"A Chicago grandmother was rescued from a 17-hour hostage ordeal after police were alerted for the unlikeliest of reasons: a missing solution to the day's Wordle challenge… Denyse Holt, 80, was alone at home in Illinois on 5 February when a naked and mentally ill suspect entered her home… Her daughter in faraway Seattle noticed something was amiss when Ms Holt failed to send her daily Wordle."
"A Russian athlete is once again at the center of a doping scandal — one that has embroiled the Winter Olympics in Beijing… According to a statement released by the International Testing Agency, star Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva took a doping test on Dec. 25 and later tested positive for a performance-enhancing heart medication." Oopsie.
"Scientists have built a school of robotic fish powered by human heart cells… The fish, which swim on their own, show how lab-grown heart tissue can be designed to maintain a rhythmic beat indefinitely, a team reports in the journal Science." Heart muscle, a hybrid of skeletal and smooth muscle, can sustain beating by themselves without external nerve stimulation.
"SpaceX CEO Elon Musk spoke for over an hour Thursday night in a hotly anticipated discussion about Starship, which the company hopes will one day take humans to Mars and that will play a key role in NASA's plans to return humans to the moon for the first time in a half century. Still, not many new details were shared." Why announce this now without any details? Because Thursday morning… "The state of California' Department of Fair Employment and Housing is suing Elon Musk's company Tesla over racism and harassment toward Black employees at their plant in Fremont, Calif., according to a lawsuit filed by the state this week." And there's nothing new at Tesla to promote.
"The Biden administration’s effort over the past month to develop a new Covid-19 strategy has sparked an internal debate about how far to go in lifting mitigation measures like masks and how to know when the country is entering that new phase of the pandemic."
"Almost a third (32 of every 100) of older adults infected with covid-19 in 2020 developed at least one new condition that required medical attention in the months after initial infection, 11 more than those who did not have covid-19, finds a US study published by The BMJ on February 9, 2022… Conditions involved a range of major organs and systems, including the heart, kidneys, lungs, and liver as well as mental health complications."
"The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people… Davison said the increase in deaths represents 'huge, huge numbers,' and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but 'primarily working-age people 18 to 64' who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica." (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)
"The study bolsters evidence from small case reports and it confirms that placenta damage rather than an infection of the fetus is the likely cause of many COVID-19-related stillbirths, said Dr. Jeffery Goldstein, a pathologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine."
"Russia is massing yet more troops near Ukraine and an invasion could come at any time, perhaps before the end of this month's Winter Olympics, Washington said on Friday."
"The U.S. isn't planning a military operation to help its citizens leave Ukraine, President Biden says, and they should do so on their own. 'American citizens should leave now,' Biden said as Russia amasses a military force around its neighbor."
"President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday to create a pathway to split $7 billion in Afghan assets frozen in the U.S. to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and to create a trust fund to compensate Sept. 11 victims."
"Federal lawmakers are calling for an inquiry into the Interior Department's handling of a contract that was awarded to a former administrator to review deaths at tribal jails, nearly half of which happened on his watch… It comes after NPR and the Mountain West News Bureau published a story earlier this week that found the department's former top cop, Darren Cruzan, and his company, landed an $83,000 contract to review 16 in-custody deaths at tribal detention centers overseen by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs."
"The Biden administration urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government Thursday to use its federal powers to end the truck blockade by Canadians protesting the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, as the bumper-to-bumper demonstration forced auto plants on both sides of the border to shut down or scale back production."
"The Canadian Superior Court of Justice issued an order halting access to funds collected via the GiveSendGo website, Canadian outlet Global News reports. Protesters had raised millions via "Freedom Convoy 2022" and 'Adopt-a-Trucker' campaigns on the site, but government officials in Ontario asked the court to stop organizers from accessing and doling out those funds, a request that was granted Thursday, Ivana Yelich, a spokeswoman for the office of the Premier of Ontario, told the outlet."
"The Department of Homeland Security says it has received reports that truck drivers who are protesting vaccine mandates will block roads in major cities in the coming weeks. The protests could potentially affect the Super Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday and the State of the Union address in Washington, D.C., on March 1, according to an internal memo from DHS obtained by NPR."
No comments:
Post a Comment