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from ABC News (& affiliates)
TV Network in New York, New York10 pioneer-era apple types thought extinct found in US West
A team of retirees that scours the remote ravines and windswept plains of the Pacific Northwest for long-forgotten pioneer orchards has rediscovered 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct — the largest number ever unearthed in a single season by the nonprofit Lost Apple Project. The Vietnam veteran and former FBI agent who make up the nonprofit recently learned of their tally from last fall's apple sleuthing from expert botanists at the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Oregon, where all the apples are sent for study and identification. The apples positively identified as previously “lost” were among hundreds of fruits collected in October and November from 140-year-old orchards tucked into small canyons or hidden in forests that have since grown up around them in rural Idaho and Washington state. “It was just one heck of a season. It was almost unbelievable. If we had found one apple or two apples a year in the past, we thought were were doing good. But we were getting one after another after another,” said EJ Brandt, who hunts for the apples along with fellow amateur botanist David Benscoter. “I don’t know how we’re going to keep up with that.”
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CATHOLIC HOSPITALS UNDER ATTACK
Catholic hospitals are under unremitting attack—from prestigious medical journals, media, and lawyers in courtrooms. The goal is to coerce these venerable institutions into replacing their faith-based methods of medical practice with secular moral standards that deny the sanctity of human life.
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from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS, MIXED American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.
RIGHT BIAS, MIXED American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.
U.N. Report Promotes Abortion, LGBT "Rights" Over Human Rights
A new United Nations report threatens to undermine both this freedom and women’s rights. By focusing on the promotion of abortion and LGBT+ rights, the U.N. report turns the focus away from serious and pressing issues facing women and girls worldwide. Where treaties are silent, the U.N. bureaucracy should respect member states’ sovereignty and freedom to make their own laws. The report to the infamous U.N. Human Rights Council undermines the empowerment of women and girls by lumping their concerns together with novel claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It includes a controversial interpretation of “gender equality” that promotes acceptance of transgender ideology and the concept of multiple, fluid, “gender identities.”
The Known Unknowns of China’s Defense Budget
The Chinese Communist Party is notorious for obscuring how it runs the government of the People’s Republic of China. The defense budget data available from Beijing suffer from three distinct problems: lack of transparency, known omissions, and unreliability. The data are not very revealing. There are only three big accounts: personnel; training and sustainment; and equipment.
The Challenges of Forecasting the Spread and Mortality of COVID-19
A number of attempts have been made to forecast the spread and mortality of COVID-19. Two Heritage Foundation analysts examine one common model for doing so. While statistical models can be useful tools for tracking COVID-19, they are only as accurate as the input assumptions, which depend on continually changing data. Widespread, randomized testing is critical to generating credible forecasts and developing a full understanding of the disease. To make well-informed decisions, policymakers must use a range of forecasts and fully understand how sensitive models are to the smallest changes in assumptions.
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from HumanProgress.org
Education Website
This week, our hero is Vasili Arkhipov–a Soviet naval officer who refused to allow a Soviet nuclear strike on a U.S. aircraft carrier during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Arkhipov’s actions likely prevented an all-out nuclear war, the consequences of which would have included the deaths of millions, if not billions, of innocent people, a collapse of many nation states and their economies, and an enormous amount of environmental damage. Aptly, the U.S. National Security Archive has dubbed Arkhipov a man who “saved the world.”
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from New York Times Newspaper in New York
We spoke to the secretary of state to get her take on voting by mail and whether she thinks the balloting option could be implemented across the country.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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