The novel Coronavirus
The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, last year and has since caused a large scale COVID-19 epidemic and spread to more than 70 other countries is the product of natural evolution, according to findings published today in the journal Nature Medicine.
The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.
“By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes,” said Kristian Andersen, PhD, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research and corresponding author on the paper.
In addition to Andersen, authors on the paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” include Robert F. Garry, of Tulane University; Edward Holmes, of the University of Sydney; Andrew Rambaut, of University of Edinburgh; W. Ian Lipkin, of Columbia University.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging widely in severity. The first known severe illness caused […]
AREAS OF SOUTHWESTERN NORTH AMERICA AFFECTED BY DROUGHT IN THE EARLY 2000S; DARKER COLORS ARE MORE INTENSE. YELLOW BOX SHOWS THE STUDY AREA.
CREDIT: ADAPTED FROM WILLIAMS ET AL., SCIENCE, 2020
With the western United States and northern Mexico suffering an ever-lengthening string of dry years starting in 2000, scientists have been warning for some time that climate change may be pushing the region toward an extreme long-term drought worse than any in recorded history. A new study says the time has arrived: a megadrought as bad or worse than anything even from known prehistory is very likely in progress, and warming climate is playing a key role. The study, based on modern weather observations, 1,200 years of tree-ring data and dozens of climate models, appears this week in the leading journal Science.
“Earlier studies were largely model projections of the future,” said lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We’re no longer looking at projections, but at where we are now. We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring […]
At least 43,000 American millionaires who are too rich to get coronavirus stimulus checks are getting a far bigger boost — averaging $1.6 million each, according to a congressional committee.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act trumpeted its assistance for working families and small businesses, but it apparently contains an even bigger benefit for wealthy business owners, the committee found.
The act allows pass-through businesses — ones taxed under individual income, rather than corporate — an unlimited amount of deductions against their non-business income, such as capital gains, the Washington Post said. They can also use losses to avoid paying taxes in other years.
That gives the roughly 43,000 individual tax filers who make at least $1 million a year a savings of $70.3 billion — or about $1.6 million apiece, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Hedge-fund investors and real estate business owners are “far and away” the ones who will benefit the most, tax expert Steve Rosenthal told the Washington Post.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called it a “scandal” to “loot American […]
A coal-fired powerplant in Winfield, W.Va. The 2012 rule has been credited with preventing thousands of premature deaths.
Credit: John Raby/AP
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday weakened regulations on the release of mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, another step toward rolling back health protections in the middle of a pandemic.
The new Environmental Protection Agency rule does not eliminate restrictions on the release of mercury, a heavy metal linked to brain damage. Instead, it creates a new method of calculating the costs and benefits of curbing mercury pollution that environmental lawyers said would fundamentally undermine the legal underpinnings of controls on mercury and many other pollutants.
Hours after David Dayen reported Thursday at The American Prospect that USAA was seizing coronavirus stimulus money from veterans with accounts at the financial institution, the bank reversed course, telling Dayen in a statement that the money seized would returned.
“For members with negative deposit account balances, USAA will pause the collection of a negative account balance existing at the time their stimulus payment was deposited for 90 days,” USAA spokesman Matthew Hartwig told Dayen. “This will allow members access to their full stimulus payment to help cover the costs of rent, food and other important necessities.”
As Dayen reported Thursday, while USAA’s decision is welcomed, it’s ultimately just one bank of many with the technical ability to seize the funds.
“Only a global solution by Treasury can ensure that the payments get into the hands of individuals struggling to make ends meet and afford basic necessities,” Dayen wrote. “A bank-by-bank or state-by-state solution will ultimately not protect everyone in time.”
Original story below…
The Treasury Department last week gave U.S. financial institutions the go-ahead to seize coronavirus stimulus payments to pay off individuals’ outstanding debts, and one of the nation’s largest banks is reportedly already taking advantage of the green light.
“USAA, the veteran-serving financial institution, took $3,400 in CARES […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
