Al Jazeera: France: How to win the war against ISIL

This change of strategy is in line with ISIL's objective of fomenting fear and a desire for vengeance in France, hoping to encourage acts of retaliation against the Muslim community, the vast majority of whom strongly support French republican laws and condemn terrorist attacks.

An increase in hatred and mistrust between communities, a victory for the xenophobic National Front party in upcoming elections, or an aggressive reaction against mosques or Muslims would only facilitate the recruitment of new terrorists to join the ranks of ISIL. [...]

The peaceful religious co-existence in France - a country that is home to the largest Muslim and Jewish communities in Europe - is the main target of ISIL, as the terrorist group regularly calls for eliminating what it refers to as a "grey zone" incompatible with its religious dualistic vision of a world divided in two camps: the Muslim and the unfaithful. [...]

Local imams refused to prepare the body of the terrorist for burial, stating this would "taint Islam", while the French Islamic authorities encouraged devout Muslims to go and pray in churches the following Sunday.

The Pope himself refused to address the topic of religious violence, stressing that neither Islam nor any other religion advocates such acts.

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Vox: Donald Trump's supporters are LESS likely to be affected by trade and immigration, not more

Now, Gallup’s Jonathan Rothwell (via the Washington Post) has offered a particularly detailed argument that there’s a lot more than pure economic anxiety at work here. Gallup's regular surveys offered Rothwell a large dataset of 87,428 Americans who told pollsters whether they held a favorable or unfavorable view of Donald Trump. That sample size let him drill down geographically, analyzing support for Trump at the regional and local level — even, on some questions, down to individual zip codes. [...]

Trump supporters are richer, not poorer, than average: For one thing, Rothwell found that both across the overall population and among whites, support for Trump is correlated with higher income, not lower. That’s not surprising; low-income people have always preferred Democrats. But it definitely contradicts the image of Trump as spokesman for the economically struggling. [...]

Trump does well in racially segregated areas: Turning to the geographic data, Rothwell finds that segregated, homogenous white areas are Trump's base of support. "People living in zip codes with disproportionately high shares of white residents are significantly and robustly more likely to view Trump favorably," he writes. "Those living in zip codes with overall diversity that is low relative to their commuting zone are also far more likely to view Trump favorably." Put another way: If you're in the whitest suburb in your area, you're likelier to back Trump.

Trump doesn’t do well in areas affected by trade or immigration: This is perhaps the most surprising finding. Contact with immigrants seems to reduce one's likelihood of supporting Trump, as areas that are farther from Mexico and with smaller Hispanic populations saw more Trump support.

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Slate: Obama’s New Medical Marijuana Policy Could Lead to Federal Legalization

Starting Thursday, the federal government will take a new approach to medical marijuana research: The government will allow new research institutions to grow marijuana and conduct clinical studies with the plant, after years of allowing only the University of Mississippi to conduct marijuana research. Even though the Drug Enforcement Administration is not loosening legal restrictions on marijuana, this is actually a pretty big step toward a more compassionate and science-based approach to cannabis after decades of rigid prohibition.

Although a majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, the Obama administration has been surprisingly reluctant to ease federal restrictions. (His Justice Department has allowed states to experiment with legalization, but it still prosecutes growers and users sporadically.) Cannabis is currently listed as a Schedule I drug, along with substances like heroin. That means that under federal standards, the plant is one of “the most dangerous drugs” and has “no currently accepted medical use.” [...]

By changing the monopoly system on marijuana research, the Obama administration could finally jump-start this long-stalled process. The few reliable studies we do have on marijuana are extraordinarily encouraging: Cannabis appears to be useful in treating arthritis, cancer, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, glaucoma, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s. But the research arguably remains thin enough to allow the federal government to maintain marijuana’s Schedule I status. Until now, this Catch-22 has kept medical marijuana research largely frozen: In order to do research on the drug’s medical benefits, scientists needed access to it; in order to gain access, they had to prove it was medically beneficial. As of Thursday, that loop is no more, and when the results of the news studies begin rolling in, the DEA may feel compelled to take a harder look at marijuana’s proven benefits—and legal status.

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Business Insider: Half of US jobs could be taken by robots in the next 20 years — here's how likely it is that yours will be one of them

They used data from a recent study by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, which found that about 47% of total US employment is at risk of being replaced by machines over the next two decades."

A material shift in the composition of the labour force would result as demand for low skilled labour remains robust as many personal in-person services are not yet replaceable by machines," according to the Morgan Stanley team. 

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Vox: Why Israel’s Defense Ministry compared the Iran nuclear deal to appeasing Hitler

Henry Kissinger once quipped that “Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic political system.” Avigdor Lieberman, the new defense minister, has apparently taken this adage to heart: Everything, it seems, is subservient to his own politics, including Israel’s relationship with the United States.

Lieberman was brought into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, and named as defense minister just over two months ago under contentious circumstances. “Delusional,” an “insult” to the army, and a manifestation of a “budding fascism” within Israeli society were just some of the political reactions to his appointment. [...]

Yet, since taking up the defense ministry portfolio, Lieberman had actually shown a pragmatic and professional approach to the business of running the most powerful military in the Middle East. The controversy surrounding Lieberman’s initial appointment had, prior to last week’s statement, ebbed. [...]

Perhaps the weirdest aspect of the Defense Ministry statement is that Lieberman himself hadn’t previously made the Iran nuclear deal a major political issue — not as a member of the opposition and a fierce government critic, and not in the few months since he became defense minister. Criticism of the deal was usually left to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who in the past has described the deal in language not much different than that in the Defense Ministry statement.

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