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☆ Health experts call for a ban on toxic 'forever chemicals' after EPA moves to cut them from tap water
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Jessica Orwig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Toxic PFAS, aka "forever chemicals," are in water, food, furniture, and clothes across the US. The EPA's new proposal to limit the substances in drinking water is a step in the right direction. On Tuesday the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed strict limits on six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water. The chemicals are prolific in everyday human environments — in our water, food, air, and even the dust in our homes. That means more and more of them are getting into the environment — and drinking water — every day.

☆ Hazardous 'forever chemicals' in water, food, and air won't disappear with new EPA rules. But 6 simple tactics can reduce your exposure at home.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Hazardous "forever chemicals" called PFAS are contaminating drinking water, food, and air. It may be impossible to completely avoid PFAS, but there are a few simple ways to reduce your exposure. A 2019 study found that people had lower PFAS levels in their blood after eating at home, and higher levels after eating fast food or at restaurants. A few types of water filters can diminish PFAS levels, though they may not completely remove the chemicals from the water. It was previously updated to reflect disagreements in the scientific community about the degree of PFAS exposure from Teflon.

☆ EPA cracks down on 'forever chemicals' in tap water: What PFAS are, where they are, and why they're harmful
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Jessica Orwig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The US Environmental Protection Agency just released a proposal for enforceable standards for six PFAS compounds in drinking water. The new EPA proposal would set the threshold for those two substances at 4 nanograms per liter of drinking water. It also proposes a "hazard index" to set a limit on the combined quantity of four other PFAS in drinking water: PFNA, GenX, PFBS, and PFHxS. Communities across the US have especially high PFAS contamination in their drinking water, often due to a nearby industrial or military facility. "You can't just regulate in drinking water, without addressing the other side," Sunderland said, adding that you have to "turn off the source."

☆ As US planes bombed Japan in World War II, the Japanese sent balloons across the ocean to try to set the US on fire
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Benjamin Brimelow | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

During World War II, Japan used balloons to strike the US as US troops advanced across the Pacific. They were the first and only victims of a Japanese Fu-Go balloon bomb, and the only Americans killed by enemy action in the continental US during the war. A complex weapon with a simple missionAn exploding fuse releases a sandbag from a "chandelier" on a Japanese Fu-Go balloon bomb. A strange legacyA Japanese Fu-Go balloon inflated for testing at a California base after it was recovered in Alturas, California, on January 10, 1945. Since it traveled over 5,000 miles, the Fu-Go balloon is the first weapon system ever to have intercontinental range.

The most chilling moment in Gerard Johnstone’s new horror film, “M3GAN,” comes early. Its wildly popular — and immediately viral — trailer seems to give away the entire story, beat by beat, but what it can’t convey is the picture’s delightfully oddball tone, which is poised at a peculiar juncture of slasher horror and self-aware satire. Gemma, dressed in flannels, so you know she’s an antisocial nerd, has developed M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative ANdroid. As a character, M3GAN is a marvel of design, combining body actor (Amie Donald), voice (Jenna Davis), animatronics, makeup and special effects. (“Humanity kills every day, just to make its existence more bearable,” M3GAN cackles, presumably after doing some online reading about Apple and Foxconn’s Longhua facility.)

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

☆ Macau to allow home isolation for COVID infections
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Health officials said that infected patients would be able to stay at home and self-monitor for five days. Macau, a Chinese special administrative region, has directly followed the mainland's coronavirus strategy since 2020, given its huge reliance on Chinese visitors to fuel its gambling-dependent economy. The former Portuguese colony, home to more than 600,000 people, has recorded just over 900 COVID cases since 2020 and six deaths. Macau Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao said last week that up to 80% of the city's population would likely get COVID following a significant easing of pandemic isolation and testing rules. Officials have urged residents not to worry about contracting the virus since most cases involve mild or no symptoms.

☆ ‘Listen, World!’ Review: Hear Her Roar
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Charlotte Gray | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Elsie Robinson was born in 1883 into a down-at-heel family in a blue-collar California town. Restless and rebellious, the tall, square-jawed teenager dreamt of going to college but seemed doomed to the life of a repressed Victorian housewife, miserable in her marriage and thwarted in her hopes. Yet she would become, in the words of Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert, “one of the most prominent and powerful writers in America,” the highest-paid woman columnist in the mighty Hearst empire. In their lively biography “Listen, World! She urged women to dream big: “I’m tired of hearing the differences of men and women emphasized and exploited.”

☆ Regizorul american Robert Downey Sr., tatăl actorului cu acelaşi nume, a murit la 85 de ani
▼ + stars: | 2021-07-08 | by ( Publika.Md - Aici Sunt Știrile | ) www.publika.md time to read: +2 min

Regizorul american Robert Downey Sr. a murit în cursul dimineţii de miercuri la New York, la vârsta de 85 de ani, a informat fiul său actor şi unul dintre starurile de la Hollywood, Robert Downey Jr., relatează EFE.Deşi nu s-a bucurat de celebritatea fiului său, Downey Sr. s-a evidenţiat drept un regizor al contraculturii în anii 1960 şi 1970 graţie unor filme ce satirizau idealul vieţii americane, precum "Putney Swope" (1969) şi "Greaser's Palace" (1972). "Noaptea trecută, tata a murit liniştit în somn, după ani de luptă cu maladia Parkinson. A fost un adevărat cineast şi a rămas remarcabil de optimist... A fost un adevărat cineast nonconformist", a scris Robert Downey Jr . În acest film şi-a făcut debutul ca actor fiul său, Robert Downey Jr. la vârsta de 5 ani, şi cunoscut pentru rolurile sale din seria "Sherlock Holmes" (2009) şi "Iron Man" saga universului Marvel. În 1998, s-a căsătorit cu scriitoarea Rosemary Rogers.El a avut doi copii cu Laura Ford, pe actorul Robert Downey Jr. şi pe Allyson Downey.

Persons: Robert Downey Sr, Robert Downey Jr, Downey Sr, Parkinson, Sherlock Holmes, Hristos, Hugo, Elsie Ann Ford, Laura Ernst ., Laurei Ernst ., Rosemary Rogers.El, Laura Ford Organizations: Congresului SUA, Time, Allyson Locations: New York, Hollywood, Downey, SUA.A, America, Allyson Downey

☆ Dead of AIDS and Forgotten in Potter’s Field
▼ + stars: | 2018-07-03 | by ( Corey Kilgannon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Trying to pin down the precise number of those with AIDS buried on Hart Island is difficult. A longstanding stigma about the island and criticism that the burial practices are crude and outdated have made city officials reluctant to provide many details. But piecing together an estimate is possible by surveying the many hospitals that treated AIDS patients during the epidemic and sent bodies to potter’s field. By that accounting, the number of AIDS burials on Hart Island could reach into the thousands, making it perhaps the single largest burial ground in the country for people with AIDS. One of them, Elsie Soto, 35, of the Bronx, learned recently that her father, Norbert Soto, who died in 1993 from AIDS, is buried on the island.

Persons: Elsie Soto, Norbert Soto Organizations: AIDS Locations: New York, Hart, AIDS

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