Health – Happiness – Page 237

High levels of cancer-causing chemical found in parts of Houston -report

Reuters

High levels of cancer-causing chemical found in parts of Houston -report

Erwin Seba July 1, 2021

HOUSTON (Reuters) -High levels of a cancer-causing chemical have been detected in air monitors in Houston neighborhoods near the busiest U.S. petrochemical port, according to a report issued on Thursday by Houston health officials and environmental groups.

The report https://bit.ly/3hqafvk by the Houston Health Department and One Breath Partnership said concentrations of formaldehyde were found at levels 13 times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s minimum level for health threats.

It recommended regulations for plants and control of chemicals contributing to formaldehyde formation be tightened. Formaldehyde levels appear to be increasing in Houston as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s air monitoring sampling frequency is decreasing, the report said.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the report is further proof of the impact of pollution on “high-poverty communities of color.” (Reuters photo essay on pollution in Houston) https://reut.rs/3hqazdw

“The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has the responsibility to take immediate action to strengthen existing rules to address the formaldehyde problem plaguing families near the Houston Ship Channel,” Turner said.

Formaldehyde or chemicals that combine to form it are released by refineries, chemical plants and automobiles.

The Houston Health Department between September 2019 and September 2020 tested an area along the Houston Ship Channel that is home to several petrochemical plants and five crude oil refineries.

The highest concentrations of formaldehyde found “would translate to about one additional cancer case per 77,000 people, according to the Houston Health Department’s assessment of EPA’s cancer risk formulas,” the report said.

The report identified plants operated by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Koch Industries’ Flint Hills Resources and NRG Energy as sources for formaldehyde or the chemicals that combine to form it.

“We are committed to operate in a manner that safeguards our environment and protects our people and community,” said Exxon spokeswoman Julie King. “Exxon Mobil has invested billions on environmental performance measures at our U.S. manufacturing sites over the past 20 years.”

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by David Gregorio and Lisa Shumamker)

Track The Brutal 2021 Wildfire Season With These Updating Charts And Maps

BuzzFeed – News

Track The Brutal 2021 Wildfire Season With These Updating Charts And Maps

Peter Aldhous July 1, 2021

“It’s just scary,” Alexandra Syphard, chief scientist with Vertus Wildfire Insurance Services and an ecologist at San Diego State University, told BuzzFeed News. “We’ve seen these severe fire seasons year after year now. Everybody’s nervous.”

The charts and maps below will update to track current wildfires and air quality, compare the 2021 season to previous years, and monitor the weather conditions that make fires more likely to ignite and spread quickly.

Via National Interagency Fire Center

Latest fires

Latest fires, 50 acres burned or more. Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / Via National Interagency Fire Center / Cal Fire

This table displays active fires that have so far burned 50 acres or more, recorded by the National Interagency Fire Center and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. You can search for any of the fires in the table in the map below to zoom in on the fire and see the perimeter for the area burned, if that data is available.

Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / Via National Interagency Fire Center / Cal Fire

Tap or hover over the fire icons to see the name of each fire and the area it has burned so far. The map also shows any large plumes of smoke visible from satellites, recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hazard Mapping System.

Air quality

Smoke plumes visible from orbiting satellites are often at high altitudes, so they may not affect air quality at ground level. But when wildfire smoke accumulates near the ground, it is hazardous for health.

Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / Via AirNow

This map shows the latest “NowCast” Air Quality Index (AQI) readings from permanent monitors in the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow network. The monitors detect levels of tiny, hazardous particles called PM2.5, extrapolated over wider areas where sufficient data is available.

These airborne particles, which measure less than 2.5 micrometers across, are the main health concern from wildfire smoke because they penetrate deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream, and can even affect unborn fetuses, lowering birth weight if pregnant people are exposed to smoke. PM2.5 can also trigger heart attacks, asthma, and other respiratory problems.

PM2.5 starts to affect vulnerable people, including young children and those with respiratory conditions, above an AQI of 100. Anything above 200 is considered “very unhealthy” for everyone, while an AQI of 300 or more is rated “hazardous” for all.

Tap or hover over the circles to see the latest PM2.5 AQI for each monitor. You can also type a city into the search box to zoom in on that area.

Current drought conditions

Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / Via US Drought Monitor

One reason experts are so concerned about the 2021 wildfire season is that the West is in the grip of a historic drought. An unusually dry winter left soils and vegetation parched, and mountain snowpacks, which feed the region’s rivers, were well below normal. This map shows the latest assessment from the US Drought Monitor, which is updated each Thursday.

Fire weather and risks

Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / Via Wildland Fire Assessment System / National Weather Service

Even against the backdrop of widespread drought, the risk of fires igniting and spreading rapidly depends on local weather conditions. This map shows today’s outlook from the US Forest Service’s Wildland Fire Assessment System, which calculates risk categories from weather forecasts and observations.

You can use the control at top right to view areas currently under “red flag” fire warnings issued by the National Weather Service. These are declared when warm weather, low humidity, and strong winds are forecast to produce a high wildfire danger.

How the 2021 fire season compares to recent years

Chart compares the 2021 season to the previous 10 years up until the same date. Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / Via National Interagency Fire Center

This chart compares the number of fires and total area burned so far in 2021 to the same date in each of the previous 10 years, according to data recorded by the National Interagency Fire Center.

But these numbers don’t tell the whole story. How hazardous wildfires are to people depends on when and where those fires happen. For example, large areas of the sparsely populated Mountain West or Plains states can burn without many homes, businesses, or people’s lives or health being threatened.

Last year showed how quickly circumstances can change. The 2020 season was running below the national average for the decade until mid-August, when “dry lightning” storms ignited a series of massive wildfires across Northern California and Oregon. The resulting disaster burned through entire towns in Oregon and created a pall of smoke that blocked the sun, casting large parts of the region in a sickly orange half-light in September and driving air quality into the hazardous range in some cities. By the end of the year, more than 10,000 buildings had been damaged or destroyed in California alone, and the total area burned nationally, at more than 10 million acres, was the second largest on record.

Climate change is making things worse

Total acres burned at the end of each year. Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / Via National Interagency Fire Center

This chart shows the total acreage burned at the end of each year from 1983 — when federal agencies began tracking using the current reporting system — through to 2020. While the area burned varies widely from year to year, the overall trend is increasing.

Fire ecologists and climate scientists attribute this trend in large part to climate change, which is warming and drying California and other states across the West.

While media commentators sometimes describe recent severe fire seasons as the “new normal,” the truth is that ongoing climate change means things are likely to get worse for the foreseeable future. “We have not reached the peak,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told BuzzFeed News last year. “In fact, no one knows where the peak is.”

Why the Northwest’s heat wave didn’t just break records, it obliterated them

Mashable – Climate Change

Why the Northwest’s heat wave didn’t just break records, it obliterated them

“It’s a staggering event.”

By Mark Kaufman June 28, 2021

The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest shattered temperature records.

The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest shattered temperature records. Credit: Rapeepong Puttakumwong / Getty Images

When all-time heat records break, they usually break by a degree or so. Maybe two.The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, however, smashed Portland’s all-time record by a whopping nine degrees Fahrenheit, and in some places the extreme episode broke all-time records by 10 degrees. Canada, meanwhile, set its all-time national record by some 5 F in British Columbia, and may again break this record on Tuesday.”It’s a staggering event,” explained Jeff Weber, a research meteorologist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, an organization that facilitates and performs earth science.

What happened?

Meteorologists and atmospheric scientists already knew the heat would be oppressive and challenge all sorts of records. A potent combination of events came together: A hot weather pattern (called a heat dome) settled over the region, with temperatures also boosted some 2 degrees F (or perhaps much more) by the continuously warming Western climate (it’s significantly hotter than it was 100 years ago). What’s more, nearly 80 percent of the Pacific Northwest is in drought, and drought exacerbates heat.

But that’s not all. Another weather factor came into play and kicked things up a notch. Dry winds, traveling downslope from the east to west, amplified the heat. These type of winds are commonly known to southern Californians as “Santa Ana winds,” but have different names in different places. Generally, the winds travel down from higher elevations (like mountains in eastern Oregon) and the sinking air compresses, creating even more heat in lower areas, like Portland. (This is also called “compressional heating.”)

“It’s the perfect storm.”Those hot winds have amplified what already was an exceptional heat event, explained Weber. Many cooler coastal areas weren’t even spared.

“It’s the perfect storm,” said Weber.

The resulting temperatures are unparalleled in recorded history in the Pacific Northwest. Many people, and buildings, are ill-prepared for this kind of heat. Seattle, for example, is the least air-conditioned metro area in the U.S., according to The Seattle Times.

“It’s hitting an area where people don’t have AC,” noted Weber. “The discomfort level for the population is just overwhelming.” Indeed, illnesses from heat spiked in the Portland region during the extreme weather. Heat illness is serious: Among weather events in the U.S., extreme heat waves kill the most people.

Few heat waves are as anomalous as this Pacific Northwest heat event. As noted above, strong meteorological and climatic events came together at June’s end. But, overall, today’s heat or high temperature records now dominate cold or lower records as the globe warms. For example, twice as many daily heat records are set as cold records.

Extreme events, hot or cold, happen normally. But climate scientists expect heat waves to grow more intense in a warmer world.

“Climate change is making extreme heat waves even more extreme and common,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Mashable last week, before the record-breaking heat set in.

UPDATE: June 29, 2021, 9:46 a.m. EDT: This story was updated to reflect that Portland smashed its previous heat record of 112 F (set on Sunday) by reaching 116 F on Monday. The story also added that Canada smashed its all-time national heat record, and may do so again on Tuesday.

How Scientists Are So Confident They Know What’s Causing This Insane Weather

Daily Beast

How Scientists Are So Confident They Know What’s Causing This Insane Weather

Mike Pearl July 5, 2021

Dale Durran just endured a historic heatwave in Seattle, and perhaps more than most residents, he’s got good reason to be confident climate change had something to do with the regional madness that proved especially extreme next door, in Oregon, where dozens died.

The professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington told The Daily Beast that this past week’s monstrous stretch—which topped out at a blistering 108 degrees on Monday—was “so outside the range of previous hot spells in Seattle that it really stretches the credibility of anyone suggesting it is simply natural variability.”

Durran isn’t someone who blames climate change every time he breaks a sweat. But he does think about this issue: of accurately attributing seemingly insane weather events, like an entire village being on fire in Canada this past week, to a heating planet.

Last year, in his jargon-heavy paper “Can the Issuance of Hazardous-Weather Warnings Inform the Attribution of Extreme Events to Climate Change?” Durran closely examined something called the “probability of detection” and the “false alarm ratio.”

“The point of this article,” he explained, “is that demanding scientific certainty in the face of an event such as our recent record-crushing heatwave in the Pacific Northwest before accepting the need to take action to stem global warming is as ridiculous as demanding 100 percent certainty before issuing a tornado forecast.”

He’s not alone in thinking the doubters have run out of room—that events have overtaken any shred of sane skepticism.

According to legendary Princeton geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer, scientists are no longer guessing when it comes to tying extreme events like this to climate change, because a whole new field now exists that aims to tie a nice neat bow around these very questions.

“There is now a well developed science of ‘event attribution’ which deals with uncertainty,” Oppenheimer told The Daily Beast. (His own research over the years has focused on what the specific hazards of climate change will be, not necessarily event attribution.)

Here’s Oppenheimer’s explanation of how event attribution scientists do their jobs: They use Fractional Attribution of Risk (FAR), which he said is “the fraction of the intensity of an event (like a heatwave) that can be attributed to human-made greenhouse gases.” For example, event attribution scientists calculated the FAR on 2017’s Hurricane Harvey—after the fact—and it had, Oppenheimer explained, about two times what would have been the case without the greenhouse gases at 2017 levels. That gave Harvey a FAR score of 0.5.

Got all that?

It doesn’t really matter right now, because, according to event attribution specialist Emily Williams—currently still a Ph.D. student in geography at UC Santa Barbara—there’s no FAR score for what just happened to the West Coast. “Until a formal attribution study is done on this current heatwave,” Williams, who co-authored her university’s fact sheet on heatwaves and climate change, told The Daily Beast, “we won’t be able to say specifically how much more intense or likely climate change made it.”

However, Williams said, it’s nonetheless a “pretty safe bet to venture out and say that climate change likely at least exacerbated” the situation.

That’s because what scientists call the overall “probability distribution” of heatwaves has now shifted. So even though they haven’t looked backward at this latest event (or series of events) and tied it to climate change, enough science has been done to safely say the reverse—they more or less predicted this heatwave would happen. What those past scientists have already demonstrated, according to Williams, is that we’re now twice as likely to experience record breaking temperatures, that 16 percent of North America is now exposed to extreme heatwaves, and that when heatwaves arrive, “they’re now hotter.”

Matthew Hurteau, biology researcher at the University of New Mexico, studies the interaction between human behavior and the climate system, with an emphasis on fires—like the one that just consumed an entire Canadian town that had just set a national heat record of 121 degrees. Hurteau conducts his research by looking at reality, and a model of an unchanged climate.

“When I look at the climate change fingerprint on fire in my own research, it typically involves running simulations with and without the climate changing,” he told the Daily Beast.

But he doesn’t always need a model to be certain in his own mind that climate change is to blame when he sees a fire. “When the Creek Fire was burning in the Sierra Nevada last fall and I was looking at the energy release data from satellites and how long into the year it was actively burning,” he said, “it was clear that there was a climate change amplification of that fire.”

Still, it’s worth noting that some scientists find this comparison-to-an-unchanged-world methodology unsatisfying. Not because they believe recent extreme events should be regarded as normal, but simply because we live in the aforementioned changed world, and the other one is fake.

Matthew Igel, an atmospheric scientist focused on clouds at the University of California Davis, told The Daily Beast that now that we’ve filled our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, “We will always lack a realization of Earth without climate change regardless of how excellent our models are or become.”

According to Igel’s explanation, you can think of each attribution study almost as a science-fiction story about someplace called “Earth 2,” where anthropogenic climate change didn’t occur—perhaps because humans don’t exist there. And it’s only by creating a model of Earth 2 that we can understand why it’s so hot here on Earth 1, a.k.a. the only Earth that actually exists. “Our statistical knowledge of truly extreme events from some baseline climate will always be poor,” Igel said. “And regardless, just because we have never observed something before, doesn’t mean that it was impossible, only that it didn’t happen.”

By no means did Igel dismiss the usefulness of attribution science—he’s just hesitant to call it conclusive. “These are the questions that keep me up at night,” he explained.

But the attribution scientists can offer about the connection between climate change, and, for instance, your house being burned down in a wildfire, is good enough to be used in court. At least according to Michael Burger, Columbia Law professor, and executive director at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, which cooks up legal techniques to be used in the fight against climate change.

“There is nothing new about courts, or policymakers, making decisions in the face of probability calculations and varying degrees of scientific uncertainty. That’s the nature of the beast,” Burger explained. “As a lawyer, you have to deploy the science to make your case, and fit it to the relevant standard for the particular legal issue you are addressing.”

“Attribution Science has improved the precision of climate data with respect to delineation of atmospheric conditions with and without human caused greenhouse gases,” added Lindene Patton, a lawyer at the legal and advisory company Earth and Water Law Group.

When it comes to expert commentary before a judge, she said, “The state of the art attribution science is good enough—as good as morbidity data or demographic or other data we use.”

So the evidence—as in courtroom evidence—for climate change being the culprit in this heatwave, isn’t in quite yet. But that doesn’t mean the case against the defendant, anthropogenic climate change, isn’t looking extremely strong.

“Climate change caused by high levels of greenhouse gas changes all such events to some degree,” Oppenheimer said, “and I wait to see what the scientists who do these calculations say before deciding specifically how the character of an event was affected by the greenhouse gas buildup. That is precisely what I am waiting for now with regard to the recent heatwave in the Pacific Northwest.”

However, Oppenheimer added, “some events are so off the chart that you can say right off that there was very likely a big greenhouse gas contribution.” Hurricane Harvey, he said, was one of these instances where he didn’t need to wait for the evidence to be pretty sure. “There was no precedent even close to it in the local historical record. I think the same is true for the recent Pacific Northwest event.”

According to Williams, the UC Santa Barbara attribution specialist, events like this are “both a window into the future, and a reminder of why it’s so important that we take action now to transition to a just, low-carbon economy.”

Such a “just, low-carbon economy,” is still a long way off, and those who would stand on the sidelines poking holes in scientific conclusions have helped slow down its creation. According to Durran, we need to stop letting that happen, even if attribution science gets it wrong from time to time.

“Some errors will always occur both when issuing weather warnings and when distinguishing natural variability from human-induced climate change,” he said. “In neither case can we let the possibility of error completely paralyze our response.”

A map shows the 12 states most at risk from COVID-19, all with high levels of Delta and below-average vaccination rates

Business Insider

A map shows the 12 states most at risk from COVID-19, all with high levels of Delta and below-average vaccination rates

Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce July 5, 2021

NJ covid test — COVID-19 testing. Rick Pescovitz

The 12 US states at most risk from COVID-19 include Arkansas, Nevada, and Missouri, according to Covid Act Now.
The organization uses CDC data and is partnered with Stanford, Harvard and Georgetown Universities.
The highest risk states include those with lower vaccination rates and more cases of the highly infectious Delta variant.

The US states most at risk from COVID-19 include those with below-average vaccination rates and high levels of the infectious Delta variant, according to data from an influential non-profit that’s partnered with Stanford, Harvard and Georgetown Universities.

Twelve states including Arkansas, Nevada, and Missouri are now at “high risk” from COVID-19, according to Covid Act Now’s US COVID risk and vaccine tracker, which mostly uses Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. There are just two states at low risk from COVID-19 – Massachusetts and Vermont.

Risk level according to US state by Covid Act Now — Risk level by US state – Covid Act Now covidactnow.org

The 12 states at high risk from COVID-19, according to Covid Act Now, are: Nevada, Utah, Missouri, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina.

Covid Act Now’s risk calculations are based on six factors that include infection rates, the percentage of people vaccinated, capacity at intensive care units, and socio-economic vulnerabilities that may impact recovery. There are five levels of risk: severe risk, very-high risk, high risk, medium risk and low risk.

Professor Eric Topol, director at the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said on Twitter on Friday that states had moved up risk categories as the Delta variant continued to spread, citing Covid Act Now. He said Delta accounted for at least 35% of new cases in these high-risk states.

Thirty-six states are at medium risk, while two – Massachusetts and Vermont – are low risk, according to Covid Act Now’s data. Both of these states have low levels of Delta variant, according to Scripps Research’s Outbreak.info.

More than 80% of people are fully vaccinated in both states, according to data from Johns Hopkins University – well above the nation’s 47% average.

By comparison, the Delta variant accounts for more than 80% of new cases in Arkansas, Nevada, and Missouri, according to Outbreak.info. The number of people fully vaccinated is 34% in Arkansas, 42% in Nevada, and 39% in Missouri.

Actual figures may vary because there can be delays in uploading data, or it may not be available. Insider’s Aria Bendix reported on Friday that the CDC stopped monitoring non-severe COVID-19 cases among vaccinated people in May. The number of tests sequenced also differs. For example, the data from Massachusetts is based on more than 18,000 sequenced tests, and Arkansas’ data comes from just over 960 sequenced tests, according to Outbreak.info.

It’s not clear how the level of risk will translate to new infections.

Topol said it was promising that the number of new daily cases was still low. “But rising,” he added.

Former Fox Exec Calls Network ‘Poison For America’ In Blistering Rebuke

HuffPost – Politics

Former Fox Exec Calls Network ‘Poison For America’ In Blistering Rebuke

By Josephine Harvey July 5, 2021

Rupert Murdoch “owes himself a better legacy than a news channel that no reasonable person would believe,” Preston Padden wrote.

A former top Fox Broadcasting executive has voiced a searing condemnation of Fox News, calling it “poison for America” and saying even the network’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, doesn’t believe its coverage.

“Rupert Murdoch, whom I served for seven years, has many business and journalistic achievements. He owes himself a better legacy than a news channel that no reasonable person would believe,” wrote Preston Padden in an op-ed for The Daily Beast.

Padden served as president of network distribution at the Fox Broadcasting Company in the 1990s and played a role in the launch of Fox News, which was started with a goal to fill “an opening for a responsible and truthful center-right news network,” he said.

But in recent years, he continued, things have gone “badly off the tracks at Fox News.”

He accused the channel, particularly its prime-time opinion programming, of making a substantial and direct contribution to: COVID-19 deaths via vaccine and mask misinformation; societal divisions by stoking racial animus and spreading falsehoods about Black Lives Matter protests; former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 election; and the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol led by his supporters.

“Fox News has caused many millions of Americans — most of them Republicans (as my wife and I were for 50 years) — to believe things that simply are not true,” he wrote.

Preston Padden has been in the media industry for more than two decades. In that time, he's served as an executive at Fox Bro — Preston Padden has been in the media industry for more than two decades. In that time, he’s served as an executive at Fox Broadcasting, ABC, the Walt Disney Company, among other organizations.

He referred to polling that indicates a significant portion of Republicans blame “left-wing protesters” for the Jan. 6 attack. “Of course, that is ludicrous,” he wrote. He also pointed to statistics that suggested two-thirds of Republicans believe or suspect the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

“This ridiculous notion has been thoroughly refuted,” Padden continued. “But millions of Americans believe these falsehoods because they have been drilled into their minds, night after night, by Fox News.”

He said the “greatest irony” lay in his belief that most of the falsehoods on Fox News did not reflect Murdoch’s own views. He added:

I believe that he thought that it was important to protect his own health by wearing a mask during the pandemic and he encouraged me to do the same. I believe that he thought that it was important to protect his own health by getting vaccinated at the earliest opportunity and he encouraged me to do the same. And I believe that he thinks that former President Trump is an egomaniac who lost the election by turning off voters, especially suburban women, with his behavior.

Padden, who currently serves as the principle of a consulting business and as an advisory board member for a private equity investment firm, said he had tried and failed over the past nine months to make Murdoch understand the damage Fox News is doing to America.

“I am at a loss to understand why he will not change course,” he said.

Fox News did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Personalities at the network are known to spout dangerous and misleading claims about the coronavirus pandemic and 2020 election, manufactured and divisive political controversy, white supremacist rhetoric and revisionist history about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, among other false and misleading claims.

Read the full op-ed in The Daily Beast here.

Jimmy, Rosalynn Carter marking 75 years of ‘full partnership’

Politico

Jimmy, Rosalynn Carter marking 75 years of ‘full partnership’

By Associated Press July 4, 2021

ATLANTA — The young midshipman needed a date one evening while he was home from the U.S. Naval Academy, so his younger sister paired him with a family friend who already had a crush. Rosalynn Carter et al. looking at the camera: President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter lead their guests in dancing at the annual Congressional Christmas Ball at the White House on Dec. 13, 1978.

Rosalynn Carter et al. looking at the camera: President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter lead their guests in dancing at the annual Congressional Christmas Ball at the White House on Dec. 13, 1978.

Nearly eight decades later, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are still together in the same tiny town where they were born, grew up and had that first outing. In between, they’ve traveled the world as Naval officer and military spouse, American president and first lady, and finally as human rights and public health ambassadors.

“It’s a full partnership,” the 39th president told The Associated Press during a joint interview ahead of the couple’s 75th wedding anniversary on July 7.

It will be another milestone for the longest-married presidential couple in American history. At 96, Carter also is the longest-lived of the 45 men who’ve served as chief executive. Yet even having reached that pinnacle, Carter has said often since leaving the Oval Office in 1981 that the most important decision he ever made wasn’t as head of state, commander in chief or even executive officer of a nuclear submarine in the early years of the Cold War.

Rather, it was falling for Eleanor Rosalynn Smith in 1945 and marrying her the following summer. “My biggest secret is to marry the right person if you want to have a long-lasting marriage,” Carter said.

The nonagenarians — she’s now 93 — offered a few other tips for an enduring bond.

“Every day there needs to be reconciliation and communication between the two spouses,” the former president said, explaining that he and Rosalynn, both devout Christians, read the Bible together aloud each night — something they’ve done for years, even when separated by their travels. “We don’t go to sleep with some remaining differences between us,” he said.

Rosalynn Carter noted the importance of finding common interests. Even now, she said, “Jimmy and I are always looking for things to do together.” Still, she emphasized a caveat: “Each (person) should have some space. That’s really important.”

As first lady, Rosalynn Carter carved her own identity even as she supported her husband. Building on her predecessors’ efforts to highlight special causes, she went to work in her own East Wing office, setting a standard for first ladies by working alongside her husband’s West Wing aides on key legislation, especially dealing with health care and mental health. She continued that focus as the couple built the Carter Center in Atlanta after their White House years.

Certainly, a 75-year marriage hasn’t been seamless, the couple acknowledges.

Jimmy was initially on course to be an admiral, not commander in chief, and Rosalynn appreciated their life beyond Plains, home to fewer than a thousand people, then and now. But when James Earl Carter Sr. became sick and died in 1953, his son cut short his Navy

career and decided the family would return to rural Georgia.

The former president has written that in retrospect he finds it inconceivable not to discuss such a life-changing decision with his wife, who was unhappy with the move. Now, they see the blossoming of their partnership in that challenging juncture.

“We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP. “I knew more on paper about the business than he did. He would take my advice about things,” she added, drawing a laugh and affirmation from her husband.

Jimmy Carter also didn’t seek Rosalynn’s permission to make his first bid for office a few years later. In that instance, she was on board anyway.

“My wife is much more political,” he said.

She interjected: “I love it. I love campaigning. I had the best time. I was in all the states in the United States. I campaigned solid every day the last time we ran.”

That didn’t help avoid a rout by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. But it further cemented Rosalynn — who’d originally given up her own opportunity to go to college when she married at age 18 — as equal partner to the leader of the free world. And it marked Jimmy Carter’s evolution as a spouse.

He’s since been an outspoken voice for women’s rights, including within Christianity. Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006, denouncing what he called “rigid” views that “subjugated” women in the church and in their own marriages.

The former president ratified those views again, as well as his support for the church recognizing same-sex marriage. “It will continue to be divisive,” he said. “But the church is evolving.”

The Carters plan to celebrate their own marriage milestone a few days after their anniversary with a party in Plains. Decades removed from inaugural balls and state dinners, the most famous residents of Sumter County said they have mixed feelings about the spotlight.

“We have too many people invited,” Rosalynn Carter said with a laugh. “I’m actually praying for some turndowns and regrets.”

Girl’s prayer at collapse site leads to meeting with Biden

News 4 Jax

Girl’s prayer at collapse site leads to meeting with Biden

Adriana Gomez Licon, Associated Press July 2, 2021

SURFSIDE, Fla. – Gazing at the mountain of rubble that had buried her father, uncle and dozens of others, a 12-year-old girl moved away from her relatives, sat down by herself and pulled out her phone. She opened a collection of Psalms and began to pray.

Elisheva Cohen’s moment of reflection at the site of the Florida condominium collapse captivated the Surfside mayor and led to an introduction to President Joe Biden, who asked to meet her Thursday when he arrived to console families affected by the disaster.

For days, families were kept away from the collapse site, which had been deemed unsafe. Then earlier this week, relatives were taken there briefly. Some shouted the names of loved ones and friends, hoping to hear their cries for help. Others cried.

Elisheva sat down alone, away from her mother and brother, and began to read prayers.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett soon noticed her. He knelt down beside her to ask if she was OK.

“Yes” the girl told him.

“And that really brought it home to me,” Burkett said. “She wasn’t crying. She was just lost. She didn’t know what to do, what to say, who to talk to.”

Only six months ago, Elisheva celebrated her bat mitzvah with her mother and father, Dr. Brad Cohen, one of about 120 people missing under the rubble. The year that precedes the religious ceremony involves intensive study of Hebrew, the Bible and history.

That night, Dr. Cohen was proud. His youngest daughter was growing up and reaffirming her Jewish identity. Her father instilled a love for the teaching in both Elisheva and her teenage brother.

Before Dr. Cohen completed his medical residency and internships, he had spent weekends staying at the home of his mentor Rabbi Yakov Saachs, always desperate to learn more about his faith.

On his long commutes, he played cassette tapes, hungry to learn the teachings.

“Even though he was dog tired, it was a priority for him to try and glean as much information as he could,” Saachs told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

At Brad Cohen’s urging, the entire family became “more observant,” the rabbi said, following customs about not driving or doing business on the Sabbath.

The night before the collapse, her mother sent a message to Cohen with a selfie taken by Elisheva in front of a mirror. She wore a pink T-shirt with a high ponytail. They were staying in separate homes.

“Look how pretty,” the message read.

She was wearing the same outfit the next morning, when her mother “frantically woke her up” to tell her about the collapse.

For several days, Burkett shared Elisheva’s story far and wide. After Biden’s visit was announced, the girl’s mother, Soriya Cohen, bought her a new blue and white dress for the occasion. Her teenage brother was the first one in the family chosen to meet Biden. He had rushed home from a kibbutz in Israel as soon as he heard about the collapse.

But the teen had already arranged to have a class with a rabbi in Miami during the president’s visit.

“He said, ‘I already made a commitment,’” Saachs said. “So he said no.”

The mother also skipped the meeting with Biden, saying she felt the president’s visit was a diversion from the search efforts. Elisheva went with another family member.

The mayor said the most moving moment of Biden’s visit was when he shared Elisheva’s story with the president.

“I wanted him to know and see the face of that little girl who is praying for her father across from the rubble,” he said. “He looked at me and said, ‘Would you please bring her to me right now?’”

Police went to get Elisheva. Biden walked up to her and they hugged.

Associated Press Writer Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, also contributed to this report.

The Mega Heat Dome Over The Pacific Northwest Has Brought Death, Fire, And Misery

BuzzFeed News

The Mega Heat Dome Over The Pacific Northwest Has Brought Death, Fire, And Misery

Nicole Fallert July 2, 2021

Across the Pacific Northwest and into Canada, a record-breaking heat wave has pushed death tolls into staggering territory. In British Columbia alone, at least 500 heat-related deaths have been recorded since last Friday. In Oregon, 95 deaths have been attributed to scorching temperatures, as well as about 20 in Washington.

The past week has brought unprecedented temperatures to a region of North America ill-equipped to handle extreme heat as authorities struggle to respond to thousands of emergency calls, hundreds of deaths, and explosive wildfires. The unprecedented event is also a sign of more danger to come as climate change leads to more extreme weather across the country.

Many of the people killed or at risk of heat-related illness were children, older people, or those who live alone in a region where many people do not have air conditioning.

“For some folks, especially those who are elderly and those who are otherwise ill, they may not have the same [bodily] mechanisms built in. And if you don’t have access to clean water, if you don’t have access to a place to get cool, you could get overheated very quickly,” said Vasisht Srinivasan, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Washington. “It’s a very serious problem. When you have folks who are poor or don’t have access to stable housing, who don’t have access to housing with temperature control … the problem really starts to compound itself.”

David Jones, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, said one difficulty in treating heat-related illness is recognizing the symptoms, which can range from grumpiness to feeling lightheaded and cramping.

“It may not even be the heat that is the problem, but it is kind of exacerbating their own underlying condition,” Jones said. “And because of the heat, it kind of puts an extra stress on their body … which makes it dangerous for them.”

Srinivasan said that pandemic-era restrictions made people afraid to leave their homes for crowded cooling centers, and the heat wave forced hospitals to dip into reserves of cooling blankets and fans.

“Now on top of [COVID], you add a temporary, but very real, additional health crisis and hospitals are finding themselves sort of at the brink,” Srinivasan said. “This weekend, when dozens of patients arrived simultaneously with the same problems, resources tend to get strapped very quickly.”

The heat wave began last Friday when high pressure in the atmosphere forced warm air toward the ground. The compressed, warm air has been trapped under that high pressure in what meteorologists call a heat dome, which is rare for the Pacific Northwest region.

“The North West Territories have recorded their all-time highest temperatures not just in June, but at any point in the year,” Armel Castellan, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said

in a statement, adding that fewer than than 40% of homes on the coast have air conditioning. “We are setting records that have no business in being set so early in the season.”

Vancouver police spokesperson Tania Visintin confirmed 53 sudden deaths, in which the cause of death is not known and a coroner is called in to run an investigation, were reported on Tuesday alone, bringing the total since last Friday to 98. Two-thirds of the victims were 70 or older and the vast majority of deaths have occurred in homes.

“At times, there were officers going from one sudden death to another for their entire 12-hour shift,” Visintin said, adding that the department was forced to stop answering any nonurgent calls and deploy extra officers. “It is typical for three to four sudden death calls to come in each day in the city. But to have 53 in one day is unprecedented … it is truly gut-wrenching.”

The spokesperson added that “heat is looking like the obvious factor for most of the deaths,” although the British Columbia Coroners Service is still investigating. As of Thursday afternoon, the spokesperson said names and descriptions of the victims could not be provided.

“We’ve never seen anything like this, and it breaks our hearts,” Vancouver Police Sgt. Steve Addison said in a statement. “If you have an elderly or vulnerable family member, please give them a call or stop by to check on them.”

Scientists and health experts have attributed the record-setting temperatures to the climate crisis — and warn that it’s only going to get worse going forward.

“We cannot just turn up the AC; we have to turn up our level of efforts fighting the underlying cause of our changing world — climate change,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wrote Tuesday in a Seattle Times op-ed. “Our recent discomfort is but the tip of the melting iceberg. What we felt this week is just the opening act in a looming global disaster.

The Oregon state medical examiner reported 95 heat-related deaths as of Friday. Temperature records were set across the state, with Portland reaching an all-time high of 116 degrees on Monday, the Oregonian reported.

“I’ve lived in Portland for the past 10 years, and when I got here, Portland was a very temperate city,” Jones said. “And over the course of that time, I think, in the wintertime, we’re seeing more snow, and in the summertime, we’re seeing more prolonged heat spells.”

He added that the city will have to adapt to address public health threats as heat waves become a more permanent presence.

“That’s going to mean more cooling stations throughout the city, that’s going to mean easier access to water, that’s going to mean shade and shelter, either provision or opportunities for people,” Jones said. “It’s one thing to talk about a hot day, it’s a whole other thing to talk about a hot two weeks.”

The casualties reveal the dangers of extreme weather to laborers too. Sebastian Francisco Perez, a 38-year-old farmworker from Guatemala, died in Oregon after being found unresponsive in a field as temperatures reached 104 degrees. A spokesperson for the Oregon Health and Safety Administration said the agency is investigating Brother Farm Labor Contractor and Ernst Nursery and Farms regarding his death last week

The farm declined BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

Rebecca Muessle, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Portland, told BuzzFeed News the region has gone more than 40 years “without hitting a record like this,” adding that the rarity of the event makes it difficult to conclude that the heat wave is in fact indicative of future weather patterns.

Muessle said this particular heat wave had all of the right “ingredients” to be particularly brutal: the high pressure system, easterly winds bringing additional warmer air into the area, and the “incredibly deep layer of hot air” that manifested the heat dome system. Also missing were westerly winds that are typically responsible for bringing in cooler air from the Pacific Ocean.

“We just had no reprieve,” Muessle said. “So it was just almost like a blow-dryer of hot easterly winds that just kept the temperatures rising and rising.”

In Washington, Seattle set an all-time record on Monday when temperatures reached 107 degrees. A spokesperson for the Washington Department of Health told BuzzFeed News that since June 25, there have been 1,792 emergency department visits reported by hospitals for suspected heat-related illness across the state. Nearly 400 of those led to an inpatient admission and nearly 40% of patients seen for suspected heat-related illness were 65 years and older.

Seattle Fire Department spokesperson Kristin Tinsley told BuzzFeed News there have been “many sleepless nights for our on-duty crews who work 24-hour shifts.”

“We first set the record on June 27 for the busiest day of Seattle Fire medical and fire responses, 386 responses, and then a day later on June 28, we broke the record again with 544 responses,” they added.

Kevin Mundt with the Seattle Human Services Department told BuzzFeed News that of the 118 combined heat-related medical responses between June 26 and June 28, 11% were for unhoused people. The median age for heat-related medical responses was 67 years old, and most involved older people overheating in indoor living quarters, he added.

“Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to gain access to [cool places],” Srinivasan said. “Lots of people in Seattle decided to pick a mini staycation and go get a hotel room for the weekend. Now, that’s great for the people who are able to do that, to have the resources to be able to do that, but unfortunately not everyone is able to do that.”

Raging wildfires spurred by the record-setting temperatures and drought paint an even grimmer picture in the Northwest down into California. On Thursday, more than 1,200 firefighters attacked the Lava fire near Mount Shasta, which had grown to nearly 24,000 acres.

Lytton, British Columbia, was almost entirely razed by a fast-moving wildfire Wednesday, forcing most of the town’s 1,000 residents to flee in record heat that hit 121 degrees.

And in Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency in response to the 10,000-acre Wrentham Market fire, the Statesman Journal reported. Another blaze, the Sunset Valley Fire, broke out Thursday near the Dalles, burning brush and wheat and causing evacuations and road closures.

Brown said in a statement on Wednesday that a large portion of the state was in extreme fire danger, and she readied every possible resource to combat the blazes.

“There’s a very real chance that we’re going to get more of these in the future,” Srinivasan said of the climate crisis. “And these aren’t going to be surprise isolated heat waves: ‘Oh my god, once in a century.’ I think this is going to be ‘Cool, it’s that time of year again,’ where this happens every year now.”

Red Tide, stench of dead fish threatens St. Petersburg’s Fourth of July

Tribune Publishing

Red Tide, stench of dead fish threatens St. Petersburg’s Fourth of July

Jake Sheridan, Tampa Bay Times July 1, 2021

ST. PETERSBURG — Nick Finch’s son Wallace turns 4 next week. The father planned to celebrate during the Fourth of July weekend by grilling Sunday and taking his son’s friends to Lassing Park to swim out to the sandbar.

That was before thousands of dead fish showed up this week.

Finch, 27, did his best to withstand the odor on Thursday as he kicked a soccer ball with his son in the park.

“I’m not sure how long we’ll be outside with that smell,” Finch said.

That will be a question asked by many this Fourth of July Weekend as the stench of rotting fish fills the downtown waterfront.

The Red Tide blooms that have afflicted the region for weeks, producing fish kills and respiratory warnings, is now sending waves of dead fish piling up from North Shore Park south to the St. Pete Pier to Demens Landing and Lassing Parks.

Crews scooped dead fish from the shore on Wednesday, said Finch, who lives in Old Southeast, but they keep washing up.

Ben Kirby, the spokesperson for Mayor Rick Kriseman, said crews are busy cleaning up the waterfront to prepare for Fourth of July festivities and for the potential arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa. Florida is now within the storm’s cone of uncertainty and it is expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday.

The toxic algal blooms are a frequent menace along Florida’s west coast and it’s not unprecedented for outbreaks to occur within the bay. But Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission research scientist Kate Hubbard said this Red Tide outbreak stands out.

“It’s unusual to have the levels we’re seeing, and to have them this time of year,” Hubbard said. Her department is ramping up water testing and investigating fish kills to respond to the severe blooms.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Red Tide map shows a medium concentration of Karenia brevis, which causes the blooms, was found off the tip of Bayboro Harbor and low concentrations off the St. Pete Pier and Big Bayou directly off the St. Petersburg coast.

Winds pushed Red Tide into the bay, and the heavy rains that followed the recent drought may have helped the blooms grow by washing nutrients into the water, Hubbard said. Scientists are also investigating whether there’s a link to the 215 million gallons of polluted wastewater dumped into Tampa Bay in April from the old Piney Point fertilizer plant in Manatee County.

“Looking ahead 3½ days, it looks like there will still be Red Tide in the bay,” she said. She added that the Pinellas beaches along the Gulf have seen a recent drop in blooms. County officials say the Fort De Soto Park beaches still have medium and high concentrations, however.

At the far end of Demens Landing Park, rocks trapped in the dead sea creatures. John Lambo hadn’t seen them yet, but despite the smoke of his cigar, he could still smell them.

“It would probably keep me from coming here if I thought it was going to be like this every day,” said Lambo, who’s visiting from Houston.

Floating fish carcasses bobbed around the boats docked at the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina and under the long concrete walkway of the St. Pete Pier. After an hour and no bites, Pablo Barbosa gave up on fishing off the pier.

“As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what was going on,” said Barbosa. He visited St. Petersburg from Georgia in 2018, in the middle of the historic Red Tide outbreak of 2017-18, which devastated the tourism industry.

Back at Lassing Park, the smell pushed Noel Jambor and his Jack Russell terrier, Loki, back to the car. He usually sees people kiteboarding in the water, but not today.

“No one’s going to come here right now,” Jambor said. “It stinks.”

Red Tide resources

Florida Poison Control Centers have a toll-free 24/7 hotline to report illnesses, including from exposure to Red Tide: 1-800-222-1222

There are several online resources that can help residents stay informed and share information about Red Tide:

Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the county’s tourism wing, runs an online beach dashboard at www.beachesupdate.com.

The agency asks business owners to email reports of Red Tide issues to pr@visitspc.com.

Pinellas County shares information with the Red Tide Respiratory Forecast tool that allows beachgoers to check for warnings.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has a website that tracks where Red Tide is detected and how strong the concentrations.

How to stay safe near the water

Beachgoers should avoid swimming around dead fish.
Those with chronic respiratory problems should be particularly careful and “consider staying away” from places with a Red Tide bloom.
People should not harvest or eat mollusks or distressed and dead fish from the area. Fillets of healthy fish should be rinsed with clean water, and the guts thrown out.
Pet owners should keep their animals away from the water and from dead fish.
Residents living near the beach should close their windows and run air conditioners with proper filters.
Visitors to the beach can wear paper masks, especially if the wind is blowing in.

Source: Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County