Broadway actor Nick Cordero, who had been hospitalized for three months and had his leg amputated after contracting the coronavirus, has died, his wife, Amanda Kloots, said Sunday. He was 41.
“My darling husband passed away this morning,” Kloots said in an Instagram post. “He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth.”
“I am in disbelief and hurting everywhere,” Kloots added. “My heart is broken as I cannot imagine our lives without him.”
Last week, Kloots told “CBS This Morning” that Cordero would need a double lung transplant.
“A 99% chance that he would be needing that in order to live the kind of life that I know my husband would want to live,” Kloots said. “That is a long road…
Beijing — While China appears to have reduced coronavirus cases to near zero, other infectious threats remain, with local health authorities announcing a suspected bubonic plague case in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Authorities in the Bayannur district raised the plague warning on Sunday, ordered residents not to hunt wild animals such as marmots and to send for treatment anyone with fever or showing other possible signs of infection.
Plague can be fatal in up to 90% of people infected if not treated, primarily with several types of antibiotics.
Pneumonic plague can develop from bubonic plague and results in a severe lung infection causing shortness of breath, headache and coughing.
A quarter-billion years ago, huge volcanic eruptions burned coal, leading to the worst extinction in Earth’s history. Here’s how scientists hunted down the evidence.
Researchers trekked into Siberia to find hard evidence that the Permian-Triassic extinction was the consequence of explosive volcanic eruptions and the ensuing global warming.COURTESY OF LINDY ELKINS-TANTON
SOME 250 MILLION years ago, the organisms of Earth were having a very bad time—the very worst time, you might say. The Permian-Triassic extinction event was unfolding, in which 70 percent of land species and 96 percent of marine species disappeared. Runaway global warming had raised equatorial ocean temperatures to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The seas rapidly acidified, so shelled critters struggled to build their protective homes. Indeed, the fossil record shows these species got it the worst—strong evidence that the extinction’s culprit was CO2 mucking with the oceans’ pH balance, and the rest of the planet, for…
In his order on Monday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that the closure must take place in the next 30 days.
A demonstrator in front of the White House during a protest organized by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous grassroots leaders against the Dakota Access pipeline in March 2017.Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images fileJuly 6, 2020, 8:27 AM PDT / Updated July 6, 2020, 9:32 AM PDTBy Elizabeth Chuck
A federal judge on Monday ordered the Dakota Access pipeline to shut down pending further environmental review, a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that the pipeline must close in the next 30 days.
Protesters have argued that the oil pipeline project poses both a cultural and an environmental threat to the land it runs through. Proponents say it is a financial boon, creating jobs and bringing money into local economies.
“It took four long years, but today justice has been served at Standing Rock,” attorney Jan Hasselman, who represents the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said in a press release. “If the events of 2020 have taught us anything, it’s that health and justice must be prioritized early on in any decision-making process if we want to avoid a crisis later on. ”
Mike Faith, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, called it a historic day.
“This pipeline should have never been built here. We told them that from the beginning,” he said in the same press release.
Energy Transfer, the Texas-based company behind the pipeline, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But the oil company has insisted in the past that the pipeline, which runs underneath the Missouri River where the Standing Rock tribe draws its water from, is safe.
During its construction along the border of North Dakota and South Dakota, where the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is, protesters around the country gathered in support of the tribe. The protests led to numerous arrests and were at times violent.
Monday’s court decision comes after an order on March 25 from the same judge, which said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should conduct a full environmental review of the pipeline. At the time, it was not clear whether the order would shut down the pipeline, which has carried oil for three years.
“The Court does not reach its decision with blithe disregard for the lives it will affect. It readily acknowledges that, even with the currently low demand for oil, shutting down the pipeline will cause significant disruption to DAPL, the North Dakota oil industry, and potentially other states,” Boasberg wrote in his order on Monday.
Permits for the $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile underground pipeline had initially been rejected by the Obama administration. The permits for it were granted in February 2017 under President Donald Trump, when the Army Corps of Engineers stated it had found no significant environmental threats posed by the project.
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a Republican, slammed the court order shortly after it was released.
“Shutting down the Dakota Access pipeline would have devastating consequences to North Dakota and to America’s energy security,” Cramer said in a statement. “This terrible ruling should be promptly appealed.”
Texas reported more than 8,000 people hospitalized with Covid-19 on Sunday, a record number of admissions and among the highest in the U.S.
The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 was growing by 5% or more in 23 states, based on a seven-day moving average, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
California, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia have also seen growing Covid-19 hospitalizations.
A member of the medical staff treats a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center on July 2, 2020 in Houston, Texas. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have spiked since Texas reopened, pushing intensive-care wards to full capacity and sparking concerns about a surge in fatalities as the virus spreads.Go Nakamura | Getty Images
Texas had more than 8,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients on Sunday, a record number of hospitalizations and one of the highest in the country, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project.
The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 grew by 5% or more Sunday in 23 states, based on a seven-day moving average, according to data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project, an independent volunteer organization launched by journalists at The Atlantic.
Public health experts watch hospitalizations closely because it can indicate how severe an outbreak is in an area. It’s considered a better measure than new cases because it’s not as reliant on the availability of testing.
California, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia have also seen growing Covid-19 hospitalizations. Florida only tracks the number of people who have been hospitalized since the beginning of the outbreak and not those currently in the hospital with Covid-19, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
Coronavirus cases were growing in 36 states in the U.S. as of Sunday, based on a seven-day moving average, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Cases across the U.S. grew by more than 26% compared with a week ago, according to Hopkins data.
CNBC calculates its daily Covid-19 cases based on an average over the previous seven days to eliminate fluctuations in daily reporting. The number of cases may have been underreported over the Fourth of July weekend and could be reported later in some states, according to Johns Hopkins.
Texas and Florida reported record surges in coronavirus cases over the Fourth of July weekend as state and local governments try to contain growing outbreaks across the Sun Belt. Florida reported Saturday that 14.1% of those tested for the virus were positive, while Texas reported a positivityrate of 13.1%, both above each states’ 10% target range.
Hospitals in at least two Texas counties, Starr and Hidalgo, are at full capacity and local officials are urging residents there to shelter in place and avoid gatherings, according to local officials.
“The number of people who are getting sick and going to the hospitals has exponentially increased. The number of people in our ICU beds has exponentially increased,” Turner said. He added that the main problem facing Houston hospitals is staffing, not a shortage of beds.
“We can always provide additional beds, but we need the people, the nurses and everybody else, the medical professionals, to staff those beds. That’s the critical point right now,” Turner said.
To create room for Covid-19 patients, Gov. Greg Abbott suspended elective surgeries in a handful of counties, which include the state’s largest cities: San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Austin.
Scientists in Italy are investigating the mysterious appearance of pink glacial ice in the Alps, caused by algae that accelerate the effects of climate change.
There is debate about where the algae come from, but Biagio Di Mauro of Italy’s National Research Council said the pink snow observed on parts of the Presena glacier is likely caused by the same plant found in Greenland.
“The alga is not dangerous, it is a natural phenomenon that occurs during the spring and summer periods in the middle latitudes but also at the Poles,” said Di Mauro, who had previously studied the algae at the Morteratsch glacier in Switzerland.
The Texas Medical Association ranked activities on a scale of 1 to 10, with one being least likely to lead to a coroavirus infection to ten being a high risk for infection. (Graphic: TMA)
AUSTIN, Texas (KEYE) – What’s your risk of catching COVID-19 doing normal, day to day activities? It depends, according to the Texas Medical Association.
Physicians from the TMA COVID-19 Task Force and the TMA Committee on Infectious Disease ranked activities on a scale of one to 10, with one being least likely to lead to a coronavirus infection to 10 being a high risk for infection.
On the low risk side, ranking one or two, are things like opening the mail, getting restaurant takeout, or pumping gas.
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The moderate-low risk activities include grocery shopping, spending an hour at a playground, and eating outside at a restaurant.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India released video footage of live-animal markets (wet markets) across the country operating illegally.
Peta India has written a letter to the Union health minister, environment minister and other concerned ministries, urging the closure of wet markets across country. (Photo: PTI/Representational image)
Animal rights organisation Peta India has demanded immediate closure of illegal wet markets to prevent another pandemic. Peta’s warning comes in the backdrop of global Covid-19 pandemic.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India released video footage of live-animal markets (wet markets) across the country operating illegally. The organisation has demanded the closure of all illegal wet markets — marketplaces that sell perishable goods including meat, fish and other produce — in Delhi, West Bengal and Manipur.
Shark fin traders in Hong Kong. At least 50% of the world’s shark fin is traded through the city-state. Photograph: Paul Hilton/EPA
In the narrow streets of Sai Ying Pun neighbourhood, the centre of Hong Kong’s dried seafood trade, most window displays give pride of place to a particular item: shark fins. Perched on shelves, stuffed in jars and stacked in bags, shark fins are offered in all shapes and sizes. Several shops even include “shark fin” in their name.
Fins are lucrative, fetching as much as HK$6,800 (£715) per catty (604.8g, or about 21oz), and the trade is big business. Hong Kong is the largest shark fin
Researcher Biagio di Maio sampling the pink snow on Presena glacier, 4 July 2020. (Miguel…
Exposing the Big Game 