Reading archive 2026-02-06

Good news: We saved the bees. Bad news: We saved the wrong ones.: Honeybees have never been in danger of extinction. But scientists are finding that they can accelerate the demise of native bee populations.

Ron Wyden Only Talks Like This When The Spies Do Something *Real* Bad: No, I don't know what they did. But I have a lot of experience with the senator

The Means-Testing Industrial Complex - "The CBO conservatively estimates that these rules will strip Medicaid coverage from over 7 million people. For millions of working Americans this maze of new rules will mean losing their life-saving health insurance and financial ruin. For Mark Begor, Equifax, and other government contractors, this maze of new rules means profit.

...

"With governments entirely reliant on Equifax to administer life-saving benefits to millions of low-income Americans, steep price hikes quickly followed. The New York Times uncovered that in many places, the toll paid to Equifax for the Work Number doubled, then tripled, and more than quadrupled in only a few years. Local, state, and federal agencies have helplessly watched their public funds raided, boxed in by the dual forces of means-testing requirements and unconstrained market power.

...

"Again, new work requirements for Medicaid highlight the profits to be made from adding complexity to the safety net. Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people. As the other 55 states and territories are now forced to join Georgia and implement new work requirements, millions will lose their healthcare and Deloitte will cash in."

James Comer Gives Dems an Unexpected Gift: The House Oversight Committee swung at Clinton but might have hit Trump. [ed. note: dragging an ex-president in front of Congress sets a precedent that Trump doesn't like]

Tulsi Gabbard is showing why her job shouldn’t exist: Trump’s director of national intelligence is making worse the problems with the ill-conceived role.

What Democrats are demanding in exchange for funding ICE: Republicans have criticized Democrats’ proposals as “a ridiculous Christmas list” but say they’re willing to negotiate.

Trump shares, then deletes video depicting Obamas as apes: Tim Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate, called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”

Bollywood Embraces a Taj Mahal Conspiracy Theory: The internet and a new film have breathed life into old conspiracy theories about one of the world’s most famous landmarks. - "The film’s promotional materials promised to 'reveal the untold history' of the landmark. It doesn’t. What it has done instead is rehash discredited claims that once were relegated to the fringes of the internet, giving prominence to efforts to inflame sectarian tensions.

...

"[P.N. Oak, inventor of this lie] also published numerous other books claiming that Christianity and Islam were in fact offshoots of Hinduism and that many physical landmarks of those faiths, including St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and the Kaaba in Mecca, were originally Hindu temples. 

"Oak didn’t disguise his intentions. Born in the British colonial era (and having fought on the Japanese side in World War II), he founded the Institute for Rewriting Indian History, which sought to recast the nation’s history as one of conquest and colonization of its true Hindu identity."

Reading archive 2025-07-28 pt 1

The Number Go Up Rule: Why America Refuses to Fix Anything: In the Booming Twenties, all decision-making is about protecting the value of financial assets held by older people. Therefore, the number must go up. And nothing else matters. - "Increasing the capitalization of the stock market at all costs has a number of implications about how our society works. Anything hindering short-term increases in profits, whether that’s higher wages, more factory investment, ending tax loopholes, rules to block being able to unsubscribe from Planet Fitness, transitioning to different energy sources, addressing an opioid crisis, or breaking Chinese control over the necessities of life, gets pushed out of the way. American life spans have plateaued or stagnated since 2015, which you’d think would be of concern. But it’s just not. There’s also something that distinguishes standard financial capitalism from ‘number go up.’ Financial capitalism implies risk. But in our era, the government guarantees financial returns with subsidies, regulations and bailouts. It’s a form of statecraft."

Pollen exploitation by non-native, feral honey bees: Potential consequences for interspecific competition

Interrogating a cold-case killer: ‘Honey, your DNA was in the crime scene’: Police videos show Eugene Gligor, who has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, being arrested and questioned for the 2001 murder of Leslie Preer in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

VOLKSWAGEN’S SECRET: History forgot the horrors endured by laborers on the automaker’s massive cattle ranch in the Brazilian Amazon. But a priest had recorded it all.

What a Democrat Could Do With Trump’s Power: America is entering an age of retributive governing cycles.

Finally, a Democrat Who Could Shine on Joe Rogan’s Show Hunter Biden is unrepentant.

Trump fumes as Epstein scandal dominates headlines, overshadows agenda: The White House and Justice Department’s response has been driven by no clear strategy other than asking the country to move on, people close to the situation told The Post.

It turns out there’s a right and wrong way to pee: Many women push to speed things along, hover over the toilet or go ‘just in case,’ but those habits may cause future problems.

845,000 dead on U.S. highways. Why not address the main cause?: We need to ramp up the standards for road tests and train people to be better drivers.

In a legacy steel town, energy is now king — just don’t call it ‘green’: Form Energy is revitalizing Weirton, West Virginia. It’s also facing skepticism in this increasingly conservative area.

‘College hazing’ or training? Amid shortage, air traffic recruits wash out.: Almost 20 percent of new hires fail to become a controller at the first facility they’re sent to. - "There is an ill-defined mystique associated with air traffic control, a belief among some controllers that people are essentially born to do the job. But the idea obscures the fact that skills controllers need can be readily taught. 

"Controllers act like gatekeepers, demanding recruits prove they are worthy of entry to their club, said Linda Pierce, a retired FAA psychologist who studied how controllers are trained. 

"'It’s this professional guild, but to me it also felt like a college hazing,' she said. 'It was hostile.'"

I’m a cardiologist. Here are 10 science-based ways to prevent heart disease.: Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. But about 80 percent of cases are considered preventable.

I’m a cardiologist. Here are 10 science-based ways to prevent heart disease.: Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. But about 80 percent of cases are considered preventable.

Harvard Paper Explores Possibility That Object Approaching From Beyond Solar System Is Hostile Alien Technology: "The consequences, should the... hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity." - "Loeb is an interesting character: he's an enormously accomplished academic and the former chair of Harvard's prestigious astronomy department, but in recent years has often made headlines for suggesting that various detections in the cosmos might be alien spacecraft. In other words, he was almost bound to weigh in on this latest interstellar visitor, which is only the third ever detected."

Reading archive 2025-05-23 pt 1

What we know about the man arrested in the D.C. Jewish museum shooting: The 31-year-old from Chicago is accused of killing a young couple who worked at the Israeli Embassy.

Clean energy dollars are gushing to red states. Now GOP senators are in a bind.: The Trump tax bill passed by the House would wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars for solar, wind and other projects in Republican districts. - "The measure, according to a group of Princeton University researchers called the REPEAT Project, would drain more than $1 trillion from the U.S. economy in less than a decade, when factoring in private investment and spin-off spending the subsidies drive. The average annual household electricity bill would be pushed up more than $270 after 10 years, the group found. 

"The Trump administration has argued that curbing renewable energy to unleash more fossil fuels will lower utility rates, but many industry analysts warn otherwise. Plans for new gas plants have been beset by long delays and soaring costs amid shortages of materials and supply chain challenges. More than 80 percent of the new electricity added to the power grid in 2024 came from solar panels and industrial batteries that store the energy they capture, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a federal agency."

The findings — and scientific problems — in White House ‘MAHA Report’: Parts of the “MAHA Report” contradict scientific consensus.

Trump’s tax bill plan adds to federal debt, prompting investor backlash: Rising bond yields could eventually mean higher borrowing costs for consumers.

‘No tax on tips’ could backfire amid growing tip fatigue: The legislation has implications for those who give gratuities and those who pocket them, with the potential to leave both sides feeling shortchanged.

In Australia, everyone has a hot take about the mushroom murder trial: Mycology and forensics are the subject of conversation across Australia as Erin Patterson stands trial, accused of murdering three relatives with a beef Wellington. - "Prosecutors have said the poisoning was deliberate and have put forward as evidence that Patterson traveled to known death cap mushroom locations before the lunch; that she disposed of a food processor used to prepare the mushrooms; and that she reset her phone afterward. They also say Patterson told a number of lies, from the false cancer diagnosis she allegedly used to lure people to the lunch to the origin of the mushrooms she served."

Ukraine scrambles to overcome Russia’s edge in fiber-optic drones: Ukraine pioneered the use of small drones on the battlefield. But in Russia’s Kursk region, Moscow’s fiber-optic cables helped turn the tide.

OpenAI’s Ambitions Just Became Crystal Clear: But when you promise the world a revolutionary new product, it helps to have actually built one.

Trump Is Crushing the Netanyahu Myth: The Israeli leader and his allies bet everything on Trump. But he’s just not that into them. - "The third-rate pro-government propagandists on Channel 14 might not have seen this coming, but Netanyahu should have. His dark worldview is premised on the pessimistic presumption that the world will turn on the Jews if given the chance, which is why the Israeli leader has long prized hard power over diplomatic understandings. Even if Trump wasn't such an unreliable figure, trusting him should have gone against all of Netanyahu's instincts."

Biden’s Age Wasn’t a Cover-Up. It Was Observable Fact.: The story about the former president getting old is getting old.

The Trump Administration Is Tempting a Honeybee Disaster: Bees are dying. Federal funding cuts aren’t helping.

The Decline and Fall of Elon Musk: The Tesla innovator becomes the latest government employee to lose his job. - "Ayushi Roy, a former technologist at the General Services Administration who now teaches digital government at Harvard Kennedy School, told us that Musk has achieved at least some of his goals: cutting the federal workforce and traumatizing the employees who remain. But, she said, he has largely failed to build anything that's made government more efficient."

An Awkward Truth About American Work: Direct-selling schemes are considered fringe businesses, but their values have bled into the national economy.

Modi’s Escalation Trap: A counterterrorism policy designed to burnish a strongman’s image risks setting off new rounds of conflict.

What Trump Got Right in the Middle East: He put business front and center and politics to the side. - "Trump may well understand that with the Democratic Party likely divided on Israel for the next generation, his Jewish and evangelical-Christian supporters have nowhere else to go. This puts him in a position of power relative to the Israeli prime minister one that must surely make Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders very uncomfortable. Making them still more uncomfortable will be the fact that everyone who mattered seemed to be in those meetings in the Gulf. Everyone, that is, except them.

...

"Historically, America has attracted capital because it can be counted on to follow the rule of law, crack down on public corruption, and support the kinds of independent and quasi-independent regulatory bodies that give investors peace of mind. Trump and his administration have been working hard to weaken all of this. For a president who claims to understand the private sector as well as he does, seeking deals while simultaneously undermining the conditions that make America a great investment will be counterproductive in the end." [lol duh]

Who is to blame for Biden’s gamble to run for president?: Press corps and party leaders were not responsible for failing to stop the presidential campaign.

The Democrats Are Having a False Reckoning Over Joe Biden: Party elites are considerably more responsible for their woeful state of affairs than the former president. - "Prominent Democrats speaking out about all this a year ago would have been meaningful. Today, it means nothing. Denouncing Biden’s run now ⁠that he’s a political nonentity⁠—out of office and perhaps very near death⁠—isn’t taking a brave stand against the internal culture of the Democratic Party. It’s a reflection of it: a wholly cost-free and substantively empty way for opportunists to perform independence from the party now that the coast is clear and there are no toes of consequence to step on. Biden ran again, and is being condemned for running again, for the very same reasons.

...

"Party hopefuls looking for ways to mark themselves as different from the rest of the pack today have other, better options. The best way to demonstrate a measure of real independence from the Democratic Party is to tell the truth about what really ails it: wealthy, clueless donors; an approach to public policy incommensurate with the scale of the challenges the country faces; a quasi-religious faith in the virtues of bipartisanship; a related and willful blindness to the depths of the Republican rot beyond Donald Trump; and a blindness, just as consequential, to the structural features of our federal system that will continue pulling governance to the right. All are much deeper problems than Joe Biden’s ego and those who chose to flatter it. All will be much more difficult to resolve. But if Democrats are looking for a reckoning, there are quite a few to be had in that mix."

Trump’s road to failure in Ukraine: For all the president’s efforts, peace has only gotten further away.

How DOGE’s grand plan to remake Social Security is backfiring: The agency is abandoning an initiative aimed at preventing fraud, the latest example of a failed effort by Elon Musk’s disruptive cost-cutting team.

The massive wind farm that could transform this Brooklyn neighborhood: Sunset Park moves ahead with plans for a “just transition” after the Trump administration lifts a stop-work order on the Empire Wind energy project.

Reading archive 2025-04-22 pt 1

Trump Wants to Rewrite History at the Smithsonian. It’ll Be an Uphill Battle: The president’s recent executive order directed at the institution will face a lot of procedural headwinds before he can MAGA-ify its approach to teaching the country its history.

Half a million honeybees dead in suspected poisoning at Army veteran’s farm: The Virginia farm’s owner estimates that the damage could total almost $20,000 and says that it was a premeditated attack.

She told Trump the Smithsonian needs changing. He’s ordered her to do it.: Who is Lindsey Halligan, the attorney assigned to help remove “improper ideology” from a major cultural institution?

Sam Altman Admits That Saying "Please" and "Thank You" to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power: "You never know."

Larry David: My Dinner With Adolf

D.C., Commanders close to a stadium deal at RFK site: The potential agreement comes after months of talks between the administration of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and the team.

D.C., Commanders discussing $3.2 billion public-private stadium deal: The deal would cost $856 million, Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said, adding he feared taxpayers could ultimately spend north of $1 billion.

U.S. intelligence contradicts Trump’s justification for mass deportations: The determination is the most comprehensive assessment to date undercutting the president’s rationale for deporting suspected gang members without due process.

China’s leader Xi Jinping holds talks in Cambodia to wrap up his 3-nation Southeast Asia tour

Ashley St. Clair Just Spilled All of Elon Musk’s ‘Harem Drama’: Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, St. Clair also divulged further details about her interactions with Jared Birchall, the man Musk charges with keeping his “harem” in check.

Protein propaganda is everywhere. Here’s what the science actually says.: Most people can get adequate protein without adding whey shakes and massive servings of meat to their plates.

What the science says about intermittent fasting: The data are mixed on whether intermittent fasting can help you lose weight. As a doctor, here’s my advice: Try the Mediterranean diet instead.

Texas was once affordable. After hail and hurricanes, not anymore.: Worsening storms fueled by climate change, coupled with inflation, are driving some of the highest home insurance costs in the country.

One day of tiny climate actions: For Earth Day 2025, here are simple planet-friendly activities that people can incorporate into their lives, starting with their morning shower.

Is It Even Worth It to Become a Doctor or Lawyer Anymore?: Attacks on prestige law firms are forcing white-collar millennials to renegotiate the deals they’ve made with bosses and themselves. It could get ugly. - "As sociologist C. Wright Mills put it all the way back in 1951: 'White-collar workers are often closer in their economic fate and social reality to wage-workers than to the owners of the businesses they work for.'"

What If China Wins the Trade War?: The United States could still prevail if it does everything right. The problem is that the Trump administration is doing everything wrong.

The Scramble to Save Rural Health Care From DOGE: Can an Alabama health clinic survive Musk’s “chainsaw for bureaucracy”?

‘You Think We’re Afraid of America?’: Chinese manufacturers seem ready for a trade war.

Reading archive 2024-06-01

The elite ancient Greek fighting force made up entirely of gay couples: As Pride Month kicks off, the story of how the Sacred Band of Thebes defeated Sparta and changed history. - "Excavation of a mass grave on the battlefield at Chaeronea uncovered the bodies of 254 soldiers believed to be the band’s war dead. Amid the broken bones and fractured skulls, some pairs of skeletons lay linked arm in arm, a tribute to a love that outlasted death."

In a swing county, Trump’s faithful are angry. But they believe he’ll get even.: In Saginaw County, Mich., Democrats worry — and Republicans boast — that even 34 felony convictions won’t stop the former president from retaking the White House.

Investors, worried they can’t beat lawmakers in stock market, copy them instead: A loose alliance of investors, analysts and advocates is trying to let Americans mimic the trades elected officials make — but only after they disclose them. - "The penalties for those who violate the law are minimal: Members who are late to disclose stock activity, or sales and purchases of cryptocurrencies, generally face a $200 fine prescribed by the Stock Act. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Tex.), who failed to disclose 122 transactions valued between $9 million and $21 million in 2021 in a timely manner, paid $600 in late filing fees and corrected the record though he refused to cooperate with the review conducted by the Office of Congressional Ethics.

...

"The Senate Ethics Committee has not issued a disciplinary sanction against a senator in over 15 years, even after a stock-trading scandal roiled the upper chamber. Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) came under scrutiny at the start of 2020 after they dumped vast stock holdings ahead of the coronavirus-induced market plunge. Neither the Senate Ethics Committee nor the Justice Department, whose investigators launched probes into the stock sales, pursued charges."

The Great Honeybee Fallacy: For years, people have understood them to be at imminent risk of extinction, despite evidence to the contrary. Why? - "A true truth about the bees: The modal American honeybee is, essentially, a farm animal—part of a $200-billion-a-year industry that’s regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is as sophisticated and professionalized as any other segment of the sprawling system that gets food on our plates. The nation’s largest beekeeping operation, Adee Honey Farms, has more than 80,000 colonies, facilities in five states, and nearly 100 employees. Its bees, and those at other large-scale apiaries, do produce honey, but more and more, the real money is in what the industry calls “pollination services”: the renting-out of bees to fertilize the farms of Big Ag, which have seen their indigenous pollinators decline with urbanization and industrialization."

Lawns Draw Scorn, but Some See Room for Compromise: Conventional turf lawns have come under attack. Landscape designers are using water-wise and native plants to balance green with “green.”

Reading archive 2024-04-01

Wait, does America suddenly have a record number of bees? - "But this may not be good news for bees in general. 

"'It is absolutely not a good thing for native pollinators,' said Eliza Grames, an entomologist at Binghamton University, who noted that domesticated honeybees are a threat to North America’s 4,000 native bees, about 40 percent of which are vulnerable to extinction."

Should I take a multivitamin? Here’s what the science says.: There’s some encouraging data on the benefits of multivitamins for healthy adults. But the supplement isn’t a cure-all.

Researchers Develop Self-Pollinating Almond With a Gold Mine of Tasty Traits

Opinion  What we have learned about the Supreme Court’s right-wingers

How Republicans texted and emailed their way into a money problem: Small-dollar donations to Trump and the GOP are way down since 2019 and 2020. But the former president’s team says they see a turnaround.

Democrats spar over registration as worries over young and minority voters grow: The rise in Trump support among nonregistered voters has run up against a long-held Democratic policy priority of growing the voter rolls

Conservatives shell long-standing White House Easter egg contest: Conservative outlets zeroed in on a flyer banning religious themes from an Easter egg decorating contest, though the policy has been in place for decades, according to the White House. - "'The American Egg Board flyer’s standard non-discrimination language requesting artwork has been used for the last 45 years, across all Dem & Republican Admins—for all WH Easter Egg Rolls —incl previous Administration’s,' the first lady's communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, said in a post on X."

Trump’s Truth Social stock plunges as 2023 loss put at $58 million: The new figures highlight the huge gap between Trump Media’s hyped market debut and his social network’s revenue.

Cellphone video shows girls fatally beating man in Northwest D.C.: D.C. prosecutor played cellphone video she said showed group of five girls stomping 64-year-old Reggie Brown’s head into the pavement

How Bowser played the long game to keep Capitals, Wizards in D.C.

School absenteeism rates in D.C. are alarmingly high. What’s the city doing about it?

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 2024-01-31

In Peru, a Mission to Save the Stingless Bee: Native to the tropics, these pollinators are taking a lead role in one of the latest efforts to conserve the Amazon rainforest.

Elmo asked how everyone’s doing and, um, they’re not great!

French tourist unearths 7.46-carat diamond at Arkansas state park: The lucky digger said he’ll turn his discovery into a wedding ring for his future wife

Everyone says trees are good for us. This scientist wants to prove it.: Nearly 8,000 trees and shrubs in southern Louisville and health data from about 500 residents fill out the urban science experiment

Opinion  If Trump wins, he will destroy the American-led world order - "The danger is that he would be more effective in his second term. The result could be the end of the Pax Americana. We would then enter a chaotic post-American world where rogue states committed aggression with impunity, democracies cowered and trade ties frayed. Sea lanes turning into shooting galleries would become the norm, not the exception, with the U.S. economy paying the price."

Michigan’s Arabs and Muslims push to defeat Biden in critical state: As the war in Gaza leads to the deaths of friends and relatives, anger at Biden’s refusal to call for a cease-fire has turned into political organizing - "The campaign’s organizers, who also oppose Donald Trump, have not yet coalesced around a strategy for the general election. They are still debating whether to encourage voters to support a third-party candidate or to skip the presidential contest altogether while still voting for other offices. Either way, the organizers are telling Muslim and Arab voters that they should show up and vote, rather than stay home, so it is clear that Biden specifically has lost their vote."

Inside Kyrsten Sinema’s reelection decision: Will ‘voters even care’ about her record?: As she pushes for another tricky bipartisan accomplishment, the deadline nears for the Arizona independent senator to decide on reelection

Gilded rage: Truman Capote’s vicious split with his ‘swans’: A new TV series revisits the real-life ‘Feud’ between the ‘tiny terror’ and his privileged pals after he penned malicious gossip about them

African production of natural gas poses a vexing climate challenge

Reading archive 2023-09-30

Ticks, Natural Gardens, & Kids

Honey Bees Compete With Native Bees

Shelley Broderick: For two years DC leaders sat on a plan to improve public safety

The MAGAmerican dream lives in Sarasota

Reading archive 2023-08-11

Pollinator myth: Are bees responsible for one third of global food, heightening crisis? More like 7%

Opinion  Meet the Gen Zers with a plan to take the fight to MAGA country

Opinion  The country has come apart. Rural America has a cure.

Does your yard have a ‘hellstrip’? Native plants could help.

A nuisance to some, D.C. pickleballers say they just want more space: The city has responded to surging demand by dedicating more court space; the pickleball lobby secured $750,000 this budget cycle to transform four courts

New D.C. police chief confronts command staff after violent weekend: Pamela A. Smith told commanders at a recent meeting that she wanted more captains and lieutenants away from their desks and in the streets, according to those in attendance

Reading archive 2023-08-08

Patients grapple with side effects of popular weight-loss drugs

What we know about the Montgomery Riverfront brawl

Opinion  Look at a moth — and find a wonder that’s been waiting all along

The future of East Coast wind power could ride on this Jersey beach town: Many in Ocean City, N.J., oppose a major wind farm to be built off its shores, and they hope to create a template for blocking similar projects on the East Coast - "But in linking East Coast whale deaths to wind project surveys, these groups contradict what leading marine mammal scientists have concluded. 'At this point, there is no scientific evidence that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales,' the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement."

Is it cheaper to refuel your EV battery or gas tank? We did the math in all 50 states.

In D.C.-paid housing, he tried to stay sober as drug dealers took hold: The city let buildings fill with people grappling with mental illness and addiction, leaving the landlord and neighbors to figure it out

D.C. Democrats sue to block ranked-choice voting ballot measure

American University president to step down after the coming school year: Sylvia M. Burwell came to AU in 2017 after serving in the Obama administration

Reading archive 2023-07-10

‘This is a death sentence for me’: Florida Republican women say they will switch parties after DeSantis approves alimony law: 'My fears are that they can take you back to court, and I don’t have the money for an attorney.'

New tunnel, Georgetown station among Metro’s expansion proposals: The transit agency is considering six options to alleviate projected crowding and capacity limits that are expected to plague the Blue, Orange and Silver lines

Saving the next P-22 starts with a million ‘hyperlocal’ seeds and a bare-bones nursery

Wild gardens are ‘puritanical nonsense’, say TV gardeners

Honey Bees in North America: Why Getting a Hive Won't "Save the Bees"

TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE FIREFLY: If your habitat sparkles, congratulations! You’re doing something right. If it doesn’t light up with insects twinkling their way through the night, read on to learn how to welcome firefly friends.

Reading archive 2023-06-15

After No Mow May, Should You Do a Slow Mow Summer?: No Mow May is a start, but there’s much more you can do to help pollinators.

Reading archive 2023-06-05

U.S. military releases video of near-collision with Chinese destroyer

Electric vehicles appeal to conservative buyers sick of gas guzzlers: A few red counties in Texas are experiencing higher-than-average EV growth, as drivers tire of gas prices and chase the latest tech

New research finds surprising science behind bumble bee superfood - "It's the spines. This is the conclusion of two new papers, led by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, showing that the spiny pollen from plants in the sunflower family (Asteraceae) both reduces infection of a common bee parasite by 81-94% and markedly increases the production of queen bumble bees."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tests the conspiratorial appetite of Democrats: One of the most famous living descendants of the most famous American political dynasty shows early strength against Biden in polls - "Kennedy’s invitation to speak at a golf club in Indianapolis came from the First Principles Forum, a group founded to seek a 'return to civil discourse,' according to the program. Previous speakers have included conservative podcasters Matt Walsh, who refers to himself as a 'theocratic fascist' on Twitter; Candace Owens, the founder of a group aimed at helping Blacks 'escape from the Democratic plantation'; and Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing group Turning Point USA. ...

"As he spoke, Kennedy offered a unified narrative of American deception, connecting covid and the Bay of Pigs, the collapse of mom-and-pop stores and federal investment in mind-control research. The common theme was a quest for profit at the expense of the middle class, driven by the corruption of intelligence and regulatory agencies. 

"The pandemic, he argued, originated at a U.S.-funded lab in China — a point of disagreement within the U.S. government — in a program he suggested was possible because of the 2001 Patriot Act, which he then claimed passed only after two holdout Democratic senators, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Tom Daschle of South Dakota, were threatened with death." [editor's note: the man is unwell]

I Let My Lawn Grow for No Mow May—Here’s What Happened: Last spring, I much-needed break from lawn upkeep, and an up-close view of nature I might not otherwise have seen. Here's why I'm doing No Mow May again this year.

Taming the Wild

Transform your yard into an owl kingdom: Whooo doesn't love owls?

Robot Passes Turing Test for Polyculture Gardening: UC Berkeley’s AlphaGarden cares for plants better than a professional human

Reading archive 2023-05-19

Florida teacher investigated for showing Disney movie with gay main character

US signals to allies it won’t block their export of F-16 jets to Ukraine

The unexpected downside of raising bees in your backyard - "'The honeybee has been promoted as the symbol of helping the environment and biodiversity, and really it’s not that,' says Gail MacInnis, a former postdoctoral researcher at Concordia University in Montreal and the study’s lead author. 'You would never start keeping chickens to help save wild bird species.'"

Zelensky, on surprise Saudi visit, seeks Arab League support in war

Opinion  Marjorie Taylor Greene’s impeachment stunt wrecks a big MAGA myth - "The idea that our border is under perpetual siege isn’t intended as an empirical declaration about a concrete challenge facing the country. Rather, it’s a kind of animating myth, one manufactured to mobilize political energy. In this, it’s essential to MAGA’s identity."

D.C. police officer arrested, accused of leaking info to Proud Boys leader: Lt. Shane Lamond told Henry “Enrique” Tarrio that police had a warrant out for him in advance of his arrest in the burning of a Black Lives Matter flag, prosecutors say

The short life of Baby Milo - "The state’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of gestation has an exception for fatal fetal abnormalities. But as long as their baby’s heart kept beating, the Dorberts say, doctors would not honor their request to terminate the pregnancy. The doctors would not say how they reached their decision, but the new law carries severe penalties, including prison time, for medical practitioners who run afoul of it. The hospital system declined to discuss the case. ...

"The day before Milo was born, the Dorberts sat down with their son Kaiden to explain that the baby’s body had stopped working and that he would not come home. Instead, someday, they told Kaiden, they would all meet as angels. The 4-year-old burst into tears, telling them that he did not want to be an angel. ...

"He never cried or tried to nurse or even opened his eyes, investing every ounce of energy in intermittent gasps for air. “That was the beginning of the end,” Rogell said, recalling the persistent gulps that he thought at first were hiccups but turned out to be his grandson’s labored efforts to inhale."

Fox News Stoked Outrage Over Migrants Displacing Homeless Vets. It Was a Hoax.: Fox News and the rest of right-wing media went wild for a week over a now-debunked story about New York hotels booting homeless vets to accommodate asylum seekers. - "The manager of the hotel also told Mid-Hudson News that no veterans were ever at the hotel, let alone kicked out of Crossroads. No other guests had been displaced either, as the hotel had not been booked to capacity despite housing a group of migrants. ...

"The story got even wilder on Friday, however, when Mid-Hudson News further reported that Toney-Finch had recruited a group of homeless men from a nearby shelter to pretend they were the military veterans that had been displaced by migrants."

Homeless men recruited for veteran hotel scam

Reading archive 2023-05-14

Soft Landings Diverse Native Plantings Under Keystone Trees

If You Stop Mowing This May, Will Your Lawn Turn Into a Meadow?: Not necessarily. Two new books offer some advice on what to expect when you decide to leave your lawn behind.

Neighbors Fight Over No Mow May: ‘What in the World Is Happening in This Place?’: Some say a break from grass cutting helps nature —others abhor the ‘shaggy raggy’ look - "Dr. Tallamy sees little logic in letting lawns grow longer for a few weeks. If people simply let their grass grow for a month and then revert to a clipped green monoculture, they are teasing pollinators with short-term snacks followed by starvation, he said. A nonprofit he co-founded, Homegrown National Park, urges homeowners to reduce space devoted to regularly clipped grass, add native plants and remove invasive ones."

Phosphorus Saved Our Way of Life—and Now Threatens to End: It Fertilizers filled with the nutrient boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today, they’re creating vast and growing dead zones in our lakes and seas. - "In a toxic algae bloom, tiny photosynthetic organisms reproduce explosively, then throw off chemicals that, in addition to nausea, can cause brain and liver damage. And, when the algae die en masse, a fresh hell ensues. Their decomposition sucks oxygen out of the water, creating aquatic dead zones where almost nothing can survive. ...

"In terms of CO2 emissions, corn-based biofuels are probably worse than gasoline; getting rid of them would thus benefit both the climate and the country’s waterways."

The composition of British bird communities is associated with long-term garden bird feeding

Bird Feeders Are Good for Some Species—But Possibly Bad for Others: Studies of bird feeding in the U.K. raise concerns about the ecological impacts of provisioning our feathered friends - "As feeding has ramped up over the past 25 years, they wrote, populations of adaptable and aggressive generalists—Great Tits, Eurasian Nuthatches and invasive Ring-necked Parakeets—have skyrocketed by 40 percent, 83 percent and 1,480 percent, respectively. Meanwhile woodland species that avoid feeders, such as the Wood Warbler and Marsh Tit, have suffered sharp declines. Willow Tits increasingly lose nest holes to feeder-using Blue Tits and lose hatchlings to hungry Great Spotted Woodpeckers, another feeder-using species whose numbers have jumped by almost 150 percent in the past 25 years. U.K. Willow Tit populations have crashed by 87 percent in the same time period. In essence, the researchers argue, the commercial feeding industry in the U.K. seems to have helped aggressive generalists take over entire bird communities and spill out from gardens into unprovisioned wildernesses."

Should we let nature feed the birds?: Exploring the problems posed by bird feeders

Her tiny native plant habitat garden is flourishing. And she didn’t even need a yard

Decline in wild bee species richness associated with honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) abundance in an urban ecosystem - "Although wild bee populations can fluctuate largely in space and time, our analyses of the bee and floral community in 2020, and the comparison to the bee community in 2013, strongly suggests a negative relationship between high-density urban beekeeping and wild bee richness."

7 doomsday scenarios if the U.S. crashes through the debt ceiling: Economists warn of worst-case outcomes should Congress fail to raise the federal borrowing limit by the “X-date” deadline

After red-state shootings, gun-control advocates see glimmers of change - "Between 2020 and 2022, death rates from firearms in states with GOP-controlled legislatures outpaced rates in blue states, according to a Post analysis of CDC data, including about a 50 percent higher rate of deaths from firearm assaults and around a 35 percent higher rate of mass killings."

Opinion  11 questions I wish Trump had been asked at the CNN town hall

Football bonded them. Its violence tore them apart.: They were roommates and teammates at Harvard, bound by their love of football and each other. Then the game -- and the debate over its safety -- took its toll. [ed. note: THE DEAD EX-PLAYER'S SON PLAYS FOOTBALL WITH THE WIFE'S BLESSING EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW THE DEPRESSION AND ALCOHOLISM ARE FROM CTE]

How a rural Arkansas prosecutor advocated for her pedophile uncle: One of Barry Walker’s victims, now 22, blamed those close to Walker for not stopping him before he sexually abused more than 30 girls. “They failed us,” she told NBC News.

Reading archive 2023-04-19

4 takeaways from the Dominion v. Fox settlement

China readies supersonic spy drone unit, leaked document says: China’s cutting-edge drone could give it a surveillance advantage during a possible military confrontation over Taiwan

A contest encouraged children to hunt feral cats — until the backlash

30 years later, Waco siege fascinates, infuriates new generations: Young Americans today learn of the 1993 standoff through pop culture and social media, often with an anti-government undertone

Fox News still faces $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic

Bees Without Borders: Sustainability Program Unites Route One Communities to Build a Pathway for Pollinators

Amazon HQ2 was thought up pre-pandemic. But the world is hybrid now.: As the tech company requests its first subsidies from Virginia, construction delays and a slow return to the office are dimming the economic boost promised by its new headquarters

A stunning gem, to honor a slain geologist, unveiled at Smithsonian: Discoverer of a beautiful green mineral was slain in Kenya by robbers 14 years ago

Reading archive 2023-03-04

Meet Mary Reynolds, the plant whisperer who dared to be wild

First-ever California offshore wind auction surpasses $757 million in bids

Haley heckled as Trump movement asserts its dominance at shrunken CPAC: The dust-up showed the risks of taking the primary fight to what has clearly become Trump’s home turf

Nikki Haley’s bogus claims about foreign aid dollars - "Instead, she suggests that foreign aid goes directly to governments, especially ones with policies that are at odds with the interests of the United States. That’s wrong. The dirty little secret of foreign aid is that most of it never leaves the United States — and it goes right into the pockets of U.S. companies. Some countries receive direct grants of aid, but those are certainly not 'enemies.'"

‘15-minute city’ planning is on the rise, experts say. Here’s what to know.

Colombia tries a new solution for Pablo Escobar’s cocaine hippos

Why Wildlife Gardeners Need to Become Garden Designers ASAP

Spring Clean Up Doesn't Start at 50 Degrees

Reading archive 2022-12-16

The collapse of insects The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble, with recent research suggesting insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate. - "'Insects are the food that make all the birds and make all the fish,' said Wagner, who works at the University of Connecticut. 'They’re the fabric tethering together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet.'

...

"There are about the same number of ladybug species as mammal species."

What to Do After a Bicycle Crash in Washington DC

Scientists genetically modify a tobacco plant to produce COCAINE in its leaves

Something funny is going on here. Mum’s the Word.

Trump's Trading Card Grift is Worse than You Think: Shell companies, rubbing elbows with international criminals, and worse in his scam of scams

The World’s Largest Tree Is Ready for Its Close-Up: Friends of Pando, a nonprofit, is in the process of creating the largest image ever recorded of this single aspen clone in Utah

Wary of China, Japan unveils sweeping new national security strategy

‘Wiped out’: War in Ukraine has decimated a once feared Russian brigade: The bloody fate of the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade is emblematic of Vladimir Putin’s derailed invasion plans

Tesla knew its Model S battery had a design flaw that could lead to leaks and, ultimately, fires starting in 2012. It sold the car anyway.

Reading archive 2022-11-08

an eco-focused fall cleanup, with native plant trust’s uli lorimer

Why experts say you shouldn't bag your leaves this fall

Leave the Leaves: Winter Habitat Protection

Not Your Childhood Water Cycle: The USGS just debuted a complete remaking of the water cycle diagram—with humans as headliners.

Time Travel in Britain’s Lost Rainforests - "Regenerative forester John Williamson earns his living in the ancient woodlands of the UK’s Teign Valley. As he coppices trees and makes charcoal on lands that have been carefully tended by generations of people for thousands of years, he comes to exist within a deeper understanding of time—one guided by the 400-year cycles of England’s last remaining rainforests."

Cities Need More Native Bees—Lots and Lots of Adorable Bees: These pollinators can help urban gardens grow. That will be critical for cooling cities as the planet warms.

If bumblebees can play, does it mean they have feelings? This study suggests yes