08 February 20
When we get into trouble on donations the small donors are always the first to respond. They see the problem more clearly, they feel the urgency more personally.
Haven’t seen a 3 digit donation in 3 days.
Who can step up?
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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07 February 20
Garrison Keillor | The Light Bulb Is Out and Needs Changing
Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website
Keillor writes: "New York is a good place to visit when you feel the country is falling apart."
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Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website
Keillor writes: "New York is a good place to visit when you feel the country is falling apart."
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Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)
Sanders Casts Buttigieg as Billionaire Favorite in Fight for New Hampshire
Jonathan Easley, The Hill
Easley writes: "Sen. Bernie Sanders is casting Democratic rival Pete Buttigieg as the preferred candidate of the billionaire class as polls show the former South Bend, Ind., mayor surging in New Hampshire and catching up to Sanders ahead of next week's primary."
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Jonathan Easley, The Hill
Easley writes: "Sen. Bernie Sanders is casting Democratic rival Pete Buttigieg as the preferred candidate of the billionaire class as polls show the former South Bend, Ind., mayor surging in New Hampshire and catching up to Sanders ahead of next week's primary."
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Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg addresses the press from his newly opened Philadelphia field office on Dec. 21, 2019. (photo: Mark Makela/Getty)
Mike Bloomberg Is Paying 'Influencers' to Make Him Seem Cool
Scott Bixby, The Daily Beast
Bixby writes: "One day after the Iowa caucuses were effectively botched by the disastrous rollout of a new vote-counting app, billionaire Mike Bloomberg announced that he intended to capitalize on chaos from the Hawkeye State by doubling the advertising budget of his presidential campaign."
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Scott Bixby, The Daily Beast
Bixby writes: "One day after the Iowa caucuses were effectively botched by the disastrous rollout of a new vote-counting app, billionaire Mike Bloomberg announced that he intended to capitalize on chaos from the Hawkeye State by doubling the advertising budget of his presidential campaign."
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30-year-old Nabilah Islam is running for congress to replace Rep. Rob Woodall. (photo: Nabilah Islam for Congress)
Ro Khanna Backs Nabilah Islam, Dubbed AOC of Atlanta, in Contested Georgia Primary
Aída Chávez and Ryan Grim, The Intercept
Excerpt: "Nabilah Islam, the 30-year-old daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, is one of six Democratic candidates vying for the seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Rob Woodall, a five-term GOP incumbent who entered office as part of the 2010 tea party wave."
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Aída Chávez and Ryan Grim, The Intercept
Excerpt: "Nabilah Islam, the 30-year-old daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, is one of six Democratic candidates vying for the seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Rob Woodall, a five-term GOP incumbent who entered office as part of the 2010 tea party wave."
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U.S. Navy submarine. (photo: Lt. Rebecca Rebarich)
Risk of Nuclear War Rises as US Deploys a New Nuclear Weapon for the First Time Since the Cold War
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "The Federation of American Scientists revealed in late January that the U.S. Navy had deployed for the first time a submarine armed with a low-yield Trident nuclear warhead."
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "The Federation of American Scientists revealed in late January that the U.S. Navy had deployed for the first time a submarine armed with a low-yield Trident nuclear warhead."
EXCERPT:
The USS Tennessee deployed from Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia in late 2019. The W76-2 warhead, which is facing criticism at home and abroad, is estimated to have about a third of the explosive power of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) called the news “an alarming development that heightens the risk of nuclear war.” We’re joined by William Arkin, longtime reporter focused on military and nuclear policy, author of numerous books, including “Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State.” He broke the story about the deployment of the new low-yield nuclear weapon in an article he co-wrote for Federation of American Scientists. He also recently wrote a cover piece for Newsweek titled “With a New Weapon in Donald Trump’s Hands, the Iran Crisis Risks Going Nuclear.” “What surprised me in my reporting … was a story that was just as important, if not more important, than what was going on in the political world,” Arkin says.
Greta Thunberg at a climate strike with Sami children in Jokkmokk, Sweden, Feb. 07, 2020. (photo: EFE)
Thunberg: 'Indigenous Peoples Lead the Fight Against Crisis'
teleSUR
Excerpt: "The Fridays For Future movement activist Greta Thunberg praised the role of Indigenous peoples in the fight against global climate change during a demonstration in Jokkmokk, Sweden, on Friday."
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teleSUR
Excerpt: "The Fridays For Future movement activist Greta Thunberg praised the role of Indigenous peoples in the fight against global climate change during a demonstration in Jokkmokk, Sweden, on Friday."
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A bumblebee on a Dusky Cranesbill geranium plant on May 14, 2018, in London, England. (photo: Victoria Jones/Getty)
Bumblebees Face Extinction From the Climate Crisis
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Rampant pesticide use and habitat loss has already crippled bumblebee populations. New research now shows that warming temperatures around the world will further push bumblebees to the brink of extinction."
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Rampant pesticide use and habitat loss has already crippled bumblebee populations. New research now shows that warming temperatures around the world will further push bumblebees to the brink of extinction."
ampant pesticide use and habitat loss has already crippled bumblebee populations. New research now shows that warming temperatures around the world will further push bumblebees to the brink of extinction, as The New York Times reported.
The loss of bumblebees spells trouble for plant biodiversity since they are some of the most important pollinators in the world. Bumblebees pollinate and fertilize a wide array of plants and crops, including tomatoes, blueberries and squash. However, if you are in North America, you are nearly 50 percent less likely to see a bumblebee in any given area than you were prior to 1974, according to the new research, as National Geographic reported.
The new research, published in the journal Science, employed a massive dataset and a complex modeling system to look at bee populations and to find the reason for their decline. The researchers found that bee populations have experienced the largest decline in places that have warmed at a faster rate than the rest of the planet.
Some bumblebee species have disappeared from areas where they once flourished. For example, the rusty-patched bumblebee once thrived in Ontario, but now it is no longer found in Canada. In the U.S., it is endangered, as National Geographic reported.
"The things [we] grew up with as kids are fading away very fast," said Dr. Jeremy Kerr, senior author of the study and a biology professor at the University of Ottawa, as CNN reported.
"It's not just that we're looking at what our kids will experience; it's that we are looking back not even a full generation, just to when we were kids, and saying, 'Could we take our children to places we loved and find what we found?' What our study says is that that answer is no across entire continents."
The scientists at the University of Ottawa looked at 66 different bumblebee species across two continents. They found that bumblebee populations have declined by 46 percent in North America and by 17 percent in Europe compared to the period from 1901 to 1974, according to the study.
"The scale of this decline is really worrying," said Peter Soroye, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the study, to The New York Times. "This group of organisms is such a critical pollinator in wild landscapes and agricultural regions."
To build their model, the researchers relied on a database of roughly 550,000 bee records over a century. The researchers looked at two time periods: 1901 to 1974 and 2000 to 2015. Then they examined if temperatures and precipitation exceeded the bumblebees' tolerance level, as CNN reported.
Bumblebees, which prefer cooler, slightly wet temperatures, perished in areas that had heat waves, prolonged dryness, or frequently extreme weather. That pattern, which is commensurate with the climate crisis, threatens bumblebees with extinction and from the possibility of establishing colonies or creating new species, according to CNN.
Kerr said that there are several mechanisms at play. Bees can simply overheat. Or, as plants wither, the bees starve. Additionally, early springs and re-freezings threaten queens, which spend the winter in forest leaf litter, as National Geographic reported.
The loss of bees may have a devastating effect on plants that rely on them and animals that rely on those plants.
"As these plants are then used by myriad other organisms, the decline of bumblebees can have cascading ecological [effects] that may collectively cause biodiversity loss," said Matthew Austin, a Ph.D. student and researcher at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who wasn't involved in the paper, to National Geographic.
"Our results show that we face a future with many less bumble bees and much less diversity, both in the outdoors and on our plates," said Soroye in a University of Ottawa statement.
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