Trump Cancels a Secret Meeting With the Taliban Days Before 9/11 Anniversary
Tom Brenner/ZUMA President Donald Trump on Saturday claimed that he had canceled a secret meeting with Taliban and Afghan leaders that had been scheduled for the next day at Camp David, blaming last week’s Taliban car bombing that killed 12 people, including a US service member, for the abrupt move. Citing the attack, Trump also…
We Have Some Bad News About Trees
Frans Lemmens/ Corbis Unreleased/Getty This story was originally published by Undark. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Bob Marra navigated his way to the back of a dusty barn in Hamden, Connecticut, belonging to the state’s Agricultural Experiment Station. There, past piles of empty beehives, on a wall of metal shelves, were stacks of wooden…
MIT Tried to Cover Up Donations From Jeffrey Epstein
Uma Sanghvi/Palm Beach Post In the weeks since Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest and subsequent death in a New York City jail, we’ve learned a lot about the willingness of some of America’s most elite institutions—and the people who run them—to pal around with a convicted sex offender so long as the checks kept clearing. One prominent…
Here’s One Republican Who Says He’ll Buck the NRA on Expanded Background Checks
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, left, said sales between friends and between family members would be exempted from any new background check requirement.Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman In the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting in El Paso in early August, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick signaled he would toe the conservative line and blame everything but…
Congress Wants to Know If the Air Force Is Propping up Trump’s Golf Course
Air Force One lands at Prestwick Airport near Donald Trump’s Scottish golf resort in July 2018.Press Association via AP Images The House Oversight Committee is investigating whether the U.S. military is being used to steer taxpayer money to President Donald Trump’s Scottish golf course, according to a new report from Politico. According to the report, House…
This Apple Might Be the Most Anticipated Piece of Produce in History
Aysia Stieb/The California Sunday Magazine After two decades of research and development, it’s no wonder the Cosmic Crisp, a new variety of apple, is causing such a stir even before it hits supermarket shelves: There have been launch parties, press conferences, Instagram Influencers, and a $10.5 million marketing budget. On this week’s episode of Bite,…