"Meanwhile, prosecutors continue to consider possible criminal charges against library officials for making certain books accessible to juveniles after a couple brought five books to the attention of law enforcement."
"It's something that's happening across the country. School boards have become the latest political battlefield, with fights over masks and COVID-19 vaccines, and with conservative parents concerned about diversity curriculum. These races are being watched by Republicans, who lost a lot of ground in the suburbs over the past eight years, and are hoping education could be a winning issue for them in congressional races in 2022 and the next presidential race as well." Oh look, it's the 80s all over again.
"The thousands of drivers who use a Rhode Island highway on their way to work every day probably have no idea they are passing over the graves of some people who died in the late 1800s and early 1900s at state institutions." Don't blame it on "lax regulations." This was a "no one will care, and it's cheaper" action. It was wrong when the highway was built. It's wrong now.
"Vikings from Greenland — the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas — lived in a village in Canada’s Newfoundland exactly 1,000 years ago, according to research published Wednesday… Scientists have known for many years that Vikings — a name given to the Norse by the English they raided — built a village at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the turn of the millennium. But a study published in Nature is the first to pinpoint the date of the Norse occupation." But then there's this… "The first Norse settlers in Greenland were from Iceland and Scandinavia, and the arrival of the explorers in Newfoundland marks the first time that humanity circled the entire globe." No. No it wasn't… "Indigenous people occupied L’Anse aux Meadows both before and after the Norse…" But apparently to NBC News, they don't count.
"Plans by governments to extract fossil fuels up to 2030 are incompatible with keeping global temperatures to safe levels, says the UN… The UNEP production gap report says countries will drill or mine more than double the levels needed to keep the 1.5C threshold alive… Oil and gas recovery is set to rise sharply with only a modest decrease in coal… There has been little change since the first report was published in 2019."
"Earlier this year, more than 200 medical journals put out an unprecedented joint statement, calling climate change the 'greatest threat' to global public health and urging the world's top economies to do more to slow it."
"Scientists temporarily attached a pig's kidney to a human body and watched it begin to work, a small step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants." Well, the pigs were those gene-edited ones, and the reason they say "human body" is because the recipient was already dead.
"People with mild or moderate hearing loss could soon be able to buy hearing aids without a medical exam or special fitting, under a new rule being proposed by the Food and Drug Administration. The agency says 37.5 million American adults have difficulty hearing." Good.
"California’s popular In-N-Out hamburger chain is in trouble with yet another San Francisco Bay Area county over its failure to verify the vaccination cards of people choosing to dine-in with their double-doubles, shakes and fries."
"Little is known about AY.4.2. Some experts have suggested it could be slightly more transmissible than the original Delta variant, though that has not yet been confirmed. While it accounts for a growing number of infections, it is not yet classified in the UK as a "variant of concern." It currently remains rare beyond Britain, with a small number of cases being recorded in Denmark and the US, expert Francois Balloux told the Science Media Center (SMC) on Tuesday."
"The World Health Organization has hired the company, called Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, as part of a $100 million plan to figure out how to make an mRNA vaccine against COVID that is as close as possible to the version produced by Moderna."
"President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered most Russians to stay off work for a week starting later this month amid rising COVID-19 infections and deaths, and he strongly urged reluctant citizens to get vaccinated." Stay safe, my Russian friends.
"Nearly two years into the coronavirus pandemic, there's some truth in a joke circulating among frustrated ICU nurses: They ask their hospitals to appropriately pay them for the hazards they've endured. And the nurses are rewarded with a pizza party instead… 'I heard a lot of noise about "Well, this is what you signed up for." No, I did not sign up for this,' (Theresa Adams) says of the unparalleled stress brought on by the pandemic… Adams is an ICU nurse who helped build and staff COVID-19 units in one of Ohio's largest hospitals. She recently left for a lucrative stint of travel nursing in California." Management at my hospital are scratching their heads because the pizza parties, and the t-shirts, don't seem to be working at lifting moral. Hint, they never did because those levers were developed to solve other problems. And there is a rumor that the hospital is paying $100/hr for nurses to pickup extra shifts (traveling nurses cost them more). For us in radiology, it's just that overtime is approved (once you pass 40 hours per week, note that even many full timers aren't regularly scheduled 40 hours a week). From our ER I know of 3 nurses who have left to be traveling nurses, and switched to PRN at the hospital. I've commented before that traveling nurses seem to be the freemasons of this "plague." Understand that just 3 years ago hospitals were upping requirements for nurses (such as no longer hiring LPNs and requiring RNs to have bachelor degrees, some of them needing masters). Our last "welcome new members" email included 3 LPNs. It will be interesting to see how this all falls out in 3 years' time. Also interesting about how they're looking to bring in nurses from other countries (look "foreigners coming to steal our jobs", I doubt we'll hear this championed by the conservatives).
"Brazilian senators investigating the handling of the country's COVID-19 outbreak have dropped a recommendation from their draft report that President Jair Bolsonaro be charged with genocide and homicide, instead accusing him of "crimes against humanity.""
"Southern California's Los Angeles and Long Beach ports handle the most ocean cargo of any ports in the United States, but are some of the least efficient in the world, according to a ranking by the World Bank and IHS Markit."
"When thinking about the trucking industry, the first thing that comes to mind about its drivers is that they tend to be older — industry experts say the average trucker is 54 years old. But given the nationwide truck driver shortage, that's now changing… A high school in California is now training teens to enter the industry through its truck driving school program." Why does trucking have a retention problem? Because they're also toxic employers.
"After struggling to hire workers for its outlet store in Dallas, Balsam Hill finally opened on Sept. 1. But the very next day, the online purveyor of high-end artificial holiday trees was forced to close after four of its five workers quit… The main gripe for three of them? Working on weekends. So they found jobs elsewhere with better hours."
"The weeks-long fight inside Netflix comes to a head today, when employees at the company are expected to walk out, demanding the company better support its trans and non-binary employees."
"A group of educators and civil rights groups is challenging Oklahoma's new law limiting public school teachings on race and gender issues in court… The lawsuit, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Oklahoma, was filed Tuesday. The organizations argue that HB 1775, which took effect in May, interferes with students' and educators' First Amendment rights to learn and talk about gender and race issues in school."
"The real estate website Zillow announced it would stop buying and renovating homes through the end of the year as it works through a backlog of properties and it deals with worker and supply shortages."
"Now, like thousands of other Afghan citizens, they are desperate to leave Afghanistan as the Taliban cement their hold on the country. Except Uyghurs say they face another threat: deportation by the Taliban to China, which has arbitrarily detained vast numbers of them and subjected them to tough religious restrictions, forced labor and even forced sterilization."
"As debate over Democrats’ Build Back Better Act has intensified, the $3.5 trillion social spending bill has remained strikingly popular in polls. That may be both a blessing and a curse for lawmakers because it’s now clear that the bill will need to shrink to pass. And like Congress, Americans don’t all agree on which of its big-ticket items are most important… But at least one thing seems clear from public surveys: People want to pay for the bill by taxing the rich." Waits for the predictable conservative backlash in 3… 2… 1…
"FBI agents executed search warrants Tuesday at properties in Washington, D.C., and in New York City that are linked to the prominent Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska… At a stately residence located in Northwest Washington near several embassies, FBI agents could be seen outside, and authorities had cordoned off the property with yellow police tape."
"Republicans have moved to tighten their grip on power in Texas after a late-night vote in the state’s legislature approved an early sign-off to new congressional boundaries at the expense of communities of color… The Republican-led effort will give the party powers over redrawn US House maps and shore up its eroding dominance in Texas, whose demographics are becoming less white in a shift that most experts see as favoring Democrats."
"The Jan. 6 House select committee voted unanimously on Tuesday to refer former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution in response to his refusal to cooperate with its investigation, paving the way for a full House vote on the matter, which is planned for Thursday."
"For the third time this year, Senate Democrats on Wednesday tried to pass sweeping elections legislation that they tout as a powerful counterweight to new voting restrictions sweeping conservative-controlled states… Once again, Republicans blocked them."
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