Reading archive 2024-12-10

Construction company allegedly polluting Anacostia River given $1 billion by DC government: The company was first cited for environmental law violations in 2015, yet continued to receive significant government contracts.

Small SUVs are now the country’s cleanest cars. Really.: New compact SUVs now create less pollution, on average, than sedans, thanks to the rapid rise of small electric SUVs.

D.C. officials say their more aggressive approach to crime is working: District officials say their choices helped restore law and order in the city after a year that saw a generational spike in violence.

China reveals its playbook for dealing with impending Trump trade war: Beijing is responding to Biden administration actions decisively and swiftly — a warning to Donald Trump that it will play hardball this time, analysts say.

Russia’s elite sound the alarm on the economy amid high interest rates: Squeezed by Western sanctions and astonishingly high interest rates, Russia’s businesses fear bankruptcies as Putin pushes ahead with the Ukraine war.

Pro-lifers should start a fight over RFK Jr.: Kennedy would oversee many right-to-life issues as secretary of health and human services.

Killer whales bring back wearing salmon hats, but it’s not for fashion: Two orcas from the Pacific Northwest were spotted with dead salmon on their heads, an act first documented in the 1980s. Scientists aren’t sure what it means.

Musk’s politics hadn’t seeped into Tesla. Then he axed its eco car of the future.: Once one of America’s most outspoken voices on the threat of climate change, Elon Musk now argues these existential risks have been overstated. This shifting stance could influence Trump and help the Tesla CEO’s businesses.

The GOP’s top priority for 2025: Repeal the laws of arithmetic: Republicans are reinventing math to justify extending pricey Trump tax policies.

He was suicidal and needed help. A 15-year-old girl pushed him to kill himself on a live stream.: The death of a Minnesota man offers a case study into how a sadistic online group has used the messaging app Discord to find and torment vulnerable people.

This seaside town will power thousands of homes with waves: Wave energy has been untapped so far, but an experiment could unlock its potential in the United States.

Democrats, reeling from election losses, cast blame on each other: The internal ideological divisions burst into public view after Donald Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race.

The owl hunters: The deadly campaign to save an icon of the Pacific Northwest - "'You can’t be sitting front row to an extinction and not want to do something about it,' she said."

Reading archive 2024-04-06

Opinion  How Ukraine’s tech army is taking the fight to Russia

Opinion  Trump swindles his followers — again

Opinion  How No Labels was thwarted — and a disaster for democracy was avoided

Opinion  Recriminalizing drugs, Oregon offers a cautionary tale

Column: The false centrism of political group No Labels

Inside Donald Trump’s secret, long-shot plan to end the war in Ukraine: Foreign policy experts and some Republicans warned that pressuring Ukraine to cede land would reward Putin

Montana GOP Senate candidate says he lied to ranger about gunshot wound in 2015: Tim Sheehy was cited for illegally discharging a weapon in a national park but says he made up the gunshot to cover up a bullet wound he received as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan that he never reported to superiors

They were thought to be hostages in Gaza. Israeli raids found they were dead.

‘Increasingly chaotic’: Why House Republicans are heading for the exits: The decision by 21 Republican lawmakers to depart is indicative of the broader morale problem within the GOP conference

Top Republican warns pro-Russia messages are echoed ‘on the House floor’: The latest remarks come after another GOP member said Russian propaganda has ‘infected’ the Republican base

Ohio warns Democrats that Biden may miss deadline for November ballot

The unassuming material that could soak up carbon emissions: Researchers want to use the ultrafine rock particles left by eroding glaciers — called ‘rock flour’ — to suck climate-warming carbon from the air

Trump in ‘full sprint’ to close Biden’s money lead as legal bills mount

Opinion  Environmentalism could stop the clean-energy transition

Mexico breaks relations with Ecuador after embassy raid

With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky’s options look bad or worse

Reading archive 2021-11-23

What is polysorbate, and why is it in my food?

INVASION OF THE GREEN STINKWORMS: MANAGING AMYNTHAS HUPEIENSIS ON GREENS: An Asian earthworm could become quite a nuisance on golf courses.

Opinion: Our Foghorn Leghorn Republican senator little resembles his former Democratic self, but in Louisiana we know the type - "But what stood out in that 2004 interview was the absence of the homey sayings, abusive zingers and character assassinations that have become Kennedy trademarks. He was nothing like the man you see these days insulting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — 'It must suck to be that dumb' — or vilifying then-Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland as 'a neo-socialist, left-of-Lenin whack job.'"

The teens who hated Abercrombie are the adults shopping there now — and they can’t believe it either

Climate change fuels a water rights conflict built on over a century of broken promises - "Unrestricted cattle grazing upstream releases phosphorus into the lake, and as water levels fall due to irrigation, the concentration of contaminants kills the fish, Gonyaw said. 

"Development along the shores of the lake has also upset the balance. Without wetlands to filter out the contaminants, toxic algae thrives, ultimately suffocating the juvenile fish.

...

"Any veteran with $2,000, two years of farm experience, and 'habits of honesty, temperance, thrift and industry' could apply for one of the 60-to-141-acre plots. The plots were 'acres of rich bottom land' that were “cultivated into fertile farm lots” by Japanese Americans, who had been forcefully detained at the nearby Tule Lake segregation center during the war."

Reading archive 2020-08-05

The Federal Clampdown On Portland Shows Just How Fragile Our Democracy Is

Grassley, Warner keep up pressure for information in Park Police slaying of Bijan Ghaisar; Fairfax police join case: After briefings from the Justice Department and National Park Service, many questions are still unanswered, senators say.

A police department quietly hired a deputy involved in the death of a man with Down syndrome. Then one man decided to make noise.

Reading archive 2020-08-03

Trump keeps promising an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system that never arrives

Birx says U.S. has entered a ‘new phase’ of pandemic as cases, deaths rise

Trump’s campaign in crisis as aides attempt August reset before time runs out

How the Trump campaign came to court QAnon, the online conspiracy movement identified by the FBI as a violent threat

Belarus election campaign has unexpected sideshow: Spat with Russia over alleged interference

As Trump leans into attacks on mail voting, GOP officials confront signs of Republican turnout crisis

Calm returns to Portland as federal agents withdraw

Liberty University Poured Millions Into Sports. Now Its Black Athletes Are Leaving.: Jerry Falwell Jr.’s dream of athletic domination is in peril.

Reading archive 2020-07-23

As Summer Takes Hold, So Do the Jumping Worms: These invasive pests, which ravage the soil and damage plant life, are easiest to spot now, in their adult form. But what to do if you see them?

Trump pardons Oregon ranchers who inspired refuge standoff