Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Recent deadly water-related incidents amid heatwave leads National Park Service to issue water-safety reminders As a heatwave continues to bake the western and central US, officials are urging swimmers to be cautious when seeking respite from the summer heat, especially amid a score of recent deadly water-related incidents. Each year, from April to September, drowning deaths rise nationwide, according to 2018-24 data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Continue reading...

Campaigners say ‘seismic shift’ follows years of pressure to sever ties with oil and gas firm The London Science Museum has ended its decades-long partnership with the oil and gas company BP in what has been described as a “seismic shift” for the museum. The Science Museum Group academy, which was established in 2018 to provide training and resources, announced on Friday that it would be ending its partnership with BP. In a statement, the director and chief executive of the Science Museum Group, Sir Ian Blatchford, said the partnership had “drawn to a close at the end of the current contract term”. Continue reading...

State to offer up to 5,000 trappers chance to snare reptiles whose numbers have risen to 3m from fewer than 100,000 The first recreational alligator hunt in Louisiana in more than half a century is about to commence in the swamps of that state, with up to 5,000 hopeful trappers facing strict rules in order to snare a reptile. The state’s fish and wildlife commission banned alligator hunting in 1962 to allow the species to recover after decades of unregulated killings for meat and hides dropped numbers there to below 100,000. Continue reading...

Big grocery can use anti-competitive clauses to block other stores from entering a market. Rhode Island is the second state to ban that practice Jeannine Johansen remembers the halcyon days of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, when so many of its steep streets were punctuated by grocery stores: Almacs, A&P, Piggly Wiggly and Star Market. In the blizzard of 1978, “everybody went to Fernandes [Produce] because Stop & Shop was too far, and all the roads were closed, so we had to walk”, said the native Woonsocketer. These days, Woonsocket is down to one full-service supermarket: a solitary Price Rite serving 45,000 residents, 37% of them food insecure, perched at the top of a hill in a strip mall at the edge of the city. A nearby Dollar General offers frozen meat and packaged foods. Locals with cars (18% of Woonsocket residents have no vehicle) might travel farther afield, beyond Woonsocket’s borders, to Shaw’s or Aldi in search of deals. Continue reading...