Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be on Summer Break for a couple weeks starting June 14. If you want to know the truth about the risk of climate change, ignore the politics and follow the money. With all due respect to my local weatherman, there's probably no one better at assessing climate risk than insurance companies, so if you want the actual facts, ask an actuary. In an increasing number of areas, big home insurance companies are raising premiums for homeowners in the line of fire (or more specifically, wildfire) and flood. These days, an increasing number of homeowners are opting out of coverage for natural disasters or even skipping home insurance altogether. WaPo (Gift Article): Home insurance was once a ‘must.’ Now more homeowners are going without. "Experts say this trend is driven by the escalating threat of climate change — which has forced insurers to make larger and larger payouts — and skyrocketing housing prices. Both trends are pushing the cost of policies up. On average, home insurance policies rose 11.3 percent in 2023, according to S&P Global. Compounding the problem, some insurance providers are pulling out of disaster-prone areas as a result of rising payouts — leaving former policyholders with fewer and more expensive alternatives." 2The Tracks of My Gears"Life360, is popular with parents who want to keep track of their families. MyRadar offers weather forecasts. GasBuddy can help you find cheap fuel on a road trip." But all these apps (and many others) are doing something else in the background. Assessing your driving. "Those insights are provided by Arity, a data broker founded by Allstate. Arity uses the data to create driving scores for tens of millions of people, and then markets the scores to auto insurance companies." Kashmir Hill continues her interesting examination of how backseat connivers are tracking your driving, whether you know it or not. NYT (Gift Article): Your Driving, Tracked. 3Anon Issue"An app lets high-schoolers post anonymously about their classmates, and police the rules themselves. I know what you’re thinking: What could possibly go wrong?" WSJ: An Anonymous-Messaging App Upended This High School. This app briefly infested the high school one of my kids attends. Whatever happened to traditional modes of communication like writing something nasty on a bathroom wall... 4Are You Ready to Rumble?"Elephants’ trumpeting is well known, but Pardo says trumpeting is an abrupt noise that’s more like screaming or laughing. He figured that if elephants had names, they’d be somehow encoded in elephants’ constant, low-frequency rumblings." Wild elephants may have names that other elephants use to call them. 5Extra, ExtraHostage Rescue: "Locals asked the newcomers where they came from, and the latter answered that they were escaping the IDF operation in Rafah, and had rented a place in the area around the market in Nuseirat, pointing at the building where Noa Argamani was being held." Special forces posed as displaced Gazans moving into building where hostage held. From AP: How an Israeli raid freed 4 hostages and killed at least 274 Palestinians in Gaza. "They arrived in the middle of the day, when the squat concrete buildings of the Nuseirat refugee camp are stifling and the narrow streets outside are filled with people. No one suspected a thing until the shots rang out. The Israeli raid caught everyone off guard, from the Hamas militants guarding four hostages in two different buildings to the thousands of civilians who soon found themselves running for their lives through a blistering crossfire." The father of one of the hostage died hours before son’s rescue. Meanwhile, Blinken is making his 8th visit to the region since Oct 7. "My message to governments throughout the region, to people throughout the region, is if you want a ceasefire, press Hamas to say yes." 6Bottom of the News"A server at a North Carolina restaurant said she was fired after posting a viral video of a man having a meal with a blow-up doll." The guy later explained that that "dining with the doll was nothing more than his punishment from losing a wager in his fantasy football league." Ah, ok, now it all makes sense. Wait, isn't it baseball season?
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