19 dead in horrific New York City fire
From www.dailytelegraph.com.au
2022-01-09 21:52:57
Excerpt:
New York City has seen its deadliest fire in more than 30 years in a Bronx building, with the death toll including nine kids.
Freedomist Editor
US Warns Russia Of Risk Of “Confrontation” Ahead Of Ukraine Talks
From www.ndtv.com
2022-01-09 15:40:36
Excerpt:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said Russia had to choose between dialogue and confrontation, ahead of talks in Geneva on soaring tensions over Ukraine.
“There’s a path of dialogue and diplomacy to try to resolve some of these differences and avoid a confrontation,” Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show.
“The other path is confrontation and massive consequences for Russia if it renews its aggression on Ukraine. We are about to test the proposition about which path President Putin is prepared to take.”
Vladimir Putin’s government has reportedly massed tens of thousands of military troops along Russia’s border with Ukraine, drawing Washington into a Cold War-style stand-off.
Electricity Law brings Israel’s institutions to the brink of collapse – The Jerusalem Post
From www.jpost.com
2022-01-09 19:10:00
Excerpt:
The legislative process was one of the most brutal, nondemocratic, politicized processes in Knesset history and the consequences for the State of Israel will be irrevocable…..
What does this new law do that the old law didn’t? Even before Ra’am used its political leverage to pass this law, infrastructure hookups could be expedited for neighborhoods or individual structures that lacked permits but which the government actively sought to regulate or legalize.The new law takes what was an exception and makes it the rule. It takes a clause that was applicable to select outlier cases and applies it in wholesale fashion and virtually indiscriminately. How indiscriminately? No one – not even the members of Knesset who voted for it – actually knows, and that’s part of the problem…..The legislative process was one of the most brutal, nondemocratic, politicized processes in Knesset history – and like other highly questionable pieces of legislation in the recent and not-so-recent past, the consequences for the State of Israel will be irrevocable.
Eric Adams Appoints Brother to $240k NYPD Role, Faces Nepotism Claim
From www.businessinsider.com
2022-01-09 17:32:25
Excerpt:
Bernard Adams, a retired police officer, will oversee governmental affairs in his role as a deputy police commissioner with the NYPD, the New York Post reported. The job comes with a salary of around $240,000, The Daily Beast said.
He most recently worked as assistant director of operations for parking at the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University, according to his LinkedIn, after retiring from the NYPD in 2006. He left the police department after 20 years of service, the Daily Mail reported.
DNA in Unlikely Places Helps Piece Together Ancient Humans’ Family Trees
From www.discovermagazine.com
2022-01-09 18:00:00
Bridget Alex
Excerpt:
One hundred thousand years ago, Neanderthals gathered in a cave perched 3,000 feet up in present-day Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains. While cooking and watching youngsters wrestle, they littered the floor with DNA in shed skin, spit and other bodily debris.
Dirt accumulated and protected the genetic material for millennia, even as humans and animals sheltered there. At the site, known as Estatuas, archaeologists have uncovered abundant stone tools and animal bones since 2008. The sole Neanderthal bone found — a toe tip with Swiss cheese consistency — seemed too precious to crush for DNA analysis. The scientists therefore couldn’t elucidate the inhabitants’ genetic traits and ties with other Neanderthal clans.
Instead, they searched the dirt for loose DNA. In 2018, researchers dropped into pits at Estatuas and collected sediment from layers that formed between 70,000 and 113,000 years ago. They had fetched nearly 800 sediment samples in 2017 from the Chagyrskaya and Denisova caves in southern Siberia, promising locations that had already yielded DNA-bearing fossils of Neanderthals and their Denisovan relatives.
At the Max Planck Institute in Germany, Benjamin Vernot and colleagues separated the human DNA from sequences belonging to animals, plants and microbes. The resulting Science and Nature papers demonstrated that dirt devoid of fossils and artifacts can conceal a genetic treasure trove. At Denisova Cave, researchers extracted human DNA fragments from over 220 sediment samples — versus nine fossils with genetic material. The dirt indicated that lineages of Neanderthals, Denisovans or Homo sapiens lived there at different points.
From news.wfsu.org
2022-01-09 18:04:00
Excerpt:
Democrats seeking to curb gun violence face headwinds in the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. On the flipside, Republican proposals seeking to loosen gun restrictions may also face pushback.
South Florida Democrats took part last week in a virtual roundtable about gun safety legislation. “People often ask whether Congress is doing enough, whether the White House is doing enough, whether our state governments have done enough,” said Congressman Ted Deutch, who hosted the online discussion with local and state leaders as well as activists. “The answer to that question is no, undeniably no. Nobody has done or is doing enough.”
For the 4th year, Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, is trying to pass a law that requires the safe storage of firearms to help keep them away from kids. “I naively thought this should be a fairly easy step to take when I entered the legislature four years ago,” Polsky said. “We’re not taking anyone’s guns — just requiring you to do the responsible thing.”
GOP Leaders Slam Biden After Jobs Report Shows ‘Massive Miss’
From www.dailysignal.com
2022-01-08 01:15:06
Harry Wilmerding
Excerpt:
Republican leaders slammed President Joe Biden after December’s jobs report released Friday reported numbers well below economists’ projections, highlighting the report as another example of how the president mishandled the post-pandemic recovery.
The U.S. economy added only 199,000 jobs in December while unemployment dipped to 3.9%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected that the economy would add 422,000 jobs in December and that unemployment to fall to 4.1%.
“Our economy should be soaring right now, but the policies of this administration continue to stifle growth and hold back American businesses and workers,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement.
“Today’s jobs report is another massive miss, falling two hundred thousand jobs short of expectations. The labor participation rate should be climbing; instead the world’s greatest economy is…
Nicaragua congress takes office after questionable elections – CBS17.com
From www.cbs17.com
2022-01-09 20:44:30
Excerpt:
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Members of Nicaragua’s new congress have taken office, one day before President Daniel Ortega is to be sworn following highly questionable elections.
Of the 90 legislators sworn in Sunday, 75 belong to Ortega’s Sandinista party and the other 15 are from tiny parties considered collaborators with the regime.
The legislators elected Gustavo Porras, a long-time Sandinista and congress member, as leader of the unicameral legislature.
The congressional members, like Ortega, were elected in Nov. 7 elections that drew condemnation internationally.
Ortega was elected to a fourth consecutive term in the elections, which were broadly criticized as a farce after seven likely challengers to Ortega were arrested and jailed in the months prior to the vote.
Nicaragua’s government announced in November it will withdraw from the Organization…
Timothy LeDuc, US pairs skater, calls out human rights abuses in China
From www.usatoday.com
2022-01-09 17:54:20
Excerpt:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In the months and weeks leading up to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, U.S. athletes have been repeatedly asked about human rights abuses in China and, for the most part, tiptoed around them.
Pairs skater Timothy LeDuc did not do that Sunday.
Hours after they were named to Team USA, LeDuc fielded a question about human rights abuses in China, whether athletes have a responsibility to use their platform to speak about them and whether they plan to do so. They called it “a really hard question to answer.”
“There’s no simple answer to this question,” said LeDuc, who will become the first openly non-binary athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games.
Scientists vacuum zoo animals’ DNA out of the air
From www.opb.org
2022-01-09 17:19:33
Excerpt:
A key part of protecting endangered species is figuring out where they’re living. Now researchers say they have found a powerful new tool that could help: vacuuming DNA out of the air.
“This is a bit of a crazy idea,” admits Elizabeth Clare, a molecular ecologist at York University in Toronto, Canada. “We are literally sucking DNA out of the sky.”
But it works. Clare’s group was one of two to publish papers in the journal Current Biology Thursday showing that dozens of animal species could be detected by simply sampling the air.
