High school in US sued for firing football coach who queried racist curriculum
An American civil society, Judicial Watch, has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of David Flynn, the father of two Dedham Public School students, who was fired from his position as head football coach after exercising his right as a citizen to raise concerns about his daughter’s seventh-grade history class...
Listening to the sound of silence: How decibel levels hurt the heart and the brain
Exposure to loud noise has long been linked with hearing loss. But the ruckus of planes and cars takes a toll beyond the ears. Traffic noise has been flagged as a major physiological stressor, second to air pollution and on roughly equal footing with exposure to second-hand smoke and radon....
Debunked repeatedly by journalists, fact-checkers, online lies keep mutating
You may have heard the outlandish claim: Bill Gates is using the Covid-19 vaccine to implant microchips in everyone so he can track where they go. It’s false, of course, debunked repeatedly by journalists and fact-checking organisations. Yet the falsehood persists online – in fact, it is one of the...
Has the pandemic hit academic mothers really hard? New data say so
Reshma Jagsi, a radiation oncologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor city, wrote an opinion piece predicting female scientists would feel a disproportionate impact from the Coid-19 pandemic. Sceptical journal editors declined to publish it. Since then, though, many commentators have echoed her message. And now the evidence...
Huawei takes HSBC to court to stop extradition of its chief finance officer to US
The Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is taking HSBC bank to court in the UK as part of its attempt to prevent the extradition of its chief financial officer from Canada to the US. Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on a US request over claims she misled HSBC in a...
Private sector invests in new ideas only after regimes make risky investments
The World Health Organisation appointed economist Mariana Mazzucato to head its Council on the Economics of Health for All in 2020. Ms Mazzucato is one of the architects of the biggest international research-funding scheme in the world, Horizon Europe, which launched this month. Her book Mission Economy is a timely...
Opinion: Facebook founder Zuckerberg can’t fix what he won’t own up to
In June 2017, Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s mission. Speaking at the company’s first Community Summit in Chicago, he explained that the best part of Facebook is its “meaningful groups,” those that address a user’s passions or needs and connect them with others who share those interests. At the time, there...
Ethiopia ready to build a 100mw wind power plant
Siemens Gamesa has signed its first wind power project in Ethiopia with state-owned electricity company Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) and in the process strengthened its leadership in Africa as the East African nation embarks on expansion of its green energy capacity to meet ambitious renewable targets. The 100mw Assela wind...
Cocoa farmers in West Africa earn a pittance as chocolate manufacturers bank billions
Recent statistics on world chocolate industry lay bare how exploitative the beverage’s market is, with cocoa farmers in West Africa forced to make do with a paltry six per cent of total revenues. Leading chocolate companies have since 2001 made pledges to end widespread abusive labour practices, but continue to...
Denver Nuggets convert South Sudanese Bol Bol’s contract to standard deal
Denver Nuggets have converted the two-way contract of Bol Manute Bol to a standard multi-year NBA contract, President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly has announced. Bol Manute Bol, who will remain a rookie for the 2020-21 season as he did not appear in an NBA game prior to the hiatus...
