Tuesday, August 24, 2021

And another day of the AMA urging the public, OU mandating vaccines, a new governor, voting law bills, infrastructure plans, SCOTUS denials, climate change-induced famine, environmental racism, and the predatory giant tortoise comes to a close:

"It's probably not uncommon for animals to surprise our expectations by eating unexpected things that may just be a one off.” -- Justin Gerlach, University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology

Deaths

US: 648,161 (+1949)

World: 4,465,368 (+11,729)

Cases

US: 38,968,925 (+154,329)

World: 213,996,577 (+695,516)

Right now, the administration is doing… — It is quite a list. Read it.

American Medical Association urges public, private sectors to mandate vaccines. The American Medical Association (AMA) on Tuesday urged the public and private sectors to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations, saying the move is key to getting control of the pandemic.

US outbreaks force early reversals on in-person learning. A few weeks into the new school year, growing numbers of U.S. districts have halted in-person learning or switched to hybrid models because of rapidly mounting coronavirus infections.

Ohio University mandates vaccines for students, faculty and staff. "The university is taking this step because vaccines are the safest and most effective form of protection against COVID-19. We are focused on enhancing the health and safety of our community," she added. "This step will increase our ability to support our students in continuing their educational experiences as well as help protect our current and the state’s future workforce."

Concerts, COVID and cold ones: How vaccine politics is playing out at venues. “If you don’t want to follow these rules, if you don’t want to follow these things that have been laid down by the venue, the artist, the state, the government, whatever it is, then stay home and watch it on YouTube,” Billy Bob's general manager said.

Hawaii governor asks tourists to stay away as Covid cases and hospitalizations hit record highs. "We know that it is not a good time to travel to the islands," Ige, a Democrat, said Monday. "The visitors who choose to come to the islands will not have the typical kind of holiday that they expect to get when they visit."

Kathy Hochul becomes New York’s first female governor. For the first time, a majority of the most powerful figures in New York state government will be women, including state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Attorney General Letitia James and the chief judge, DiFiore. The state Assembly is led by a man, Speaker Carl Heastie.

19 states have never had a female governor.

House passes bill bolstering landmark voting law. The bill, which is part of a broader Democratic effort to enact a sweeping overhaul of elections, was approved on a 219-212 vote, with no Republican support. Its passage was praised by President Joe Biden, who said it would protect a “sacred right” and called on the Senate to “send this important bill to my desk.” But the measure faces dim prospects in that chamber, where Democrats do not have enough votes to overcome opposition from Senate Republicans, who have rejected the bill as “unnecessary” and a Democratic “power grab.” That bottleneck puts Democrats right back where they started with a slim chance of enacting any voting legislation before the 2022 midterm elections, when some in the party fear new GOP laws will make it harder for many Americans to vote.

House votes to advance Biden's jobs and infrastructure plans, breaking logjam. The House voted 220 to 212 to pass the "rule" and instruct committees to write the $3.5 trillion bill, which can pass both chambers without any Republican support. To placate the centrist Democratic holdouts, Speaker Nancy Pelosi committed to a Sept. 27 deadline to vote on the $550 billion Senate-passed infrastructure bill.

Supreme Court denies Biden administration efforts to end 'Remain in Mexico' policy. The policy was meant to discourage asylum-seekers, but critics argue that it denies people the legal right to seek protection in the U.S. and forces them to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities. It requires asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico until their court dates in the U.S., and it previously left tens of thousands of Central American migrants waiting in tent cities in places like Matamoros, Mexico, where they were often subjected to robbery, kidnapping and assault.

The Taliban called on the US to stop encouraging people to leave the country and said Afghan nationals would not be allowed to leave.

Afghan female robotics team defiant after fleeing Taliban to Qatar. “Nothing can stop us. We continue our way.”

Madagascar on the brink of climate change-induced famine. Madagascar is on the brink of experiencing the world's first "climate change famine", according to the United Nations, which says tens of thousands of people are already suffering "catastrophic" levels of hunger and food insecurity after four years without rain.

Guess Which Company Ranks Worst for Environmental Racism? The evaluation’s results weren’t rosy for any of the S&P 500 companies—Microsoft and CVS, tied for first place, got a total score of only 60 percent—but the energy sector stood out for its particularly bad performance. Overall, the sector scored an average of just 3 percent, with seven companies’ scores dipping into the negative numbers—meaning that their actions had done more harm than good to low-income and nonwhite communities. Fossil fuel producers made up half of the scorecard’s worst 10 companies on racial justice, with ExxonMobil at the very bottom, along with other oil and gas firms like Marathon Petroleum and Valero Energy.

Apple employees organizing for "systemic change" in workplace. A website and Twitter page launched Monday, under the name Apple Too, calling for workers to share their experiences to “expose persistent patterns” of racism, sexism, discrimination, intimidation and more.

Amid school bus driver shortages, one school offers parents $700 to drive their kids. "EastSide wants to pay you $700 for the year for dropping off and picking up each child from school (example — if you have 3 children we would give you $2,100.”

Next time you order that waffle maker or rice cooker, it could be delivered to you by Walmart, even if that's not where you bought it. The company said Tuesday that it's launching a new service that delivers goods sold by other businesses to customers.

Giant tortoise seen attacking and eating baby bird for first time in the wild in 'horrifying' incident.” "It was a very slow encounter, with the tortoise moving at its normal, slow walking pace -- the whole interaction took seven minutes and was quite horrifying."

RIP Charlie Watts. He was 80.

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

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