1 in every 500 US residents have died of Covid-19
16 September 2021 - The United States has reached another grim milestone in its fight against the devastating Covid-19 pandemic: 1 in 500 Americans have died from coronavirus since the nation's first reported infection. It's a sobering toll that comes as hospitals in the US are struggling to keep up with the volume of patients and more children are grappling with the virus. (more)

Climate change: World now sees twice as many days over 50C
16 September 2021 - The number of extremely hot days every year when the temperature reaches 50C (122 Fahrenheit) has doubled since the 1980s, a global BBC analysis has found. They also now happen in more areas of the world than before, presenting unprecedented challenges to human health and to how we live. (more)

Hundreds of migrating songbirds crash into New York City skyscrapers
16 September 2021 - Hundreds of birds migrating through New York City this week died after crashing into the city's glass towers, a mass casualty event spotlighted by a New York City Audubon volunteer's tweets showing the World Trade Center littered with bird carcasses. NYC Audubon wants the owners of the World Trade Center towers and other buildings to help reduce the number of bird strikes by dimming the lights at night and by treating glass to make it more visible to birds. (more)

Idaho rations health care statewide amid massive COVID surge
16 September 2021 - Idaho public health leaders on Thursday [16 September] expanded health care rationing statewide amid a massive increase in the number of coronavirus patients requiring hospitalization. ... Idaho is one of the least vaccinated U.S. states, with only about 40% of its residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Only Wyoming and West Virginia have lower vaccination rates. (more)

California's disappearing salmon
15 September 2021 - For centuries, spring-run Chinook salmon, among California's most iconic fish, would rest for weeks in [the] historically cold waters [of Butte Creek] after their brutal upstream journey. Then they would lay eggs and, finally, perish to complete one of nature's most improbable life cycles. No longer. What once was a place where life began is now one of untimely death. The creek is simply too warm, an astounding 10 degrees warmer than average in some parts of these spawning grounds. (more)

A heart patient died after he couldn't get a cardiac ICU bed in 43 hospitals. Now his family is pleading for people to get vaccinated
13 September 2021 - Ray DeMonia wasn't seeking Covid-19 treatment when he arrived at an Alabama hospital with heart problems. But the 73-year-old became an indirect victim of Covid-19 patients filling hospitals and ICU beds. (more)

Alabama man dies after being turned away from 43 hospitals as covid packs ICUs, family says
13 September 2021 - When Ray DeMonia was having a cardiac emergency last month, his Alabama family waited anxiously for a nearby hospital with available space in its intensive care unit. But in a state where coronavirus infections and unvaccinated patients have overwhelmed hospitals in recent months, finding an available ICU bed was an ordeal. It was so difficult, his family wrote this month, that the hospital in his hometown of Cullman, Ala., contacted 43 others in three states -- and all were unable to give him the care he needed. His daughter told The [Washington] Post he was vaccinated against the coronavirus. (more)

Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds
13 September 2021 - Production of meat worldwide emits 28 times as much as growing plants, and most crops are raised to feed animals bound for slaughter. The raising and culling of animals for food is far worse for the climate than growing and processing fruits and vegetables for people to eat, the research found, confirming previous findings on the outsized impact that meat production, particularly beef, has on the environment. (more)