B.C. policy-makers urged to embrace controlled burns to reduce wildfire risk | CBC News

Fire ecologists and Indigenous groups say bureaucratic provincial barriers are hindering their ability to perform prescribed burns and cultural burns that could reduce the fuel load for wildfires in British Columbia’s forests.
“It’s as simple as lighting a match,” said former Yuneŝit’in government chief Russell Myers Ross, who leads the community’s fire management program. “But the way the province deals with things, they want heavy equipment on the site. They want big hoses, they want a lot of equipment and high-priced personnel.”
Prescribed burns remove hazardous fuel from the forest via controlled, low-intensity burns, while cultural burns are considered a sacred Indigenous practice, in which communities use low-intensity fire as a form of ecological stewardship.
Support for the two practices has grown in recent years as B.C. and other provinces grapple with more extreme fires.
Following the province’s 2017 wildfire season, a report by former B.C. cabinet minister George Abbott and Chief Maureen Chapman recommended that “B.C. increase the use of traditional and prescribed burning” as a means of fuel mitigation, and that it do so “in partnership with First Nations.”
Source: B.C. policy-makers urged to embrace controlled burns to reduce wildfire risk | CBC News
US pulls visas of 100 Nicaraguan legislators, judges – The Washington Post
The department accused the officials and their family members of having “advanced the Ortega-Murillo regime’s assault on democracy.” That was a reference to Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife and Vice President.
The measure targets “those with responsibility for, or complicity in, the suppression of peaceful protests or abuse of human rights, and the immediate family members of such persons.” It prevents those named from entering the United States.
Source: US pulls visas of 100 Nicaraguan legislators, judges – The Washington Post
Coronavirus updates: Hundreds of Thai medical workers get infected after being fully vaccinated with Sinovac – The Washington Post
A Thai health official said Sunday that an expert panel has recommended administering a third dose to at-risk medical workers, adding that the booster shot would be either one from Oxford-AstraZeneca or a messenger RNA vaccine made by either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. The country is set to receive 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from the United States this month. Source: Coronavirus updates: Hundreds of Thai medical workers get infected after being fully vaccinated with Sinovac – The Washington Post
Israel gives third shot of Pfizer vaccines to immunocompromised adults – The Washington Post
Israel’s Ministry of Health on Monday began offering a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine to severely immunocompromised adults in what health experts say could be the first phase of an experiment to provide coronavirus booster shots for older people and the most vulnerable. The recommendation, published Sunday by the ministry, said that the goal of the new program was to raise antibody levels among immunocompromised citizens, including cancer patients, recipients of liver transplants, and others who have recently exhibited weakened vaccine protection, according to data. It said that it had still not made a decision on administering third shots for the general adult population. The decision comes as Israel, which was among the fastest to vaccinate in the winter and then among the first to begin reopening in the spring, is experiencing a surge in new cases, spurred by the prevalence of the highly transmissible delta variant first identified in India. Over the past month, infection rates in Israel have spiked from single digits to more than 400 a day.
Source: Israel gives third shot of Pfizer vaccines to immunocompromised adults – The Washington Post
Japan to issue vaccine passports free of charge
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference that starting July 26, people will be able to apply for the certificates in the municipalities where they were registered as a resident at the time they got their shots.
The Foreign Ministry’s website will feature a list of countries and regions that will ease quarantine measures for those with a vaccine passport, Kato said.
Japan is looking to have its vaccination passports accepted by over 10 nations, including Italy, France and Greece, according to government sources.
Kato said the certificates will be free of charge “for the time being” except for any postal fees, and may be issued as quickly as the same day as the application or take up to several days.
From The ‘Can’t Fix Stupid’ Files
Closing Thought–12Jul21
South Dakota AG is in a spot of trouble….seems he hit and killed a man with his car…..but like all politicians it was not his fault…..
Jason Ravnsborg is really looking for an out. The South Dakota attorney general who struck and killed Joe Boever with his car back in September of 2020 is now claiming the victim wanted to die. Boever, whose glasses were found inside Ravnsborg’s car and whose lit flashlight was found off the road and near his body, had recently started taking a prescription anti-anxiety medicine, Keloland reports. Ravnsborg’s defense team filed a court document requesting the victim’s psychiatric records. That document quotes Boever’s cousin Barnabas Nemec saying he believes Boever threw himself in front of the car on purpose.
The filing claims that Boever was working his way through a bottle of Lorazepam faster than prescribed, and that the common medicine can cause…
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6 fully vaccinated people caught the Delta variant after an outdoor wedding, but the ones with Pfizer and Moderna shots didn’t get very sick
Six fully vaccinated people came down with COVID-19 after an outdoor wedding in Texas – a small outbreak that, above all, underscores how effective US-authorized vaccines are against even variants of the virus.
Though the vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna may not knock out every COVID-19 case, especially now that the more infectious Delta variant dominates across the US, they are very good at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19.
According to the preprint study from Baylor College of Medicine, only those who’d gotten an Indian vaccine (Covaxin) fell severely ill after the 92-person event near Houston, Texas, in April.
The wedding took place inside a “large, open air tent,” before the Delta variant was circulating widely across the US.
The study authors suspect that the Delta variant was introduced into the wedding by two patients who were traveling from India, and who had tested negative before boarding their flight, but developed symptoms once they landed in the US.
October 1944 (4)
Battle of Leyte Gulf (4)
USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)
Halsey was battling Ozawa’s Decoy Force at Cape Engaño where the last surviving Japanese ship from the Pearl Harbor attacks, IJN Zuikaku was ablaze and abandoned. The Chitose was dead in the water. Commander Hathaway’s USS Heerman was badly damaged, along with the Hoel, Johnston and Samuel B. Roberts.
When Halsey retreated south, the remaining ships had planes out that proceeded to hit the IJN Chikuma and Chokai before they too retreated. The Zuikaku sank and hour later the Zuiha succumbed, followed by the Chiyoda.
In less than 7 hours ____
At 0750, escort carrier GAMBIER BAY, dead in water, is continually hit by 8-inch shells, set afire and floods.
At 0805, CruDiv 4’s CHOKAI, hit and set afire by numerous bombs from KITKUN BAY’s aircraft, goes dead in the water. At 0807, GAMBIER BAY, capsizes and sinks.
At 0814, Vice…
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Jolly Monday … Again? Already?
Wh-What??? It’s Monday again already? Where does time go? I just wanna go back to bed! Sigh … okay … I’m up … stop shaking me, Jolly! Go help Joyful in the kit … um … never mind … stay out of the kitchen … just tidy up something and let me get awake here …
Oh!!! Hello friends! I didn’t realize you were here already! Sorry … I seem to have overslept! So, another Monday, eh? How was your weekend? Mine was rainy, but that’s okay … the grey rainy days matched my mood to a ‘T’, and … the rain meant I didn’t have to go out and water the flowers every morning!!!
Since I just woke up, I don’t know what Joyful has cooking, but something smells pretty good, so let’s go see what’s on the Monday buffet, shall we, and then we’ll find something to start…
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