Donald Trump has 922 days remaining to stink up the White House
(assuming he completes his full term)
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Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Civility, please. Kindly refrain from using the n-word:
• Survey shows 73% of Americans now accept that there is solid evidence of global warming: Over the past decade, the National Surveys on Energy and the Environment has conducted 19 polls on global warming, and the 73 percent figure is the highest ever. The latest poll was undertaken just as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that May 2018 was the hottest in the continental United States since that measure has been taken beginning in 1895. But, the up-and-down nature of the NSEE polls is high. As recently as the spring 2016 poll, only 66 percent of Americans accepted climate change evidence as valid. In the spring of 2014, it was 55 percent, while in fall of 2008, the first time the poll was taken, 72 percent of Americans accepted the evidence. As has long been the case, there is a huge partisan gap, with only 50 percent of Republicans saying there is solid evidence for climate change, and 90 percent of Democrats saying so. Likewise 78 percent of Democrats say that humans are at least partially responsible for the planet’s warming compared with only 35 percent of Republicans agreeing.
• Federal officials mistakenly published secret information about hundreds of American Indian artifacts: Unique information about ancient cliff dwellings, spiritual structures, rock art panels and other antiquities in Utah spanning 13,000 years of American Indian history was included in a 77-page online report published in February by the Bureau of Land Management. The information, which remained online for several days, appeared on the bureau’s web page shortly before it auctioned off 51,482 acres of what the Center of Investigative Reporting called ”the most archaeologically rich lands ever offered for industrial use.” Information about Native sites was previously kept secret in hopes of reducing looting and vandalism. The report was eventually taken down and reposted with the descriptions of about 900 Indian sites blacked out.
• In the 19th Century, some Southerners made a piece of their living picking blackberries: It was both a hobby and money-making endeavor for many Americans. Increased regulation of land use changed all that. The berry-picking was an opportunity because the season came between the weeks when all hands were needed to harvest cotton and other major crops. The picking was often work for women and children. Besides the money this brought to families, picking berries for kids “seems to have been a mixture of play and work,” Historian Bruce E. Baker writes. For adults, it helped build social ties with conversations in the berry patch and by providing a gift to share with friends and neighbors.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Study describes cumulative impacts “heading” the soccer ball has on the neurological functions of players, particularly balance problems.
• Wyoming raises number of wolves that can be taken this hunting season: Sixteen months ago, the federal courts removed wolves from endangered species protection in Wyoming, and state authorities have now approved a plan to let hunters kill more of them this year. Although there are an estimated 350 wolves statewide, only some 210 are in areas under state management. Hunting is still prohibited in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the National Elk Refuge near Jackson and on the Wind River Indian Reservation of Shoshone and Arapaho Indians. During this season, which starts earlier in some areas, hunters will be allowed to kill 58 wolves. This would bring the total count down to about 14 breeding pairs. The state is committed to maintaining 100 wolves with 10 breeding pairs. Jonathan Proctor of the Defenders of Wildlife said in a statement Wednesday that the move by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Commission is part of its goal to keep the wolf population at a bare minimum. Both Idaho and Montana also have instituted wolf-hunting seasons
• Red Dawn Fallis sentenced to 57 months in prison for discharging a pistol during Standing Rock pipeline resistance: Fallis, an Oglala Lakota resident in Denver, Colorado, was given credit for the 18 months she has already served. After her release, Fallis will be on a three-year supervised probation period. Her release will include a drug and alcohol treatment program. She was one of 140 peole arrested in October 2016 during a clash between law enforcement Standing Rock. Of the more than 400 people arrested protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline since the beginning of August of 2016, Fallis faced the most serious charges. She was accused of firing a pistol three times as officers tried to arrest her. Nobody was injured by the gunshots.