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☆ Woodlands Preservation Emerges as Issue in President Trump’s Personal Income Tax Filings
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Peter Grant | Joe Palazzolo | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A $21.1 million tax deduction involving former President Donald Trump’s Seven Springs estate has become a point of contention in Mr. Trump’s tax returns. In 2015, then-businessman Donald Trump pledged to preserve more than 150 acres of woodland on his Westchester County, N.Y., estate, enabling him to take a big charitable deduction on his federal taxes. That $21.1 million tax deduction involving his Seven Springs estate now has emerged as a point of contention in Mr. Trump’s taxes, according to the House Ways and Means Committee, which voted Tuesday to make six years of his tax returns public.

CHICAGO, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Seeds and pesticides company Corteva Inc (CTVA.N) will eliminate U.S. jobs next year, as its exit from Russia reduces demand for its commercial sunflower seeds produced in California, the company said on Monday. Relocating commercial sunflower seed production to Europe for European customers will reduce costs, Corteva added. Demand for crops grown with Corteva seeds and chemicals is strong after severe weather and the Ukraine war tightened global supplies. The biggest producers and consumers of sunflower seeds are Europe and Russia, the company said. The Woodland facility is Corteva's only one in the United States making "commercial" sunflower seeds for farmers to grow plants for oil or food.

☆ In Maryland, a White Kitchen Goes Au Naturel
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Vaishnavi Nayel Talawadekar | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

When they purchased the modest-sized, woodland house in Towson, Md., from an interior designer in 1999 for $570,000, businessman David Watts and his wife, Nancy Watts—aged 59 and 58, respectively—fell in love with its natural wood finishes, especially the hewed cedar walls and beautiful chestnut beams in the family room. Over the years, they complemented the rustic elements with additions of their own, including naturally shed elk and deer antlers from their property, repurposed as cabinet hardware. “Yet, while the other spaces largely echoed the woods around, the white kitchen stuck out like a sore thumb,” says Mrs. Watts. “They wanted the kitchen to be reflective of the surrounding nature. We opted for warm woods in raw, unfussy forms, and smooth limestone-like finishes for the floors,” says Ms. Smith-Shiflett.

☆ Our ancestors may have evolved to walk upright in trees rather than on the ground, new study suggests
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Jack Guy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Humans’ ability to walk upright on two legs may have evolved in trees, rather than on the ground, according to scientists studying wild chimpanzees in Tanzania. Rhianna Drummond-Clarke/AAASThe team recorded every time that the chimpanzees were upright, and whether it occurred while they were on the ground or in the trees. In addition, more than 85% of the times that the chimpanzees walked upright occurred in the trees, rather than on the ground. “A long-held assumption has been: Less trees means more time on the ground, more time on the ground means more time upright,” Piel said. Rhianna Drummond-Clarke/AAASThe next question for researchers is why the Issa Valley chimpanzees spend more time in trees despite being around fewer trees than other chimpanzee communities, Piel said.

☆ In Nigeria's long war, a young woman is brutalised by both sides
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +16 min

It was a pleasant evening in the summer of 2014, in her Nigerian village near the Cameroon border. Reuters could not reach representatives of Boko Haram or its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province, for comment. But by October 2014, the militants were enforcing extreme sharia law in her village, Aisha said. Boko Haram men often came looking for them, knocking on their door and forcing them to hide. But she did not believe she could do so with Bana, as boys were particularly valued in the Boko Haram community.

☆ BNP Paribas Asset Management heads for the woods with Danish deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Virginia Furness | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - BNP Paribas Asset Management said on Thursday it had bought a majority stake in a Danish firm specialising in woodland and agricultural investments. The purchase of the stake in International Woodland Company, which has more than $5.7 billion in assets under management, means BNP Paribas will for the first time offer its clients direct investment in woodland and agricultural land. Buying agricultural or woodland for financial returns remains niche but is growing, with the likes of BNP Paribas saying it has the potential to offer investors protection from inflation while also helping safeguard the natural environment. Asset managers have started to launch biodiversity and nature-focused funds but their size is tiny. Reporting by Virginia Furness Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and David EvansOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Pictures of the year: Oddly
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Jeremy Schultz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

A heart-shaped clearing can be seen in woodland where Winston Howes planted 6,000 oak trees in a six-acre field on his farm, leaving the clearing in the middle as a tribute to his late wife Janet to whom he was married for 33 years, in Wickwar,...more

☆ Qatar 2022: Cycling from Paris to Doha to watch the World Cup
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-27 | by ( Ben Church | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Doha, Qatar CNN —Traveling to watch their team play at the World Cup took a little longer than usual for two French fans. Mehdi Balamissa and Gabriel Martin decided the best way to travel from France to Qatar was on two wheels. The friends spent three months traveling 7,000 kilometers (roughly 4,350 miles) by bicycle to reach Qatar 2022 and watch their beloved France defend its title. mondialavelo/Instagram‘Special’ end to ‘crazy’ tripThe pair agreed cycling through Jerusalem was another highlight of a trip that ended in spectacular fashion. Their plan now is to stay in Qatar for as long as France stays in the competition before flying back home.

☆ Your next Domino's delivery may arrive in a GM Chevy Bolt as pizza chain pushes EVs nationally
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Ian Thomas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Domino's will roll out 800 custom-branded 2023 Chevy Bolt electric vehicles at locations across the U.S. in the coming months. "Domino's was founded in 1960 as a delivery company, and we go to bed every night and wake up every morning saying 'how can we get better?'" "This is a way we can get better; better service for our customers and better for the environment." The adoption of this fleet of EVs is not the first time Domino's has looked to optimize how pizza is delivered. Other start-ups, such as Refraction AI, have been testing autonomous vehicles suited for pizza delivery.

☆ A 37-year-old making $85,000 a year is struggling to find a place to rent or buy in California, and it's a sign of how hard it is to find housing that feels affordable
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Brittany Phillips made $85,000 a year in California and still struggled to find an affordable home. Her story shows how hard it can be to secure stable housing in certain areas despite a good salary. The single mom of one packed her bags for Florida and moved in with her mother in Panama City Beach, Florida, in August. Before she decamped to Florida, Phillips, 37, moved regularly to find more affordable places to live. Brittany PhillipsAs she grew tired of scratching and clawing just to stay afloat, Phillips moved in with her mother in Florida.

☆ As Maine’s winters shorten, tiny ticks threaten state’s mighty moose
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Lauren Owens Lambert | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

“We’ve seen that areas with lower moose density tend to have healthier moose with fewer ticks,” said state Moose Biologist Lee Kantar, who is running the study. Maine's moose population is currently the largest of all the lower 48 states at over 60,000 animals, according to state figures, thanks to an ideal habitat and careful management of the annual moose hunt. Kantar is now leading research to test whether thinning the moose population through increased hunting can help. It is unclear, he said, what an ideal moose population would be for Maine but he hopes the study will help answer that. Each year, the Maine moose hunt draws around 50,000 applications in a lottery for the 2,000 to 3,000 moose permits typically issued.

☆ P&G faces challenge to CEO Moeller as chairman from environmentalists, investors
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Jessica Dinapoli | Thomson Reuters | New York-Based Reporter Covering U.S. Consumer Products Spanning Paper Towels To Packaged Food | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Boxes of Tide detergent, a Procter & Gamble product, sit on a shelf at a store in Alexandria, May 28, 2009. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterThe groups request replacing Moeller with an independent chair. Norway's sovereign wealth fund also plans to vote against Moeller, according to a voting notice on its website. Institutional Shareholder Services Inc and Glass Lewis, firms that make widely-followed recommendations on voting for investors, said shareholders should support Moeller and the two directors. ISS said investors should take caution when supporting Moeller and the directors because of "ongoing concerns" regarding deforestation.

☆ Rep. Lauren Boebert said humanity is in its 'last days' and Christians should 'rise up,' invoking Christian nationalist imagery that's linked to violence
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-18 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Boebert echoed Christian nationalist talking points and invoked the end times in a recent speech. Christian nationalism experts say such rhetoric has been linked to violence. But by invoking the end times, Boebert is tapping into a side of Christian nationalism that has been associated with violence. Though Boebert's comments aren't new among proponents of Christian nationalism, such rhetoric has rarely, if ever, been deployed by a member of Congress. Christian nationalist ideals were also espoused by the suspects in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the 2019 New Zealand mosque shootings.

☆ Actor Henry Silva dies at 95
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-17 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

He was the last surviving star of the original Oceans 11 Movie. A 1985 article by Knight-Ridder journalist Diane Haithman headlined “Henry Silva: The Actor You Love to Hate” began this way: “His face looms on screen. The actor starred the next year for Miraglia in “The Falling Man,” in which he played a cop framed for killing a police informer. Silva got even busier in the 1970s, playing tough customers on both sides of the law in movies made in Europe. Silva auditioned for the Actors Studio in 1955; he was one of five students accepted from a field of 2,500 applicants.

☆ How an OnlyFans star built her income to over $100K a month — and the different platforms she uses
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( Jp Mangalindan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

When Nita Marie joined OnlyFans in 2019, she was experiencing financial difficulties. But the OnlyFans creator was also wise to invest 20% of her monthly earnings back into buying "shoutouts." Many content creators rely on the cross-promotional practice for follower and income growth. While other OnlyFans creators have experimented with their pricing, Nita Marie's pricing hasn't changed since she joined the platform. For personalized videos, the OnlyFans creator charges $75 for one-minute videos and $175 for videos ranging from five to seven minutes.

☆ 1,000 year-old Native American carvings of mysterious giant humanoids discovered on the ceiling of an Alabama cave
▼ + stars: | 2022-05-08 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A study found large humanoid figures carved on the ceiling of an Alabama cave more than 1000 years ago. Hi-tech technology was needed to see them in the low ceiling cave. It was still a grueling, month-long task to capture more than 16,000 pictures that very slightly overlap to map out the entire cave ceiling. Anthropomorph in regalia (6.8 ft tall) from 19th Unnamed Cave, Alabama. SimekThe style of the drawings in the Alabama cave is reminiscent of figures seen in the midwest and the western US.

☆ Airbnb hosts say they're fed up with how the vacation-rental platform treats them and favors guests. Some are planning to 'strike' or even quit Airbnb altogether.
▼ + stars: | 2022-04-18 | by ( Dan Latu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The host, Ryan Villines, is organizing a boycott, encouraging hosts to "snooze" their listings. Like Johnson, many Airbnb hosts and property managers are frustrated by what they describe as the vacation-rental platform's tendency to favor guests in disputes. Liz DeBold Fusco, an Airbnb spokesperson, said the new policy was meant to provide "greater flexibility" to hosts and guests. After outrage from hosts, Airbnb walked back the reimbursement component, but hosts said it's too little, too late. Airbnb host Ryan Villines is "snoozing" his listings in Missouri and Montana as a protest.

☆ This soldier may look like Chewbacca, but his suit helps make him one of the deadliest fighters on the battlefield
▼ + stars: | 2019-08-20 | by ( Ryan Pickrell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The ghillie suit, a kind of artificial camouflage, is key to concealment. The US Army recently released photos of a sniper school instructor showing off the various pieces of a sniper's ghillie suit. Read more: Army snipers played hide-and-seek to test new camouflaged ghillie suits for next-level combat"Ghillie suits provide snipers that edge and flexibility to maintain a concealed position,"he added. US Army Staff Sgt. David Smith, an instructor at the service's sniper school, recently showed off a ghillie suit that he put together from scratch using jute twine and other materials.

Persons: Ricky Labistre, Read, David Smith Organizations: US Army, Service, Staff, 1st Battalion, 160th Infantry Regiment, California National Guard, Army, US Army Staff Locations: Wall, Silicon

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