Death toll due to floods in Odisha rises to 12; over 4 lakh affected https://ift.tt/34FcG8B

Fear of flood looms large in the Mahanadi river system in Odisha following heavy rainfall in its upper catchment areas in Chhatisgarh and a rise in the water level of Hirakud Dam, a senior official said. Five more people lost their lives in rain-related incidents in the state on Friday, raising the death toll to nine, while 4,15,817 people in 10 districts are affected, Special Relief Commissioner (SRC), PK Jena, said.

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New top story from Time: All 53 People Aboard Indonesia Submarine Declared Dead After Vessel’s Wreckage Found

https://ift.tt/3ezrzg5 ANYUWANGI, Indonesia — Indonesia’s military on Sunday officially said all 53 crew members from a submarine that sank and broke apart last week are dead, and that search teams had located the vessel’s wreckage on the ocean floor. The grim announcement comes a day after Indonesia said the submarine was considered sunk, not merely missing , but did not explicitly say whether the crew was dead. Officials had also said the KRI Nanggala 402’s oxygen supply would have run out early Saturday, three days after vessel went missing off the resort island of Bali. “We received underwater pictures that are confirmed as the parts of the submarine, including its rear vertical rudder, anchors, outer pressure body, embossed dive rudder and other ship parts,” military chief Hadi Tjahjanto told reporters in Bali on Sunday. “With this authentic evidence, we can declare that KRI Nanggala 402 has sunk and all the crew members are dead,” Tjahjanto said. An underwater ro...

New top story from Time: The Free Market is Dead: What Will Replace It?

https://ift.tt/32Q9kgW Big meetings in the Oval Office in the time of Covid-19 are rare, but two weeks into his presidency, President Joe Biden decided to make an exception. It was only a few days after the nation’s coronavirus case count peaked in late January, and Biden sat on a stately beige chair, double masked and flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and newly confirmed Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen. The leaders of some of the nation’s largest businesses like Wal-Mart and J.P. Morgan Chase had come to the White House that day to talk economic stimulus. But the real surprise attendee was the head of America’s largest business advocacy group, the Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue. Under Donohue’s leadership over the past two decades, the Chamber had effectively become an organ of the Republican party, handsomely rewarding conservatives who worked to dismantle public programs and the regulatory state with campaign donations and support. Donohue said little, but he ...

New top story from Time: As Myanmar’s Junta Intensifies Its Crackdown, Pro-Democracy Protesters Prepare for Civil War

https://ift.tt/3cUWeEQ Before the Feb. 1 coup, Zarni Win* worked for a United Nations-funded committee that monitored a ceasefire between Myanmar’s junta and ethnic armed groups. Today, the 27-year-old from Yangon, the country’s largest city, is getting ready to enlist in one of those groups herself. “Now is the time to start preparing to eliminate the terrorist military,” she tells TIME. “I am ready to join the armed revolution.” Myanmar is veering dangerously toward all-out civil war as the military, known as the Tatmadaw, terrorizes the public , and attacks restive ethnic territories. The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, warned on Mar. 31 that “a bloodbath is imminent.” In an online presentation cited by the Associated Press, she said civil war “at an unprecedented scale” was a possibility and spoke of Myanmar’s deterioration into a “failed state.” Protesters in Myanmar have maintained a largely peaceful resistance to dictatorship since ...

New top story from Time: Young Gymnasts Are Taught That Their Bodies Are Not Their Own. Simone Biles Refused to Accept That

https://ift.tt/3zMnhLi Simone Biles shocked the world when she pulled out of the gymnastics team finals at the Olympics on Tuesday. But if you have been listening to Simone—or following the sport of gymnastics—her decision wasn’t all that shocking. Just the other day she posted that she feels like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders . And she does. She’s been in the public eye since she was 14, and she hasn’t lost a competition since 2013. Everyone expects history-making performances and for her to carry home a victory for America. On Tuesday, you could sense that something was wrong. You could feel it through the screen after her first vault. Simone was obviously shaken up. She wasn’t her typical bubbly self. And if you could feel it through the screen, imagine standing next to her as her teammate. Imagine being her. Unlike event qualifications, in which four people compete but only the top three scores are used, every single score counts in event finals. Marg...

New top story from Time: ‘I Pray for My Nani.’ The Survivor’s Guilt of Watching India’s COVID-19 Catastrophe Unfold From Afar

https://ift.tt/32QjA8K The Sunday before last, I awoke to find that my aunt in India had added me to a WhatsApp family chat, titled “Mama”—her mother-in-law, my 91-year-old-grandmother. I scrolled through dozens of messages from my extended family, trying to figure out what had happened. At last I came to the dreadful news: “…Mama is positive.” My grandmother, who raised me, had tested positive for COVID-19. Her daughter-in-law, in turn, who lived with her was positive, as was her daughter, my cousin. A few days before, my great uncle, my grandmother’s last surviving sibling, had died of the virus. He, like my grandmother, had received one shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine. But it was not enough to protect him. On the seventh day, his oxygen levels and blood pressure plummeted, and his weak heart gave out. We did not dare tell my grandmother, for fear that grief would further compromise her health. It is hard to exaggerate the hell India has become in these past two weeks....

New top story from Time: U.S. Senate Votes to Start Work on a $1 Trillion National Infrastructure Plan

https://ift.tt/3iZ16ur WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Wednesday night to begin work on a nearly $1 trillion national infrastructure plan after President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators reached agreement on major provisions of the package that is a key part of his presidential agenda. Biden welcomed the accord as one that would show America can “do big things” — with the most significant long-term investments in nearly a century, he said, on par with building the transcontinental railroad or the Interstate highway system. “This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function,” Biden said in a statement. “We will once again transform America and propel us into the future.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The rare bipartisan showing, on 67-32 vote, signaled the interest among senators in starting the process to consider the infrastructure package. But it’s unclear if enough Republicans will eventually join Democrats to support final passage. The proced...

New top story from Time: At the Republican National Convention, You Might Think COVID-19 Was Over

https://ift.tt/2Eo94gy Listening to the speakers at the Republican National Convention, you might be forgiven for thinking that the coronavirus pandemic is over. Many have largely ignored the virus that has killed nearly 180,000 Americans, despite the fact that it continues to seriously disrupt life in the United States, including their own event. Others, like White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, referred to the pandemic in the past tense: “It was awful,” Kudlow said on August 25. “Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere. But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the COVID virus.” When Vice President Mike Pence took the stage Wednesday night, his speech was a striking example of the Trump Administration’s attempts to reframe the history of the pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide and nearly ground the American...

New top story from Time: Almost Every Doctor Recommends Sunscreen. So Why Don’t We Know More About Its Safety?

https://ift.tt/3llOUXn Each year, as Memorial Day approaches, Holly Thaggard braces herself for the headlines. About how sunscreen may be damaging coral reefs . About the possible flammability of spray-on sunscreen . Headlines—as there were this year—about how sunscreen contains chemicals that could harm your health . “This has happened every single year for the last decade of my life,” says Thaggard, founder of Texas-based Supergoop, a sunscreen company that brands itself as reef-safe and free of hundreds of potentially problematic ingredients. This year, the is-sunscreen-dangerous news cycle started in May, when Valisure, an independent laboratory dedicated to quality-testing pharmaceuticals and personal-care products, released a report warning that its scientists found benzene—a carcinogen also found in vehicle emissions and cigarette smoke—in 78 U.S. sun-care products. Benzene is not an ingredient in sunscreens, but rather a contaminant likely introduced during the manu...

New top story from Time: Infrastructure Is Important to Reduce Climate Risk. But It’s Not Enough

https://ift.tt/2Rtvgwj In communities across the country, the increasingly visible effects of climate change have launched a race to adapt with new infrastructure. Miami Beach has built water pumps and elevated roads. California has created new rules requiring fire proof materials for new homes at risk of wildfires. Charleston, S.C. is planning to raise its sea wall—as are many other places. But often lost in this infrastructure discussion is the reality that adaptation—even paired with aggressive emissions reduction at a global scale—will not be enough to protect us from the financial costs of climate change. Some communities will inevitably need to relocate; others that stay will pay the price of living with new and more frequent weather extremes. All of this results in a toll on financial wellbeing on both the individual and a societal level that cannot be fixed with new infrastructure alone. On Thursday, after spending the past several months touting his infrastructur...

New top story from Time: To Solve Disordered Migration, Governments Need to Think About Climate Change

https://ift.tt/3t0sVpc Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador made a tangible proposal at last week’s U.S.-led climate summit, a rarity in the world of climate geopolitics. He called on President Joe Biden to finance an expansion of Mexico’s mass tree-planting program, called “Sowing Life,” across Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador (which make up the “Northern Triangle” region just south of Mexico). The program would pay farmers in those countries to plant trees, which, he said, could help alleviate rural poverty and convince potential undocumented migrants to stay home. The U.S., he added, could offer six-month work visas for those who participated in Sowing Life for at least three years, “giving order to the flow of migration.” It was a bold idea, coming from a controversial populist leader with a dubious track record on environmental policy. It hit on an enticing number of U.S. priorities, though: in January Biden signed an executive order mandating the infusi...

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