Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

What did Norfolk Southern do with all the money it saved from cutting its workforce, running longer trains, refusing sick leave, and scrimping on safety?

Over the past two decades, it has boosted shareholder payouts by 4,500 percent.

Corporate greed, folks.

Mapping California’s ‘Zombie’ Forests

In these “zombie forests,” older, well-established trees — including ponderosa pines, Douglas firs and sugar pines — still tower overhead, but few young trees have been able to take root because the climate has become too warm and dry for them to thrive

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/06/climate/california-zombie-forests.html

#ClimateEmergency #pollution #ecology #environment #ClimateCrisis #ClimateCatastrophe
#ClimateChange #Climate #California #USA #US

‘Slavery was wrong’ and 5 other things educators won’t teach in the US anymore https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/06/slavery-was-wrong-5-other-things-educators-wont-teach-anymore/ ht @drreznicek

""What [the controversy is] talking about is who gets to be American and which of us deserves to be included in the American narrative --- and Black people deserve to be in the American narrative."

https://getpocket.com/collections/heres-how-kids-and-adults-can-learn-black-studies-outside-of-school

Walgreens will never get another dollar of my money. Its refusal to sell a vital, legal product is disgusting. If CVS goes along with this, the pharmacy cartel will be lending its considerable weight to a policy that the vast majority of Americans reject -- a policy mandated by a minority party of extremists. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/implications-walgreens-decision-abortion-pills-97617141

By refusing to sell #mifepristone by mail even in states where it's legal, #Walgreens, the 2nd-largest pharmacy chain in US, is offering an object lesson for companies in bending down and licking the boots of America's aspiring fascists.

#Walgreens is dangerous to your health. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/walgreens-abortion-pill-access

A new study about seabirds and offshore wind turbines may surprise you.

A two-year, €3 million study of seabirds at an offshore wind farm off Scotland combined radar data with cameras to identify the species of seabird and create a three-dimensional image of birds’ flight patterns and how they avoid offshore wind turbines’ rotor blades.

The study’s findings: Not a single collision between a bird and a rotor blade was recorded.

https://electrek.co/2023/03/02/seabirds-and-offshore-wind-turbines-vattenfall/

NIH study, based on WHO data, found that American exceptionalism is real.

We have 7.5X the homicide rate of other rich countries.

Largely the result of a gun murder rate that's 25X higher.

Gun death rate, incl suicide & accidents, is 11X higher.

In the data set, the US had 84% of all gun deaths.

And 92% of women and 97% of children under 5yo killed by guns.

A result of an individual right to bear arms invented by GOP judges this century.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30817955/

#guns #gopcrimewave

Total student loan debt erased by Biden plan: $400 billion

Total cost of the 2017 GOP tax cuts: $1.9 trillion

Funny how Republicans have no problem giving corporations and billionaires big tax cuts, but erasing some student loan debt for millions of people is just too much.

Think about all the things that we have room for in our cities when we haven’t surrendered most of the space between buildings to cars.

Mobility in cities is about space.

Haarlemmerplein in #Amsterdam, gorgeous photo by @schlijper.

#cities #Dutch #Netherlands #Holland #streets #cars #bikes #urbanism #mobility #city #bike

"Several of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies are fighting shareholder proposals to force them to disclose information on their use of a controversial patent strategy that can delay rivals from launching cheaper versions of blockbuster drugs.

A coalition of ethical investors have asked Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Gilead, Amgen, Regeneron, Bristol Myers Squibb and AbbVie to publish a report on the process they follow when applying for multiple patents on a single drug."

https://www.ft.com/content/c5498e67-a48f-4adc-b85f-7bf1a0d400f6

“The reason most public transportation is seen as ‘losing’ money is precisely because it charges for trips. If you don't charge fares, suddenly it can't ‘lose’ money. It just costs money, the same as the roads.”

This random comment has given me my new favourite argument for removing fares from public transit.

The report found that between 1999 and 2020, at least 2,570 people were sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses in the United States. Of those, 1,715 were sentenced in Florida alone. This means that nearly two-thirds of all such sentences nationwide were handed down in Florida. The report also found that more than half of those sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides in Florida were juveniles at the time of their offense.

Mike Pence literally said on Fox News last Thursday that he wants to "replace" Social Security with a "better deal." If you think the GOP's war on Social Security is over, you are kidding yourself. The GOP will never stop! My new CNN https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/20/opinions/mike-pence-social-security-obeidallah/index.html