California, Santa Barbara, has "held in its possession thousands of ancestral remains and funerary objects from the Chumash Indigenous people who once occupied its land," says Robin Satori. The "Chumash community has long sought the return of their ancestors' remains for proper reburial." Every "delay, every hesitation, every request for 'more time' reverberates as a failure to acknowledge what the Chumash have never forgotten: that their dead still wait to come home."

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'What Delta's AI pricing means for the future of cheap flights'

Scott Keyes at Time

Flying is "cheaper than it has been in years. Now, many fear that AI could disrupt this trend," says Scott Keyes. It's "against this backdrop that we learned Delta Air Lines has been using AI to help set the price of some tickets." Though "dynamic pricing super-powered by AI could introduce new confusion and complications, it could help lower flight costs further." The "remaining question is this: Will AI push Delta's fares up or down"?

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'Hong Kong has become just another Chinese captive'

Doug Bandow at The American Conservative

Under "Great Britain, Hong Kong was a free city," says Doug Bandow. The "then-British colony protected free thought and expression. Hong Kongers could criticize public officials and cooperate with the world." Today, China "rules Hong Kong like it rules the mainland, with the partial exception of a thin veneer of a local authority." Tragic "was the speedy collapse of a freedom movement that had turned out millions of protestors." China is "satisfied with nothing short of total submission."

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'Have you noticed smoking is making a comeback? I hate that. I love that.'

Andrea Javor at USA Today

The "sight of snuffed cigarette butts in an ashtray might feel jarringly anachronistic these days, given successful efforts to curtail the smelly act for decades," says Andrea Javor. But "we're edging toward a resurgence, at least in popular culture, of the classic combustion of an old-school cigarette." This "phenomenon unfolds against a backdrop of deep and precipitous institutional distrust in the U.S. government and a decline in trust." This "rebirth points to a deeper longing for control."

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