"Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees (40 degrees Celsius) warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees (30 degrees Celsius) warmer than average."
"Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering widespread and severe coral bleaching due to high ocean temperatures two years after a mass bleaching event, a government agency said on Friday."
"By incrementally raising the pressure, and periodically blasting it with the laser beam, the team observed the water ice make the transition from a known cubic phase, Ice-VII, to the newly discovered intermediate, and tetragonal phase, Ice-VIIt, before settling into another known phase, Ice-X." You just know they then used it to chill Mountain Dew, right.
"A New Zealand couple who believed they had dug up the world’s largest potato in the garden of their small farm near Hamilton have had their dreams turned to mash after Guinness wrote to say that scientific testing had found it wasn’t, in fact, a potato after all." Oh Doug, we had hopes for you.
"The confirmation of bird flu at another Iowa egg-laying farm will force the killing of more than 5 million chickens, state officials said Friday… It's the second confirmed case of avian influenza in Buena Vista County, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) northwest of Des Moines, but the latest outbreak is at an operation with 5.3 million chickens. The earlier case was at a farm with about 50,000 turkeys."
"Wisconsin is the latest state to report finding H5N1, the scientific name for the avian flu. The strain had been discovered in a commercial chicken flock… A highly contagious strain of avian flu is spreading throughout the U.S, and has been found in 15 states so far." I love how the focus is "this won't infect too many humans" which is true, but if you think this won't affect grocery prices, you're wrong.
"If you think or know a loved one has an eating disorder, supporting that person can be game-changing for them… Those closest to someone with an eating disorder play 'a huge role in just paying attention and identifying potential risk factors or signs,' said Alvin Tran, assistant professor of public health at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. Tran does research on eating disorders and body image."
"'Sometimes people don't get infected because they're extremely cautious,' Dr. Mark Siedner, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told ABC News. 'There are people who have their own health behaviors or are concerned about their own health or their loved ones' health.'… These people are also more likely to have been vaccinated and boosted, and the experts said it's impossible to disregard the effect vaccination rates have had on preventing infections among Americans."
"Of the 50 counties with the highest Covid deaths per capita, 24 are within 40 miles of a hospital that has closed, according to a POLITICO analysis in late January. Nearly all 50 counties were in rural areas. Rural hospital closures have been accelerating, with 181 since 2005 — and over half of those happening since 2015, according to data from the University of North Carolina. But that may be just the beginning. Over 450 rural hospitals are at risk of closure, according to an analysis by the Chartis Group, one of the nation’s largest independent health care advisory firms."
"How much do companies contribute to climate change and how are they impacted by it? Those questions are at the heart of a major announcement expected on Monday from the Securities and Exchange Commission… The country's top financial regulator is expected to propose new disclosure rules that would require companies to report their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions as well as how climate change might affect their businesses." Oo, that's gonna leave a mark.
"The answer in all three cases is that — even with regional surges in the price of electricity — it’s still quite a bit more expensive to fill your gas tank than it is to charge your EV’s battery."
"'The oil and gas industry has millions of acres leased. They have 9,000 permits to drill now. They could be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year,' Biden said this month while announcing a ban on Russian oil imports… Turns out, however, that getting U.S. producers to drill for more oil is easier said than done… Top oil executives warn they won't be able to ramp up U.S. production anytime soon." Looks like Boom/Bust isn't a sustainable business model."Exploration and production companies have responded by recording explosive dividend growth. According to the Morningstar U.S. Market Index, the average dividend in dollars per share has grown from $14 in 2018 to $40 in 2021, an increase of more than 180%." Doesn't sound like there's a lot of money left to sink into the ground.
"Canadian Teamsters and CP Rail blamed each other for a work stoppage Sunday that brought trains to a halt across Canada and interrupted fertilizer and other shipments to and from the U.S."
"The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says 902 civilians have been killed and another 1,459 have been wounded so far in the war in Ukraine. The office warned that the actual number is likely 'considerably higher.'"
"Russian forces pushed deeper into Ukraine's besieged and battered port city of Mariupol on Saturday, where heavy fighting shut down a major steel plant and local authorities pleaded for more Western help… The fall of Mariupol, the scene of some of the war's worst suffering, would mark a major battlefield advance for the Russians, who are largely bogged down outside major cities more than three weeks into the biggest land invasion in Europe since World War II."
"Ukrainian officials defiantly rejected a Russian demand that their forces in Mariupol lay down their arms and raise white flags Monday in exchange for safe passage out of the besieged port city."
"Russia has a huge firepower advantage in its war on Ukraine. In keeping with its military tradition, Russia is relying on heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery guns and fighter jets… Yet the Ukrainians have far exceeded expectations on the battlefield by making the most of smaller, but more mobile weapons systems, including a number of key ones provided by the United States."
"Pressure is mounting on Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by the rightwing billionaire Charles Koch, to pull out of Russia after it was revealed it was continuing to do business in Russia through three wholly-owned subsidiaries." Of course they'll pretend to for a moment, but not really do anything in the long run.
An opinion piece… "The Ukrainian crisis has revived an old debate: how to effectively sanction a state like Russia? Let’s say it straight away: it is time to imagine a new type of sanction focused on the oligarchs who have prospered thanks to the regime in question. This will require the establishment of an international financial register, which will not be to the liking of western fortunes, whose interests are much more closely linked to those of the Russian and Chinese oligarchs than is sometimes claimed. However, it is at this price that western countries will succeed in winning the political and moral battle against the autocracies and in demonstrating to the world that the resounding speeches on democracy and justice are not simply empty words." As I said earlier on, winning this war will involve changing financial structures that will also change how the rest of the word-wide rich live.
"President Joe Biden and his fellow world leaders hope to finalize and unveil a package of new measures to punish Russia, help Ukraine and demonstrate Western unity at a string of emergency summits in Europe this week… But aside from a dramatic wartime show of resolve, few observers believe anything the leaders can agree upon will be enough to end the bloodshed in Ukraine or dissuade Russian President Vladimir Putin from continuing his attacks that are increasingly harming civilians."
"When three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station wearing yellow flight suits with blue accents, some saw a message in them wearing the colors of the Ukrainian flag. They shot that down on Saturday." Did you really think Roscosmos would allow such a message about Ukraine?
"The Taliban may have banned the Nowruz holiday, but it cannot erase the Persian new year from people's minds… 'When I think of Nowruz, I can only think of the food,' Shararah (a pseudonym to protect her identity) says with a broad smile."
"A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in a remote mountainous area of southern China on Monday, officials said, setting off a forest fire visible from space in the country’s worst air disaster in nearly a decade."
"Simmering public anger in Alaska over the legislature’s failure to settle the state’s most radioactive issue — how big a check residents should receive from the state’s oil wealth fund — is colliding with a once-a-decade opportunity for political activists: The chance for voters to call a convention to amend the state’s constitution."
"Kim Davis — the former clerk in Kentucky whose refusal to sign marriage certificates for same-sex couples grabbed national headlines in 2015 — violated their constitutional rights, a federal judge found… The decision leaves open the question of whether the former clerk is responsible for the legal fees of the two couples who sued and other monetary damages that have accrued over the nearly seven years of legal back-and-forth." I smell a GoFundMe forming.
"The Supreme Court says it won’t review the case of a Seattle-based Christian organization that was sued after declining to hire a bisexual lawyer who applied for a job. A lower court let the case go forward, and the high court said Monday it wouldn’t intervene."
"South Carolina officials said they would not file charges against a boater who helped rescue a man from the water, then shot him dead… A statement from the Oconee county sheriff’s office said the 10th judicial circuit solicitor, David Wagner, ruled that the Tuesday shooting of 29-year-old Nathan Drew Morgan by an unnamed 74-year-old man was an act of self-defense."
"One man was killed and 27 people were wounded when two people got into a gunfight during a car show that's part of an annual community event in a small southeast Arkansas town, authorities said Sunday." Just another weekend in America.
"The session was the inaugural training of a national campaign called 'Book Ban Busters,' organized by a left-leaning grassroots network called 'Red Wine & Blue.' With the tagline of 'Channeling the Power of Suburban Women,' the group was established in 2019 and has extended its reach across the country. Founded with the purpose of activating primarily left-leaning moms around local and school issues, it also emphasizes a social component to organizing… This past year, many of these parents have watched their schools become battle turf over mask mandates, vaccines and inclusive education. Locally, conflicts over book bans are often framed simply as the next in that series of culture wars. But to some political science experts and historians, the book bans resemble censorship campaigns that could strike at the very heart of democracy."
"And as part of pandemic relief legislation, the federal Food and Nutrition services agency waived the requirement that schools serve meals in a group setting, increased school-year reimbursement rates to summer levels for school food programs and granted more flexibility in how food is prepared and packaged… Schools started preparing bag lunches and other grab-and-go options for parents to pick up at school and take home for their kids, and even used buses to bring meals, sometimes days-worth, to pick-up spots in different neighborhoods."
"The Biden administration plans this week to officially classify the ongoing violence in Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims as genocide… Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected on Monday to accuse Myanmar's military of carrying out a genocide and crimes against humanity in 2017 at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The decision was first reported by Reuters and later confirmed by NPR's Michele Kelemen." That only took (looks at watch) 5 years.
"Vladimir Putin was 'channeling his inner Trump' when he staged a huge rally in Moscow to trumpet his invasion of Ukraine, Sean Hannity said on Friday." Despots look the same from the cheap seats.
"Judge Jackson's lengthy and diverse background as a lawyer and judge seems to have defused any notion that she is not qualified. And so far, Republican leaders have taken only indirect swipes at her."
"Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, 73, has been hospitalized with an infection since Friday and is expected to be released within the next couple of days, according to the court… Thomas was admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Friday evening after experiencing 'flu-like symptoms,' the Supreme Court said in a statement on Sunday evening."
"A far right wing of the Republican Party tightly bound to former President Donald Trump is fighting to push the GOP toward the 'America First' isolationism that underpinned his 2016 presidential bid… For the first time since Trump’s rise, his party is pushing back." Or, ya know, it could be that some of them realized that they couldn't ignore reality, and so needed at least to make a head fake towards it.
"Texas threw out mail votes at an abnormally high rate during the nation’s first primary of 2022, rejecting nearly 23,000 ballots outright under tougher voting rules that are part of a broad campaign by Republicans to reshape American elections, according to an analysis by The Associated Press… Roughly 13% of mail ballots returned in the March 1 primary were discarded and uncounted across 187 counties in Texas."
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