"In April, scores of birds in the greater Washington, D.C., area began displaying strange symptoms. Their eyes were swollen and crusty; some became disoriented, started twitching, and died. 'They were having a hard time seeing,' says Nicole Nemeth of the SCWDS. 'Sometimes they don’t seem to be able to use their hind legs.'… By the end of May, similar reports were rolling in from across Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. By June, the disease had spread to Delaware, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania." (Grokked from Steve in a roundabout way)
"Today, a high-speed stream of solar wind is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. Wind speeds could top 600 km/s, sparking minor (G1-class) geomagnetic storms and high latitude auroras."
"The hottest place on Earth is as hot as it's ever been — at least in terms of recorded temperatures in modern times. Death Valley, Calif., recorded high temperatures of 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday and 129.4 degrees on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service." We're boned.
"California's Death Valley is known to be a hot place, but it hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius) Friday for only the fifth time in recorded history -- that's only five days out of more than 40,000 days on record."
"Firefighters working in searing weather struggled to contain a northern California wildfire that forced the temporary closure of a major highway, one of several large blazes burning across the US west amid another heatwave that shattered records and strained power grids."
"With the Pacific region hitting record-setting temperatures in the last few weeks, a new study from Canada shows the heat waves' enormous impact on marine life: An estimated 1 billion sea creatures on the coast of Vancouver have died as a result of the heat, a researcher said."
"Sir Richard Branson and a crew of three others grazed the edge of space on Sunday in a rocket built by the British billionaire's company, Virgin Galactic."
And speaking of people with more money than sense… "A sealed copy of video game Super Mario 64 has sold at auction for more than $1.5m (£1.1m), shattering records… The 1996 cartridge was a launch title for the Nintendo 64 console, and was one of the most influential early 3D platformers."
"The SpiroNose, made by the Dutch company Breathomix, is just one of many breath-based COVID-19 tests under development across the world. In May, Singapore’s health agency granted provisional authorization to two such tests, made by the domestic companies Breathonix and Silver Factory Technology. And researchers at Ohio State University say they have applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an emergency authorization of their COVID-19 breathalyzer." I just want to take the moment to point out that if we're nearing the end of the pandemic, why are these companies and researchers still developing these tools? (Hint, it's going to be with us for a long time.)
"As the highly transmissible delta Covid variant continues to spread rapidly across the United States and elsewhere around the world, scientists and other health experts are warning that indoor mask mandates and other public health measures will likely make a return in the U.S. this fall." Ta-da!
"Defeating this pandemic and the highly contagious Delta variant isn't just about protecting yourself through vaccination -- it's also about having others in the community vaccinated, doctors say."
"It is possible to be infected with two different strains of the coronavirus at the same time, experts say, after the case of an unvaccinated elderly woman who was found to be infected with both the alpha and beta variants of Covid-19." Nobody, literally nobody, in the healthcare field ever said you couldn't. In fact, the concern was after being infected with one strain your "natural immunity" might only protect you from that one strain. It's just now we have definitive proof of simultaneous infection.
"Days after Canada dropped its quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated Canadians entering the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected the idea that non-essential visitors will soon be allowed in."
"'We could be on the cusp of a rubber apocalypse,' Ohio State University professor Katrina Cornish told CNBC… Rubber producers are facing climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, a destructive fungus and the fight for shipping containers." Okay, who had "rubber" on the Apocalypse Bingo card?
The On the Media podcast short "There are many Americas. Nowadays they barely speak to each other. But during the most perilous years of the last century, one young composer went in search of a sound that melded many of the nation's strains into something singular and new. He was a man of the left, though of no political party: gay, but neither closeted nor out; Jewish, but agnostic, unless you count music as a religion. This independence day (or near enough!), we revisit Sara Fishko's 2017 piece on the story of Aaron Copland."
"China's military said it 'drove away' a U.S. warship that illegally entered Chinese waters near the Paracel Islands Monday, the anniversary of an international court ruling that held Beijing had no claim over the South China Sea."
"Thousands of Cubans took to the streets across the country on Sunday in an unusual protest in which civilians shouted slogans against the Communist government, such as 'We want freedom' and 'We are no longer afraid.'… The demonstrations came at a time when Cuba faces the worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, an increase in repression against political opponents and a strained health system during a critical stage of the pandemic. Health authorities reported almost 7,000 new cases and 47 deaths — a record for infections and deaths on the Caribbean island of just over 11 million people."
"The top US general in Afghanistan will step down on Monday as the United States' military withdrawal from the country nears completion… Gen. Austin Scott Miller will transition his command authorities to Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the leader of US Central Command, in a ceremony in Kabul, according to a US defense official with direct knowledge of the plans."
"Haitian National Police Chief Léon Charles announced on Sunday that 63-year-old Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a doctor based in Florida, is suspected of playing a major role in last week's assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and has been arrested."
"The police department has not announced details about the evidence, but local ABC affiliate Denver7, citing multiple law enforcement sources, reported Saturday that police discovered 16 long guns, body armor and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from an eighth-floor hotel room that had a balcony overlooking Denver's downtown area."
"The White House announced a sweeping executive order Friday to promote competition throughout the U.S. economy, in the most ambitious effort in generations to reduce the stranglehold of monopolies and concentrated markets in major industries."
"A federal inspector general's investigation has exonerated six government executives who were suspended last year after raising red flags about actions taken by then-President Donald Trump's appointee at the parent agency of the Voice of America… The State Department inspector general's reports, reviewed by NPR, say U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack and his closest aides appeared to have targeted the executives for reprisal."
"The U.S. Senate returns on Monday to one of its most ambitious agendas in years as Democratic President Joe Biden seeks trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending and Republicans promise 'a hell of a fight' against raising taxes to pay for it."
"Hailee Mouch woke up at 2am Saturday morning so she could drive to her state’s capital city of Austin and testify at two competing public hearings on Texas’s restrictive voting bills… She knew she had to return to the Dallas area to be at work by 6am Sunday. But she was determined to stay as long as possible to tell state lawmakers how their proposals would hurt democracy in the small city where she goes to college."
"This week (published on July 2) marks six months since January 6th, the day a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol. Over 500 rioters have since been arrested, but the legal consequences of what they did are only just beginning to roll in. In this hour, we revisit reporting by OTM's Micah Loewinger surrounding the organizing tactics, media narratives, and evolution of far-right militias." On the Media podcast with an update to several stories.
"The ex-President showed this weekend that defeat after a single term, the disgrace of his insurrection against American democracy and the deaths of 400,000 Americans on his watch in a pandemic he downplayed don't hurt his appeal to Republicans. In fact, the efforts of potential 2024 rivals to replicate his extremism show Trump's strange magic is only validated by his transgressions."
Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "Former President Trump sat down with 'Fox & Friends' enterprise reporter Lawrence Jones at CPAC in Dallas, arguing that in order to curb crime, 'you have to give police back their authority.'… During a wide-ranging interview that is available now on Fox Nation, Trump pointed out that violent crime is currently soaring in 'Democrat states,' including Illinois and New York, specifically in cities like Chicago and New York City." What authority was taken from them?
"Former President Donald Trump on Sunday widely praised those who attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the insurrection at the Capitol, repeatedly using the word 'love' to describe the tone of the event… Echoing his rhetoric about the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Trump said, 'These were peaceful people, these were great people.'" And then he states that it was all Nancy Pelosi's fault.
"So the colloquial stories we hear about Trump suggest that he somehow created a whole bunch of hatred in American politics. And instead, what this data shows is that what he did was serve as a place where people who already held a lot of animus towards marginalized groups, they all sort of gathered around him. So this was a latent faction of Americans that had just - that had already been sitting there and had already existed." So much for the "we can't be racists, we don't hate anybody" argument.
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