Tag: poverty

Radioactive Waste Found at Missouri Elementary School

There is significant radioactive contamination at an elementary school in suburban St. Louis where nuclear weapons were produced during World War II, according to a new report by environmental investigation consultants.

The report by Boston Chemical Data Corp. confirmed fears about contamination at Jana Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District in Florissant raised by a previous Army Corps of Engineers study.

The new report is based on samples taken in August from the school, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Boston Chemical did not say who or what requested and funded the report.

“I was heartbroken,” said Ashley Bernaugh, president of the Jana parent-teacher association who has a son at the school. “It sounds so cliché, but it takes your breath from you.”

The school sits in the flood plain of Coldwater Creek, which was contaminated by nuclear waste from weapons production during World War II. The waste was dumped at sites near the St. Louis Lambert International Airport, next to the creek that flows to the Missouri River. The Corps has been cleaning up the creek for more than 20 years.

The Corps’ report also found contamination in the area but at much at lower levels, and it didn’t take any samples within 300 feet of the school. The most recent report included samples taken from Jana’s library, kitchen, classrooms, fields and playgrounds.

Levels of the radioactive isotope lead-210, polonium, radium and other toxins were “far in excess” of what Boston Chemical had expected. Dust samples taken inside the school were found to be contaminated.

Inhaling or ingesting these radioactive materials can cause significant injury, the report said.

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Pests, Filth, and Killer Elevators: Inside Raphael Warnock’s Secret Low-Income Apartment Building

A low-income apartment building owned by Raphael Warnock’s church is plagued by pests, maintenance problems, and filth, according to residents—and at least two people have sued the building this year after the elevator allegedly collapsed on them.

Residents of the Columbia Tower at MLK Village complained about living conditions in the building, telling the Washington Free Beacon that garbage is left to pile up in the storage rooms for days, creating an “overwhelming trash smell,” common areas aren’t maintained, and the air vents produce a “sickening” amount of dust.

Tenants also said the elevators often break down, and handicapped residents have had to call the fire department to carry them to their rooms.

The allegations follow a Free Beacon report that found Columbia Tower had attempted to evict at least eight low-income residents over unpaid rent since the start of the pandemic—including one tenant who owed just $28. Warnock serves as senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, which, through a charity it controls called the Ebenezer Building Foundation, owns 99 percent of Columbia Tower, according to records obtained by the Free Beacon. It’s not clear what Warnock’s role was in overseeing Columbia Tower. A repair grant Ebenezer Building Foundation filed in June, however, said Warnock “works closely” with Ebenezer’s executive pastor “in managing the overall vision, ministries, and operations” of the church.

The news raises questions for Warnock, who has campaigned as an ally of low-income Georgians and people with disabilities. It could also draw new scrutiny to Warnock’s compensation from the church, which paid him a $7,417-per-month, tax-free housing allowance last year—an arrangement that allowed him to circumvent federal limits on outside income for U.S. senators.

Court filings reviewed by the Free Beacon appear to back up claims from Columbia Tower residents that there are problems with the living conditions at the building.

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Police Need Warrants to Search Homes. Child Welfare Agents Almost Never Get One.

The banging on Ronisha Ferguson’s apartment door in the Bronx started on a Thursday afternoon as she waited for her two sons to get home from school.

Ferguson, a nurse working 16-hour double shifts, knew instantly who she’d find in her hallway that day in February 2019.

For years, caseworkers from the Administration for Children’s Services, New York City’s child protective services bureau, had been showing up unannounced like this and inspecting her kitchen, her bathroom and her bedroom — and her children’s bodies — without a warrant.

A domestic violence survivor who previously lived in a shelter, Ferguson had never been accused of child abuse, ACS case records show. But she had faced repeated allegations of parenting problems largely stemming from her long hours at work, including that she’d provided inadequate supervision by having her 14-year-old daughter babysit the boys when they were 5 and 2, and had also allowed the kids to miss dozens of days of school.

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Crypto Guy: Desperately Poor People Could Be NPCs in Video Games

Getting paid to play video games might sound like a dream to some.

But if the rise of “play-to-earn” games is anything to go by, the reality looks far more like a nightmare. Take the gamers in the developing world who found a new way of earning a living with these games — before, in many cases, getting the rug pulled out from beneath them.

Despite this litany of failure, one crypto advocate has an even more ghoulish suggestion: exploiting the wealth gap in the developing world to fill future games with human-controlled non-playable characters (NPCs).

“With the cheap labor of a developing country, you could use people in the Philippines as NPCs,” Mikhai Kossar, an NFT gaming consultant, told Rest of World.

These NPCs could “just populate the world,” he said, or “maybe do a random job or just walk back and forth, fishing, telling stories, a shopkeeper, anything is really possible.”

In short, it’s a demeaning and tragic vision — and one with precedent in the blockchain world.

Axie Infinity, a play-to-earn game that allowed gamers to collect tradeable crypto tokens by playing it, became a way to make money when hard times hit during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the Philippines in particular, where the average income is low, thousands of gamers found a new way of earning cash by mining in-game currency in Axie Infinity and trading it in for real-world, fiat money.

Despite games like Axie Infinity becoming victims of the crypto crash — the game’s tokens became practically worthless earlier this year, with its in-game economy collapsing like a house of cards — crypto advocates are already wondering what’s next.

And as Kossar’s comments go to show, there are visions even more twisted.

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‘They Don’t Know How They Sound’: Critics Roast Energy Secretary For Telling Poor People To Buy Solar Panels

Critics absolutely roasted Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm after she suggested that lower to middle class Americans could fight the rising cost of living by investing thousands in solar panels and other green energy initiatives.

Granholm made an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” to explain how the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act — which has since been touted as a tax, energy, and health care bill — would impact everyday Americans who are struggling with record-high inflation, food, gasoline, and energy costs.

“If you are low income, you can get your home entirely weatherized through the expansion from the bipartisan infrastructure laws, a significant expansion — you don’t have to pay for anything,” she said, adding, “”If you want heat pumps, insulation, new windows, that is covered,” she said. “If you are moderate income, today you can get 30% off the price of solar panels. Those solar panels can be financed, so you don’t have to have the big outlay at the front … If you don’t qualify for the weatherization program, you will be able to, starting next year, get rebates on the appliances and equipment that will help you reduce your monthly energy bill by up to 30%. That is all about reducing costs for people.”

But as critics quickly pointed out, people who were struggling to feed their kids or wondering how they’d afford the gas to get to work were not just waiting on a 30%-off sale to make the jump to solar — they were just doing what they could to get by.

“GOP just needs to run ad after ad of Granholm telling the poors to buy solar panels and electric cars to save money,” Erick Ericksen tweeted.

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