Reading archvie 2024-02-03

A journalist goes undercover to reveal the absurdity of the art scene: In ‘Get the Picture,’ journalist Bianca Bosker paints a portrait of people who talk ‘like they were trapped in dictionaries and being forced to chew their way out’

U.S. strikes in Syria and Iraq kill dozens of militants

Rethinking Monarchs: Does the Beloved Butterfly Need Our Help?: The Eastern monarch butterfly has long been thought to be in peril, but new studies indicate that its U.S. populations are not in decline. Scientists say the biggest threat the species faces is from well-meaning people who rear the butterflies at home and release them. - "De Roode is a coauthor of a third potentially game-changing study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology in 2022. It found that there has been a significant rise in OE prevalence since the early 2000s. The researchers attribute this spike to the increased density of monarchs in places where they lay their eggs, due in large part to the mass rearing of monarchs in confined spaces, and the widespread planting in recent years of non-native milkweeds, including the tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) favored by monarch admirers. This surge in parasitism, they warn, may already be impairing the species’ migration: Their research indicates that in years when the summer OE infection rate was high, the winter colony size was unexpectedly low."

How the nation’s capital became an outlier on violent crime: Republicans blame Democrats for DC’s rising violent crime. The reality is much more complicated.

The French farmers’ protests are more complex than they seem: Farmers’ frustration over French and EU regulations are a new dimension in a longstanding problem.

An officer's hope: ‘That better day is coming,' DC police veteran says

This ancient material is displacing plastics and creating a billion-dollar industry

Recording captures judge, prosecutor, undersheriff talking about killing Kansas couple