PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
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Joshua Trees Are in Peril. California Has a Plan to Save Them. (Maria)
The author writes, “The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has released a new plan to protect the state’s iconic Joshua trees, which are imperiled by wildfires, human development and climate change. The 294-page draft plan includes calls for avoiding or minimizing direct and indirect impacts from overgrazing, pesticide use and unauthorized off-roading; relocating trees when projects require their removal or could harm them; and identifying and protecting lands where they could thrive. … ‘In many ways, it’s a good comprehensive plan of the things we need to do if the western Joshua tree is going to survive the very, very difficult decades ahead,’ said Brendan Cummings, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that in 2019 petitioned to list the western Joshua tree as threatened under the state’s Endangered Species Act.”
Why Trump’s Conflicts of Interest Look Worse This Time (Dana)
From MSNBC: “Donald Trump’s first term as president was plagued by unprecedented conflicts of interest. This time around, the possibilities for corruption are worse, and we risk billionaires and foreign governments around the world thinking of U.S. policy as up for sale to the highest bidder.”
The Tool Donald Trump Might Use To Crush Dissent (Sean)
The author writes, “So-called ‘anti terror’ laws intended to control civil society groups and civic freedoms are a feature of autocracies such as Russia, or countries with growing autocratic pretensions like India. There are plenty of examples of how such laws can be used. In June, a Delhi legislator sanctioned the prosecution of the Booker Prize-winning writer Arundhati Roy, under draconian anti-terror legislation that permits imprisonment without charge, for a speech she gave in 2010. Now the United States could become the latest nation to pass an anti-terror law that will effectively stifle dissent.”
The Texas Ob-Gyn Exodus (Russ)
From The New Yorker: “Manatt [Health] surveyed hundreds of ob-gyns in Texas to examine the impact of abortion bans. Seventy-six per cent of respondents said that they could no longer treat patients in accordance with evidence-based medicine. Twenty-one per cent said that they were either considering leaving the state or already planning to do so; thirteen per cent had decided to retire early. The report found ‘historic and worsening shortages’ of ob-gyns, which ‘disproportionately impact rural and economically disadvantaged communities.’”
What Happened When a City Started Accepting — Not Evicting — Homeless Camps (Mili)
The author writes, “As cities across North America grapple with homelessness, one Canadian city has taken a different approach by regulating tent encampments instead of banning them, as it tries to tackle what one official calls the issue ‘of the decade.’”
‘The Land Is Tearing Itself Apart’: Life on a Collapsing Arctic Isle (Laura)
From The Guardian: “On Qikiqtaruk, off Canada, researchers at the frontier of climate change are seeing its rich ecology slide into the sea as melting permafrost ice leaves little behind.”
New Theory Reveals the Shape of a Single Photon (Sean)
The author writes, “A new theory that explains how light and matter interact at the quantum level has enabled researchers to define for the first time the precise shape of a single photon.”
