The price of eggs in the US is spiking, mostly due to #H5N1 bird flu. Solving the problem requires urgent, important communications from the CDC & FDA* and rapid development of research by the NIH**
* Currently paused by Executive Order
** Grant reviews now all canceled
www.kcur.org/news/2025-01...
"Government decision not to authorise pesticide is ‘sweet as honey’ for pollinators"
Good news. Labour have decided not to allow the use of highly toxic bee-killing pesticides ... which puts the UK on the same footing as the EU in that one small respect at least.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde to Trump: "I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender people in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives ... and the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals"
This is absolutely correct and makes the government’s apparent lack of concern at the financial viability of local government so mystifying. Often forgotten that the innovation in Johnson’s “levelling up” was the importance of social capital
The DHSC has confirmed it’s paying the GMCs litigation costs - just think about that - the Health Secretary is actually using tax payers money to defend a case brought to protect patient safety
www.rte.ie/news/2025/01...
How the EU’s Digital Services Act has been caught in the crossfire between Elon Musk’s free speech warriors and EU leaders warning he is a danger to European democracy
Excellent piece.
I think of this as "plutocratic feudalism": in which overmighty subjects compete to control the court.
Crucially, the court is weak enough to be captured (with erratic child kings, in need of money & prone to flattery), but strong enough to be a threat to them & a weapon v others.
This is, as you would expect, excellent. A brilliant and important contribution to the debate on social media regulation. Two footnotes.
[TBC I don't think a "youth mobility" scheme is either necessary or sufficient to achieve those objectives. Might be modestly helpful, as @johnspringford.bsky.social's analysis argued. My point is that worrying about today's headlines, not delivery in 2028, is precisely what f***ed the last govt]
Welcome to the public domain, THE SKELETON DANCE (1929). 🎞️ 🎶👻 Walt Disney Studios' first Silly Symphony cartoon is a wordless masterpiece of synchronized animation & music featuring dancing skeletons in a graveyard.
➡️ blog.archive.org/2025/01/01/welcome-to-th...
I was just working with a 1929 image that entered the public domain today. Public domain graphics make it much easier to illustrate both technical and historical academic work, without time-consuming permission-seeking procedures.🧪
To cut a long story short, before Brexit we had EU water quality regulation with teeth. Now we have UK regulation and it's toothless.
An Express poll needs more input. You know what to do...
Note: the link takes you directly to the poll, so you won't boost their ad impressions. Ignore the request for an email address - it's not required to submit the poll.
xd.wayin.com/display/cont...
How do we ALREADY have 2025 in a single image
I think this is an absolutely lovely story. What a tremendous way to indulge a child’s passion and get to spend lots of quality time chatting with them.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024...
🚨 Snapsot below from staff struggling tonight. You can see in the West Midlands there are over 180 ambulances stuck at hospitals...114 over an hour. Second image shows waits in York A&E...longest for a bed is over 40hrs
Back in't day, policemen, teachers and nurses earned about double the minimum wage at starting salary. Now they enjoy a premium of about 20-30%. Squish!
NHS seems to have quietened as a topic in the political sphere, likely as a result of much less industrial action compared to previous two yrs, but the situation for many trusts (particularly emergency response and treatment) is still dire and far worse than pre-Covid, let alone pre-austerity.
@msf.org Gaza report:
• Repeated attacks on civilians
• Systematic denial of humanitarian assistance
• Teams in the north of Gaza seeing clear signs of ethnic cleansing as Palestinians are forcibly displaced, trapped, and bombed.
• The health care system lies in ruins
www.msf.org/msf-report-e...
Die Welt is a very conservative newspaper. For its opinion editor to resign over an op-ed means all sorts of red lines have been crossed.
The AfD is not just a right-wing party. It is so extreme that even figures like France’s Le Pen and Italy’s Salvini won’t work with it
About 20 years ago I interviewed Carter regarding development and Africa and the (amazing) work of the Carter Center. He was talking about US farm subsidies and the malign effect on developing country farmers. So naturally I asked him why he hadn't addressed ag subsidies when he was president. 1/n
The WHO said Israel’s “systematic dismantling of the health system” combined with a siege of the population in the north of the coastal strip over the past 80 days “puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk”.
#CeasefireNow
www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...
Almost as many people didn’t vote in the 2024 election as the number of people that did. And millions of eligible voters weren't on the electoral roll.
Learn more about turnout in the 2024 election:
With the caveat that an election is in all likelihood still 4 years away, the degree to which the British political landscape has shifted just since July is remarkable.
The two historically main parties each ~100 seats off a majority in this model.
ANOTHER LABOUR BLUNDER?
As many of our so-called regulators fail us, Starmer seems to want even less regulation
In 2023 OFWAT fined water companies how much money for slinging more and more sh*ye into our rivers and seas?
£2
That's TWO POUNDS in total
news.sky.com/story/starme...
Russian propaganda when they shoot down civilian airliners is always weird, but this is, well, new.
