Category Archives: News to use

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

Judge blocks Arkansas from enforcing ban on school mask mandate | TheHill

Judge Tim Fox issued a preliminary injunction against the law, The Associated Press reported. He ruled against the law for several reasons, including finding that it discriminated between public and private schools.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) signed Act 1002 in April, which prevented schools and government agencies from enforcing mask mandates.

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But on Tuesday, Hutchinson said he regretted signing the mandate, and has now pushed the state legislature to overturn part of the law that prohibits schools from mandating masks.

“I signed it for those reasons that our cases were at a low point. Everything has changed now. And yes, in hindsight I wish that had not become law,” he said at a news conference.

Two lawsuits were filed against Hutchinson this week seeking to invalidate the law.

Two parents filed the first lawsuit on Monday asking the court to rule that the mandate unconstitutional, according to court records.

The second suit was filed Thursday by the Little Rock School District and the Marion School District. According to a local ABC affiliate, the Marion School District reported 839 students and 10 staff members quarantining. 

Source: Judge blocks Arkansas from enforcing ban on school mask mandate | TheHill

Wildfire tears through B.C. community, destroying homes and forcing hundreds of evacuations | CBC News

Another British Columbia community has been devastated by a raging wildfire and more could be at risk from a blaze between Kamloops and Vernon in the province’s southern Interior.

As of Friday morning, the White Rock Lake wildfire is an estimated 450 square kilometres in size, and the B.C. Wildfire Service says it is classified as out of control. Crews worked through the night to try to suppress the fire.

Ken Gillis, chair of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, says he has been advised that damage is extensive in the community of Monte Lake and through the nearby Paxton Valley.

“In all likelihood the majority of the community has been wiped out by this fire,” Gillis told CBC Daybreak Kamloops host Shelley Joyce.

He said the general store, one of the campgrounds and a number of residences have been destroyed.

Source: Wildfire tears through B.C. community, destroying homes and forcing hundreds of evacuations | CBC News

Tout le monde vivant est interdépendant: une question & réponse avec l’artiste Barbara Crane Navarro — Open Americas

Barbara Crane Navarro

Barbara Crane Navarro est une artiste, auteur et activiste française qui vit actuellement près de Paris. Pendant 12 ans, elle a passé les mois d’hiver avec le peuple Yanomami au Venezuela et au Brésil, une expérience qui a inspiré sa pratique artistique et ses efforts de plusieurs décennies pour attirer l’attention sur la dévastation de […]

Tout le monde vivant est interdépendant: une question & réponse avec l’artiste Barbara Crane Navarro — Open Americas

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Brands Using Deforestation Palm Oil in their Products — Palm Oil Detectives

Barbara Crane Navarro

These brands have products that contain palm oil sourced from mills that are responsible for the destruction of precious habitats of endangered species. Just in 2020 alone, these brands (along with many others) contributed to the destruction of 38,000ha of rainforest in Indonesia, SE Asia and Papua New Guinea. Therefore, these brands are directly involved in the extinction ofspecies.

Brands Using Deforestation Palm Oil in their Products — Palm Oil Detectives

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Gran Chaco deforestation is an overlooked carbon bomb – Diálogo Chino —

Barbara Crane Navarro

Gran Chaco deforestation is an overlooked carbon bomb – Diálogo Chino https://ift.tt/3kppl7x Gran Chaco deforestation is an overlooked carbon bombDiálogo Chino Superforest via “deforestation” – Google Newshttps://ift.tt/2tI2HiE

Gran Chaco deforestation is an overlooked carbon bomb – Diálogo Chino —

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Day 63/67 of GED in Five Months, sedimentary rocks, and Public Libraries

The Grand Canyon – Colorado River – rock becoming sand moving down to Mexico – that’s moving… to create new sediment…

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

By now, we should all know how entropy connects with motion, so what can entropy possible have to do with rocks, since rocks never move in any way, or do they?  Maybe your local branch’s Reference Librarian can help you find out…

Today’s reading :

Sedimentary rocks are formed from pre-existing rocks or pieces of once-living organisms. They form from deposits that accumulate on the Earth’s surface. Sedimentary rocks often have distinctive layering or bedding. Many of the picturesque views of the desert southwest show mesas and arches made of layered sedimentary rock.

…”

 Week 17/18
Day 63 lesson plan
Grammar: Adverbs
Math: Linear relationships from a table of data
Today’s reading comes from where?
Please see the Lesson plan for Day 63’s Exit Tickets
(Day 62Day 64)

Action Items:  

1.) Did you see any interesting facts about your home area, those who…

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‘Internal disaster’: Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital blames surge in COVID cases, shortage of nurses for longer ER wait times (Me: To Governor and GOP – suppressing votes more important than saving lives)

The Harris Health System is blaming several factors, including a growing surge of COVID-19 patients, a large number of non-COVID patients, and a shortage of nurses.

“When you put all of that together, it kind of creates a perfect storm scenario,” said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO of Harris Health.

The president knows he has a nurse staffing issue. He said he’s short a total of 140 nurses at LBJ and Ben Taub hospitals combined. Porsa said part of that is because of a national shortage, though some are also sick and some have left.

“I’m frustrated. I am disheartened,” Porsa said. “I don’t get the feeling that people understand the gravity of the situation that we are in.”

He said the latest COVID surge is developing faster than the last one, leaving him worried things will only get worse.

While the state previously provided some temporary nurses for the hospital, Porsa said that is no longer happening.

Source: ‘Internal disaster’: Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital blames surge in COVID cases, shortage of nurses for longer ER wait times

White House Makes Back-to-School Push for Student Vaccinations – The New York Times

The White House, worried that coronavirus vaccination rates among young people are lagging as the school year approaches, is enlisting pediatricians to incorporate vaccination into back-to-school sports physicals and encouraging schools to host their own vaccination clinics as part of a new push to get students their shots.

The initiative, announced on Thursday by Education Secretary Miguel A. Cardona, is part of a broader “return to school road map” aimed at getting students back to in-person learning this fall. School officials around the country are worried that a surge in coronavirus cases, fueled by the highly infectious Delta variant, will threaten the return.

Some School Districts Are Defying State Bans on Mask Mandates – The New York Times

“I think school administrators realize that the benefit outweighs the risk,” said Rachel Graham, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “And I would honestly really hope a governor wouldn’t pull funding from a school.”

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said in an executive order last Friday that the state would take away funding from any district that infringed on “the fundamental right of parents to make health and educational decisions for their children” by requiring students to wear masks.