https://wtop.com/dc-transit/2019/11/pentagon-metro-flooded-blue-and-yellow-lines-bypassing-buses-requested/

https://twitter.com/cacaobunni/status/1199665701629374464

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

As if the weather isn’t crummy enough this pre-Turkey Day, the Pentagon Metro has closed due to flooding from a water main break. Blue and Yellow line trains are bypassing it.

The Arlington Department of Environmental Services tweeted that their crews “have determined that the break is in a private @wmata water line. The water flow is now reportedly stopped in the station. Arlington staff will be available to assist with any County feed lines.”

The station is expected to reopen for the evening rush hour. Delays will persist throughout the morning.

According to a Metro spokesperson, at its worst, there was about 5 inches of standing water in the station.

People shared footage and photos of commuters trying to walk through murky water near the faregates.

One commuter decided that walking barefoot through the water was the right choice.

WMATA says there are shuttle buses available to get passengers around the problem.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/26/business/california-cannabis-industry-layoffs/index.html

San Francisco (CNN Business)About 170 years after California's gold rush came the promise of the green rush.

California's legalization of cannabis for adult recreational use was expected to be massive. In 2016, industry investors claimed sales could top $6.5 billion by 2020.

And as 2019 comes to a close, California is indeed home to the world's largest cannabis market, totaling close to $12 billion in estimated sales. But here's the rub: $8.7 billion of that is changing hands in the illicit market.

Now, members of California's cannabis industry are sending an S.O.S. to the state capitol, saying they're struggling to compete against black market operators who don't have to meet stringent regulations or pay taxes and fees. They're urging leaders to make swift regulatory changes or risk the collapse of their emerging industry.

"The hard truth is that until legislative changes are made, our industry will continue to wither away," said Michael Steinmetz, CEO of cannabis distributor Flow Kana, which recently joined a growing list of California cannabis firms that have cut their workforces.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/23/australia/pregnant-woman-attacked-australia-intl-scli/index.html

(CNN)A pregnant woman wearing a headscarf was viciously attacked in a café in a town near Sydney, New South Wales police said Thursday.

The incident happened on Wednesday night in Paramatta, about 15 miles west of Sydney, the police said in a statement.
The 31-year-old woman, who the police said was 38 weeks' pregnant, was sitting at a table, eating and chatting with friends.
CCTV footage of the incident shows a man slowly approaching the victim, leaning over the table before punching her in the head.

In the statement, the police said the man allegedly "punched the woman in the head multiple times before she fell to the ground where it's alleged the man stomped on her head."
The footage shows fellow customers eventually restraining the man, who was then arrested by the police at the scene.
The police said the 43-year-old man has been charged with assault causing bodily harm and affray.
The victim was admitted to hospital for observation after the attack, the police said.

The woman, Rana Haidar, gave CNN permission to publish comments she posted on Facebook after the assault.
"This man verbalised his hatred of Muslims prior to hitting me," Haidar wrote. "He decided that he was going to take it in his power to act upon his hatred and he neither knows me, nor my religion."
She added that she's experienced "verbal abuse and hate from other Australians in the past but I have never thought that physical abuse of this nature could happen to me."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/21/personal-loans-are-growing-like-weed-potential-warning-sign-us-economy/?utm_campaign=first_reads&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

More than 20 million Americans have taken out these loans, and the average balance is over $16,000



Americans are hungry for personal loans that they can use as quick cash to pay for anything from vacations to credit card debt, a potential red flag for the economy.

Personal loans are up more than 10 percent from a year ago, according to data from Equifax, a rapid pace of growth that has not been seen on a sustained basis since shortly before the Great Recession. All three of the major consumer credit agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — report double-digit growth in this market in recent months.

Experts are surprised to see millions of Americans taking on so much personal loan debt at a time when the economy looks healthy and paychecks are growing for many workers, raising questions about why so many people are seeking an extra infusion of cash.

“Definitely yellow flares should be starting to go off,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, which monitors consumer credit. “There’s an old adage in banking: If it’s growing like a weed, it probably is a weed.”

When a deep red town’s only grocery closed, city hall opened its own store. Just don’t call it ‘socialism.’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/22/baldwin-florida-food-desert-city-owned-grocery-store/



BALDWIN, Fla. — When Sean Lynch ran for mayor, he never anticipated that the job would involve hiring a butcher and tracking the sale of collard greens.

But in 2018, two years into his first term, the only grocery store in town shut down. People in Baldwin, Fla., a rural outpost in northeast Florida, were left with few options. They could leave town, driving 10 miles through road construction to nearby Macclenny or battling 20 miles of freeway traffic through Jacksonville’s suburban sprawl. Alternatively, they could cobble together a meal out of canned goods from the local Dollar General, or head to a nearby truck stop for greasy, deep-fried fast food.

For many of Baldwin’s roughly 1,600 residents, though, traveling for food wasn’t really a choice. The town’s median household income of $44,271 is well below the state average, and it’s not uncommon for families to juggle their schedules around sharing one car. Senior citizens also make up a significant percentage of the population, and many no longer drive.

So Lynch came to his colleagues with a proposal: What if the town opened its own grocery store?

Abandoned by mainstream supermarkets whose business models don’t have room for low profit margins, both urban and rural communities nationwide have turned to resident-owned co-ops or nonprofits to fill the gap. But Baldwin is trying something different. At the Baldwin Market, which opened its doors on Sept. 20, all of the employees are on the municipal payroll, from the butcher to the cashiers. Workers from the town’s maintenance department take breaks from cutting grass to help unload deliveries, and residents flag down the mayor when they want to request a specific type of milk.

The revolutionary male contraceptive is reportedly effective for 13 years and is said to have passed clinical trials with flying colors.

https://scoop.upworthy.com/worlds-first-male-contraceptive-injection-six-months

Congratulations, gentlemen. Soon you could finally be sharing the responsibility of birth control with your partners. Potentially ending the centuries-long tradition of placing the onus of birth control almost exclusively on women, a biomedical research agency in India has now successfully completed a clinical trial on an injectable male contraceptive. The revolutionary contraceptive passed the trials with flying colors and awaits approval from authorities. If all goes well, the product could be made available for men across the globe as early as six months. Do you hear that? That's the sound of women everywhere yelling, "Finally!"

According to a report by the Hindustan Times, the first-of-its-kind male contraceptive has been developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a government-funded biomedical research agency. Designed as a replacement for a surgical vasectomy — the only male sterilization method existing in the world today — the contraceptive is reportedly effective for 13 years, after which its potency wanes. "The product is ready, with only regulatory approvals pending with the Drugs Controller. The trials are over, including extended, phase 3 clinical trials for which 303 candidates were recruited with 97.3% success rate and no reported side-effects," said Dr. R.S. Sharma, a senior scientist with ICMR who has been spearheading the trials.

https://twitter.com/htTweets/status/1196654332600565760

"The product can safely be called the world’s first male contraceptive," Sharma added. According to the New York Post, the newly developed male contraceptive is a polymer called styrene maleic anhydride that has to be injected into the vas deferens (the sperm-containing tube near the testicles) by a registered medical professional. The injection is administered under local anesthesia, so those clutching their groins in horror at the prospect of having a needle stuck into their family jewels can calm their gonads.

"The polymer was developed by Prof SK Guha from the Indian Institute of Technology in the 1970s. ICMR has been researching on it to turn it into a product for mass use since 1984, and the final product is ready after exhaustive trials," said Sharma. Although researchers in the US have been working on a similar contraceptive, called Vasalgel, it is still under development. Drugs Controller General of India V.G. Somani revealed that officials are being extremely careful with the approval process of the newly developed male contraceptive product.

https://twitter.com/Subhashitani1/status/1196723464452935680

https://www.boredpanda.com/woman-saves-koala-bushfire-new-south-wales/

The Red List of Threatened Species had already classified the koala as vulnerable, but the species is being threatened even more by devastating bushfires that have already burned more than 2.5 million acres of Australia’s east coast.

But one recent act of bravery has given the country hope in fighting the blaze. After spotting a koala crossing a road amongst the flames in New South Wales, a local woman named Toni rushed to the animal’s aid, wrapping it in her shirt and pouring water over it.

The hero said she was planning to take the injured koala to the nearby Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, a facility that is taking care of up to 15 affected koalas.



Devastating bushfires have already burned more than 2.5 million acres of Australia’s east coast



The koala population have had it particularly bad

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/19/white-teen-girl-detailed-plan-racist-attack-black-churchgoers-notebook-police-say/

Police in northern Georgia said Tuesday that they arrested a white teenager who was plotting to kill parishioners at a mostly black church, thwarting an alleged racist attack that highlighted a growing threat of hate-fueled violence against houses of worship.

The 16-year-old girl was charged with attempt to commit murder after students at her high school told administrators she had a notebook filled with “detailed plans” to kill members of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Ga., according to police.

The alleged plot was “definitely racially motivated,” said Sgt. Kevin Holbrook of the Gainesville Police Department. The notebook, he said, contained “manifesto-type” language that discussed how she wanted to assault black parishioners with butcher knives and other sharp-edged weapons.

“There were many writings and drawings, different depictions, and a lot of hateful messages in it,” Holbrook told The Washington Post. “As far as the details go, they were down to very specific information.”

Police said the girl researched African American churches online, choosing Bethel AME Church because it is small. Investigators believe she went to the church at some point earlier this month, possibly to carry out the attack, but found the building empty, according to police.

“By pure grace, the church did not have service that evening,” Holbrook said. “We were very fortunate here.”