Washington Post: “…As public libraries in the District and across the nation have been pressed into service as coronavirus test distribution sites, librarians have become the latest front-line workers of the pandemic. Phones ring every few minutes with yet another call from someone asking about the library’s supply of free coronavirus tests, often asking medical… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2022
Select Committee Subpoenas Trump Allies Involved in Attempts to Challenge or Overturn 2020 Election Results
“Washington—Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) today announced that the Select Committee has issued subpoenas to four individuals who publicly promoted unsupported claims about the 2020 election and participated in attempts to disrupt or delay the certification of election results. The committee is demanding records and testimony from Rudolph Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Boris… Continue Reading
NY Attorney General Outlines Pattern of Possible Fraud at Trump Business
The New York Times: “The New York State attorney general, Letitia James, accused Donald J. Trump’s family business late Tuesday of repeatedly misrepresenting the value of its assets to bolster its bottom line, saying in court papers that the company had engaged in “fraudulent or misleading” practices. The filing came in response to Mr. Trump’s… Continue Reading
COVIDtests.gov
COVIDtests.gov is up and running early [January 18, 2022] to help prepare for the full launch tomorrow. We have tests for every residential address in the U.S. Please check back tomorrow if you run into any unexpected issues. Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order 4 free at-home COVID-19 tests. The tests are… Continue Reading
Black Mortgage Applicants Denied 84% More Often than White Borrowers
Zillow: “The Black homeownership rate has rebounded modestly from recent lows, but remains below its early 2000s peak as racial disparities in the mortgage and housing markets widened throughout the early part of the pandemic, according to a Zillow analysis of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The mortgage denial rate was 84%… Continue Reading
How to turn on Twitter’s dark mode
Mashable: “Twitter can be an assault on the eyes, and not just because of its frequently distressing content. The microblogging website’s default white theme can sometimes feel harsh and blinding, particularly if you’re waking up in a cold sweat to check your notifications in the middle of the night. Fortunately, the microblogging platform offers a… Continue Reading
Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft Weave a Fiber-Optic Web of Power
WSJ: “To say that Big Tech controls the internet might seem like an exaggeration. Increasingly, in at least one sense, it’s literally true. The internet can seem intangible, a post-physical environment where things like viral posts, virtual goods and metaverse concerts just sort of happen. But creating that illusion requires a truly gargantuan—and quickly-growing—web of… Continue Reading
What the Supreme Court’s Vaccine Case Was Really About
Opinion Linda Greenhouse. Jan. 17, 2022: “Halfway through their pained dissent from the Supreme Court’s decision blocking the Biden administration’s workplace Covid vaccine rule, the court’s three liberal justices made a glancing reference to a now-obscure case from 1981, American Textile Manufacturers Institute v. Donovan. It was one of the court’s first efforts to interpret… Continue Reading
Google Your Body: Body Browser
Science Blogs: “Google Labs just released a new “experiment” – Body Browser. You have to upgrade to Google Chrome beta if you don’t already have it, but when you do, you can play with a 3-D, rotatable reconstruction of a (female) human body. Sliders let you fade the circulatory, skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems in… Continue Reading
Fight Censorship! Updated Resources from the Office for Intellectual Freedom
The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association: “Book challenges have been a hot topic in news and politics lately. The American Library Association (ALA) Executive Board and eight divisions recently released a statement affirming its opposition to widespread efforts to censor books in U.S. Schools. OIF has tracked 155 unique censorship incidents… Continue Reading
#FReadom Fighters
Axios – “Librarians are using the hashtag #FReadom to fight book bans.” #FReadom Fighters: How we started: “On November 4, 2021 a group of librarian #FReadom fighters organized a twitter takeover of the #Txlege. We highlighted positive books and invited families, authors, librarians, teens, and parents to join. We shared this Information https://bit.ly/FReadom Where we… Continue Reading
Why CovidTests.gov won’t be the next HealthCare.gov
E Pluribus Unum: “The White House has launched COVIDTests.gov, which the Biden administration says will enable every home in the U.S. to order 4 free at-home COVID-19 tests through the mail, starting on January 19th — with no shipping costs or credit card required. Ideally, the administration will also allow Americans to request the high-quality… Continue Reading
