And another day of Russia antagonizing/threatening NATO, the pandemic is not over, measles cases, the first human infected with H3N8, a prisoner exchange, the out of reach living wage, 4 times more male characters than female in lit, student loan forgiveness, and 20% of reptiles at risk of extinction comes to a close:
“When billionaires like Elon Musk justify their motives by using ‘freedom,’ beware. What they actually seek is freedom from accountability.” — Robert Reich
Deaths
US: 1,019,774 (+766)
World: 6,253,427 (+4415)
Cases
US: 82,888,247 (+98,531)
World: 511,536,014 (+698,348)
Russia cuts off gas to 2 NATO nations in bid to divide West. Russia cut off natural gas to NATO members Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday and threatened to do the same to other countries, using its most essential export in what was seen as a bid to punish and divide the West over its support for Ukraine. The move, condemned by European leaders as “blackmail,” marked a dramatic escalation in the economic war of sanctions and countersanctions that has unfolded in parallel to the fighting on the battlefield.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warns NATO intervention in Ukraine will be met with a ‘lightning-quick' military response.
Fauci: US in ‘a different moment’ but pandemic not over. After a brutal winter surge, “we’ve now decelerated and transitioned into more of a controlled phase,” he said. “By no means does that mean the pandemic is over.” His comments came a day after he said on the PBS “NewsHour” that the U.S. was “out of the pandemic phase” and also told The Washington Post that the country was finally “out of the full-blown explosive pandemic phase.”
Republican Oklahoma candidate says "we should try Anthony Fauci and put him in front of a firing squad". “We’re in a war with bureaucrats who have forced vaccine mandates on us, mask mandates on us, and you know what — they are pushing this wokeness confusion down our throats,” Bennett says in the clip. “And by the way, we should try Anthony Fauci and put him in front of a firing squad. -- Never forget the GOP has fully embraced fascism.
Measles cases jump 79% in 2022 after COVID hit vaccination campaigns. Measles cases jumped by 79% in the first two months of this year compared to 2021, after COVID-19 and lockdowns disrupted child vaccination campaigns around the world, according to data from UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO)...Measles is a very contagious disease that can be particularly dangerous for young children and babies. It spreads more quickly than Ebola, flu or COVID-19.
China reports first human infected with H3N8 bird flu strain. Chinese officials have reported the first human infected with the H3N8 bird flu strain, which has been detected in horses, dogs and even seals...Though experts said the risk of large-scale transmission is low, infections in humans can lead to viral adaptive mutations that increase the risk of rapid spreading.
Russia releases US Marine vet in surprise prisoner exchange. The deal involving Trevor Reed, an American imprisoned for nearly three years, would have been a notable diplomatic maneuver even in times of peace but it was all the more surprising because it was done as Russia’s war with Ukraine has driven relations with the U.S. to their lowest point in decades. On the other end of the swap was Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who’d been serving a 20-year federal sentence for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.
New York court rejects congressional maps drawn by Democrats. New York’s highest court on Wednesday rejected new congressional maps that had widely been seen as favoring Democrats, largely agreeing with Republican voters who argued the district boundaries were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
Elon Musk actually has a questionable record on free speech. That’s a problem for Twitter. Behind the fan base and the funny persona is a billionaire who isn’t afraid to weaponize his wealth against people who provoke his ire. There are numerous red flags in Musk’s checkered history that show him to be rather eager to suppress speech that goes against his interests…The world’s richest man has also shown himself to be against free speech when that speech is encouraging employees to organize…But even beyond these red flags of mistreating workers, anti-labor organizing sentiments, breaking the law and running afoul of the SEC, there’s an even greater concern: democracy. Musk has exhibited conflicting political views, claiming to be a libertarian while taking billions in subsidies and backing politicians from both parties. What remains consistent is his pursuit of profit, and the world’s richest man owning an international public forum does not bode well for the health of democratic society. He has already used Twitter to allegedly illegally attack unions and drive up stock prices, but there is now the very real possibility that he could use it to influence anything from elections to social movements on a much larger scale. It’s difficult to know what’s next for the social media company, or what’s next for Musk as he takes over Twitter and sorts out lawsuits with the SEC, and Black employees claiming discrimination. What does seem certain is that legions of fans will cheer his every move. Musk has cultivated a base who see him as the patron saint of crypto-currency, an icon, a genius businessman, and more. This hero worship on the platform where Musk can influence discourse on countless topics, paired with his numerous free speech infringements, makes for a concerning combination. — Another disgusting cult figure with too much power.
For many American families a living wage is out of reach: Report. Across counties, a family with two children spends, on average, a quarter of its household income on child care, the report said. For those making the hourly $7.25 federal minimum wage, child care costs would take up nearly 90% of their annual income. By that math, the average child care provider likely cannot afford their own services, which would consume more than half their average $25,460 annual income if they had two children. "That's pretty striking," Johnson said -- especially when contrasted with the government's suggestion that families not spend more than 7% of their income on child care.
Oklahoma bans nonbinary gender identities on birth certificates. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill Tuesday explicitly prohibiting the use of nonbinary gender markers on state birth certificates, a ban experts say is the first of its kind in the nation...Doctors and scientists say sex and gender are not the same thing. While sex typically refers to anatomy, gender identity is more an inner sense of being male, female or somewhere in between, regardless of physical anatomy, according to Dr. Jason Rafferty, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Rhode Island and a lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics' transgender policy. -- In case you missed it earlier: Never forget the GOP has fully embraced fascism.
ICE Program Foments Abuse, Hatred, and Fear — and Makes Us All Less Safe. Under Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 287(g) program, such travesties are all too common. The 287(g) program — named after a section of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act — sounds wonky, but is relatively simple and terribly life-altering in practice: It allows local law enforcement agencies, primarily sheriffs, to carry out certain duties normally reserved for federal ICE agents, such as investigating a person’s immigration status and holding people for transfer to ICE detention. The result is that even the most minor of interactions with local law enforcement can lead to detention, deportation, and separation from their families.
Four times more male characters in literature than female, research suggests. As well as the statistics on male and female characters, the researchers also looked at the language associated with gender-specific characters. Nagaraj said: “Even with misattributions, the words associated with women were adjectives like ‘weak’, ‘amiable’, ‘pretty’ and sometimes ‘stupid’. For male characters, the words describing them included ‘leadership’, ‘power’, ‘strength’ and ‘politics’.”
The future of the middle class depends on student loan forgiveness. This path to the middle class was in place just long enough for it to seem secure: get into college, get a job, buy a house, watch your wealth grow, and then pass it along to your kids. But this was only really a safe bet if you were a white man, and when women and people of color began down the path in greater numbers, the government and taxpayers essentially stopped paying for its maintenance...Students were still encouraged to take out loans, but massive cuts to public higher education — and skyrocketing tuition costs at public and private institutions competing to provide the “college experience” — meant that students have to take out more and more of them. We’ve lost sight of public institutions, Seamster says, and the very idea that we all deserve them. For decades, these institutions were venerated and well-funded, but as soon as women and people of color gained more access — even took over as the majority of those accessing those institutions — we began to devalue them, or defund them altogether, shifting the cost burden onto the individual...When you insist on not seeing the student loan system in its current iteration as a driver of race-based economic inequality, you are perpetuating it. -- Literally everything goes back to racism.
A Third of U.S. College Students Consider Withdrawing. Among those who considered stopping out of coursework, the most common reason was emotional stress. Seventy-six percent of those pursuing a bachelor's degree who have considered stopping out report they did so because of emotional stress they were experiencing. A similar percentage, 63%, of associate degree students say the same. These represent significant changes from 2020 when 42% of bachelor's degree students and 24% of associate degree students considering stopping out reported they did so due to emotional stress. COVID-19, cost of attendance and coursework difficulty were the three next-most-often reported reasons students considered stopping out; however, COVID-19-related reasons declined significantly from 2020 for bachelor's degree students. Mentions of coursework difficulty increased significantly from 2020 to 2021 -- 17 percentage points for those pursuing a bachelor's degree and 10 points for those pursuing an associate degree.
One-fifth of reptiles worldwide face risk of extinction. Of 10,196 reptile species analyzed, 21% percent were classified as endangered, critically endangered or vulnerable to extinction — including the iconic hooded snakes of South and Southeast Asia.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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