Member countries of the World Trade Organization on Friday reached a tentative agreement to reduce tariffs on more than $1 trillion worth of technology products each year, the organization said.
Representatives from 54 WTO member countries met Friday in Geneva to hash out the deal with the hopes of officially putting in place the plans in time for the organization's 10th Ministerial Conference in December.
WTO members reach deal to eliminate tariffs on $1.3T in technology
Fracking Linked to Heart Conditions and Neurological Illness
People who live in fracking zones appear to suffer a higher rate of heart conditions and neurological illnesses, according to new research.
Although the U.S. study was unable to determine a specific reason, it suggests there may be a link between drilling and ill health, scientists said.
Residents in high-density areas of fracking made 27 per cent more hospital visits for treatment for heart conditions than those from locations where no fracking took place, according to a new study of drilling in Pennsylvania between 2007 and 2011.
California communities mount protests against fracking, oil drilling
More than 100 children, parents and community organizers in fluorescent yellowish-green shirts and orange shoe covers marched through a South Los Angeles neighborhood earlier this week chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, this drilling site has got to go!”
The canaries-in-a-coal-mine color-scheme of the protesters was intentional. There was even a giant cage in front of an oil drilling site on West Jefferson Boulevard that neighborhood children, most of them African American or Latino, crammed into, holding up signs asking to “Set these canaries free.”
Alex Baer: Going to Oz in a Handbasket
It's Home Schizophrenia Day, apparently -- I guess -- and I find one of my personalities has started writing this note from the front... doing so, over my own numerous and very strong personal protests to me.
(This is not turning out very well, I said to myself. I know that, I replied.)
See: This is about politics and Trump and the aspirations of all the blown-out GOP nut cases and billionaire blowhards to become King of America for a while -- a chance for these marching-band rejects and assorted lame specters to practice their bumbling baton-twirling with our symbolic scepter of state.
CT scans cause measurable damage to cells, say researchers
Researchers have found links between computed tomography (CT) scanning and cell damage in the body, linking repeated scans to the potential for cancer.
While the researchers note the scans haven't been determined to cause cancer, the doses of radiation emitted by CT machines have a detectable effect on patients, according to a new study.
NASA's Kepler spacecraft spots planet 'somebody else might call home'
Scientists have spotted a planet much the same size as our Earth orbiting a star that closely resembles our sun, making this new world the most likely known place outside our solar system to harbor life.
The newfound planet, referred to as Kepler-452b, “is the closest thing we have to another place that somebody else might call home,” Jon Jenkins of NASA’s Ames Research Center told reporters Thursday. The planet has been at just the right temperature to boast liquid water for some 6 billion years, “a considerable time and opportunity for life to arise somewhere on its surface or in its oceans,” assuming the place has all the necessary ingredients for life, Jenkins said.
Social Security Disability Fund Will Run Dry Next Year
The 11 million Americans who receive Social Security disability face steep benefit cuts next year, the government said Wednesday, handing lawmakers a fiscal and political crisis in the middle of a presidential campaign.
The trustees who oversee Social Security and Medicare said the disability trust fund will run out of money in late 2016. That would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits, unless Congress acts.
Former Top NASA Scientist Predicts Catastrophic Rise In Sea Levels
One of the nation's most recognizable names in climate science, Dr. James Hansen, released a new paper this week warning that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming may be "highly dangerous" for humanity.
The paper, which will be published online in the European Geosciences Union journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussion later this week, projects sea levels rising as much as 10 feet in the next 50 years.
Theodore Bikel, 'Sound of Music' star, dies at 91
Actor Theodore Bikel, who appeared in such films as “The Defiant Ones” and “My Fair Lady” and appeared onstage in the musicals “The Sound of Music” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” among others, has died.
Mr. Bikel, who was born in Vienna, played the role of Captain von Trapp in the original 1959 Broadway production of “The Sound of Music” opposite Mary Martin and portrayed protagonist Tevye in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” more than 2,000 times onstage.
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