Celebrate 🎉 Safely!

I understand he is slowly getting over it..........................

Celebrate 🎉 Safely!

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — More than half of bankers surveyed in rural parts of 10 Plains and Western states are projecting a drop in holiday retail sales this year from last year as the coronavirus pandemic worsens across the country. The Rural Mainstreet Survey's overall index fell to 46.8 in November from October’s 53.2. It's the first time since April that the index has fallen, but it remains well ahead of the 35.5 reading in March, when the index bottomed out as the outbreak began. Any score below 50 suggests a shrinking economy, while a score above 50 suggests a growing economy. Bankers from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming were surveyed.


https://www.kbia.org/post/bankers-survey-projects-drop-holiday-retail-sales?_ga=2.24911546.1235430519.1605993810-1558381833.1605993809#stream/0

NEW MADRID, Mo. (AP) — Three former officials of a small southeast Missouri town are facing felony charges after a state audit found more than $115,000 in fraudulent purchases and payments. The investigation in Parma drew attention after records sought for the audit were destroyed in two suspicious fires. Former Parma Mayor Tyus Byrd, former city clerk Helen Jean Frye, and David Thatch, a former water supervisor, were charged this week. State Auditor Nicole Galloway announced in July that her office had uncovered the fraudulent activity during the four years Byrd served as mayor in the town of about 700 people. She lost her bid for reelection in April 2019.

https://www.kbia.org/post/three-former-missouri-city-officials-charged-fraud-scheme

By DAVID COOK
President UFCW Local 655

Election Day was barely two weeks ago, and yet it already feels like a lifetime. While most races around the country have been definitely decided, President-elect Joe Biden continues to grapple with President Donald Trump,
who seems intent on making the transition process as difficult and exhausting as possible.

You’ve probably already grown tired of the daily headlines, and they’ve all started to blend together. Every day there is more news about Trump’s campaign and their ailing attempt to get election results thrown out based on baseless claims of widespread fraud. Every day there is more news about President-elect Biden building his transition team, and frankly, acting like a leader.

A lot of this is performative politics, and there’s little we can do about it. It would do us all some good to remember that there are some things we can’t control, and to remind ourselves that some of this petty bickering from the president has genuine consequences.

WE’RE IN FOR A HARD WINTER
COVID-19 cases are exploding in the United States and in Missouri — and while President Trump would insist that this is simply because we do more testing than anyone else (we don’t) and that if we stopped testing it would all go away (it wouldn’t) — hospitalizations every- where are skyrocketing. As of this writing our daily COVID-19 deaths are at the same levels they were in early May, when the virus dominated our news headlines.

https://labortribune.com/were-in-for-a-hard-winter/

The U.S. Navy may gain the ability to locate submarines from the air as a radical new radar finally moves into the deployment phase.

The Raytheon AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor (AAS) is a giant radar mounted in a pod under the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. It’s a solid-state ultra-fast electronically-scanned array: unlike the old rotating-dish radar under a dome, it has no moving parts and moves at the speed of digital.

When in use, a hydraulic arm lowers the pod clear of the aircraft’s engines, giving it a clear 360-degree view of the sea below in all directions. The project came out of the highly classified "black" world, and details are still shadowy. We do know, however, that it can operate in a variety of different modes, from scanning broad areas to shooting a tight beam of energy to take a high-resolution radar snapshot from long range, or tracking multiple moving objects as small as individuals on foot. It provides monochrome images with photograph-like resolution in all weathers, through clouds and in darkness.

The sensor has been in development since 2009 with flight testing since 2014. Operational testing has been budgeted to continue through the current fiscal year. No updates have been issued although this January the Navy announced it was working on maintenance training systems for the AAS, suggesting that they were expecting deployment soon.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/11/16/new-us-navy-airborne-radar-may-spot-submerged-submarines/?

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that the modern human nursing strategy, with onset of weaning at 5 to 6 months, was present among Neanderthals who lived between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago in what is now Italy.

The extent to which Neanderthals differ from Homo sapiens is the focus of many studies in human evolution.

There is debate about their pace of growth and early-life metabolic constraints, both of which are still poorly understood.

“The beginning of weaning relates to physiology rather than to cultural factors,” said co-first author Dr. Alessia Nava, a researcher in the Department of Maxillo-Facial Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome and the Skeletal Biology Research Centre at the University of Kent.

http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/early-life-neanderthals-09015.html

As a plant scientist, Nadia Shakoor has spent hours in crop fields manually gathering data for the Danforth Plant Science Center. Collecting field data often requires many pieces of equipment and sensors.

But Shakoor is seeking to change that. She developed the PheNode device in 2017, which she describes as an “all-in-one, plug-and-play system.”

The idea is to have a platform that sends research data gathered in the fields on one device, Shakoor explained on Friday’s St. Louis on the Air. The PheNode system is also solar powered and can send data to a phone or computer.

“The PheNode is actually transmitting its data live. So we’re able to, in real time, monitor what’s happening outdoors and outside in our fields,” she said. The sensors and cameras on the tool take real-time measurements of everything from humidity to soil pH.


https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-11-20/scientist-nadia-shakoors-is-working-to-make-farming-easier-with-new-technologies

St. Louis Children’s Hospital is now treating adult patients with the coronavirus.

The hospital began admitting adult patients over a week ago in an attempt to relieve doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, a hospital spokesperson confirmed Friday afternoon. Intensive care units at Barnes-Jewish and other area hospitals are nearing capacity. Children’s Hospital is treating adults in both its emergency room and ICU.

This is the second time since the start of the pandemic that Children’s Hospital has treated adult COVID-19 patients. Doctors admitted adult patients “on an extremely limited basis during the spring surge,” Kendra Whittle, spokesperson for BJC HealthCare said in an email. She declined to specify how many ICU beds remain available at Children’s Hospital.

Admitting adult patients for short stays at the hospital is part of BJC HealthCare’s plan to manage it’s bed capacity, a statement from the hospital system said.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/coronavirus/2020-11-20/st-louis-childrens-hospital-now-seeing-adult-patients-with-covid-19-trauma-surgeon-reports