LOS ANGELES â Southern California air quality officials have adopted first-of-their-kind rules on warehouse distribution centers in an effort to cut truck pollution, increase electrification and reduce health risks in communities hit hardest by lung-damaging diesel exhaust.
The South Coast Air Quality Management Districtâs governing board approved the rules Friday on a 9-4 vote after an hours-long public hearing.
The rules apply to nearly 3,000 warehouses across the region and mark the first comprehensive effort to limit the environmental impacts of the booming goods-movement industry. As massive logistics warehouses have proliferated in areas that are disproportionately Black and Latino, increasing numbers of diesel trucks are plying routes closer to homes, schools and neighborhoods that are already burdened with some of the dirtiest air in the nation.
In India, old tires are being transformed into playground equipment
Pooja Rai believes all children should have access to a playground where they can let their imaginations run wild, and through Anthill Creations, she s helping make this happen across India. Rai is the founder and CEO of Anthill Creations, and was inspired to start the nonprofit after seeing kids playing with trash and old shoes. Play shouldn t just be part of a rich, privileged kid s lifestyle, Rai told the
Christian Science Monitor. All kids have a right to enjoy their childhoods. Anthill Creations takes old tires â roughly 100 million are discarded in India annually â and after cleaning them and making sure they are safe to use, transforms them into swings, jungle gyms, tunnels, and sculptures. Since Rai launched Anthill Creations in 2016, the nonprofit has delivered tire playground equipment to 275 schools, public spaces, and refugee camps, and designed play spaces for blind children as well.
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It has been seven months since Marimar, a transgender woman, was infected with the coronavirus, but the disease and the pandemic still affect her physically and financially. Behind on rent by five months and her body weakened by illness, the 57-year-old Los Angeles County resident doesn’t know where to turn for assistance.
“The help I have had has come from my transgender friends, but from the government I don’t know where to ask, since there is no specific help for my community,” said Marimar, who came by herself from Veracruz, Mexico, to the United States in 1993 in search of work.
I feel abandoned, but I m not the only one LGBTQ Latinos suffer in the pandemic s shadows msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl s district sweeps from the beaches of Santa Monica to the San Fernando Valley. Among the two million people she represents are Latino communities hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Many essential workers, many market and pharmacy and food service and restaurant and hotel workers and a lot of health care workers, she said. So a lot of people just had to go to work.
To reach them â amid a pandemic that has made face-to-face communication difficult â Kuehl turned to Facebook. When the virus surged in her district this summer, she put out ads in English and Spanish, urging people to mask up.