Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Russian invaders abduct 16-year-old son of a Zaporizhzhia regional head

Oleh Buriak is the Head of the Zaporizhzhia Raion Administration (in the Zaporizhzhia oblast).  He explains that his son was abducted in the late morning of 8 April at a Russian checkpoint in Vasylivka.  Vlad was in a car with two women he knows and with three small children.  They were heading, together with other cars, towards Zaporizhzhia when all were stopped by the Russian soldiers who came up to each of them, checking who was there and where they were going.  Oleh Buriak has learned that the Russians saw Vlad’s telephone and dragged him out of the car.

The car Vlad was driving in was held at the checkpoint for three hours, after which all were released, except the 16-year-old. The Russians “had tablets with them, and they found out that I’m the boy’s father,” Oleh Buriak explains.

The family spent the following 10 days trying privately to secure Vlad’s release.  All efforts have been in vain and on 17 April, Oleh Buriak issued an impassioned appeal to the international community to help save his son, whose whereabouts remain unknown.  His call was seconded on 18 April by Oleksandr Starukh, Head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration.

The Russian invaders have been abducting public officials; civic activists and journalists since 24 February 2022, with many still missing.  This, however, seems to be the first time that they have seized a child.

Source: Russian invaders abduct 16-year-old son of a Zaporizhzhia regional head

Katherine’s PFAS water treatment plant finally ready for action — but more will follow, experts warn – ABC News

A woman with blonde hair wearing a dark suit with a floral design stands in front of some trees.
Erin Brockovich says PFAS is shaping up as the most pressing groundwater contamination and food supply chain issue ever seen.(Triple J: Timothy Swanston)

Issue unprecedented, Brockovich says

Erin Brockovich said filtration systems were being installed across the US, where PFAS had turned up in the water supplies of communities across the country.

“I’m currently working on this issue in Maine where we’re looking at all of the organic farming being destroyed,” she said.

“It’s in the cattle, it’s in the chicken eggs, it’s in the aquifer, it’s in people’s [bore] wells.

“It’s happening here in California, it’s already happened to Alabama — it’s happening everywhere in Michigan.

 

Source: Katherine’s PFAS water treatment plant finally ready for action — but more will follow, experts warn – ABC News

Bird flu spreads to bald eagles as outbreak sweeps across US | Bird flu | The Guardian

The US is enduring the worst bird flu outbreak since 2015 in terms of domestic poultry deaths, according to new data from the US Department of Agriculture, with the avian sickness responsible for millions of deaths in commercial farms.

But the flu is also affecting wild birds and since February, at least 36 bald eagles have died in 14 states as a result of contracting the virus and eagles in two other states are suspected of falling sick with the strain.

Georgia’s department of natural resources announced that three bald eagles that have died in the state tested positive with bird flu and that other eagle carcasses are being checked. Other wild birds affected in the state include the lesser scaup, gadwall and the American wigeon.

Source: Bird flu spreads to bald eagles as outbreak sweeps across US | Bird flu | The Guardian

Global data reveal half may have long COVID 4 months on | CIDRAP

Worldwide, 49% of COVID-19 survivors reported persistent symptoms 4 months after diagnosis, estimates a meta-analysis of 31 studies published late last week in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

University of Michigan researchers, who conducted a systematic review on Jul 5, 2021, also found the prevalence of long COVID at 1 month at 37%, while it was 25% at 2 months and 32% at 3 months. Fifty studies were identified in the review, and 41 were included in a quantitative synthesis, and 31 reporting overall prevalence were meta-analyzed.

The 50 studies included a total of 1,680,003 COVID-19 patients, including those who were hospitalized (67,161 patients from 22 studies), nonhospitalized (4,165 from 5 studies), and any COVID-19 patients, regardless of hospitalization status (1,608,677 from 23 studies).

Source: Global data reveal half may have long COVID 4 months on | CIDRAP

Foreign students ‘taken from Shanghai’ as teachers resign from international schools — Radio Free Asia

A Shanghai resident surnamed Sun said Fudan’s foreign students have been transported out of Shanghai to isolation facilities in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other provinces.

“The foreign students at Fudan are no longer in Shanghai and have been moved to Zhejiang and Jiangsu,” Sun said. “They got taken away when the temporary hospitals no longer had enough space.”

The Consulate General of Japan in Shanghai has also written to the local authorities to ask how long the lockdown will continue.

In a letter to deputy mayor Zong Ming, it said that around 40,000 Japanese nationals are currently living in Shanghai, and are “facing an unprecedented and difficult situation.” Source: Foreign students ‘taken from Shanghai’ as teachers resign from international schools — Radio Free Asia

Blue corn and melons: meet the seed keepers reviving ancient, resilient crops | New Mexico | The Guardian

Man wearing a blue bandana stands for a portrait in a dry corn field On the edges of the field are giant heirloom sunflowers – used to attract pollinators – and rows of amaranth. “By companion cropping, you’re replicating those systems you see in nature,” said Lowden, describing the traditional Indigenous practice of interplanting crops to deter weeds and pests, maintain moisture and enrich the soil. “This is thousands of years of knowledge passed down,” he added.

For the past decade, Lowden, 34, has worked to restore traditional crops and farming practices in Acoma. As program director for Ancestral Lands, a non-profit that supports land stewardship in Indigenous communities, he reintroduced traditional Acoma crops into the community and created a bank of 57 arid-adapted seeds native to the region.

His work is part of a broader movement to build food and seed sovereignty on tribal lands amidst staggering global biodiversity losses created by the modern agricultural system and growing food insecurities caused by climate crisis.

“It’s so important that we can bring back our seed diversity,” said Lowden, speaking inside the Ancestral Lands office in Acoma, a few doors down from the seed bank. “To stop monocropping and bring these resilient seeds home.”

Source: Blue corn and melons: meet the seed keepers reviving ancient, resilient crops | New Mexico | The Guardian