News Round Up [August 4, 2017]

Now That's What I Call a Date!

Lt. Gov. Mallott says he and Gov. Walker will run for re-election

By Andrew Kitchenman, APRN & KTOO

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott said Wednesday that he and Gov. Bill Walker will run for re-election next year. He also said they’ll run together.

Even for incumbents, that may be an uphill fight.

Walker is a former Republican who ran without party affiliation in 2014. Mallott is a longtime Democrat who won the party’s nomination for governor that year. Mallott then decided to join Walker’s ticket.

Mallott didn’t say whether he and Walker will seek the nomination of a political party. But he noted that their non-affiliated run last time was successful.

Walker’s political spokeswoman is Lindsay Hobson, who is his daughter. She declined to comment on whether Walker is running for re-election.

But Hobson may have confirmed a re-election campaign in a roundabout way. She said she isn’t saying that Mallott was inaccurate. [Read the rest]

Council voices complaints about PeaceHealth management

Posted by Leila Kheiry

The hospital discussion was sparked by a proposed agreement between the city and PeaceHealth spelling out how a Council member can participate in the local community health board. The Council has traditionally had a member on that board, but the proposed agreement had some restrictions that didn’t sit well with the Council.

Here’s Council Member David Kiffer. “Considering the effort that the community has gone through over the decades to work cooperatively – and we had a relationship with the little Sisters of St. Joseph going back before that and even PeaceHealth – there’s just something about this that strikes me as the biggest freaking slap in the face.”

And Council Member Mark Flora: “Let’s see, so we’d be a non-voting member that the hospital could vote to remove if they deem fit that would be excluded from executive session. So, why would anybody want to go to that meeting, not vote, to sit in the atrium while they have an executive session, wondering if they were voting to remove you anyway?”

Council Members Dick Coose and Janalee Gage suggested that the city try to find a new operator for the hospital, which is owned by the City of Ketchikan and run by PeaceHealth.

The Council unanimously rejected the proposed agreement. As a result, the city will no longer have a representative on the community health board.

The Ketchikan City Council also unanimously voted to place a measure on the October ballot that, if approved by voters, would ban Uber and other transportation network companies from operating in Ketchikan. [Full Story]

Half of Detroit’s 8 mayoral candidates are felons

Detroit — Half of the eight mayoral hopefuls on Detroit’s primary ballot next week have been convicted of felony crimes involving drugs, assault or weapons, a Detroit News analysis shows.

Three were charged with gun crimes and two for assault with intent to commit murder. Some of the offenses date back decades, the earliest to 1977. The most recent was in 2008.

Political consultant Greg Bowens said there are candidates with past hardships in every election cycle. It’s not something unique to Detroit or the political arena in general, he said.

While some refute circumstances that led to their criminal convictions, three said their past is a motivating factor in their decisions to run.

The two who have polled ahead of the field, incumbent Mayor Mike Duggan and state Sen. Coleman A. Young II, the son of the city’s first black mayor, have no criminal records. Nor do candidates Edward Dean and Angelo Brown.

First-time contender Donna Marie Pitts, 58, has multiple felony convictions dating back to 1977, according to court records in Wayne and Oakland counties....[Read the rest]

Bees are Bouncing Back From Colony Collapse Disorder

The number of U.S. honeybees, a critical component to agricultural production, rose in 2017 from a year earlier, and deaths of the insects attributed to a mysterious malady that’s affected hives in North America and Europe declined, according a U.S. Department of Agriculture honeybee health survey released Tuesday.

Still, more than two-fifths of beekeepers said mites were harming their hives, and with pesticides and other factors still stressing bees, the overall increase is largely the result of constant replenishment of losses, the study showed.

“You create new hives by breaking up your stronger hives, which just makes them weaker,” said Tim May, a beekeeper in Harvard, Illinois and the vice-president of the American Beekeeping Federation based in Atlanta. “We check for mites, we keep our bees well-fed, we communicate with farmers so they don’t spray pesticides when our hives are vulnerable. I don’t know what else we can do.”

Environmental groups have expressed alarm over the 90 percent decline during the past two decades in the population of pollinators, from wild bees to Monarch butterflies. Some point to a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids as a possible cause, a link rejected by Bayer AG and other manufacturers. [Source]

8 Reasons Why Saturated Fats Are Not That Bad

Humans have been eating saturated fats for hundreds of thousands of years. They were demonized a few decades ago and claimed to cause heart disease, but new data shows that to be false.

3. Saturated Fats Do Not Cause Heart Disease

4. Saturated Fats May Lower The Risk of Stroke

7. Diets High in Saturated Fat Are Good For Weight Loss [Read the full list here]

Psychologists say more and more young people are entitled

Research has discovered that large amounts of young people are developing an entitlement complex.

The psychological trend comes from the belief that you are superior to others and are more deserving of certain things.

This form of narcissism has some significant consequences such as disappointment and a tendency to lash out.

Psychology Today reports that some examples of entitlement range from the disregard of rules, freeloading, causing inconveniences and like to assume the role of leader when working in groups.

So called millennials, who were born roughly between 1988 and 1994, tend to have this characteristic as a 2016 study found.

Dr Joshua Grubbs, who conducted the research, which was published in the Psychological Bulletin is quoted by Spring as saying:

“ At extreme levels, entitlement is a toxic narcissistic trait, repeatedly exposing people to the risk of feeling frustrated, unhappy and disappointed with life. [Source]

Read More: [Special Report] Senator Dan Sullivan Comes to Craig Alaska