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☆ Afraid of Cicadas? This Entomologist Wants to Change That.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-08 | by ( Katrina Miller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Spring has sprung, and coming with it is a mass emergence of two broods of cicadas. After more than a decade underground, they will tunnel through the soil and up to the treetops to spend the remainder of their lives loudly buzzing for a mate. Sammy Ramsey, an entomologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, says he feels like these bugs get a bad rap. To combat that, he uploaded a silly, but surprisingly smooth, music video to YouTube during the emergence of an earlier cicada brood in 2021. He hoped that the song, called “Big Red Eyes,” would help people empathize with the isolation cicadas endure for most of their lives, especially given our seclusion during the early phases of the pandemic.

Persons: Sammy Ramsey, ” Organizations: University of Colorado, YouTube Locations: University of Colorado Boulder

☆ Opinion | The Cicadas Are Here, Singing a Song for the Future
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Margaret Renkl | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For more than a week, I’ve been walking around my yard at night with a UV flashlight, looking for the white glow of cicada nymphs emerging from their exoskeletons. I walk around again in the morning looking for their spent shells clinging to a tree or a stalk of pokeweed. To think about periodic cicadas is necessarily to contemplate time. We nicknamed our newborn Cicada Joe, the baby who emerged into a sunny new world just as millions of cicadas were also emerging into brightness. As an ecosystem measures time — and also as a mother measures time — it all happened in a blink.

Persons: I’ve, Joe Locations: Nashville

☆ Massive floods threaten tens of millions as intense rains batter southern China
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Hong Kong CNN —Heavy rains hammered southern China on the weekend, flooding homes, streets and farmland and threatening to upend the lives of tens of millions of people as rescuers rushed to evacuate residents trapped by rising waters. Since April 16, sustained torrential rains have pounded the Pearl River Delta, China’s manufacturing heartland and one of the country’s most populated regions, with four weather stations in Guangdong registering record rainfall for April. Since last week, at least 44 rivers in the Pearl River basin have swelled above the warning line, threatening to burst their banks, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Aerial view of waterlogged fields after torrential rains on April 20, 2024 in Qingyuan, Guangdong Province of China. Authorities raised the flood control emergency response for the Pearl River Delta to level 2 on Sunday – the second highest in a four-tier system.

Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Xinhua, China Meteorological Administration, Visual China, CCTV, Authorities Locations: Hong Kong, China, Guangdong, Jiangwan, Shaoguan, Pearl, Qingyuan, Guangdong Province of China, Guangning county, Zhaoqing, Qingyuan city, Guangzhou, Shenzhen

☆ Cicadas 2024: What to expect from the Brood XIII and Brood XIX emergence of cicadas
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Kate Golembiewski | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The 13-year group, known as Brood XIX, or the Great Southern Brood, is the largest periodical cicada brood, stretching across the southeastern United States. The Northern Illinois Brood, or Brood XIII, emerges every 17 years. Periodical cicadas are smaller and mostly black, with bright red eyes and orange-tinged wings and legs. Billions of cicadas are expected this spring as two different broods — Broods XIX and XIII — emerge simultaneously. However, predictions of a cicadapocalypse — in which Brood XIII and Brood XIX show up at the same place at the same time — are probably an exaggeration.

Persons: hasn’t, Thomas Jefferson, —, “, ”, Jonathan Larson, don’t, XIII —, Jason Bergman, ” Larson, We’re, Chris Simon, XIII haven't, Chip Somodevilla, Larson, Cheney Orr, ” Simon, Kate Golembiewski Organizations: CNN, Southern, Northern Illinois, University of Kentucky, Midwest, University of Connecticut, Reuters Locations: United States, Indianapolis, Northern Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky , Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina , Georgia, Alabama , Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Columbia , Maryland, America, Chicago

☆ I lived in Bali for 2 months. These 7 popular tourist spots were not worth the hype.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-02 | by ( Jonathan Levin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

I spent two months living in one of my bucket-list destinations — the tropical island of Bali. The beaches were mostly a letdownThe beaches in Bali aren't necessarily bad, and some are really nice. But walking anywhere in Ubud felt far more chaotic than the romantic drama "Eat, Pray, Love" depicts. Jonathan LevinIndonesia's Gili Islands are not technically part of Bali, but ferry trips to it are popular among Bali visitors, so it feels worth mentioning. AdvertisementOn one side of the island, there's a very narrow strip of sand that seemed to be mostly privatized.

Persons: —, Hugo Amaral, Jonathan Levin, Ubud, I'm, Canggu, pesky, Jonathan Levin Indonesia's Organizations: Service, Business, Gili Locations: Southeast Asia, Bali . Bali, Bali, it's, Nusa Penida, Ubud, Central

☆ Brood XIII and Brood XIX: What to expect from 2024’s rare double brood emergence of cicadas
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Kate Golembiewski | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

☆ In Kenya, King Charles Will ‘Walk a Tightrope’ on Britain’s Past
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-29 | by ( Mark Landler | More About Mark Landler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But Charles has no plans for a sentimental pilgrimage to Treetops. History will hang heavily over the king’s visit, in any event. Buckingham Palace said Charles “would acknowledge the more painful aspects of the U.K. and Kenya’s shared history,” specifically Britain’s brutal suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion from 1952 to 1960, which left tens of thousands of people dead. Royal visits to former colonies have long been delicate, but in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement, they have become fraught. Protesters and local government officials regularly demand apologies and sometimes reparations for colonial-era abuses, including economic exploitation and Britain’s role in the slave trade.

Persons: King Charles III, Elizabeth, George VI, Charles, Buckingham, Charles “, Kenya’s Locations: Kenya, Treetops, British

☆ King Charles III will confront Britain’s colonial past when he visits Kenya
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Max Foster | Lauren Said-Moorhouse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Editor’s Note: This is a version of CNN’s Royal News, a weekly dispatch bringing you the inside track on Britain’s royal family. CNN —When King Charles III visits Kenya next week, he’ll do something no other member of his family has done in the country. Next week’s royal visit will largely focus on the strong connection between the two countries. Kenya holds a special place for the British royal family. Unfortunately, King Charles’ jam-packed schedule during the trip will not permit him to visit the poignant location.

Persons: King Charles III, Charles, Queen Camilla, It’s, Chris Fitzgerald, Kenya’s, Nandi, Jomo Kenyatta, William Hague, “, ” Hague, William Ruto, Princess Elizabeth, King Charles ’ Organizations: CNN’s Royal, CNN, Kenya, British, Kenyan Human Rights, Kenyan, Nation, Keystone, Hulton Royals, British Government, Government, State, Commonwealth Locations: United Kingdom, Kenya, Buckingham, Britain, Nazi Germany, Gatundi, Nairobi, Commonwealth, British, Rwanda, Treetops

☆ ‘Roman Stories’ Review: Eternal, Uncertain City
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-13 | by ( Liesl Schillinger | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Photo: Matteo Nardone/Pacific Press/AlamyWhat does it mean to be “a Roman” in the 21st century? But the narrator of the last story in Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection “Roman Stories” has a personal stake in this question. She is an American professor in her 50s who was pulled to Rome as a young woman by a fascination with the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (whose name provides the story’s title). After marrying a Roman, she ended up staying in the city for decades. At her mother-in-law’s funeral, she wonders: Had her long residence made her a Roman?

Persons: Matteo Nardone, Virgil, Aeneas, Caesar, Mussolini, Fellini, Sophia Loren, ”, Dante Alighieri, she’d, “ Organizations: Pacific Press Locations: American, Rome, Italian, America

☆ Britain's King Charles to acknowledge 'painful' past in state visit to Kenya
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Britain's King Charles and his wife Camilla will travel to Kenya for a four-day state visit at the end of this month where he will acknowledge "painful aspects" of its colonial past, Buckingham Palace said on Wednesday. Britain's King Charles III looks on during his visit to the Global Underwater Hub, where he met staff and learnt about their educational outreach programmes in Westhill, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Britain September 29, 2023. "His majesty will take time during the visit to deepen his understanding of the wrongs suffered in this period by the people of Kenya," Fitzgerald said. The Kenyan visit, Charles' fourth official visit to the African nation, comes after the royal couple travelled to Germany in March and France last month, with both tours regarded as highly successful diplomatic trips. Reporting by Michael Holden, additional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; editing by William James and Christina FincherOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Britain's King Charles, Camilla, Buckingham, Charles, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, King George VI, William Ruto, Chris Fitzgerald, Britain's King Charles III, Jane Barlow, Fitzgerald, Michael Holden, Sachin Ravikumar, William James, Christina Fincher Organizations: Kenyan, Thomson Locations: Kenya, Commonwealth, Britain, Westhill , Aberdeenshire, Scotland, British, Germany, France

☆ Over 10,000 pre-Columbian earthworks are still hidden in the Amazon, study finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-10 | by ( Mindy Weisberger | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Known as earthworks, they were shaped by indigenous peoples who lived in the area around 500 to 1,500 years ago. Many Amazonian earthworks that predate the arrival of European colonizers are revealed in deforested areas. Heckenberger, who was not involved in the study, has conducted research in the Brazilian Amazon since the 1990s, working with indigenous peoples of the Xingu region. These findings further demonstrate that the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples in the Americas and elsewhere is “remarkably dynamic and innovative,” he added. So the scientists also mapped 937 known earthworks, instructing the model to highlight locations for potential earthworks that shared similar topographic features with previously detected sites.

Persons: it’s, ”, Vinicius Peripato, Peripatos, Michael Heckenberger, ” Heckenberger, Peripato, ” Peripato, lidar, Dr, Juan Carlos Fernandez Diaz, ” Fernandez Diaz, “, Mindy Weisberger Organizations: CNN, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, University of Florida, Brazilian Amazon, University of Houston, Scientific Locations: São Paulo, Brazilian, Americas, Brazil, Amazonia

☆ Fact Check-Video of helicopter igniting treetops doesn’t show French government arson
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-28 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

French officials said the area was vulnerable to fires due to “intense heat, dryness and tumultuous winds of up to 180 kilometers/hour,” Reuters reported. On Aug. 20, the Pyrenees-Orientales Fire Department wrote on X that the fire had been extinguished (here). !”The Arduini Helicopters Facebook page credits the video to an individual named Paul Buxton-Carr (here). Reuters Fact Check has previously addressed similar videos showing firefighters employing controlled or prescribed burning to curtail the spread of wildfires (here). The video shows a 2018 prescribed burn in Canada, not the intentional ignition of wildfires in France in 2023.

Persons: ”, Paul Buxton, Carr, Read Organizations: Facebook, ” Reuters, Fire, Arduini Helicopters, Reuters Locations: Canada, France, Pyrenees, Canada’s Alberta, British Columbia, Narcosli

☆ With Only 475 Square Feet, She Had to Make Every Inch Count
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Tim Mckeough | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After about a year of hunting, she found a co-op apartment in Carroll Gardens that felt right: a third-floor one-bedroom of about 475 square feet, with windows that looked out through treetops. It was about half as large as the rental she was living in at the time, and the cramped bedroom was only eight feet wide, but she could envision ways to make the space work better. In the living room, the middle third of one wall was brick, while the rest was drywall. “I was pretty sure that brick would have extended along the entire party wall,” Ms. Kalita said. “I was able to pick up four inches of extra living space,” she said, noting that she added a simple, plaster-covered mantel as a focal point, although there’s no fireplace.

Persons: Morrie Breyer, Ms, Kalita Locations: Carroll Gardens, treetops

☆ Fact Check-Video shows 2017 prescribed fire in Arizona, not Rhodes
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A video circulating online shows a prescribed fire conducted by the Arizona Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2017, not “targeted arson” taking place in Rhodes amidst wildfires on the Greek island in July 2023. A similar video was shared by the Arizona Bureau of Land Management on its Facebook and Twitter pages in March 2017 (here), (here). It shows similar vegetation, the same helicopter, and a dangling torch as seen in the video being shared. Dolores A. Garcia, a representative for Bureau of Land Management at the Arizona State Office, said in an email to Reuters that the video being shared on social media does in fact show 2017 heli-torch operations in northwest Arizona. The video shows a prescribed fire operation conducted by the Arizona Bureau of Land Management in 2017.

Persons: Dolores A, Garcia, ” Garcia, Read Organizations: Arizona Bureau of Land Management, Reuters, Facebook, of Land Management, Arizona State Office, “ Locations: Rhodes, Greece, Arizona, Canada

☆ How Russia’s youth see their lives and their future
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Some spoke of study plans and jobs upended, others, of fear of an unknown and unpredictable future. But none of the four said there was much they could do to influence Russia's direction. Instead, as one young man put it, there was nothing to do but adjust to a new reality and "carry on." I plan to study a master's course in China…I think they are very interesting people, an interesting nation. I can't change and fix everything in the country, so I'm forced to come to terms with it, get used to it, and move forward.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Sabina, Maxim Lukyanenko, let's, Konstantin Konkov, on.Ivan Sokolov, William Maclean Organizations: Kremlin, Moscow's Higher, of Economics, Higher School of Economics, Moscow State University, Reuters, Thomson Locations: MOSCOW, Russian, Ukraine, Russia, Abkhazia, Georgia, universit, Finland, Krasnodar, Europe, Asia, China, Moscow, Kazakhstan, Astrakhan, Atyrau

☆ A Bond Villain’s Lair in the Hamptons? That’s Only the Half of It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Tim Mckeough | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The experimental midcentury-modern architecture of the Hamptons has long been a source of fascination to many in the design world — including Timothy Godbold, an interior designer based in Southampton, N.Y. So in the fall of 2019, when he noticed an unusual modernist house in town listed for sale, he was intrigued. But the interior was dated and the weathered-cedar exterior had been repaired with mismatched boards, so the house had languished on the market. “It was really quirky, and it was a really good price,” Mr. Godbold, 55, said. “The shape of the house was so incredible, but the different shades of wood were distracting to the eye.

Persons: Timothy Godbold, Eugene L, Futterman, Mr, Godbold, “, ’ ”, ” Organizations: Hamptons Locations: Southampton, N.Y

☆ Fact Check-Clips show fire-fighting helicopters, not Canadian wildfires being intentionally started
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Footage of helicopters using flame-throwing torches to light fires has been misrepresented online, with social media posts claiming the clips show that the 2023 Canadian wildfires are being lit deliberately. This clip shows footage published on June 2, 2023 by the British Columbia (BC) Fire System (youtu.be/tTKSmdrfzqU?t=9), (youtu.be/tTKSmdrfzqU?t=15). According to the description of the video, it depicts a planned ignition on the Donnie Creek wildfire with a Heli-torch. There is also no evidence that aerial ignition caused the Canada wildfires, contrary to what these social media posts say. Footage shows planned fires ignited from helicopters, which are used to combat wildfires not deliberately light them.

Persons: ”, Read Organizations: U.S . Forest Service, Heli, Reuters, Facebook, Yukon, Nations, Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Locations: U.S, British Columbia, Canada, Quebec, Atlantic Canada

☆ A real-estate agent might have bought Ken Griffin's cell phone number from a former FBI employee to facilitate the $240 million sale of a New York City condo
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-10 | by ( Zoe Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

In 2019, real-estate agents and brothers Tal and Oren Alexander sold a $240 million condo. That's the Alexander brothers' unofficial mantra. In 2015, Griffin dropped $46.4 million on an abstract painting by Gerhard Richter, putting him in the Alexanders' crosshairs. Tal wouldn't reveal how he acquired Griffin's cell phone number, Clarke noted, but one of the writer's sources said he bought it from a former FBI agent. But Griffin wasn't interested in the penthouse Tal had in mind for him.

Persons: Tal, Oren Alexander, Ken Griffin, —, Alexander, Katherine Clarke, Clarke, it's Tal, Oren —, Oren, Douglas Elliman, Griffin, Gerhard Richter, Tal wouldn't, Griffin wasn't, — Griffin, Shlomy Alexander, They've, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Leon Black, Tommy Hilfiger Organizations: Service, Wimbledon, Rollers, Penguin Random, Citadel, Old, FBI, Alexander Team Locations: Aspen, Saudi, United States, Central Park, Miami, Miami Beach

☆ Cross-Border Skirmishes Heighten Anxiety for Ukrainian Villagers
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Oleksandr Chubko | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The forests around Vovchansk were burning, white smoke drifting through the pines and billowing above the treetops where artillery shells had started fires. Vovchansk and the other towns and villages along Ukraine’s northeastern border with Russia have lived under shellfire from Russian forces across the border for months. But near the northern border the anxiety centered on the continued cross-border hostilities, with both sides trading heavy volleys of artillery shells this week. Vovchansk, two and a half miles from the Russian border, is mostly a ghost town. Barely 1,000 people remain after months of shelling that has damaged many residential houses and central buildings, and most were hiding indoors.

Persons: — Locations: Vovchansk, Russia, Russian, Ukraine, Dnipro

☆ On ‘Succession,’ if You’re Eating, You’re Losing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Autumn light filters through the treetops of Central Park West, streaming into Jean-Georges, giving the gray banquettes a matte, silver gleam. Each table, though in clear view of the others, is luxuriously cocooned by space, almost private. It’s the ideal place, really, for the Roy children — the scions of the Waystar Royco media empire on HBO’s “Succession” — to discuss their father’s funeral arrangements. The conversation is brisk, and though they chose Jean-Georges as their meeting spot, they don’t eat the food. They leave the pastries — the dark, oversize canelés and fruit-studded buns — along with the platter of fanned, cut fruit, completely untouched.

☆ The ‘Devil Bird’ Lands in New York, With More Likely to Come
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( James Crugnale | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For two weeks, a strange bird has perched in Brooklyn over the treetops of one of the Three Sisters Islands in Prospect Park Lake. It shows no signs of heading back to the place it most likely came from in the South. Meet the anhinga, a large water bird with a snaky neck that has joined other high-profile vagrant birds in recent years by making a rare appearance outside of its typical migration range. The Prospect Park anhinga is the first devil bird observed in Kings County, and only the second sighting in New York City since 1992. When Radka Osickova first spotted it with the Brooklyn Bird Club, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

☆ Endangered Komodo dragons hatch at Spanish zoo
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Jon Nazca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Embum, a one-month-old baby Komodo dragon, one of the five Komodo dragons born at Bioparc Fuengirola, rests in a terrarium in Fuengirola, southern Spain, March 28, 2023. REUTERS/Jon NazcaFUENGIROLA, Spain, March 28 (Reuters) - Five Komodo dragon hatchlings have been born at a zoo in Spain, the first successful breeding of the world's largest lizard - an endangered species - in the country for a decade. "This is a great achievement for all of us," Milagros Robledo, the head of the Herpetology department at the Bioparc Fuengirola zoo in southern Spain and self-described "mother" of the dragons, told Reuters on Tuesday. The baby dragons' parents mated on June 24 last year, when Spaniards celebrate the feast of St John. In the wild, newborn Komodo dragons tend to move to the treetops and need no maternal or paternal care, Robledo said.

If you are dreaming of a white Christmas, your dreams may just come true this year. While a white Christmas might help the treetops glisten, the storm is likely to bring hazardous travel conditions as well. Last year, NOAA updated the average probabilities of a white Christmas across the United States. The song “White Christmas” was written during one of those long, snowless-Christmas spells. By the time he wrote the song at the end of the 1930s, New York City had not seen a white Christmas since 1930, according to weather service data and the official definition of a white Christmas.

☆ Mountain Girl’s heartbreaking memoir: An icon of the Sixties opens up about Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, and what the age of free love was really like
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( David Kushner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

Now 76 and living in Oregon, Mountain Girl has gave us an exclusive look at her memoir. Altamont, the free concert that Mountain Girl and Jerry Garcia helped organized, was meant to revive the spirit of the Sixties. Today, 60 years since she took that ride with Neal Cassady, Mountain Girl is still forging her own path. Before I leave Kesey's farm, Mountain Girl and I walk outside to the old brown barn where Furthur now rests. But for Mountain Girl, it lives forever, an emblem of everything her generation believed in, and all that they achieved.

☆ Opinion: The British Empire: A legacy of violence?
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-25 | by ( Peter Bergen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +19 min

A related question is also surfacing now: What is the legacy of the British Empire writ large? Bergen: This reassessment of British Empire: You are leading the charge. Bergen: So, are the British in high school as they learn about British history being told a bunch of fairy tales? Are there similarities between the 1619 Project and what you and other colleagues are doing in your reassessment of the British Empire? And I think that’s what we’re seeing in different kinds of ways with the history of the British Empire.

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