Raquel Welch, and so it goes.
"'After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,' the Carter Center said in a statement on Saturday." Thank you, Mr. President.
"In Senegal, rising seas have led to devastating coastal erosion. If there is a war against climate change, the UNESCO World Heritage city of Saint-Louis is on the front lines. And the ocean is winning."
"Concerned that such harvesting was harming lobster populations, Indonesia’s fishing ministry in 2016 prohibited the export of the tiny crustaceans. Shortly after taking office, Prabowo lifted the ban. Court documents show that just a month later, in June of 2020, the minister accepted a $77,000 bribe from a seafood supplier to grant it a permit to sell the hatchlings abroad."
"Thanks to a planet-wide collaboration, scientists have released an image of the Milky Way that contains 3.32 billion individually identifiable objects, most of which are stars." And the zoomable image is here. (Grokked from Dan)
"Residents forced to evacuate the Ohio village of East Palestine began trickling home after being told Wednesday that hundreds of air samples showed no dangerous levels of toxins following the controlled release and burn of five tankers that were among nearly 50 cars that derailed last Friday."
"Health and environmental concerns are mounting in East Palestine, Ohio, after several derailed train cars released toxic fumes last week… The evacuation order was lifted on Wednesday and since then, there have been a growing number of reports about people experiencing a burning sensation in their eyes, animals falling ill and a strong odor lingering in the town."
"The president of Norfolk Southern made a visit to East Palestine, Ohio, on Saturday following criticism from residents and political leaders about the company’s response to the fiery derailment of a freight train carrying toxic materials earlier this month."
"Folklore customs dating back centuries are suddenly cool with a new generation keen to connect with the planet and defy the establishment." Punk to be folk? (Grokked from Deborah Beal, I think)
"Citizens for Responsible Solar seems to be a well-mobilized 'national effort to foment local opposition to renewable energy,' Burger adds. 'What that reflects is the unfortunate politicization of climate change, the politicization of energy, and, unfortunately, the political nature of the energy transition, which is really just a necessary response to an environmental reality.'" Why we can't have good things.
"A Nevada company that recycles batteries for electric vehicles has won a $2 billion green energy loan from the Biden administration."
"Adolescent girls across the country are facing record levels of violence, sadness and despair, according to new survey data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And teens who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning and other non-heterosexual identities also experience high levels of violence and distress, the survey found." The kids are not alright.
"'Instead of using artificial materials for building drones, we can use the dead birds and re-engineer them as a drone,' New Mexico Tech mechanical engineer Mostafa Hassanalian told New Scientist. Video demo below." (Grokked from Dan)
"After several rounds of treatment for a rare eye cancer — weekly drug infusions that could cost nearly $50,000 each — Paul Davis learned Medicare had abruptly stopped paying the bills… That left Davis, a retired physician in Findlay, Ohio, contemplating a horrific choice: risk saddling his family with huge medical debt, if he had to pay those bills from the hospital out-of-pocket, or halt treatments that help keep him alive."
"The World Health Organization convened an emergency meeting earlier this week, just a day after Equatorial Guinea, in West Africa, confirmed its first-ever outbreak of the highly lethal Marburg virus disease… The WHO emergency meeting on February 14 was to discuss whether to test one of several Marburg vaccines and treatments in development during this outbreak."
"Inflation cooled in January for the seventh month in a row… But there's a cautionary sign: While the 12-month price increase was slightly lower, prices surged between December and January, suggesting inflation is still far from tamed."
"When Adidas cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, over the rapper's antisemitic remarks, the sportswear giant quickly had another problem on its hands: what to do with all of its merchandise associated with Ye, branded as Yeezy."
"A Wisconsin-based company that provides workers to clean food processing plants paid a $1.5 million fine for illegally putting 102 children to work in dangerous jobs at meatpacking facilities, including those in Kansas and Nebraska… Packers Sanitation Services paid the maximum civil penalty allowed under the Fair Labor Standards Act to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) after an investigation found children working overnight shifts at 13 meatpacking plants in eight different states."
"The amount of grain leaving Ukraine has dropped even as a U.N.-brokered deal works to keep food flowing to developing nations, with inspections of ships falling to half what they were four months ago and a backlog of vessels growing as Russia’s invasion nears the one-year mark."
"The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that 'justice must be served' to the perpetrators."
"Our commitment to AP African American Studies is unwavering. This will be the most rigorous, cohesive immersion that high school students have ever had in this discipline. Many more students than ever before will go on to deepen their knowledge in African American Studies programs in college." The College Board changes direction.
"Late last fall, West Virginia Public Broadcasting's Amelia Ferrell Knisely reported one story after another about allegations that people with disabilities were abused in facilities run by the state… The state agency Knisely was covering demanded that one of her key stories be fully retracted. While her coverage remains on West Virginia Public Broadcasting's website, Knisely is gone. She says she was told the decision came from the station's chief executive."
"Fox News hosts repeatedly singled out the election-tech company Dominion Voting Systems for 'rigging' the election and 'flipping' votes from Trump to Democratic nominee Joe Biden without evidence to back up the claims. Yet internal communications and private messages show the network's talent and executives agreed that claims were 'ludicrous' and 'bs.'"
"Long seen as a fringe viewpoint, Christian nationalism now has a foothold in American politics, particularly in the Republican Party — according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution… Researchers found that more than half of Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation, either adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21%) or sympathizing with those views (33%)."
"The Spotlight was a very widely read 'conservative' periodical back in the 70s and 80s. It was a few clicks to the right of National Review, but almost certainly had a larger circulation. In 1980 it had about 310K subscribers. National Review was probably about 1/3 of that." The whackaloons started early, and as this twitter thread describes, there was once guardrails to keep it from overtaking the face of the Republican party. No longer. (Grokked for Eric)
"Florida has become sort of an epicenter for right-wing and far-right forces. The populist political agenda of Governor Ron DeSantis plays with some far-right tropes, while far-right figures like Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro have found refuge in the state. On the ground, extremist groups are looking to capitalize on the moment. Some have been using high-powered projectors to cast hateful images and messages onto buildings, which recently prompted Jacksonville City Council to make it illegal for anyone to project messages onto buildings without the owner's consent."
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