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Under The Threat Of Lawsuits – SEC Is Considering Climate Disclosure Rules For U.S. Companies

7Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, IN OTHER NEWS

Under The Threat Of Lawsuits – SEC Is Considering Climate Disclosure Rules For U.S. Companies

Better information leads to better decisions – this is the idea behind a regulatory device known as “mandated disclosure.” Mandated disclosures are all around you, from calorie counts on fast food restaurant menus to conversations with doctors around informed consent. But the biggest experiment yet in mandated disclosure may be an expected U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposal to extend these ideas to climate impacts facing U.S.-listed companies. The disclosure rule, expected to be proposed soon, would require publicly traded companies to release information to investors about their emissions and how they are managing risks related to climate change and future climate regulations. While it is easy to spot risks facing companies like ExxonMobil, which produces and sells fossil ...

A Poet And Classics Scholar On ‘Working With Hope’ And Facing The Flood Of Bad News

2Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

A Poet And Classics Scholar On ‘Working With Hope’ And Facing The Flood Of Bad News

POLITICS & SOCIETY Rachel Hadas, Rutgers University - Newark Patience is wearing thin. Not only are we all bone-weary of the pandemic; rising hopes have made the current precarious state of confusion and fear, vigorous variants and stubborn vaccine rejection all the more frustrating. We thought we were almost out of the woods, but there’s no clear end in sight to this forest. And there’s no shortage of other bad and worsening news too, notably the dramatic daily evidence of the catastrophic results of climate change. How do we weather this welter of bad news? How do we adapt? The same ways human beings always have adapted – grudgingly or stoically, fearfully or fatalistically or frantically. We’re in a prolonged period of maddeningly, scarily bad news – and if we follow the 24-h...

What Doctors Are Facing, In Their Own Words – Rural Hospitals Are Under Siege From COVID-19

20Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

What Doctors Are Facing, In Their Own Words – Rural Hospitals Are Under Siege From COVID-19

It’s difficult to put into words how hard COVID-19 is hitting rural America’s hospitals. North Dakota has so many cases, it’s allowing asymptomatic COVID-19-positive nurses to continue caring for patients to keep the hospitals staffed. Iowa and South Dakota have teetered on the edge of running out of hospital capacity. Yet in many communities, the initial cooperation and goodwill seen early in the pandemic have given way to COVID-19 fatigue and anger, making it hard to implement and enforce public health measures, like wearing face masks, that can reduce the disease’s spread. Rural health care systems entered the pandemic in already precarious financial positions. Over the years, shifting demographics, declining revenue and increasing operating expenses have made it harder for rural hosp...

Low-wage service workers are facing new emotional hazards in the workplace during COVID-19

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

WORK

Low-wage service workers are facing new emotional hazards in the workplace during COVID-19

The big idea Low-wage service workers increasingly are facing new physical and emotional hazards in the workplace as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to interviews with workers we conducted in April. We found that in addition to being afraid and anxious about their own health and possible exposure to COVID-19 while working, these employees said dealing with unpredictable customer emotions was taking an additional toll. The workers we spoke with reported that interactions with customers were becoming emotionally charged over issues such as mask requirements and other safety guidelines. Workers of color said they were experiencing increased racial harassment. Exposure to these emotional hazards was widespread among the workers we interviewed and was also spilling over into t...

Doctors facing grim choice over ventilators told to put patients with disabilities at the back of the line

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

Doctors facing grim choice over ventilators told to put patients with disabilities at the back of the line

As cases related to the novel coronavirus continue to strain hospitals, doctors face difficult choices about rationing scarce medical resources like ventilators – choices that will likely determine who lives and who dies. Several states’ policies tell providers to allocate scarce resources to those most likely to benefit. For example, Washington state recently adopted a policy that favors “the survival of young otherwise healthy patients more heavily than that of older, chronically debilitated patients.” Similar new guidelines have been issued in Massachusetts as well. In several other states, existing policies that were developed in anticipation of an emergency – including pandemics – recommend rationing that prioritizes giving ventilators to otherwise healthy people who are most likely...

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

TECHNOLOGY

Siri, Alexa ‘eavesdroppers’ leave tech giants facing probe

Amazon, Apple and Google are to be investigated over human reviewers listening in on instructions given to AI 'helpers'. Regulators and lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe are examining whether Google, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are violating privacy by employing human reviewers to listen to voice commands recorded by digital assistants. Apple and Google, which is currently being investigated by Hamburg's data protection authority, have both suspended their programs; Amazon late Friday announced changes to its terms that let users opt out of human review of their recordings. Regulators from Ireland and the U.K. are now also looking into whether the tech giants have infringed European privacy regulations. "We are aware of privacy concerns relating to voice assi...