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On the origin of the deadliest pandemic in 100 years : an investigation / by Dewar, Elaine,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."When the first TV newscast described a SARS-like flu affecting a distant Chinese metropolis, investigative journalist Elaine Dewar started asking questions: Was SARS-CoV-2 something that came from nature, as leading scientists insisted, or did it come from a lab, and what role might controversial experiments have played in its development? Why was Wuhan the pandemic's ground zero--and why, on the other side of the Atlantic, had two researchers been marched out of a lab in Winnipeg by the RCMP? Why were governments so slow to respond to the emerging pandemic, and why, now, is the government of China refusing to cooperate with the World Health Organization? And who, or what, is DRASTIC? Locked down in Toronto with the world at a standstill, Dewar pored over newspapers and magazines, preprints and peer-reviewed journals, email chains and blacked-out responses to access to information requests; she conducted Zoom interviews and called telephone numbers until someone answered as she hunted down the truth of the virus's origin. In this compulsive whodunnit, she reads the science, follows the money, connects the geopolitical interests to the spin--and shows how leading science journals got it wrong, leaving it to interested citizens and junior scientists to pull out the truth."--
Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-;

Antisemitism in America : a warning / by Schumer, Charles E.,author.; Molofsky, Josh,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In an urgent and personal new book, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sheds light on the Jewish American experience and sounds the alarm about the troubling resurgence of antisemitism. When it comes to the history of the Jewish people, there is a national and global crisis of misunderstanding. This lack of knowledge feeds demons of ignorance, hatred, and violence. ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA: A WARNING is an urgent work of nonfiction that illuminates the Jewish experience and the prejudices both hidden and overt that have led to the chronic persecution of the Jewish people. By placing antisemitism in its proper historical context, and drawing from Senator Schumer's own life, the book informs Americans' understanding of the causes of the recent swell of antisemitic rhetoric and violence in our country. In very personal terms, it will engage with debates over the purpose and meaning of Israel, and help draw a line between legitimate criticism of its government and when criticism of Israel as a Jewish homeland verges into antisemitism. This book is a warning, informed by the lessons of history, about what can happen when the "world's oldest hatred" is allowed to rise, unchecked."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Creative nonfiction.; Schumer, Charles E.; Antisemitism.; Antisemitism; Jews;

Nuclear war : a scenario / by Jacobsen, Annie,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These projects are vital to how we understand the world we really live in: where one nuclear missile begets one in return; where the choreography of the world's end requires massive decisions made on seconds-notice, with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking clock scenario, based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons; created the response plans; and been responsible for those decisions should they need to have been made. Nuclear War: A Scenario is unlike any other book in its depth and urgency"--
Subjects: Nuclear crisis control; Nuclear warfare; Nuclear weapons;

The Americans. [videorecording] / by Emmerich, Noah.; Falvey, Justin.; Fields, Joel.; Flaherty, Danny.; Frank, Darryl.; Gorn, Lev,1971-; Mahendru, Annet.; Martindale, Margo,1951-; Misner, Susan,1971-; O'Connor, Gavin.; Rhys, Matthew,1974-; Russell, Keri,1976-; Sellati, Keidrich.; Taylor, Holly,1997-; Thomas, Richard,1951-; Weisberg, Joe,1965-; Wright, Alison,1976-; Yost, Graham.; FX Productions.; Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc.; Twentieth Century-Fox Television, Inc.;
Disc 1. Comrades -- Cardinal -- The walk inches.Disc 2. A little night music -- The deal -- Behind the red door -- Arpanet.Disc 3. New car -- Martial eagle -- Yousaf -- Stealth.Disc 4. Operation Chronicle -- Echo.Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Holly Taylor, Keidrich Sellati, Margo Martindale, Noah Emmerich, Richard Thomas, Annet Mahendru, Susan Misner, Alison Wright, Maximilano Hernandez, Lev Gorn, Danny Flaherty.Season 2 of the Cold War drama centres on the complex marriage of two KGB spies posing as Americans in suburban Washington D.C. shortly after Ronald Reagan is elected President. The arranged marriage of Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) - who have two children who know nothing about their parents' true identity - grows more passionate and genuine by the day, but is constantly tested by the escalation of the Cold War and the intimate and dangerous relationships they must maintain with a network of spies and informants under their control.PG.DVD, NTSC region 1, dual layer, widescreen (1.78:1) presentation; Dolby Digital 5.1, surround Dolby Digital 2.0.
Subjects: Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti; Cold War; Espionage; Espionage, Soviet; Intelligence service; Spies; Spy television programs.; Subversive activities; Television programs.; Video recordings for the hearing impaired.;
For private home use only.

Lawless : abortion under complete decriminalization / by Paynter, Martha,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Canada is the only country with complete decriminalization of abortion: no gestational duration limitations, no parental consent obligations, and no waiting periods. In recent years, other countries (New Zealand, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico) have made strides toward this, while the United States has notoriously lost ground. Amidst the tumult, nurse and scholar Martha Paynter uses historical context and contemporary issues to explain why experts advocate against laws governing abortion. Despite decriminalization, Canadian federal and provincial legislation and regulations about health funding, delivery, and human rights all shape how abortion care is delivered. Barriers persist in uneven access, unclear information, and belief-based denial of care. In accessible plain language from the expansive perspective of a clinician, researcher and activist, Paynter describes abortion policy, practice and experience and discusses how to resolve challenges that continue more than three decades after Canada became the world's most legally progressive jurisdiction for abortion."--
Subjects: Abortion; Abortion; Abortion; Abortion; Reproductive rights; Women;

Plagues and their aftermath : how societies recover from pandemics / by Jenkins, Brian Michael,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.In a concise, authoritative, and gripping telling, Brian Michael Jenkins--one of our leading authorities on national security and an advisor to governments, presidents and CEOs--provides a masterly account of what kind of future the planet might be facing ... by looking at the world's long history of epidemics and discerning what was common about their aftermath.
Subjects: Informational works.; Pandemics;

The philosopher in the valley : Alex Karp, Palantir, and the rise of the surveillance state / by Steinberger, Michael,author.;
"Palantir builds data integration software: its technology ingests vast quantities of information and quickly identifies patterns, trends, and connections that might elude the human eye. Founded in 2003 to help the US government in the war on terrorism -- an early investor was the CIA -- Palantir is now a $400 billion global colossus whose software is used by major intelligence services (including the Mossad), the US military, dozens of federal agencies, and corporate giants like Airbus and BP. From AI to counterterrorism to climate change to immigration to financial fraud to the future of warfare, the company is at the nexus of the most critical issues of the twenty-first century. Its CEO, Alex Karp, is a distinctive figure on the global business scene. A biracial Jew who is also severely dyslexic, Karp has built Palantir into a tech giant despite having no background in either business or computer science. Instead, he's a trained philosopher who has become known for his strongly held views on a range of issues and for his willingness to grapple with the moral and ethical implications of Palantir's work. Those questions have taken on added urgency during the Trump era, which has also brought attention to the political activism of Karp's close friend and Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel. In The Philosopher in the Valley, journalist Michael Steinberger explores the world of Alex Karp, Palantir, and the future that they are leading us toward. It is an urgent and illuminating work about one of Silicon Valley's most secretive and powerful companies, whose technology is at the leading edge of the surveillance state"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Karp, Alexander C.; Palantir Foundation for Defense Policy and International Affairs.; Big data.; Businesspeople; Computer software industry.; Electronic surveillance; Technology;

Waste land : a world in permanent crisis / by Kaplan, Robert D.,1952-author.;
"We are entering a new era of global cataclysm in which the world faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. In Waste Land, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and author of more than twenty books on world affairs, incisively explains how we got here and where we are going. Kaplan makes a novel argument that the current geopolitical landscape must be considered alongside contemporary social phenomena such as urbanization and digital news media, grounding his ideas in foundational modern works of philosophy, politics, and literature, including the poem from which the title is borrowed, and celebrating a canon of traditionally conservative thinkers, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and many others. As in many of his books, Kaplan looks to history and literature to inform the present, drawing particular comparisons between today's challenges and the Weimar Republic, the post-World War I democratic German government that fell to Nazism in the 1930s. Just as in Weimar, which faced myriad crises inextricably bound up with global systems, the singular dilemmas of the twenty-first century -- pandemic disease, recession, mass migration, the destabilizing effects of large-scale democracy and great power conflicts, and the intimate bonds created by technology -- mean that every disaster in one country has the potential to become a global crisis, too. According to Kaplan, the solutions lie in prioritizing order in governing systems, arguing that stability and historic liberalism rather than mass democracy per se will save global populations from an anarchic future"--
Subjects: Geopolitics.; Globalization; International relations; Power (Social sciences);

Canada's place names and how to change them / by Beck, Lauren,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The first book to demonstrate how inadequately place names and visual emblems represent the presence of women, people of colour, and people living with disabilities, Canada's Place Names and How to Change Them provides an illuminating overview of where these names came from and what they reflect. This book disentangles the distinct cultural, religious, and historical naming practices and visual emblems in Canada's First Nations, provinces, territories, municipalities, and federal lands. Starting with a discussion of Indigenous place knowledge and naming practices from several Indigenous and Inuit groups spanning the country, it foregrounds the breadth of possible ways to name places. Lauren Beck then illustrates the naming practices introduced by Europeans and how they misunderstood, mis-rendered, and appropriated Indigenous place names, while scrutinizing the histories of Columbian names, missionary names, and the secular and commemorative names of the last two centuries. She studies key symbols and emblems such as maps, flags, and coats of arms as visual equivalents of place names to show whose identities powerfully inform Canada's place nomenclature. This book also documents the policies and authorities that have traditionally governed the creation and modification of names and examines case studies of institutions and communities who have changed their names to demonstrate pathways to change."--
Subjects: Emblems; Names, Geographical; Names, Geographical; Names, Geographical;

The scientist and the spy : a true story of China, the FBI, and industrial espionage / by Hvistendahl, Mara,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A riveting true story of industrial espionage in which a Chinese-born scientist is convicted of trying to steal U.S. trade secrets, by a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. In September 2011, sheriff's deputies in Iowa encountered three neatly dressed Asian men at a cornfield that had been leased by Monsanto to grow corn from patented hybrids. What began as a routine inquiry into potential trespassing blossomed into a federal court case that saw one of the men -- Mo Hailong, also known as Robert Mo -- plead guilty to conspiracy to steal trade secrets from U.S. agro-giants DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto on behalf of the China-based DBN Group, one of the country's largest seed companies. The Mo case was part of the U.S. government's efforts to stanch the rising flow of industrial espionage by Chinese companies -- some with the assistance of the Chinese government itself -- on American companies. And it's not an isolated one. Economic espionage costs U.S. companies billions of dollars a year in lost revenue. As former Attorney General Eric Holder once put it, "There are only two categories of companies affected by trade secret theft: Those that know they've been compromised and those that don't know it yet." Using the story of Mo and of others involved in the case, journalist Mara Hvistendahl uncovers the fascinating and disquieting phenomenon of industrial espionage as China marches toward technological domination. In The Scientist and the Spy, she shines light on U.S. efforts to combat theft of proprietary innovation and technology and delves into the efforts to slow the loss of such secrets to other nations. As technology and innovation become more and more valuable, government agencies like the FBI and companies around the world are growing increasingly concerned -- and are increasingly outspoken about -- the threats posed to Western competitiveness. General Keith Alexander, the ex-director of the National Security Agency, has described Chinese industrial espionage and cyber crimes as "the greatest transfer of wealth in history." The Scientist and the Spy explains how the easy movement of experts and ideas affects development and the important role that espionage plays in innovation, both for the spies and the spied-upon. She also asks whether the current U.S. counter-espionage strategy helps or harms the greater public good. The result is a compelling nonfiction thriller that's also a call to arms on how we should rethink the best ways to safeguard intellectual property"--
Subjects: True crime stories.; United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.; Agricultural industries; Business intelligence; Confidential business information; Spies;

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