The
US House of Representatives has passed sweeping legislation that
prohibits LGBT discrimination, but it is unlikely to pass the Senate.
The Equality Act was previously passed by the Democratic-led House in 2019, but was killed by Senate Republicans.
The
debate has laid bare the ideological battle between liberals who
support the act and conservatives who say it infringes on religious
freedom.
The act expands on a 2020 Supreme Court ruling protecting some LGBT rights.
What does the act do?
The
Equality Act expands on the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include
protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and
gender identity.
But what does that actually mean?
The act provides non-discrimination protections for LGBT people
It would extend into all areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, jury service, and public services
It makes existing state protections federal and consistent across the nation
The
act would also federally codify into law the 2020 June Supreme Court
ruling that said employers who fire workers for being gay or transgender
are violating civil rights law.
Advocates
for the act have argued that the current "patchwork" of state
anti-discrimination laws does not provide enough comprehensive
protection, and leaves many LGBT individuals at risk.
The first test of a project backed to
spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere, in an attempt
to 'dim the sun' and cool the Earth, could happen in June.
Harvard
University experts will test the system by sending a large balloon 12
miles above the Swedish town of Kiruna and have it drop 2kg of chalk
dust into the stratosphere.
The aim of
the estimated $3 million mission, backed by billionaire Bill Gates, is
to have the chalk deflect a portion of the sun's radiation, stop it from
hitting the surface, and cool the planet.
The
idea has been heavily criticised since its inception, with project
director Frank Keutsch even calling the need for this scale of
geo-engineering 'terrifying'.
And experts have warned that the unusual technique could be disastrous for weather systems in ways nobody can predict.
Backed
by a range of private donors including Gates, the test mission is
launching from Sweden as they could offer a launch by the end of this
summer.
The test balloon will lift 600kg of
scientific equipment 12 miles above the surface of the Arctic town and
if it all goes well, about 2kg of dust will be released.
This
will then create a dust plume several kilometres in length - not large
enough to have any effect on the intensity of the sun's rays hitting the
Earth.
During that first test the team would gather information on how particles of dust react with the air.
1Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3Your
gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped
treasure together for the last days.
4Behold,
the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of
you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped
are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. James 5:1-6
Note: And also a warning to the spiritually rich (Laodicea)
Many of us wish we could get through this difficult year as quickly as
possible. Seems the Earth feels the same way — it has been spinning
unusually fast lately. 2020 included the 28 shortest days since 1960.
Atomic Clocks Expose Earth's Irregular Speed
The Earth is an excellent timekeeper: on average, with respect to the
Sun, it rotates once every 86,400 seconds, which equals 24 hours, or one
mean solar day.
But it is not perfect. When highly accurate atomic clocks were developed
in the 1960s, they showed that the length of a mean solar day can vary
by milliseconds (1 millisecond equals 0.001 seconds). These differences
are obtained by measuring the Earth's rotation with respect to distant
astronomical objects, and using a mathematical formula to calculate the mean solar day.
2020 Had Shortest Days on Record
Before this year began, the shortest day since 1973 was July 5, 2005,
when the Earth's rotation took 1.0516 milliseconds less than 86,400
seconds.
But in the middle of 2020, the Earth beat that record no less
than 28 times. The shortest day of all came on July 19, when the Earth
completed its rotation in 1.4602 milliseconds less than 86,400 seconds.
The speed of the Earth's rotation varies constantly because of the
complex motion of its molten core, oceans and atmosphere, plus other
effects.
2021 Is Predicted to Be Even Shorter
Scientists monitoring the Earth's rotational speed expect the trend of having shorter days to follow us into 2021 as well.
According to their calculations, an average day in 2021 will be 0.05 ms
shorter than 86,400 seconds. Over the course of the entire year, atomic
clocks will have accumulated a lag of about 19 ms. For comparison: in
past years, they ran fast by a few hundred milliseconds per year. See yearly averages since 1973
In fact, the year 2021 is predicted to be the shortest in decades. The last time that an average day was less than 86,400 seconds across a full year was in 1937.
People in the San Francisco Bay Area and across California awoke on Wednesday morning to an eerie scene of darkened, orange-hued skies and ash raining down as historic wildfires rage across the state.
The apocalyptic skies are due to light being filtered through smoke from California’s worst fire season on record, according to a regional air pollution control organization the Bay Area Air District.
“These smoke particles scatter blue light and only allow yellow-orange-red light to reach the surface, causing skies to look orange,” the Bay Area Air District said on Twitter.
Residents of the Bay Area reported oversleeping because the sky was so dark. Local police forces recommended drivers keep headlights on all day and bridges and street lights remained alight as the sun failed to appear this morning.
Surreal images of blood orange skyline flooded social media on Wednesday.
Global food production is being hit from seemingly every side.
Thanks to absolutely crazy weather patterns, giant locust armies in
Africa and the Middle East, and an unprecedented outbreak of African
Swine Fever in China, a lot less food is being produced around the world
than originally anticipated. Even during the best of years we really
struggle to feed everyone on the planet, and so a lot of people are
wondering what is going to happen as global food supplies become tighter
and tighter. The mainstream media in the United States is so obsessed
with politics right now that they haven’t been paying much attention to
this emerging crisis, but the truth is that this growing nightmare is
only going to intensify in the months ahead.
In Australia, conditions have been extremely hot and extremely dry,
and that helped to fuel the horrific wildfires that we recently
witnessed.
And everyone knew that agricultural production in Australia was going
to be disappointing this year, but it turns out that it is actually
going to be the worst ever recorded…
Australia’s hottest and driest year on record has slashed crop production, with summer output expected to fall to the lowest levels on record, according to official projections released Tuesday.
The country’s agriculture department said it expects production of crops like sorghum, cotton and rice to fall 66 percent — the lowest levels since records began in 1980-81.
The continent of Australia is considered to be one of the
breadbaskets of the world. According to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, in 2018/19 Australia exported over 9 million tons of wheat to the rest of the world.
But thanks to relentless crop failures, Australia has started to import wheat, and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
So instead of helping to feed the rest of the world, Australia is now relying on the rest of us to help feed them.
And what is happening this year didn’t just barely break the old
records. In fact, one senior economist says that this will be the worst
summer crop production the country has ever seen “by a large margin”…
“It is the lowest summer crop production in this period by a large margin,” Peter Collins, a senior economist with the department’s statistical body ABARES told AFP.
Of course if the rest of the world was doing great we could certainly survive a downturn in Australia.
Unfortunately, that is definitely not the case.
Right now, billions upon billions of locusts are voraciously
devouring farms in eastern Africa and the Middle East. As I detailed the other day,
giant armies of locusts the size of large cities are traveling up to
100 miles per day as they search for food. When they descend on a farm,
all the crops can be consumed literally within 30 seconds.
It is a nightmare of epic proportions, and UN officials are telling us
that this crisis is only going to get worse over the next couple of
months.
Church leaders already came out in favour of same-sex marriage in
August, but officially endorsed it this week during their national
assembly held in Bern.
"The diversity of sexual orientations reflects the fullness of the
divine act of creation. God wants us the way we were created. We cannot
choose our sexual orientation," the Church Council said.
The Federation stressed that its support does not mean the church
intends to actually introduce religious marriage for same-sex couples,
as this decision belongs to local parishes.
It did, however, propose to include a provision in the church's
regulations giving its pastors the freedom of choice on whether to marry
same-sex couples in a religious ceremony.
Peter Schneeberger, president of the Association VFG Free Churches Switzerland, criticized FEPS's decision.
"Marriage between men and women, because of their potential, has a
special status in our view and is based on God's order of creation," he
told Livenet.ch, a web portal for Switzerland's Christian community.
Switzerland allows civil unions between same-sex couples, but not full marriages.
However, a proposal called "Marriage For All", introduced by the
Liberal Green party, is currently in the parliament. Deputiesare
expected to discuss it during the spring 2020 session.
Same-sex marriage is now legal in most Western European nations. Italy,
where these unions are still prohibited, started to recognize them in
2016.
14 The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
15 That
day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of
wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of
clouds and thick darkness,
16 A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.
17 And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's
wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his
jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that
dwell in the land. Zephania 1:14-18
A COMPUTER MODEL developed in 1973 by a team of MIT researchers has
predicted the "end of civilised life as we know it" by 2040, with a
major change coming in 2020 - just two years away from now.
An apocalyptic computer model, processed by one of the world's largest computers in 1973, has predicted the end of civilization by 2040.
The
prediction came from a programme nicknamed World One, which was
developed by a team of MIT researchers and processed by Australia's
largest computer.
It was originally devised by computer pioneer
Jay Forrester, after he was tasked by the Club of Rome to develop a
model of global sustainability.
However, the shocking result of the computer calculations showed that the level of pollution and population would cause a global collapse by 2040.
This shows that the world cannot sustain the current level of population and industrial growth for more than two decades.
Australian
broadcaster ABC has republished its original report from the 1970s,
since there is just two years until a major change is expected according
to the computer model.
The model based its predictions on trends
such as pollution levels, population growth, availability of natural
resources and quality of life on earth.
The eerie calculation has
been remarkably accurate in certain predictions, such as a stagnated
quality of life and diminishing pool of natural resources.
“I’m here because I have nothing to eat,” said one woman.
Women from crisis-hit Venezuela are
crossing the border in droves and selling their hair in a Colombian
border town in order to afford scarce basic necessities such as food,
diapers or medicines.
The trend, which has taken off in recent weeks, is another sign of
the oil-rich country’s deepening crisis amid shortages and spiraling
inflation that have millions skipping meals and forgoing costly medical
treatment.
Dozens of middlemen, known as “draggers,” stand on a bridge linking San Antonio, Venezuela, to Colombia’s La Parada, calling out: “We buy hair!”
Some 200 women a day are taking up their offer at one of seven
makeshift stands dotting La Parada, according to estimates from five
middlemen. The locks are then sold as extensions in the western
Colombian city of Cali.
Celina Gonzales, a 45-year-old street vendor, stood in line for an
hour to sell her mid-length brown hair for 60,000 Colombian pesos, or
about $20 – the equivalent of a monthly minimum wage and food tickets
back home.
“I suffer arthritis and I need to buy medicine. This won’t be much,
but at least I can buy painkillers,” said Gonzales, who had not told her
family what she was doing.
Venezuela‘s leftist government blames
the crisis on businessmen waging an “economic war” to sabotage it. The
Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
‘THEY GO BUY FOOD’
As the economy teeters under a third year of recession, Venezuelans
are increasingly ending up empty-handed despite long lines for
heavily-subsidized food. Non-subsidized food is far too expensive, with a
bag of rice sometimes costing around a tenth of monthly earnings.
Many are forced to survive on starches or forage through garbage for
scraps. In recent months, hundreds have drifted across to Colombia to
buy groceries.
In the border towns, the hair business is booming.
“I can take off volume, cut strands here and there or make a ponytail
and cut all the hair,” explained Jenifer Nino, 31, a so-called dragger,
as she stood next to informal hair salons housed on street corners,
sidewalks and even a tire store.
“Most of the women come here with little kids and after cutting their hair they go buy food,” Nino added.
Some women complain the haircuts are sloppy and end up regretting the decision, while others are turned away.
Maribel, a poor woman from Venezuela‘s Tachira state traveled to Colombia after her brother told her about the hair business.
“I’m here because I have nothing to eat,” she said, but was later rebuffed because her hair was too short and thin. Fortune
A team of experts have warned that huge seismic events, including
volcanic eruptions, plunging global temperatures and destabilisation of
the Earth's crust will become more common after worrying changes to the
surface of the Sun were recorded.
It could take up to 15 years
for solar activity to return to normal with extreme weather and freezing
temperatures continuing until 2035.
The warning will infuriate
environmental campaigners who argue by 2030 the world faces increased
sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at the poles.
Solar
activity, measured by the appearance of sun spots, has been declining at
a greater rate than at any other time in history, it has emerged.
The
Sun is now without spots for the first time in five years after 21 days
of minimal activity were observed through the course of 2016.
Although spots reappeared sporadically during the summer, repeated slumps of no activity were recorded through the year.
The
trend has prompted scientists to warn that the world is hurtling
towards a historic solar minimum event with output potentially dropping
to an all-time low. Read More
