Last summer felt really hot! There were quite a few days when most of the headlines in the news were about how the thermometer was about to break historic records in many cities. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Earth temperature change measured by NASA during the months of June and July was the highest ever recorded.

The "breaking record" headlines are following the same pattern year after year. I don't remember any time in my lifetime when global warming was such a clear and present danger!

In February last year, I was blogging about how the mass shootings in the US were happening constantly and 86 people had been killed at the time of the Parkland massacre (528 ended up dying that year according to the data from the massshootingtracker.org project). The current year unfortunately has followed a similar pattern (347 people have been killed) and as the NY Times put it: "In a country that has become nearly numb to men with guns opening fire in schools, at concerts and in churches, the back-to-back bursts of gun violence in less than 24 hours were enough to leave the public stunned and shaken..."

The shootings have followed a darker tone this time, as hate speech has been added to the motivation of these horrible events, like the ones that just happened in El Paso, TX.

The US has more than 3.7 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, making it the country with the highest number of cases in the world. Lately, the news has focused on how states that rushed to reopen as quickly as possible, such as Texas and Florida, have seen a steady and exponential increase in the total number of cases.

Next to California, which has also seen a sharp increase in the number of cases, mainly in Los Angeles County, those states are getting closer to matching the numbers of New York. It feels like a cautionary tale that "going back to normal" won't be the pre-COVID-19 normal until there is an effective vaccine or treatment in place.

Fortunately, the an mRNA vaccine trial preliminary report in the NEJM stated the vaccine induced anti–SARS-CoV-2 immune responses in all participants, and no trial-limiting safety concerns were identified. Crossing the fingers for the next phases of those promising results.

A couple of days ago we were visiting the old windmill in Swinoujscie, and when we were heading back to the car, I looked and saw this amazing view of the mill silhouette and the people walking by, while feeling the fresh breeze of summer in our faces. Nice memory.

In 2018, the employment rate in the European Union was 73.2%, compared to 72.2% in 2017, as reported by Eurostat. Those results show a continuous growth in the region as can be observed in the chart above. Fortunately, the dip recorded after the financial crisis of 2008 is not present anymore.

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