
COVID-19 Pandemic: Is History Doomed to Repeat Itself?
Vicki Bier, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, discusses lessons learned from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic.
BALTIMORE, MD, May 24, 2025 – Most anti-human trafficking efforts focus on breaking up sex sales; however, new research in the INFORMS journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management is turning its attention to where trafficking truly begins – recruitment. Using machine learning to analyze millions of online ads, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have uncovered patterns that link deceptive job offers to sex trafficking networks. By mapping the connections between recruitment and sales locations, the study reveals a hidden supply chain – one that can now be exposed and interrupted earlier in the trafficking process.
Drugs being explicitly developed to treat rare diseases are getting more expensive.
Old technology is behind the recent ongoing delays and cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport, but newer technology will be an important part of the solution.
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Vicki Bier, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, discusses lessons learned from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic.
More than three weeks after 413,000 Wisconsin voters went to the polls, there has not been the spike in COVID-19 cases attributed to the election that many feared.
Mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t want to just restart the city’s economy, sighs Seth Barron at City Journal — he wants to “transform” it. “For six boom years,” he spent “tens of billions” pursuing his “equity agenda” and hiring “tens of thousands of new municipal employees.” Yet his message as the city faces the coronavirus “sounds strikingly similar to his message pre-crisis.” In fact, de Blasio “has spoken of the ‘transformative’ nature of his administration so often that it prompts groans from anyone outside his closest orbit.” Meanwhile, “homeless people fill New York’s subways,” crime is on the rise and tenants have “no idea” how to pay their rent. With the city “spiraling into crisis,” the mayor “continues to sound the one note he knows how to play — about unfairness and inequality” — even though “his instrument is out of tune.”
New data shows Wisconsinites might be growing less compliant with social distancing measures meant to slow the spread of COVID-19. But public health researchers say "quarantine fatigue" isn't a reason to give up on the restrictions.
After more than a month of the national lockdown aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19, plans for how the United States can move back toward normalcy have begun to emerge. The centerpiece of discussion has been the extent to which the country is able to massively ramp up accurate testing for the virus — a point of contention between the White House and leaders in the most heavily affected states since the outbreak’s earliest days.
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