Over half of police-involved killings in 2020 began after non-violent incidents
Orion Rummler

58% of police-involved killings in the U.S. last year began when officers responded to non-violent incidents, per the Mapping Police Violence database.

Why it matters: This week's lethal shooting of Daunte Wright near Minneapolis sparked new protests and comes in the wake of nationwide demonstrations against police violence.

Black people are killed by police at higher rates than white people in 47 of the 50 largest cities in the country, according to comparisons from 2013 to 2020.

Although Black people are three times as likely to be killed by police than white people, they are 1.3 times as likely to be unarmed compared to white people.
Police killings have generally increased in suburban and rural areas and decreased in cities.

https://www.axios.com/police-killings-2020-non-violent-incidents-dd3035a9-3182-43b9-9742-1a5f8786ca6c.html

Make LeVar Burton the next host of Jeopardy!

219,355 have signed. Let’s get to 300,000!



Between hosting 21 seasons of the educational Reading Rainbow, playing the brainiac engineer Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: the Next Generation, and filling the roll of Kunta Kinte in the ever important mini-series Roots, LeVar Burton has inspired and shaped the minds of several generations of trivia-loving nerds. This petition is to show Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and producers Mike Richards and Harry Friedman just how much love the public has for Burton, and how much we'd all love to see him as the next host of Jeopardy!

https://www.change.org/p/sony-pictures-entertainment-levar-burton-should-be-the-next-host-of-jeopardy?signed=true

Meatier meals and more playtime might reduce cats’ toll on wildlife
Simple steps to keep felines happy can also keep more wild birds and mammals alive

By Jonathan Lambert
February 11, 2021 at 11:00 am

Surprisingly simple measures might keep domestic cats from killing a lot of wildlife.

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Owners then implemented one of a handful of interventions for six weeks: switching to a grain-free, high-meat commercially available food; playing for five to 10 minutes each day; putting their cat’s normal food in a puzzle feeder; and existing methods like bells or Birdsbesafe collars. Some owners didn’t change anything, but continued tracking their cats.

Cats fed the meat-rich diet brought home 36 percent less prey, on average, than they did before the diet change, the team calculated. For instance, a cat that normally brings home a daily catch would instead return about 20 critters a month. “This might not seem like very much,” McDonald says of the drop. But “a very large cat population means that if this average were applied across the board, it would result in very many millions fewer deaths.”

Felines treated to playtime, which consisted of owners getting their cats to stalk, chase and pounce on a feather toy and then giving cats a mouse toy to bite, returned 25 percent less prey, though that drop came mostly from mammals, not birds. Cats that started using puzzle feeders actually brought home more wildlife. Bells had no discernible effect, while cats fitted with Birdsbesafe collars brought home 42 percent fewer birds, but roughly the same number of mammals, which aligns with previous research.

More: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cat-meat-meals-diet-playtime-wildlife-birds

You hear about delays from leaves on the line, maybe even the occasional swan, but on Tuesday evening a cat was discovered on a train roof at London Euston station – a whisker away from hitching a 125mph ride up north.

The tabby was spotted curled up on top of an Avanti West Coast train about half an hour before it was due to depart for Manchester at 9pm and refused to move.

Passengers were transferred to a replacement train with only a slight delay and the train was taken out of service so staff could coax the cat down from its precarious perch, where it was perilously close to the 25,000 volt overhead lines.
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After a two and a half hours, the standoff came to an end when a bin was pulled up beside the carriage, giving the animal a platform on which to disembark.

More: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/04/cat-on-a-fast-train-roof-holds-up-london-to-manchester-service