30 July 2020 (The Juice Media) – Hello, I’m from the U.S. government, with an update on our pandemic response. In the space of a few months, our “Don’t worry, bro, it’s just the flu” policy has gotten a shit-ton of you killed. Some say this tragedy was inevitable, but actually, if we’d simply responded […]
By Scott Horsley 30 July 2020 (NPR) – The coronavirus pandemic triggered the sharpest economic contraction in modern American history, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — shrank at an annual rate of 32.9% in the second quarter as restaurants and retailers closed their doors in a […]
By Terrence McCoy 16 June 2020 RIO DE JANEIRO (The Washington Post) – Weeks ago, when this seaside metropolis had recorded fewer than 10,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and there still appeared to be time, some of Brazil’s most respected scientists made their last-ditch appeal. The country had reached a pivotal juncture. Cases were […]
By Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shaikh Azizur Rahman 21 May 2020 KOLKATA (The Guardian) – The Indian city of Kolkata has been left devastated by the worst cyclone it has seen in 100 years, which swept through India and Bangladesh on Wednesday and killed at least 84 people. Kolkata, home to almost 15 million people, bore […]
By Andrew Freedman and Joanna Slater 19 May 2020 (The Washington Post) – Category 3 Tropical Cyclone Amphan is barreling northward toward the mouth of the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday and is forecast to make landfall in West Bengal, India, just south of Kolkata, on Wednesday. The storm is prompting officials in the states […]
By Rob Picheta, Vasco Cotovio, and Shasta Darlington 18 May 2020 (CNN) – The health care system in Brazil’s largest city is wavering on the brink of collapse and coronavirus deaths throughout the South American nation are soaring — but President Jair Bolsonaro nonetheless reveled in crowds of supporters on Sunday, joining yet another anti-lockdown […]
By Tom Phillips and Fabiano Maisonnave 30 April 2020 MANAUS (The Guardian) – Day and night, the dead are delivered into the tawny Amazonian earth – the latest victims of a devastating pandemic now reaching deep into the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. On Sunday 140 bodies were laid to rest in Manaus, the jungle-flanked capital of […]
By Sophie Lewis 22 April 2020 (CBS News) – As humans continue to stay indoors under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Earth is slowly healing. Wild animals have taken to roaming the streets, clear waters have returned to the Venice canals and the world is literally shaking less. With billions of people quarantined and businesses closed, travel has all but […]
By Wolfgang Knorr 16 April 2020 (The Conversation) – Humanity has only recently become accustomed to a stable climate. For most of its history, long ice ages punctuated with hot spells alternated with short warm periods. Transitions from cold to warm climates were especially chaotic. Then, about 10,000 years ago, the Earth suddenly entered into a […]
By Heather Houser 16 April 2020 (the Austin Statesman) – Every day it seems we read headlines that connect science denialism to cruel indifference and death. Just recently, when talking about the initial COVID-19 response, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asserted that ”[Trump’s] denial at the beginning was deadly.” In Arizona, some residents called […]
