Author: Reporter

Growing efforts to outlaw South Korea’s dog meat industry face a mix of support and opposition

Growing efforts to outlaw South Korea’s dog meat industry face a mix of support and opposition

Posted by | Sep 9, 2023

The dogs bark and stare as Kim Jong-kil approaches the rusty cages housing the large animals he sells for their meat. Kim opens a door and pets one dog’s neck and chest. Kim says he is proud of the dog meat farm that has supported his family for 27 years, but is upset over growing attempts by politicians and activists to outlaw the business, which he is turning over to his children. “It’s more than just feeling bad. I absolutely oppose these moves, and we’ll mobilize all our means to resist it,” Kim, 57, said in an interview at...

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Water and sewage treatment plants across the United States face increasing threats from floods

Water and sewage treatment plants across the United States face increasing threats from floods

Posted by | Sep 8, 2023

The crack of a summer thunderstorm once comforted people in Ludlow, Vermont. But that was before a storm dropped eight inches of rain on the village of 2,200 in two days in July. And it was before the devastation of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Now a coming rainstorm can stir panic. “We could lose everything again,” said Brendan McNamara, Ludlow’s municipal manager. The rainfall that walloped Vermont last month hit Ludlow so hard that floodwaters carried away cars and wiped out roads. It sent mud and debris into homes and businesses and forced officials to close a main...

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Scientists explore other contributing factors that fueled the summer’s record-shattering heat

Scientists explore other contributing factors that fueled the summer’s record-shattering heat

Posted by | Sep 8, 2023

Scientists are wondering if global warming and El Nino have an accomplice in fueling this summer’s record-shattering heat. The European climate agency Copernicus reported that July was six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit hotter than the old record. That was a bump in heat that is so recent and so big, especially in the oceans and even more so in the North Atlantic, that scientists are split on whether something else could be at work. Scientists agree that by far the biggest cause of the recent extreme warming is climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas...

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Direct air capture: Energy Department project aims to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Direct air capture: Energy Department project aims to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Posted by | Sep 8, 2023

The Energy Department announced in August that it was awarding up to $1.2 billion to two projects to directly remove carbon dioxide from the air in what officials are calling the largest investment in “engineered carbon removal” in history. The process, known as direct air capture, does not yet exist on a meaningful scale and could be a game changer if it did and were economical. “If we deploy this at scale, this technology can help us make serious headway toward our net zero emissions goals while we are still focused on deploying more clean energy at the same...

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Documenting a discovery: Shipwreck hunters find 1881 schooner Trinidad intact at bottom of Lake Michigan

Documenting a discovery: Shipwreck hunters find 1881 schooner Trinidad intact at bottom of Lake Michigan

Posted by | Sep 7, 2023

Shipwreck hunters have discovered the intact remains of a schooner that sank in Lake Michigan in 1881 and is so well-preserved it still contains the crew’s possessions in its final resting spot miles from Wisconsin’s coastline. Wisconsin maritime historians Brendon Baillod and Robert Jaeck found the 156-year-old Trinidad in July off Algoma at a depth of about 270 feet (82 meters). They used side-scan sonar to hone in on its location based on survivor accounts in historical records. “The wreck is among the best-preserved shipwrecks in Wisconsin waters with her deck-house still intact, containing the crew’s possessions and her...

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How potential loss of food stamp benefits impact college students already struggling with hunger

How potential loss of food stamp benefits impact college students already struggling with hunger

Posted by | Sep 6, 2023

Raised on welfare by his grandmother, Joseph Sais relied so much on food stamps as a college student that he thought about quitting school when his eligibility was revoked. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sais said, he missed an “important letter” and temporarily lost his eligibility in SNAP, the foundational anti-poverty program commonly known as food stamps. “There were times when I was taking a test and instead of focusing on the test, I’m focused on what I’m going to be able to eat tonight,” said Sais, who graduated from Sacramento State University with a degree in...

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