GOOD

Bodega Cats Exist For One Very Important Reason

Seriously, we need them

 Andre Grant
10.31.16

A marauding customer left a one-star Yelp review over a cat in a bodega she frequented in the East Village and the internet responded in kind. The bodega cat wars were brief and devastating, with multiple feline-loving humans responding to the Yelp review once word got out about its existence. Twitter was not amused.

But there’s a very good reason to have cats roaming around bodegas and lounging on top of six-packs of Budweiser: rodents. With cities becoming enlivened with construction, typical rat enclaves have gotten disturbed and the critters are left to scurry around for different real estate. Some major cities are looking to an old-fashioned solution to the problem. One of those cities is Chicago, where rat complaints are up 67 percent this year, according to CNN. And even after a new rodent task force crunched the data, the most effective solution to Chicago’s rat problems seems to be good old cats.

It’s a tale as old as time. Beginning with the Natufians (the ancestors who dawned our agricultural age) came rats, who found large stores of grain too appetizing to pass up. To combat them came the cat. And that’s where we still stand, some 13,000 years later. Some solutions just don’t get any better. New Yorkers seem to think so, as well. In response to that one-star review, New Yorkers started giving glowing reviews to the bodega in question, lambasting poor old Diana D., who seemed to leave the original review. With Yelp beginning to delete the reviews, one New Yorker started a Change.org petition to get the city to make Bodega cats legal.

Since then, the petition has reached 3,000 signatures and growing. Will we get the ability to pet adorable bodega cats freely any time soon? Not so fast. New York is still a town with rules. According to Gothamist, bodega cats are still considered a “general deficiency” and bodega owners can get hit with a $3,000 fine if a cat is found living in the establishment. Still, with rat fecal matter fineable at $300 a pop, it might pay to keep a Garfield around, even if it offends the delicate sensibilities of a few new New Yorkers. And then there’s this:

internet pop culture social media
Food

The world is rallying around Tori, the Target employee Tweet-shamed by an irate cheapskate

via David Leavitt / Twitter

Anyone who has ever worked in retail knows that the worst thing about the job, right after the pay, are the unreasonable cheapskates who "want to talk to your manager" to get some money off an item.

They think that throwing a tantrum will save them a few bucks and don't care if they completely embarrass themselves in the process. Sometimes that involves belittling the poor employee who's just trying to get through their day with an ounce of dignity.

Twitter is rallying around a gal named Tori who works at a Target in Massachusetts after she was tweet-shamed by irate chapekate, journalist, and Twitter troll, David Leavitt.

Keep Reading
cnn target msnbc fox news tori target employee
Business

The cost of having a baby even with insurance equals average the monthly income of a woman

upload.wikimedia.org

Childbirth is the number one reason American women visit the hospital, and it ain't cheap. In fact, it's getting more and more expensive. A new study published in Health Affairs found that the cost of having a baby with employer-sponsored health insurance increased by almost 50% in the past seven years.

The study evaluated "trends in cost-sharing for maternity care for women with employer-based health insurance plans, before and after the Affordable Care Act," which was signed into law in 2010. The study looked at over 657,061 women enrolled in large employer-sponsored health insurance plans who delivered babies between 2008 and 2015, as these plans tend to cover more than plans purchased by small businesses or individuals.

Keep Reading
babies health insurance healthcare
Health

Scientists just found the crater of one of the biggest meteor crashes in Earth's history

www.nps.gov

A meteorite crashed into Earth nearly 800,000 years ago. The meteor was 1.2 miles wide, and the impact was so big, it covered 10% of the planet with debris. However, scientists haven't been able to find the impact site for over a century. That is, until now. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal believes the crash site has been located.

Tektites, which are essentially rocks that have been liquefied from the heat of the impact and then cooled to form glass, help scientists spot the original impact site of a meteor. Upon impact, melted material is thrown into the atmosphere, then falls back to the ground. Even if the original crater has disappeared due to erosion or is hidden by a shift in tectonic plates, tektites give the spot away. Tektites between 750,000 to 35.5 million years old have been found in every continent except Antarctica.

Keep Reading
science meteor crash