Новости за 04.05.2020

After a beautiful weekend in the nation’s capital, where hundreds flocked to the National Mall to watch big planes go zoom, it is hard not to wonder if too many people in power have concluded that it’s about time we wrapped up this whole lockdown thing. Some states are reopening their businesses even as death rates continue to climb, affording people one last chance to go out and get some sun or a haircut before they die; one state, Ohio, is even taking steps to prevent workers at reopened businesses from claiming unemployment. Читать дальше...

Ethel Freeman became famous in death, even though no one knew her name. For months, she was one of the many nameless people who lost their lives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s deadly intersection of race and class. Her son, Herbert Freeman Jr., had successfully rescued the 91-year-old retired school employee from her flooded home, but once they were both sheltered, alongside thousands of other displaced hurricane victims in the New Orleans convention center, he could only assure her that help was coming as he watched her life slip away. Читать дальше...

On March 27, David “Doc” Searls, a technology writer and veteran of the ad industry, posted an entry on his blog about the newly ubiquitous videoconferencing program Zoom, calling it “creepily chummy” with the shadowy advertisers who electronically eavesdrop on users. The blog was shared on Hacker News, the message board that serves as a digital town square for Silicon Valley habitués, and readers took notice. His blog, which usually got about 50 readers a day, was getting more than 16,000, and he continued to put pressure on Zoom... Читать дальше...

Goats have taken over a tiny Welsh town. Los Angeles is free of smog. And the Taj Mahal is sparkling again. The environmental consequences of the coronavirus have been swift and, at least on their face, significant. In February, analysts reported that carbon emissions in China, the country where the virus originated, dropped 25 percent. So too did nitrogen dioxide, a by-product of fossil fuel combustion and a key component in air pollution. While global carbon emissions were supposed to rise this year... Читать дальше...