4+ hour, 55+ min ago (584+ words) Wildlife officials release one of five gray wolves on public land in northwestern Colorado on December 18, 2023.Jerry Neal/Colorado Parks and Wildlife This story was originally published by'Vox and is reproduced here as part of the'Climate Desk'collaboration. On a sunny morning two years ago, a group of state officials stood in the mountains of northwestern Colorado in front of a handful of large metal crates. With a small crowd watching them, the officials began to unlatch the crate doors one by one. Out of each came a gray wolf'arguably the nation's most controversial endangered species. This was a massive moment for conservation. While gray wolves once ranged throughout much of the Lower 48, a government-backed extermination campaign wiped most of them out in the 19th and 20th centuries. By the 1940s, Colorado had lost all of its resident wolves. "This was not ever going…...

23+ hour, 36+ min ago (388+ words) Rep. Lateefah Simon speaking at a rally.Gent Shkullaku/Zuma "Before our disabled elders secured our rights under the law, disabled kids were locked out of systems and out of their potential," Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Ca.), who is blind, told me in a statement. "Congress must protect and fully fund the IDEA to ensure future generations of disabled children have the supports and services they need to thrive in school," Simon continued. "Our civil rights are not up for negotiations." This is not to say that all students" needs are adequately met under the IDEA. Jordyn Zimmerman, a nonspeaking autistic person, told me that she did not have access to effective communication via iPad until she was 18. Samantha Phillis, an advocate with Little Lobbyists, told me that her two daughters, who are in public school, are on IEPs, one of…...

1+ day, 9+ hour ago (222+ words) Frances Wallace, a digital organizer for the Yellowhammer Fund, unloads boxes of free reproductive health supplies for local residents during a Repro Raven For Your Power bus tour stop in Opp, Alabama, in March. Charity Rachelle/Produced with support from the Magnum Foundation and Commonwealth Fund In August 2022, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall made a guest appearance on a local conservative talk radio show. It was two months after the US Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, and abortion was now illegal in Alabama. And Marshall addressed rumors that he planned to prosecute anyone helping people get abortions out of state." "If someone was promoting themselves out as a funder of abortion out of state," Marshall explained to the host, "then that is potentially criminally actionable for us." This particular threat launched an epic legal battle with implications for some…...

4+ day, 4+ hour ago (130+ words) Lily Meyer4 minutes ago What makes a good children's book, and how much does it matter if a children's book is good? "Kids are weird! They're joyfully weird, and if you spend time with them and are able to get that weirdness and that playfulness out of them, you can really understand why a moralizing book really comes across as gross." AI could be no menace at all to picture-book classics, but it could make high-quality contemporary board books go extinct. Only instinct and imagination can tell you what Sandra Boynton means when she writes in "Dinosaur Dance!that "Iguanodon goes dibbidy DAH." A good board book could become one more educational advantage that accrues disproportionately to the elite. Jackie Flynn Mogensen and Henry Carnell...

4+ day, 4+ hour ago (650+ words) Terri Williams, who lives in northern Texas, started volunteering as a high schooler in the mid-1970s'at first for Planned Parenthood, educating people about birth control. In retirement, she hasn't stopped. Linda McMahon's 2024 nomination as President Donald Trump's Secretary of Education, a prelude to attempts in dismantling the department, led Williams to double down on her efforts, which now center on helping elementary schoolers excel. The work also keeps Williams sane. Following politics leaves her "ready to tear somebody's hair out," she said."After I hang out with the kids, I'm in a great mood'there's nothing like 17 people screaming, "Miss Terri!' when you walk into the room." "I'm doing this so my granddaughters will have the future that their grandmothers had." Williams is one of a legion of retired people responding to the tears in the country's social fabric by volunteering…...

4+ day, 4+ hour ago (1150+ words) Platform Holly, near Goleta, is one of just a handful of oil rigs off the California coast.State Lands Commission/AP This story was originally published by'Inside Climate News'and is reproduced here as part of the'Climate Desk'collaboration. It's not often that the governors of California and Florida are on the same page, but this week they're aligned in opposition to the White House's latest plan to expand offshore oil drilling near both their shores.' "The Biden administration slammed the brakes on offshore oil and gas leasing and crippled the long-term pipeline of America's offshore production,said'Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a statement with the plan's announcement. "By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America's offshore industry stays strong. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska'praised the move. But California Gov. Gavin Newsom,…...

5+ day, 2+ hour ago (488+ words) Inae Oh6 minutes ago When I asked to help explain Kennedy's appeal, sexologist and professor Pepper Schwartz told me: "I once heard a woman say that she thought Henry Kissinger was sexy." When I asked for help in explaining his appeal, Pepper Schwartz, a sexologist and professor at the University of Washington, told me, "I once heard a woman say that she thought Henry Kissinger was sexy." Still, men, and especially men in elite circles, have always been able to sell themselves with supposed "intelligence, power, and poetic talent." "The fact that this is a powerful, perhaps charming, well-placed person all weaves together for them to also be found sexy," Schwartz continued. "That anybody ever found Henry Kissinger sexy is proof." Unscripted, while far more demure in its portrait of a woman in lust, offers hints. Upon bumping into Kennedy for…...

5+ day, 4+ hour ago (1370+ words) Anna Merlan12 minutes ago On the night before Christmas in 1954, a Chicago housewife named Dorothy Martin begged her followers to step outside, sing together, and wait, at last, for the aliens." Things hadn't been going well for Martin, the leader of a small UFO-based religious movement usually known as the Seekers. She had previously told her followers that, according to her psychic visions, a UFO would land earlier that month and take them all to space; afterwards, a great flood would bring this fallen world to an end." Research based on recently unsealed records claims the book When Prophecy Fails leans on lies, omissions, and serious manipulation. At 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, the group gathered, sang, and waited; eventually, they retreated to Martin's living room. A large crowd of journalists, curious gawkers, and some hecklers stood outside." Kelly's paper not only undercuts…...

5+ day, 20+ hour ago (266+ words) President Donald Trump delayed an announcement of a plan to extend ACA tax credits.Yuri Gripas/CNP/Zuma After teasing a plan by President Donald Trump to extend Affordable Care Act premium subsidies'currently on track to end within weeks'the White House has indefinitely delayed the announcement under pressure from congressional Republicans, MS NOW reported on Monday. The last-minute change of plan signals the GOP's priorities: the party has fought to cut or repeal the ACA since it entered law in 2010, and was uncompromising in opposing the subsidies during the record-breaking government shutdown that ended earlier in November. "I don't see how a proposal like this has any chance of getting majority Republican support," an anonymous House Republican told MS NOW. "We need to be focused on health care, but extending Obamacare isn't even serious." It's because congressional Republicans want the…...

5+ day, 21+ hour ago (175+ words) Elon Musk, X's owner, smiles at Mohammed bin Salman during the Saudi leader's November state visit.Evan Vucci/AP Late last week, the X social media platform rolled out a new "location indicator" tool, plans for which had first been announced in October. Suddenly, it became much easier to get information on where in the world the site's users are actually posting from, theoretically helping to illuminate inauthentic behavior, including attempted foreign influence. "It is clear that information operations and coordinated inauthentic behavior will not cease." As the New York Times noted, the tool quickly illuminated how many MAGA supporting accounts are not actually based in the U.S., including one user called "MAGA Nation X" with nearly 400,000 followers, whose location data showed it is based in a non-EU Eastern European country. The Times found similar accounts based in Russia, Nigeria, and…...