How long will it be before someone gets shot by a Donald Trump supporter in what the shooter may likely consider an act of patriotic civil disobedience? Or before someone uses a gun against right-wing vigilantes?

There is no shortage of evidence pointing toward some violent outburst surrounding the presidential election results. Reporters interviewing Trump supporters at rallies, national polls showing likely voters are expecting Election Day violence, consumer-trend tracking firms saying demand is rising for gun purchases, and rhetoric from the longstanding cadre of right-wing loudmouths, all suggest some type of ugly response.

“Sixteen percent of Americans plan on buying a gun as a result of the upcoming election,” said a press release Thursday from Elementum, “the real-time supply chain platform company, who polled 2,000 Americans from October 20-24 and found that among those living in the South, 19 percent will buy guns and among Gen Xers, the number is nearly 23 percent, especially among women, 24 percent.”

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/election-day-nears-1-6-americans-say-theyre-buying-guns-and-half-voters-expect

RIO DE JANEIRO — Nearly nine months after Zika was declared a global health emergency, the virus has infected at least 650,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean, including tens of thousands of expectant mothers.

But to the great bewilderment of scientists, the epidemic has not produced the wave of fetal deformities so widely feared when the images of misshapen infants first emerged from Brazil.

Instead, Zika has left a puzzling and distinctly uneven pattern of damage across the Americas. According to the latest U.N. figures, of the 2,175 babies born in the past year with undersize heads or other congenital neurological damage linked to Zika, more than 75 percent have been clustered in a single region: northeastern Brazil.

The pattern is so confounding that health officials and scientists have turned their attention back to northeastern ­Brazil to understand why Zika’s toll has been so much heavier there. They suspect that other, underlying causes may be to blame, such as the presence of another ­mosquito-borne virus like chikungunya or dengue. Or that environmental, genetic or immunological factors combined with Zika to put mothers in the area at greater risk.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/scientists-are-bewildered-by-zikas-path-across-latin-america/2016/10/25/5e3a992c-9614-11e6-9cae-2a3574e296a6_story.html

It’s been a long run, coal, but your reign is over.

Renewable energy sources have passed coal as the largest new source of electricity in the world, according data released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The transition of the world’s energy sources is critical for avoiding a 2°C rise in global temperatures. Coal, for instance, represented about a quarter of U.S. CO2 emissions in 2012.

Solar and wind account for almost two-thirds of the growth in renewables, which is coming from industrialized and developing nations alike.

https://thinkprogress.org/more-renewables-than-coal-worldwide-36a3ab11704d#.nc0wdlkiu

Three major U.S. pipeline spills within the last month are just a small part of the 220 significant incidents reported so far this year—and 3,032 since 2006—that provide a stark reminder of the environmental hazards of an aging pipeline infrastructure carrying fossil fuels. The costs of these leaks since 2006 has amounted to $4.7 billion.

1. Oklahoma: On Oct. 24, the 30-inch S-1 pipeline carrying crude oil from the critical Cushing, Oklahoma hub to refineries and chemical plants on the Gulf Coast began to leak and was shut down overnight. It was the second release connected with the Cushing storage facility in less than a month.

2. Pennsylvania: On Oct. 21, 55,000 gallons of gasoline gushed from a ruptured Sunoco Logistics pipeline in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, just upstream from the Susquehanna River. Carol Parenzan, Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper, said that witnesses who contacted her office reported that the "smell of petroleum is so thick you can taste it." The 80-year old pipeline was damaged by a heavy storm that dumped seven inches of rain on the area.

3. Alabama: Last month, the Colonial Pipeline in Alabama leaked an estimated 336,000 gallons of gasoline and triggered concerns about gas shortages for drivers in the East. That spill was Colonial's fifth in the state this year and occurred on a 43-year old section of the pipeline.

http://www.ecowatch.com/pipeline-spills-2061960029.html

In a sweeping gesture, Virginia’s Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe signed a bill into law reinstating voting rights to felons this week. The legislation will affect 200,000 Virginia residents, giving them the right to participate in the political process and having a hand in their own future.

This is a valuable step in working to fix America’s broken criminal justice system which currently seeks to punish rather than rehabilitate felons. Taking steps like these nationwide will eventually work towards reducing recidivism and helping to rebuild the damage done by an excessively harsh criminal justice system.

https://trofire.com/2016/10/21/felons-now-right-vote-virginia-rehabilitation-made-possible/

This might have been a tough week for Monsanto Co. The Environmental Protection Agency was slated to hold four days of public meetings focused on essentially one question: Is glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide and the lynchpin to Monsanto’s fortunes, as safe as Monsanto has spent 40 years telling us it is?

But oddly, the EPA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meetings, called to look at potential glyphosate ties to cancer, were “postponed“ just four days before they were to begin Oct. 18, after intense lobbying by the agrichemical industry. The industry first fought to keep the meetings from being held at all, and argued that if they were held, several leading international experts should be excluded from participating, including “any person who has publicly expressed an opinion regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate.”

As the meetings drew near, CropLife America, which represents the interests of Monsanto and other agribusinesses, specifically took issue with at least two scientists chosen for the panel, alleging the experts might be unfavorably biased against industry interests. On Oct. 12, the group sent a letter to the EPA calling for Dr. Kenneth Portier of the American Cancer Society to be more deeply scrutinized for any “pre-formed conclusions” about glyphosate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/epa-bows-to-chemical-indu_b_12563438.html

Where Has the Waste Gone? Fracking Results in Illegal Dumping of Radioactive Toxins

One of those people who live less than a mile from the IHD facility is Susan Perry. One day, the local bus driver who picks up dozens of kids who live in Perry's neighborhood stopped by her house to ask if Perry would sign a petition to the North Dakota Department of Health. The petition asked the state not to increase the allowable radiation limits for oil field waste dumped in landfills. Perry was alarmed. She knew the landfill accepted oil field waste but had never heard anyone talk about radioactivity.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38022-where-has-the-waste-gone-fracking-results-in-illegal-dumping-of-radioactive-toxins.

Earlier Monday, Johnson told students at Liberty University that Justice Clarence Thomas is the type of jurist he would nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court as president.

“With regard to Supreme Court justices, it would be an issue of justices ruling on the basis of original intent of the Constitution,” Johnson said in a question and answer session following his remarks at the nation’s largest evangelical university.

“I think that Judge Thomas has probably been at the forefront of the kind of a judge that I would like to appoint.”

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/article_25113cf3-d0e6-5fbf-95df-827e9e1eb469.html

Health secretary Cleopa Mailu has rejected the planned trial of genetically modified (GM) maize in Kenya, dealing a big blow to scientists and global seed companies, who have been pushing for policy change on the controversial crop science.

Dr Mailu says in a letter to the Ministry of Environment that introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Kenya remains bound by a decision of the 16th Cabinet meeting that banned imports of biotech foods.

He says the ban remains in force until a review and evaluation of scientific information on safety of GM foods on human health is undertaken.

Dr Mailu was responding to news that local scientists have sought permits from the National Environmental Authority (Nema) to carry out GM.

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Minister-Mailu-blocks-planned-testing-of-GMO-maize-in-Kenya/539546-3412380-tkbmcg/index.html