Reading archive 2023-03-20

the best of the sedges, and how to use them (even mown!), with sam hoadley

Teenager fatally shot by U.S. Park Police officer in Northeast D.C.

A Lyft driver picked up 2 friends after night out in D.C. None made it home.: The three were killed when an SUV fleeing a traffic stop plowed into their sedan, authorities said. The SUV had racked up more than $12,000 in unpaid tickets. - "Most of the vehicle’s $12,300 in traffic tickets were for speeding violations, according to the District’s Department of Motor Vehicles website."

As Xi visits Russia, Putin sees his anti-U.S. world order taking shape

Opinion  Social Security needs fixing. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be painful. - "A plausible plan would involve these elements: broadening the base upon which the 12.4 percent payroll tax is levied — currently 84 percent of all earnings — to the 90 percent that prevailed in 1982, at the time of the Reagan reforms; gradually indexing up the age, currently 67, at which people may retire at full benefits, to take account of longer retirements due to rising life expectancy; and shoring up the program’s distributional equity, via tweaking benefit formulas to trim how much high-income households get and increases for the most vulnerable. The latter category would include a minimum benefit equal to 125 percent of the official poverty line as well as a “bump up” in payments to the very aged. And all new state and local employees should be required to pay Social Security tax — and receive the benefits — though existing opt-outs for the small minority of state and local government workers who chose not to participate in Social Security should not be altered."

A key starfish is now under threat of extinction, the government says: The federal government said Wednesday that the sunflower sea star needs protection under the Endangered Species Act - "The loss of so many of the many-limbed predators has allowed sea urchins to devour kelp forests that shelter other marine species and sequester carbon out of the atmosphere. Off the coast of Northern California, kelp cover has declined by more than 95 percent, according to a recent study."

This crow is ‘very intelligent’ — and it’s struggling to survive in the wild: Plans to repopulate Hawaii’s forests with its “very intelligent” crows have been upended in part by its natural predator, the Hawaiian hawk. Now scientists are tracking the hawk in order to save the corvids.

Trump-commissioned report undercut his claims of dead and double voters: A report commissioned by the former president’s campaign and obtained by The Post did not back up his claims of fraud and did not provide evidence to overturn the 2020 election