How Trump has defied science on coronavirus

Donald Trump told thousands of supporters at a rally in Oklahoma he wanted to slow down testing for Covid-19 – despite experts saying the opposite.

From masks to 'miracle' treatments, the Guardian's Maanvi Singh looks back at how the US president has long been contradicting and defying science during the coronavirus outbreak and the impact that has had on the country's handling of the pandemic

From A Supermarket Manager

This, from a grocery store manager, is getting heavy shares on social media:

I manage a grocery store.

Here's some things everyone should know

1. I don't have toilet paper
2. I don't have sanitizer
3. I run out of milk, eggs and meat daily
4. I promise if it's out on the shelf ... it's not in a hidden corner of our backroom.

Those are the predictable ones, now for the real stuff

5. I have been doing this for 25 years I did not forget how to order product.
6. I did not cause the warehouse to be out of product/
7. I schedule as much help as I have, including many workers working TONS of overtime to help YOU.
8. I am sorry there are lines at the check out lanes.

Now for the really important stuff:

9. My team puts themselves in harm's way every day so you can buy groceries.
10. My team works tirelessly to get product on the floor for you to buy.
11. My team is exhausted.
12. My team is scared of getting sick.
13. My team is human and does not possess an antivirus... they are in just as much danger as you are. (Arguably more) but they show up to work every day just so you can buy groceries
14. My team is tired.
15. My team is very under-appreciated.
16. My team is exposed to more people who are potentially infected in one hour than most of you will in a week (medical community excluded, thank you for all that you do!).
17. My team is abused all day by customers who have no idea how ignorant they are.
18. My team disinfects every surface possible, everyday, just so you can come in grab a wipe from the dispenser, wipe the handle and throw the used wipe in the cart or on the ground and leave it there... so my team can throw it in the trash for you later.
19. My team wonders if you wash your re-usable bags, that you force us to touch, that are clearly dirty and have more germs on them than our shopping carts do.
20. My team more than earns their breaks, lunches and days off. And if that means you wait longer I am sorry.

The last thing I will say is this:

The next time you are in a grocery store, please pause and think about what you are saying and how you are treating the people you encounter. They are the reason you are able to buy toilet paper, sanitizer, milk, eggs, and meat.

If the store you go to is out of an item.. maybe find the neighbor or friend that bought enough for a year ... there are hundreds of them... and ask them to spare 1 or 2. They caused the problem to begin with...

And lastly, please THANK the people who helped you. They don't have to come to work!

Two Videos Showing Chinese Officials Forcibly Removing People From Their Homes

Can’t believe in my eyes!#coronavirus #wuhanvirus #CoronavirusOutbreak #Wuhan #china #HumanRightsViolations #TruthBeTold #WuhanCoronavirus pic.twitter.com/Be3QzPnTcr

— Chris Tran (@chrisphotogp) February 4, 2020

More Craziness From The Quarantine Zone In China
pic.twitter.com/uaxf6x5QaO
#coronavirus #coronaviruschina #CoronavirusOutbreak #WuhanVirus

— GABBAR TALKS 🌎 (News & Views) 🎥 (@GabbarTalksNews) February 9, 2020

Return to Fukushima

Three families exploring the dangers -and desires - of finally going home and explores the difficult journey the residents of Fukushima still have to take.

How noise pollution is ruining your hearing

Health organizations warn that continual exposure to noise levels above 70 decibels can potentially damage your ears. And yet we are routinely exposed to noise much louder than that in everyday situations. Our world is increasingly noisy and our bars, restaurants, gyms, and streets all produce decibel levels that can cause harm to our hearing in mere minutes. Hearing loss is incredibly common and is the fourth highest disability worldwide. One in four American adults shows signs of noise-induced hearing loss, and the problem is only going to get worse.

Heatstroke countermeasures already being prepped for 2020 Olympics

When the Tokyo Olympics begin on July 25 2020 the rainy season will have just ended the temperatures will hover above 30c and the humidity will 100%.  Just think if don't live here you'll discover just how it feels to be a baked potato. 

Each summer thousands of people are taken to hospital for heat stroke or heat related injuries so how are all those first time visitors to Japan going to cope with environmental conditions they haven't encountered before.  Let's ask the government.

  There has already been criticism over the fact that the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will be held during the often brutal Japanese summer months, sparking a great deal of worry for participants and spectators alike, who, while outdoors for extended periods of time, may suffer from heatstroke.The Environment Ministry is planning to install special water sprinkler systems on the tracks and other areas in an effort to fight the scorching heat, TV Asahi reported Thursday. The ministry is also proposing the construction of special roads that absorb large amounts of rain water and through the evaporation of the water into the atmosphere, force the temperature to drop significantly, thus further preventing heatstroke and other ailments during the Games.
Compared to when the Games were held in Tokyo nearly 50 years-ago, the average summer temperature has increased approximately 1.3 degrees centigrade.

The 1964 summer games were held in October hence the differences in temperature.

Big Tobacco Looking for Profits and Death in Burma

With most of worlds nations having placed restrictions on the sale and use of tobacco mainly in the form of cigarettes the major tobacco companies are always searching for new markets.  One has emerged Burma.  After decades of military rule Burmas new civilian led government is seeking corporations who are willing to invest in the country with the aim of turning its morriy bound economy around.

Enter big tobacco.  Needing new markets in countries with loose regulations on their product Burma is a perfect storm of opportunity for not only inflicting   a whole customer based with a wide range of health problems but those ever needed profits to keep those greedy shareholders happy.

   Tobacco is already a problem in this impoverished Southeast Asian country where anti-tobacco legislation is weak. But as Myanmar opens its doors to the world after half a century of military rule, it faces a new threat: Large multinational cigarette companies looking for new markets.After years of isolation, many young people want to be as "cool" as their Western peers. "I wanted to imitate the people I saw in movies," said Kyaw Zin Lin, 42, who began smoking at age 12. He got his first packet of cigarettes from his parents' grocery shop. "It seemed cool then."

Opportunity knocksOnly 9.2 percent of smokers use Western-style filtered cigarettes, according to Myanmar's ministry of health, and that is the reason foreign manufacturers see an opportunity to boost sales that are plateauing or falling in more developed markets.
The cancer ward at Yangon's main hospital is usually crowded, and the World Health Organisation estimates one in five deaths in Myanmar is attributed to smoking.
Cigarette sales are expected to grow at between 2-3 percent a year for the next four years, according to Shane MacGuill, a tobacco industry analyst at research firm Euromonitor.

"Transnational tobacco companies in Myanmar bring with them a complete denial of the health evidence along with sophisticated marketing and sponsorship," the World Lung Foundation's Mackay said. "They're wolves in sheep's clothing."
Myanmar is already awash with imported foreign cigarette brands such as Camel and Benson & Hedges. But these sell for about three times more than locally made cigarettes.
"If you open a factory in Myanmar, you can sell at a cheap price," making foreign brands more accessible to cost-and image-conscious consumers, said YarZar Nyunt of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.
"Corruption is a problem and the government is not that concerned with people's health. They first opened Myanmar to alcohol companies, and now tobacco firms," he adds.

Tobacco companies kept secret research concerning the health risks posed by their products.

New research suggests that tobacco companies have known for 40 years that cigarette smoke contains cancer-causing particles, but deliberately hid the information from the public.

PICTURES: 47 vintage smoking ads: When doctors plugged tobacco

For the study - published in the September 27 issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research - UCLA researchers examined dozens of internal tobacco industry documents made public after a 1998 court case, and found tobacco companies had known cigarette smoke contained potentially dangerous radioactive particles as early as 1959.

"They knew that the cigarette smoke was radioactive way back then and that it could potentially result in cancer, and they deliberately kept that information under wraps," study author Dr. Hrayr S. Karagueuzian, professor of cardiology at UCLA's cardiovascular research laboratory, said in a written statement. "We show here that the industry used misleading statements to obfuscate the hazard of ionizing alpha particles to the lungs of smokers and, more importantly, banned any and all publication on tobacco smoke radioactivity."

Tobacco CEO's testify before the U.S. Congress and lied

Tobacco Chiefs Say Cigarettes Aren't Addictive

The executives, sitting side by side at a conference table in what seemed to many a counterpoint to the growing antismoking sentiment in Congress, faced more than six hours of sharp questioning by members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health and the Environment.
Under persistent questioning, each of the executives agreed to give Congress extensive, previously unpublicized research on humans and animals that their companies had done concerning nicotine and addiction.
Democratic Congressmen on the panel, inspired by recent news reports, pressed the executives on whether their companies manipulated the content of nicotine to keep smokers addicted to cigarettes. The executives acknowledged that nicotine levels could be and were controlled by altering the blends of tobacco, but they said this was done to enhance flavor, not to insure addiction.