Monday, July 26, 2021

And another day of masks in schools, Liz Cheney’s role, another ‘heat dome,’ connecting with God on Facebook, a surge in homeschooling, transgender olympians, QR codes, and drinking a little each week can protect your heart comes to a close:

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.” -- Aldous Huxley

Deaths

US: 627,039 (+277)

World: 4,182,831 (+7751)

Cases

US: 35,287,269 (+87,804)

World: 195,345,791 (+520,661)

New York City will now require city workers — including teachers and police — to be vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID, citing risks from the rapidly spreading delta variant.

The 3 largest school districts plan to require masks. But other big districts are banned from issuing mask mandates. The nation's three largest school districts -- New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago -- will require masks in schools. Among the top 12 districts in the country, all are requiring masks except those in Florida and Texas, where the governors have banned mask mandates in schools.

Growing group of GOP members wants McCarthy to punish Kinzinger and Cheney for joining January 6 committee. -- The GQP is completely off their rocker.

Liz Cheney's role on Jan. 6 committee grows after GOP pulls participation. While her participation has triggered more attacks from Trump and others within her own party, she’s drawing strong reviews from Democrats who praise her work ethic and contributions to the committee thus far.

Another Dangerous “Heat Dome” Is About to Descend on the US. Even climate scientists are surprised by the ferocity of the onslaught. “With the Pacific north-west heatwave you’d conclude the event would be almost impossible without climate change but in a straightforward statistical analysis from before this summer— you’d also conclude it would be impossible with climate change, too. That is problematic because the event happened.”

Warming rivers in US West killing fish, imperiling industry. Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one California river, and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in another. Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once they enter the Pacific Ocean, are sounding the alarm as blistering heat waves and extended drought in the U.S. West raise water temperatures and imperil fish from Idaho to California.

Lake Powell hits lowest level on record in climate change-fueled water crisis. Lake Powell and nearby Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir, have drained at an alarming rate this year. The two reservoirs fed by the Colorado River watershed provide a critical supply of drinking water and irrigation for many across the region, including rural farms, ranches and native communities. The significance of the dwindling supply in both reservoirs cannot be overstated. Water flowing down the Colorado River fills the two reservoirs, which are part of a river system that supplies over 40 million people living across seven Western states and Mexico.

Yet another lake in the Western U.S. drops to record-low water levels. Water levels in the southern part of Utah's Great Salt Lake dropped to the their lowest ever recorded.

Severe floods hammer Costa Rica, two dead. Nearly a quarter of Costa Rica is under a "red alert" declared by the National Emergency Commission (CNE) for flooding and landslides, including the northern municipalities of San Carlos, Upala, Guatuso and the Caribbean zones of Limón, Matina, Talamanca, Sarapiquí and Turrialba.

Facebook Wants You to Connect With God. On Facebook. The company aims to become the virtual home for religious community and wants churches, mosques, synagogues and others to embed their religious life into its platform, from hosting worship services and socializing more casually to soliciting money. It is developing new products, including audio and prayer sharing, aimed at faith groups. Virtual religious life is not replacing in-person community anytime soon, and even supporters acknowledge the limits of an exclusively online experience. But many religious groups see new opportunity to spiritually influence even more people on Facebook, the world’s largest and arguably most influential social media company. The partnerships reveal how Big Tech and religion are converging far beyond simply moving services to the internet. Facebook is shaping the future of religious experience itself, as it has done for political and social life…There are privacy worries too, as people share some of their most intimate life details with their spiritual communities. The potential for Facebook to gather valuable user information creates “enormous” concerns, said Sarah Lane Ritchie, a lecturer in theology and science at the University of Edinburgh. The goals of businesses and worshipping communities are different, she said, and many congregations, often with older members, may not understand how they could be targeted with advertising or other messages based on their religious engagement.

Sparked by pandemic fallout, homeschooling surges across US. The specific reasons vary widely. Some families who spoke with The Associated Press have children with special educational needs; others seek a faith-based curriculum or say their local schools are flawed. The common denominator: They tried homeschooling on what they thought was a temporary basis and found it beneficial to their children.

First openly transgender Olympians are competing in Tokyo. The International Olympic Committee has allowed transgender athletes to participate at the Olympics since 2004, but until this year, none had done so openly.

QR codes have become more ubiquitous on the dining scene, and so has the quiet tracking and targeting they do. Aside from storing data like menus or drink options, QR codes are often designed to transmit certain data about the person who scanned them in the first place—like their phone number or email address, along with how often the user might be scanning the code in question. This data collection comes with a few perks for the restaurants that use the codes (they know who their repeat customers are and what they might order). The only problem is that we actually don’t know where that data actually goes.

Drinking a little each week protects your heart if you have a cardiovascular condition, study finds. If you are living with heart disease, having a small amount of alcohol each day is linked to a lower risk of having another heart attack, stroke, angina (heart pain because of constricted arteries) or an early death, according to a new large study.

Hubble finds evidence of water vapor on Jupiter's largest moon.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.