Reading archive 2026-04-29

An ingenious way to sidestep the dismal Senate filibuster: Restrain the president, revive Congress, honor Madisonian principles. What’s not to like? - "Today’s Senate Republicans are mostly oblivious of — or, worse, indifferent about — how they appear. In 2024, they solemnly warned that if they did not win control of the Senate, 2025-2026, Democrats would degrade it by abolishing the filibuster. In 2025, however, Senate Republicans, in lockstep with House Republicans, crammed most of the president’s agenda into a single bill that they passed on a party-line vote using the parliamentary maneuver called “reconciliation,” which prevents a bill from being filibustered."

Colombians are divided over the fate of hippos linked to Pablo Escobar

The great Black GOP exit from Congress: Republicans squandered Trump’s gains with African Americans in 2024.

Alleged gunman at correspondents’ dinner led Christian group in college: Ex-classmates who knew Cole Tomas Allen, 31, at the California Institute of Technology say they were shocked by a message in which he appeared to use biblical teachings to justify violence.

So Nobody Is Going to Pay Taxes Now?: America actually needs a tax base. - "While tinkering with marginal rates, Democrats have threaded deductions, credits, and exemptions into the tax code, engaging in 'submerged' policy making, as Cornell's Suzanne Mettler describes it. Tax expenditures are easier for Congress to pass than spending programs, and they're easier to target at low-income households. Still, Americans don't really understand these policies. Two in three claimants of the home-mortgage-interest deduction say it doesn't do much for them. (The deduction can reduce a family's tax bill by as much as $15,000 a year.) Two in three people with a 529 college savings plan believe that they have never used a government program. The more tax breaks a person receives, the less likely they are to report that Uncle Sam has improved their quality of life, Mettler has found. Yet such initiatives cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars.

...

"Wages for hourly employees have crawled, while the paychecks of investors and executives have soared. At the same time, the wealth of investors and executives has skyrocketed, with the taxman scarcely tapping these fortunes at all. As the law professor Ray Madoff has observed, Amazon has paid Jeff Bezos a salary of roughly $82,000 a year since the late 1990s, 'low enough to make him eligible to claim the child tax credit (which he did!).' From 2014 to 2018, his net worth climbed by $99 billion, just 0.98 percent of which went to public coffers, whereas many middle-class families fork over 25 percent of their earnings. Plus, again, the cost of living has become brutally high. Even households making six figures are struggling to afford child care, rent, groceries, health insurance, summer camp, and student-loan debt."

A Mediocre Public-School Education for Just $40,000 a Pupil: How New York City’s education budget became an untouchable money pit - "As New York City becomes more expensive to live in, fewer families with children live there. The education budget nonetheless continues to go up, hurting taxpayers and diverting funds from other important services. This makes the city even more expensive to live in, and leaves young families even more squeezed, causing even fewer children to live there. The situation stems from the commendable liberal impulse to devote extensive resources to public education. But what's the point of public education without a public to educate?"

Anthropic’s Little Brother: OpenAI is racing to catch up to its greatest rival.

Why Did Trump Pardon the Former Honduran President? Follow the Tech Bros.: With Roger Stone taking a victory lap for having come up with the idea in the first place.

Untangling the Issue of Circling Roots

Physiology and root development of container-grown urban trees in response to root-shaving, root-washing, and root-slicing at planting - "Among the root modifications examined, root-shaving provided the optimal combination of improved root development while minimizing adverse effects to tree stress and crown dieback. Moreover, our results suggest that trees that are historically known to be difficult to transplant as bare-root stock are poor candidates for extreme root disturbance procedures such as root-washing when produced as container-grown trees."

What Would a Fiscal Crisis Look Like? - "Already, the U.S. is facing consequences from excessive debt. Excessive borrowing was a key driver of the recent surge in inflation and subsequent rise in interest rates, and real incomes are lower today than they otherwise would be as a result of the “crowd out” of past investment. Meanwhile, the cost of interest on the debt grew to roughly $1 trillion last year, which is more than the federal government spent on defense and about as much as it spent on Medicare. These high interest payments leave fewer resources for new spending initiatives and tax cuts. And with debt at 100% of GDP, the U.S. has less fiscal space than any time in history in case of another war, pandemic, or recession. A fiscal crisis would substantially worsen most or all of the costs of debt."

Cato Study: Immigrants Reduced Deficits by $14.5 Trillion Since 1994 - "The best way to balance the budget is to reduce spending—particularly on wealthy retirees—but rather than hinder our efforts to control deficits, immigrants are helping."

Global Trade Is Leaving the US Behind: The US’s retreat from the global economy is likely to make America less influential, less resilient, less secure, and poorer over the long term, as economic integration deepens elsewhere and other governments set new standards in trade agreements.

More Photos Emerge of Meals on Navy Ships As Pentagon Denies Shortages

This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men: A med student says he’s made thousands of dollars selling photos and videos of a young conservative woman he created using generative tools. He’s not alone.

Is the tide turning for Ukraine in war with Russia?: With the EU approving a €90bn loan for Ukraine, a surprise visit from Prince Harry, and data suggesting Russian troops made almost no territorial gains in March – are there reasons for optimism in Kyiv?

Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known: U.S. bases and equipment across the Middle East came under attack — including from an Iranian F-5, despite American air defenses — and repairs could cost billions of dollars.

They Were Michael Jackson's 'Second Family.' Now They Say He Abused Them.: The Cascio siblings are suing Mr. Jackson's estate after standing by him for years as he faced accusations of child molestation.

Farmers are bleeding money under Trump —but are doubling down on their support anyway

Reading archive 2026-04-17 pt 1

A New Kind of Hybrid Car Is About to Hit America’s Streets: The car industry says it has an answer for drivers wary of going electric.

If your heart stopped right now, would a stranger save you? It depends on your sex.: Why women are less likely to receive CPR—and less likely to survive

DC Mayor extends juvenile curfew citing weeks of disorderly behavior, violence: The curfew zones were put in place in response to "teen takeovers," large gatherings of kids and teenagers promoted on social media.

D.C. police lieutenant charged with seeking to have sex with a minor: Matthew Mahl, a D.C. police lieutenant, allegedly exchanged sexually explicit text messages with a Maryland detective pretending to be a 15-year-old boy.

How to save money on tree work and still get good results: Even healthy trees need a little branch management from time to time.

Iran says Strait of Hormuz is now open amid push to end war: President Trump welcomed the announcement, but U.S. officials said the naval blockade on vessels leaving from and going to Iranian ports remains in effect.

Nothing ever dies. It merely becomes embarrassing.: OR: the Halo theory of science - "The secret sauce of science is supposed to be falsifiability: it ain’t science unless you can kill it. If I claim that all swans are white, and you show up with a black swan, then I’m supposed to bid a tearful goodbye to my theory and send it to that big farm upstate where it can frolic and play with all the other failed hypotheses. 

"Falsification sounds straightforward until you actually try it. You show up with your black swan, and instead of admitting defeat, I go, 'Hmm, well is it really black? Is it actually a swan? Seems more like a dusky-looking duck to me!' And we publish dueling papers until the end of our days.

...

"This is the situation we appear to be in with many theories in psychology. We can’t say whether they’re 'real' or not. Somewhere out there, the Spartans may live on. But if we’ve been studying something for decades and people look at all the evidence and they still doubt whether it exists at all, we have to admit: that’s cringe. 

"Cringe doesn’t mean wrong! Continental drift was cringe.2 Germ theory was cringe.3 Smallpox vaccination was cringe.4 All of them went from mortifying to undeniable. Maybe truly revolutionary theories must follow that trajectory. If a scientific idea is young and it’s not cringe, it probably has no promise. But if it’s old and it’s still cringe, it probably has no merit."

Another Energy Crisis Is Here. This Time, the Way Out Is Different. - "This is the first energy shock where clean energy is not a moral or long‑term bet, but the cheapest and fastest way for low‑ and middle‑income countries to protect macroeconomic stability, food security, and fiscal space."

This is the scariest question about Putin — and Trump: The Russian president's back is to the wall. That makes him more dangerous.

A Pillar of the Economics Establishment Admits That It Was Wrong: In a new report, the World Bank thinks better of its old free-market absolutism. - "In this context, the World Bank's implicit message to the rest of the world appears to be: Yes, industrial policy can work if done correctly. But please, for the love of God, don't do what America is doing."

Trump Voters Are Over It: A shocking number of the president’s supporters have turned against him.

The DNA Fix for Aging: Everyone’s DNA keeps mutating. Could correcting those errors lead to longevity?

The Quiet Way Authoritarianism Begins to Crumble: Among the many reasons for Viktor Orbán’s defeat was the rural clubs where citizens relearned democratic habits.

Israel Moderates Are Losing the Democratic Party: Their position has become untenable. But liberal Zionists can adapt. - "The theoretical case for a two-state solution remains as sound as ever. The trouble is that the Palestinian side has rejected repeated attempts by Democratic presidents to bring about the birth of a Palestinian state, and that Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his right-wing coalition do everything they can to subvert such a solution. At some point, supporters of the two-state solution have to take 'no' for an answer. The United States is effectively supporting a one-state solution whose entire strategy rests on an endless cycle of responding to terrorism with military force (a process of periodic attacks that Israel calls 'mowing the lawn') in place of any diplomatic path.

...

"Liberal Zionists can win an intra-Democratic argument against anti-Zionist radicals, but they can't win it while burdened with support for subsidizing settlements and a strategy of endless conflict. The most extreme anti-Zionist activists won't be satisfied with anything short of committing the Democratic Party to Israel's demise. But the most left-wing position in recent Democratic primaries - on Iraq in 2004, on health care in 2016 - has rarely been adopted by the candidate who emerges as the party's eventual nominee."

Reading archive 2026-04-06

Don’t Mess With the Housewives of Ukraine: My interview with a tank maker provoked fury and memes—including from Zelensky.

How the Left Accidentally Bolstered the Nativist Right: By dismissing the distinction between legal and illegal immigration as bogus, advocates signaled that they would not defend it. - "In his book, The Normalization of the Radical Right, the political scientist Vicente Valentim shows that much of the recent rise in radical-right political behavior reflects not a change in what people believe, but a change in what they feel comfortable expressing. When norms weaken, often after radical-right politicians achieve electoral success, privately held views long kept quiet become publicly acceptable. Valentim's work focuses on Europe, but his analysis applies to America too. Over the past two decades, voters with restrictionist views have sorted into the GOP, making those preferences louder within the party. President Trump did not create this constituency, but he recognized and catered to it more than any modern president before him had. Each taboo he shattered around immigration made it easier for him and his supporters to transgress even more.

"And so, in Trump's second term, under Stephen Miller's newfound influence, the obliteration of the legal/illegal distinction has been formalized much more strongly into policy. The result: an administration now openly attacking legal immigration channels, including by targeting asylum and skilled-worker visas and implementing a visa freeze covering 75 countries. Like so much of the Trump agenda, these attacks are not broadly popular-in fact, polling suggests that support for legal immigration has never been higher-but they appeal to a small though intense nativist minority that no longer feels constrained and that makes up an important part of Trump's core coalition."

The Intellectual Right Is Mad at the Mess It’s Made: Conservatives are criticizing influencers for going too far. - "Bookish conservatives are fond of the tale of Buckley banishing the John Birch Society to the fringes. But that's not the whole story. Buckley walked a fine line, publicly criticizing Welch while otherwise trying not to alienate the society's rank and file, the historian Matthew Dallek argues in his 2023 book, Birchers. Buckley's gripes were more about the group's style and its leaders than its ideology. Birchers were widely derided for being racist and conspiratorial. But Buckley, the genteel conservative, was broadly in alignment with some of the group's views, calling white people "the advanced race" in a 1957 editorial in National Review, supporting Jim Crow segregation, and writing a book defending the Red-baiting propagandist Senator Joseph McCarthy."

Hitler’s Edifice Complex: He was obsessed with adding an expensive new wing to the Reich chancellery, part of his grandiose architectural ambitions for the nation’s capital.

Alleged D.C. pipe bomber might adopt debunked conspiracy theory as defense: Prosecutors said Brian Cole Jr.'s attorneys should be held in contempt for revealing the home address of a former Capitol Police officer who was ruled out as the suspect. - "During the first two hours of his FBI interview in December, the 30-year-old Cole denied placing the pipe bombs and said he was a Trump supporter. After being told that lying to federal agents could be charged as an additional crime, Cole admitted that he planted the bombs out of frustration with both parties and 'denied that his actions were directed toward Congress or related to the proceedings scheduled to take place on January 6,' prosecutors said."

MPD arrests 8 juveniles after multiple fights break out in Southwest

DC student hospitalized after group stomps him, steals Louis Vuitton shoes

Chinese firms market Iran war intelligence ‘exposing’ U.S. forces: The private companies — some with ties to the military — are marketing detailed intelligence on movements of U.S. forces, even as Beijing seeks to keep its distance.

Three men charged with murdering D.C. woman who went missing in 2023: Chyna Crawford, 25, is believed to have been kidnapped before she was killed. Authorities say the new indictments bring the total number of suspects to five.

Metrobus slams into D.C. restaurant, injuring 3 people: Photos showed the bus halfway inside the Balkan restaurant Ambar.

Never subsidize a sports stadium. And definitely not like this.: Jacksonville taxpayers are getting fleeced.

Their tiny church is on the cover of JD Vance’s new book. They don’t know him.: The members of a Methodist church in rural Virginia are excited — if a little confused — that the vice president’s memoir of his path to Catholicism has put them in the spotlight.

On the problem of landscape tarp: How carpeting your soil in plastic sheeting became an industry standard—and why it needs to stop.

Reading archive 2026-02-02

What I discovered about Josh Shapiro at the Pennsylvania Farm Show: The governor champions a 67-county strategy to win voters in a critical battleground state.

Millions of gallons of sewage spilled into the Potomac. Here’s what we know.: Experts say clean up efforts could reach $10 million and environmentalists worry about impact to wildlife.

Trump wants to build a 250-foot-tall arch, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial: The president is eyeing a plot of land near Memorial Bridge. The art critic who proposed the idea called for a smaller arch or for Trump to pick a new site.

Minneapolis’ Hotel Workers Are on Edge: Staff across the city told NOTUS how their lives have changed since the start of the federal immigration operation. “It’s frightening,” one said. - "The first woman, a foreign-born naturalized U.S. citizen, resents how her undocumented coworkers spend their days cleaning the rooms of agents who are 'hunting down their family members.'

"'When I see them in the hallways, they avert their gaze,' she said of the federal agents in her hotel. 'They know what they’re doing is shameful. They’re nearly all Hispanic, but they don’t speak Spanish! They’re the children of illegals. But they forgot where they came from.'

"A third woman at yet another hotel, who’s undocumented, said she observed what she called the 'typical' racial labor dynamic: a few polite white supervisors commanding Latino men. 

"'The supervisors are respectful. The agents — they aren’t really officers. These are delinquents,' she said.

For traditional Catholics, Charlotte Communion dispute is a battle line: A Charlotte bishop issued an edict about the preferred way to perform the sacrament: standing up. The backlash was fierce and speaks to a broader fight within the U.S. Catholic community.

The real reasons Sundance’s legendary film fest is done with Park City: Next year’s move to Boulder was foreshadowed by red flags and rising costs.

Inside Musk’s bet to hook users that turned Grok into a porn generator: Under pressure to boost its popularity, Elon Musk’s xAI loosened its guardrails and relaxed controls on sexual content, setting off internal concern.

Why do dead leaves stay on trees during winter?: Scientists are investigating the reasons some plants still wear last season’s tattered clothes.

Reading archive 2026-01-05

Trump Almost Has a Point About the Federal Reserve: The central bank has long abused its power in ways that benefit the financial sector at the expense of everyone else. - "If, however, the Court rules against Trump—as it is widely expected to do—congressional Democrats should not consider the matter of Fed independence resolved. Instead, a future Democratic administration and Congress should pass legislation preserving the Fed’s independent power to set monetary policy, while stripping most other authorities away from the central bank. The logic of central-bank independence simply does not apply to such matters as bank regulation and payment systems, which ought to be subject to democratic control.

...

"Trump’s attacks on America’s bedrock institutions deserve a thoughtful response, not a defensive one. Trump often identifies real problems, even if he offers terrible solutions. The Federal Reserve has abused its independence for decades, substituting its judgment for the law with no mechanisms to hold it accountable. As a spate of recent insider-trading scandals among senior Fed officials demonstrates, the institution can’t even hold its own personnel accountable."

Suspect in Jan. 6 pipe bomb case indicted on federal charges: Brian Cole Jr. was charged with planting explosive devices near the RNC and DNC headquarters on Jan. 5, 2021. He was ordered jailed pending trial.

D.C. police sergeant accused of waving gun in Md. road-rage encounter: Authorities said Sgt. Kaila Crews has been placed on leave by the department after being charged with assault and other crimes in the December incident.

How the Smithsonian’s National Zoo feeds its animals

Progressives, don’t force 20th-century rules on 21st-century workers: Gig work is facing death by a thousand regulatory cuts. [ed. note: Manhattan Institute hack. From comment section: "We need to classify these innocent sounding gig 'apps' as technology monopolies that control large chunks of the labor force, but refuse to follow well established employment practices under Labor Law."]

Evangelicals’ support for Israel is dropping. 1,000 pastors want to reverse that.: Alarmed by anti-Israel sentiment from conservative influencers, the religious leaders traveled en masse to Israel to counter podcasters’ messaging. - "Carlson in recent months has hosted a range of anti-Israel conspiracy theorists. Among them were: amateur historian Darryl Cooper, who implied on the show that Jews’ deaths in the Holocaust were a result of poor Nazi planning, not genocidal intent; Owens, who said Israel is a 'demonic nation' and that it had a role in the killing of Charlie Kirk; and Fuentes, who told Carlson the major roadblock to American unity is 'organized Jewry.' They all frame their comments on Israel as part of an 'America first' agenda that they say has been unfairly framed as antisemitic."

Perennials for the Shady Side

‘Blind Into Caracas.’: Less than 24 hours in, members of the Trump team are celebrating victory. None of them seem to have wondered what happens a day, a month, a decade from now. - "Special horseshit award for Marco Rubio. He claimed that the Trump team couldn’t let anyone in Congress know about the Maduro mission ahead of time, for fear of leaks. And that this caution extended even to the “Gang of Eight” in Congress. These are the select, bipartisan assemblage of leaders who are supposed to be briefed on the most sensitive security matters—and who (in contrast to the Trump team) have had over the decades zero cases of leaking sensitive information before military operations. 

"Rubio knows full well that the most grievous leaks in the Trump era have come either from Trump himself or from Pete Hegseth. (Including the pathetically incompetent WhatsApp Signal group chat.) To be clear, Rubio knows that what he was saying today was false—his claim that elite Congressional intelligence committees cannot keep secrets. But he said it anyway, because it is what Trump wanted to hear. This is what we call lying in normal life." [ed. note: also a couple great comments for understanding just how difficult Venezuala's ultra-heavy crude is to process]

A Criminal Empire: The United States launches a conquest and occupation of Venezuela to extract its oil wealth. The neocon dream is the America First dream

Trump's Critics Are Falling Into an Obvious Trap: The capture of Nicolás Maduro is a show of ambition that calls for an effective response. [ed. note: good critique, no solution offered]

Iranians Have Had Enough: The demonstrations erupting across the Islamic Republic reflect deep economic and political discontent. - "Opponents of the Islamic Republic remain hopelessly disorganized and disunited. Some protesters have chanted slogans in favor of Reza Pahlavi, Iran's exiled crown prince. But Pahlavi remains a divisive figure among anti-regime Iranians. Many reject his claim to leadership. Pahlavi's supporters and top advisers routinely criticize popular domestic dissidents including the Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, actress Taraneh Alidoosti, and rapper Toumaj Salehi. Earlier this month, Mohammadi was physically attacked by pro-Pahlavi protesters in the northeastern city of Mashhad. 

"Regardless of their politics, all opposition factions have failed to build powerful organizations or lasting networks that could direct the protests. Without such direction, the current protests are likely to lose momentum and fizzle out, just like previous rounds. Even if they were to last, it is far likelier that figures from inside the regime's ranks would take the initiative and wrest power from Khamenei, than that the protesters would succeed in bringing about a change to the regime's basic structures."

Britain Should Have Read the Tweets First The case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah is a test of Britain’s values. - "The situation is deeply embarrassing for Starmer, who welcomed Abd el-Fattah's arrival in Britain so warmly. He now claims not to have known about the "absolutely abhorrent" tweets and is promising to 'review the information failures in this case.' Apparently, despite years of campaigning for this guy, the combined might of the British civil service never thought to search his Twitter handle. If the authorities had conducted even a cursory background check, they would have found opinions such as this (now-deleted) assertion from 2012: 'I'm a racist, I don't like white people so piss off.'

...

"Starmer, a former human-rights lawyer, approaches every problem with an arid obsession with process rather than outcome-as if, when people follow every dot and comma of the rules, nothing bad can happen and no one should complain."

Reading archive 2025-11-06

The Florida law student who wrote a paper with white nationalist views has Jewish ancestry Preston Damsky, who has spouted antisemitic rhetoric on social media, said his family lineage doesn't have an impact on his thinking.

Neil Gorsuch Warns of President’s Growing Power in Supreme Court Hearing

Heritage staff in open revolt over leader’s defense of Tucker Carlson: The departures and condemnations built on brewing frustrations with Kevin Roberts’s handling of Project 2025 and internal sexism allegations.

After election wins, Democrats split on how to end government shutdown: A band of moderates has been talking about reopening the government in exchange for a vote on health care subsidies.

Nancy Mace really wants to explain what happened to her at the airport: How and why the congresswoman tailored her dispute for social media audiences. - "Compare any of this, please, with the other airport-related video that made rounds this week: plainclothes officers at the Salt Lake City airport dragging away a woman sobbing 'Help me!' and 'I have my papers!' as she is pulled out of screen view. Author Shannon Hale, who happened to be at the airport that day, witnessed the scene and posted it on her social media pages. While some oblivious passengers hurry to their own gates — truly, this clip is a lesson in what kinds of misery humans can learn to tune out and live among — one woman’s voice can be heard begging: 'She’s a human being,' and 'Have mercy on her.'"

Jury finds D.C. ‘sandwich guy’ not guilty of assaulting officer: Sean C. Dunn admitted he flung the hoagie at a federal agent. His attorneys called it a “harmless gesture” of protest as Trump commandeered D.C. police.

Layoffs rise to recession-like levels through October, new report says: Employers have announced 1.1 million job cuts so far this year, the highest reading since the pandemic, a private firm reports.

The great GOP migration has begun: The midterms promise a reality check — and growing defections from disastrous MAGA orthodoxy.

Why do only some leaves turn red in the fall? Scientists can't agree on an answer - "Every autumn, trees break down the green chlorophyll in their leaves, so that they can recover precious nitrogen before the leaves fall. (That nitrogen is necessary for photosynthesis, as well as building proteins and DNA.) The loss of this chlorophyll exposes yellow pigments that have been there in the leaves all along. That makes yellow leaves easy to explain. 

"But the red color is different. It comes from brand-new chemicals that are generated just days before a leaf plunges to the ground.

"'The red was not there beforehand, or you would have seen it, because the leaf would have been purple. Because green plus red equals purple,' says Hughes."

Reading archive 2025-09-09

DC’s Tree Laws Should be Protections, Not Suggestions

Even untouched ecosystems are losing insects at alarming rates, new study finds - "The findings address a critical gap in global insect research. While many reports of insect declines focus on habitats altered by human activity, few examine populations in relatively pristine areas. This study demonstrates that dramatic losses can occur even where direct human impacts are minimal, suggesting climate change may be a key driver."

Reading archive 2025-07-29

The Belated Voices Against The U.S.-Israeli Genocide of The Palestinians: Why did the onset of famine, and not any of the previous 21 months of collective slaughter, not compel them to speak out? [ed. note: this is a joke. The Democratic Party has no power to stop anything that is happening anywhere, never mind Gaza. What has happened in the past six months is proof of the effort the Biden administration put into keeping Bibi under control.]

5 common tomato problems and how to solve them: Expert advice on keeping summer tomato drama to a minimum

Does your city have too much of one kind of tree? That can be a problem.

The U.S. military is investing in this Pacific island. So is China.: New U.S. radar sites are designed to keep China in check. But Chinese developments, some with questionable connections, could create vulnerabilities. - "Analysts say it’s unclear what approach the Trump administration will take to the Pacific. The U.S. DOGE Service canceled the final months of a contract for some U.S. security assistance in Palau."

The guerrilla campaign to save a Texas prairie from ‘silent extinction’: “This is a war between us and the developers, and nobody’s calling uncle or throwing up white flags.”

The Fescue Fighters: A toxic grass that threatens a quarter of U.S. cows is spreading. Can it be stopped? - "Between the cells in fescue grows an endophyte, a fungus living symbiotically inside the grass. The endophyte is what makes the fescue robust against drought and overgrazing, but it’s also what makes it toxic. When scientists engineered a version of fescue without the fungal endophyte, in 1982, its hardiness disappeared and ranchers saw it die out among their winter pastures. Farmers learned to live with the health impacts of the toxic version, and today it remains the primary pasture grass across 37 million acres of farmland.

...

"And Patrick D. Keyser, the center’s director, says native grasses significantly outperform fescue in climate resiliency. Fescue, he says, wants it to be 73 degrees and rainy every other day. 'Think Oregon or Scotland,' he said. Native warm-season grasses in the fescue belt, on the other hand, can go weeks with blistering heat and drought without a problem. 'To them, the worst climate projections that we’re getting really aren’t a big deal. From a resiliency standpoint, they absolutely win.'

...

"Saving money matters in the fescue belt. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, 60 percent of farms in Texas County, Missouri, run a deficit, and every state in the fescue belt loses money on agriculture, except for Illinois, which is largely a crop state."

Reading archive 2025-07-22

In D.C., a toddler died of hunger and thirst. Why didn’t anybody save her?: The District’s child welfare agency was aware of Ebony Washington’s troubled history as a parent. And for months, relatives feared her daughter Kemy was in peril. Then tragedy struck. - "And he had another reason for not calling CFSA, he said: As a child, he had spent time in foster care, and he was determined to spare Kemy the emotional tumult that he had endured, landing in a stranger’s home.

...

"He had chosen not to call CFSA when Kemy was alive, but he said he doesn’t dwell on that now."

House largely grinds to a halt over Epstein files: Republicans on the House Rules Committee, fearing Democrats will introduce amendments related to Epstein, continue to oppose allowing any legislation to reach the floor.

Detention of two Italians at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ sparks backlash at home: Lawmakers called for Italy’s conservative government to do more to secure the repatriation of two nationals held at the new facility in Florida’s Everglades.

Regional Invasive Species & Climate Change Management Challenge: Do Not Sell! Ornamental invasive plants to avoid with climate change

Fighting Invasive Plants: The Ones We’ve Got and Those We Think Are Coming Experts want to combat new species of plants that are moving around within the United States, and coming from around the world, before they get a foothold.

Becoming Earth: Experimental Theology - "We humans emerge, walk around as if we were one thing, willingly oblivious to our true nature, and then we dissolve in order to emerge again in a wholly different form. Dissolution and reunification, forever and ever, amen."

Reading archive 2025-07-16 pt 1

My health and my politics walk into a doctor’s office …: My palliative care doctor and I have almost nothing in common. We’re still learning from each other. - "Her response included a touch of humor. 'I appreciate hearing more about how you were raised and how you view our standing in this life and beyond. But I guess it leaves me wondering, how is this working out for the world? And what happens to moral people when they die? If nothing happens after we die, what’s the point of striving for justice and caring about others in this life? Might as well be selfish, greedy, live the good life and then die.'" [ed. note: what are the morals of someone who strives for justice and cares for others in expectation of heavenly rewards? That makes the moral atheist a significantly greater person.]

Airplanes are loud and may damage your hearing. Here’s what helps.: Even if you are on a flight free of crying babies, the engine noise can be substantial.

Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us?: Why does the online world seem so toxic compared with normal life? Our research shows that a small number of divisive accounts could be responsible – and offers a way out

Nursing homes struggle with Trump’s immigration crackdown

From Food Aid to Dog Chow? How Trump’s Cuts Hurt Kansas Farmers.: Kansans created Food for Peace, for 70 years a font of rural income and pride. Now at least one grain broker is trying to sell grain that once fed the world as dog food.

Trump’s Vietnam Agreement Bodes Poorly for Future Trade Deals

The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller

FEMA removed dozens of Camp Mystic buildings from 100-year flood map before expansion, records show

How the rightwing sports bro conquered America

For Hard-Right Lawmakers, Trump’s Shift on Epstein Is Just the Latest Breach: Right-wing Republicans have also criticized the president’s stances on Iran and Ukraine, hinting at a broader fraying of his political coalition.

WHY MANY AMERICAN GARDENS ARE FULL OF MULCH?

American Father and Vlogger Tricked Into Front Line Combat by Russia: The Texas man is the latest in a string of Americans lured to Russia by propaganda, yet confronting a reality that is altogether different than the utopia they were sold.

Human Collapse: Russia Moves to Conceal Severe Demographic Crisis: Russia has begun to restrict access to data relating to demographic statistics in a sign that they are likely to reveal a deteriorating population situation.

D.C. Ward 8 voters return indicted Trayon White to office after expulsion White beat opponents ANC Chair Salim Adofo, attorney Mike Austin and public servant Sheila Bunn for the seat.

Democrats have only one escape route Unifying behind platitudes isn’t the way out of irrelevance. Making voters choose is.

Inside the Silicon Valley push to breed super-babies: Investors say genetic prediction services for embryos, used by Elon Musk and others, are a trust fund for future children. Many scientists are skeptical. - "But the paper laying out that breakthrough, published last year in the peer-reviewed journal F&S Reports, is fundamentally flawed, according to Stanford’s Yatsenko and Aleks Rajkovic, chief genomics officer at the University of California at San Francisco Health Center for Clinical Genetics and Genomics. It excluded results that didn’t fit its thesis, Yatsenko said, and both scientists said that by using Orchid’s own lab to check those results, its authors didn’t adhere to ideal scientific practice. Orchid said that the paper’s findings had been verified by independent labs and that there were 'zero discrepancies' in the results."

You might be fooling yourself about peanut butter, plus 5 other protein mistakes: Are you eating enough protein at breakfast? Most people aren’t.

DOJ hits states with broad requests for voter rolls, election data: Election clerks in both parties, already facing harassment and lawsuits over Trump’s false 2020 election claims, worry about efforts to examine voting machines.

Reading archive 2025-07-15

‘Ticks EVERYWHERE?’: Sightings and bites in the D.C. region heighten worries Tick-related emergency room visits are at the highest since 2019, CDC data shows. The Northeast region has seen the most this summer.

Scrape, paint, repeat: D.C.’s never-ending war on graffiti and stickers: Illegal signs, graffiti and stickers keep going up and the District has boosted its efforts to take them down.

Selling public land won’t solve the housing crisis. Here’s what would. Creative solutions to build more affordable housing in the United States can be found in places such as your state and your backyard.

See images of solar eruptions on the sun in unprecedented detail: NASA released images showing three eruptions from the sun.

Democrats face another split over age and values in Arizona: Adelita Grijalva is the front-runner to replace her father in Congress but faces an unexpectedly competitive primary featuring a young social-media-savvy newcomer.

Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans break with Trump on Epstein: Democrats also also seizing on an issue championed by the president’s base and forced a nearly successful vote Tuesday to take up the issue on the House floor.

U.S. rocked by four 1-in-1,000-year storms in less than a week Climate change is making severe storms both more common and more intense.

As Trump turns toward Ukraine, Russians wonder if an opportunity was missed: President Donald Trump’s new weapons deal and his increasing criticism of Vladimir Putin have sparked fear among some Russians that Putin could overplay his hand.

D.C. landlord seeks to evict congressman, alleging $85,000 in unpaid rent: In a lawsuit, Rep. Cory Mills’s landlord said the Republican congressman from Florida owes months of rent for his Southwest Washington luxury apartment.

The ghostly white plant that has sparked a war among foragers Monotropa uniflora — a.k.a. ghost pipe — is having a moment on social media. Not everybody is happy about it.

Senate Republicans divided over looming vote to rescind $9 billion in spending: The rescissions bill to claw back funding approved for foreign aid, NPR and PBS is a top Trump priority, but some Senate Republicans have raised concerns about the cuts. - "Democrats have cautioned that if Republicans cut spending that both parties have agreed to, it will make it much harder to strike a deal to fund the government in September, since Republicans could later rescind Democrats’ priorities unilaterally."

What causes obesity? A major new study is upending common wisdom.: Many people assume obesity is caused by too little exercise and too many calories. But researchers have found inactivity is not the main cause.

Reading archive 2025-07-14

Tariffs give the U.S.’s only native caffeinated plant a shot at stardom: Yaupon, a holly, may be little-known outside Indigenous groups, but that may soon change thanks to tea and coffee tariffs.

The CIA reveals more of its connections to Lee Harvey Oswald: New documents show an officer known only as Howard managed a Cuban group that interacted with Oswald in the months before the JFK assassination. - "He said a plausible theory was rogue CIA officers created the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, unknown to the agency, and that 'the CIA covered it up not because they were involved, but because they were trying to hide the secrets of that period.' He said many in the CIA were angry with Kennedy after he withdrew support for the agency’s Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 as well as for his gradual move toward peace with the Soviet Union after the Cuban missile crisis of 1962."

Putin took Trump for granted. He’s going to pay for his mistake.: After the president’s startling, welcome shift on Ukraine, there’s more to do.

Budget woes jeopardize plan for costly new D.C. Archives building: Supporters of new building discouraged as D.C. mayor’s spending plan envisions more affordable option to house Duke Ellington’s birth certificate, Frederick Douglass’s will and other pieces of history.

Two men sentenced in killing of D.C. girl, ending years of prosecutions: In all, eight men and one woman, most convicted of murder, have been sent to prison for the 2018 shooting of 10-year-old Makiyah Wilson, a crime that stunned the city.

Where D.C. Council Ward 8 candidates stand on key issues: The four candidates, all Democrats, were asked questions on issues such as the redevelopment of RFK Stadium, housing and policing in the ward.

A clinic blames its closing on Trump’s Medicaid cuts. Patients don’t buy it.: A clinic in rural Nebraska has become a political flash point after tying its looming closure to Trump’s law cutting Medicaid. - "Down the road on the town’s main street lined with American flags, Kerri Kemp said she didn’t like the Medicaid cuts either. The 47-year-old got Medicaid coverage after Nebraska voters chose to expand eligibility for the program in 2018, adopting an optional part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. But it was hard to document all her work as a bartender, county worker and rancher, and recently she’d struggled to submit the paperwork. Now she is uninsured. 

"Work requirements could make it harder to qualify when they take effect in 2027, just after the 2026 midterms. But Kemp, a lifelong Republican and Trump supporter, doesn’t hold that against Trump and suggested he might change course. 'I really think he’s gonna do something,' she said." [ed. note: perfect, no notes]

Reading archive 2025-06-10

Casey Trees and Bartlett Tree Experts, A Crowning Partnership Made in the Shade (of Urban Trees)

Do kids feel safe in D.C.? We asked them.

Serving ‘dead time’: D.C. teens needed rehabilitation to keep the city safe. They languished in a violent detention center instead.

D.C. youth, 16, ordered confined until age 21 in killing of disc jockey: Court records show the teen had five pending robbery and assault cases yet was free when he took part in the fatal beating of Bryan Smith in October.

Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab population falls to ‘distressing low’: Experts are most concerned about the decline of juvenile crabs.

GOP bill could worsen inflation and lead to financial crisis, economists warn: Former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers is among the critics of Trump’s big tax bill, saying it could stoke “stagflation.”

 - "A police spokesperson said Monday that investigators don’t believe the perpetrators or the victims had come to the area to participate in WorldPride events."

...

"Earlier she had cited problems in three of the past six years during Pride weekends, including a 2019 incident in which a man was arrested in the park after gunshots caused the public to panic; a 2023 case of vandalism that Smith said caused 'approximately $175,000 in damage to the historic fountain'; and a 2024 incident in which a large group of juveniles got rowdy in the park, drinking and smoking and engaging in fights."

One killed, six hurt in three daylight shootings, D.C. police say: On Mount Olivet Road NE, a black sedan pulled up, and three men dressed in black fired at people outside a store, killing one and wounding three others.

Reading archive 2025-06-06

What really keeps mosquitoes away? Probably not your lavender plants.: A fact-based look at scented plants, essential oils and other mosquito repellents.

As Trump taunts Springsteen, these Republicans stick with The Boss: Trump is beefing with Bruce Springsteen. But some GOP figures are standing by the Jersey icon.

These publicly funded homes for the poor cost $1.2 million each to build: D.C. apartment buildings exemplify a national trend, as the costs of affordable housing approach and sometimes exceed $1 million per unit in cities that also include San Francisco and Chicago. - "Another tax-credit project in Southeast Washington, the Ethel, cost nearly $800,000 per unit, all 100 of which are one-bedrooms. Bowser has claimed it as a signature accomplishment. The architect touts the detailing of its facade and the developers are set to walk away with an $8.5-million fee, records show. 

"Next door, the same developers built the Park Kennedy, for mostly market-rate tenants, at a per-unit cost of about $350,000, records show."

Chinese propaganda surges as the U.S. defunds Radio Free Asia: Beijing expanded its state propaganda, including to the persecuted Tibetan and Uyghur minorities, as RFA pulled back.

Jake Tapper is the reason America is doomed SFGATE columnist Drew Magary is sick of the face of CNN using his platform to tell us about year-old news - "Tapper is less a journalist now than he is one of the many prominent media figures eager to profit off the Trump news industrial complex."

Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people Across the government, officials are rehiring federal workers who were forced out or encouraged to resign.

Reading archive 2025-04-24

Scientists say they can calculate the cost of oil giants’ role in global warming: Climate advocates hope this sort of model could result in court rulings that make polluters pay. The oil and gas industry contests the science.

Trump’s EPA cuts could be ‘catastrophic’ to Chesapeake Bay, activists warn: The EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program has worked to restore the bay’s waters and fish and plant life since 1983, but severe cuts could jeopardize this progress.

Chesapeake Bay’s oysters make a steady comeback: The Maryland mollusks have survived decades of overharvesting, disease and drought.

U.S. agencies alarmed by China’s curbs on exports of rare-earth minerals: Beijing’s curbs on rare earth exports, used to make military drones, consumer electronics, electric cars and more, have caused alarm across federal agencies.

D.C. loses coveted triple-A bond rating due to federal actions: Moody’s cited federal workforce and spending cuts, a sluggish commercial real estate market and uncertainty over whether Congress will cut Medicaid. - "In making the downgrade, Moody’s cited the Trump administration’s 'substantial cuts to the federal workforce' that are expected to hurt the city’s economy. And it revised the city’s outlook to 'negative,' pointing to a still-sluggish commercial real estate market, the “increased likelihood” of deeper federal spending and workforce cuts and the uncertainty surrounding whether Congress will make cuts to Medicaid — a major fear among D.C. officials and local hospitals."

What science says about artificial food dyes amid RFK Jr.’s push to ban them: In some studies, synthetic food dyes used in the United States have been associated with hyperactivity and behavioral effects in children.

Elon Musk had the government in his grasp. Then it unraveled.: The billionaire head of the U.S. DOGE Service clashed with Trump Cabinet officials well before he announced he would soon head back to Tesla.

The Evolution of the Alpha Male Aesthetic

Tree emergency The entire city's urban canopy is facing deep cuts

How Italy got its citizens — and me — to adopt a rigorous recycling scheme: Italy has become a global leader in recycling, in part by relying on households to do a lot of the work.

Russia bombards Kyiv, provoking rare rebuke from Trump as peace talks stall: The massive attack on Kyiv and other cities in the early morning came after President Donald Trump expressed frustration with Ukraine’s leadership.

The Courage to Be Decent: The Trump administration wants to make us too afraid to look out for one another. Don’t let them.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Girlboss: Strapped in next to Gayle King and an all-women crew aboard Jeff Bezos’ rocket, the pop star set a record for the most feminist publicity stunt in history as she smashed through the glass ceiling of Earth itself.

Realistic roles for hydrogen in the future energy transition

Reading archive 2025-04-23

Is green really ‘green’? The mind-bending science of color.: Science and philosophy explain why color is objectively real, even when people see the same shade differently.

How D.C.’s dangerous new prosecutor is making the city less safe: Ed Martin’s predecessors say his dismantling of the office will alienate jurors, reduce convictions. - "A former U.S. attorney said: 'You’re going to see an uptick in crime because jurors, judges and D.C. residents will think the U.S. attorney’s office has a political agenda, and they’re going to be that much more skeptical.' A former prosecutor whom Martin fired added: 'Juries in the District of Columbia are educated and they follow the news. They are going to hold Martin’s extremism against us in the jury room.'"

D.C. grandmother, missing for two days, found slain in dumpster: Donnella Bryan was a dental assistant who enjoyed a life rich with books, music and loved ones, her family says.

The fall of a violent D.C. gang that used federal loans to buy drugs in bulk: Prosecutors said the Kennedy Street Crew’s purported leader smuggled drugs on planes and used pandemic relief loans through the Small Business Association to buy bulk narcotics.

She killed two children with her van. She will spend at most 4 months in jail.: Olga Lugo Jiminez, 52, had just dropped children off at a Maryland school when she hit two students and a parent in a crosswalk.

Supreme Court seems likely to let religious families opt out of LGBTQ storybooks: The lawsuit over public school story time with titles like “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” and “Love, Violet” is one of three major religious rights cases on the high court’s docket.

What we know (and don’t know) about autism, according to science: Autism cases are increasing globally, but its causes are difficult to specify. - "The consensus after 30 years of research is that “if you are autistic, you were born with it,” said David Amaral, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California at Davis and editor in chief of the scientific journal Autism Research. 

"Genetics plays a large role. Autism is also 80 to 90 percent heritable, research shows. 

"Environmental factors can also influence prenatal brain development. 

"When someone is pregnant, chronic inflammation, such as in response to a serious infection or because of health conditions such as obesity and diabetes, could affect fetal brain development and autism risk, and is an area of active research around what is known as the maternal immune activation hypothesis.

...

"There may also be other factors contributing to a real increase in autism prevalence, though it is difficult to know how much. For instance, there are more older parents; more preterm babies are surviving; and autoimmune diseases are on the rise, which are all risk factors for autism."

Which cities have the most trees? See how yours stacks up.: Why some U.S. cities are so much greener than others.

White House Considers Slashing China Tariffs to De-Escalate Trade War: Levies could be cut by more than half in some cases although Trump hasn’t yet made final decision

America Underestimates the Difficulty of Bringing Manufacturing Back [ed. note: clarifying, grim]

The ‘owl man’ is busy at Boston Logan airport: Norman Smith has trapped and released more than 900 Arctic raptors for the safety of the birds and the planes.

Reading archive 2025-04-16

To save our trees, we must burn down our forests: Fire suppression is causing the oak to disappear from our forests and landscapes.

Reading archive 2025-04-08

Israel walks back its account of the killing of 15 medics in Gaza after video seems to contradict it

Trade Will Move On Without the United States: The tariffs will destroy another pillar of American power and leave a vacuum for others to fill. - "The results are unlikely to be what the administration anticipates. Some foreign companies may indeed respond to the tariffs by building factories in the U.S. to maintain their presence in a crucial market. But many others are simply too small, or too integrated into existing supply chains, to make that move. Where the millions of American workers will come from to screw together iPhones or make car parts is also a mystery, especially given the president's opposition to large-scale immigration. Factories in the U.S. are already struggling to find workers; the manufacturing sector has hundreds of thousands of vacant openings.

...

"Other countries long accepted U.S. leadership because they saw Washington as a proponent of global economic progress. The role Trump is choosing for the United States is not that. He may eventually roll back tariffs for those countries that negotiate with him, and he may even see this as a show of kingpin-like strength: Trump has already said that he'd be willing to reduce duties on China in return for a deal involving TikTok. But the erratic and arbitrary nature of the policies, and the willingness to exploit U.S. economic might to extort concessions, will undermine American standing nearly everywhere."

Why America’s Oligarchs May Regret Their Obedience: Putin’s Russia shows what happens when billionaire businessmen choose to back a strongman. - "Putin's regime offers a stark illustration of how democratic institutions can be hollowed out. Some of Trump's recent moves contain echoes of Kremlin strategy: canceling institutional checks in favor of loyalist appointments, attacking lawyers who work for opponents, demolishing independent agencies, feeding popular delusions of imperial greatness by threatening neighbors. The reforms of Musk's DOGE outfit are set to shift public goods into private hands."

Here Are the Places Where the Recession Has Already Begun: Towns near the Canadian border are suffering. - "He cannot buy feed from another supplier; there aren't any nearby, and getting it from farther away would be more expensive. When he got the delivery, he stared at the tariff for a while. Shouldn't his Canadian supplier have been responsible for paying it? 'I'm not even sure it's legal! We contracted for the price on delivery! If your price of fuel goes up or your truck breaks down, that's not my problem! That's what the contract's for.' 

"But the tariff was legal, and it was Gilbert's responsibility." [ed. note: lol eat shit]

The Cabinet Secretary Who Wants His Cookies Freshly Baked: The unusual requests made of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s staff are raising concerns all the way to the White House.

Defying the Courts Will Backfire: The public has not responded kindly to other politicians who have tried this in the past.

Trump Has Already Botched His Own Bad Tariff Plan: Once you’ve said you might negotiate, nobody is going to believe you when you change your mind and say you’ll never negotiate. - "The key to making it work was to convince businesses that the new arrangement is durable. Nobody is going to invest in building new factories in the United States to create goods that until last week could be imported more cheaply unless they’re certain that the tariffs making the domestic version more competitive will stay in place. (They’re probably not going to do it anyway, in part because they don’t know who will be president in four years, but the point is that confidence in durable tariffs is a necessary condition.)"

Wall Street Blew: It Investors discounted everything Trump has ever said about trade and tariffs. We’re all going to pay for that mistake. - "The U.S., for instance, buys agricultural products and basic manufactured goods from developing countries that don't have a big appetite for Boeing airplanes or Microsoft software. So those countries typically take the dollars they earn and buy U.S. government bonds, knowing that their money will be safe, instead of purchasing American goods. That creates a trade deficit, without anything sinister behind it. But for Trump, any trade deficit means that Americans are being played. And Trump hates few things in this world more than feeling that he's been played."

Trump to sign executive order to help dying U.S. coal industry: The president will direct agencies to boost coal leasing, mining and exports. But these steps are unlikely to usher in a coal renaissance. - "The executive order builds on moves the Trump administration has already taken. The Environmental Protection Agency last month began the process of dismantling restrictions on coal plants’ carbon emissions, mercury pollution and wastewater runoff. The Interior Department approved an expansion of a Montana coal mine, and the Bureau of Land Management is considering an 'emergency' lease to mine coal in North Dakota."

Who will tell Trump he’s naked?: The president’s advisers are falling over themselves trying to excuse tariffmageddon.

In the rain-soaked South, storms portend future ‘generational’ floods: Parts of Tennessee received 15 inches of rain. What happens when the next storm is worse?

MAGA Maoism is spreading through the populist right: A new conservative strain dreams of sending the bourgeoise to work the factories. - "But nostalgia is not a plan. It’s a mirror turned backward. Trump is not bringing back the dignity of work — he’s marketing the image of it. His tariffs won’t rebuild Bethlehem Steel. They won’t revive the coal towns. But they will make life more expensive for working people, while feeding the fantasy that somewhere out there, the old America still waits if you can just hurt the right people to get there."

After a Slow Start, High-Speed Rail Might Finally Arrive in America: True high-speed rail has not yet made it to the U.S., but that will change soon. Here are the projects currently being developed.

Ailing historic tree removed from White House grounds: The tree, known as the Jackson magnolia, was attributed to President Andrew Jackson, officials said.

Gun discharged inside backpack at Va. elementary school, police say: Spotsylvania County authorities said a gun went off while inside a third-grader’s backpack at Lee Hill Elementary School on Monday morning. No one was injured.

Palestinian American teen fatally shot by Israeli troops in West Bank village: American citizen Amer Rabee, 14, was fatally shot in the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya. The mayor said he had been picking green almonds with two friends.

44 percent of DC-area restaurants surveyed say they’re ‘likely to close’ by the end of this year

Reading archive 2024-10-01

Opinion  How ‘obesity first’ health care is transforming medicine: Doctors are increasingly addressing obesity as the root cause of other illnesses.

As a Finnish Zoo Returns Pandas to China, It Blames Costs, Not Geopolitics: Two pandas are heading back to China eight years early amid lower-than-hoped-for visitor numbers at a zoo in rural Finland, and after the pair didn't produce a cub.

Can You Get Rid of Your Front Lawn Without Offending the Neighbors?: It isn't easy or fast, but it can be done. Here's what worked for one couple.

Our Better Nature: Put the Brakes on Honey Bees – Our Future Depends on It: Honey bees are causing grave – and in some cases irreversible – harm to the environment.

Native Landscapes Can Be Hard to Plant. But Help Is Here.: The nonprofit group Wild Ones offers a free library of designs, with plants specific to your area — and you don’t have to be a member to use it.

Don’t believe the hype: AGI is far from inevitable - "If a company pops up claiming to have a machine that, when you press a button, it creates world peace, then you’d distrust it too. So why are we so quick to believe the promises of big tech who are driven by profit?"

Retired professor, accused of bilking wealthy friends, pleads guilty in NY: Lawrence Gray, who was accused of stealing valuable jewelry, pleaded guilty to fraud.

Before the floods, Asheville was called a ‘climate haven.’ Is anywhere safe?: As climate change leads to more severe hurricanes, mountain communities like Asheville, N.C., face growing flood danger.

Opinion The real reason 47,000 dockworkers are on strike: For American workers, this is one of the first great battles against advanced automation.

Port strike freezes shipping on East Coast, threatening shortages: Longshoremen’s union walkout follows last-minute efforts by the White House to avert a strike.

Tim Walz speaks loudly and carries a big schtick: But the vice-presidential pick best known for calling Donald Trump and JD Vance “weird” is a surprisingly risk-averse campaigner.

What to know about VP debate moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan: O’Donnell anchors CBS News’s evening newscast, while Brennan anchors Sunday morning’s “Face the Nation.”

Polls show big increase in Republicans planning to vote for abortion rights: In some states, that GOP number could even approach a majority.

This firefly delighted beachgoers. Now it’s flickering out of existence.: The U.S. government is proposing to declare the Bethany Beach firefly as threatened, the first time officials have sought to add a firefly to the Endangered Species Act list.

24 hours of MAGA misinformation: A small sampling of the inundation of false and dubious claims flowing from Donald Trump and his allies.

The 5 hurricane categories, explained

Basement-free buildings are better for the future climate: Politicians mull bans due to flooding, but costs and carbon emissions also a concern

California’s first plastic bag ban made things worse. Now it’s trying again

Reading archive 2024-09-30

Android’s latest nightmare: Millions of devices infected by sneaky malware

Lessons in landscaping — and diplomacy — from a 37-year career: Stephen Crisp says goodbye to his role as the head gardener at Winfield House, the U.S. ambassador’s residence in London.

How ignored warnings at Boar’s Head plant led to a deadly listeria outbreak: Filthy conditions, aging equipment and haphazard cleaning at the Jarratt, Va., plant may have made some of its products microbial time bombs waiting to explode.

D.C. mayor, attorney general at odds over juvenile justice reform: The disagreements were on display at a recent D.C. Council hearing, where Attorney General Brian Schwalb proposed various changes to how troubled children are handled.

What to expect if port workers strike, and how it may affect the economy: Negotiations between longshoremen and port operators broke down in June and the two sides have barely been speaking. The current contract expires at midnight Monday.

Scientists just discovered why Earth’s atmosphere is leaking: It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field.

‘You’ll be okay’: Trump’s message to Hurricane Helene victims draws attacks: Critics tied the recent remark to a proposal in Project 2025, a conservative plan, to privatize weather forecasting now done by government agencies.

Harris team quietly courts big-name GOP endorsements: Anti-Trump conservatives are serving as emissaries to bring prominent Republicans on board, hoping to influence rank-and-file voters. - "Romney, who has frequently criticized Trump, has also expressed concerns about endangering the safety of his family if Trump is elected again, a fear also voiced by others who have spoken out against the former president." [ed. note: he's afraid of how awful Trump is, so he won't do everything he can to stop him]

Opinion Keep your eye on the Florida Senate race: Democrats see a path to an upset against Rick Scott.

James and the Jefferson Elm

He bought his dream home. In 10 years, it could fall into the ocean.: David Moot secured a three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean for just under $400,000 — but its days are numbered.

Fire at Georgia chemical plant releases chlorine into the air, authorities say: Rockdale County officials ordered people to evacuate the area near the BioLab plant in Conyers, Ga., and they said others should stay home to avoid the “harmful irritant chlorine.”

Opinion Mark Cuban: Kamala Harris’s business whisperer: As a successful entrepreneur, he can make the business case against Trump — and for Harris.

How Philadelphia election workers will race to count votes this fall