SARS-CoV-2 variants dashboard

This dashboard provides an overview of the proportion of variants of concern and variants of interest in EU/EEA Member States together with sequencing volumes and complements the ECDC country overview report. Data are sourced from TESSy or the GISAID EpiCoV database. Where data are available from more than one source for a country, the source used is the one with the highest number of sequences in the last two weeks.

The dashboard is updated every Thursday afternoon. Data behind the dashboard are available for download.

Source: SARS-CoV-2 variants dashboard

Oregon counties vote to secede to Idaho | TheHill 

Voters in five rural Oregon counties approved measures on Tuesday to consider joining the state of Idaho, a part of a long-shot grassroots movement to break with a state dominated by liberal voters west of the Cascade Mountains…

Actually moving the lines would require a vote from the Oregon legislature, which is firmly controlled by Democrats. Oregon and Idaho would have to strike a formal deal, which would then need to be ratified by the U.S. Congress.

Congress has only approved measures to change state lines on three occasions: Kentucky was carved out of territory previously owned by Virginia in 1792. Maine was carved out of Massachusetts in 1820. And West Virginia was admitted to the union in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, as Union counties separated themselves from the Confederacy.

Source: Oregon counties vote to secede to Idaho | TheHill

Brazilian police target environment minister in wood smuggling probe | Reuters

Brazilian police on Wednesday targeted Environment Minister Ricardo Salles and other officials in a probe of an alleged wood smuggling ring, according to court documents, throwing a harsh spotlight on a key figure in U.S.-Brazil environmental talks.

Salles has been leading negotiations with President Joe Biden’s administration in a push to get international funding of Brazilian efforts to protect the Amazon jungle, the world’s largest tropical rainforest.

However, as minister, Salles has presided over a surge in Amazon deforestation to a 12-year high in 2020 as the government rolls back environmental enforcement.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre Moraes authorized search warrants and access to the minister’s bank and tax records as part of the police investigation into alleged corruption and contraband, according to a ruling seen by Reuters.

Source: Brazilian police target environment minister in wood smuggling probe | Reuters

Two Meetings

Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Continued from the chapter “A Dry Piece of Paradise.”

Imagine a bowl with steep sides, rough and sharp in places.

Look along the bottom and see a silver stream, sparkling and singing through rocks.

A figure is clinging to the upper side, almost to the rim.

The figure is me in the setting of my blog, “A Dry Piece of Paradise”. Here is my view from that spot.

View from the rim of Nameless Canyon

Hiking along this bowl rim I came to a clearing in the juniper and Manzanita bushes, with a fire ring and pile of roughly broken wood with outstanding views on all sides. This tradition of leaving wood is a welcome intrusion of human kindness and sympathy in this wilderness. We gather wood for total strangers, people we will never meet, to potentially save them in a rainy, cold darkness.

At noon Pine Creek was two…

View original post 1,170 more words

Wondering Wednesdays, Baby Acres, Chapter 1, part 1B: Cultural Change

Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

This post continues the rough draft of  Chapter 1 of my non-fiction WiP, Baby Acres.  This is the next outline section, chapter 1, section IB.

I am posting the 392 words, which was meant to be 250 words, for this section along with some thoughts on the overall chapter outlining process for the book as a whole.

Again, as previously stated, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equ. + justice, & why in 4 phases.  This chapter will transition to a chapter (2-5) for each phase, showing what Phases I-IV could look like as part of a possible roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us.  This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind  will eventually have each person’s basic needs  met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind. 

Chapter One, section…

View original post 785 more words