February 23, 2022

Guns Have Overtaken Cars as Leading Cause of Traumatic Deaths in the U.S.

In 2018, more people died from bullets than in car crashes, a new study found.

ByEd Cara
Today 6:30PM

Gun-related fatalities have surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of deaths from physical trauma, according to new research. In recent years, more lives—and years of life—were lost to firearms than to motor vehicles. The majority of these deaths involved suicide, particularly among older white men, but Black Americans were more likely to die from gun-related homicide.

Traumatic injuries are thought to be the leading cause of death among Americans ages 46 and younger, and motor vehicle fatalities have long been considered the top culprit. But over the past decade, there has been a noticeable increase in firearm deaths, which made the researchers behind this new study wonder if that distinction was still true. To find out, they sifted through the latest available mortality data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 through 2018.

For most of this time period, yearly car deaths continued to outnumber firearm deaths. But by 2018, guns were on top. That year, nearly 39,000 Americans were killed by guns, while around 37,000 died in a motor vehicle crash.

The researchers also attempted to calculate the years of potential life lost, which subtracts the age when someone dies from their expected mortality, in this case age 80. In 2017, the team calculated that 1.44 million years of life were lost to firearms, compared with 1.37 million years lost to cars, and the gap grew even larger the next year. The team’s findings were published Tuesday in Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open.

More:
https://gizmodo.com/guns-have-overtaken-cars-as-leading-cause-of-traumatic-1848576258

February 19, 2022

Construction begins on $12 million mountain lion crossing on Highway 17 in Santa Cruz Mountains

Unique project aims to reduce collisions between wildlife and motorists at dangerous roadway spot



A female mountain lion with cub is photographed from an automated trail camera on Oct. 31, 2018 on the east side of Laurel Curve at Highway 17. (Photo: Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, Pathways for Wildlife)

By PAUL ROGERS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: February 18, 2022 at 2:08 p.m. | UPDATED: February 18, 2022 at 4:23 p.m.

For years, a sweeping, treacherous curve on Highway 17 through the Santa Cruz Mountains has posed risks for motorists zooming between Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz beaches.

But it’s been deadly for another group of travelers: Mountain lions, deer and other wildlife, which have been killed in surprisingly high numbers there while trying to cross the highway.

In a unique effort being watched by biologists around the state, crews on Wednesday began construction on a $12 million project to build an underpass for mountain lions and other wildlife under the four lanes of Highway 17 at Laurel Curve.

Ten years in the making, the project was made possible when the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County pieced together roughly 700 forested acres near the curve in multiple purchases. Funding came from private donations, Caltrans contributed $3 million, and $5 million came from county transportation funds.

More:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/18/construction-begins-on-12-million-mountain-lion-crossing-on-highway-17-in-santa-cruz-mountains/

February 16, 2022

Who were the Scythians?

By Tom Garlinghouse published 6 days ago

The Scythians were nomadic pastoralists and formidable warriors.

"Scythian" is a term used to denote a diverse but culturally related group of nomads who occupied a large swathe of grassland, or steppes, that stretched from north of the Black Sea all the way to China. Sometimes also known as Saka or Scyths, the name "Scythian" was coined by the ancient Greeks.

"Scythian culture flourished on the steppes from about 800 B.C. to about A.D. 300," Adrienne Mayor, a folklorist and historian at Stanford University and the author of "The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World" (Princeton University Press, 2014), told Live Science.

The Scythians were known to many ancient civilizations, she said, including the ancient Greeks, Persians, Romans and Chinese, and they perfected the art of archery on horseback — even without the use of stirrups or saddles. They had a reputation for ferocity in battle and were masters of hit-and-run battle tactics.

"Scythian" is a term used to denote a diverse but culturally related group of nomads who occupied a large swathe of grassland, or steppes, that stretched from north of the Black Sea all the way to China. Sometimes also known as Saka or Scyths, the name "Scythian" was coined by the ancient Greeks.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/who-were-the-scythians

February 14, 2022

Arkansas jail's ivermectin experiments recall historical medical abuse of imprisoned minorities

The exploitation reflects America’s longstanding history of abusing medically abusing vulnerable communities of color

This story contains graphic descriptions of medical abuse

Maya Yang
Mon 14 Feb 2022 03.30 EST

In late August last year, four inmates at the Washington county detention center in north-west Arkansas contracted Covid-19. In the days that followed, the four men were relocated to a quarantine block in the prison.

In the block, the inmates were given a cocktail of drugs. They soon began to suffer a series of side effects including vision issues, diarrhea, bloody stools and stomach cramps.

It was only later that they discovered they had been prescribed, without their consent, significantly high doses of ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug commonly used on livestock animals including cows and horses.

The story of what may have happened in a small slice of Arkansas nestled against the Ozark hills has shocked many in America and come to symbolize the political divides triggered by the pandemic. The scheme reflects a growing obsession with ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment – especially among rightwing communities in the US.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/14/arkansas-prison-covid-19-ivermectin-experiment-minorities-medical-abuse

February 11, 2022

The Most Lavish Mesopotamian Tomb Ever Found Belongs to a Woman

Queen Pu-abi was buried in a vaulted stone burial chamber, her body adorned with an elaborate golden headdress, a beaded top, and a belt made of gold and precious stones. COURTESY OF THE PENN MUSEUM, IMAGE NO. 251051


In the late 1920s, deep in the southern Iraqi desert, British archeologist Leonard Woolley uncovered the most lavish Mesopotamian tomb ever discovered. The 4,500-year-old skeleton was draped in gold and precious stones. Golden rings decorated each finger, a golden-looped belt lay across the waist and a golden headdress with intricately wrought leaves and standing flowers adorned the head. Three more bodies, presumably servants, accompanied the royal skeleton. But the resplendent grave goods are not the only reason the discovery rocked the world in the early 20th century: this tomb belonged to a woman.

Queen Pu-abi, a name carried down through the millennia thanks to a lapis-lazuli seal pinned to her burial garment, lived at the height of Ur’s power around 2600 BC. In her time, the ancient city-state held extensive sway across Sumer, a region nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates. Trade in Ur flourished and trade routes extended from modern-day India to Sudan. As the main harbor for Indian goods, Ur garnered huge amounts of wealth. Though no contemporary documents mention Pu-abi, scholars believe she may have ruled in her own right since her seal mentions no husband.

Archeologist and textile expert Rita Wright, professor emerita of anthropology at New York University, is the first to ever study Pu-abi’s garments based on the only surviving image of her. Her findings have just been published in the new book Art/ifacts and ArtWorks in the Ancient World. Atlas Obscura spoke to Wright about the role of women in ancient Ur, what we know of Queen Pu-abi’s life, and why textiles are so often overlooked in archeology.



Pu-abi would have participated in lavish rituals at the Great Ziggurat of Ur, which still stands in the southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar. ASAAD NIAZI/GETTY IMAGES

More:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ur-queen-puabi-mesopotamia-textiles

February 5, 2022

Colombia human rights update January 2022 1 Feb 2022

. . .

Below is JFC’s monthly update on human rights abuses in Colombia.

N.B. This article does not claim to provide a definitive list of all human rights violations committed in Colombia. Various others are likely to have been committed during the period.

2 January – Fighting between rival armed groups in Arauca, eastern Colombia, left 27 people dead, some of whom belonged to the groups involved. Victims also reportedly included civilians who had been forced from their homes and killed. At least 52 families were forcibly displaced by the situation. Opposition congress members and human rights organisations called for an urgent humanitarian response to the security crisis.

3 January – After Colombia registered 96 massacres in 2021, the first of 2022 claimed the lives of three Venezuelan nationals in Jamundí, department of Valle del Cauca. The men were construction workers who had lived in the area for around five years. According to Colombian senator Gustavo Bolívar, it is the 241st massacre committed in Colombia since President Iván Duque took office in August 2018.

6 January – The year’s second massacre was carried out in Maní in the department of Casanare. The victims were identified as Vicente Soto Berrío, his 17-year-old son Gustavo Soto Chaparro and Alfonso Sandoval. Armed assailants entered the Soto family home and, without saying anything, attacked the inhabitants. A fourth person was injured.

8 January – Three people, including a pregnant woman and a teenager, were killed in the third massacre of 2022, carried out in the Zona Bananera in northern Colombia’s Magdalena region. Armed assailants arrived at a home in the village of El Salón and attacked those inside. The victims were named as Jorge Hernández, Patricia de Armas Gallardo, who was pregnant, and 17-year-old William Hernández. The National Ombudsman previously issued a warning for the Zona Bananera over threats to environmental activists campaigning against river pollution and land erosion, as well as pressure on local residents to sell their homes.

8 January – The day’s second massacre, and the fourth of 2022, was carried out in Colón Genova in Nariño, southern Colombia. In the village of Villanueva, three people were killed in the central park after armed assailants entered the area and began shooting indiscriminately. At least four others were injured. The young victims were named as Ricardo Andrade Bravo, 22 years old, Arnold Montero Gallardo, 19, and Esteban Castillo Ordoñez, 21.

More:
https://justiceforcolombia.org/news/colombia-human-rights-update-january-2022/