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FIFA’s unsurprising indictments, the Tsarnaev trial, and more

Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke at a Wednesday news conference after the arrests of FIFA officials on corruption charges.Getty Images

Check out five opinions trending online, from Satan and Rick Santorum to catcalls in Argentina.

Unsurprising indictment: FIFA was ripe for corruption, and the charges against officials in the US and abroad amount to the least surprising indictments ever, writes the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

“A global organization generates billions of dollars in revenue and doesn’t have to answer to shareholders or to the voters of any country. What could possibly go wrong?” Read more (subscription required).

Satan and Santorum: Writing for the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin lists seven reasons Rick Santorum, who just declared his candidacy for the 2016 presidential race, will lose. Top among them: Satan. Catch up here.

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Nudging smokers: Legal scholar Cass Sunstein believes that a subtle nudge in the right direction — an incentive that leads individual to make the right choice — can influence public policy and even get people to stop smoking. He outlines his theory in the New England Journal of Medicine:

“In the past 40 years, we have seen a revolution in thinking about thinking. The central idea is that human beings depart, in systematic ways, from standard economic approaches to rationality. Because the departures are systematic and predictable, they can be taken into account by researchers, clinicians, and others who want to improve health and reduce premature mortality.” Read more.

Fair, or not: Retired judge Nancy Gertner, writing for the WBUR Cognoscenti blog, opines that death-qualified juries like that in the Tsarnaev trial are more prone to conviction and more apt to sentence defendants to death.

“It may well be that this jury was the fairest that could be selected, given the requirement of death qualification. Or not.” Read more.

Outlawing catcalls: In Argentina, lawmakers have introduced bills to criminalize catcalling, The Economist writes – joining a trend in Latin America.

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“In Argentine cities, piropos, or catcalls, are as common a sound as honks and sirens. They can be as subtle as the pop of a kiss from a lorry driver or as menacing as a shout of, ‘Oh God, if I got my hands on you. . .’ Some men think these are compliments.” Read more.


Ellen Clegg is a member of the Globe staff. She tweets @ellenclegg.