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

Reading archive 2021-10-21

The Raiders Had More Black Players Than Any NFL Team. Then Jon Gruden Took Over The Roster.

Jon Gruden was hostile to Black people for years before his emails came out: In his dealings with those in his immediate orbit, the former Raiders head coach long ago showed us where he thinks a Black man’s place in football should be

FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE: Where civilization emerged between the Tigris and Euphrates, climate change is poisoning the land and emptying the villages - "Years of below-average rainfall have left Iraqi farmers more dependent than ever on the dwindling waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. But upstream, Turkey and Iran have dammed their own waterways in the past two years, further weakening the southern flow, so a salty current from the Persian Gulf now pushes northward and into Iraq’s rivers. The salt has reached as far as the northern edge of Basra, some 85 miles inland."

Council member Trayon White Sr. is planning to run for D.C. mayor

Reading archive 2021-05-12

The ‘Can men and women just be friends?’ trope dominates pop culture. ‘Together Together’ flips it on its head.

After spreading false claims, Michigan Republican wants to register, fine fact-checkers: ‘You better be right’

Students for Trump co-founder sentenced to prison for posing as lawyer

Ransomware gang says D.C. police won’t pay $4 million demand, begins leaking files: Hackers leak alleged police data and screenshots of their failed negotiations.

Officials opened 12 slots to kill bison at Grand Canyon National Park. 45,000 people applied.

A ‘beautiful’ female biker was actually a 50-year-old man using FaceApp. After he confessed, his followers liked him even more.: The middle-aged father’s big reveal sparked a debate over identity in the Internet age: ‘The only thing I’m creating is … my appearance. Everything else is me.’

Inside Liz Cheney’s plan to take on former president Donald Trump

House Republicans oust Cheney for calling out Trump’s false election claims, minimize Jan. 6 attack on Capitol

Liz Cheney’s Liberal Critics Are Missing the Point - "Cheney’s decision to challenge the party on democracy is remarkable for several reasons. First, she is putting the issue squarely. Rather than softening her line or couching her stance in the logic of messaging (i.e., Trump’s rhetoric will hurt Republicans with swing voters), she is straightforwardly instructing her fellow Republicans that their current path is a menace to the Constitution and the rule of law. Second, she has absolutely nothing to gain and a great deal to lose. 

"And third, the fact she is such a dogmatic right-winger on economic, social, and foreign policy gives her support for democracy more, not less, weight. The very point of her dissent is that support for democracy ought to be separated from policy outcomes. Republicans should not succumb to the temptation of siding with a would-be authoritarian merely because he promises to advance their policy goals. 'He’ll undermine the Constitution, but give us low capital gains taxes and friendly judges' is not a morally defensible trade-off. Democracy is the one question not subject to horse-trading."

In Iraq, powerful militias assassinate protesters with impunity

Ransomware attacks could reach ‘pandemic’ proportions. What to know after the pipeline hack.: Ransomware attacks in 2020 were estimated to have cost billions of dollars - "'The underlying enabling factors for this cybercrime explosion are rooted in the digital dumpster fire of our seemingly pathological need to connect everything to the Internet combined with how hard it is to actually secure what we have connected,' Krebs said in his testimony."

Reading archive 2021-03-05

State Department aide appointed by Trump stormed the Capitol, beat police with a riot shield, FBI says

Pope Francis lands in Baghdad, beginning the first-ever papal trip to Iraq

China needs a baby boom to avert a demographic crisis. Small steps won’t be enough.

David Brooks of New York Times criticized for undisclosed financial ties to project he praised

Dallas hitmen kidnapped and killed two people, authorities said. A police officer allegedly hired them to do it.

Opinion: There can be no racial equity in D.C. when Black and Brown families are being displaced

The Demise and Potential Revival of the American Chestnut: Before a disastrous blight, the American chestnut was a keystone species in eastern forests. Could genetic engineering help bring it back?

Reading archive 2020-08-25

LIE AFTER LIE: WHAT COLIN POWELL KNEW ABOUT IRAQ 15 YEARS AGO AND WHAT HE TOLD THE U.N. The evidence is irrefutable: Powell consciously deceived the world in his 2003 presentation making the case for war with Saddam Hussein.

The St. Louis couple charged with waving guns at protesters have a long history of not backing down

Reading archive 2020-02-28

Furtive love, forbidden grief: When Iraqi men perish on the ramparts of protest, the women left behind must often mourn in secret

This time, Bernie Sanders 'rigged' the system against himself: As the Democratic front-runner claims that a plurality of delegates should give him the nomination, his own actions come back to haunt him.

The Smithsonian Puts 2.8 Million Images in the Public Domain: The archive includes hi-res images of Muhammad Ali's boxing gear, 15th-century manuscripts, and data that could help surface untold stories of women in science.

New Smithsonian Study Links Declines in Suburban Backyard Birds to Presence of Nonnative Plants: Findings Give Landowners a Simple Road Map to Provide Essential Habitat for Breeding Birds

A judge resigns after using the n-word in texts that she says the public was never meant to see

Reading archive 2020-02-23

Limbaugh: Democrats who set up George W. Bush to go to war with Iraq now organizing 'silent coup' against Trump

The Reporting Team That Got Iraq Right

Reading archive 2019-12-31

Iraq’s Shiites helped boost the political elite in Baghdad. Now they want to bring it down.

Prison guard trainees were photographed giving a Nazi salute. The entire class was fired.

Reading archive 2019-04-03

Feds are investigating possible Chinese spying at Mar-a-Lago and Cindy Yang, sources say

For months, she fell ill at work. Then, police say, she watched video of a co-worker spiking her drink.

U.S. measles cases surge to second-highest level in nearly two decades

She fled a ‘Jewish Taliban’ sect with her children. Then kidnappers tracked them down.

New State Department Releases on the "Future of Iraq" Project: New Documents Provide Details on Budgets, Interagency Coordination and Working Group Progress

Reading archive 2017-12-29

A Baffling Brain Defect Is Linked to Gut Bacteria, Scientists Say

Tesla’s enormous battery in Australia, just weeks old, is already responding to outages in ‘record’ time

Putin may be in more trouble than we know

A Republican deficit hawk flies alone - "'I guarantee you, if Mr. Obama was the president and he put this tax bill in, those deficit hawks in my party would get out of the nests and start squawking,' Jones said. 'But here they are, and because it’s a Republican president possibly adding $1.5 to $2 trillion to this country’s deficit, they’re going to stay in the nest and not squawk about it.'"

Polls show Americans distrust the media. But talk to them, and it’s a very different story.

The Most Honest Man in Medicine?: Dr. Joseph Mercola reigns over a long-running “natural health” website and e-commerce empire. He wants to save people from pharmaceutical profiteers, toxic chemicals, and greedy doctors. But former colleagues and medical experts say he’s more dangerous than the supposed threats he preaches about.

Season of the Witch: The Enduring Power of Stevie Nicks: Underestimated and overwhelming, Nicks remains the bewitching woman of our time. Here’s how the Fleetwood Mac songstress became an intergenerational icon. - "Her friend Danny Goldberg has called Stevie Nicks an 'autodidactic mystic who viewed the universe through the eyes of middle America.' Her critics used to hold that idea against her—that there was something surface, shallow, and silly about her brand of vaguely occult spirituality. I see this, instead, as Nicks’s enduring strength—her appeal across generations. She 'seems to embody,' Davis writes, 'the idea that we all have sacred powers within us.'"

Forced out over sex, drugs and other infractions, fired officers find work in other departments

New tax law expected to slow rise of home values, creating winners and losers

‘SMOTHERED’ AND ‘SHOVED ASIDE’ IN RURAL AMERICA

2018’s challenge: Too many jobs, not enough workers

Iraq’s rapid-fire trials send alleged ISIS members — including foreigners — to the gallows

As airline rules relax under Trump, here’s a survival guide to flying in 2018

How to fix the American diet, according to the man who coined the term ‘junk food’

Iranian cities hit by anti-government protests

Reading archive 2017-03-22

Our messed-up relationship with food has a long history. It started with butter.

Yazidis who suffered genocide are fleeing again, but this time not from the Islamic State

Trump’s Weary Defenders Face Fresh Worries

Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media: Russia scandals have bloodied the Trump administration. But it carries dangers for those reporting it

How to Read What Comey Said Today

Suspect in Manhattan Killing Hated Black Men, Police Say

Reading archive 2016-08-01

Get Ready for Obama’s ‘October Surprise’ in Iraq