Mandatory Vaccines in Four Zip Codes in New York
April 10th, 2019Via: CBS:
New York City declared a public health emergency Tuesday over a measles outbreak and ordered mandatory vaccinations in one neighborhood for people who may have been exposed to the virus.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the unusual order amid what he said was a measles “crisis” in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg section, where more than 250 people, mostly members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious community, have gotten measles since September.
The order, which applies to anyone who lives, works or goes to school in four ZIP codes in the neighborhood, comes just as federal health officials announced measles cases have spiked once more nationwide.
…
The New York City declaration requires all unvaccinated people who may have been exposed to the virus to get the vaccine, including children over 6 months old. People who ignore the order could be fined $1,000. The city said it would help everyone covered by the order get the vaccine if they can’t obtain it quickly through their regular medical provider.
“If people will simply cooperate quickly, nobody will have to pay a fine,” de Blasio said.
Walmart Is Rolling Out the Robots
April 10th, 2019Via: Wall Street Journal:
Walmart Inc. is expanding its use of robots in stores to help monitor inventory, clean floors and unload trucks, part of the retail giant’s efforts to control labor costs as it spends more to raise wages and offer new services like online grocery delivery.
Florida: Man Accused of Stealing from Kmart Days After Buying $8 Million Private Island
April 10th, 2019Via: ABC:
A Florida man was arrested on Saturday for shoplifting at a Kmart, just days after he purchased a multi-million-dollar private island off Key West.
Andrew Lippi, 59, was accused of stealing about $300 worth of household goods from a Kmart in Key West, where police said he purchased various items between March 30 and April 4, replaced them with cheaper items and returned them for a refund.
Retail Apocalypse: 75,000 More U.S. Stores Could Be Doomed
April 10th, 2019Via: LMT Online:
Widespread closures have roiled the retail industry, but many more stores are likely to shut down in coming years to keep up with a shift to online shopping, according to a report by investment firm UBS.
An estimated 75,000 stores that sell clothing, electronics and furniture will close by 2026, when online shopping is expected to make up 25% of retail sales, according to UBS. Roughly 16% of overall sales are made online.
Analysts said the closures would affect a broad variety of retailers, affecting an estimated 21,000 apparel stores, 10,000 consumer electronics stores and 8,000 home furnishing stores.
Internet Censorship Could Create “Splinternet”
April 10th, 2019Via: AFP:
Increasingly, moves by governments to filter and restrict content are threatening to fragment the system created with the promise of connecting the world with a largely unified body of content.
Black Hole Picture Captured for First Time
April 10th, 2019Via: Guardian:
Astronomers have captured the first image of a black hole, heralding a revolution in our understanding of the universe’s most enigmatic objects.
The picture shows a halo of dust and gas, tracing the outline of a colossal black hole, at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, 55m light years from Earth.
The black hole itself – a cosmic trapdoor from which neither light nor matter can escape – is unseeable. But the latest observations take astronomers right to its threshold for the first time, illuminating the event horizon beyond which all known physical laws break down.
The breakthrough image was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight radio telescopes spanning locations from Antarctica to Spain and Chile, in an effort involving more than 200 scientists.
California: Wealthy Obtain Medical Exemptions for Children to Avoid Vaccinations
April 9th, 2019Roughly the same people who don’t allow or severely restrict screentime for their children are also not vaccinating them.
Now there’s a problem with, “Unethical physicians,” who are granting these exemptions.
Fascinating.
Look to Australia to see where this winds up: Vaccine Skepticism In Australia Now Punishable by 10 Years in Jail.
Via: California Healthline:
At two public charter schools in the Sonoma wine country town of Sebastopol, more than half the kindergartners received medical exemptions from state-required vaccines last school year. The cities of Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Nevada City, Arcata and Sausalito all had schools in which more than 30% of the kindergartners had been granted such medical exemptions.
Nearly three years ago, with infectious disease rates ticking up, California enacted a fiercely contested law barring parents from citing personal or religious beliefs to avoid vaccinating their children. Children could be exempted only on medical grounds, if the shots were harmful to health.
Yet today, many of the schools that had the highest rates of unvaccinated students before the new measure continue to hold that alarming distinction. That’s because parents have found end runs around the new law requiring vaccinations.
United States Supply Chain Strategy for Electric Vehicles
April 8th, 2019Via: Reuters:
U.S. government officials plan to meet with executives from automakers and lithium miners in early May as part of a first-of-its-kind effort to launch a national electric vehicle supply chain strategy, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
While Volkswagen AG, Tesla Inc and other electric-focused automakers and battery manufacturers are expanding in the United States and investing billions in the new technology, they are reliant on mineral imports without a major push to develop more domestic mines and processing facilities.
China already dominates the electric vehicle supply chain. It produces nearly two-thirds of the world’s lithium-ion batteries – compared to 5 percent for the United States – and controls most of the world’s lithium processing facilities, according to data from Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, which tracks prices for lithium and other commodities and is organizing the Washington, D.C., event.
In Trade Wars of 200 Years Ago, the Pirates Were Americans
April 7th, 2019Intellectual property theft!? *pfft*
Look into some of the early American fortunes and you’ll find a different sort of piracy. See, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich by Kevin Phillips:
Although later generations have taken a glossier view, the Revolution was another grand intermingling of public purpose and private profit—and as in the French wars, privateering seems to have been the single most lucrative enterprise.
In case you don’t know, privateering is state sanctioned piracy.
But back to intellectual property theft for a moment: The USS Jimmy Carter, which is used to tap undersea data cables for NSA and is used (among other purposes) for intellectual property theft on an unimaginable scale, happens to fly a pirate flag—for morale boosting purposes only. *chortle*
While it’s not particularly unusual for military units to use pirate insignia, in the case of the USS Jimmy Carter, it is very appropriate.
Via: AP:
The upstart nation was a den of intellectual piracy. One of its top officials urged his countrymen to steal and copy foreign machinery. Across the ocean, a leading industrial power tried in vain to guard its trade secrets from the brash young rival.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rogue nation was the United States. The official endorsing thievery was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. And the main victim was Britain.
How times have changed.
Now, the United States accuses China of the very sort of illicit practices that helped America leapfrog European rivals two centuries ago and emerge as an industrial giant.
“The message we are sending to China today is, Do as I say, not as I did,’ ” said Peter Andreas, professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. “The fact of the matter is that the U.S. was the world’s hotbed of intellectual property theft.”
Radiation Concerns Halt Brussels 5G Development
April 7th, 2019Via: Brussels Times:
Plans for a pilot project to provide high-speed 5G wireless internet in Brussels have been halted due to fears for the health of citizens, according to reports.
In July, the government concluded an agreement with three telecom operators to relax the strict radiation standards in Brussels. But according to the Region, it is now impossible to estimate the radiation from the antennas required for the service.
“I cannot welcome such technology if the radiation standards, which must protect the citizen, are not respected, 5G or not,” Environment minister Céline Fremault (CDH) told Bruzz. “The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt,” she added.
A pilot project is not feasible with the current radiation standards, and Fremault told Bruzz that she does not intend to make an exception.
