Reading archive 2023-12-10

Opinion  Actually, people don’t hate the media as much as you think

Opinion  Here’s a realistic path to protecting the Amazon rainforest

Internet sleuths identify lost ‘X-Files’ song, solving 25-year mystery: ‘Staring at the Stars’ was an original country song written at the request of producers, fans discovered

They watched their husbands win the Heisman – then lost them to CTE: For years, Heisman weekend was a chance to remember their husband’s glory. Now it’s a reminder of a sport’s violent toll.

Some states spurn migrants. The Rust Belt wants them. - "In recent months, communities including Detroit; Dayton, Ohio; and Erie, Pa. — all places experiencing population loss — have been working with outside experts on how to transform city services to meet the needs of immigrants. One city, Topeka, Kan., is being even more aggressive, offering legal migrants up to $15,000 to move there."

Ukraine’s Zelensky appears increasingly embattled as U.S. backing wavers

The “Sickening” Story of the Sarah Lawrence Sex Cult: Director Zach Heinzerling on Hulu’s three-part docuseries Stolen Youth, which features firsthand footage and audio of Larry Ray and his young followers: “Each video seemed more horrible than the next.”

What the federal probe into antisemitism, Islamophobia at schools is about

The call of Tokitae: After half a century in a tank, a beloved orca was about to be freed. Then her life ended, and a moment of reckoning began. - "In the water near Tokitae’s pectoral fin, Davis pressed her hand flat against the orca’s side, the place where Davis had always loved to feel that massive heart pumping against her palm. She felt it beat for the last time. In the moment that followed, a low roll of thunder echoed through the stadium — 'as if the sky received her,' she would recall later — and a soft rain began to fall."

Update: Orca abandons body of her dead calf after a heartbreaking, weeks-long journey [ed. note: from five years ago]

Paris Hilton vs. the Crunchy Tradwives: A modern parenting story: There’s nothing unnatural about being a nervous parent who doesn’t know what they’re doing

How Democratic and GOP Senate veterans stopped Tuberville’s military holds: Military veterans from both parties spent months working to find a solution, frustrated over the blockade and its impact on military families

Opinion  The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it

Reading archive 2022-08-30

Opinion  We made thousands on this website. But we’re still happy it’s shutting down.

Opinion  Why my child and I traded Arizona for a more tolerant New York City

Opinion  In Alabama, a new battle brews over women’s birthing rights

How experts are trying to save wood turtles in the D.C. region: The reptiles were nearly wiped out, and researchers are working to track and protect them

D.C. Council’s business measures could be factor in at-large race

A decade after Fukushima disaster, foes of nuclear power reconsider

Pentagon expands use of seas to send weapons to Ukraine

Truth Social faces financial peril as worry about Trump’s future grows: Payment disputes and a dwindling audience have fueled doubts about the former president’s Twitter clone

American University reaches tentative agreement with striking workers: Earlier in the day, many first-year students walked out of convocation to show support for staff

Inside the ‘wild, wild west’ of Virginia’s marijuana market: THC-infused pies, Tupperwares of bud: Businesses are making it work in the unregulated gray market

Ukraine lures Russian missiles with decoys of U.S. rocket system

Gene editing could revive a nearly lost tree. Not everyone is on board.: Saving the American chestnut could restore a piece of history, resurrect a lost ecosystem and combat climate change. But critics say it would come at a cost. - "At Purdue University, researchers have attempted to tweak the genes of ash to survive the emerald ash borer, a beetle from Asia that has destroyed tens of millions of trees across 30 states since first identified in Michigan in 2002."

Their ancestors came to America. After Dobbs, they want out.: The curtailing of abortion rights and general political turmoil have made many in the U.S. see dual citizenship as an escape hatch

A melting glacier, an imperiled city and one farmer’s fight for climate justice: A Peruvian farmer is suing one of Europe’s biggest emitters. The case could set a precedent for holding polluters accountable for harm to the planet. 

THE AMAZON, UNDONE: A FAILURE OF ENFORCEMENT: Deforesters are plundering the Amazon. Brazil is letting them get away with it. - "The violent and lawless erasure of the Amazon is perhaps the world’s greatest environmental crime story. Scientists warn that the forest, seen as vital to averting catastrophic global warming, is at a tipping point. But in Brazil, home to about 60 percent of the Amazon, nearly one-fifth has already been destroyed. And virtually no one, law enforcement officials say, has been held accountable."

Reading archive 2022-05-08

Clarence Thomas says he worries respect for institutions is eroding

Meat grown from fungus? It could save the world’s forests.: A study in Nature suggests that eating meat made from microbes could stave off half the world’s deforestation — but at a certain point, the land-saving effect is diminished

Opinion  Kevin McCarthy is a shining symbol of democratic decay - "Let’s take a moment from the lightning pace of the news cycle to reflect on a disturbing fact of American life: The likely next speaker of the House of Representatives is a liar, a hypocrite and an enabler of democratic decay.

"Trump’s main moral damage to the country is not his incitement of the MAGA faithful. It is his extraordinary talent for turning regular GOP pols into hollow men."

Opinion  Russia’s top propagandist in Latin America has a change of heart

Reading archive 2022-05-04

In Ukrainian villages, whispers of collaboration with the Russians: Rumors about traitors run rife as invading forces have seemed to know in advance which residents have guns and which are said to be wealthy

THE AMAZON, UNDONE: DEVOURING THE RAINFOREST - "Cattle are not tracked individually in Brazil, as they are in neighboring Argentina and in Europe. All that ranchers with embargoed land have to do is ship their cattle to properties with clean environmental records. Once the animals reach a ranch that doesn’t have a history of deforestation, they are effectively born again — cleansed and ready to be sold to producers such as JBS for slaughter and shipment.

...

"Every time cattle are moved in the country, a shipment log called a 'Guide of Animal Transport' is created. The purpose of the document is sanitary: to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and ensure proper cattle vaccinations. But those records, current and former government officials say, can be used to create a cattle-tracking tool and illuminate even the murkiest sections of the supply chain.

"Researchers have done it. But not the federal government."

Reading archive 2022-03-07

Amid the death and rubble, Ukrainian teams hunt for evidence of possible war crimes

Biden administration moves to cut smog-forming pollution from heavy trucks: The Environmental Protection Agency proposes curbing nitrogen oxide and carbon pollution amid an online shopping boom, but some environmentalists call for stricter limits

Satellite images show the Amazon rainforest is hurtling toward a ‘tipping point’: More than half of the rainforest could turn into savanna — threatening wildlife, shifting weather patterns and fueling climate change