Today’s comic by Matt Bors is Taking a leak:
• Indian Child Welfare Act survives attack from conservative groups:
Tribal leaders and advocates are breathing a sigh of relief after a federal judge rejected a broad attack on the Indian Child Welfare Act. But conservative legal groups, aided by some within the adoption industry, contend the law is racist because it only applies to one class of children. In hopes of weakening ICWA, they sued the federal government on behalf of all children in Arizona with Indian ancestry and on behalf of all adults who have adopted, or are trying to adopt, children with Indian ancestry.
• The other March Madness—vasectomies: Whether you call it U Vas Madness or not, having the snip-snip done this month happily coincides with the NCAA tournament season, giving men an excuse to hang out on the sofa more than usual, watching television while they heal.
• Study shows gun violence cost nearly $7 billion in health care 2006-2014:
Looking at a database of hospital inpatient records, researchers at Stanford University Medical Center found that more than 250,000 patients were admitted for gunshot injuries from 2006 through 2014, according to the study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Adjusting for inflation, the costs of these hospitalizations totaled $6.61 billion, an average of $734 million per year. The bulk of these costs, 40 percent, was paid through government insurance coverage under Medicare and Medicaid.
These figures only begin to scratch the surface of the true cost, according to Sarabeth Spitzer, a Stanford medical student and lead author of the study.
• This tool will show you how many people will lose health coverage under Trump-Ryan plan in your neck of the woods.
• Indonesian-born U.S. citizen sues over marriage license requirement: Viet Anh Vo has lived in Louisiana since he was an infant, but he was born in Indonesia. He has filed a lawsuit against a 2015 state law that requires marriage license applicants to present a certified copy of their birth certificates. This discriminates against the foreign born, he says. After his parents fled Vietnam, the 31-year-old Vo was born in an Indonesian refugee camp. Neither Vietnamese nor Indonesian authorities issued a birth certificate. Vo and his U.S.-born fiancee spent thousands of dollars on their wedding before having their application for a marriage license turned down in three parishes. They went ahead with the ceremony anyway, but are not married in the state’s eyes.
• $100 million in artefacts shipped from Turkey and Egypt to U.S. in 2016. How much of that was looted?
The documents reveal that the import of "antique" gold coins (defined as being over 100 years old) made up a significant part of the shipments from Turkey and Egypt in 2016.
More than 46 lbs. (20 kilograms) of antique gold coins were shipped from Turkey to the U.S. in 2016, the documents show — nearly the weight of about 9,000 modern-day U.S. pennies. The documents also reveal that more than 22 lbs. (10 kg) of antique gold coins were shipped from Egypt to the United States in 2016.
For comparison, the documents also reveal that between 1996 and 2003, in that entire span, less than 1 lb. (0.45 kg) of antique gold coins was shipped from each of those two countries to the U.S.
• Sure, California farmworkers can make $30,000 a year if they work full time. But most only work only part time:
A report in the LA Times last week explored why farmers in the Central Valley are having a hard time finding enough workers, despite reportedly paying up to 40 percent more than the California minimum wage. “Today, farmworkers in the state earn about $30,000 a year if they work full time—about half the overall average pay in California,” notes the Times. “Most work fewer hours.” The second sentence here is key: most farmworkers are not employed 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year, so most earn far less than $30,000 per year. In fact, in 2015, workers who received their primary earnings from agricultural employers earned an average of $17,500—less than 60 percent of the average annual wage of a full-time equivalent (FTE) worker in California.
• Danna Smith says the climate crisis won't be resolved without a massive increase in forest protection:
According to the latest EPA annual report of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, our nation’s forests annually remove an amount of carbon from the atmosphere equivalent to a mere 11-13 percent of emissions. This is roughly half that of the global average of 25% and a mere fraction of what is needed to avoid climate catastrophe. A 2016 study found that from 2006 to 2010, logging diminished the potential U.S. forest carbon sink by at least 35%.
• Report shows slowdown at all levels for new coal projects in China and India.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Hey, surprise! Earth’s own Mos Eisley Spaceport, Trump Tower, is full of Russian mobsters! And there’s even a Spring Training league in Florida! Is there also a Breitbart -Russia connection? Thoughts on Gorsuch. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Nor does one.
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