A coot’s nest filled with plastic rubbish in AmsterdamAUKE-FLORIAN HIEMSTRA Covid-19 face masks, a chocolate wrapper from 1994 and a 30-year-old polystyrene burger box – the nests of Amsterdam’s Eurasian coots chart changes to consumer society through plastic waste. Usually, Eurasian coots (Fulica atra) build their waterside nests from scratch each year using natural, biodegradable materials like rushes, reeds and leaves. But in Amsterdam’s busy city centre, such materials are in short supply along the riverbanks. Instead, these coots rely on plastic litter to build their nests, says Auke-Florian Hiemstra at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden,… Source link
Author: Team_Benjamin Franklin Institute
President Trump said on Thursday that he would allow Mexico to avoid tariffs on most exports to the United States for one month, saying he would exempt products that are traded under the rules of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade pact he signed in his first term.The move came a day after he granted a 30-day reprieve to automakers, who had complained to the president that his sweeping 25 percent tariffs on both Canada and Mexico would cause severe damage to U.S. carmakers.Mr. Trump has played an intense game of brinkmanship with the North American economy this week, as he…
Graham FraserTechnology ReporterGetty ImagesNine major banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated at least 803 hours – the equivalent of 33 days – of tech outages in the past two years, figures published by a group of MPs show.The Treasury Committee – which has been investigating the impact of banking IT failures – compelled Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, Santander, NatWest, Danske Bank, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank to provide the data.It does not include the Barclays outage in January or the Lloyds outage last week – two incidents which occurred on pay day for many people,…
Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldDonald Trump has handed automakers a one-month reprieve on tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, the White House said.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US president had spoken with Stellantis, Ford and General Motors on Wednesday.Leavitt added that the exemption would apply to cars complying with the terms of the 2020 trade deal between the US, Mexico and Canada.“The president is giving them an exemption for one month so they are not at an economic disadvantage,” Leavitt…
Credit: Daniel Schwen and Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia As a political scientist, I’ve taken a great interest in the most recent realignment of our nation’s politics. Specifically, the Democrats’ switch from the party that (correctly) aggressively opposed the Iraq War to a brand of jingoism and imperial hubris that would make Curtis LeMay blush. There are many causes to this, from the structure of the two party system to naked party politics, but the results are what we’re concerned about here: and the results are that Americans are taking President Trump’s lead on the road to peace. RELATED: February Southwest…
Luigi Mangione has been in the headlines since December 2024 after he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, stalking, and several other offenses following the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.After Thompson’s death, there was a national manhunt for Mangione before he was located at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 9.Since the shooting, Luigi Mangione has gained widespread attention, partly due to public resentment toward insurance companies and partly because of his strikingly good looks. Today, after reports surfaced that the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate may have filmed “at least 20” videos of him having sex prior…
“PERSONNEL PROBLEMS” Although conscription has been highly controversial in Germany for a long time, support for bringing back some form of military service has grown across political party lines. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, from the Social Democrats (SPD) of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has pushed the idea of building up the armed forces, though without conscription. He has promoted a model that relies on voluntary service but also allows the country to make conscription compulsory if needed. In a first step, the outgoing Scholz cabinet in November signed off on plans for a new model under which all 18-year-olds would…
No rewards: Limited value outside of the intro APRThe biggest drawback with this card is that it doesn’t offer any sort of rewards program. That means:There’s no welcome bonus. Some credit cards offer welcome bonuses of $200 or more for new cardholders.There are no purchase rewards. Other cards earn cash rewards or points on all your eligible purchases, which can add up over time. It’s possible to earn $500 or more every year in rewards this way, depending on how much you spend.To be fair, this card has special offers through My Wells Fargo Deals, where you can earn cash…
Such a scenario has been raised recently, meaning the move does not come as a complete surprise. Eyeing one more year in the NFL, Slay will now need to find a new home for the second time in his career. Schefter notes this will be processed as a post-June 1 cut.As a result, the Eagles will see $4.32M in cap savings while generating a dead money charge of $9.44M which can be spread across two years. No guaranteed salary remained on Slay’s pact for 2025, the final year of the deal. By moving on this offseason, Philadelphia will avoid paying…
President Trump is doing damage to America that could take a generation or more to repair. The next election cannot fix what Trump is breaking. Neither can the one after that.To understand the gravity of the harm Trump has inflicted on the United States in the first month and a half of his presidency, a comparison with the Cold War is helpful. Republicans and Democrats often had sharp differences in their approach to the Soviet Union — very sharp. The parties would differ, for example, on the amount of military spending, on the approach to arms control and on American…