‘Every Little Thing’: Enchantment That Flaps at 50 Beats a Second: This film by Sally Aitken follows a hummingbird rescue center and the woman who tends to its denizens with immense care.
RFK isn’t big enough for a stadium with NFL-sized parking - "A stadium could fit comfortably in the 100 acres; 15–40 acres is a common football-stadium footprint. The parking the Commanders are likely to demand, however, will gobble up almost all of the rest. The average NFL stadium includes about 20,000–25,000 parking spots, a target of one spot for every three seats for stadiums with a capacity of about 60,000–80,000 seats.
"And, NFL owners are increasingly demanding high-capacity facilities that can win bids for the big-money, prestige events like the Super Bowl and the World Cup. The NFL, in fact, requires a Super Bowl host have at minimum 35,000 parking spaces nearby, which means that any new stadium is likely going to aim for the high end of the range."
Ukraine has captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia, Zelensky says: The wounded fighters were taken for questioning to Kyiv, authorities said, where they could reveal details of Pyongyang’s cooperation with Moscow.
Zelensky ready to hand North Korea back its captured troops: Zelensky’s announcement came after he posted photos on social media of two men he said were North Korean soldiers captured in Russia’s Kursk region.
Mark Zuckerberg lies about content moderation to Joe Rogan’s face / The head of Meta cracked under Republican pressure. - "The problem wasn’t that the fact-checking was bad; it was that conservatives are more likely to share misinformation and get fact-checked, as some research has shown. That means conservatives are also more likely to be moderated. In this sense, perhaps it wasn’t Facebook’s fact-checking systems that had a liberal bias, but reality."
Why Los Angeles was unprepared for this fire: Several key factors left L.A. exposed to disaster. - "'There’s no urban water system engineered and constructed to combat wildfire,' said Michael McNutt, a spokesman for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 people in northwest Los Angeles County. The system was intended to supply water to homes and businesses, he said, and to help fire crews defend a large structure or several homes, not multiple neighborhoods at once. 'The tanks were not able to refill fast enough to meet the overwhelming demand from the enormous firefighting response,' he said." [ed. note: sprawl, individuals ignoring mandated 5' defensible clearance, climate change, federal mandate to stop all fires, water system not built to combat multiple fires]
L.A.’s wildfires have leaders fighting on two fronts: Nature and politics: As weather forecasts predict the resumption of dangerous winds this week, the governor, L.A. mayor and others find California under attack from Trump, conservatives and advisers. - "One major point of criticism among conservatives has been funding levels for Los Angeles’s fire department, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) decrying supposed — but nonexistent — cuts to the firefighting budget as evidence of 'feckless leadership' by Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Overall funding for the Los Angeles Fire Department increased by $80 million, or 9.1 percent, in the 2024-2025 fiscal year." [ed. note: THEY ARE SO STUPID]
Anita Bryant, pitchwoman who crusaded against gay rights, dies at 84: She became one of the most incendiary cultural warriors of the 1970s and saw her prosperous singing career implode as a result.
Biden administration sanctions Russia’s oil giants and tanker fleet: The White House, now unconcerned about the effect on gas prices and inflation, blacklisted two of Russia’s biggest oil producers and nearly 200 tanker ships.
Republicans, enjoy ineffectual control of Congress while you have it: With Congress ceding so much power to presidents, Trump, not GOP lawmakers, is where the action is.
As Trump prepares to take power, MAGA can’t stop the ugly infighting: A new clash between Stephen K. Bannon and Elon Musk epitomizes the fraught and bellicose confederation that surrounds Donald Trump.
The Great MAGA Schism of 2025 is only getting uglier: War of words between Musk and Bannon shows gap between rhetoric and reality
The U.S. is unprepared for a major war. Can Pete Hegseth fix that?: Trump’s defense secretary pick would face a staggering challenge in readying America for war. - "The problem isn’t that the U.S. military has gone 'woke,' as MAGA partisans such as Hegseth allege. The problem is that America became complacent after the Cold War when it downsized its armed forces and its defense-industrial base. Since then, the United States has prepared a military suitable for fighting insurgents in Afghanistan or Iraq — but utterly inadequate for an extended fight against a major power.
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"Now it will be up to senators to decide if Hegseth — who was dogged by accusations of mismanagement and misconduct at the two nonprofits he ran — is the right person to rebuild America’s atrophied defense capabilities. The committee members should grill him not only about his past, but also about his plans to address this massive challenge. His record doesn’t inspire confidence that he can rise to a task that would severely test far more experienced executives.
