Found on John Cane Rd. in Parksley. If you know this dog, or can help in any way, please call the Eastern Shore Regional Animal Care Facility to find out how to reclaim your dog 757-787-709.
Explore caves, critters, and rocks during May 8 virtual program
The free program is being held in support of the International Year of Caves and Karst.
RICHMOND—Caves and karst landscapes are found all over the world, yet most people are still in the dark about the great value of these systems and why they must be protected.
For this reason, cave and karst enthusiasts, biologists, hydrologists, geologists, and educators worldwide have selected 2021 as the International Year of Caves and Karst. Across the globe, educational programs are being offered to increase the public’s understanding of caves and karst.
The Virginia Cave Board and the Virginia Region of the National Speleological Society (NSS) will join this effort with a day-long virtual program on Saturday, May 8, titled, “The Secrets of Caves, Critters, and Rocks.”
The program is free and open to all, although registration is requested.
Presentations will begin at 9 a.m. ET and include cave video tours, a history of Grand Caverns, and lessons on geology, hydrology, and bats and other cave life.
Some material will align with Virginia Science Standards of Learning and will be geared toward both formal and non-formal educators.
More information is available at https://www.vacaveweek.com/iyck.
The coronavirus pandemic halted many cave-related outreach activities in the past year. People were advised not to enter caves due to the potential to pass the virus to others and to cave-dwelling bats.
“After a year of darkness due to COVID-19, 2021 is the International Year of Caves and Karst, and we look forward to shedding light again on these biologically rich and sensitive landscapes through a wonderful virtual program,” Virginia Cave Board and NSS member Meredith Hall Weberg said.
Caves and karst landscapes are prevalent in Virginia. There are more than 4,000 documented caves, and they provide habitat for rare and threatened species such as the Virginia big-eared bat (Virginia’s state bat) and the Madison Cave isopod.
Karst topography covers much of the western third of the state. Karst was created over thousands of years by the dissolving of bedrock such as limestone, dolomite, or marble by mildly acidic waters. The topography is characterized by sinkholes, sinking streams, springs, and caves.
Karst landscapes occur in 29 counties in Virginia. Thousands of Virginians west of the Blue Ridge Mountains rely on karst aquifers for their drinking water.
For more information about “The Secrets of Caves, Critters, and Rocks,” go to https://www.vacaveweek.com/iyck. The event will be held via Zoom.
For more information about the International Year of Caves and Karst, go to http://iyck2021.org/.
Spring Planting, Bed Prep, and Soil Health at Gathering Springs Farm
Tuesday 4/20 1:00 – 5:00 pm Join the folks at Future Harvest at Gathering Springs Farm in Middleburg, Virginia, to learn how Pamela Jones and Sarah Waybright are building their operation while farming part-time and raising families. Located just an hour outside of DC, Gathering Springs is home to vegetables, mixed perennials, and laying hens. At this field day, we’ll hear how Pam and Sarah first became interested in farming, how they made decisions in their first couple of years in operation, and what they have planned for this – their third growing season.
Come prepared for some hands-on work in the soil: it’s spring transplanting time. We’ll take a look at what Pam and Sarah do to build and maintain soil health, how they prepare their beds, and then get some spring plants in the ground. We’ll end the day with socially-distanced snacks – please bring your own. Safety precautions: Attendees, please wear two masks and bring gardening gloves and your own water. We’ll have hand sanitizer, a restroom, and wash-station on site. This event is IN PERSON. Pre-registration required; no walk-ins accepted. $40 non-member; $20 member. Free for 2021 BFTP Trainees.REGISTER HERE
Rep. Luria Announces $5.7 Million in American Rescue Plan Funding for Eastern Shore Rural Health System
ONANCOCK, VA — Congresswoman Elaine Luria today announced that Eastern Shore Rural Health System received $5,704,750 in funding as a result of the American Rescue Plan Act. The funding is part of a $10 billion effort within in the $1.9 trillion economic recovery package to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines and build vaccine confidence in hardest-hit and highest-risk communities.
“The American Rescue Plan is critical to expanding access to the vaccine, ending the pandemic and securing the economic recovery for the Eastern Shore,” Congresswoman Luria said. “Getting more resources to our rural communities is a top priority of mine, and I’m thrilled that Eastern Shore Rural Health System can use this funding to help so many people.”
Eastern Shore Rural Health System, Inc. is a Community Health Center Network with four medical centers within the region.
“Eastern Shore Rural Health System, Inc. is grateful to receive more than $5.7 million through the American Rescue Plan Act to expand access to services to all residents of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Within the next few weeks we will be exploring opportunities to use these funds to better serve our community including providing care for vulnerable populations and combating COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy to get more residents vaccinated” said Eastern Shore Rural Health CEO Matthew Clay. “Rural Health strives to ensure equity – that all residents have access to quality care – and this funding will help us continue to achieve this.”
5 Million Acres Enrolled in Conservation Easements
WASHINGTON, April 2, 2021 –The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and private landowners have partnered to protect more than 5 million acres of wetlands, grasslands, and prime farmland — an area the size of New Jersey. Since October, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has enrolled 110,000 acres in new conservation easements, bringing USDA to this important conservation milestone.
“USDA is committed to partnering with our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and private landowners to conserve our nation’s natural resources for future generations and deliver conservation and recreational benefits to rural America,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “We celebrate their efforts in helping us protect sensitive lands, create jobs, expand access to the outdoors, and help tackle climate change. We look forward to building on these partnerships.”
NRCS has offered conservation easements through the Farm Bill for 28 years, through programs like the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), which helps landowners, land trusts, and other entities protect, restore, and enhance wetlands, grasslands, and working farms and ranches through conservation easements. These programs benefit participants and the American public by creating cleaner air, water, and open spaces.
Wetland Easements
Wetland easements — totaling over 2.8 million acres nationwide — improve water quality by filtering sediments and chemicals, reducing flooding, recharging groundwater, protecting biological diversity, and providing opportunities for educational, scientific, and undeveloped recreational activities.
Wetland easements are also crucial to wildlife, and are credited for the recovery of the Louisiana black bear in 2019 and the Oregon chub in 2015. Whooping cranes rely on wetland easements on their cross-country treks and for raising young. Also, the wet meadows of sagebrush country are an oasis for wildlife like sage grouse.
Agricultural Land Easements
Agricultural land easements protect the long-term viability of the nation’s food supply by preventing conversion of productive working lands to non-agricultural uses. These easements have been crucial to protecting rangelands and farmsteads from urban encroachment, ensuring the most productive lands remain working lands.
Agricultural land easements, including grassland easements, total more than 1.9 million acres.
Carbon Sequestration and Easements
Easements also can be used to protect floodplains and forests, providing public benefits, including carbon sequestration, water quality, historic preservation, wildlife habitat, and protection of open space. Easements have contributed to the restoration of the Southeast’s unique, but rare longleaf pine forests, and to the protection of animals like the Greater Sage-Grouse.
Working with private landowners to preserve and restore wetlands, grasslands, forests and farmlands is integral to USDA’s efforts to build resiliency and reduce the impacts of climate change across the nation. Easements protect sensitive lands from development in perpetuity, and landowners can partner with NRCS to implement voluntary climate-smart management practices that maximize the amount of carbon sequestered from the atmosphere and stored in soils or plant biomass across these landscapes.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is engaged in a whole-of-government effort to combat the climate crisis and conserve and protect our nation’s lands, biodiversity and natural resources including our soil, air and water. Through conservation practices and partnerships, USDA aims to enhance economic growth and create new income streams for farmers, ranchers, producers and private foresters. Successfully meeting these challenges will require USDA to pursue a coordinated approach alongside stakeholders, including State, local and Tribal governments.
Enroll in Easements
Farmers, ranchers and private foresters looking to enroll farmland, grasslands, or wetlands in a conservation easement may submit proposals to the NRCS state office to acquire conservation easements on eligible land. To enroll land through wetland reserve easements, landowners should contact their local USDA Service Center.
Census Data shows an uptick in Homeschooling
New Census Bureau data show that 11.1 percent of K-12 students are now being independently homeschooled. This is a large uptick from 5.4 percent at the start of the school shutdowns last spring, and 3.3 percent in the years preceding the pandemic.
These new homeschooling families are also reflective of surging homeschooling numbers in certain parts of the country. Here in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH area designated by the Census, homeschooling increased from 0.9 percent last April-May to 8.9 percent in September-October. In Massachusetts more generally, the homeschooling rate soared from 1.5 percent in the spring of 2020 to 12.1 percent last fall.
In its Household Pulse Survey, the Census Bureau counted homeschoolers as students whose parents had officially removed them from a school or never enrolled them to begin with. This distinguishes independent homeschoolers from the millions of students doing home-based remote schooling during the pandemic response.
In addition to massive overall growth in homeschooling, the survey results also revealed increasing homeschooling rates across all races and ethnicities.
While the homeschooling population has become more demographically diverse over the past decade, the Census Bureau found that the number of black homeschoolers increased nearly fivefold between spring and fall of 2020, from 3.3 percent to 16.1 percent. This black homeschooling rate is slightly higher than the approximately 15 percent of black students in the overall K-12 public school population.
The new Census data confirm what previous surveys have shown while also suggesting a tripling of the homeschooling population from its pre-pandemic levels.
In August, Gallup reported that 10 percent of families expected to homeschool their children this academic year. And in November, Education Week estimated the number of current homeschoolers at nine percent. Prior to the pandemic, approximately 1.7 million students were homeschooled, according to the most recent federal data from 2016. The Census data now puts that number at over 5 million homeschooled students, which is comparable to the number of K-12 students typically enrolled in private schools.
This year’s new homeschoolers are also more likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The Education Week survey last fall found that more lower-income families were choosing homeschooling during the pandemic response than higher-income families, challenging the myth that homeschooling families are more affluent than others. The New York Times pointed out this myth in July, explaining that “the population of home-schoolers — before the pandemic — was less affluent than average.”
History Notes this week of March 28
628 – Chosroes II, emperor of Persia (579..628), murdered by his son.
742, Charlemagne, the first man to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor, was born in Frankia (present-day France).
1513 – Spanish explorer Ponce De Leon sighted Florida and claimed it for the Spanish Crown after landing at the site of present-day St. Augustine, now the oldest city in the continental U.S.
1645 – English Long Parliament passes the Self-Denying Ordinance, limiting regional armies, significant step toward New Model Army
1783- American writer Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in New York City. His works include; Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and historical biographies such as the Life of Washington.
1792 – Congress established the first U.S. Mint at Philadelphia.
1802 – American social reformer Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) was born in Hampden, Maine. She founded a home for girls in Boston while only in her teens and later crusaded for humane conditions in jails and insane asylums. During the American Civil War, she was superintendent of women nurses.
1805 – Fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, Denmark. He created 168 fairy tales for children including the classics The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen and The Nightingale.
1823 – Tammany Hall ‘Boss’ William M. Tweed (1823-1878) was born in New York City. From 1851 to 1871, his ‘Tweed Ring’ of political corruption looted millions from New York City, bringing the city to the verge of bankruptcy. Methods included padding city bills by 85 percent and writing checks to non-existent persons and companies. His power was broken after a series of critical editorial cartoons by Thomas Nast were published in Harper’s Weekly magazine. Tweed was arrested and convicted on charges of larceny and forgery. He died in prison.
1840 – French writer Emile Zola (1840-1902) was born in Paris. His works included a series of 20 books known as the Rougon-Macquart Novels in which he defined men and women as products of heredity and environment, portraying them as victims of their own passions and circumstances of birth. In his later years, he became involved in resolving the Dreyfus affair, a political-military scandal in which Captain Alfred Dreyfus had been wrongly accused of selling military secrets to the Germans was sent to Devil’s Island.
1860 – In the American West, the Pony Express service began as the first rider departed St. Joseph, Missouri. For $5 an ounce, letters were delivered 2,000 miles to California within ten days. The famed Pony Express riders each rode from 75 to 100 miles before handing the letters off to the next rider. A total of 190 way stations were located about 15 miles apart. The service lasted less than two years, ending upon the completion of the overland telegraph.
1863- A bread riot occurred in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as angry people demanded bread from a bakery wagon then wrecked nearby shops. The mob dispersed only after Confederate President Jefferson Davis made a personal plea and threatened to use force.
1865 – During the American Civil War, Confederate troops of General George Pickett were defeated and cut off at Five Forks, Virginia. This sealed the fate of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s armies at Petersburg and Richmond and hastened the end of the war.
1865 – General Robert E. Lee informed Confederate President Jefferson Davis that he must evacuate the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Davis and his cabinet then fled by train.
1865 – The Confederate capital of Richmond surrendered to Union forces after the withdrawal of General Robert E. Lee’s troops.
1884- Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943) was born in Nagaoko, Honshu. He was the main strategist behind the failed Japanese attack on Midway Island in June of 1942, which turned the course of the war against Japan. He was killed on April 18, 1943, after Americans intercepted radio reports of his whereabouts and shot down his plane.
1887 – The first woman mayor was elected in the U.S. as Susanna M. Salter became mayor of Argonia, Kansas.
1922 – Josef Stalin is appointed General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party by an ailing Lenin.
1944 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 that African Americans can not be barred from voting in the Texas Democratic primaries. The Court stated that discrimination against blacks violates the 15th Amendment and that political parties are not private associations.
President Harry S. Truman signed the European Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan, intended to stop the spread of Communism and restore the economies of European countries devastated by World War II. Over four years, the program distributed $12 billion to the nations of Western Europe. The program was first proposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall during a historic speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
1948 US President Harry Truman signs Marshall Plan ($5B aid to 16 European countries)
1949 – Twelve nations signed the treaty creating NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The nations united for common military defense against the threat of expansion by Soviet Russia into Western Europe.
1953 American magazine “TV Guide” publishes 1st issue, features on the cover the new born baby of actors Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz Jr.
1959, the Dalai Lama began living in exile in northern India after a dangerous two-week trek through the Himalayas. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was born in Taktser, China. The title of the Dalai Lama has historically been bestowed upon the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. Dalai Lamas follow the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism (meaning “Yellow Hat”), which was founded centuries earlier in 1578. The title fuses the Mongolic word of “Dalai,” meaning big with the Tibetan word “bla-ma,” which translates to master. Gyatso was selected at the young age of five to become the next leader. His official enthronement ceremony was held in 1940. Less than ten years later, he assumed full religious and political control over Tibet.
1968 – Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee. As head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he had championed non-violent resistance to end racial oppression and had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He is best remembered for his I Have a Dream speech delivered at the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. That march and King’s other efforts helped the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1986, Congress established the third Monday in January as a national holiday in his honor.
1973 1st mobile phone call is made in downtown Manhattan, NYC by Motorola employee Martin Cooper to the Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey.
1975 Bobby Fischer stripped of world chess title for refusing to defend it.
1982 – The beginning of the Falkland Islands War as troops from Argentina invaded and occupied the British colony located near the tip of South America. The British retaliated and defeated the Argentineans on June 15, 1982, after ten weeks of combat, with about 1,000 lives lost.
1995 – Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to preside over the Court, sitting in for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist who was out of town.
1998 – A federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, dismissed a sexual harassment case against President Bill Clinton, stating the case had no “genuine issues” worthy of trial. Although President Clinton had denied any wrongdoing, a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in May 1997 allowed the case to proceed, thereby establishing a precedent allowing sitting presidents to be sued for personal conduct that allegedly occurred before taking office.
2016 Panama Papers published – 11.5 million confidential documents from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca expose widespread illegal activities including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion and the violation of international sanctions by the world’s elite in the world’s largest ever data leak.
Rep. Luria’s Op-Ed in The Hill: “The U.S. Urgently Needs a Maritime-Focused National Defense Strategy”
A copy of the letter is available here.
NORFOLK, VA — Today, Congresswoman Elaine Luria penned an op-ed for The Hill about the country’s urgent need for a maritime-focused National Defense Strategy. She also sent a letter asking the Biden Administration to develop a National Defense Strategy that acknowledges and prioritizes the maritime nature of the current strategic environment.
“The United States is at a critical juncture in our nation’s history, as we find ourselves again engaged in a great power competition with two nations who have demonstrated overt hostile intent towards our interests and values. Because each of the major powers involved in this new era of competition is equipped with strategic nuclear weapons, the focus of these competitive interactions has moved towards open “global commons” such as space, cyber-space, and most importantly, the world’s oceans. We must immediately develop a National Defense Strategy, that acknowledges and prioritizes the maritime nature of the current strategic environment.
“Since our founding we have been and remain today a maritime nation—a people who understand the connection between the movement of trade and ideas to the betterment of humanity. The authors of the Constitution charged Congress “to provide and maintain a navy,” an order to provide permanent support and protection for key values such as free trade, free movement on the seas, and the defense of individual liberty. We have declared war more than once when those rights have been trampled upon. It is no accident that the ascendency of the US Navy to global primacy following World War II marked the beginning of a seventy-year era which saw the greatest rise in global economic output and the sharpest decline in illiteracy and extreme poverty in the recorded history of humanity.
“Today, however, those connections have begun to fray and in no small part because in the thirty years following the Cold War our participation in counter-terrorism campaigns distracted the nation strategically. We have allowed our naval force to shrink, its readiness to decline, and our supporting industrial infrastructure to rust. As we decreased our battleforce from 592 ships in 1989 to 375 in 1997 and dropping below the 300-ship barrier in 2003, we also reduced our daily global maritime presence from 150 ships to just over 100 across the same period. Meanwhile, China and Russia rushed to fill the vacuum. Piracy, the enemy of free trade, has been on the rise and the two rising competitors, seeking to take advantage of our weakened state, have advanced broad, expansive territorial waters claims over the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Such claims, if allowed to stand, could create a “cascade failure” of the interconnected global trading system where today, in an 80-plus trillion-dollar global economy, 80 percent of trade by volume and 70 percent by value travels upon the sea and a vast majority of data in our information-driven economy travels under the sea via cables. The U.S. and its allies must understand that Mare Liberum, the free sea, is a fragile, all-or-nothing, concept that must be uniformly supported if it is to survive and continue to benefit all of mankind.
“A sense of urgency on the part of the Defense establishment and the Administration is needed because the threat to our nation and its interests— on the seas— is proximate and real. Both the outgoing and incoming Indo-Pacific Commanders have testified that China may move militarily in the Pacific within the next six years. Before we focus on a Battleforce 2045 plan, we need a Battleforce 2025 plan— an all-hands-on deck effort with every available ship —and we need it now. We must quickly determine what ships we can build, which soon-to-be-decommissioned ships can be extended and furthermore, evaluate ships that can be reactivated to provide critical naval presence. We must also make the requisite investments in our industrial base to support these efforts.
“Now is not the time to cut our defense spending—reality requires that we spend more to meet our defense needs. Today’s defense spending as a percentage of GDP does not approach the levels of the 1980s, when we built our fleet to nearly 600 ships—ultimately providing a credible, convincing deterrent to the Soviet Union. A clearly delineated and actionable plan is necessary today, similar to President Reagan’s 1984 Maritime Strategy—arguably the most successful naval strategy since World War II.
“Naval presence is the foundation of our conventional deterrent and we must act rapidly to ensure we can maintain our maritime supremacy—or else we will cede it to those who do not share our values and the freedoms we uphold. Today, our fleet of just less than 300 ships is stretched to its limits, yet the demand for naval presence to meet these global threats is as great or greater than in the 1980s. We must be present protecting critical sea-lanes, providing a credible deterrent, and persistently operating in their backyard; China and Russia must understand that if clearly delineated red lines are violated, we will act to defend our allies, interests, and ultimately our values—over theirs.
“We need a clear and unambiguous National Defense Strategy that is maritime in its focus, designed to protect our broad national interests, backed by the appropriate resources, and anchored by full support of our nation in order to protect the values and freedoms that define us.
As a 20-year Navy veteran, Congresswoman Luria has been a strong advocate for a strong and capable Navy. Last month, she sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations requesting significantly more information regarding the Battle Force 2045 plan released by the U.S. Navy last year than has been previously provided to the House Armed Services Committee. In December, she voted to pass a government spending package that included $23.3 billion to procure 10 Navy ships, including two DDG-51 guided missile destroyers, two Virginia-class submarines, two Columbia-class submarines, and one frigate.
Has Covid made God Illegal? What would Jesus do?
In London, Police shut down a Good Friday service at a Polish church for breaching coronavirus rules and threatened worshippers with a £200 fine each.
Footage captured officers interrupting a Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion service at Christ the King Polish church in Balham at around 6pm on Friday.
One police officer was filmed telling parishioners that the gathering was “unfortunately unlawful under the coronavirus regulations”.
He added: “You are not allowed to meet inside with this many people under law.”
“At this moment in time you need to go home. Failure to comply with this direction to leave and go to your home address, ultimately could lead you to be fined £200 or, if you fail to give your details, to you being arrested.Advertisement
“It’s Good Friday and I appreciate you would like to worship, but it is unlawful,” he said.
He added: “You are not allowed to meet inside with this many people under law.”
“At this moment in time you need to go home. Failure to comply with this direction to leave and go to your home address, ultimately could lead you to be fined £200 or, if you fail to give your details, to you being arrested.Advertisement
“It’s Good Friday and I appreciate you would like to worship, but it is unlawful,” he said.
WELL Health-Safety seal: what in the New World Order Hell is This?
America is being transformed by ignorant, stupid, people that have spent a King’s Ransom to attend a University where they have been educated well beyond their ability to comprehend. The latest mind-boggling bit of stupidity is the WELL Health-Safety seal, a rating that tells you that the business you are about to enter has been deemed safe by the group WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility Operations and Management.
From the website: Informed by the WELL Building Standard and more than 600 experts from the Task Force on COVID-19, the WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility Operations and Management helps buildings and organizations address the health, safety and well-being of their most valuable asset—people. A visible indication of confidence and trust, the WELL Health-Safety seal communicates to everyone entering a space that evidence-based measures have been adopted and third-party verified.
Still not convinced? Then listen to Covid experts Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Michael B. Jordan, Robert De Niro, Venus Williams, Wolfgang Puck, and Deepak Chopra.
Sieg Heil to the New World Order.
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