Portman among 47 GOP senators to sign letter to Iran WASHINGTON — In a move Democrats denounced as trying to sabotage the Obama administration’s foreign policy, Sen. Rob Portman and 46 other Senate Republicans yesterday warned Iran’s leadership that any agreement to limit Tehran’s apparent efforts to build a nuclear bomb would need Senate approval to stay in effect beyond 2016. More
Surgeon: Stonewall Jackson death likely pneumonia Historians and doctors have long debated what medical complications caused the death of legendary Confederate fighter Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, felled by friendly fire in the Civil War. More
GOP boycotts health care advisory board House and Senate Republican leaders told President Barack Obama Thursday that they will refuse to nominate candidates to serve on an advisory board that is to play a role in holding down Medicare costs under the new health care act. More
Senate planning vote on Internet sales tax bill The days of tax-free online shopping could finally be numbered. The Senate is planning to vote on a bill as soon as Monday that would give states the authority to collect sales taxes on all Internet purchases, handing local governments as much as $11 billion per year in added revenue that they are legally owed — but that hasn’t been paid to them for years. More
EVERGREEN — Trunks and logs lie askew, fresh-cut stumps dot the landscape and dozens of piles of ponderosa branches, browned and desiccated, sit on the forest floor at Alderfer/Three Sisters park in the Jefferson County foothills.
To Ruthe Hannigan, a 31-year Evergreen resident walking through the park on a chilly October morning, the sight of so many downed trees and exposed stumps is tantamount to “a great combination of awfulness.”
“They’re not doing fire mitigation, they’re selling it as fire mitigation,” said Hannigan, 75.
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
It’s November and it’s unseasonably warm as John John Brown, a Muscogee elder, works to replant peach saplings. “I haven’t had much luck growing them from seed,” he says. The reason, he thinks, is because peaches need lower temperatures.