By Wendy Koch9 October 2013 NORTH POLE, Alaska (USA TODAY) – Up the road from Santa Claus Lane, past the candy cane-striped streetlamps, Cathy Richard’s backyard has a problem that not even elves — or the big guy in red — could fix. The wood deck moves up and down, like a slow-motion sleigh. “You […]
By Dene Moore7 October 2013 VANCOUVER (The Canadian Press) –Last month, a diver alerted Vancouver Aquarium staff that he had found a number of dead and decaying sunflower sea stars in the cold Pacific waters of a popular dive spot just off the shore of West Vancouver. Within weeks, the tentacled orange sea stars had […]
[If, however, your nation wants a permanent underclass…] By KIMBERLY HEFLING 8 October 2013 WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either. In math, reading and problem-solving using technology — all skills considered critical for global competitiveness […]
By David McFadden 6 October 2013 CASCADE, Jamaica (AP) – Crocodiles were once so abundant along the salty rim of southern Jamaica that images of their toothy jaws and spiny armour crown the tropical island’s coat of arms and are stenciled on the bumpers of military vehicles. Now, the big reptiles are increasingly difficult to […]
By Tristin Hopper4 October 2013 (National Post) – Little is known of Gregory Logan from court documents. He is a former Mountie, he is in his late 50s, he hails from Grand Prairie, Alta., and, from a summer home in Maine, he orchestrated what may well be the largest narwhal smuggling ring of modern times. […]
By Simon Moya-Smith, Staff Writer, NBC News6 October 2013 (NBC News) – More than 80 people and their pets had to be rescued by boat from their flooded homes after more than seven inches of rain fell Saturday and Sunday in Louisville, Kentucky. The National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency for Louisville early […]
By Jason Samenow4 October 2013 (Washington Post) – In an official public forecast discussion, the Anchorage National Weather Service office – whose employees are working without knowledge of when they will be paid during the ongoing Federal shutdown – encoded this secret message: “Please pay us.” The first letter in each of the first 11 […]
3 October 2013 (Reuters) – Twenty-one Nobel laureates including South African anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu have written to European Union leaders urging them to implement a law that would label oil from tar sands as dirtier than other crudes. The EU tar sands proposal has incensed the government of Canada, whose economy is highly dependent […]
By Phil Plait26 September 2013 (Slate) – As I predicted, with the advent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report due tomorrow, the noise machine is out in full force. Still, when I saw that James Delingpole had written yet another climate change denial piece for The Telegraph, I dithered. After all, in my […]
By Bryan Walsh 1 October 2013 (TIME) – Thousands of homeowners in flood-prone parts of the country are going to be in for a rude awakening. On Oct. 1, new changes to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which offers government-subsidized policies for households and businesses threatened by floods, mean that businesses in flood zones […]
