4 was too scary to keep doing business.

Lonnie Rouse shuffled into a wood-paneled conference room at the Washington state Capitol in March 2018. It had been nearly a decade since medical experts diagnosed him with a neurological disease they attributed to his exposure to chemicals at work. In the time since, he had acquired a stutter, begun limping and lost several teeth biting into a banana.

For nearly 20 years, Rouse had packaged plutonium and monitored radioactive waste at the Hanford Site, a now-decommissioned Department of Energy nuclear weapons production plant in south-central Washington and one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the country. Tanks full of radioactive sludge exposed him to at least 48 potentially hazardous chemicals. The worksite was so toxic, he said, that the floor once melted the rubber off his boots.

The smell of ammonia serves as a warning, workers say, that the underground tanks holding a mix of radioactive sludge have burped chemical vapors into the air above. From 1998 to 2008, it was Rouse’s job to monitor the toxic waste held in the “tank farms.” The containers together hold more than 50 million gallons of liquid waste. Rouse says he lost count of how many times tanks released toxic vapor that took his breath away, sometimes knocking him to the ground and making him vomit and bleed from his nose. According to a 2014 report funded by the federal government, tank farm workers exposed to chemical vapors commonly reported nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.

The liquid sloshing around in those tanks represented the radioactive byproducts of the Cold War. Hanford produced two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal and fueled the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.

Kathleen Kersey spent 10 years at Hanford, during both the production and cleanup stages. Much of her work involved measuring radiation around the site and making sure levels were safe. She says her safety training covered radiation, but not other hazards like chemical vapors burping from the waste tanks.

Kersey struggles to walk, has short-term memory problems and at one point lost vision in her right eye for three months. A doctor diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis, which is a neurological disorder, one of the categories of illnesses the state’s presumption law recognizes as related to chemical exposure at Hanford. In 2019 she filed a claim, which the state approved.

The DOE has appealed, arguing that something other than her time at Hanford caused her multiple sclerosis.

State records show that the DOE has filed more than 500 appeals since the presumption law passed in 2018. In 20 cases, as it did with Rouse, the DOE has appealed a single worker’s claim half a dozen times or more.

“We have seen tremendous pushback from DOE on essentially almost every single case that’s been brought,” said Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown.

L

gouache on paper

perhaps one day when my skill matches my imagination i will repaint it with oils

In a 45-page indictment filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lucas and six co-defendants were charged with conspiring to distribute and possess marijuana, conspiring to launder money, laundering money, and committing bribery by distributing large quantities of illegal marijuana under the auspices of her legal medical cannabis business.

Lucas, an 82-year-old great-grandmother, has served in the Virginia Senate since 1992. She faces five of the eight charges included in the indictment. These charges arrive five months after the FBI raided Lucas’s office in Portsmouth, Virginia, and the neighboring cannabis dispensary she co-owns.

Base idea lovingly stolen and reworked from @Auster@thebrainbin.ora

Star Trek: V'ger? I hardly know her!

The people of Earth develop nuclear power. Naron, a long-lived Rigellian who serves as the Keeper of galactic records, notes this achievement and records humanity as having reached maturity. Until he discovers something else... Despite the seriousness of the subject, Asimov keeps a light touch in this very short story.

A 1-minute read.

Naron of the long-lived Rigellian race was the fourth of his line to keep the Galactic records.

He had the large book which contained the list of the numerous races throughout the Galaxies that had developed intelligence, and the much smaller book listing those races that had reached maturity and had qualified for the Galactic Federation. In the first book, a number of those listed were crossed out; those that, for one reason or another, had failed. Misfortune; biochemical or biophysical shortcomings; social maladjustment, etc., took their toll. In the smaller book, however, no member listed had yet blanked out.

And now Naron, large and incredibly ancient, looked up as a messenger approached.

“Naron,” said the messenger. “Great One!”

“Well, well, what is it? Less ceremony.”

“Another group of organisms has attained maturity.”

“Excellent. Excellent. They are coming up quickly now. Scarcely a year passes without a new one. And who are these?”

The messenger gave the code number of the Galaxy and the coordinates of the world within it.

“Ah, yes,” said Naron. “I know the world.” And in flowing script, he noted it in the first book and transferred its name into the second—using, as was customary, the name by which the planet was known to the largest fraction of its populace. He wrote: Earth.

He said, “These new creatures have set a record. No other group has passed from intelligence to maturity so quickly. No mistake, I hope.”

“None, sir,” said the messenger.

“They have attained to thermonuclear power, have they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, that’s the criterion.” Naron chuckled. “And soon their ships will probe out and contact the Federation.”

“Actually, Great One,” said the messenger, reluctantly, “the Observers tell us they have not yet penetrated space.”

Naron was astonished. “Not at all? Not even a space station?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“But if they have thermonuclear power, where then do they conduct their tests and detonations?”

“On their own planet, sir.”

Naron rose to his full twenty feet of hight and thundered, “On their own planet?”

“Yes, sir.”

Slowly, Naron drew out his stylus and passed a line through the latest addition in the smaller book. It was an unprecedented act, but, then, Naron was very wise and could see the inevitable as well as anyone in the Galaxy.

“Silly asses,” he muttered.

TOS s1e14 "Balance of Terror"

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly is giving the American parent company of Hamilton-based Stelco 15 days to reverse layoffs before seeking legal action.