A new method of modeling predicts that the world human population will peak at 8.8 billion before 2050, and then decline to 7.8 billion by the end of the century.

This will help avoid disaster, but doesn't assure avoiding it. If more people avoid reproducing in this decade, it will make the next decade easier to get through without disaster and facilitate lower use of fossil fuels.

When minors in the UK are searched by thugs, black minors are far more likely to be strip-searched than white minors.

The thugs violate the official rules meant to protect minor from psychological trauma about half the time.

The article says "children", but I expect that means "minors" and that most of the people searched are teenagers.

US citizens: call on the Biden Administration to investigate racial inequity at Maximus, a federal call center contractor.

The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.

If you phone, please spread the word!

The UK plans to evict tenants who use recreational drugs. Nominally the law will require all rental agreements to permit the landlord to do so — but this would not make sense on its own. I suspect there will be a system to punish landlords who don't evict. This way, the state can punish people and hide behind the landlord.

Medicare Advantage insurance companies are using secret algorithms to choose a time to refuse to keep paying for a treatment. Patients and their lawyers are not given the supposed reasons for the decision so they have no easy way to challenge it.

The article calls these algorithms "AI". What that means is not clear — I expect it is mere machine learning, but it might perhaps be a system that draws confusions for reasons. Either way, the details of how the algorithm operates are not important. The crucial point is that they are secret.

Some countries have considered laws to forbid the use of secret algorithms to make decisions about how a person will be treated — and not only in medicine. I think the US should adopt such a law.