No jump shots. No ferns. No memes. Not this time. I’m going to give it to you straight: If you need health insurance for 2019, the deadline to get covered is December 15. Go to http://HealthCare.gov today and pass this on — you just might save a life.

Humans and the livestock they consume is a tale that impacts lives in a deep and meaningful sense. Human history is interwoven with production of meat for consumption, and its availability and nutritional value as a source of protein has played a major part in diet as far back as we can imagine, shaping regional identities and global movements. The emotionally charged debate over the ethical suitability of meat consumption may never reach a conclusion, but it is only comparatively recently that the climate impact of livestock rearing, and the nutritional and health issues caused by meat have become a pressing concern.

Achieving a healthy diet from a sustainable source is a struggle new enough to countries with an abundance of food that it has proven difficult to enact meaningful change. Government efforts to curb consumption and thus curb weight gain in high-income countries are yet to display a meaningful effect, and most of these efforts are focused on sugar or fat. Similarly, the global ecological sustainability of farming habits has not been a major topic of conversation until the last few decades. It's only now that we're beginning to have a conversation about the role of meat in both of these debates, and the evidence suggests a reckoning with our habits is long overdue.

Meat production doesn't just affect the ecosystem by production of gases, and studies now question the system of production's direct effect on global freshwater use, change in land use, and ocean acidification. A recent paper in Science claims that even the lowest-impact meat causes “much more” environmental impact than the least sustainable forms of plant and vegetable production. Population pressures, with global population predicted to increase by a third between 2010 and 2050, will push us past these breaking points.

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So what is a healthy amount of red or processed meat? It's looking increasingly like the answer, for both the planet and the individual, is very little. Saying this is one thing. Getting the world to a place where we have the ability to balance the desire to eat whatever we want with our need to preserve the ecosystem we rely on to sustain ourselves is quite another. The conversation has to start soon.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32971-4/fulltext

Last weekend, while her father President Trump was wandering around the stage looking longingly at the blossoming friendship between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and Vladimir Putin, Ivanka Trump was pressing the flesh at this year’s G-20 summit in Argentina.

But it’s hard not to notice that the president’s favorite female has certainly been taken down a peg since last year’s G20, when Ivanka caused a lot of controversy by sitting in her father’s seat during one of the summit events. She also spoke at a woman’s summit which drew groans and boos.

Not so this year, where the First Daughter was largely silent and stuck mostly to smiling and waving, both things she’s extremely good at, as well as socializing with Bin Salman, another social pariah.

The ornamental quality of this year’s performance, especially as contrasted with last year’s, crystalized something I’ve long been wondering about Ivanka. She’s an adviser to the President who doesn’t advise him, a dignitary to the G20 with no dignity, a working woman with no job, a public official who doesn’t serve the public. And now that she no longer sells her sweatshop crafted namesake clothing, what is it that the president’s daughter is selling?

https://forward.com/opinion/415587/what-is-ivanka-trump-selling/

(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia should immediately allow independent international monitors to access Saudi women’s rights advocates detained since May 2018 to ensure their safety and well-being, Human Rights Watch said today.

On November 23, Saudi Arabia’s media ministry denied evidence published by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that Saudi authorities had tortured and sexually harassed and assaulted at least three detained activists. On November 28, Human Rights Watch received a report from an informed source indicating that Saudi authorities had tortured a fourth woman activist. Sources said the torture of Saudi women activists may be ongoing. Saudi Arabia should immediately and credibly investigate the allegations of abuse in detention, hold accountable any individuals found complicit in torture and mistreatment of detainees, and provide redress for activists abused during this prolonged pretrial detention.

“Saudi Arabia’s consistent lies about senior officials’ role in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder mean that the government’s denials that it tortured these women activists are not nearly good enough,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless independent monitors are able to confirm the women activists’ well-being, there is every reason to believe that the Saudi authorities have treated them with unspeakable cruelty.”

The sources for the allegations of torture were concerned that they and the activists would suffer reprisals if the women were identified publicly. Media outlets including The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal also reported the torture allegations.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/12/06/saudi-arabia-allow-access-detained-women-activists