Bits ‘n pieces from east, west and beyond

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:

Cincinnati, Ohio, is building the nation’s largest municipal solar farm. It is the size of 750 football fields, containing about 310,000 solar panels, and is intended to honor the city’s pledge to uphold the Paris climate agreement. In 2018 Bloomberg Philanthropies granted funds for technical assistance. The project was further aided by the costs of solar dropping up to 80 percent in the last decade.

Eight million people are being helped by 50 million others in their crowd-sourcing plea for health bill assistance, according to the National Opinion Research Center.

Your stress stresses your dog, according to research from Linkoping University in Sweden. Levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress, can be found in the hair of both dogs and their owners. Dogs that play more show less stress, the study found.

President Donald Trump has appointed Vice President Mike Pence to head up the nation’s response to the coronavirus. Health authorities are alarmed, since in 1998 Pence wrote an op-ed for The New York Times claiming that tobacco doesn’t kill, despite 40 years of ample evidence to the contrary.

Citing insufficient funds, the White House’s team for addressing pandemics was basically dismantled two years ago. Efforts to reconstruct it on short notice to address the coronavirus may not work, the Washington Post reported. Both the instability of positions under the current administration and questions about reliable funding do not encourage sudden participation by the experts that are required.

During the last month, scientists in Antarctica recorded the highest temp there ever: 70 degrees.

Stephen Schwartz, 36, a Trump nominee to the U.S. Federal Court of Claims, has said Social Security should be abolished because economic disparity is “a natural aspect of the human condition.” He has also said the departments of transportation, agriculture and education have no “constitutional basis,” and previously worked to restrict voting rights. The Washington Post reported that the seat sought by Schwartz hears claims against the federal government and has nationwide jurisdiction.

Pew Charitable Trust survey: a third of U.S. families have no savings, including 10 percent of families making more than $100,000, and 70 percent of families are not able to cover an unexpected $2,000 expense.

The planet’s richest person, Jeff Bezos, has promised $10 billion in grants to combat climate change. Ideas for the Bezos Earth Fund, from Wired, include donating to the project to harness just 1 percent of the 173,000 trillion watts of solar energy that would be available with a giant solar space farm. Such a project would meet the planet’s clean energy needs.

Trump said the U.S. will join the Trillion Tree Initiative launched at the World Economic Forum. Trees pull carbon from the atmosphere, foster better air and water quality, enhance property values, and, according to some studies, may even reduce crime.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are now found in ocean waters. That’s due, in part, to the FDA allowing three antibiotics for use in commercial aqua-farms located in ocean-connected waterways. Biologists examined seals and porpoises in the Salish Sea for resistant bacteria, High Country News reported, and found that the animals harbored resistant bacteria. About a quarter were host to “nightmare bugs” that are less treatable with antibiotics. Other sources of bacteria in ocean waters include sewage and runoff from storm water and agriculture.

“My party is very interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House,” Mick Mulvaney, the White House acting chief of staff, recently told an audience at the Oxford Union. “The worst thing in the whole world is deficits when Barack Obama was president. Then Donald Trump became president, and we’re a lot less interested as a party.”

The Guardian first reported the Mulvaney comment. The New York Times later obtained a transcript that confirmed the report.

Blast from the past: The 1918-19 flu pandemic in the U.S. saw 25.8 million infected. About 670,000 died and 20 percent of those flu deaths occurred among those age five or younger. Life expectancy dropped by 12 years. About 50 percent of U.S. military deaths in World War I were caused by the flu, as reported in Smithsonian magazine.

The pandemic was further complicated by the fact that about half of physicians under age 45 were serving in the military. Under President Woodrow Wilson, who sought to boost wartime morale by banning criticism, lies from official sources flourished.

When a Navy ship carried flu from Boston to Philadelphia, that city’s public health director was told there was nothing to worry about. But the next day 14 sailors died. The assurances of “no problem” were repeated elsewhere, with fatal outcomes.