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Solar energy largely unscathed by Hurricane Florence’s wind and rain

Solar energy largely unscathed by Hurricane Florence’s wind and rain

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Inside Climate News reports: Faced with Hurricane Florence’s powerful winds and record rainfall, North Carolina’s solar farms held up with only minimal damage while other parts of the electricity system failed, an outcome that solar advocates hope will help to steer the broader energy debate. North Carolina has more solar power than any state other than California, much of it built in the two years since Hurricane Matthew hit the region. Before last week, the state hadn’t seen how its…

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The hidden intelligence of plants

The hidden intelligence of plants

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Rachel Ehrenberg writes: More than 200 years ago, French botanist René Desfontaines instructed a student to monitor the behavior of Mimosa pudica plants as he drove them around Paris in a carriage. Mimosa pudica quickly closes its leaves when touched — presumably as a defense mechanism. Desfontaines was interested in the plants’ response to the continuous vibrations of the ride. Initially, the leaves closed, but after a time, they reopened, despite the shaking. “The plants are getting used to it,”…

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Why Kavanaugh’s nomination should be withdrawn

Why Kavanaugh’s nomination should be withdrawn

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Benjamin Wittes writes: The question before us … is not whether to punish Kavanaugh or whether to assign liability to him. It’s whether to bestow on him an immense honor that comes with great power. Kavanaugh is applying for a much-coveted job. And the burden of convincing in such situations always lies with the applicant. The standard for elevation to the nation’s highest court is not that the nominee established a “reasonable doubt” that the serious allegations against him were…

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Kavanaugh reluctant to answer questions about his drinking habits and sexual behavior

Kavanaugh reluctant to answer questions about his drinking habits and sexual behavior

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The Washington Post reports: Just as he did several weeks ago to prepare for his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, Brett M. Kavanaugh was back inside a room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building — again facing questioners readying him for a high-stakes appearance in the Senate. This time, the questions were much different. An array of White House aides, playing the role of various senators on the Judiciary Committee, quizzed Kavanaugh last week about his sex life and…

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Trumpworld divided on Rosenstein — not whether to fire him, but when

Trumpworld divided on Rosenstein — not whether to fire him, but when

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Politico reports: Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham, once a top recruit to serve as White House press secretary, was early out of the gate on Friday with urgent advice for the president. “Rod Rosenstein must be fired today,” she tweeted, after the New York Times reported that the deputy attorney general had floated the idea of wearing a wire in the Oval Office and removing the president from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. Ingraham, one of the 47 feeds…

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Russia’s secret plan to help Julian Assange escape from UK

Russia’s secret plan to help Julian Assange escape from UK

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The Guardian reports: Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned. A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador’s London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country. One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US….

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How the Brexiteers got duped by con men

How the Brexiteers got duped by con men

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Anne Applebaum writes: To the inhabitants of the British Isles, the nations of central Europe have always existed in a semi–mythical space, near enough to be recognised as somehow European, but too distant to be taken seriously. Neville Chamberlain dismissed them as ‘faraway countries of which we know little’; Shakespeare gave landlocked Bohemia a coastline. In British school textbooks, Poland appears for the first time in 1939 and then vanishes again, just as abruptly. In the feverish politics of the…

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The crisis inside the physics of time

The crisis inside the physics of time

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Marcia Bartusiak writes: Poets often think of time as a river, a free-flowing stream that carries us from the radiant morning of birth to the golden twilight of old age. It is the span that separates the delicate bud of spring from the lush flower of summer. Physicists think of time in somewhat more practical terms. For them, time is a means of measuring change—an endless series of instants that, strung together like beads, turn an uncertain future into the…

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Kavanaugh’s supporters desperately try to sow confusion

Kavanaugh’s supporters desperately try to sow confusion

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Politico reports: It turns out that the Keystone Cops detective work by conservative legal activist Ed Whelan — which set Washington abuzz with the promise of exonerating Brett Kavanaugh, only to be met by mockery and then partially retracted — was not his handiwork alone. CRC Public Relations, the prominent Alexandria, Virginia-based P.R. firm, guided Whelan through his roller-coaster week of Twitter pronouncements that ended in embarrassment and a potential setback for Kavanaugh’s hopes of landing on the high court,…

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Kavanaugh’s classmates at Georgetown Prep describe alcohol-soaked party culture

Kavanaugh’s classmates at Georgetown Prep describe alcohol-soaked party culture

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The Associated Press reports: To the uninitiated, Georgetown Preparatory School feels less like a high school than a well-heeled liberal arts college. The 93-acre campus in a Maryland suburb of the nation’s capital boasts a state-of-the-art athletic center, a nine-hole golf course, and its own gift shop. Gardeners crisscross the grounds on carts. This is where U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spent most of his teen years. And exactly what happened one summer night during that time has become…

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Binge drinking and blackouts: Sobering truths about lost learning for college students

Binge drinking and blackouts: Sobering truths about lost learning for college students

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Young adults at a tailgate. Young adults are more likely than older adults to binge drink and are at greater risk when they do. Monkey Business ImagesShutterstock.com By Jamie Smolen, University of Florida Tens of thousands of college students nationwide will cheer for their football teams this weekend. Some of those who show up for the game after tailgate drinking may not remember the highlight touchdowns that they cheered so loudly for. Others may have trouble remembering even a rousing…

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Rosenstein joked about secretly recording Trump, Justice Department officials say

Rosenstein joked about secretly recording Trump, Justice Department officials say

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NBC News reports: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was joking when he discussed wearing a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump and does not believe Trump should be removed from office through the use of procedures outlined in the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, according to Justice Department officials who requested anonymity to discuss the conversation. The officials were responding to a New York Times report that Rosenstein, in the tumultuous spring of 2017, had discussed with other Justice and FBI…

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Unraveling the Russia story so far

Unraveling the Russia story so far

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The New York Times reports: On an October afternoon before the 2016 election, a huge banner was unfurled from the Manhattan Bridge in New York City: Vladimir V. Putin against a Russian-flag background, and the unlikely word “Peacemaker” below. It was a daredevil happy birthday to the Russian president, who was turning 64. In November, shortly after Donald J. Trump eked out a victory that Moscow had worked to assist, an even bigger banner appeared, this time on the Arlington…

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Evangelical leaders are frustrated at GOP caution on Kavanaugh allegation

Evangelical leaders are frustrated at GOP caution on Kavanaugh allegation

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The New York Times reports: Worried their chance to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court could slip away, a growing number of evangelical and anti-abortion leaders are expressing frustration that Senate Republicans and the White House are not protecting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh more forcefully from a sexual assault allegation and warning that conservative voters may stay home in November if his nomination falls apart. Several of these leaders, including ones with close ties to the White House…

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Scientists fear that insects upon which humans depend are declining

Scientists fear that insects upon which humans depend are declining

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The Associated Press reports: A staple of summer — swarms of bugs — seems to be a thing of the past. And that’s got scientists worried. Pesky mosquitoes, disease-carrying ticks, crop-munching aphids and cockroaches are doing just fine. But the more beneficial flying insects of summer — native bees, moths, butterflies, ladybugs, lovebugs, mayflies and fireflies — appear to be less abundant. Scientists think something is amiss, but they can’t be certain: In the past, they didn’t systematically count the…

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