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For Caroline Shaw, a sourcing manager at a GE wind turbine plant in Florida, the “light bulb went on” after she had to hand out face masks (known as N95s) to a team of coworkers who were tasked with screening their fellow employees for COVID-19. With shortages of masks everywhere it is important to use […]
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We at Our Daily Planet have been reading the news these past weeks and are in sheer awe of our healthcare workers. We’re so incredibly grateful for these men and women and their bravery in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. From doctors like Dr. Nermeen Botros who has been clocking more than 80 hours […]
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This past week for those of us in the United States we’ve witnessed our lives screech to a halt within a matter of 7 days. As we watch the news–and especially the devastation happening in Italy–we see that the strain on our healthcare system is about to become exponentially worse. For instance, just yesterday evening, […]
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After Republicans in Oregon’s legislature didn’t show up for work (for the second time) inorder to avoid a vote on limiting statewide carbon emissions, Oregon’s Governor Kate Brown took matters into her own hands. She found a workaround–which would enable a state agency to set and enforce caps on pollution from industry and transportation fuels […]
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It is women’s history month and so this week we salute two of the highest-ranking women doctors in the federal government who are working to contain the spread of the coronavirus and make sure we are prepared to deal with it here in the U.S.
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Katherine Johnson who was one of the finest NASA mathematicians of her time and whose calculations made possible the first U.S. crewed spaceflights, passed away at 101 on Monday. As the New York Times reported, “Mrs. Johnson was one of several hundred rigorously educated, supremely capable yet largely unheralded women who, well before the modern […]
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This week, in honor of Black History Month, are shining a spotlight on a trailblazing leader of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s uniformed service corps (the NOAA Corps) where she rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Admiral Fields was the first African-American woman to command a ship in the U.S. uniformed services (which includes the Navy and the Coast Guard) for an extended assignment when she took command of the NOAA research vessel McArthur in 1989.
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Sharon Lavigne, is 67-year-old recently retired special-ed teacher born and raised in St. James Parish, LA and a staunch advocate for her community that sits in what’s been dubbed as “Cancer Alley.” When Lavigne was a child she recalls St. James Parish being lush with fruit trees, vegetable gardens and full of families living off […]
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When she was 8-years-old, Mari Copeny wrote a letter to President Obama, asking him to meet with her and a group of people coming to Washington D.C. to watch congressional hearings on the Flint water crisis. He responded with a letter announcing that instead, he was coming to Flint to ensure the people there receive […]
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For nearly 40 years the Blackfeet Nation has been fighting in Montana to protect the Badger-Two Medicine – an area of deep spiritual significance to the tribe – from oil and gas drilling. While many people have denounced drilling in this incredible landscape, for the Blackfeet Tribe confronted with the threat to their ancestral land, this is a […]
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The tragedy of the loss of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 152 last week was compounded by the fact that among those who perished was a remarkable advocate for conserving the cultural heritage of indigenous communities. PhD student Ghanimat Azhdari, who was born into a nomadic tribe in Iran, was studying at Canada’s University of Guelph, […]
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When disasters like Australia’s devastating brush fires ensue, it truly takes a community (and in this case, a nation) to grapple with the losses and begin to rebuild. There have been countless heroes who have risked–and even given–their lives so that others might be safe. The Daily Mail wrote a great roundup of Oz fire […]
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