Post by mhbruin on Apr 9, 2022 10:18:23 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 562 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 5)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
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Water is Heavier Than Butane, Because Butane is a Lighter Fluid
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Can Greene Run and Chew Gum At the Same Time? Can She Just Run?
A federal judge signaled Friday that she'll likely allow a group of Georgia voters to move forward with their constitutional challenge against GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which claims she can't run for reelection because she aided the January 6 insurrectionists.
Federal Judge Amy Totenberg of the Northern District of Georgia said during a lengthy hearing that she has "significant questions and concerns" about a recent ruling in a similar case, which blocked the same challenge against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican.
A group of Georgia voters, backed by a coalition of constitutional scholars and liberal activists, lodged the challenge against Greene last month with state election officials. Greene then filed her own lawsuit in federal court, asking Totenberg to shut down the state-level proceedings.
Totenberg said she will issue a ruling next week, likely on Monday. That's two days before a state judge is scheduled to hold a hearing on the underlying question of whether Greene engaged in or aided the January 6, 2021, insurrection and whether that disqualifies her from office.
A Snowciopath. Perfect!
On Thursday evening's broadcast of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, host Kimmel responded to Marjorie Taylor Greene's cowardly call to the Capitol police because the ABC comedian made a joke about her.
"On our show, Klan mom as we call her -- who called three of her fellow Republicans pro-pedophile for supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court, which is a lovely thing to say," Kimmel said. "I made a joke and said where is Will Smith when you need him." Laughter from audience could be heard.
This is what she does instead of working, she tweets," he observed.
"She called the police," Kimmel laughed. "Not only did she call the police, she called the same police she voted against giving a Congressional Gold Medal to for defending our capital against the insurrection she helped incite on January 6."
He continued, "It must be that cancel culture they're always talking about."
"Officer, I'd like to report a joke," Kimmel said. "It triggered the sweet little snowflake."
Kimmel observed, "She's a snowflake and a sociopath at the same time. A snowciopath."
Dismantling Greene Thing is So Easy
We Still Don't Know Why. That is a Bit Frightening.
Prosecutors told a judge Friday that they still don't know a motive for two men charged with impersonating federal agents, whether they are connected to any foreign government or whether they received anything from the federal agents they allegedly duped.
"This investigation is less than two weeks old, and every day it gets worse and worse as more and more evidence comes forward, and more and more witnesses come forward," prosecutor Josh Rothstein told a federal judge on Friday.
The Justice Department is arguing that Haider Ali and Arian Taherzadeh should stay behind bars while the investigation continues. Judge Michael Harvey peppered prosecutors with questions, many of which they couldn't answer.
The hearing will continue Monday, and the two men will remain behind bars over the weekend. Neither Taherzadeh nor Ali has entered a formal plea.
If the Good Lord Made You a Bigot, He Isn't the Good Lord. You Probably Are the One Responsible.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed two bills Friday that target transgender young people and classroom discussion of LGBTQ identities.
One of the bills makes it a felony for medical professionals to provide gender-affirming medical care people under 19.
Her signature makes Alabama the third state in the country to pass a measure restricting transition-related care, though it is the first state to impose criminal penalties.
Ivey said in a statement that she signed the bill because she believes that "if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl." (Is she opposed to hair dye? If the Good Lord made you a brunette, ...)
It Wasn't Even Casual Friday
Is He Too Racist for the QOP?
It took over a year, but the Hampton GOP finally noticed that one of their members was a vile racist. Local GOP Chairman Philip Siff has called on Hampton Electoral Board Chair, David Dietrich, to resign after a blatantly racist and violent Facebook post surfaced. Dietrich is in charge of elections in Hampton, VA.
On February 11, 2021, this miserable man called two prominent former generals, both Black, "vile and racist". One is the current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and the other, Russel Honoré, gained fame for getting the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina back on track. In a Facebook post, Dietrich wrote,
"The situation with the United States military is getting more disgusting and dangerous by the day."
"These so-called 'leaders' are so vile and racist, there's no way to describe them other than in terms their own people understand. They are nothing more than dirty, stinking niggers."
“We are being forced into a corner by these enemies of the People. If it is civil war they want, they will get it in spades. Perhaps the best way to pull is back from the brink is a good public lynching.”
Bye, Bye Mickey. Hello Dolly ... Oops!
The Federalist led their coverage today with this blaring headline: “Cancel Your Disney Vacation And Go To Dollywood Instead.
“It’s not just the recent visibility of the longstanding fact that Disney’s post-Walt corporate leadership works to undermine sexual wholeness, but also about the greedy commercialization of the Disney brand.”
Parton is a longtime ally of the LGBT community, with many considering her a gay icon. She supported same-sex marriage in the United States as early as 2009. She has advocated for trans people regarding North Carolina’s bathroom bill. Not to mention, she has often dedicated her smash hit “Jolene” to the drag queens who dress like her at her concerts.
How Many Laws Can You Break in One Text Message?
Two days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump’s eldest son texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that “we have operational control” to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures, CNN has learned.
In the text, which has not been previously reported, Donald Trump Jr. lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process, according to the message reviewed by CNN. The text is among records obtained by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.
“It’s very simple,” Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: “We have multiple paths We control them all.”
Note that this was written two days before Biden was declared the winner. They knew they had lost. They weren’t (just) looking at challenges; they were figuring out how to cheat.
While Trump Jr. was publicly pushing various voter fraud conspiracy theories and generally casting doubt about the results in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, his text to Meadows reveals there were other ideas being discussed privately.
Specifically, Trump Jr. previews a strategy to supplant authentic electors with fake Republican electors in a handful of states. That plan was eventually orchestrated and carried out by allies of the former President, and overseen by his then-attorney Rudy Giuliani. . . .
If secretaries of state were unable to certify the results, Trump Jr. argues in his text to Meadows that they should press their advantage by having Republican-controlled state assemblies “step in” and put forward separate slates of “Trump electors,” he writes.
"But Your Honor. It Was Such a Beautiful Door." How Many People Have Died During the Execution of No-Knock Warrants?
On Thursday, Mark Joseph Stern of Slate reported that a three-judge panel for the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia slammed the FBI's decision not to break down a door of a wealthy suspect for whom they knew that forced entry was necessary — instead going out of their way to enter through the back door.
The FBI's stated reason for this? The suspect lived in an "affluent neighborhood" — and the agents did not want to do anything to interfere with the "aesthetics" of his community."
Judge Patricia Millett excoriated the decision as "outrageous behavior by the FBI." Judge Robert Wilkins agreed, adding, "I was a public defender here for 10 years. I can't tell you how many times my clients had their front doors bashed in ... I don't remember a single time where any agent or police officer was worried about the aesthetics of what their house would look like."
"We Will Stand Up to Putin" ("Put the Russian Cash Over There")
It was a strongly worded warning from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Invade Ukraine and there will be “significant consequences.”
Three days after that phone call last Dec. 13, Johnson’s Conservative Party received a donation of 66,500 pounds (nearly $88,000) from Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of one of Putin’s former deputy ministers.
In all, Chernukhin has donated more than 2 million pounds to the Conservative Party since 2012, making her one of the largest female donors in British political history, public records from the British Electoral Commission show.
Chernukhin says that she is a vehement critic of Putin and his war, and that none of her donations have been funded by corruption or improper means. Neither she nor her husband are among those who have been sanctioned by the the British government or others, and there is no suggestion either are guilty of any wrongdoing.
Her lawyers said in an email to NBC News that she disputed having historical links to the Kremlin because her husband, Vladimir, fled Russia in 2004 after being fired by the government and suffering harassment. (Vladimir Chernukhin used to chair Russia’s state development bank VEB, whose assets Britain froze after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.)
But she is far from alone. Lubov Chernukhin is just one of several Russia-linked millionaires and billionaires to donate large sums to the ruling Conservative Party.
For some experts and critics, this type of bankrolling exposes a contradiction at the heart of Britain’s response to the invasion: How can Johnson’s government claim to be one of Putin's strongest opponents, when London — and the ruling party itself — is awash with Russian cash?
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
The Heroes Who Kept Chernobyl Safe
"We had to constantly negotiate with them, and try hard not to offend them, so that they allowed our personnel to manage the facility," said engineer Valeriy Semonov.
When the power to the station was cut off for three days, Valeriy said he scrambled to find fuel to keep the generator running, even resorting to stealing some from the Russians.
"If we had lost power, it could have been catastrophic," Oleksandr explained. "Radioactive material could have been released. The scale of it, you can well imagine. I wasn't scared for my life. I was scared about what would happen if I wasn't there monitoring the plant. I was scared it would be a tragedy for humanity."
Life in a nuclear plant with Russian soldiers
The sudden ear-piercing beep of a radiation meter fills the room as a Ukrainian soldier walks in. This is where Russian soldiers were living at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and radiation levels are now higher than normal.
There's no visible presence of the source of the radioactive material in the room, but Ukrainian officials say it's coming from small particles and dust that the soldiers brought into the building.
"They went to the Red Forest and brought radioactive material back with them on their shoes," soldier Ihor Ugolkov explains. "Other places are fine, but radiation increased here, because they were living here."
The Chaos They Left Behind
He's One of the Good Guys
A lucky Frenchman has decided to dedicate most of his record-breaking $217 million lottery jackpot to a nature foundation he created, he told Le Parisien in an exclusive interview published Wednesday.
The winner, nicknamed "Guy" by French lottery group Françaises des Jeux (FDJ), won the sum in December 2020. At the time, the jackpot was the largest in the history of EuroMillions, a seven-number lottery involving several European countries including France and the United Kingdom.
"From my point of view, the priority today is saving the planet," Guy told Le Parisien. "We must act. It is an absolute emergency. If nothing is done in this regard, all other actions will be in vain. We will no longer exist."
How Lucky is Ukraine? They Found a Zelenskyy and a Zaluzhnyy When They Needed Them.
Ukraine’s 'iron general' is a hero, but he's no star
Meet Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who's quietly leading the fight against Russia's invaders.
If a single person can be credited with Ukraine’s surprising military successes so far — protecting Kyiv, the capital, and holding most other major cities amid an onslaught — it is Zaluzhnyy, a round-faced 48-year-old general who was born into a military family, and appointed as his country’s top uniformed commander by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July 2021. Zaluzhnny and other Ukrainian commanders had been preparing for a full-on war with Russia since 2014.
Unlike, say, “Stormin’” Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. troops in the first Persian Gulf War, or David Petraeus, who presided over the Iraq war and was nicknamed “King David,” Zaluzhnyy has largely avoided the spectacle of a celebrity commander — deferring that role to Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian who has captured the public’s imagination.
Young, Dumb, and Broke, Doesn't Have to Be Young, Dumb, and Dead.
In the days after a group of West Point cadets on spring break were sickened by fentanyl-laced cocaine at a South Florida house party, community activists sprang into action.
They blitzed beaches, warned spring breakers of a surge in recreational drugs cut with the dangerous synthetic opioid and offered an antidote for overdoses, which have risen nationally during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Street teams stood under the blistering sun, handing out beads, pamphlets and samples of naloxone, a drug known by the brand name Narcan, which can revive overdose victims.
“We weren’t sure how people would react,” said Thomas Smith, director of behavioral health services for The Special Purpose Outreach Team, a local mobile medical program. “But the spring breakers have been great. Some say, ‘I don’t do drugs, but my buddy sometimes does something stupid.’ They are happy to get Narcan.”
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Invasions Have Consequences
Previous Guy Told Us Putin is a Genius
How Does Zaluzhnyy Do It?
Ukraine’s success illuminates a strategy that has allowed a smaller state to—so far—outlast a larger and much more powerful one.
The Ukrainian way of war is a coherent, intelligent, and well-conceived strategy to fight the Russians, one well calibrated to take advantage of specific Russian weaknesses. It has allowed the Ukrainians to maintain mobility, helped force the Russians into static positions for long periods by fouling up their logistics, opened up the Russians to high losses from attrition, and, in the Battle of Kyiv, led to a victory that has completely recast the political endgame of the Russian invasion. The original maximalist Russian attempt to seize all of Ukraine has been drastically scaled back to a far more limited effort aimed at seizing territory in the east and south of the country.
The Ukrainian way of war has a few foundational elements that we have seen in operation around Kyiv and across the country. They are:
Contesting air supremacy over the area of battle;
Denying Russia control of cities, complicating the Russian military’s communications and logistics;
Allowing Russian forces to get strung out along roads in difficult-to-support columns; and
Attacking those columns from all sides.
It Helps When Your Adversary Does So Many Things Wrong
1. Misjudging the Ukrainians
The biggest mistake of all was to underestimate both the will and the capacity of the Ukrainians to resist. Russia had planned for a swift and easy victory, expecting its troops to be greeted as liberators. Instead, the Ukrainians fought back ferociously, aided by weaponry from the West.
2. Not preparing their troops
Testimonies of captured Russian soldiers suggest many troops had not been told they would be invading Ukraine. Some said they were told they were participating in a military exercise, others that they were being sent just to the eastern Donbas region. That meant they were psychologically unprepared to be shot at and blown up, as happened almost instantly, which took an immediate toll on troops’ morale, noted Jack Watling of the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
3. Invading without enough supplies — or the right supplies
Russian units seemed wholly unprepared for the conditions and circumstances they encountered. Units expecting to roll unopposed into Kyiv and other cities brought just two weeks of supplies, and those quickly ran out. Videos quickly emerged showing Russian soldiers stranded on roadsides next to their vehicles because they had no fuel and hungry soldiers looting stores and stealing chickens.
4. Not recognizing their poor logistics
Military experts describe a massive logistical failure: When troops ran out of food and other supplies after the initial plan went wrong, their superiors had no plans for resupply. Tanks stalled, and the poorly maintained trucks that were then sent lost tires or broke down, contributing to the infamous 40-mile convoy-turned-traffic jam.
5. Failing to take out Ukraine’s air defenses
Military experts had expected a Russian bombing campaign to take out Ukrainian air-defense systems, bases and planes before troops would be sent across the border. Instead, the troops surged in without air support.
6. Attacking on too many fronts
The largest force assembled in Europe since World War II proved too small to fight — let alone hold — the vast arc of territory that Russia attempted to seize. The initial invasion was launched on four fronts: the north toward Kyiv; the northeast toward Kharkiv; the east; and the south from the annexed peninsula of Crimea.
7. Using unsecured communications
Astonishingly, the Russians embarked on a major war using cellphones and old-fashioned radios to communicate. The Ukrainians were able to intercept messages regarding Russian movements on the battlefield and lie in wait for them with ambushes. At least some of the seven generals killed on the battlefield died because the Ukrainians intercepted messages about their locations, according to a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive subjects. So accessible are Russian military communications that amateur radio enthusiasts have been listening in and streaming them.
8. Proceeding without clear lines of command
Russia’s highly centralized military does not empower troops on the ground to make decisions or issue orders, experts say. Troops that quickly ran into difficulty were unable to shift gears to adjust to their new circumstances because they had to await orders from superiors in Moscow (over unsecured lines, as just noted).
9. Failing to have a Plan B
The Russians clearly weren’t prepared for a scenario in which they encountered resistance. When they did, they had apparently made no backup plan. Instead, troops pressed ahead as originally ordered, driving into ambushes and steadily getting killed by the Ukrainians. Armored convoys were dispatched without infantry support, making them easy targets for Ukrainians armed with portable antitank weapons such as the U.S.-supplied Javelins.
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How Can We Be So Right and Be So Wrong?
There were grounds for optimism when America began an experiment—little noticed but grand in scope—with a child allowance. Created by the American Rescue Plan, the gargantuan stimulus bill that President Joe Biden signed in March 2021, the scheme began making monthly payments in July to the families of 60m children (most of the 73m in the country). These amounted to $300 a month for each young child and $250 for older ones.
Those six months provided a full-scale experiment for whether European-style safety-net programmes could work in America. Sceptics doubted that the Internal Revenue Service would be able to turn itself into a quasi-welfare agency in a matter of three months. A senior White House official notes that Social Security and the Affordable Care Act required years of preparation before beginning.
The early assessments were rosy. Scholars at Columbia University developed a monthly measure of child poverty that is much speedier than the official annual data. Between June 2021 and July 2021 their estimates registered a large drop in the child-poverty rate—from 15.8% to 11.9%. Put another way, the number of children in poverty fell by 40%. That was the result of all covid-related relief programmes, but the monthly payments alone drove a 25% drop in poverty in their first month.
As uplifting as the result may have been, the converse is as dismal. Since the payments lapsed, the researchers calculate that most of the gains made against child poverty have been reversed (see chart). In December 2021, the rate was 12.1%. “By the end of the six months, in December, we saw close to 4m children being kept out of poverty,” says Megan Curran, policy director at Columbia’s Centre on Poverty and Social Policy. By February 2022, it had returned to 16.7%—meaning 38% more children (or 3.4m) were in poverty.
Rather than revel in a rare policy victory, America has instead managed to snatch defeat from its jaws. “We have had such a high rate of poverty because we’ve essentially treated America’s children like they are someone else’s children,” says Michael Bennet, a Democratic senator from Colorado, a longtime champion of a policy derided as Utopian until the pandemic hit. (Mr Bennet’s brother works for The Economist; he was not involved in writing or editing this article.) Mr Bennet has had a bittersweet experience: watching an idea he fostered become reality, but only briefly. “We cut childhood poverty, almost in half. And then we let it lapse and doubled childhood poverty,” says Mr Bennet.
3.4 Million Kids in Poverty: Joe Manchin's Legacy
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A Salty Tale
Carlsbad state beach is a Southern California idyll. Palm trees adorn the cliffs above the sand, and surfers paddle out for the waves. From the beach it is impossible to tell that a huge desalination plant not half a mile away is sucking in seawater to produce 50m gallons of new drinking water each day. It is the largest in America—for now. Soon it may share that title with a proposed sister plant 60 miles (97km) north in Huntington Beach. But only if that one is built.
Poseidon Water, the developer that also built the Carlsbad plant, first proposed the Huntington Beach facility in the 1990s. But it has taken the company more than two decades to persuade Californians of the plant’s necessity. Many Orange County residents remain unconvinced or even hostile to the idea. Now the firm is waiting for a final permit from the California Coastal Commission. Without it, Poseidon says the project is dead in the water.
The fight in Huntington Beach has sparked a wider debate over what role desalination should play in preparing California for a drier future. A recent study found that the current drought is the driest 22-year period the south-west has seen in at least 1,200 years. Climate change has diminished snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, shrivelling the rivers which feed California’s reservoirs. The state recently told farms and cities they would receive only 5% of their normal allocation from the State Water Project, a series of dams, canals and pipelines. Might desalination help make up the difference?
The arguments against desalination are well known. Environmentalists fret that the plants’ intake systems and the salty brine they discharge back into the ocean harm marine life. The reverse-osmosis process used to separate the salt from the water is energy-intensive. And desalination is the most expensive option among alternative water sources. An analysis from the Pacific Institute, a think-tank in Oakland, estimates that the median cost for a big seawater-desalination project is $2,100 per acre-foot of water (an acre-foot is about 1,230 cubic metres). Large water-recycling projects, the next-priciest option, cost roughly $1,800 an acre-foot.
California is not the only state mulling desalination. Doug Ducey, Arizona’s Republican governor, wants to invest $1bn in the technology. The Biden administration has allocated $250m in funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law for desalination projects (a proverbial drop in the bucket). If and when desalination does take off, Ms Marcus warns that technology alone cannot “drought-proof” the state: “The idea that you can somehow build enough facilities to support urban California through desal is a pipe dream.”
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How Scary is Texas Getting?
A 26-year-old Texas woman has been arrested and charged with murder after authorities said she had a “self-induced abortion.”
Lizelle Herrera was arrested Thursday when officials said she “intentionally and knowingly cause[d] the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” according to a spokesperson for the Starr County Sheriff’s Office.
No details about the “abortion” or fetus were provided.
Herrera was still in custody Friday. Her bail was set at $500,000, according to Valley Central, which was the first to report the arrest.
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A .940 Batting Average
The Starbucks Union Campaign Has Won 16 Elections And Lost Just One
The union representing Starbucks workers continues to grow every week.
Workers at all three of the coffee chain’s locations in Ithaca, New York, voted almost unanimously to join the union Workers United on Friday. The election results for the trio of stores were 19-1, 13-1 and 15-1.
Meanwhile, workers at a store in Overland Park, Kansas, voted 6-1 in favor of unionizing, although several ballots have been challenged and could still change the outcome. The union said it expects to prevail once the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees union elections, has reviewed the eligibility of the challenged votes.
The election wins Friday came on the heels of three other victories the day before, when workers at a group of Starbucks stores in the Buffalo and Rochester areas of New York all voted to unionize. Following this week’s vote counts, the campaign known as Starbucks Workers United has won 16 elections and lost only one, and now represents hundreds of workers in several states.
All told, the campaign has filed for elections at roughly 200 stores around the country, making it likely many more will choose to unionize. Starbucks has roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores in the U.S., and these are the first in the country to have union representation.
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Does One Gun Protect You?
A new study has found that adults living with someone who owns a handgun are more than twice as likely to die of homicide.
People who lived with a handgun owner were seven times as likely to be fatally shot by a spouse or intimate partner, according to the study by the Stanford School of Medicine published earlier this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Most of the homicide victims were women — they accounted for 84% of the victims studied — who were fatally shot by the men they lived with, the study found.
Women in the home “bear the brunt of the elevated risks” from a gun in the home, noted study co-author Yifan Zhang, a researcher at Stanford School of Medicine’s Department of Health Policy.
“Despite widespread perceptions that a gun in the home provides security benefits, nearly all credible studies to date suggest that people who live in homes with guns are at higher — not lower — risk of dying by homicide,” said the study’s lead author, health policy professor David Studdert.
“We found zero evidence of any kind of protective effects” from living in a home with a handgun, he told The Associated Press.
Do 40 Guns Protect You?
Three people were killed during a robbery at a gun range in Georgia on Friday.
The owner of Lock Stock & Barrel Shooting Range in Grantville was found dead along with his wife and grandson, the Grantville Police Department said in a statement. At least 40 weapons and a camera DVR were stolen from the gun range.
If Guns Protected You From Crime, You Would Think a Shooting Range is the Safest Place on Earth
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What Could Be More Russian Than Caviar and Vodka?
China’s fish farms, in 2018, accounted for 84% of the world’s sturgeon production, according to the European Market Observatory for Aquaculture and Fisheries Products. In 2020, China exported 123 tons of caviar, and more than a third of that was bound for the EU. That same year, Russia exported just one ton of caviar.
Only 1.2% of U.S. vodka imports come from Russia, according to data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States for the first half of 2021. Vodka is the only spirit listed as a Russian import in the report.
The most popular vodkas in the U.S. – including Smirnoff, Ciroc, Tito's, Absolut, Svedka, Grey Goose, SKYY and New Amsterdam – are not made in Russia. They are made in Sweden, France, the U.K. and the U.S.
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What Could Be More American Than Baseball, Apple Pie, and Hot Dogs?
Baseball is based on an English game. Apple Pie is from Holland. Hot Dogs (Frankfurters from Frankfurt) are from Germany
Hamburgers (from Hamburg) are also German.
The US did create the Golden Arches.
We also created tater tots, meatloaf, corndogs, s'mores, mac and cheese, ranch dressing, milkshakes, and corn flakes.
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 9 | ||
| Apr 8 | 28,169 | 516 |
| Apr 7 | 26,286 | 471 |
| Apr 6 | 26,595 | 496 |
| Apr 5 | 26,845 | 533 |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 |
| Mar 24 | 27,235 | 732 |
| Mar 23 | 27,134 | 753 |
| Mar 22 | 27,545 | 787 |
| Mar 21 | 28,657 | 861 |
| Mar 20 | 27,786 | 901 |
| Mar 19 | 27,747 | 909 |
| Mar 18 | 28,274 | 972 |
| Mar 17 | 29,317 | 1,035 |
| Mar 16 | 30,040 | 1,052 |
| Mar 15 | 30,934 | 1,107 |
| Mar 14 | 32,458 | 1,186 |
| Mar 13 | 34,113 | 1,187 |
| Mar 12 | 34,253 | 1,210 |
| Mar 11 | 34,805 | 1,198 |
| Mar 10 | 35,269 | 1,197 |
| Mar 9 | 37,146 | 1,179 |
| Mar 8 | 37,879 | 1,161 |
| Mar 7 | 40,433 | 1,208 |
| Mar 6 | 42,204 | 1,259 |
| Mar 5 | 43,665 | 1,281 |
| Mar 4 | 45,555 | 1,319 |
| Mar 3 | 49,888 | 1,413 |
| Mar 2 | 53,016 | 1,558 |
| Mar 1 | 56,253 | 1,674 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 76.9% | 65.5% | 44.8% |
| % of Population 5+ | 81.7% | 69.6% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 86.5% | 73.9% | 46.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.3% | 75.4% | 48.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 89.0% | 67.2% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 5)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
| Percent of Average for this Date | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 74% (62% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 66% (55%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 62% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 46% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 55% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 52% |
Water is Heavier Than Butane, Because Butane is a Lighter Fluid
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Can Greene Run and Chew Gum At the Same Time? Can She Just Run?
A federal judge signaled Friday that she'll likely allow a group of Georgia voters to move forward with their constitutional challenge against GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which claims she can't run for reelection because she aided the January 6 insurrectionists.
Federal Judge Amy Totenberg of the Northern District of Georgia said during a lengthy hearing that she has "significant questions and concerns" about a recent ruling in a similar case, which blocked the same challenge against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican.
A group of Georgia voters, backed by a coalition of constitutional scholars and liberal activists, lodged the challenge against Greene last month with state election officials. Greene then filed her own lawsuit in federal court, asking Totenberg to shut down the state-level proceedings.
Totenberg said she will issue a ruling next week, likely on Monday. That's two days before a state judge is scheduled to hold a hearing on the underlying question of whether Greene engaged in or aided the January 6, 2021, insurrection and whether that disqualifies her from office.
A Snowciopath. Perfect!
On Thursday evening's broadcast of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, host Kimmel responded to Marjorie Taylor Greene's cowardly call to the Capitol police because the ABC comedian made a joke about her.
"On our show, Klan mom as we call her -- who called three of her fellow Republicans pro-pedophile for supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court, which is a lovely thing to say," Kimmel said. "I made a joke and said where is Will Smith when you need him." Laughter from audience could be heard.
This is what she does instead of working, she tweets," he observed.
"She called the police," Kimmel laughed. "Not only did she call the police, she called the same police she voted against giving a Congressional Gold Medal to for defending our capital against the insurrection she helped incite on January 6."
He continued, "It must be that cancel culture they're always talking about."
"Officer, I'd like to report a joke," Kimmel said. "It triggered the sweet little snowflake."
Kimmel observed, "She's a snowflake and a sociopath at the same time. A snowciopath."
Dismantling Greene Thing is So Easy
We Still Don't Know Why. That is a Bit Frightening.
Prosecutors told a judge Friday that they still don't know a motive for two men charged with impersonating federal agents, whether they are connected to any foreign government or whether they received anything from the federal agents they allegedly duped.
"This investigation is less than two weeks old, and every day it gets worse and worse as more and more evidence comes forward, and more and more witnesses come forward," prosecutor Josh Rothstein told a federal judge on Friday.
The Justice Department is arguing that Haider Ali and Arian Taherzadeh should stay behind bars while the investigation continues. Judge Michael Harvey peppered prosecutors with questions, many of which they couldn't answer.
The hearing will continue Monday, and the two men will remain behind bars over the weekend. Neither Taherzadeh nor Ali has entered a formal plea.
If the Good Lord Made You a Bigot, He Isn't the Good Lord. You Probably Are the One Responsible.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed two bills Friday that target transgender young people and classroom discussion of LGBTQ identities.
One of the bills makes it a felony for medical professionals to provide gender-affirming medical care people under 19.
Her signature makes Alabama the third state in the country to pass a measure restricting transition-related care, though it is the first state to impose criminal penalties.
Ivey said in a statement that she signed the bill because she believes that "if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl." (Is she opposed to hair dye? If the Good Lord made you a brunette, ...)
It Wasn't Even Casual Friday
Is He Too Racist for the QOP?
It took over a year, but the Hampton GOP finally noticed that one of their members was a vile racist. Local GOP Chairman Philip Siff has called on Hampton Electoral Board Chair, David Dietrich, to resign after a blatantly racist and violent Facebook post surfaced. Dietrich is in charge of elections in Hampton, VA.
On February 11, 2021, this miserable man called two prominent former generals, both Black, "vile and racist". One is the current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and the other, Russel Honoré, gained fame for getting the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina back on track. In a Facebook post, Dietrich wrote,
"The situation with the United States military is getting more disgusting and dangerous by the day."
"These so-called 'leaders' are so vile and racist, there's no way to describe them other than in terms their own people understand. They are nothing more than dirty, stinking niggers."
“We are being forced into a corner by these enemies of the People. If it is civil war they want, they will get it in spades. Perhaps the best way to pull is back from the brink is a good public lynching.”
Bye, Bye Mickey. Hello Dolly ... Oops!
The Federalist led their coverage today with this blaring headline: “Cancel Your Disney Vacation And Go To Dollywood Instead.
“It’s not just the recent visibility of the longstanding fact that Disney’s post-Walt corporate leadership works to undermine sexual wholeness, but also about the greedy commercialization of the Disney brand.”
Parton is a longtime ally of the LGBT community, with many considering her a gay icon. She supported same-sex marriage in the United States as early as 2009. She has advocated for trans people regarding North Carolina’s bathroom bill. Not to mention, she has often dedicated her smash hit “Jolene” to the drag queens who dress like her at her concerts.
How Many Laws Can You Break in One Text Message?
Two days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump’s eldest son texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that “we have operational control” to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures, CNN has learned.
In the text, which has not been previously reported, Donald Trump Jr. lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process, according to the message reviewed by CNN. The text is among records obtained by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.
“It’s very simple,” Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: “We have multiple paths We control them all.”
Note that this was written two days before Biden was declared the winner. They knew they had lost. They weren’t (just) looking at challenges; they were figuring out how to cheat.
While Trump Jr. was publicly pushing various voter fraud conspiracy theories and generally casting doubt about the results in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, his text to Meadows reveals there were other ideas being discussed privately.
Specifically, Trump Jr. previews a strategy to supplant authentic electors with fake Republican electors in a handful of states. That plan was eventually orchestrated and carried out by allies of the former President, and overseen by his then-attorney Rudy Giuliani. . . .
If secretaries of state were unable to certify the results, Trump Jr. argues in his text to Meadows that they should press their advantage by having Republican-controlled state assemblies “step in” and put forward separate slates of “Trump electors,” he writes.
"But Your Honor. It Was Such a Beautiful Door." How Many People Have Died During the Execution of No-Knock Warrants?
On Thursday, Mark Joseph Stern of Slate reported that a three-judge panel for the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia slammed the FBI's decision not to break down a door of a wealthy suspect for whom they knew that forced entry was necessary — instead going out of their way to enter through the back door.
The FBI's stated reason for this? The suspect lived in an "affluent neighborhood" — and the agents did not want to do anything to interfere with the "aesthetics" of his community."
Judge Patricia Millett excoriated the decision as "outrageous behavior by the FBI." Judge Robert Wilkins agreed, adding, "I was a public defender here for 10 years. I can't tell you how many times my clients had their front doors bashed in ... I don't remember a single time where any agent or police officer was worried about the aesthetics of what their house would look like."
"We Will Stand Up to Putin" ("Put the Russian Cash Over There")
It was a strongly worded warning from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Invade Ukraine and there will be “significant consequences.”
Three days after that phone call last Dec. 13, Johnson’s Conservative Party received a donation of 66,500 pounds (nearly $88,000) from Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of one of Putin’s former deputy ministers.
In all, Chernukhin has donated more than 2 million pounds to the Conservative Party since 2012, making her one of the largest female donors in British political history, public records from the British Electoral Commission show.
Chernukhin says that she is a vehement critic of Putin and his war, and that none of her donations have been funded by corruption or improper means. Neither she nor her husband are among those who have been sanctioned by the the British government or others, and there is no suggestion either are guilty of any wrongdoing.
Her lawyers said in an email to NBC News that she disputed having historical links to the Kremlin because her husband, Vladimir, fled Russia in 2004 after being fired by the government and suffering harassment. (Vladimir Chernukhin used to chair Russia’s state development bank VEB, whose assets Britain froze after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.)
But she is far from alone. Lubov Chernukhin is just one of several Russia-linked millionaires and billionaires to donate large sums to the ruling Conservative Party.
For some experts and critics, this type of bankrolling exposes a contradiction at the heart of Britain’s response to the invasion: How can Johnson’s government claim to be one of Putin's strongest opponents, when London — and the ruling party itself — is awash with Russian cash?
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
The Heroes Who Kept Chernobyl Safe
"We had to constantly negotiate with them, and try hard not to offend them, so that they allowed our personnel to manage the facility," said engineer Valeriy Semonov.
When the power to the station was cut off for three days, Valeriy said he scrambled to find fuel to keep the generator running, even resorting to stealing some from the Russians.
"If we had lost power, it could have been catastrophic," Oleksandr explained. "Radioactive material could have been released. The scale of it, you can well imagine. I wasn't scared for my life. I was scared about what would happen if I wasn't there monitoring the plant. I was scared it would be a tragedy for humanity."
Life in a nuclear plant with Russian soldiers
The sudden ear-piercing beep of a radiation meter fills the room as a Ukrainian soldier walks in. This is where Russian soldiers were living at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and radiation levels are now higher than normal.
There's no visible presence of the source of the radioactive material in the room, but Ukrainian officials say it's coming from small particles and dust that the soldiers brought into the building.
"They went to the Red Forest and brought radioactive material back with them on their shoes," soldier Ihor Ugolkov explains. "Other places are fine, but radiation increased here, because they were living here."
The Chaos They Left Behind
He's One of the Good Guys
A lucky Frenchman has decided to dedicate most of his record-breaking $217 million lottery jackpot to a nature foundation he created, he told Le Parisien in an exclusive interview published Wednesday.
The winner, nicknamed "Guy" by French lottery group Françaises des Jeux (FDJ), won the sum in December 2020. At the time, the jackpot was the largest in the history of EuroMillions, a seven-number lottery involving several European countries including France and the United Kingdom.
"From my point of view, the priority today is saving the planet," Guy told Le Parisien. "We must act. It is an absolute emergency. If nothing is done in this regard, all other actions will be in vain. We will no longer exist."
How Lucky is Ukraine? They Found a Zelenskyy and a Zaluzhnyy When They Needed Them.
Ukraine’s 'iron general' is a hero, but he's no star
Meet Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who's quietly leading the fight against Russia's invaders.
If a single person can be credited with Ukraine’s surprising military successes so far — protecting Kyiv, the capital, and holding most other major cities amid an onslaught — it is Zaluzhnyy, a round-faced 48-year-old general who was born into a military family, and appointed as his country’s top uniformed commander by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July 2021. Zaluzhnny and other Ukrainian commanders had been preparing for a full-on war with Russia since 2014.
Unlike, say, “Stormin’” Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. troops in the first Persian Gulf War, or David Petraeus, who presided over the Iraq war and was nicknamed “King David,” Zaluzhnyy has largely avoided the spectacle of a celebrity commander — deferring that role to Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian who has captured the public’s imagination.
Young, Dumb, and Broke, Doesn't Have to Be Young, Dumb, and Dead.
In the days after a group of West Point cadets on spring break were sickened by fentanyl-laced cocaine at a South Florida house party, community activists sprang into action.
They blitzed beaches, warned spring breakers of a surge in recreational drugs cut with the dangerous synthetic opioid and offered an antidote for overdoses, which have risen nationally during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Street teams stood under the blistering sun, handing out beads, pamphlets and samples of naloxone, a drug known by the brand name Narcan, which can revive overdose victims.
“We weren’t sure how people would react,” said Thomas Smith, director of behavioral health services for The Special Purpose Outreach Team, a local mobile medical program. “But the spring breakers have been great. Some say, ‘I don’t do drugs, but my buddy sometimes does something stupid.’ They are happy to get Narcan.”
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Invasions Have Consequences
Previous Guy Told Us Putin is a Genius
How Does Zaluzhnyy Do It?
Ukraine’s success illuminates a strategy that has allowed a smaller state to—so far—outlast a larger and much more powerful one.
The Ukrainian way of war is a coherent, intelligent, and well-conceived strategy to fight the Russians, one well calibrated to take advantage of specific Russian weaknesses. It has allowed the Ukrainians to maintain mobility, helped force the Russians into static positions for long periods by fouling up their logistics, opened up the Russians to high losses from attrition, and, in the Battle of Kyiv, led to a victory that has completely recast the political endgame of the Russian invasion. The original maximalist Russian attempt to seize all of Ukraine has been drastically scaled back to a far more limited effort aimed at seizing territory in the east and south of the country.
The Ukrainian way of war has a few foundational elements that we have seen in operation around Kyiv and across the country. They are:
Contesting air supremacy over the area of battle;
Denying Russia control of cities, complicating the Russian military’s communications and logistics;
Allowing Russian forces to get strung out along roads in difficult-to-support columns; and
Attacking those columns from all sides.
It Helps When Your Adversary Does So Many Things Wrong
1. Misjudging the Ukrainians
The biggest mistake of all was to underestimate both the will and the capacity of the Ukrainians to resist. Russia had planned for a swift and easy victory, expecting its troops to be greeted as liberators. Instead, the Ukrainians fought back ferociously, aided by weaponry from the West.
2. Not preparing their troops
Testimonies of captured Russian soldiers suggest many troops had not been told they would be invading Ukraine. Some said they were told they were participating in a military exercise, others that they were being sent just to the eastern Donbas region. That meant they were psychologically unprepared to be shot at and blown up, as happened almost instantly, which took an immediate toll on troops’ morale, noted Jack Watling of the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
3. Invading without enough supplies — or the right supplies
Russian units seemed wholly unprepared for the conditions and circumstances they encountered. Units expecting to roll unopposed into Kyiv and other cities brought just two weeks of supplies, and those quickly ran out. Videos quickly emerged showing Russian soldiers stranded on roadsides next to their vehicles because they had no fuel and hungry soldiers looting stores and stealing chickens.
4. Not recognizing their poor logistics
Military experts describe a massive logistical failure: When troops ran out of food and other supplies after the initial plan went wrong, their superiors had no plans for resupply. Tanks stalled, and the poorly maintained trucks that were then sent lost tires or broke down, contributing to the infamous 40-mile convoy-turned-traffic jam.
5. Failing to take out Ukraine’s air defenses
Military experts had expected a Russian bombing campaign to take out Ukrainian air-defense systems, bases and planes before troops would be sent across the border. Instead, the troops surged in without air support.
6. Attacking on too many fronts
The largest force assembled in Europe since World War II proved too small to fight — let alone hold — the vast arc of territory that Russia attempted to seize. The initial invasion was launched on four fronts: the north toward Kyiv; the northeast toward Kharkiv; the east; and the south from the annexed peninsula of Crimea.
7. Using unsecured communications
Astonishingly, the Russians embarked on a major war using cellphones and old-fashioned radios to communicate. The Ukrainians were able to intercept messages regarding Russian movements on the battlefield and lie in wait for them with ambushes. At least some of the seven generals killed on the battlefield died because the Ukrainians intercepted messages about their locations, according to a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive subjects. So accessible are Russian military communications that amateur radio enthusiasts have been listening in and streaming them.
8. Proceeding without clear lines of command
Russia’s highly centralized military does not empower troops on the ground to make decisions or issue orders, experts say. Troops that quickly ran into difficulty were unable to shift gears to adjust to their new circumstances because they had to await orders from superiors in Moscow (over unsecured lines, as just noted).
9. Failing to have a Plan B
The Russians clearly weren’t prepared for a scenario in which they encountered resistance. When they did, they had apparently made no backup plan. Instead, troops pressed ahead as originally ordered, driving into ambushes and steadily getting killed by the Ukrainians. Armored convoys were dispatched without infantry support, making them easy targets for Ukrainians armed with portable antitank weapons such as the U.S.-supplied Javelins.
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How Can We Be So Right and Be So Wrong?
There were grounds for optimism when America began an experiment—little noticed but grand in scope—with a child allowance. Created by the American Rescue Plan, the gargantuan stimulus bill that President Joe Biden signed in March 2021, the scheme began making monthly payments in July to the families of 60m children (most of the 73m in the country). These amounted to $300 a month for each young child and $250 for older ones.
Those six months provided a full-scale experiment for whether European-style safety-net programmes could work in America. Sceptics doubted that the Internal Revenue Service would be able to turn itself into a quasi-welfare agency in a matter of three months. A senior White House official notes that Social Security and the Affordable Care Act required years of preparation before beginning.
The early assessments were rosy. Scholars at Columbia University developed a monthly measure of child poverty that is much speedier than the official annual data. Between June 2021 and July 2021 their estimates registered a large drop in the child-poverty rate—from 15.8% to 11.9%. Put another way, the number of children in poverty fell by 40%. That was the result of all covid-related relief programmes, but the monthly payments alone drove a 25% drop in poverty in their first month.
As uplifting as the result may have been, the converse is as dismal. Since the payments lapsed, the researchers calculate that most of the gains made against child poverty have been reversed (see chart). In December 2021, the rate was 12.1%. “By the end of the six months, in December, we saw close to 4m children being kept out of poverty,” says Megan Curran, policy director at Columbia’s Centre on Poverty and Social Policy. By February 2022, it had returned to 16.7%—meaning 38% more children (or 3.4m) were in poverty.
Rather than revel in a rare policy victory, America has instead managed to snatch defeat from its jaws. “We have had such a high rate of poverty because we’ve essentially treated America’s children like they are someone else’s children,” says Michael Bennet, a Democratic senator from Colorado, a longtime champion of a policy derided as Utopian until the pandemic hit. (Mr Bennet’s brother works for The Economist; he was not involved in writing or editing this article.) Mr Bennet has had a bittersweet experience: watching an idea he fostered become reality, but only briefly. “We cut childhood poverty, almost in half. And then we let it lapse and doubled childhood poverty,” says Mr Bennet.
3.4 Million Kids in Poverty: Joe Manchin's Legacy
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A Salty Tale
Carlsbad state beach is a Southern California idyll. Palm trees adorn the cliffs above the sand, and surfers paddle out for the waves. From the beach it is impossible to tell that a huge desalination plant not half a mile away is sucking in seawater to produce 50m gallons of new drinking water each day. It is the largest in America—for now. Soon it may share that title with a proposed sister plant 60 miles (97km) north in Huntington Beach. But only if that one is built.
Poseidon Water, the developer that also built the Carlsbad plant, first proposed the Huntington Beach facility in the 1990s. But it has taken the company more than two decades to persuade Californians of the plant’s necessity. Many Orange County residents remain unconvinced or even hostile to the idea. Now the firm is waiting for a final permit from the California Coastal Commission. Without it, Poseidon says the project is dead in the water.
The fight in Huntington Beach has sparked a wider debate over what role desalination should play in preparing California for a drier future. A recent study found that the current drought is the driest 22-year period the south-west has seen in at least 1,200 years. Climate change has diminished snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, shrivelling the rivers which feed California’s reservoirs. The state recently told farms and cities they would receive only 5% of their normal allocation from the State Water Project, a series of dams, canals and pipelines. Might desalination help make up the difference?
The arguments against desalination are well known. Environmentalists fret that the plants’ intake systems and the salty brine they discharge back into the ocean harm marine life. The reverse-osmosis process used to separate the salt from the water is energy-intensive. And desalination is the most expensive option among alternative water sources. An analysis from the Pacific Institute, a think-tank in Oakland, estimates that the median cost for a big seawater-desalination project is $2,100 per acre-foot of water (an acre-foot is about 1,230 cubic metres). Large water-recycling projects, the next-priciest option, cost roughly $1,800 an acre-foot.
California is not the only state mulling desalination. Doug Ducey, Arizona’s Republican governor, wants to invest $1bn in the technology. The Biden administration has allocated $250m in funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law for desalination projects (a proverbial drop in the bucket). If and when desalination does take off, Ms Marcus warns that technology alone cannot “drought-proof” the state: “The idea that you can somehow build enough facilities to support urban California through desal is a pipe dream.”
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How Scary is Texas Getting?
A 26-year-old Texas woman has been arrested and charged with murder after authorities said she had a “self-induced abortion.”
Lizelle Herrera was arrested Thursday when officials said she “intentionally and knowingly cause[d] the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” according to a spokesperson for the Starr County Sheriff’s Office.
No details about the “abortion” or fetus were provided.
Herrera was still in custody Friday. Her bail was set at $500,000, according to Valley Central, which was the first to report the arrest.
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A .940 Batting Average
The Starbucks Union Campaign Has Won 16 Elections And Lost Just One
The union representing Starbucks workers continues to grow every week.
Workers at all three of the coffee chain’s locations in Ithaca, New York, voted almost unanimously to join the union Workers United on Friday. The election results for the trio of stores were 19-1, 13-1 and 15-1.
Meanwhile, workers at a store in Overland Park, Kansas, voted 6-1 in favor of unionizing, although several ballots have been challenged and could still change the outcome. The union said it expects to prevail once the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees union elections, has reviewed the eligibility of the challenged votes.
The election wins Friday came on the heels of three other victories the day before, when workers at a group of Starbucks stores in the Buffalo and Rochester areas of New York all voted to unionize. Following this week’s vote counts, the campaign known as Starbucks Workers United has won 16 elections and lost only one, and now represents hundreds of workers in several states.
All told, the campaign has filed for elections at roughly 200 stores around the country, making it likely many more will choose to unionize. Starbucks has roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores in the U.S., and these are the first in the country to have union representation.
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Does One Gun Protect You?
A new study has found that adults living with someone who owns a handgun are more than twice as likely to die of homicide.
People who lived with a handgun owner were seven times as likely to be fatally shot by a spouse or intimate partner, according to the study by the Stanford School of Medicine published earlier this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Most of the homicide victims were women — they accounted for 84% of the victims studied — who were fatally shot by the men they lived with, the study found.
Women in the home “bear the brunt of the elevated risks” from a gun in the home, noted study co-author Yifan Zhang, a researcher at Stanford School of Medicine’s Department of Health Policy.
“Despite widespread perceptions that a gun in the home provides security benefits, nearly all credible studies to date suggest that people who live in homes with guns are at higher — not lower — risk of dying by homicide,” said the study’s lead author, health policy professor David Studdert.
“We found zero evidence of any kind of protective effects” from living in a home with a handgun, he told The Associated Press.
Do 40 Guns Protect You?
Three people were killed during a robbery at a gun range in Georgia on Friday.
The owner of Lock Stock & Barrel Shooting Range in Grantville was found dead along with his wife and grandson, the Grantville Police Department said in a statement. At least 40 weapons and a camera DVR were stolen from the gun range.
If Guns Protected You From Crime, You Would Think a Shooting Range is the Safest Place on Earth
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What Could Be More Russian Than Caviar and Vodka?
China’s fish farms, in 2018, accounted for 84% of the world’s sturgeon production, according to the European Market Observatory for Aquaculture and Fisheries Products. In 2020, China exported 123 tons of caviar, and more than a third of that was bound for the EU. That same year, Russia exported just one ton of caviar.
Only 1.2% of U.S. vodka imports come from Russia, according to data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States for the first half of 2021. Vodka is the only spirit listed as a Russian import in the report.
The most popular vodkas in the U.S. – including Smirnoff, Ciroc, Tito's, Absolut, Svedka, Grey Goose, SKYY and New Amsterdam – are not made in Russia. They are made in Sweden, France, the U.K. and the U.S.
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What Could Be More American Than Baseball, Apple Pie, and Hot Dogs?
Baseball is based on an English game. Apple Pie is from Holland. Hot Dogs (Frankfurters from Frankfurt) are from Germany
Hamburgers (from Hamburg) are also German.
The US did create the Golden Arches.
We also created tater tots, meatloaf, corndogs, s'mores, mac and cheese, ranch dressing, milkshakes, and corn flakes.
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