Interesting Items / Science & Technology
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Families urge using new DNA tech to ID Pearl Harbor unknowns
HONOLULU (AP) — William Edward Mann enlisted in the Navy after graduating from high school in rural Washington state. A guitar player, he picked up the ukulele while stationed in Hawaii. He's been presumed dead since Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese pla...
New theory: Earth's longer days kick-started oxygen growth
Scientists have a new idea for how Earth got its oxygen: It's because the planet slowed down and days got longer. A study published Monday proposes and puts to the test the theory that longer, continuous daylight kick-started weird bacteria into prod...
Russian lab module docks with space station after 8-day trip
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's long-delayed lab module successfully docked with the International Space Station on Thursday, eight days after it was launched from the Russian space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The 20-metric-ton (22-ton) Nauka...
Robinhood CEO tells AP it's eying expansion beyond trading
NEW YORK (AP) — Robinhood has already changed how people trade stocks and who's doing it. Now its sights are on the rest of the financial industry. Shares of Robinhood Markets are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Thursday, a highly anticipated...
Turn off, turn on: Simple step can thwart top phone hackers
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure....
First sign of animal life on Earth may be a sponge fossil
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Canadian geologist may have found the earliest fossil record of animal life on Earth, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Around a billion years ago, a region of northwest Canada now defined by...
Robotic police dogs: Useful hounds or dehumanizing machines?
HONOLULU (AP) — If you're homeless and looking for temporary shelter in Hawaii's capital, expect a visit from a robotic police dog that will scan your eye to make sure you don't have a fever. That's just one of the ways public safety agencies are s...
$1M in fines after nitrogen kills 6 at Georgia poultry plant
ATLANTA (AP) — Federal workplace safety officials are proposing nearly $1 million in fines against four companies following a January liquid nitrogen leak that killed six workers at a Georgia poultry processing plant. U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Wal...
Rare 'breakthrough' COVID cases are causing alarm, confusion
Reports of athletes, lawmakers and others getting the coronavirus despite vaccination may sound alarming but top health experts point to overwhelming evidence that the shots are doing exactly what they are supposed to: dramatically reducing severe...
China rejects hacking charges, accuses US of cyberspying
BEIJING (AP) — China on Tuesday rejected an accusation by Washington and its Western allies that Beijing is to blame for a hack of the Microsoft Exchange email system and complained Chinese entities are victims of damaging U.S. cyberattacks. A...
Non-profits find new uses for Johnson County's Poor Farm
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The lands around the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm are being put to use by local non-profit groups and charities in a much different way than the asylum's original owners in 1855 may have intended. The Global Food Project...
Vaccine inequity: Inside the cutthroat race to secure doses
PARIS (AP) — No one disputes that the world is unfair. But no one expected a vaccine gap between the global rich and poor that was this bad, this far into the pandemic. Inequity is everywhere: Inoculations go begging in the United States while Hait...
Oregon wildfire forms 'fire clouds' that pose danger below
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Smoke and heat from a massive wildfire in southeastern Oregon are creating giant "fire clouds" over the blaze — dangerous columns of smoke and ash that can reach up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in the sky and are visible from...
US COVID-19 cases rising again, doubling over three weeks
The COVID-19 curve in the U.S. is rising again after months of decline, with the number of new cases per day doubling over the past three weeks, driven by the fast-spreading delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings....
US overdose deaths hit record 93,000 in pandemic last year
NEW YORK (AP) — Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government reported Wednesday. That estimate far eclipses the high of about 72,000 drug overdose deaths reached the previous year...
FDA adds warning about rare reaction to J&J COVID-19 vaccine
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators on Monday added a new warning to Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine about links to a rare and potentially dangerous neurological reaction, but said it's not entirely clear the shot caused the problem. The Food...
FDA adds warning about rare reaction to J&J COVID-19 vaccine
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators on Monday added a new warning to Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine about links to a rare and potentially dangerous neurological reaction, but said it's not entirely clear the shot caused the problem. The Food...
Pandemic garbage boom ignites debate over waste as energy
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — America remains awash in refuse as new cases of the coronavirus decline — and that has reignited a debate about the sustainability of burning more trash to create energy. Waste-to-energy plants, which produce most of their...
Bug experts seeking new name for destructive gypsy moths
Bug experts are dropping the common name of a destructive insect because it's considered an ethnic slur: the gypsy moth. The Entomological Society of America, which oversees the common names of bugs, is getting rid of the common name of that critter...
Biden: US damage appears minimal in big ransomware attack
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday that damage to U.S. businesses in the biggest ransomware attack on record appears minimal, though information remained incomplete. The company whose software was exploited said fewer than 1,500...
Trump files suit against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has filed suit against three of the country's biggest tech companies, claiming he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored. But legal experts say the suits are likely doomed to fail,...
Tropical Storm Elsa moving across west Cuba, then to Florida
HAVANA (AP) — Tropical Storm Elsa swept over western Cuba with strong rain and winds Monday, and forecasters said it would move on to the Florida Keys on Tuesday and Florida's central Gulf coast by Wednesday. The storm was moving over mainly rural...
Ransomware hits hundreds of US companies, security firm says
WASHINGTON (AP) — A ransomware attack paralyzed the networks of at least 200 U.S. companies on Friday, according to a cybersecurity researcher whose company was responding to the incident. The REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware...
Want a job? Employers say: Talk to the computer
A day after her interview for a part-time job at Target last year, Dana Anthony got an email informing her she didn't make the cut. Anthony didn't know why — a situation common to most job seekers at one point or another. But she also had no sense...
More evidence suggests COVID-19 was in US by Christmas 2019
NEW YORK (AP) — A new analysis of blood samples from 24,000 Americans taken early last year is the latest and largest study to suggest that the new coronavirus popped up in the U.S. in December 2019 — weeks before cases were first recognized by...
