The United States has the worst health-care system overall among 11 high-income countries, even though it spends the highest proportion of its gross domestic product on health care, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund.

“We’ve set up a system where we spend quite a bit of money on health care but we have significant financial barriers, which tend to dissuade people from getting care,” said Eric Schneider, the lead author behind the findings and senior vice president for policy and research at the Commonwealth Fund, which conducts independent research on health-care issues.

Researchers compared the health-care systems of 11 high-income countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The research relies on 71 performance measures, based on surveys conducted in each country and administrative data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization. The measures analyzed fell under five themes: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health-care outcomes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/05/global-health-rankings/
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This is a really informative article. I hope y'all can read it.

US guest of honour and Fox News host Tucker Carlson was granted a lightning visit by military helicopter to Hungary's 175km (109-mile) high-tech, high-cost razor-wire border fence with Serbia this week.

He liked what he saw. After praising the fence for being so "clean and orderly", in contrast to the "chaos" on the US-Mexican border, he told his viewers: "It doesn't require a GDP the size of the US, it doesn't require high-tech walls, guns, or surveillance equipment. All it requires is the will to do it."

And he praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for not allowing "this nation of 10 million people to be changed forever by people we didn't invite in and who are coming here illegally".

To make sure his US viewers understood his message, he contrasted Mr Orban's policies with those of US President Joe Biden.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58104200
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Do we really have to let him back into the US? Since he likes it so well there he can jolly well stay there!

China: Backlash over marriage question in Olympian's interview

A Chinese state media interview with an Olympic gold medallist asking when she would get married and have children has sparked backlash online.

The CCTV segment with Gong Lijiao, who won the women's shot put final on Sunday, also described her as a "manly woman".

Netizens have criticised the interview calling it sexist and narrow-minded.

They discussed it online with the hashtag: "Is marriage the only thing that can be talked about women?"

The questions have led many to object to what they see as ingrained expectations of Chinese women as well as outdated ideals of beauty and femininity.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58110014

Donald Trump, who spent significant portions of his presidency criticizing athletes, has been strangely quiet during the Tokyo Olympics. But on Thursday he popped up to take aim at one of his favourite targets: the US women’s national soccer team.

“If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn’t woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze,” Trump said in a statement that failed to explain why Canada, whose team have spent much of the last week showing support for their non-binary and trans midfielder Quinn, are in the gold medal match.

“Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has. There were, however, a few Patriots standing. Unfortunately, they need more than that respecting our Country and National Anthem,” continued the man who recently lost the presidential election, of the World Cup champions. The USWNT, along with other teams, have knelt before games at the Olympics to draw attention to racial injustice. They then stood for the national anthem.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/aug/05/donald-trump-uswnt-usa-soccer-olympics-bronze-megan-rapinoe-tokyo-2020
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Crybaby former guy screams into the wind about a group of powerful, smart women who won an Olympic medal

Russian Nuclear Submarine Broke Down In Danish Waters

The Russian Oscar-II class nuclear guided-missile submarine Orel had an unknown problem with its propulsion system on July 30 while transiting Danish waters in the Baltic Sea near Denmark’s second-largest city Aarhus, prompting the Russian Navy to prepare to tow the submarine before it eventually resumed operation. The details of the incident aren’t exactly clear, but Russian submarines have had some issues in recent years.

The Barents Observer reports that Orel was sailing alongside the Udaloy class anti-submarine missile destroyer Vice-Admiral Kulakov from St. Petersberg to the Kola Peninsula when the issue occurred. The crew of the Orel could reportedly be seen on the forward deck wearing life preservers while the Russian Northern Fleet’s tug Altai approached with ropes. The Danish patrol vessel HDMS Diana also approached to offer assistance and attempted unsuccessfully to make radio contact with the stricken sub, but was answered instead by the crew of the Vice-Admiral Kulakov. The Orel was being escorted by the HDMS Diana when the incident occurred.

(snip)

In a Facebook post, the Danish Navy’s Third Squadron wrote that this particular escort “will go down in history as both dramatic and exciting as the nuclear-powered submarine Orel of the Oscar-II class had problems with propulsion and lay dead in the water at Sejerø, where it drifted at 1.5 knots towards the island.” The post adds that the Danish Navy offered assistance to the submarine, which was “politely but not surprisingly declined.”

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41835/russian-nuclear-submarine-broke-down-in-danish-waters
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In case y'all wondered, they were there legally.

We need to think about the lies we’ve been told about women’s sports. That no one wants to watch us play. That the markets don’t support our success. That we should be grateful that they let us in the gym. The more you look into the economics of sports however, the more you see that the glass ceiling is being maintained and reinforced in real time.

The latest example of this comes from the Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP report entitled NCAA External Gender Equity Review, but really it details the lack thereof. The report finds that the NCAA itself is responsible for holding back the growth of women’s basketball through apathy while chasing the glory and cash of the men’s game.

From the executive summary:
“The results have been cumulative, not only fostering skepticism and distrust about the sincerity of the NCAA’s commitment to gender equity, but also limiting the growth of women’s basketball and perpetuating a mistaken narrative that women’s basketball is destined to be a ‘money loser’ year after year.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. The future for women’s sports in general, and women’s basketball in particular, is bright.”


https://deadspin.com/study-shows-ncaa-has-been-holding-back-women-s-sports-1847420319

Simone Biles, who made a triumphant, bronze medal-winning return Tuesday after withdrawing from previous Olympic events, has become a model for mental health awareness.

Biles, the most decorated active gymnast in the world and a survivor of sexual abuse by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, prioritized her well-being over an audience hungry for her performance, withdrawing from the team final and the individual all-around competition because she had "to do what’s right for me and focus on my mental health."

(snip)

On withdrawing at the Olympics

“We also have to focus on ourselves, because at the end of the day, we’re human, too,” Biles said. “So, we have to protect our mind and our body, rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do.”

On dealing with loss

"Two days ago, I woke up and my aunt unexpectedly passed, and it wasn't any easier being here at the Olympic Games," Biles told reporters after placing in the beam event, per the official Olympics website. "At the end of the day, people don't understand what we are going through."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/08/03/simone-biles-wins-bronze-her-most-powerful-mental-health-quotes/5452785001
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I went through all kinds of stuff when I was her age. I can't imagine doing it in front of the whole world........

For the first time since the Philippines joined the Olympics nearly 100 years ago, its national anthem played during the medal ceremony for weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, who brought home the country’s very first gold medal last week.

To say it was a proud moment for sports-crazed Filipinos is an understatement. It was more of a historical triumph witnessed in real time and etched into the collective memory of Filipinos.

“This is the best Olympics for the Philippines because I went home with the gold medal that we have been aspiring to for 97 years,” Diaz told VICE World News in an interview. “We have proven that we Filipinos can win in the Olympics."

(snip)

But amazingly, the magic run continued, keeping Filipinos glued to livestreams of the games shared widely across social media, where they earned a virtual gold medal from Facebook for being the “loudest” country talking about the competitions on the platform.
Filipino athletes are now poised to take away at least four medals, the best at a single Olympic games since they bagged three in 1932.


https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aq495/philippines-best-olympics-tokyo

Almost a year after Aurora, Colorado, police officers wrongly handcuffed a Black mother and members of her young family in a parking lot, one of the cops involved has thrown his hat into the race for county sheriff of a nearby town.

Last August, Officer Darian Dasko and four other cops from the Aurora Police Department stopped 29-year-old Brittany Gilliam in a strip mall parking lot, where she’d gone for a “Sunday Funday” after months of lockdown during the pandemic with her daughter, sister, and two young nieces—ages 17, 14, 12, and 6 at the time. The officers had mistakenly identified her car as a stolen vehicle.

The incident left Gilliam and the girls traumatized, and Dasko was briefly suspended for his role. Now, the eight-year law enforcement veteran has filed paperwork to run as a Republican for Las Animas County Sheriff in 2022, challenging the current sheriff, Democrat Derek Navarette.

“Anyone who has such poor judgement that they would pull a gun on a six year old girl lacks the judgement to be the county dog catcher, much less the county sheriff,” said Attorney David Lane, who’s representing Gilliam in a lawsuit against the department that names Dasko.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ekzb/polic-aurora-colorado-darian-dasko-handcuffed-brittany-gilliam-running-sheriff
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GQP? But of course. And Aurora must be a real sink, judging from what I've read about their PD recently.

Tamyra Mensah-Stock became the second American woman to win a wrestling gold medal with victory in the 68kg freestyle category on Tuesday.

The reigning world champion appeared to sustain a leg injury 40 seconds into the six-minute bout but recovered to win 4-1 on points, spinning her opponent over, scoring points from a pair of takedowns and defending solidly as the seconds ticked away.

The result means that Nigeria’s first Olympic wrestling medal is a silver for Blessing Oborududu, the 32-year-old 10-time African champion.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/03/tamyra-mensah-stock-wrestling-gold-medal-tokyo-2020-olympics