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China’s New 373 MPH Bullet Train Is Now the World’s Fastest Land Vehicle
It took a couple years, but the world’s new fastest train has finally pulled into the station. China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation unveiled the production version of its maglev bullet train in Qingdao on Tuesday, reports Reuters. State media says the train has a top speed of 373 mph, or close to half the speed of sound (767.29 mph).
That speed doesn’t just make it the fastest train in the world, it makes it the fastest land vehicle period. The bullet train is able to travel at such high speeds because of magnetic levitation. The technology uses electro-magnetic force to levitate the body of the vehicle less than two inches from the rails and propel it forward along the tracks. By riding on a cushion of air, friction is drastically reduced, allowing it to travel faster than traditional trains where wheels and rails are constantly in contact. Although China has made use of the technology for a couple decades now, it’s only ever been used at very limited scale.
China Railway says its bullet train will drastically help cut down on travel time. At top speed, the vehicle will be able to complete the 754-mile trip between Beijing and Shanghai in just two-and-a-half hours…
Statue of Black Educator Replaces Confederate General in U.S. Capitol
Mary McLeod Bethune on Wednesday became the first Black American to be represented with a statue in National Statuary Hall, a central room of the United States Capitol, honored for her work championing education and civil rights.
Bethune, whose statue replaces one of a Confederate general, became an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and an advocate for Black Americans from the schoolhouse to the White House. The school she founded with $1.50 eventually became Bethune-Cookman University, a historically Black university in Daytona Beach, Fla. […]
The House voted last year to remove statues honoring Confederate leaders and other white supremacists from display at the Capitol.
California opens the door to suing gun makers. Here’s what the new law does
Three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down tough state controls on concealed weapon licenses, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law an effort to limit the availability of “abnormally dangerous” guns in the state.
The law, AB 1594 by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), requires manufacturers, distributors and dealers of guns and ammunition to abide by new state standards for the safety, marketing and sale of their products. Patterned after a similar law in New York, the measure empowers the state, local governments and individuals harmed by gun violence to sue companies that violate those standards. […]
The measure could erect a barrier to at least some types of assault weapons in the state, as well as pressuring manufacturers and dealers to rein in illicit sales and promote safer products. But it is sure to be challenged in court by gun-rights advocates, who say it would lead manufacturers to stop doing business in California.
Experts rue simple steps not taken before latest COVID surge
With new omicron variants again driving COVID-19 hospital admissions and deaths higher in recent weeks, states and cities are rethinking their responses and the White House is stepping up efforts to alert the public.
Some experts said the warnings are too little, too late.
The highly transmissible BA.5 variant now accounts for 65% of cases with its cousin BA.4 contributing another 16%. The variants have shown a remarkable ability to get around the protection offered by infection and vaccination.
“It’s well past the time when the warning could have been put out there,” said Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, who has has called BA.5 “the worst variant yet.”
Texas legislator confirms Uvalde officer seen on his phone in surveillance video is slain teacher’s husband
A Uvalde CISD officer seen looking at his phone in the surveillance video of the police response during the Robb Elementary School shooting has sparked outrage. However, according to one Texas legislator, it’s not what it looks like.
According to State Rep. Joe Moody, the officer who is seen in the newly-released surveillance video from inside of the school is Ruben Ruiz, the husband of Eva Mireles, one of two teachers who died in the shooting. […]
Mireles had called her husband from inside her classroom, saying she “had been shot and was dying” after the gunman’s attack.
Rising sea levels pose an existential threat to Galveston. Here’s how islanders are grappling with it.
[…] Water levels are expected to rise about a foot-and-a-half here in [Galveston] the next 30 years, one of the highest rates of increase in the country, according to scientists who work for the federal government. The estimates make clear how vulnerable the barrier island is. […]
Climate change, spurred by the burning of fossil fuels, is causing the water to rise. Ice sheets and glaciers are melting, and water molecules themselves are expanding. The situation is worse here because the land is also prone to sinking when water and oil and gas are pumped from the ground. […]
Three prominent figures are taking unique approaches in preparation for a frightening reality. Galveston’s mayor is pursuing costly engineering projects to amp up the city’s drainage. Jamaica Beach’s mayor is leaning on individual preparedness. An activist is furiously trying to preserve what open land is left, making room for wetlands to grow inland.
Texans asked to conserve energy to protect the power grid for the second time in a week
For the second time this week, the state’s power grid operator is asking Texans to turn up their thermostats to 78 degrees and to avoid using large appliances as it expects record-high demand for power amid ongoing scorching temperatures. It is asking for conservation from 2 to 9 p.m. Wednesday. […]
The call for conservation came because of higher-than-expected outages at coal and natural gas-fired power plants, as well as low winds, as demand continues to rise because of higher-than-normal temperatures. […]
Climate change has made Texas heat both hotter and longer lasting. The average daily minimum and maximum temperatures in Texas have both increased by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 125 years. The state just saw its hottest December on record since 1889.
Oregon mosquitoes take a near record-setting bite out of summer
Climate change is making the Pacific Northwest the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes and so far, it’s created the largest outbreak in more than a decade in Multnomah County.
After the wettest spring in 81 years followed by warm summer temperatures, Multnomah County is seeing tens of thousands more mosquitoes – the most since 2010. […]
As the burning of fossil fuels continues and the climate gets warmer, the region will start to experience wetter springs and hotter and drier summers. That means more water in natural areas and low-level flooding along rivers — perfect for mosquitos.
Arrest made in rape of Ohio girl that led to Indiana abortion drawing international attention
A Columbus man has been charged with impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl, whose travel to Indiana to seek an abortion led to international attention following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade and activation of Ohio's abortion law.
Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment on Columbus' Northwest Side, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He's since been charged with rape, a felony of the first degree in Ohio.
Rape suspect’s arrest prompts criticism of Republicans like AG Dave Yost who questioned story of 10-year-old who left Ohio to get an abortion
On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost publicly questioned the existence of a 10-year-old rape victim who had left the state for an abortion. Yost, a former journalist, told FoxNews his office hadn’t heard “a whisper, anywhere” about the case from prosecutors and police in Ohio, and the state’s crime lab hadn’t been called upon to analyze evidence.
Yost took a different tack Wednesday after police announced the arrest of a 27-year-old Columbus man accused of impregnating the girl whose case became the focus of national interest as states, including Ohio, impose stringent abortion restrictions in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows them to do so. […]
The Democratic Attorneys General Association released a statement after the arrest that accused Yost of spreading “lies” about the 10-year-old girl, and the Democratic Party’s candidate for attorney general, State Rep. Jeff Crossman of Parma, issued a statement that said Yost should be “ashamed – not only for calling a 10-year-old rape victim a liar but for helping to create the circumstances that prevented her from getting the critical healthcare she needed in the first place.”
An Ohio city struggles to make sense of another fatal police shooting of a Black man
It was just after 1 a.m. on May 28 when the future that Jayland Walker was planning shattered in an instant. His fiancée, Jaymeisha Beasley, was traveling with family outside Cincinnati when they were hit by a tractor-trailer. Beasley wasn't wearing a seatbelt, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and was thrown from the van onto the interstate. Within moments, she was struck by a passing vehicle, leaving her with fatal injuries. A hit and run. She was 27.
For those who knew Walker, the next 30 days are hard to make sense of. The person they remember loved sports — wrestling most of all — and was quiet and kind. He was a fiancé, son, brother and friend who knew how to make people laugh. And he was never one for trouble, they say.
Which is what makes the final moments of his life all the more painful and confounding. As friends and family gathered Wednesday for Walker's funeral, many are struggling to understand what may have caused him to flee police on June 27 during what should have been a routine traffic stop. They don't understand why a 25-year-old with no criminal record was shot dozens of times by officers in Akron, Ohio, leaving him with more than 60 gunshot wounds. And they don't understand why after years of nationwide protests over racial injustice, young Black men like Walker continue to be killed by police at a rate that is more than twice as high as that of white Americans.
Consumer prices rise again, jumping to 40-year high over past month
Consumer prices increased 1.3% last month from the month before -- adding to the year-over-year increase of 9.1% -- fueling continuing fears about unabated inflation, according to new Labor Department data released Wednesday.
The consumer price index report said the hikes, fueled by stubbornly high energy prices, continued to remain at a 40-year high. The 1.3% price increase in June was the largest monthly jump this year.
"While today's headline inflation reading is unacceptably high, it is also out-of-date," President Joe Biden said in a statement after the report was published.
"Energy alone comprised nearly half of the monthly increase in inflation. Today's data does not reflect the full impact of nearly 30 days of decreases in gas prices, that have reduced the price at the pump by about 40 cents since mid-June," Biden said.
Protesters storm Sri Lanka's prime minister's office, as president flees country without resigning
Sri Lanka's political and economic crisis escalated as protesters stormed the prime minister's office on Wednesday, demanding the country's leaders step down after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives without resigning.
Rajapaksa had been expected to formally resign Wednesday but instead left the crisis-hit nation and appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as its acting leader, citing a section of the constitution that allows a prime minister to "discharge the powers, duties and functions of the office of president" when the president is ill or "absent" from Sri Lanka.
Wickremesinghe was also due to formally resign "to make way for an all-party government."
The lack of resignations further enraged protesters, who want both leaders to vacate their roles as the country's 22 million people struggle to buy basic goods, fuel and medicine.
Sri Lanka PM tells military to do whatever necessary to restore order
Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has told the military to do "whatever is necessary to restore order" after protesters stormed his office on Wednesday.
Mr Wickremesinghe has been appointed acting president by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who has fled the country. But the decision to leave him in charge triggered further protests demanding that the prime minister must also go.
Sri Lanka has been suffering from its worst economic crisis in decades. Many blame the Rajapaksa administration for the crisis and see Mr Wickremesinghe, who became prime minister in May, as part of the problem.
Ukraine, Russia achieve ‘some progress’ in grain blockade negotiations
Delegations from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey met with United Nations representatives in Istanbul on July 13 for the first time to discuss the safe export of grain, as Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports persists and fears of a global food crisis continue to mount.
After much anticipation, Turkey’s Defense Ministry announced the four-way meeting lasted an hour and a half, without providing concrete details on any outcome of the negotiations.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that there has been “some progress” in the negotiations.
Ukraine war to be 'decided on the battlefield', NATO official says
NATO's deputy secretary-general cast doubt on the possibility that a diplomatic solution would be found to the war in Ukraine in an interview with Euronews Romania.
"Probably, the destination and the finality of the war will be decided on the battlefield," said Mircea Geoană.
"The political conditions between the two sides are too far apart today for us to see political conditions for a diplomatic solution, for the time being. So, more war, unfortunately, more destruction."
Geoană added however that they hope eventually the "conditions will be met for a political solution to be identified."
Russia: Tens of thousands flee 'cold civil war'
Russians who disagree with Kremlin policy are fleeing the country. More than 100,000 are thought to have left since the start of the war in Ukraine. Those who stay risk losing their jobs — and their freedom.
This may be the last time in her professional life that Moscow math teacher Tatiana Chervenko corrects homework before the summer vacation. […]
When Russia launched its war on Ukraine, hundreds of Russians took to the streets. Tatiana Chervenko was one of them. Even though it was a peaceful protest, she was arrested, and fined the equivalent of about €300 (ca. $300). Afterward, the school principal invited her in for a face-to-face talk about her political views. "We know what you did. This is prohibited," the principal told her.
Tatiana Chervenko is not alone. All over Russia, state employees are being intimidated. They are told that anyone who is against the war is against the state — and must voluntarily resign. […]
It is estimated that more than 100,000 Russian professionals have already left their homeland, fearing persecution for their criticism of the Kremlin.
Western sanctions on Russia: How well are they actually working?
One question is hovering over the international political scene: are the sanctions imposed on Russia by Western democracies for the invasion of Ukraine working? […]
The Russian economy is undergoing a clear contraction: the annual inflation rate hovered around 17% in May; in the same month car production was down by 97%, compared to the previous year. Reserves of the Russian Federation in foreign currencies worth around $300 billion are blocked in accounts under Western jurisdictions. […]
But at the same time, Russia is reaping extraordinary profits from the sale of fossil fuels, thanks to the high prices and to increased purchases from China and India. It has managed to stabilize its currency after initial setbacks, avoiding a collapse of the financial system. […]
In the long term, the impact of sanctions will depend on how soon Russia manages to establish new routes with non-aligned countries, and whether China or India will be willing to support a partner in need by risking secondary sanctions, which is unlikely, according to Maria Shagina, a researcher on economic sanctions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Iranian drones could boost Russian battlefield capabilities in Ukraine, analysts say
Iranian drones could provide Russia with a capability it underfunded for years and support its army’s artillery strikes against Ukraine if used effectively, analysts said Tuesday.
Declassified intelligence says Iran is preparing to train Russian forces on drone warfare and provide them with “several hundred” unmanned aerial vehicles for use in Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Monday.
The announcement comes before a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tehran next week, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced Tuesday.
Iran’s drones are among the most advanced in the world after decades of development and experience in proxy wars in the Middle East, experts and U.S. military officials have said.
The True Costs of Biden’s Saudi Visit
U.S. President Joe Biden is visiting Saudi Arabia, where, as part of a meeting with King Salman, he is expected to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, the man who ordered the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden laid out the objectives for his trip to the Middle East, which includes a stop in Israel and a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in The Washington Post on Saturday. He described a mixture of hard-core national interests—countering Russian aggression and Chinese competition—with a dash of human rights aptly presented in the middle of the text.
The rhetorical gymnastics of Biden’s essay notwithstanding, his planned trip will not only undermine the pursuit of justice for Khashoggi; it will also reinforce the view that the United States only selectively stands up for human rights. Even as it seeks to unite the world in opposition to Russia’s act of aggression in Ukraine, Washington is giving favorable treatment to countries responsible for massive human rights violations. Although such inconsistency may seem like standard fare in foreign policy, its consequences for Biden’s Middle East trip are especially significant: just when the international order is under threat, Biden’s about-face on Saudi Arabia will undermine his administration’s goal of building a global consensus condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine and defending a rules-based order.
Black church leaders launch large Georgia voting rights group
Church leaders representing over 1,000 Black congregations in Georgia created a voting rights organization Wednesday called Faith Works, which will focus on voter turnout and education in response to the state’s voting laws. […]
“We are rising together because our democracy has come under attack from within — and like generations before us, this moment in history and our faith are calling for us to act,” said Bishop Reginald Jackson, who leads more than 500 African Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia.
Jackson said Faith Works will fight barriers to voting, including parts of Georgia’s voting law passed last year, Senate Bill 202. The law limited absentee ballot drop boxes, required additional ID for absentee voting, allowed state takeovers of county election boards and banned handing out food and water to voters waiting in line.
House Jan. 6 committee is having conversations with Justice Department
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been having conversations with the Justice Department about the phony elector scheme put forward by … Donald Trump's allies, committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson said Wednesday.
Thompson confirmed a day earlier the committee had been having discussions with the Justice Department. He clarified on Wednesday that those conversations are about a scheme allegedly cooked up by Trump's allies to put forward alternate electors supporting him in seven battleground states that President Joe Biden won.
"The only issue that we've engaged them on is the list of the fraudulent electors that were submitted," Thompson told reporters. "That's the first tranche that we've been talking to them about."
Committee: Rep. Harris attended White House meeting to plan for Jan. 6
Rep. Andy Harris (Md.) was among at least 10 House Republicans who attended a December 2020 White House meeting with … Donald Trump to discuss actions that could be taken to keep Trump in power on Jan. 6, 2021, the committee investigating the attack on the Capitol revealed in its latest hearing.
Harris’s attendance indicates he was more intimately involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results than previously known, making him one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress as [Trump] desperately tried to cling to power…
“In the weeks after the election, the White House coordinated closely with President Trump’s allies in Congress to disseminate his false claims and to encourage members of the public to fight the outcome on January 6,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) […]
Murphy said requests for pardons came from [Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)] and “other members of Congress who attended this meeting.”
Leaked Audio: Before Election Day, Bannon Said Trump Planned to Falsely Claim Victory
On the evening of October 31, 2020, Steve Bannon told a group of associates that … Donald Trump had a plan to declare victory on election night—even if he was losing. Trump knew that the slow counting of Democratic-leaning mail-in ballots meant the returns would show early leads for him in key states. His “strategy” was to use this fact to assert that he had won, while claiming that the inevitable shifts in vote totals toward Joe Biden must be the result of fraud, Bannon explained.
“What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner,” Bannon, laughing, told the group, according to audio of the meeting obtained by Mother Jones. “He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”
“As it sits here today,” Bannon said later in the conversation, describing a scenario in which Trump held an early lead in key swing states, “at 10 or 11 o’clock Trump’s gonna walk in the Oval, tweet out, ‘I’m the winner. Game over. Suck on that.'”
Graham seeks to quash grand jury subpoena in Trump Georgia probe
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is asking a federal court to quash a grand jury subpoena for his testimony in the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation into … Trump’s efforts to undermine Georgia’s election results.
Graham intends to ask a federal judge to quash the subpoena on the grounds that he cannot be compelled to testify because his conversations with state officials were part of his official conduct as a legislator, according to copies of the filings provided to The Hill by Graham’s lawyers.
“Senator Graham’s contact with Georgia officials referenced in the Certificate falls within the ‘legislative sphere’ because it was to gather information relevant to his oversight responsibilities as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and given his obligations under the Electoral Count Act of 1887,” the filing reads.
With Trump’s role on Jan. 6 becoming clearer, and potentially criminal, GOP voters are starting to look at different options
[…] In public testimony, the evidence is mounting against Trump.
While Attorney General Merrick Garland has previously said he remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, legally accountable, it is also true that no former U.S. president has ever been criminally charged.
The Department of Justice rarely goes after politicians and, instead, according to former Attorney General Bill Barr, sticks to “meat and potatoes” crimes.
These include witness tampering, perjury and obstruction of justice. […]
There are emerging signs that the hearings are damaging Trump’s political future, making him a less attractive GOP presidential nominee for 2024.
This is especially in light of the ascendance of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose star is rising as Trump’s falls. Several polls show that DeSantis is a credible substitute for Trump among his supporters.
Why They Still Support Trump
[…] Almost all of Trump’s supporters want to cast their gaze elsewhere—on some other issue, on some other hearing, on some other controversy. They’ll do anything to keep from having to confront the reality of what happened on January 6. What you’re very unlikely to see, except in the rarest of cases, is genuine self-reflection or soul-searching, regret or remorse, feelings of embarrassment and shame.
Trump supporters have spent much of the past half dozen years defending their man; their political and cultural identity has become fused with his. Some of them may have started out as lukewarm allies, but over time their support became less qualified and more enthusiastic. The unusual intensity of the Trump years increased their bond to him. He was the captain of Team Red. In their minds, loyalty demanded they stick with him, acting as his shield one day, his sword the next.
What began as a reluctant willingness to defend Trump soon became an ingrained habit. They ignored or excused his moral and legal transgressions; each time they did, the next excuse got a little easier. They could not bear to acknowledge to themselves, and certainly not to anyone else, that they were defending a seditious scoundrel. The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming; their self-conception would not allow them to admit they were complicit in a corrupt enterprise. This was particularly the case of those who insisted for decades prior to the Trump era that high moral character mattered in political leaders. And so they twisted themselves into knots, downplaying Trump’s maliciousness, hyper-focusing on the sins of the left. They rather liked that Trump would bring a Glock to a political and cultural knife fight.
Ex-CIA engineer convicted for sending classified hacking tools and info to WikiLeaks
On Wednesday, a jury in New York convicted ex-Central Intelligence Agency engineer Joshua Schulte on all nine charges he faced… as a result of the single largest leak in agency history. Dubbed Vault 7, the files and information shared by WikiLeaks in 2017 exposed a trove of tactics and exploits the CIA used to hack its targets’ computers, iPhones or Android phones, and even Samsung smart TVs. […]
Operations Support Branch (OSB), where Schulte worked and reportedly built hacking tools by quickly turning prototypes into actual exploits that could monitor or steal information from the targeted person’s devices. It reports that investigators obtained evidence against Schulte through his own lapses in personal security, like storing passwords on his phone that could be used to access his encrypted storage. […]
In a statement released after the verdict, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said, “When Schulte began to harbor resentment toward the CIA, he covertly collected those tools and provided them to WikiLeaks, making some of our most critical intelligence tools known to the public – and therefore, our adversaries.”
Climate adaptation bill for African countries to dwarf health spending
African countries that are the least responsible for the climate crisis will have to spend up to five times more on adapting to global heating than they do on healthcare.
Analysis of 11 nations with a total population of more than 350 million lays bare the huge financial toll of taking action to avert the severe environmental consequences of global heating.
The international NGO Tearfund compared the plans drawn up by Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania and Sudan against their health budgets. Each nation is already suffering the effects of the climate crisis.
Ex-TEPCO execs found liable for damages over Fukushima nuclear crisis
A Tokyo court on Wednesday ordered former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. to pay the utility some 13 trillion yen ($95 billion) in total damages for failing to prevent the 2011 crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The ruling in favor of shareholders who filed the lawsuit in 2012 is the first to find former TEPCO executives liable for compensation after the nuclear plant in northeastern Japan caused one of the worst nuclear disasters in history triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The Tokyo District Court's Presiding Judge Yoshihide Asakura said the utility's countermeasures for the tsunami "fundamentally lacked safety awareness and a sense of responsibility," ruling that the executives failed to perform their duties.
Seattle man facing hate crime charge after allegedly threatening Rep. Pramila Jayapal
A Seattle man is facing a hate crime charge after he allegedly yelled racist threats outside the home of Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., while packing a handgun.
Brett Allen Forsell, 48, was ordered held on $500,000 bail after he was arrested in King County near Jayapal's home late Saturday. Prosecutors have said probable cause was found for a hate crime and they could make a charging decision as soon as Wednesday.
A neighbor told police that the suspect had been yelling "go back to India" and "I'm going to kill you," according to court filings.
Air Force F-16 pilot explains how he dodged 6 missiles during insane Gulf War mission
Air Force Maj. Emmett Tullia II escaped death half a dozen times on Jan. 19, 1991, when he maneuvered his F-16 through a fusillade of Iraqi surface-to-air missiles during a mission in which two of his fellow Viper pilots were shot down and taken prisoner.
Tullia was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his aerial acrobatics that day, which can be seen on video that was posted on social media several years ago. His ability to dodge six surface-to-air missiles is made even more extraordinary by the fact that his flares and chaff that were meant to confuse enemy missiles failed to deploy during his dance over Baghdad.
It was just a few days after the start of the U.S.-led campaign to push Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait when Tullia took part in a mission to attack an oil refinery in southern Baghdad.
“They knew we were coming, and as we were getting closer to the target area, the triple-A [anti-aircraft artillery] started coming up, the 35 mm stuff,” Tullia told Task & Purpose. “You could see an undercast of clouds from the triple-A going off.”
Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24 hours
The clock starts right away. New data from the paywall tech company Piano shows about 33% of new subscribers cancel their digital subscriptions within a day.
Piano, one of the world’s largest paywall providers, sells their technology as well as strategic advice to media companies. Most of their clients are news organizations — including giants like Gannett, Dow Jones, Meredith, and Axel Springer — but they also work with other types of companies experimenting with paywalls to drive subscriber revenue.
Their report released Tuesday notes that subscribers who cancel almost immediately might have signed up to access a single article or found the full paid experience lacking after taking a quick look around.
Bipartisan bill would rescue giant sequoias from wildfire
[…] [Rep. Scott] Peters, D-San Diego, and [House Minority Leader Kevin] McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, introduced the Save our Sequoias Act to provide $350 million over 10 years to protect the iconic trees, streamline environmental review for restoring groves, and create a reforestation plan. […]
The legislation… would provide $350 million over 10 years to restore the groves; codify the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition, an existing partnership between federal, state, tribal and local land managers; create an assessment protocol for the giant trees and establish a reforestation plan to regenerate giant sequoias in groves destroyed by wildfire.
It also streamlines environmental review for removing overstocked growth of other trees and plants, a process that can take years under the usual timeline. At the current rate of implementation, it would take 52 years to review 19 priority groves out of 78 total sequoia groves in the state, said Tom Erb, a senior legislative assistant to Peters.
Light pollution is disrupting the seasonal rhythms of plants and trees
City lights that blaze all night are profoundly disrupting urban plants’ phenology—shifting when their buds open in the spring and when their leaves change colors and drop in the fall. New research I co-authored shows how nighttime lights are lengthening the growing season in cities, which can affect everything from allergies to local economies.
In our study, my colleagues and I analyzed trees and shrubs at about 3,000 sites in US cities to see how they responded under different lighting conditions over a five-year period. Plants use the natural day-night cycle as a signal of seasonal change along with temperature.
We found that artificial light alone advanced the date that leaf buds broke in the spring by an average of about nine days compared to sites without nighttime lights. The timing of the fall color change in leaves was more complex, but the leaf change was still delayed on average by nearly six days across the lower 48 states. In general, we found that the more intense the light was, the greater the difference.