Category: History

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Shoplifting has increased during pandemic, experts say – The Washington Post

Early in the pandemic, Joo Park noticed a worrisome shift at the market he manages near downtown Washington: At least once a day, he’d spot someone slipping a package of meat, a bag of rice or other food into a shirt or under a jacket. Diapers, shampoo and laundry detergent began disappearing in bigger numbers, too.

Since then, he said, thefts have more than doubled at Capitol Supermarket — even though he now stations more employees at the entrance, asks shoppers to leave backpacks up front and displays high-theft items like hand sanitizer and baking yeast in more conspicuous areas. Park doesn’t usually call the police, choosing instead to bar offenders from coming back.

“It’s become much harder during the pandemic,” he said. “People will say, ‘I was just hungry.’ And then what do you do?”

The coronavirus recession has been a relentless churn of high unemployment and economic uncertainty. The government stimulus that kept millions of Americans from falling into poverty earlier in the pandemic is long gone, and new aid is still a dot on the horizon after months of congressional inaction. Hunger is chronic, at levels not seen in decades.

Source: Shoplifting has increased during pandemic, experts say – The Washington Post

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How a flu virus shut down the US economy in 1872 – by infecting horses

In 1872 the U.S. economy was growing as the young nation industrialized and expanded westward. Then in the autumn, a sudden shock paralyzed social and economic life. It was an energy crisis of sorts, but not a shortage of fossil fuels. Rather, the cause was a virus that spread among horses and mules from Canada to Central America.

For centuries horses had provided essential energy to build and operate cities. Now the equine flu made clear just how important that partnership was. When infected horses stopped working, nothing worked without them. The pandemic triggered a social and economic paralysis comparable to what would happen today if gas pumps ran dry or the electric grid went down.

The equine influenza first appeared in late September in horses pastured outside of Toronto. Within days most animals in the city’s crowded stables caught the virus. The U.S. government tried to ban Canadian horses, but acted too late. Within a month border towns were infected, and the “Canadian horse disease” became a North American epidemic.

Engraving of men pulling a streetcar
Conductors and passengers pulling a streetcar in Boston during the equine influenza outbreak. Getty Images

By December the virus reached the U.S. Gulf Coast, and in early 1873 outbreaks occurred in West Coast cities.The flu’s symptoms were unmistakable. Horses developed a rasping cough and fever; ears drooping, they staggered and sometimes dropped from exhaustion. By one estimate, it killed 2% of an estimated 8 million horses in North America. Many more animals suffered symptoms that took weeks to clear.

Source: How a flu virus shut down the US economy in 1872 – by infecting horses

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Pearl Harbor Day: What to know about Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Hawaii

On Monday, America commemorates the 79th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Here are the facts surrounding that fateful day—and how to pay tribute.

“December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously proclaimed.

Americans on Monday will honor the 79th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

The surprise raid on the major U.S. Navy base near Honolulu killed more than 2,400 Americans and left another 1,100 injured. In short, the strike signaled the entry of the United States into World War II.

According to the National Park Service, Congress designated Dec. 7 as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in August 1994. This year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, a small, intimate gathering of veterans will be held at Pearl Harbor Visitor Center — though it is closed to the public.

Here are some facts surrounding that fateful day in U.S. history:

Just before 8 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese planes made the surprise raid on Pearl Harbor. During the attack, which was launched from aircraft carriers, nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, were damaged or destroyed, as well as more than 300 aircraft, according to the History Channel.

How many were killed at Pearl Harbor?

The official American death toll was 2,403, according to the Pearl Harbor Visitors Bureau, including 2,008 Navy personnel, 109 Marines, 218 Army service members and 68 civilians. Of the dead, 1,177 were from the USS Arizona, the wreckage of which now serves as the main memorial to the incident. Fifty-five Japanese soldiers also were killed.

Source: Pearl Harbor Day: What to know about Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Hawaii

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Bill that could help Black farmers reclaim millions of acres ‘a step in the right direction’ – ABC News

There was a time when Black-owned farms were booming — before those farmers were stripped of tens of thousands of acres because of racist policies.

Now, most rural land in the U.S. is owned by white people. But now, finally, a new piece of legislation could help African Americans reclaim some of that acreage.

The Justice for Black Farmers Act, introduced earlier this month by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., would allow Black farmers to reclaim up to 160 acres each, at no charge, through a Department of Agriculture system of land grants.

Kamal Bell, a 29-year-old farmer in Durham, North Carolina, said that such legislation is just the beginning of efforts necessary for certain farms to become sustainable and generate revenue.

“I think it’s definitely a step in the right direction … but we need to create pipelines for African Americans to be educated on a 21st-century farm,” Bell told ABC News. “The production aspect of how to stay in business isn’t taught to you. … We learned this on our own and from other Black farmers we ended up meeting.”

Bell is CEO of Sankofa Farms, a family farm that he purchased while saving up money in college. It aims to serve as a sustainable food source in urban communities, particularly so-called food deserts with few available options for fresh produce.

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New Research Shows Dinosaurs Would Have Flourished Were It Not For Asteroid | Complex

Dinosaurs would have kept right on living, had an asteroid not wiped them out. That’s according to new research from the University of Bath and London’s Natural History Museum.

While it’s recently been en vogue to claim that dinosaurs were seeing their time of planet-wide domination come to an end even before a massive impact hurried them off the Earth, this new study claims that dinosaurs would have lived on.

The theory this study refutes claims that dinosaur species diversity was dwindling, a sign that the entire branch of the animal kingdom was winding down while avians and mammals were on the rise.

“What we found is that the dinosaurs were still dominant, they were still widespread and still doing really well,” explained lead author Joe Bonsor. “If the asteroid impact had never happened then they might not have died out and they would have continued after the Cretaceous.’

Bonsor and his fellow researchers believe that the prior theory is based on gaps in the fossil record and not hard evidence. Dinosaurs were an incredibly diverse group of animals that lived for hundreds of millions of years. While many of them died in that time, most of their remains were not fossilized. Bonsor thinks that the theory of diversity decline is based on lack of fossils and not proof.

Lead author of the study, Joe Bonsor, is undertaking his PhD jointly at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath and the Natural History Museum.

He said: “Previous studies done by others have used various methods to draw the conclusion that dinosaurs would have died out anyway, as they were in decline towards the end of the Cretaceous period.

“However, we show that if you expand the dataset to include more recent dinosaur family trees and a broader set of dinosaur types, the results don’t actually all point to this conclusion – in fact only about half of them do.”

Source: New Research Shows Dinosaurs Would Have Flourished Were It Not For Asteroid | Complex

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Ice Age cave bear carcass found in northern Russia, university reports

 

Scientists at North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) in Yakutsk, Russia, on Monday announced a finding of “great importance” — a preserved Ice Age cave bear carcass, estimated to be to be between 22,000 and 39,500 years old.

Even the bear’s nose is still intact, the university said in a statement.

The preserved bear was found by reindeer herders on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, part of the Lyakhovsky Islands archipelago in northern Russia, according to a statement from NEFU.

“Today this is the first and only find of its kind — a whole bear carcass with soft tissues,” scientist Lena Grigorieva said in a statement.  “It is completely preserved, with all internal organs in place.

Source: Ice Age cave bear carcass found in northern Russia, university reports

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What negative interest rates would mean for your wallet

As the economy craters, here’s a look at what cutting interest rates below zero would mean for everyday Americans.

  • “Negative interest rates are inevitable in the U.S.,” said Bankrate’s Greg McBride. “It’s just a matter of when.”
  • For everyday Americans, that would likely mean lower mortgage and credit card rates and even lower returns on savings, if any at all.

Source: What negative interest rates would mean for your wallet

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Gunfire exchanged across border in DMZ between North and South Korea – CNN

North Korea fired gunshots at the wall of a South Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a buffer area which separates the two countries, on Sunday,

The South Korean military responded by broadcasting a verbal warning and returning fire twice, according to protocol outlined in the response manual and on the judgment of the field commander, according to the JCS statement.
The South Korean military said that “the military is in the process of identifying situations over the military communication line with the North and preventing any additional situations from occurring.”
Under the military accord signed between the two Koreas on September 29, 2018, the South and North each demolished 11 guard posts along the DMZ, but dozens of guard posts remain.
There have been exchanges of fire between the Koreas in the past, including in 2017, when a North Korean solider defected at the JSA (Joint Security Area) and, in 2014, when a North Korean defector organization launched balloons of leaflets criticizing the country’s reclusive regime.
It is not known what caused this exchange of fire.

Source: Gunfire exchanged across border in DMZ between North and South Korea – CNN

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Possible Dinosaur DNA Has Been Found – Scientific American

The tiny fossil is unassuming, as dinosaur remains go. It is not as big as an Apatosaurus femur or as impressive as a Tyrannosaurus jaw. The object is a just a scant shard of cartilage from the skull of a baby hadrosaur called Hypacrosaurus that perished more than 70 million years ago. But it may contain something never before seen from the depths of the Mesozoic era: degraded remnants of dinosaur DNA.

Genetic material is not supposed to last over such time periods—not by a long shot. DNA begins to decay at death. Findings from a 2012 study on moa bones show an organism’s genetic material deteriorates at such a rate that it halves itself every 521 years. This speed would mean paleontologists can only hope to recover recognizable DNA sequences from creatures that lived and died within the past 6.8 million years—far short of even the last nonavian dinosaurs.

But then there is the Hypacrosaurus cartilage. In a study published earlier this year, Chinese Academy of Sciences paleontologist Alida Bailleul and her colleagues proposed that in that fossil, they had found not only evidence of original proteins and cartilage-creating cells but a chemical signature consistent with DNA.

Source: Possible Dinosaur DNA Has Been Found – Scientific American

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Rare, 400-Year-Old Bible Stolen From US Library Found and Returned – Sputnik International

A Geneva Bible dating to 1615 that was stolen from a Pennsylvania library has been found in the Netherlands and returned to the US, authorities announced at a Thursday news conference.

The Bible, which has survived more than four centuries, was one of more than 300 items allegedly stolen from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh as part of a 20-year scheme by a former archivist Gregory Priore, 62, and rare books dealer John Schulman, 54, local outlet KDKA reports, both of whom had long worked closely with the library. They have been charged with theft, conspiracy and forgery, among other counts.

Investigators traced the tome to the American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden, which had paid about $1,200 for it. Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala explained that the director of the Leiden museum realized the Bible it had purchased belonged to the Carnegie Library and reached out to the institution. He’s “an honest man,” Zappala said, according to KDKA.

Source: Rare, 400-Year-Old Bible Stolen From US Library Found and Returned (PHOTOS) – Sputnik International

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CDC Reports Largest U.S. Measles Outbreak Since Year 2000

There are 695 cases in 22 states. HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the spike was “avoidable” and he called measles vaccines “among the most extensively studied medical products we have.”

The agency attributed the high number of cases primarily to a few large outbreaks — one in the state of Washington and two others in New York City and New York state. The New York outbreaks are among the largest and longest lasting since 2000.

“The longer these outbreaks continue, the greater the chance measles will again get a sustained foothold in the United States,” the CDC said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, in a statement, said the rise in measles cases is “avoidable.”

“Measles is not a harmless childhood illness, but a highly contagious, potentially life-threatening disease,” he said. “We have the ability to safely protect our children and our communities. Vaccines are a safe, highly effective public health solution that can prevent this disease. The measles vaccines are among the most extensively studied medical products we have, and their safety has been firmly established over many years in some of the largest vaccine studies ever undertaken.”

Source: CDC Reports Largest U.S. Measles Outbreak Since Year 2000

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4 in 10 millennials don’t know 6 millions Jews were killed in Holocaust, study shows – CBS News

Survey of U.S. adults found “critical gaps both in awareness of basic facts as well as detailed knowledge of the Holocaust”

NEW YORK — More than one-fifth of millennials in the U.S. — 22 percent — haven’t heard of, or aren’t sure if they’ve heard of, the Holocaust, according to a study published Thursday, on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. The study, which was commissioned by The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and conducted by Schoen Consulting, also found that 11 percent of U.S. adults overall haven’t heard of the Holocaust or aren’t sure if they did.

Additionally, 41 percent of millennials believe two million Jews or fewer were killed during the Holocaust, the study found. Six million Jews were killed in World War II by Nazi Germany and its accomplices.

Two-thirds of millennials could not identify in the survey what Auschwitz was.

“The survey found there are critical gaps both in awareness of basic facts as well as detailed knowledge of the Holocaust,” said a news release on the findings.

Source: 4 in 10 millennials don’t know 6 millions Jews were killed in Holocaust, study shows – CBS News

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MLK assassination: How Walter Cronkite covered the April 4, 1968 tragedy

 

On April 4, 1968, Walter Cronkite, then-anchor of the “CBS Evening News​,” went on air with a detailed report on the shooting and the nation’s reaction to the tragedy

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was standing on the balcony of the old Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was shot dead 50 years ago today. King, an iconic pastor who led non-violent protests against racial inequality in the civil rights movement, later died at a hospital. He was 39.

That night, Walter Cronkite — then-anchor of the “CBS Evening News” — went on air with a detailed report on the shooting and the nation’s reaction to the tragedy.

The April 4, 1968 broadcast

“Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of non-violence in the civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee,” Cronkite said. “Police have issued an all-points bulletin for a well-dressed, young white man seen running from the scene. Officers also reportedly chased and fired on a radio-equipped car containing two white men.”

“Dr. King was standing on the balcony of a second-floor hotel room tonight when, according to a companion, a shot was fired from across the street. In the friend’s words, the bullet exploded in his face,” Cronkite reported.

Source: MLK assassination: How Walter Cronkite covered the April 4, 1968 tragedy

 

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Hundreds of schools closed as teachers rally in Oklahoma, Kentucky

 

Hundreds of schools were closed Monday morning in Oklahoma and Kentucky while thousands of teachers rallied at their state capitols, CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca reports. They’re demanding higher pay and increased school funding.

Art teacher Laurissa Kovacs says her kids aren’t even getting the basics at Puterbaugh Middle School.

“The chairs are in awful condition,” Kovacs told Villafranca. “They’re broken and they literally hurt the kids to sit down. If you look through the stacks, you can just see how many of the broken areas and cracks that will pinch you and jagged tops.”

Kovacs says she’s had to bring in folding chairs from home to give her students a proper place to sit. She can’t take the frustration any longer.

Source: Hundreds of schools closed as teachers rally in Oklahoma, Kentucky

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First it was Confederate monuments. Now statues offensive to Native Americans are poised to topple across the U.S.

A battle to take down a statue of President William McKinley in the small Northern California city of Arcata reflects a growing debate around the country on monuments that honor those who helped bring about the deaths of Native peoples.

No other city has taken down a monument to a president for his misdeeds. But Arcata is poised to do just that. The target is an 8½-foot bronze likeness of William McKinley, who was president at the turn of the last century and stands accused of directing the slaughter of Native peoples in the U.S. and abroad.

Source: First it was Confederate monuments. Now statues offensive to Native Americans are poised to topple across the U.S.

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