DocMcStuffin

Public sentiment on the importance of safe, lifesaving childhood vaccines has significantly declined in the US since the pandemic—which appears to be solely due to a nosedive in support from people who are Republican or those who lean Republican, according to new polling data from Gallup.

In 2019, 52 percent of Republican-aligned Americans said it was "extremely important" for parents to get their children vaccinated. Now, that figure is 26 percent, falling by half in just five years. In comparison, 63 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners said it was "extremely important" this year, down slightly from 67 percent in 2019.

Last week, the World Health Organization called attention to an mpox outbreak in South Africa. Officials there confirmed 20 cases between May 8 and July 2, with 18 hospitalizations and three deaths.

Another concern is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an outbreak that began last year has been accelerating — and where the variant is dramatically deadlier than the mpox strain of 2022. About 6% of people who get this type of mpox are dying from it — compared to a 0.2% death rate for the 2022 strain. Most of the deaths in the DRC outbreak are among children.

The electricity grid operators of the three Baltic countries on Tuesday officially notified Russia and Belarus that they will exit a 2001 agreement that has kept Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania connected to an electricity transmission system controlled by Moscow.

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If you're a parent struggling to get your kids' off their devices and outdoors to play, here's another reason to keep trying: Spending at least two hours outside each day is one of the most important things your kids can do to protect their eyesight.

"We think that outdoor time is the best form of prevention for nearsightedness," says Dr. Noha Ekdawi, a pediatric ophthalmologist in Wheaton, Ill.

And that's important, because the number of kids with nearsightedness – or myopia – has been growing rapidly in the U.S., and in many other parts of the world.

[...]

Wu convinced his son's elementary school to increase outdoor time. He also recruited a control school. A year later, his son's school had half as many new myopia cases as the other school. "We saw the results – they were very successful," Wu says.

He did more research, at more schools, and eventually convinced Taiwan's Ministry of Education to encourage all primary schools to send students out doors for at least 2 hours a day, every day. The program launched in September 2010. And after decades of trending upward, the rate of myopia among Taiwan's elementary school students began falling – from an all-time high of 50% in 2011 down to 45.1% by 2015. It's a major achievement, says Ian Morgan.

The target for this treasure hunt is in Calhoun County, in a forested spot between the Apalachicola, the Chipola River, and the Dead Lakes. I don’t know if you could pick a worse spot in Florida to plop down such a toxic industry.

The Apalachicola is the largest river in volume in Florida and has the largest and most environmentally sensitive undisturbed floodplain ecosystem in the state.

The Chipola is the source of drinking water for the town of Port St. Joe, population 3,600. Its “Look and Tremble” whitewater rapids make it popular with paddlers, too.

As for the Dead Lakes: Despite the eerie name, that’s a popular fishing spot. My dad, who grew up in nearby Jackson County, loved to fish there.

If someone spilled oil in that area, the way BP spread yucky globs across the beaches of eight Florida counties in 2010, I think those lakes would be dead for real.

T-Mobile made waves back in 2021 when they automatically set user privacy settings to on by default for sharing customer info with advertisers. It made a lot of people angry then, and a new setting that’s appeared in the same settings is once again enabled by default.

A new toggle has shown up in the T-Mobile “Privacy Center”, and it appears to have first been spotted a month ago on Reddit. The toggle is for allowing “automated profiling” of your user data to analyze and predict how a user might behave, particularly when interacting with support.

This article will dive into what exactly “profiling” is in this context, and how you can opt-out for your account.

Open flames shot upward from four smokestacks at the Chevron refinery on the western edge of Richmond, Calif. Soon, black smoke blanketed the sky.

News spread quickly that day last November, but by word of mouth, says Denny Khamphanthong, a 29-year-old Richmond resident. "We don't know the full story, but we know that you shouldn't breathe in the air or be outside for that matter," Khamphanthong says now. "It would be nice to have an actual news outlet that would actually go out there and figure it out themselves."

The city's primary local news source, The Richmond Standard, didn't cover the flare. Nor had it reported on a 2021 Chevron refinery pipeline rupture that dumped nearly 800 gallons of diesel fuel into San Francisco Bay.

Chevron is the city's largest employer, largest taxpayer and largest polluter. Yet when it comes to writing about Chevron, The Richmond Standard consistently toes the company line.

And there's a reason for that: Chevron owns The Richmond Standard.

Six different ground cinnamon products sold at retailers including Save A Lot, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar contain elevated levels of lead and should be recalled and thrown away immediately, the US Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.

The brands are La Fiesta, Marcum, MK, Swad, Supreme Tradition, and El Chilar, and the products are sold in plastic spice bottles or in bags at various retailers. The FDA has contacted the manufacturers to urge them to issue voluntary recalls, though it has not been able to reach one of the firms, MTCI, which distributes the MK-branded cinnamon.

For example:

• When you open a fresh jar of peanut butter do you only work through one side until it is completely empty then start on the other side?

• Or when you get those shallow tubs of hummus does it have to make it back home undisturbed? Then one of the baggers at the grocery store shoves it sideways into the bag completely ruining the symmetry.