Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Credit: Getty
The Trump administration thinks the court is its personal fixer. The court isn’t doing much to disabuse it of this idea.
I remembered reading something about this story yesterday. Seems Sotomayor and Ginsburg were the only ones to dissent on some lower court asylum ban ruling. It didn’t make sense at the time.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief but pointed dissent Wednesday evening from a Supreme Court order that effectively locked nearly all Central American migrants out of the asylum process. Asylum allows foreign nationals who face certain forms of persecution to seek refuge in the United States.
The Court’s order is temporary, and it only allows the asylum ban to remain in effect while the case is working its way through the courts. It stays a lower court decision that blocked the ban. Though this litigation will continue to percolate in lower courts, other judges are likely to read the Supreme Court’s order as a sign that a majority of […]
An earthworm emerges from the ground.
Credit: Ben Birchall/PA
Worms fail to thrive in earth containing microplastics, new research has shown, adding to the growing body of evidence of impacts from the increasingly widespread contaminants on the natural world.
The rosy-tipped earthworm, Aporrectodea rosea, is one of the most common found in farmland in temperate regions. Scientists found that worms placed in soil loaded with high density polyethylene (HDPE) – a common plastic used for bags and bottles – for 30 days lost about 3% of their body weight, compared with a control sample of similar worms placed in similar soil without HDPE, which put on 5% in body weight over the same period.
Bas Boots, lecturer in biology at Anglia Ruskin University, and lead author of the study, said the specific reasons for the observed weight loss were not yet clear, but could be owing to the effects of microplastics on the worms’ digestion. “These effects include the obstruction and irritation of the digestive tract, limiting the absorption of nutrients and reducing growth,” he […]
Obesity levels have reached nearly 40 per cent in parts of the United States, a shocking new map reveals.
The map shows that in nine states – Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and West Virginia – adult obesity is at or above 35 per cent.
But in West Virginia and Mississippi that figure hits 39.5 per cent, according to data from the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Across the whole of the US, only three states have obesity levels under 25 per cent, and none have less than 20 per cent.
Colorado, Hawaii and the District of Columbia are the healthiest.
Obesity costs the United States health care system over $147 billion a year and research has shown it affects work productivity and military readiness, says the CDC.
When she was First Lady, Michelle Obama championed the cause of tackling childhood obesity.
But John Auerbach, president and CEO of the Trust for America’s Health, which fights for action to tackle obesity, said individual campaigns weren’t enough.
‘GETTING WORSE’
“These latest data shout that our national obesity crisis is getting worse,” he said.
“Almost […]
A white-crowned sparrow affixed with a lightweight digitally-coded radio transmitter that broadcasts signals that relay the bird’s whereabouts.
Credit: Margaret Eng
One of the most widely used agricultural insecticides causes severe weight loss in white-crowned sparrows and delays the migration of these common North American songbirds, according to a new study published Thursday in Science. The finding suggests exposure to the pesticide could be contributing to declines in certain bird species over the past half-century, experts say.
The study examined the effects of imidacloprid, part of a class of neurological toxins called neonicotinoids used to target insect pests in farm fields. These chemicals, which can be directly applied to seeds and are absorbed into plant tissue as crops grow, were thought to be less toxic to vertebrates than other pesticides. When a neonicotinoid is applied to a seed, however, less than 20 percent of it will end up in the plant—and these pesticides are turning up in the environment. The chemicals have increasingly come under fire in recent years because their presence in the […]
Credit: Donald lain Smith/Blend Images/Getty
“We called the police because she wrecked her room and hit her mom… all because we took her phone,” Kelly’s father explained. He said that when the police arrived that evening, Kelly was distraught and told an officer that she wanted to kill herself. So an ambulance was called, and the 15-year-old was strapped to a gurney, taken to a psychiatric hospital, and monitored for safety before being released. Days after being hospitalized, Kelly was brought to my office by her parents who wanted to get help for their troubled girl.
Kelly’s parents spoke first. They said that their daughter’s hospitalization was the culmination of a yearlong downward spiral spurred by her phone obsession. Kelly had been refusing to spend time with her family or focus on […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
