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In the days following the Supreme Court’s ruling that turned over Roe versus wade, many companies declared that they would absorb the costs of their employees who needed to travel to a different state in order to have an abortion. Now, it seems that that’s not such an easy thing to do. Per the Associated Press, “After the U.S. Supreme Court revoked the federal right to an abortion that’s been in place for half a century, companies like Amazon, Disney, Apple and JP Morgan pledged to cover travel costs for employees who live in states where the procedure is now illegal so they can terminate pregnancies. But the companies gave scant or no details on how they will do this and it’s not clear if they will be able to — legally — while protecting employees’ privacy and keeping them safe from prosecution. ‘Most employers were not prepared for Roe to be overturned, and even those that were didn’t realize the law would literally be changed the next minute,’ said Brian Kropp, a vice president at the consulting firm Gartner. ‘They’re trying to play catch-up.'” http://bit.ly/3OYJUU4
The search for survivors continues after the massive Avalanche in the Italian Alps this past weekend. According to Reuters, “Helicopter crews and drones flew over the Italian Alps on Monday searching for 13 people missing after part of a mountain glacier collapsed, killing at least seven people in a disaster experts linked to rising temperatures. Much of Italy has been baking in an early-summer heatwave and scientists said climate change was making previously stable glaciers more difficult to predict. read more.” Warming weather has made natural disasters such as this one more frequent. Sunday’s avalanche took place on the Marmolada, which at more than 3,300 metres is the highest peak in the Dolomites, a range in the eastern Italian Alps straddling the regions of Trento and Veneto. http://reut.rs/3NO8k1I
Heavy rains and flooding have hit Sydney harder this year then usual. The city is currently experiencing flooding which seems to have caught people flat-footed. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, “An agency spokesperson said Shanes Park was issued with three evacuation warnings on Sunday and volunteers knocked on doors advising people to evacuate. When an evacuation order was issued on Tuesday morning, residents were informed via text, social and mainstream media, the spokesperson said… The SES has issued more than 100 evacuation orders and 55 evacuation warnings across the state over the past few days, as many locations received more than double their monthly average rainfall. This includes Cessnock, which has received 137mm of rain to date – much higher than its 29mm July monthly average; Camden, which has seen 232mm in the past five days, 197mm more than its monthly average; and Kiama which has received 318mm more rain than its monthly average.” There have been complaints that claim authorities were either slow to inform citizens or did not inform them at all about the pending emergency. http://bit.ly/3RfEExE
Contrary to what’s going on in australia, China is bracing for a severe heat wave that is set to hit the northern regions of the country. According to Reuters,“Heatwaves are predicted to sweep through northern China in the next two weeks, with more than 250 million people expected to grapple with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some regions. For four to six days, the regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, and the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Gansu and Shaanxi, will see temperatures of more than 40°C, said Fang Xiang, deputy head of the National Meteorological Center (NMC).” http://reut.rs/3P4ukXf
If you’ve ever wondered where lice came from, have no fear. A recent study has answered your prayers. According to Nature, “There was a time, at least 90 million years ago, when mammals might have been blissfully free of lice. But it wasn’t to last. An ancient mammalian ancestor of today’s elephants and elephant shrews picked up the tiny skin parasites from a bird and kickstarted a remarkable — and perhaps uncomfortably intimate — association between mammals and lice that continues today. That’s the conclusion drawn by biologist Kevin Johnson at the University of Illinois in Champaign and his co-authors, following a genomic investigation of the mammalian ‘tree of lice’. The research suggests that many of the lice parasitizing today’s mammals can trace their roots to a single louse ancestor on a single mammal that lived before the extinction of the non-bird dinosaurs.” So there you have it. the glorious origins of lice. http://go.nature.com/3nFwq44
Thanks for reading. Let’s be careful out there.