Tuesday, August 31, 2021

And another day of increasing vax shots, FL fudging numbers, Republican distrust in media, CA’s national parks close, S. Korea mandates cameras in operating rooms, the TX dystopia continues, and the Four Horsemen of shittiness comes to a close:

“I guess we should retire the expression ‘avoid it like the plague’ given how little effort people put into avoiding an actual plague.” — Anonymous 

Deaths

US: 657,910 (+1517)

World: 4,533,609 (+9843)

Cases

US: 40,114,099 (+167,391)

World: 218,540,994 (+639,319)

The widespread adoption of vaccine mandates by governments, schools and businesses led to an increase in the number of people in the U.S. getting their first coronavirus vaccine shot in August. Zients credits the widespread adoption of vaccine mandates by governments, schools and businesses. He pointed to the jump in vaccinations in Washington state, where the weekly vaccinate rate rose 34% after the state announced vaccination requirements for state employees, teachers and school staff. — We’re only going to get out of this mess through vaccine mandates. 

As cases ballooned in August, the Florida Department of Health changed the way it reported death data to the CDC, giving the appearance of a pandemic in decline. If you chart deaths by Florida’s new method, based on date of death, it will generally appear — even during a spike like the present — that deaths are on a recent downslope. That’s because it takes time for deaths to be evaluated and death certificates processed. When those deaths finally are tallied, they are assigned to the actual data of death — creating a spike where there once existed a downslope and moving the downslope forward in time.

Two Florida counties stick with mask mandates despite financial penalties. -- Ah, some smart, brave people in Florida.

Rural Oregon school superintendent fired after enforcing state mask mandate. The board provided no public explanation for its surprise decision to oust a superintendent who has been on the job for three years and in the district for 14 years. But critics and supporters of Purnell’s stance on mask mandates made clear it was a pivotal issue in his fissure with the board.

Beginning Sept. 13, Honolulu, Hawaii, will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID test taken within 48 hours to enter establishments.

U.S. adds Canada to its “do not travel" advisory list amid COVID-19 -State Dept.

New study finds Moderna creates more antibodies than Pfizer doses.

Texas Legislature approves election overhaul bill that will add new restrictions to voting. It now goes to the governor, who says he will sign it.

Partisan divides in media trust widen, driven by a decline among Republicans. In just five years, the percentage of Republicans with at least some trust in national news organizations has been cut in half – dropping from 70% in 2016 to 35% this year. This decline is fueling the continued widening of the partisan gap in trust of the media. — The path to authoritarianism is paved with Republican bullshit.

Lauren Boebert is a shittly person.

MTG, not only is she a shitty person, she’s scared shitless as well. 

McCarthy says GOP "will not forget" if companies hand records to Jan. 6 committee. The comment follows the select committee sending letters to 35 companies Monday asking them to preserve a number of records - something McCarthy argues "would put every American with a phone or computer in the crosshairs of a surveillance state run by Democratic politicians." — And obviously Kevin McCarthy, who is also a shitty person, is scared shitless, too.

Madison Cawthorn...yeah, he’s a shitty person, too.

It’s like the Four Horsemen of shittiness.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn calls Jan. 6 rioters 'political prisoners,' suggests he wants to 'try and bust them out' of jail. — There appears to be no redeeming qualities in any Congressional Republican.

Ida’s sweltering aftermath: No power, no water, no gasoline. Hundreds of thousands of Louisianans sweltered in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida on Tuesday with no electricity, no tap water, precious little gasoline and no clear idea of when things might improve.

US Forest Service temporarily closes all California national parks for public safety. In the wake of a statewide wildfire crisis, the US Forest Service announced in an August 30 news release that it will temporarily close national parks throughout California from August 31 through September 17 for safety reasons.

Texas school puts its first black principal on leave in furor over Critical Race Theory. A Black school principal has been placed on paid leave one week after a group of parents accused him of pushing Critical Race Theory- even though the Texas school does not mention it in the district's curriculum…Whitfield, who is married to a white woman, was also asked by the school district to remove photos with the couple together, with complaints saying they were inappropriate…"I am not the CRT (Critical Race Theory) Boogeyman. I am the first African American to assume the role of Principal at my current school in its 25-year history, and I am keenly aware of how much fear this strikes in the hearts of a small minority who would much rather things go back to the way they used to be.” — They don’t try to hide their racism. 

Social Security won't be able to pay full benefits by 2034, a year earlier than expected due to the pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic and economic recession are to blame for moving up the depletion rate by a year, driven by the big drop in employment and resulting decline in revenue from payroll taxes. The trustees also project a higher mortality rate through 2023 and a delay in births in the short term.

The entire board of Iceland's football federation (KSI) has resigned after a woman accused it of covering up claims of alleged sexual assault by a national squad player.

South Korea mandates cameras in operating rooms after surgery deaths. South Korea's parliament has voted to require hospitals to place surveillance cameras in operating rooms after a series of medical accidents involving unqualified staff who stood in for surgeons. With the bill's passage, South Korea will be the first developed country to require closed-circuit cameras to record surgical procedures.

The Department of Education has canceled more than $9 billion in student loan debt since President Biden has come into office with moves that will affect more than 563,000 borrowers. The agency confirmed the new top-line figure upon its recent announcement detailing its cancellation of $1.1 billion in debt for 115,000 borrowers that attended ITT Technical Institute, which is now defunct.

Instagram to require all users to enter birthdate. Move is part of firm’s efforts to introduce child-safe experience for under-18s

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

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

Monday, August 30, 2021

And another day of FB pushing propaganda, ending America’s longest war, investigations, get vaxxed or get terminated, hate crimes, the TX abortion ban, hurricanes, wildfires, leaded gas, enough sleep, and mandating playing video games for only three hours a week comes to a close:

“How come ‘how are you going to pay for it’ is never asked about endless war?” — Robert Reich

Deaths

US: 656,393 (+1704)

World: 4,523,766 (+8887)

Cases

US: 39,946,708 (+281,193)

World: 217,901,675 (+698,022)

Why Facebook Won’t Stop Pushing Propaganda. Facebook is pushing regular users down the path to radicalization. In 2016, two-thirds of all users joining extremist groups were doing so because Facebook suggested it…But experts have long warned that group pages, invisible to users not in them and subject to even less regulation or fact-checking than the News Feed, are where many users are sucked into hateful and conspiratorial content. (This is the pathway through which many suburban moms, as Mother Jones’ Kiera Butler has chillingly documented, have become QAnon fanatics.)…Let that sink in: Two-thirds of all users joining extremist groups were doing so because Facebook suggested it. A similar pattern has been found on YouTube, whose recommended videos can lead a user from random memes to Nazi propaganda in just a few clicks.

Last troops exit Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war. The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan late Monday, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of more than 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, some barely older than the war.

Blinken says under 200 Americans in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says fewer than 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan who want to leave and the U.S. will continue to try to get them out.

The Education Department's civil rights enforcement arm announced Monday it has launched investigations in five states to determine whether statewide policies prohibiting school mask mandates is discriminatory against students with disabilities.

As districts insist on vaccines, some teachers push back. Some of the biggest school systems in the U.S. are taking a hard line with teachers and staff members who are not yet vaccinated against COVID-19: Get a jab or lose your job.

Unvaccinated employees at Duke will face termination. Faculty members terminated for not complying with the vaccine requirement "would not be eligible for rehire with Duke in the future," the university noted.

Immunocompromised teachers speak out about lack of remote teaching options. She turned her camera around to show the rows of desks in her classroom, set up for 30 students. Richard said her largest class period will have 41 students. Twice a week, Richard said she’ll have 234 students and three days a week she’ll have 210 students rotating in and out of her classroom. The sheer number of different students she’ll be in contact with is cause for concern, not only because she said it’ll be nearly impossible for students to maintain three-feet of distance from each other, but because she is one of a number of her colleagues who are immunocompromised and have a doctor’s note saying she should not teach in person.

McDonald's, others consider closing indoor seating amid Delta surge in U.S. “We have a much deeper sense of what actions make a difference for the safety of our restaurant teams and crew.”

Hate crime reports in US surge to the highest level in 12 years, FBI says. More than 10,000 people reported to law enforcement last year that they were the victim of a hate crime because of their race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion or disability -- a number that has been on the rise in recent years, according to FBI's annual hate crime statistics report.

Abortion will effectively be banned in Texas if ‘sue thy neighbor’ law is allowed to take effect. SB8 effectively puts a $10,000 “bounty” on the head of abortion providers and anyone else who helps a woman obtain an abortion past roughly six weeks’ gestation, by allowing private citizens to sue those who “aid and abet” women in exercising this constitutional right…”The law is really unprecedented in the sense that it bans abortion, but then has no government criminal penalties to enforce the law.”…”It authorizes anyone in the country to file a lawsuit against any abortion provider, or anyone who helps someone get an abortion, and seek a penalty of that person of at least $10,000 per abortion.” — And Texas inches closer to a more dystopian nightmare than it already currently is.

Supreme Court asked to block Texas' six-week abortion ban. A group of abortion rights advocates and providers filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court on Monday asking the justices to block implementation of a new Texas law that bans procedures as early as six weeks of pregnancy.

Hurricane Ida traps Louisianans, shatters the power grid. More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — were left without power as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland, pushed through on Sunday.

Wildfire evacuees fill Lake Tahoe roads in rush to flee. A popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists was clogged with fleeing vehicles Monday after the entire resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to leave as a ferocious wildfire raced toward Lake Tahoe, a sparkling gem on the California-Nevada border.

Unintentional shootings by kids rose 31% during pandemic, new data shows.

GOP’s Larry Elder looks for shock win in California recall. California’s next governor could be a Black conservative who would erase state vaccine and mask mandates, is critical of gun control, disputes the notion of systemic racism in America and opposes the minimum wage because he says it tramples the free market. The rapid ascent of Republican Larry Elder in the Sept. 14 recall election that could remove Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is a striking turn in a state regarded as a Democratic fortress and national showcase for liberal policies on climate change, immigration and health care. -- Maybe see today’s first story?

UN hails end of poisonous leaded gas use in cars worldwide. Leaded gasoline has finally reached the end of the road, the U.N. environment office said Monday, after the last country in the world halted the sale of the highly toxic fuel.

Three hours a week: Play time's over for China's young video gamers. China has forbidden under-18s from playing video games for more than three hours a week, a stringent social intervention that it said was needed to pull the plug on a growing addiction to what it once described as "spiritual opium"…The restrictions, which apply to any devices including phones, are a body blow to a global gaming industry that caters to tens of millions of young players in the world's most lucrative market. They limit under-18s to playing for one hour a day - 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. - on only Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, according to the Xinhua state news agency. They can also play for an hour, at the same time, on public holidays.

Birds of prey face global decline from habitat loss, poisons. A new analysis of data from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and BirdLife International found that 30% of 557 raptor species worldwide are considered near threatened, vulnerable or endangered or critically endangered. Eighteen species are critically endangered, including the Philippine eagle, the hooded vulture and the Annobon scops owl, the researchers found.

Find your sleep 'sweet spot' to protect your brain as you age, study suggests. How long older adults sleep could affect their brain health, according to a study published Monday in the journal JAMA Neurology. Disrupted sleep is common in late life, the study authors wrote, and associated with changes in cognitive function -- the mental capacity for learning, thinking, reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, remembering and paying attention.

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

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

Sunday, August 29, 2021

And another day of Hurricane Ida, oxygen shortages, GOP governors targeting school systems, more on vaccine mandates, a new CA wildfire, TX bans abortion this week, rape within marriage, and East Asian youth ‘lying flat’ comes to a close:

“It's the sense of having a government that seems to welcome death; a government that has abdicated even the pretense of working for its citizens or caring if they live or die.” — Sarah Kendzior

Deaths

US: 654,689 (+308)

World: 4,514,879 (+7039)

Cases

US: 39,665,515 (+48,098)

World: 217,203,653 (+455,635)

Wind, storm urge from Hurricane Ida lash Louisiana. Hurricane Ida blasted ashore Sunday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S., blowing off roofs and reversing the flow of the Mississippi River as it rushed from the Louisiana coast toward New Orleans and one of the nation’s most important industrial corridors.

“There are literally people who are saying Ida is a false flag or a punishment from God for ‘removing Trump.’ I want these people to disappear, forever. No exceptions. I want them off the planet. They do not deserve the gift of oxygen.” -- Tim Wise

First, surges in Covid-19 infections led to shortages of hospital beds and staff. Now it's oxygen. Several hospitals in Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Louisiana are struggling with oxygen scarcity. Some are at risk of having to use their reserve supply or risk running out of oxygen imminently, according to state health officials and hospital consultants.

Republican governors target local school systems over mask mandates. The GOP positioning on masks in schools is partly a political consideration. With several governors up for reelection next year -- including a few facing possible primary challenges -- banning mask mandates has been a way for Republicans to signal their populist bona fides. As a group, Republican voters have been among the most resistant to Covid mitigation efforts, from lockdown orders early in the pandemic to mask requirements to vaccinations. Some party leaders, including former President Donald Trump, have at times publicly dismissed masks. As the new school year began, it became clear that masks on students would become the newest front in the Covid culture war.

Fauci: School Covid-19 vaccine mandates are a 'good idea'. Fauci acknowledged that there will be a lot of people pushing back on this idea, but said he believes the US Food and Drug Administration as well as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will establish a strong benefit-risk ratio for this, especially given that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine now has full FDA approval.

'Hell no': Some police officers and their unions oppose vaccination mandates. According to data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit in Washington that tracks law enforcement deaths, Covid-19 killed more officers in 2020 than gun violence, car accidents and all other causes combined.

New California wildfire forces evacuations and grows to 1,200 acres in less than 6 hours. The Chaparral Fire burning southwest of Murrieta began around midday Saturday and has burned more than 1,400 acres in Riverside and San Diego counties; it's 10% contained as of Sunday.

A Texas law that would ban abortions after as early as six weeks is poised to take effect Wednesday, after a federal appellate court's rulings stymied efforts to block the law...Providers have sued to overturn the law, which they say is the nation's strictest and would create what they call a “bounty hunting scheme” in allowing members of the general public to sue those who might have violated the law. The law, Senate Bill 8, would prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected without specifying a time frame, before many women know they are pregnant...“If this law is not blocked by September 1, abortion access in Texas will come to an abrupt stop,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents providers, said in a statement. The state's strategy, he said, has been to “circumvent the court system and the constitution itself,” he said, in order to “push abortion out of reach for as many Texans as possible.”

In India, growing clamour to criminalise rape within marriage. In India, a society rooted in patriarchal traditions, marriages are sacrosanct and it is not a crime for a man to rape his wife. But in recent weeks, courts have given conflicting rulings on marital rape, leading to renewed calls from campaigners to criminalise rape within marriage.

Exhausted and without hope, East Asian youth are 'lying flat'. Across the country, young people like Li — who requested to be referred to by that pseudonym because he fears career and political repercussions for his views — are getting tired of the fierce competition for college and jobs, and the relentless rat race once they get hired. They're now embracing a new philosophy they've called "tang ping," or "lying flat." The phrase apparently traces its origins to a post earlier this year in an online forum run by the Chinese search giant Baidu. The author of that now-deleted post suggested that instead of working one's entire life chasing after an apartment and traditional family values, people should pursue a simple life. In other words, just "lie flat."

England's crop circle controversy. Although these mysterious formations have appeared worldwide, south-west England is the unlikely world capital of crop circles, baffling locals and farmers alike. The phenomenon peaked in the 1990s and early 2000s, but continues today; an average of 30 crop circles appear each year in the UK, around 80% of them in Wiltshire.

Nancy Cain, a member of the Videofreex collective that utilized the first portable videotape recorders to capture the social and cultural upheaval of the late 1960s and early ’70s, has died. She was 81.

RIP Ed Asner. He was 91.

“So long, boys! I’ll send you a postcard from Paradise Falls!” — Carl Fredrickson (voiced by Ed Asher), UP

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

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

Saturday, August 28, 2021

And another day of risks, courtrooms, running out of room, campus-wide quarantines, suing over mandate, a march on Washington, Ida’s a coming, Lake Tahoe could be in trouble, homemade baby formula, and milk crates come to a close:

"Our country is backsliding to the unconscionable days of Jim Crow." -- Martin Luther King III

“American discourse around sex makes a lot more sense when you realize it's tied with a puritanical values system where the basis of sexual misconduct is not ‘what if someone's boundaries got violated’ but rather ‘what if someone experienced pleasure they're not supposed to.’” -- Aisling Fawn

Deaths

US: 654,381 (+976)

World: 4,507,840 (+8976)

Cases

US: 39,617,417

World: 216,748,018 (+543,752)

What's the risk of indoor dining if you're fully vaccinated? Here's what one expert says. If you're using the elliptical or weight machines, and no one is close to you, then it's pretty safe. If you're attending outdoor gym classes, the risk is also low. But if you're going to, say, a high intensity exercise class where a lot of people are breathing heavily, near one another, and you don't know whether they are vaccinated, the risk is substantially higher.

Mask debate moves from school boards to courtrooms. In at least 14 states, lawsuits have been filed either for or against masks in schools. In some cases, normally rule-enforcing school administrators are finding themselves fighting state leaders in the name of keeping kids safe. — And Death laughs while watching it all unfold.

"There is no room to put these bodies." In Alabama, health officials are using mobile trailers to store bodies because Covid-19 deaths are soaring, according to state health officer Dr. Scott Harris.

Liberty University announces campus-wide quarantine amid COVID-19 surge. -- Wait, I thought they were protected by God.

Contact tracing takes a back seat during latest COVID surge. Health investigators across the U.S. are finding it nearly impossible to keep up with the deluge of new COVID-19 infections and carry out contact tracing efforts that were once seen as a pillar of the nation’s pandemic response. -- Thanks anti-vaxxers.

How much impact could Sturgis rally have on COVID caseload? The epicenter of the rally, Meade County, has become red-hot with new cases, reaching a per capita rate that is similar to the hardest-hit Southern states. The county reported the highest rate of cases in the state over the last two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.

Washington state employees union sues Gov. Inslee over COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The lawsuit aims to block the mandate from going into effect until the state and the union reach a bargaining agreement.

Two people die in Japan after receiving potentially contaminated vaccines. Two men in Japan died this month days after receiving potentially contaminated doses of the Moderna vaccine, though officials said Saturday that it is too early to draw a definitive conclusion on any connection.

Marchers across US call on Congress to bolster voting rights. “Our country is backsliding to the unconscionable days of Jim Crow. And some of our senators are saying, ‘Well, we can’t overcome the filibuster,’” King told the crowd. “I say to you today: Get rid of the filibuster. That is a monument to white supremacy we must tear down.”

Thousands marched in Washington, D.C., and nationwide in a push to pass federal voting rights legislation. Saturday marked the 58th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. This year’s rally comes as voting rights take center stage, with GOP-controlled legislatures considering or passing bills that would restrict ballot box access.

"Texas is the worst state to vote in, in the entire nation." -- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Ida will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana since the 1850s, governor says. The National Hurricane Center said earlier Saturday that Ida was expected to rapidly intensify as it moved across the Gulf. Landfall in Louisiana is expected on Sunday evening — 16 years to the day Hurricane Katrina devastated a large part of the Gulf Coast.

Crews battle to protect Lake Tahoe region from wildfire. The Caldor Fire churned through mountains just southwest of the Tahoe Basin, cloaking much of the area in toxic smoke and sending tourists packing at a time when summer vacations would be in full swing ahead of the Labor Day weekend.

Chadwick Boseman’s death shed light on colon cancer, but rates remain high among Black people. Boseman’s death highlighted that public health organizations recommend colon cancer screening at 45 years old instead of 50. -- Get tested, people.

Babies fed a homemade alkaline diet formula were hospitalized with rickets and brain damage. The formulas, presumably based on the celebrity-endorsed alkaline diet, contained ingredients like sea moss, hemp seeds, dates, coconut water, and alkaline water but had insufficient nutrients like Vitamin D and calcium. — When you think you know more than the experts in their fields. Browsing web pages and social media is *not* doing research.

Big Box Stores’ Other Shoe Drops. Lowe’s is a parasite that is killing its host. In Michigan, Lowe’s pioneered an aggressive tactic of lowering its tax bills. It’s called the “dark store” gambit, and it’s so successful that towns are refunding millions to big box stores. That’s how the Lowe’s in Marquette, MI retroactively slashed the assessed value of the store it built for $10m from $5.2m to $2.4m (in 2010), $2m (in 2011), and $1.5m (in 2012). Based on the new assessment, Marquette was on the hook to refund $755,828 to Lowe’s, a company with $50b in net annual sales. To pay for the refund, Marquette slashed its library, police, and fire-department budgets.

U.S. Government Is Using an Algorithm to Flag American Citizens for Denaturalization: Report. According to newly uncovered documents, U.S. citizens can be kicked out of the country based on the findings of a secret DHS algorithm. The Department of Homeland Security is using an Amazon-hosted system called ATLAS that analyzes millions of records and can be used to automatically flag naturalized Americans for the revocation of their citizenship.

The milk crate challenge is exploding on social media. Some platforms are trying to remove it. The video, first posted to Facebook this month, is believed to be the origin point for the so-called milk crate challenge, a viral trend in which others attempt to conquer their own tower of milk crates, often falling in the same way as the unidentified pink-haired woman in the original video…But concerns from doctors and safety experts have led some social media platforms like TikTok to remove videos of the challenge, in an effort to prevent users from serious injury…Wright warned that a person who attempts the challenge could sustain injuries such as a wrist fracture, a forearm fracture, a broken femur, a torn ACL, or a concussion with a head bleed that could potentially lead to lifelong damage.

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

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

Friday, August 27, 2021

And another day of counterfeit vax cards, hospitals in trouble, retaliations, Hurricane Ida, TX House Speaker bans the word ‘racism,’ death threats, child mental health, no school free lunch, water worries, and a 100% gargantuan nightmare comes to a close:

“Texas is seeing a 550% spike in poison calls from people ingesting horse and cow dewormer. We live in the dumbest timeline.” -- Kolleen

Deaths

US: 653,405 (+1449)

World: 4,498,864 (+10,294)

Cases

US: 38,540,401 (+198,248)

World: 216,204,266 (+723,954)

A burgeoning online market for counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards is setting off alarm bells for federal health officials, who warn that the demand for fake proof of immunity is on the rise.

Florida Judge Throws Out Gov. Ron DeSantis' Order Prohibiting School Mask Mandates. A Florida judge has ruled that school districts in the state can require students to wear masks. At least 10 school districts — including some in many of the largest cities — had been defying state rules set by Gov. Ron DeSantis banning mask mandates.

Hospitals across the state of Texas are once again finding themselves buckling under the pressures of an overwhelmed health system, with an average of more than 1,700 patients a day currently streaming into emergency rooms across the state.

'If you get sick, we may not have a bed': Covid surge pushes Oregon hospitals to the brink. Oregon has more people hospitalized than at any other point in the pandemic, which officials attribute to the hyper-contagious Delta variant and low vaccination rates in some regions. The state’s governor has dispatched about 1,500 national guard troops to hospitals in the state and reinstated a mask mandate.

An unvaccinated elementary school teacher who took off their mask to read to students ended up infecting over half of them in May — and they went on to infect other students, family members and community members, California public health officials reported.

Clamoring for ivermectin, some turn to a pro-Trump telemedicine website. When users visit the telemedicine website SpeakWithAnMD.com, they are immediately hit with a warning: “Due to overwhelming demand, we are experiencing longer than usual wait times.” The demand is for ivermectin, a drug primarily used to deworm animals that has become the latest false cure for Covid-19.

U.S. retaliates against ISIS with drone strike in Afghanistan. U.S. military forces conducted a drone strike on Friday against the Islamic State terrorist group in Afghanistan in an apparent retaliatory attack against those who claimed responsibility for the attack Thursday outside Kabul's airport.

Ida aims to hit Louisiana on Hurricane Katrina anniversary. Officials decided against evacuating New Orleans hospitals. There’s little room for their patients elsewhere, with hospitals from Texas to Florida already reeling from a spike in coronavirus patients, said Dr. Jennifer Avengo, the city’s health director.

After historic efforts from state Democrats, Republicans in the Texas House passed controversial new legislation that imposes new restrictions on voting, adds new criminal penalties to the voting process and bans drive-thru and 24-hour voting options. — The GOP.  Always trying to make sure as few people as possible can/will vote.

Texas state House speaker bans the word "racism" amid voting bill debate. Texas state House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) on Thursday banned the word "racism" in the chamber after tensions flared while debating the highly disputed voting rights bill.

Recall elections are designed to give citizens an opportunity to change the course of state politics from the bottom up. But in California, there's little to suggest much grassroots fervor. In fact, small donors are virtually absent from the process. “It does feel like a rich person’s game.”

'Something has to be done': After decades of near-silence from the CDC, the agency's director is speaking up about gun violence. “The scope of the problem is just bigger than we're even hearing about, and when your heart wrenches every day you turn on the news, you're only hearing the tip of the iceberg," Walensky said. "We haven't spent the time, energy and frankly the resources to understand this problem because it's been so divided.” — Because, as the pandemic has shown, Republicans seem hell bent on killing as many people as possible?

Capitol Police officer who killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6 speaks publicly for first time: 'I know that day I saved countless lives'. Uncertainty about Byrd's identity created a new rallying cry -- "who shot Ashli Babbitt?" -- which Trump has brought up at recent rallies. Byrd's name has been floating around right-wing websites, and he said in the at-times emotional interview Thursday that he and his family have received death threats, including racist threats. "They talked about killing me, cutting off my head," said Byrd.

Children's Mental Health Gets Millions In Funding From The Biden Administration. As students head back into another pandemic school year, the Biden administration is announcing millions in new funding for mental health awareness, training, and treatment.

Wisconsin school district opts out of free lunch program for students. Another board member said the program enabled families to "become spoiled.” — Assholes.

Brazil water survey heightens alarm over extreme drought. The Brazilian scientists were skeptical. They ran different models to check calculations, but all returned the same startling result. The country with the most freshwater resources on the planet steadily lost 15% of its surface water since 1991. Gradual retreat in the Brazilian share of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, left water covering just one-quarter the area it did 30 years ago. And the data only went through 2020 -- before this year’s drought that is Brazil’s worst in nine decades.

Half whale, half velociraptor, 100% gargantuan nightmare material. A 43-million-year-old fossil unearthed in Egypt represents a step in whales' transition from land-bound vegetarian to oceanic murder machine.

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

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