News and Issues

Gerardo Ramirez, a central Texas dairy worker, was near his home but taking an unusual route to a children’s hospital in April when he drove his Volkswagen Jetta into a flooded section of road, not seeing in the pre-dawn dark that heavy rains had turned a tiny creek into a death trap. Ramirez survived, but his wife and two children drowned. In March, 800 miles away in Lee County, Alabama, 23 people ranging in age from 6 to 93 were killed in a 170 mph tornado — despite an evacuation warning by local authorities just like ones that many residents had heeded in previous storms this year. The deadly situations illustrate what experts increasingly see as two common reasons for unnecessary storm deaths: unfamiliar terrain that leads to bad decisions, and people ignoring too-familiar warnings that haven’t panned out in the past. more »

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library is the largest and most comprehensive archive in the world devoted to the documentation of dance. We preserve the history of dance by gathering diverse written, visual, and aural resources, and work to ensure the art form's continuity through active documentation and educational programs. The Division is used regularly by choreographers, dancers, critics, historians, journalists, publicists, filmmakers, graphic artists, students, and the general public. Other resources available for study free of charge include papers and manuscript collections, moving image and audio recordings, clippings and program files, and original prints and designs. more »

Worldmapper, on behalf of the Bodleian Libraries, have analysed over 8,000 tweets since Trump was elected and created a cartogram that depicts which countries he has mentioned the most on Twitter. Trump has made 1,384 mentions of foreign countries. Russia tops the bill, with 297 mentions (21 per cent of all tweets mentioning foreign countries). North Korea (163), China (158), Mexico (99), Puerto Rico (47), Iran (47), Syria (44), Japan (43), Canada (39) and France (37) complete the Top ten. The cartogram is part of the Bodleian Libraries’ Talking Maps exhibition, which opened on 5 July 2019.  more »

Julia Sneden wrote: My father told me about the Fourth of July that took place in 1910, when he was 4 years old. He grew up on his grandfather’s prune ranch, in thrall to a slew of young aunts and uncles. Each Fourth, the uncles staged a display of fireworks for the family and the working crews (and their families) that lived on or near the ranch. The uncles would fire their pyrotechnics from a metal, flatbed wagon which was, perhaps, normally used as a drying bed for the prunes when they were harvested. One year, someone or something caused the wagon to up-end just as the display was lit, and instead of shooting up, the fountains shot straight at the crowd standing by the barn. more »