This 18 March 2020 video from United States TV says about itself:
Six of the eight victims in the Atlanta shooting spree were of Asian descent, and the attack came as Asian Americans face increased discrimination, hate and violence. NBC investigative and consumer correspondent Vicky Nguyen reports for In Depth TODAY.
Atlanta shootings expose growth of anti-Asian violence in the US. A subcommittee of the House of Representatives held a hearing on Thursday entitled “Discrimination and Violence Against Asian Americans,” the first time the US Congress has addressed the issue since the 1980s when Chinese American Vincent Chin was murdered: here.
LET’S CALL IT WHAT IT IS The words “racist misogyny” need to enter the conversation about the Atlanta spa shootings, writes HuffPost’s Brittany Wong. Police said it was “too early” to determine if racism was at play after a gunman fatally shot eight people, including six women of Asian descent. The fetishization of Asian women is, in itself, racist. [HuffPost]
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE VICTIMS Xiaojie “Emily” Tan was a business owner and “the sweetest person you’d ever meet,” said a friend and customer. Cherokee County officials have released the identities of the five people shot ― four of whom were killed ― at Young’s Asian Massage, the first spa where the gunman opened fire Tuesday. [HuffPost]
2 ASIAN WOMEN STABBED IN SAN FRANCISCO Two older Asian women were stabbed on the street while waiting for the bus in San Francisco this week as anti-Asian violence rises nationwide. They are recovering from their injuries. “San Francisco is my home and my Grandma’s home. We need to feel safe where we live and not in constant fear,” wrote the granddaughter of one of the victims. [HuffPost]
WHEN LAW ENFORCEMENT FAILS HATE CRIME VICTIMS Police statements in Atlanta served as a reminder of the failures of the American criminal justice system, specifically when it comes to investigating crimes that stem from race-based bias and hatred, writes HuffPost’s Rowaida Abdelaziz. Police are often reluctant or refuse to liken crimes to racial animus, which only further traumatizes people in the targeted community. [HuffPost]
Improved air quality, reduced ozone pollution may have averted bird deaths
November 24, 2020
U.S. pollution regulations meant to protect humans from dirty air are also saving birds. So concludes a new continentwide study published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study authors found that improved air quality under a federal program to reduce ozone pollution may have averted the loss of 1.5 billion birds during the past 40 years. That’s nearly 20 percent of birdlife in the United States today. The study was conducted by scientists at Cornell University and the University of Oregon.
“Our research shows that the benefits of environmental regulation have likely been underestimated,” says Ivan Rudik, a lead author and Ruth and William Morgan Assistant Professor at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. “Reducing pollution has positive impacts in unexpected places and provides an additional policy lever for conservation efforts.”
Ozone is a gas that occurs in nature and is also produced by human activities, including by power plants and cars. It can be good or bad. A layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere protects the Earth from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun. But ground-level ozone is hazardous and is the main pollutant in smog.
To examine the relationship between bird abundance and air pollution, the researchers used models that combined bird observations from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program with ground-level pollution data and existing regulations. They tracked monthly changes in bird abundance, air quality, and regulation status for 3,214 U.S. counties over a span of 15 years. The team focused on the NOx (nitrogen oxide) Budget Trading Program, which was implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to protect human health by limiting summertime emissions of ozone precursors from large industrial sources.
Study results suggest that ozone pollution is most detrimental to the small migratory birds (such as sparrows, warblers, and finches) that make up 86 percent of all North American landbird species. Ozone pollution directly harms birds by damaging their respiratory system, and indirectly affects birds by harming their food sources.
“Not only can ozone cause direct physical damage to birds, but it also can compromise plant health and reduce numbers of the insects that birds consume,” explains study author Amanda Rodewald, Garvin Professor at the Cornell Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and Director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Not surprisingly, birds that cannot access high-quality habitat or food resources are less likely to survive or reproduce successfully. The good news here is that environmental policies intended to protect human health return important benefits for birds too.”
Last year, a separate study by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology showed that North American bird populations have declined by nearly 3 billion birds since 1970 (Rosenberg et. al. Science, 2019). This new study shows that without the regulations and ozone-reduction efforts of the Clean Air Act, the loss of birdlife may have been 1.5 billion birds more.
“This is the first large-scale evidence that ozone is associated with declines in bird abundance in the United States and that regulations intended to save human lives also bring significant conservation benefits to birds,” says Catherine Kling, Tisch University Professor at the Cornell Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and Faculty Director at Cornell’s Atkinson Center for Sustainability. “This work contributes to our ever increasing understanding of the connectedness of environmental health and human health.”
This 11 September 2020 United States TV video is called ‘Everything Is A Total Loss’: Entire Towns Devastated By Oregon Wildfires | NBC News NOW.
Ten percent of Oregon’s population ordered to evacuate as wildfires continue to ravage the US west coast. By David Fitzgerald, 11 September 2020. At least fourteen people have died in the latest outbreak: a one-year-old boy in Washington, three people in Oregon, and ten in California, and the death toll is expected to rise.
NIGHTMARE IN OREGON: 500,000 EVACUATE Stunned residents of the small Oregon town of Phoenix walked through a scene of devastation after one of the state’s many wildfires wiped out much of their community. By Thursday evening, the number of Oregon residents evacuated statewide because of fires had climbed to an estimated 10% of the state’s 4.2 million population. Some firefighters in Clackamas County were told to disengage because of dangerous fire activity as two large fires in the area were believed to be merging. Across Oregon, California and Washington, many towns have been destroyed. [AP]
10 DEAD IN MASSIVE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE A Northern California wildfire became the state’s deadliest of the year Thursday when authorities announced seven more deaths, bringing the total to 10 and the unnerving prospect the toll would climb as searchers looked for 16 missing people. Among those unaccounted for are Sandy Butler and her husband, who called their son to say they were going to try to escape the flames by finding shelter in a pond. [AP]
The 17-year-old arrested in the fatal shooting of 2 Jacob Blake protesters in Kenosha allegedly killed at least one unarmed man, and could get life in prison for murder. …
The criminal complaint against Kyle Rittenhouse was released Thursday, and it says the first person the Illinois teenager allegedly shot, Joseph Rosenbaum, “appeared to be unarmed for the duration of video” reviewed by investigators.
Prosecutors say Rosenbaum appeared to throw an object at Rittenhouse before the fatal shooting, and a second video apparently shows the object in question was nothing more than a plastic bag.
Rittenhouse is also charged with first-degree intentional homicide of Anthony Huber. Prosecutors say Huber — seen with a skateboard in several videos — approached Rittenhouse, who was lying on his back, and appeared to reach for Rittenhouse’s gun. According to the complaint, Rittenhouse fired a round, sending Huber staggering away before collapsing to the ground and dying from a gunshot wound.
Prosecutors charged Rittenhouse with 5 felonies — the 3 others are 2 counts of first-degree reckless endangerment and one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
That last count was for allegedly shooting Gaige Grosskreutz.
On Tuesday night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 17-year-old named Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly opened fire on anti-racist protesters, killing two people. Video posted to social media captured Rittenhouse roaming the streets in the hours before the shooting as part of a self-styled militia that purportedly was protecting local residents and their property from the protests — and appearing to receive some tacit support from police. Christopher Mathias is a senior reporter at HuffPost covering the far right, and he spoke with Must Reads about his story on how this incident actually has a long historical lineage in the United States.
How common has white vigilante presence been at the anti-racist protests this summer?
Pretty common! The data collected by the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right counted at least 500 times vigilantes or far-right paramilitaries appeared to confront anti-racist protesters since George Floyd was killed in May. That could be an undercount, too.
I think one of the strange developments this year is how accustomed we’ve grown to the presence of militia types, Boogaloo bois, Proud Boys and other far-right actors turning up to confront Black Lives Matter protests. Like, what a strange and awful routine: a video emerges of cops killing a Black American, a volatile uprising breaks out with images of burning cop cars and smashed windows, militias turn up to patrol the protests or “protect property,” as they put it, there are clashes with protesters, and then police crack down on protesters. It’s been a long, hot summer.
Videos from the scene in Kenosha showed Rittenhouse talking with police before he allegedly shot three people. To what extent have you seen white vigilantes’ presence accepted by law enforcement?
So the dataset we used found about two dozen examples of law enforcement supporting or encouraging vigilantes and far-right paramilitaries this year. Those are just the ones we know about, of course. Over the last few years, there have been numerous examples of cops showing animosity toward leftist protesters while cozying up to fascists.
It’s also worth noting — and this is something I didn’t put in the article — but one of the favorite symbols for modern American cops is the Punisher skull. You see it on their uniforms. (I saw an NYPD cop wearing one when I got arrested earlier this summer.) They have it as tattoos, as bumper stickers on their cars. It’s firmly part of the Blue Lives Matter aesthetic that’s so, so popular with cops in this country. And it’s an ode to a white vigilante! Honestly something we don’t talk about enough.
There’s a long history of this kind of relationship in America — tell us about it.
This country was founded on white supremacy, and that racial hierarchy has, since the country was founded, been maintained and enforced by white vigilantes, always in partnership with the state. Vigilantes captured runaway slaves and massacred Native Americans for land.
The Ku Klux Klan was teeming with cops and government officials in the 1920s, even as it dealt out horrifying acts of terrorism against Black Americans. Then you had “Sundown Towns” across the U.S. during the Jim Crow era — essentially all-white municipalities — that prohibited Black people from being inside their borders after sunset. These kinds of laws, of course, were often enforced violently by vigilantes in partnership with police. What we’re seeing now during this summer’s uprising is an extension of that history.
What’s the danger moving forward that more vigilantes decide to act violently? Are experts concerned about that?
Experts are very concerned about copycat attacks after Kenosha. The rhetoric of right-wing media, the GOP and the White House is also adding fuel to the fire. Over the past few days, the MAGAverse has rushed to defend Kyle Rittenhouse. This will only embolden other vigilantes across the country. Not to mention we’re heading into an election, which is contentious enough on its own, let alone during a pandemic and a historic uprising against police. There are so many explosive elements to our current situation.
Shut down the gun-mad gang who back Trump. PETER FROST stays up late to watch some of the worst aspects of the gun-loving culture that is Trump’s United States.
In several states, police are cutting ties with domestic violence organizations that support Black Lives Matter. Senior reporter Melissa Jeltsen reported on Embrace — a group in northwestern Wisconsin that posted a Black Lives Matter sign at its four locations — and the backlash it has seen from local law enforcement. Must Reads talked to Jeltsen about her story and how the situation puts survivors and their advocates in a tough position.
‘FACEBOOK HAS BLOOD ON ITS HANDS’ Facebook deliberately took no action against a group on its platform as members plotted an armed takeover of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and encouraged each other to “shoot and kill.” Civil rights organization Muslim Advocates repeatedly highlighted the danger until Facebook took down the page. [HuffPost]
This 7 1/2 minute video highlights the desert bighorn sheep in Nevada. From the big rams to the next generation I’m sure you will enjoy. Hopefully, this will be playing at the Nevada Department of Wildlife booth during the 2015 annual sheep show in Reno.
In the American Southwest, native desert bighorn sheep populations found in landscapes with minimal human disturbance, including several national parks, are less likely to be vulnerable to climate change, according to a new study led by Oregon State University.
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, is one of the largest genetic studies conducted on desert bighorn sheep. The researchers used genetic information from more than 1,600 individuals in 62 populations in and around 10 National Park Service units in four states — Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. Park service units include parks as well as other administrative units, such as reserves and recreation areas.
The researchers found that the least vulnerable bighorn populations are primarily in and around Death Valley National Park and Grand Canyon National Park. The results suggest that protecting these landscapes should be a priority for native bighorn conservation, said lead author Tyler Creech, an OSU graduate now at the Center for Large Landscape Conservation in Bozeman, Montana.
Meanwhile, the researchers determined that the populations with the highest overall vulnerability are primarily located outside of national park units in the southern Mojave Desert and in southeastern Utah.
In the study, the researchers analyzed the genetic structure and diversity of bighorn sheep populations and how connected they are to other populations, both genetically and geographically, and used that information to infer their vulnerability to a changing climate.
“We used DNA samples from bighorn sheep to tell us how genetically diverse populations are,” Creech said. “The populations that are less genetically diverse and less connected to their neighbors are more likely to be negatively impacted by climate change.”
“Genetic diversity allows populations to adapt to new environments,” said study co-author Clint Epps, a wildlife biologist and associate professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences. “This study highlights the important role our national park units can play in keeping these populations up as the climate changes.”
The researchers primarily used fecal pellet samples to obtain DNA from up to 85 individual bighorns in each population, and combined genetic datasets from multiple projects covering different portions of the study area, dating back to 2000. After the samples were processed and genotyped, they grouped the individuals into populations based on the locations where they were sampled, then quantified the isolation and genetics of each population.
They also considered how exposure to harsher climatic conditions within bighorn sheep habitat “patches” could influence populations’ vulnerability. Desert bighorn sheep live in some of the hottest and driest landscapes in the U.S., and climate modeling shows those areas could get hotter and drier.
To assess climate change exposure, they used an index known as “forward climate velocity,” which indicates the speed at which species must migrate to maintain constant climate conditions. They considered two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios for the 2050s developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, one that models moderate emissions and the other that models high emissions.
“We believe this approach was suitable for assessing relative exposure of desert bighorn populations across a large geographic range because although temperature and precipitation are known to influence fitness of desert bighorn sheep, the specific climatic conditions to which bighorn are most sensitive are not fully understood and may vary geographically,” Creech said.
The refusal of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball players to continue playing games as long as US police violence against black people continues has sparked a chain reaction in the United States sports world.
Last Sunday, Jacob Blake, a black man from Kenosha, Wisconsin, was shot by police during his arrest. Blake was shot seven times in the back. It is the second incident this summer in which police brutality against a black citizen leads to riots in the US.
In the hours after the Bucks decision, baseball association MLB, women’s basketball association WNBA and football [soccer] association MLS announced that several games will be cancelled and tennis star Naomi Osaka announced that she will not play for the time being.
Osaka, who, as a child of a Haitian father and Japanese mother, feels strongly connected with the black population, also took a stand. “I am a tennis player, but primarily a black woman, there are more important things that deserve attention right now,” she said on Instagram.
The NBA also decided to cancel Wednesday’s two other games in the playoffs (Houston Rockets-Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers-Portland Trail Blazers).
Also in the MLB (three games) and MLS (five games) was not played. Kelvin Leerdam, former player for Feyenoord and Vitesse and now active for Seattle Sounders, was outspoken on the matter. “As an athlete, you live in a bubble, but we wanted to show everyone that we see what is happening and that it affects us too. These are difficult times, but we have to take a stand.”
Two of the three games in the WNBA were about to start when it was announced that they would not be played.
For the WNBA game between Washington Mystics and Atlanta Dream, the players of the Mystics made a statement by wearing shirts with seven bullet holes on the back.
Ice hockey association NHL decided not to cancel the three scheduled play-off matches, much to the annoyance of Evander Kane, a black player of the San Jose Sharks.
He said on Twitter:
Actually it’s incredibly insulting as a black man in hockey the lack of action and acknowledgement from the @nhl, just straight up insulting. https://t.co/1KrpUvFhaQ
Japan’s Osaka, who grew up in the US, and earlier in the day won her quarter-final match at the WTA tournament in New York against Estonian Anett Kontaveit, announced after her match that she would not play in the semi-finals.
“I don’t expect much to change if I don’t play, but if I can start a conversation in this predominantly white sport, I see it as a step in the right direction,” said Osaka.
After Osaka’s decision, the organization of the Western & Southern Open announced that it has postponed all games until Friday. Whether Osaka will still play then is not known.
In this moment of national reckoning, working people from across the nation and allies in the interconnected fights for justice are standing together to Strike for Black Lives. Led by the SEIU, the Movement for Black Lives and dozens of other labor rights and racial justice organizations, thousands of fast food, ride-share, nursing home and airport workers in cities across the US will walk off the job today for a full-day strike to call attention to systemic racism in the economy and acknowledge that racial justice is impossible without economic justice.
We join in solidarity with the release of a new digital short exposing how corporations wield outsized influence over our society, inhibiting workers, particularly from Black communities and other communities of color, from accessing the resources and opportunities they need to thrive. This unbalanced corporate power is unethical, unfair, and a threat to racial justice everywhere. #FundCommunitiesNotCorporations
Ash-Lee Henderson, the spokeswoman for the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of 150 organisations, said: “We are … building a country where black lives matter in every aspect of society — including in the workplace.”
DEMS URGE PROBE INTO TRUMP’S USE OF FEDERAL OFFICERS TO QUELL PROTESTS House Democrats on Sunday sent a letter to the inspectors general of the Justice Department and Homeland Security Department requesting an investigation into the Trump administration’s use of federal law officers to suppress anti-racism protests. The leaders of three House committees ― Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee; Bennie Thompson of Homeland Security; and Carolyn Maloney of Oversight ― said they were “increasingly alarmed” by the situation. [HuffPost]
Dear Kitty. Some blog 