August 19, 2021

'Climate change has become real': extreme weather sinks prime US tourism site

At Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, the water line has dropped to a historic low, taking a heavy toll on the local industry

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“This is a crisis for our community that is just as bad as Covid,” West said of Page, which has a population of 7,500 and is the main service hub for Lake Powell. “It is peak season and the whole town is being hit hard – the restaurants, the grocery stores, the bars, we are all feeling it.”

While climate change has exacerbated wildfires, heatwaves and flash floods this summer, it is also taking a heavy toll on the tourism industry that’s dependent on Lake Powell. Last week the water line reached a historic low of 3,554ft, a level that has not been seen since 1969, when the reservoir was first filled. The giant reservoir is currently three-quarters empty and will keep dropping at least through next spring due to record low snowpack levels in the Colorado River basin.

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“We sent out plenty of advisories to stakeholders about the possibility of very low lake levels this year and no one took it seriously,” said Billy Shott, superintendent of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which manages Lake Powell. He compares the park’s regular drought notices to routine avalanche alerts in the mountains. “Well, now the avalanche has actually happened. Climate change has become real at Lake Powell.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/29/lake-powell-arizona-utah-climate-crisis

August 19, 2021

Mississippi Quarantines 20,000 With 5,993 Students Positive For COVID; Teen Deaths Rise

With both siblings wearing backpacks, Mkayla Robinson put her arms around her little brother, and the two smiled for a photo on Friday, Aug. 6., as they prepared to leave home to start her final year of junior high and his first day of kindergarten. But eight days into her eighth-grade year at Raleigh Junior High, Robinson died of COVID-19 on Saturday, Aug. 14, mere hours after testing positive for the virus.

She was one of at least 5,993 Mississippi students who tested positive for COVID-19 in the last two weeks, according to data the Mississippi State Department of Health released today. At the same point in August 2020, the Mississippi State Department had reported just 199 cases among students; total confirmed COVID-19 cases did not surpass 5,000 until the end of the semester in December 2020.

Last week alone, 803 schools reported 4,521 positive cases among students. Schools have also confirmed 1,496 cases among teachers and educational staff this month so far. The situation and the deaths of at least two teenagers from COVID-19 since late July has led to increased calls for Gov. Tate Reeves to reverse his opposition to a statewide mask mandate and take aggressive action to stem the viral tide.

“I was thinking about your girls and all the other children I’ve ministered to, all the children I love who cannot yet be vaccinated against this deadly virus, and I am afraid for them, Tate,” the governor’s former pastor, Elizabeth Henry, wrote in an open letter to him that she posted on social media on Aug. 15. Mkayla Robinson, she noted, was close in age to one of his own daughters.

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/14927/mississippi-quarantines-20000-with-5993-students-positive-for-covid-teen-deaths-rise/

August 19, 2021

Suit: Changing prisoner count weakens rural, GOP districts

A Republican state senator is among a group of people suing the Virginia Redistricting Commission over plans to count prisoners at their last known address instead of the prisons where they’re incarcerated.

The lawsuit says the change will politically weaken Virginia’s rural and conservative areas after the state draws new congressional and legislative districts.

“Virginia prisons are typically located in rural districts with greater Republican voting strength, particularly in the southside and southwest regions of the commonwealth,” the suit said.

The legal challenge was filed Friday in Virginia’s state Supreme Court. Petitioners include state Sen. Travis Hackworth, who represents a reliably Republican district that stretches from the Virginia-Kentucky border to Radford.

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Virginia’s law requires the state to count prisoners based off their last known address before incarceration if it was in Virginia, the NCSL said. If it was out of state, the prison’s address is used.

https://apnews.com/article/prisons-cfa27c005b6024bf8f4ebde20bfcc679

August 7, 2021

'People think you're an idiot': death metal Irish baron rewilds his estate

Lord Randal Plunkett strides through the hip-high grass of Dunsany, a 650-hectare (1,600-acre) estate in the middle of Ireland, trailed by an invisible swarm of midges and his four jack russell terriers: Tiny, Lumpy, Chow and Beavis & Butt-Head.

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It is probably Ireland’s most ambitious attempt at rewilding on private land, an attempt to recreate a vanished landscape in a swath of County Meath, 20 miles north-west of Dublin.

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He still loves death metal, and sports a ponytail and (fake) leather jacket, but he decided seven years ago to turn over 300 hectares of his estate to nature – no livestock, planting, sowing or weeding.

Some people considered it disgraceful neglect of an estate associated with agricultural innovation, he said. “They just thought I was a complete waster. Decadent, a fool. One farmer said I should be ashamed of myself for destroying the farm.”

Plunkett says vindication has come in multiple forms. Before, the estate had just three types of grass, now it has 23. “I didn’t do it, the birds did.” Trees regenerated and multiplied – oak, ash, beech, Scots pine and black poplar. “I see a lot of saplings growing that I haven’t planted.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/07/people-think-youre-an-idiot-death-metal-irish-baron-rewilds-his-estate

August 7, 2021

'Stunning' Ice Age lion cub found in Siberia, Russia is 28,000 years old, scientists say

In early autumn 2018, seven metres below ground in a frozen tunnel deep in the Siberian Arctic, local mammoth tusk hunter Pavel Efimov made a shocking discovery.

As per a long-established working relationship, he contacted researchers at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Yakutsk. A team was duly dispatched to the site at Belaya Gora, on the bank of the Indigirka River.

What they found there was one of the most beautifully-preserved Ice Age animals ever found: a 28,000-year-old cave lion cub, curled up under the permafrost with its teeth, skin, claws and even whiskers still intact.

The cub, whom scientist Dr Valery Plotnikov and colleagues initially dubbed Spartak, was found just 15 metres away from another cave lion cub, Boris, that locals had discovered the previous year.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/08/06/stunning-ice-age-lion-cub-found-in-siberia-russia-is-28-000-years-old-scientists-say

August 7, 2021

St Vincent leader attacked by anti-vaccine protester - video

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, has been taken to hospital after a protester threw a rock at his head during a demonstration led by nurses and other workers in the eastern Caribbean island.

The protest was organised by unions representing nurses, police and other workers who claimed that the government planned to mandate vaccines for certain employees. Gonsalves clarified that he would not make vaccines mandatory

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2021/aug/06/st-vincent-leader-attacked-by-anti-vaccine-protester-video

August 7, 2021

Five Stories from Europe You May Have Missed

1. Ad Appearance Is No 'Recipe For Happiness' For Russian LGBT Family

When Moscow-based psychologist and LGBT activist Yuma Yuma first saw her family in a grocery-chain advertisement spotlighting real-life customers, it was a point of gay pride.

"Perhaps the most important thing for our family is care and acceptance," Yuma wrote on Instagram in late June after the Russian health-food franchise VkusVill posted its ad featuring Yuma, her adult daughters Mila and Alina, and Alina's girlfriend and fiancée, Ksyusha.

Yuma expressed amazement at the amount of support her queer family had received and thanked VkusVill for its willingness to combat intolerance. But such good feelings would be short-lived.

Just days after VkusVill released the ad as part of its "Recipe For Happiness" marketing drive, the chain was in damage-control mode amid an outpouring of criticism, leading it to call the ad "a mistake" and apologize for "hurting the feelings of a large number of our customers and employees."

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-lgbt-family-flees/31395659.html

2. Snickers Spain pulls advert after accusations of homophobia

Snickers in Spain has pulled a controversial advertisement and apologised for any “misunderstanding that may have been caused” after the 20-second film was widely condemned for being homophobic.

The advert shows the Spanish influencer Aless Gibaja ordering a “sexy orange juice” while a friend trades puzzled looks with the waiter. The waiter responds by handing Gibaja a Snickers ice-cream bar, and after a bite, Gibaja appears to transform into a bearded man with a deep voice.

“Better?” the friend asks. “Better,” replies the man as the tagline reads: “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry.”

(video at link: video is embarrassing: for snickers and the actors)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/06/snickers-spain-pulls-advert-after-accusations-of-homophobia


3. Controversy as Ukraine mulls giving hero status to alleged war criminals

A controversial topic has landed in front of politicians in the Ukrainian parliament and is getting international attention. Seventy-eight Ukrainian lawmakers from all sides of the parliament have proposed to give the title ‘Hero of Ukraine’ to controversial figures such as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych.

Some Ukrainians see them as war heroes who fought for Ukrainian independence back in the 1930s and 1940s.

For others, they are antisemitic war criminals who took part in the mass killings of up to 100,000 Jews and Poles during WW2 in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

The proposal also asks the Ukrainian Parliament and the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to commemorate the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, UPA, operating from the 1940s and into the 1950s, on their 80th anniversary in October next year.

It also includes the suggestion of constructing memorials and the issuing of coins and stamps, “dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as well as to Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych, and other UPA commanders.”

https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/04/controversy-as-ukraine-mulls-giving-hero-status-to-alleged-war-criminals

4. Moldovan Parliament Backs New 'Integrity Government'

CHISINAU -- Lawmakers in Moldova have confirmed the new government of Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita after her Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) won snap elections earlier this month.

The Harvard-educated Gavrilita's PAS holds 63 of the 101 seats in parliament in Moldova for what she described as an "integrity government."

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The PAS had campaigned on a platform of carrying out reforms and tackling corruption, and advocates closer ties with the European Union and the United States.

Gavrilita, a former finance minister, was designated as prime minister by President Maia Sandu.

https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-gavrilita-confirmed-prime-minster/31397103.html

5. Russian Convicted Over Killing Of Chechen Asylum Seeker In Austria

A court in Austria has sentenced a Russian man to life in prison after he was convicted of murdering a 43-year-old Chechen in a Vienna suburb last year in a case that drew international attention amid claims the killing had been politically motivated.

A spokesman for the regional court in Korneuburg said on August 6 that jurors reached a unanimous verdict in the case during the one-day trial.

The defendant was a 48-year-old ethnic Chechen who wasn't named for privacy reasons, court spokesman Wolfgang Schuster-Kramer said.

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Austrian police have not named the victim, but sources in the Chechen diaspora have told RFE/RL that the victim was Mamikhan Umarov, a Chechen separatist who ran a video blog critical of Kadyrov and worked with Austrian intelligence. He had received asylum in Austria.

https://www.rferl.org/a/chechnya-austria-murder-kadyrov/31397514.html

August 5, 2021

They really need to go f themselves

Regardless of where you stand on what is going on in New York, I think this is something we can agree on

Per the Wash Post:
Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative gay rights group and a critic of the Human Rights Campaign, called on David to resign Wednesday for his role in Cuomo’s defense.

The Log Cabin Republicans? The organization that endorsed Donald Trump for re-election? That group is criticizing Alphonso David for having a role in Cuomo's defense (which by the way isn't much of a role)
Yes, ladies and gents, the Sheep that voted Coyotes is outraged and insists on something (actually many things) be done because it is so wrong what Mr David did -- so wrong they likely made no effort to look into the whole story of Mr David.
Yes, the group the endorsed Dotard Jung-un Trump, really needs to go f themselves

Oh... and while they're at it... take Elise Stefaniak (or however you spell her name) with you.

July 31, 2021

Five Stories from Europe You May Have Missed

1. Italian MP chased out of parliament by security for protesting green pass

An Italian MP was filmed being chased out of parliament by security guards after waving a placard in protest against the country’s “green pass” scheme.

Video footage shows the man dodging security as they try to grab the sign, which says “no green pass”, out of his hands.

The politician is chased out of the chamber by one guard as numerous other MPs make their way down to the floor holding similar signs.

The parliamentary session was temporarily suspended amid cries of “shame” aimed at those protesting.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/italy-green-pass-mp-parliament-video-b1893624.html


2. Submarine robot captures underwater footage of ancient Roman ship laden with wine jars – video

An ancient Roman ship carrying a cargo load of wine jars, or amphorae, has been found underwater in the Mediterranean Sea off the Italian island of Sicily. The vessel was discovered during an underwater reconnaissance expedition by the island's Regional Agency for Environment Protection. The findings will shed light on Rome’s trade activity in the Mediterranean, where the Romans traded spices, wine, olives and other products in north Africa, Spain, France and the Middle East

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2021/jul/30/submarine-robot-captures-underwater-footage-of-ancient-roman-ship-laden-with-wine-jars-video


3. Balkan Survivors Of Notorious 'Ethnic Cleansing' Camp Fight Mockery On Serbian TV

The dozens of internment camps that sprung up in the former Yugoslavia are one of the most brutal and well-chronicled aspects of the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Their discovery, early in the fighting, provided some of the most poignant and incriminating evidence that combatants were waging ethnic cleansing in newly won territories.

Now, a group of surviving detainees from one of the most infamous concentration camps in a Serb-controlled region of Bosnia-Herzegovina has filed suit in Belgrade to challenge televised statements downplaying its wartime horrors and mocking one of its most iconic inmates.

Plaintiffs include Fikret Alic, the Bosniak man who became a lasting symbol of Balkan atrocities after his skeletal frame was shown behind barbed wire at the Trnopolje internment camp near Prijedor, in what is now northwest Bosnia.

https://www.rferl.org/a/balkan-camp-alic-photo/31385822.html

4. Local Staff At U.S. Embassy, Consulates In Russia Dismissed To Meet Kremlin Deadline

The United States says it has laid off nearly 200 local employees from its diplomatic missions in Russia ahead of an August 1 deadline set by the Kremlin to do so -- a move made by Moscow in response to U.S. sanctions and the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the United States.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on July 30 that the layoffs are regrettable and will severely impact the operations of U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia.

"Starting in August, the Russian government is prohibiting the United States from retaining, hiring, or contracting Russian or third-country staff, except our guard force,” Blinken said. “We are deeply saddened that this action will force us to let go of 182 local employees and dozens of contractors at our diplomatic facilities in Moscow, Vladivostok, and Yekaterinburg.”

The layoffs will potentially impact the safety of U.S. personnel "as well as our ability to engage in diplomacy with the Russian government," he added.

https://www.rferl.org/a/us-embassy-consulates-staff-russia-/31386356.html

Another story can be read at

https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/30/us-mission-in-russia-forced-to-let-go-of-over-200-staff


5. Poland's president changes tune on judicial reform amid row with EU

In a significant shift in tone, Poland’s president Andrzej Duda said on Friday his country will need to change its law on disciplining judges, which has sparked an escalating battle with Brussels over the rule of law.

Duda was commenting on letters from the head of Poland’s top court urging leaders to bring Polish legislation in line with EU law.

Duda told state agency PAP that he agreed with the court president and that “everything indicates that legislative changes will be needed”.

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His words struck a different tone from the government's insistence in recent years that the disciplinary procedures were only for the good of the judiciary and that the EU had no say on the organisation of Poland's or any other EU member's justice system.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/30/poland-s-president-changes-tune-on-judicial-reform-amid-row-with-eu

July 31, 2021

Nadia: Book Details Abuse Of Legendary Gymnast And Her Daring Escape From Romania

BUCHAREST -- When 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect 10 at the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, it was so unexpected that the scoreboard malfunctioned.

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But details remained sketchy about her life in communist Romania, the elite world of gymnastics, and her escape to the West.

Nadia And The Securitate, a new book by historian Stejarel Olaru, exposes some of the dark secrets and mind-numbing surveillance that communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu employed to keep tabs on the young gymnast, who was propaganda gold for him and his destitute country.

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Comaneci's escape was planned in mid-November after a chance meeting with Romanian émigré Constantin Panait at a party in Bucharest.

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Years later, she claimed Panait held her captive after she had immigrated to the United States and took money from her.

https://www.rferl.org/a/gymnast-comaneci-abuse-escape/31386922.html