News

It didn't take long

On the evening of January 24, three sheriff’s deputies in Rankin County, Mississippi, received a group text message from another deputy on the same shift: “Are y’all available for a mission?”

Which? research finds cheese, butter and bread are up by more than 30% in the past two years, hitting the poor hardest

Based on data on 2,900 founders of new ventures in Germany in 2008–2017, we found that for every ten more years of age increases a founder’s likelihood to introduce a market novelty by up to 30 percent. Thus, those late-career entrepreneurs who are highly innovation-oriented and managerially experienced are more than three times more likely to introduce market novelties than the sample average.

When economists published revealing data about doctor salaries, the backlash was intense. Why? And why do doctors earn so much more in America than in other countries?

The Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority reports that vacation travel to West Maui is strongly discouraged for the near future. Visitors in West Maui have largely heeded the call to leave the island. About 46,000 people have flown out of Kahului Airport since Wednesday.

Greg Garland would really like a swimming pool. But not just any old swimming pool.

If the chairman and former chief executive of Phillips 66 has his way, a stretch of the South Llano River on his ranch 150 miles west of Austin would be dammed for “recreational purposes.” That, he’s hoping, will hold back enough water to create a private, 3.9 million-gallon swimming hole.

That amount of water would fill up the capital city’s historic Deep Eddy pool six times over.

Local residents and environmental groups are not having it. They say Garland’s plan, submitted through an LLC he controls, threatens to deplete the supply of drinking water and damage the environmentally sensitive, clear-water river that’s a popular destination for kayakers, anglers and swimmers.

Linda Fawcett, president of the Llano River Watershed Alliance, said Garland’s plans could jeopardize the livelihoods of locals who depend on tourism and the area’s ecosystem.

“It’s a horrible idea,” she said. “This is, for so many reasons, wrong.”

Opponents say proposed limits on how much water could be retained under drought conditions don’t go far enough, and they plan to air their concerns at a public meeting Thursday hosted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is responsible for issuing a permit.

Phillips 66’s press office declined to comment or to make its chairman available for questions. Efforts to reach Garland by phone and email weren’t successful.

The plan to limit water flow on the South Llano seems particularly egregious to opponents as Texas suffers through record heat waves and a lack of rainfall that has left more than half the state in at least “moderate” drought conditions. The river is flowing at about 30 cubic feet per second at a USGS monitoring site in Junction, Texas, about 40% below its historic median.

The TCEQ’s members are appointed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Garland has donated $10,000 to his campaign funds since 2021.

Doubt hangs over the billionaires' fight plans, but Musk suggests he is open to a bout on Monday.

“If we suddenly kicked out all of the people here, the undocumented, our dairy farms would collapse,” one lawmaker said. “We have to come up with a solution.”

Just one day after state officials approved massive robotaxi expansion in San Francisco, a long line of the driverless cars come to a standstill and clog traffic in North Beach neighborhood.

Documentation confirming the course would not be recognized by the state arrived roughly 48 hours before the first bell of the school year was set to ring.

Karen Lauritzen said it has been the hardest year in her 20 years of teaching...

The cost to live in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui keeps rising thanks to a chronic housing shortage and an influx of second-home buyers and wealthy transplants snatching up properties.

Videos circulating on social media showed a plane crashing and two crew members inside ejecting while opening their parachutes.

Morocco breaks heat record: Temperatures in Morocco have for the first time on record topped 50 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit).
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-morocco.html
#news #weather #climate #climatechange #heatwave #environment #science

Western-backed maritime forces in the Middle East have warned shippers traveling through the strategic Strait of Hormuz to stay as far away from Iranian territorial waters as possible to avoid being seized.

Whoops! somebody got the soot on their hands this time

‘He was understandably frustrated and distraught by the present and on-going erosions to our constitutionally protected freedoms and the rights of free citizens’

The jarring contrast between those holidaying and those hurting is hard to bear for many in Hawaii.

"Oddly, no one at the Arkansas Department of Education answered phone calls or returned emails about the decision Friday afternoon, nor could they be reached Saturday. And because the phone calls about the last minute change went directly to teachers — bypassing district administrators and even principals — there was no paper trail to follow to figure out what was going on.

On Saturday morning, the state sent emails to district curriculum administrators letting them know the course would not be recognized. The terse email appeared not to be an official announcement but simply an alert to a change made in the education department’s course management system. The message indicates AP African American Studies was deleted from the state’s roster of offerings at 4:02 p.m. on the Friday before school starts for most public school students in Arkansas."

Such a shady way to do this, too.

Stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after illegal police raids on her home and the Marion County Record newspaper office Friday, 98-year-old newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer, otherwise in good health for her age, collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home.

“We will be seeking maximum sanctions under the law possible,” Marion County Record’s publisher said after the entire local police department seized reporting materials.

UPDATE - headline changed: Kansas Newspaper Says Its Co-Owner Has Died After Being Traumatized by Police Raid

"A local Kansas newspaper whose offices were raided by an entire police department on Friday says its 98-year-old co-owner has now died after she was left “stressed beyond her limits.”

Joan Meyer “collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home,” the Marion County Record reported, noting that she had been “in good health for her age.”

Daily Beast archive link: https://archive.is/c2Byu

Latest information available here: http://marionrecord.com/direct/updated_illegal_raids_contribute_to_death_of_newspaper_co_owner+5447raid+555044415445443a20496c6c6567616c20726169647320636f6e7472696275746520746f206465617468206f66206e657773706170657220636f2d6f776e65723c212d2d2d2d3e

Marion Record archive link: https://archive.is/axP8d

From the Marion Record article:

Stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after illegal police raids on her home and the Marion County Record newspaper office Friday, 98-year-old newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer, otherwise in good health for her age, collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home.
....
As her home was raided, other officers descended upon the Record office, forcing staff members to stay outside the office for hours during a heat advisory. They were not allowed them to answer the phone or make any calls.
....
Marion vice mayor Ruth Herbel’s home also was raided at the same time.
....
A Record reporter later requested a copy of the probable cause affidavit necessary for issuance of the search warrant
District court, where such items are supposed to be filed, issued a signed statement saying no affidavit was on file.
County attorney Joel Ensey, whose brother owns the hotel where Newell operates her restaurant, was asked for it but said he would not release it because it was “not a public document.”
.....

U.S. spy agencies will share more intelligence with U.S. companies, nongovernmental organizations and academia under a new strategy released this week that acknowledges concerns over new threats, such as another pandemic and increasing cyberattacks.

The Treasury Department imposed penalties on Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Alexey Kuzmichev, billionaires behind the Alfa Group financial services conglomerate.