27 March 20
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26 March 20
Soldiers Around the World Get a New Mission: Enforcing Coronavirus Lockdowns
Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post
Sieff writes: "Around the world, as a consensus has formed around the need for quarantine and social distancing to fight the coronavirus, a more delicate question has emerged: How do you enforce those new rules?"
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Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post
Sieff writes: "Around the world, as a consensus has formed around the need for quarantine and social distancing to fight the coronavirus, a more delicate question has emerged: How do you enforce those new rules?"
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Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)
Bernie Sanders Speech on the Senate Floor on Covid 19 Crisis and the Stimulus Package
The Hill
Excerpt: "Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders bemoaned a group of GOP senators threatening to delay the passage of the third coronavirus stimulus bill. One of those senators, Sen. Ben Sasse, responded after Sen. Sanders concluded."
The Hill
Excerpt: "Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders bemoaned a group of GOP senators threatening to delay the passage of the third coronavirus stimulus bill. One of those senators, Sen. Ben Sasse, responded after Sen. Sanders concluded."
Scarlet tanager. (photo: Brian Sullivan)
Tom Engelhardt | A Planet of Missing Beauties: In Memoriam
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
Engelhardt writes: "How sad when even what's still truly beautiful on this globe of ours increasingly tells a story that couldn't be grimmer."
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
Engelhardt writes: "How sad when even what's still truly beautiful on this globe of ours increasingly tells a story that couldn't be grimmer."
EXCERPT:
Fini?
Think about it this way: as last year ended, Science magazine reported that, in North America, there were three billion fewer birds than in 1970; in other words, almost one out of every three birds on this continent is now gone. As Carl Zimmer of the New York Times put it, “The skies are emptying out.” Among them, warblers have taken one of the heaviest hits -- there are an estimated 617 million fewer of them -- as well as birds more generally that migrate up the East Coast (and so have a shot at landing in Central Park). Many are the causes, including habitat loss, pesticides, and even feral cats, but climate change is undoubtedly a factor as well. The authors of the Audubon Society’s most recent national report, for instance, suggest that, “if Earth continues to warm according to current trends -- rising 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 -- more than two-thirds of North America’s bird species will be vulnerable to extinction due to range loss.”
Extinction. Take that word in. They’ll be gone. No more. Fini.
That, by the way, is a global, not just a North American, reality, and such apocalyptic possibilities are hardly restricted to birds. Insects, for instance, are experiencing their own Armageddon and while -- monarch butterflies (down 90% in the U.S. in the last 20 years) aside -- we humans don’t tend to think of them as beauties, they are, among other things, key pollinators and crucial to food chains everywhere.
Or think about it this way: on Monday, March 8th, in my hometown, New York City, it was 68 degrees and that was nothing. After all, on February 19th, in Central Park, the temperature had hit a record-breaking 78 degrees in the heart of winter, not just the highest for that day on record but for the month of February, historically speaking. At the time, we were passing through a “winter” in which essentially no snow had fallen. And that should have surprised no one. After all, January had started the year with a bang globally as the hottest January on record, which again should have surprised no one, since the last five years have been the warmest ever recorded on this planet (ditto the last 10 years and 19 of the last 20 years). Oh, and 2020 already has a 50% chance of being the warmest year yet.
Lindsey Graham was among the senators who forced a delay of the stimulus bill. (photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
A Cruel Motive for a Costly Delay
The New York Times Editorial Board
Excerpt: "The proposed unemployment benefits, they said, were much too generous. Yes, that's right: They worried the federal government was in danger of doing too much to help low-income workers whose jobs are being sacrificed to save lives."
The New York Times Editorial Board
Excerpt: "The proposed unemployment benefits, they said, were much too generous. Yes, that's right: They worried the federal government was in danger of doing too much to help low-income workers whose jobs are being sacrificed to save lives."
Republican senators threatened to block trillions of dollars in aid amid the coronavirus pandemic to deprive low-wage workers of needed help.
or a few hours on Wednesday, it seemed the Senate still could not muster the will to start pumping trillions of desperately needed dollars into the American economy.
Four Republican senators — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rick Scott of Florida — announced they had found a flaw in the economic stimulus legislation so grave that they would be forced to delay its passage.
The proposed unemployment benefits, they said, were much too generous.
Medical staff stand outside a coronavirus screening tent at the Brooklyn Hospital Center on Friday in Brooklyn, New York. (photo: Angela Weiss/Getty)
Coronavirus Heroes Are Getting Tossed From Their Homes by Scared Landlords
Emily Shugerman, The Daily Beast
Shugerman writes: "Anna Jones* had just finished her shift at St. Rose Hospital in Las Vegas, where she works as an emergency-room nurse, when she received an email from her landlord labeled 'Quick Action Needed.'"
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Emily Shugerman, The Daily Beast
Shugerman writes: "Anna Jones* had just finished her shift at St. Rose Hospital in Las Vegas, where she works as an emergency-room nurse, when she received an email from her landlord labeled 'Quick Action Needed.'"
READ MORE
Vietnam, the third biggest rice exporter, has suspended contracts in the wake of the crisis. (photo: Nguyen Huy Kham/Reuters)
Coronavirus Measures Could Cause Global Food Shortage, UN Warns
Fiona Harvey, Guardian UK
Harvey writes: "Protectionist measures by national governments during the coronavirus crisis could provoke food shortages around the world, the UN's food body has warned."
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Fiona Harvey, Guardian UK
Harvey writes: "Protectionist measures by national governments during the coronavirus crisis could provoke food shortages around the world, the UN's food body has warned."
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Youth climate activists. (photo: Victoria Will/National Geographic)
Greta Is Not Alone. Meet the Other Youth Climate Activists Battling for Their Future.
Laura Parker, National Geographic
Parker writes: "Their photos often appear side by side, like bookends framing the long campaign by young people to persuade adults to take significant steps to fight climate change. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen activist, is the latest child to sound the alarm. Severn Cullis-Suzuki, the daughter of an environmental scientist in Vancouver, Canada, came first."
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Laura Parker, National Geographic
Parker writes: "Their photos often appear side by side, like bookends framing the long campaign by young people to persuade adults to take significant steps to fight climate change. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen activist, is the latest child to sound the alarm. Severn Cullis-Suzuki, the daughter of an environmental scientist in Vancouver, Canada, came first."
READ MORE
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