World

Homeland Security News Wire: COVID-19 Weekly Roundup

by

HSNW News:

These four major developments on the coronavirus front in the past week caught our eye:

Difficult reopening. More and more countries are moving to reopen their economies, schools, and other parts of society, and each offers a different mix of measures aiming to balance economic recovery, societal (new) normalcy, and health security, with an eye to avoiding a second wave of infections in the fall.. They all share one thing: Their citizens are becoming restless.

Clinical success. The FDA om Friday allowed emergency use of remdesivir, the first drug that appears to help some COVID-19

Read More

World Futures Institute: Modeling – Part Four

by

By ANDY ANDREWS
Los Alamos

In part one through three of this series, we built a model to calculate expenses, examine testing errors, predict the price of gasoline, “measure” the Consumer Price Index (CPI), and calculate inflation.

While the “silly” model to calculate time entry costs was simple, it made assumptions (e.g., employee quickness) and incorporated facts (e.g., salaries). So did the very complicated CPI. Plus, all of the models include probability and statistics to handle the numbers involved.

Modeling serves many purposes but has two main functions: predicting the future and Read More

World Futures Institute: Modeling – Part Three

by

By ANDY ANDREWS
Los Alamos World Futures Institute

In part two of this series we finished by looking at the price of gasoline in 1980 and inflating it using an “average” of inflation rates to today and found the answers wrong.

The calculated answers were significantly wrong because the rate of inflation is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), not a single item factored in it.

The “average” price of gasoline in 1980 was $1.262 per gallon (stated to three decimal places as it is today). The word, average, is in quotes because the data I found was the average price per month and I “averaged” those prices. Read More

Udall, Heinrich Co-Sponsor ‘Never Again Education Act’

by

U.S. Senate News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) signed on to the Never Again Education Act (S.2085), bipartisan legislation that would establish a dedicated federal fund to provide teachers with resources and training necessary to teach students across the United States about the Holocaust.

The announcement comes following Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was observed last week.

The Never Again Education Act establishes a federal fund at the Department of Education (DOE), called the “Holocaust Education Assistance Program Fund,” Read More

Happy 116th Birthday Day To J. Robert Oppenheimer!

by

Members of the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee (JROMC) gather Wednesday by Zoom to celebrate the 116th birthday of J. Robert Oppenheimer. From top left, Christine Hazard, Sara Scott, David Izraelevitz, Robert J. Thomsen, Wendee Brunish, Damon Giovanielli, Cheryl Rofer, Becky Shankland, Alison Pugmire and Patrice Goodkind. Courtesy/JROMC

The party is complete with a chocolate cake baked with the recipe from Edith Warner provided in Peggy Pond Church’s book.. Courtesy/JROMC

By ROBERT J. THOMSEN
JROMC

Members of the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee (JROMC) gathered Read More

In One Of America’s Rare Undergraduate Immunology Programs, UAB Students ‘Prepare For The Next Pandemic’

by

Students in UAB’s Undergraduate Immunology Program, the next generation of immunologists, are preparing for the next pandemic. Courtesy/UAB

Courtesy/UAB

UAB News:

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The entire planet, more or less, is fixated on the greatest pandemic in modern memory. Claire Elliott is already preparing for the next one.

Elliott, a junior from Franklin, Tenn., is part of University of Alabama-Birmingham’s (UAB) Undergraduate Immunology Program, one of a handful of such programs at universities in the United States.

In high school, where she was part of an International Baccalaureate Read More

Snyder: The Amazing Story Of A World War II Letter

by

This letter written in WWII and sent from France to a Women’s Army Corps (WAC) at Project Y in Los Alamos remained a mystery for 76 years. Courtesy/Los Alamos Historical Society

By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos Historical Society

Sometimes the old saying “it’s a small world” is amazingly true! That statement definitely relates to the circumstances of a letter written in WWII and sent from France to a Women’s Army Corps (WAC) at Project Y.

A native of Oxford, Miss., Katherine “Pat” Patterson joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps—soon to be changed officially to WAC—in autumn of 1942. She was Read More

Letter To The Editor: U.S. Foreign Service – Serving Americans, Advancing America’s Interests

by

By BRIAN L. GOLDBECK
Senior Foreign Service Officer Retired
Santa Fe

As a former Foreign Service Officer, I was proud to advance American interests during my 32 years of service to our nation.

I write this as Foreign Service Day approaches on May 1. Foreign Service members are dedicated, hardworking public servants assigned to some 250 posts in 180 nations. Invariably they live far away, often serving under dangerous, trying conditions. 

My colleagues are proud to serve their country. This global pandemic struck at a time when the Foreign Service was already overstretched and understaffed. Read More

Today April 22, 2020 Marks 50th Anniversary Of Earth Day

by

Today is Earth Day 2020. Courtesy/history.com

EARTH DAY 2020 News:

Earth Day was founded in 1970 as a day of education about environmental issues, and Earth Day 20 occurs today, April 22—the holiday’s 50th anniversary.

The holiday is now a global celebration that’s sometimes extended into Earth Week, a full seven days of events focused on green living. The brainchild of U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson and inspired by the protests of the 1960s, Earth Day began as a “national teach-in on the environment” and was held April 22 to maximize the number of students that could be reached on university Read More

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall Statement Ahead Of 50th Earth Day

by

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall

U.S. SENATE News:

SANTA FE — U.S. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, released the following statement Tuesday ahead of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which falls today, April 22:

“Across the United States, 20 million people of all ages and backgrounds united April 22, 1970 to protect our planet and build an environmental movement from the ground up to chart a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future. The people who lent their voices to the first Earth Day created a groundswell Read More