Giro d'Italia, Jonathan Milan vince in volata la quarta tappa

Eight-year-old Ahmad, a student a Deep Roots Charter School outside Philadelphia, said he never knew his teacher, Mrs. Laurie, “could dance like that.”

Michael M. Santiago/Pool/AFP via GettyThe prosecution rested its case in the New York Trump trial, which means that they are finished presenting their evidence.Now the defense has a chance to put on their case if they choose to do so, as they are not obligated to put forth any evidence. The burden of putting forth evidence and proving the case in a criminal trial always remains entirely with the prosecution. They are the side that must prove the guilt of a defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.At the close of the government’s case, the defense gets the chance to ask the judge to dismiss the case based on the premise that the prosecution has not proven the elements of the case sufficiently to allow the case even to go to a jury.Read more at The Daily Beast.

"We are not surprised that it had such an impact on social media. We are really happy about it."

Brittany Kjenaas and her husband live with their three-year-old daughter in northern Minnesota, paying more for child care than their mortgage. Kjenaas, a health care supply manager and her husband, a miner on the Iron Range, cite their daycare bills as the primary reason they’ve abandoned plans to have any more children. “We waited until we were in our ‘30s to start a family and…it’s not an exaggeration to say that the decision was based on the cost of child care,” she said. “She is our only child, and unless something changes in the cost of child care, she will remain our only child.” Kjenaas is not alone in speaking out about how the prohibitive costs of child care are shaping the reproductive decisions of middle class families like hers, families that are ineligible for any of the existing low-income child care assistance programs. In Minnesota state Sen. Grant Hauschild has been sharing how he and his wife considered having a third child but decided against it due to daycare costs. It’s among the top three issues he hears about from constituents on a daily basis, as well as from prospective employers considering setting up businesses in his region. It’s what makes a bill Hauschild introduced alongside Minnesota Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn this year so interesting. Their legislation — known as Great Start Affordability Scholarships — targets middle and upper-middle class families, those earning up to 150 percent of the state median income, or $174,000 for a family of four. Think Small, a local children’s advocacy group, estimated the scholarships would reduce child care costs for 86 percent of Minnesotans with kids under 5. The benefits would be on a sliding scale but could be as high as $600 a month per child, with the state sending payments directly to Minnesota child care providers. The effort aims to ultimately cap family child care payments at seven percent of a household’s annual income, an affordability threshold endorsed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, and more recently by a bipartisan Minnesota state task force. (HHS landed on this benchmark about a decade ago after determining that between 1997 and 2011 families spent about seven percent of their income consistently on child care.) A seven percent cap would represent a massive change for most Minnesota families, who pay some of the steepest child care costs in the country. Infant care in Minnesota stands at an average annual cost of $1,341 per month, and $1,021 for preschool. The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning national think tank, estimates the average Minnesota family with an infant and a preschooler pays now roughly 37 percent of their household income for care. State leaders like Hauschild have been getting fed up with federal inaction. Republicans rebuffed Democrats’ $400 billion child care proposal during the 2021 Build Back Better fight, and child care funding was excluded from Congress’ Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. While bipartisan compromise on child care seems possible, leaders right now seem to only be able to find common ground on helping low-income families. The Minnesota proposal failed to advance this year, but advocates believe their time lobbying on an off-cycle budget year has positioned them well for 2025 when the legislature embarks on more serious appropriations. Still, whether state lawmakers will be able to ever fully fund the program’s cost (an estimated roughly $2 billion or so annually) without the federal government is unclear. If the proposal passes, Kjenaas said it would do even more than enable her family to grow. “If we pay a few thousand less on child care we’d be able to take our daughter to the zoo, go see a movie, and even plan a fun road trip because we’d finally be able to do so without the stress of how much money it would cost at the end,” Kjenaas testified before a Minnesota House subcommittee in November. “We’d be able to buy healthy food at the grocery store instead of pre-packaged stuff. We’d be able to have time to make healthy meals because my husband wouldn’t have to work overtime to pay catch up on our bills…We’d have room to breathe.” Building a bigger political base for child care Not everyone in Minnesota agrees with the push to expand child care subsidies for wealthier families, especially since low-income families are still struggling. But it helps, advocates say, that the state legislature succeeded a year prior in securing new child care investments specifically for poor families. Armed with a substantial budget surplus, Minnesota lawmakers in 2023 raised early childhood education workers’ pay with a half billion dollar investment, and invested $300 million more into early learning, including new investments in Head Start and low-income scholarships. “For a long time the emphasis has been on most vulnerable kids and we made some really big strides in that area last session,” said Ericca Maas, director of policy and advocacy for Think Small. “We came together after that and said well glaring at us is middle-class families.” Clare Sanford, the government relations chair for the Minnesota Child Care Association, a provider group, said the debates around equity continued this year as advocates lobbied for the Great Start Affordability Scholarships program. Some activists protested pushing to help wealthier families before those with the least resources were fully covered. This debate was never fully resolved, but ultimately, Sanford said, leading groups decided they’d be more successful in the long-term if they could expand their coalition to include more families. “There’s a fundamental agreement that we need to help those who have the least first, and we know we haven’t finished doing that, however part of the strategy, is we need middle class families to see themselves as part of this,” she told Vox. “We need more political will to form a greater political base.” Megan Pulford, a single mother of two in northeastern Minnesota, is the type of parent advocates like Sanford want to bring into their coalition. As a bank loan officer Pulford has never qualified for state child care assistance, but covering the cost of daycare for her two kids comes at nearly $2,000 a month. “Money is just so tight, our bills are just so tight,” she told Vox. “If we didn’t have to pay as much for child care we could actually put more into our local grocers, local businesses.” A big part of the coalition-building strategy is helping middle and upper-middle class parents overcome feelings of shame that they may be struggling with costs at all. Lawmakers have long treated child care assistance as a carrot to induce poor mothers to work, rather than a general investment in the healthy development of all children. “The myth in our country is that very young children are a private responsibility, not a public one,” said Sanford. “Everyone will pay taxes to fund public K-12 schools whether or not they have kids because that’s a commitment we’ve made as a society that an educated workforce is something we all need. We do the exact opposite for ages 0-5.” “We feel the need to help parents really understand that this is a shared experience, and that it’s okay for them to share that they’re not holding up,” Maas, of Think Small, added. The search for simple language continues American child care advocacy is often plagued by cumbersome math and jargon, and the effort in Minnesota this year was no different. In contrast to Canadian politicians who’ve been spearheading a message around child care costs for no more than $10-a-day, US progressives have long stuck with more complicated language around limiting costs to thresholds of annual household income. (The specific threshold to signal affordability used to be ten percent, though was lowered to seven percent about ten years ago.) The seven percent benchmark was recently included in Senate Democrats’ Child Care for Every Community Act, and the Biden administration’s new rule to reduce child care costs for families already receiving subsidies. Rep. Kotyza-Witthuh, the Minnesota House sponsor of the Great Start Affordability Scholarships, said they felt seven percent was a good target because Minnesota lawmakers had already pledged commitment to the goal last year in statute, and because it already exists as a federal recommendation. But advocates acknowledge it can be very confusing, particularly since many families don’t know what seven percent of their household income is, and for some families the goal is to still have them spend less than seven percent. Talking about “capping” child care costs, advocates hoped, would at least provide a clear policy message they could galvanize parents around, but then child care providers started getting nervous, interpreting the cap language as a cap on their expenses, or a cap on the amount of tuition they can charge. “People freak out when you talk about a cap,” Maas told Vox. “Providers freak out about things they charge being capped, and some parents really bristle too at the idea that they couldn’t invest more in their child if they wanted to.” To mitigate this confusion, some advocates started describing the proposed scholarship subsidy as more like a co-pay, similar to health insurance. But health insurance costs are also among the most confusing Americans have to budget for. While the fight was unsuccessful this session, Democratic leaders in Minnesota say they’re keeping it as a goal for 2025. “It is a priority for my caucus and our leadership,” said Kotyza-Witthuhn. “Everyone knows the system is broken.”

The infant got his first name from the Muse frontman's father, George, and his middle names from the model's parents, Julie and Billy Wade.

The Princess of Wales, 42, has been undergoing chemotherapy treatment behind the scenes after revealing her cancer diagnosis to the world in March.

Ten years ago this spring, Vox was founded with the mission to help people understand the news through explanatory journalism that made complex topics accessible to anyone. Central to that mission was our promise to put our audience first in everything we do: constantly innovating to create accessible journalism for our audience, answering their biggest questions, and meeting them where they were.  Over that same decade, the world has navigated a pandemic, the worsening impacts of climate change, the global rise of authoritarianism, the devastation of multiple wars, and more. We’ve also seen turbulence in the media industry, with audience habits changing, constantly shifting technology and social media algorithms, and a fast-evolving advertising economy. We’re living and working in a complicated era. But 10 years on at Vox, we still strive every day to provide clarity on the most complex topics. Our goal since our launch has expanded: We want to explain the news, but also to offer context, analysis, solutions, and advice, on the topics that are getting our attention, and those that should get more of it. We want our audience to understand the world they live in so that they can help shape it. One thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to putting our audience first, and to continuing to develop new ways to serve them wherever they are — be it our website, podcasts, videos, social platforms, or newsletters.  That’s why at Vox, we’re proud to be celebrating our 10-year anniversary, and we’re kicking off our next decade with a number of new innovations to better serve you, our loyal audience: a new website, a new membership model to expand our offerings and support our business, and a slate of new newsletters and podcasts to double down on the journalism our audiences have come to know and love over the last decade. Here’s a peek at what’s coming: Our new website: You’ve probably noticed our website is looking a little different! We’ve relaunched our website with a sleek, updated design that makes it easier for you to discover and find all of the journalism you love, be it politics, culture, climate, or everything in between; articles, podcasts, or videos; or entire sections like Even Better, Future Perfect, or Down to Earth. A new membership program: To keep producing the journalism you love, we need your support. Over the past four years, financial contributions from our audience have helped sustain our work. Now, we’re excited to announce a new program that will allow our audience to get even closer to Vox. Today we’re launching Vox Membership, where in exchange for your financial support, you’ll receive exclusive member perks like behind-the-scenes content, opportunities to connect with our journalists through Q&As and chats, virtual events, access to our digital magazine, The Highlight, and a bonus monthly edition of The Highlight Podcast, and more. Read more about Vox Membership here, and sign up to become a member here. A slate of new newsletters coming this year: We know one of the reasons our audience is loyal to Vox is because of our journalists and the deep expertise, perspectives, and analysis they bring to their work. So throughout this year we’ll be launching new newsletters from a number of our journalists, such as: SCOTUS, Explained, a Supreme Court newsletter from Ian Millhiser; On the Right, about what’s happening with the American right from Zack Beauchamp; Within Our Means, on ending poverty in America from Abdallah Fayyad; Next Page, full of book recommendations from Constance Grady (with a special Ask a Book Critic edition for Vox Members); and many more to come.  We’re launching two new podcasts: The Weeds host Jonquilyn Hill will helm a new, audience question-driven show that will tackle a wide range of topics and harness the expertise of Vox’s reporters to explain everything from personal finance to pop culture to public policy. And we’ve recently brought on award-winning host Julia Longoria to develop a new, narrative audio series in collaboration with Future Perfect that will dig into questions about our future in complex, difficult-to-understand topics like artificial intelligence, medical technology, and factory farming. We’ll share more on both new shows in the coming months.  At Vox, we’ll continue to always put you, our audience, at the heart of everything we do. Thank you for supporting Vox and for being along for the journey this past decade, and into the next one. 

Caitlin Clark has entered the same stratosphere as Michael Jordan.

OpenAI anunció el lunes que planea suspender el uso de una sus voces de ChatGPT después de que la actriz Scarlett Johansson señaló que sonaba “inquietantemente parecida” a la suya.

El exjugador de la selección de España y el FC Barcelona, Carles Puyol, visitó el Este de Los Ángeles para anunciar un campamento de futbol gratuito que se llevará a cabo en el verano.

Since our founding in 2014, you’ve supported Vox in our mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world so that we can all help shape a better one. We think of you — our audience — as being at the heart of everything we do. With every story, podcast, and video we create, we ask ourselves: What does our audience need to know about this topic? What matters to them? What questions do they have? Our journalists strive to bring you clarity, context, and nuance on all the topics that affect your world and your daily life. Together, we’ve learned about everything from artificial intelligence, the Supreme Court, and meatless meat to personal finance, climate solutions, parenting, and more. This vital journalism wouldn’t have been possible without the continued support of our readers, listeners, and video audience. That’s why today we’re launching the Vox Membership program. It’s a celebration of our decade-long commitment to serve our audience and build our community. This program will allow us to offer you deeper access to Vox than ever before.  So what does it mean to be a Vox Member? What kind of cool perks do you get? And why is Vox doing this?  Why is Vox launching a membership program? Quality journalism is expensive to produce. We rely partly on direct support from our audience to fund our work. For the past four years, people have been contributing to Vox because they believe in our mission of creating smart, approachable journalism. With our new membership program, we plan to build on that foundation by creating a closer two-way relationship between our audience and Vox.  So what exactly is the Vox Membership program? What do I get for joining? It’s a new community with some exciting perks. Most importantly, you’ll help Vox continue to produce the journalism that you rely on to understand the world around you. But we’ll also be rolling out special benefits to members to thank them for their support. Members will receive:  Biweekly editions of The Vox Explainer members-only newsletter, which goes behind the scenes on how we make our journalism. Access to The Highlight, our members-only digital magazine, which includes a selection of in-depth features, conversation-driving essays, definitive explainers, and more. The Highlight Podcast, a monthly bonus podcast included with the digital magazine, featuring a rotating cast of Vox podcast hosts and journalists talking with an expert at the forefront of their field working on an idea or pursuit that feels important, novel, and exciting. Invitations to exclusive quarterly Q&As with our journalists and subject-matter experts on topics like artificial intelligence, family policy, and climate solutions.  Live virtual tapings of select episodes of Vox podcasts.  Interactive video interviews with voices from our video team More members-only newsletters in the months ahead, including the monthly Ask a Book Critic, a special members-only edition of Vox’s Constance Grady’s upcoming newsletter. And that’s just the start — we’ve got more planned and we want to hear from you about how we can build this community in the months ahead.  How do I become a Vox Member?  If you have already committed to a recurring monthly or annual contribution to Vox, you don’t need to do anything else. You can now consider yourself a Vox Member and you can expect to hear from us on your new benefits! Thank you for your continuing support. If you’re not already a recurring contributor, become a member by clicking right here. Vox Members make recurring contributions of at least $5 per month or $50 per year. Reliable support from our audience allows us to invest in ambitious projects and continue to cover the most important issues and ideas shaping society. Can I still make a one-time contribution? Vox’s mission is to make reliable news coverage accessible to everyone, and that isn’t changing. We created Vox Membership to encourage recurring support and express our gratitude to those who are able to make that commitment. However, one-time contributions to our newsroom are as important as ever and we’re working on ways to keep one-time contributors informed on what’s new at Vox.  How do I access my member benefits? Once you’ve signed up, you’ll start hearing from us via email. We’ll make sure that you’re getting the latest behind-the-scenes information from the Vox newsroom and access to all the perks that members receive. It’s as simple as that. And if you ever experience issues or have a question for us, email us at membership@vox.com. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you for supporting us for the last 10 years. We hope you’ll join us for the next decade and join the Vox Membership program today.

Former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial continues in New York. Follow here for the latest live news updates, analysis and more.

We've never felt this airy and breathable when sleeping (truly).

From her marriage in 2011, Kate has built a number of projects connected with her passion for mental health and children.

The research is being used to see if the seabed is suitable to support offshore wind farms.

Want to stop global warming? Start thinking about Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

How do I use my new Instant Pot, and should I get rid of my slow cooker and air fryer? We answered this reader question.

Jennifer Lopez went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" the same day that Ben Affleck skipped the red carpet premiere for her new Netflix movie.

The 21-year-old has sparked a wave of criticism after telling a group of Native Americans to leave the U.S.

The man was injured after coming face to face with two grizzly bears while walking through the Grand Teton National Park.

The annual poll was conducted to find the best place to work in the government, with the embattled SSA trailing in last place among large federal agencies.

The new deal comes on the heels of the fast-food industry trying to fight inflation costs.

Mario Anzuoni/ReutersElvis Presley’s granddaughter has filed a lawsuit to stop a sale of Graceland, the singer’s historic home in Tennessee, alleging that a fake company is relying on “fraudulent” documents to make its claim on the property.Actress Riley Keough became the heir to Elvis’ estate following the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, in January 2023. About eight months later, a company named Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC presented documents that it claimed showed Lisa Marie Presley had borrowed $3.8 million from the company—and that Graceland had been used as collateral for the loan.According to Keough’s lawsuit, Kurt Naussany—now a defendant in the suit—claimed to represent the creditor and contacted Koeugh’s lawyers in “numerous emails seeking to collect the purported $3.8 million debt and threatening to conduct a non-judicial sale of Graceland.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

The poster told Newsweek she was worried when she read one pupil's answers, but then she saw what the other two had put.

One person died and several others were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight encountered severe turbulence on its way from London to Singapore.

Funeral rites began Tuesday after the late Iranian President and the country's Foreign Minister died in a helicopter crash on Sunday.

Stoking the rivalry between these teams will have to wait until Matthew Tkachuk or Sam Bennett or someone is punched in the mouth.

"Oftentimes, we would never treat others the way we treat ourselves," Rihanna Teixeira said.

President Joe Biden is traveling to New Hampshire on Tuesday to detail the impact of a law that helps veterans get key benefits as a result of toxic exposure.

An online game of political skill is engaging players not just from across America but from all over the globe who are learning about the American political system. Creator Mark Penn shared comments.

The biopic premiered at Cannes and received an 11-minute standing ovation, but its funders are not happy.

Michael M. Santiago/Pool via ReutersDonald Trump’s Truth Social account has boosted a campaign video that spoke of a “unified Reich” in America if he reclaims the White House in the November election.The 30-second video, which is still up, features a series of headlines predicting “what happens after Donald Trump wins,” with answers like, “Economy booms!” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported.” One headline referenced the “creation of a unified Reich,” using a term meaning “realm” or “empire” that is usually associated with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in Nazi Germany.The Biden campaign reacted to the video with alarm on Monday night, with campaign spokesman James Singer accusing Trump of “parroting Mein Kampf” in a statement posted to X.Read more at The Daily Beast.

The "Friends" alum passed away in October 2023, with an autopsy revealing two months later that the actor died from the "acute effects of ketamine."

Quiere leer esta historia en español? Haga clic aquí.  Night had fallen in Cabo Rojo, a wildlife refuge along Puerto Rico’s southwestern coast, by the time we started our hike. Insects hummed from the grasses, green lizards slept in the trees, and resting water birds, spooked by our approaching footsteps, squawked and flew away. I scanned the canopy and the ground with a flashlight as my companions — a group of research biologists from a local university — had told me to. Hundreds of eyes reflected back at me from all directions: spiders. Moments later, as I neared the rocky coastline, my beam caught something even more unnerving. A few feet from where I stood, a large snake slithered along the forest floor. It was about 3 feet long and armored with a kaleidoscope pattern of green, black, and yellow scales. The snake was a boa constrictor. And it wasn’t supposed to be here. That late-night sighting was a glimpse into a much bigger problem in Puerto Rico: In recent years, three species of large invasive constrictors have been spreading across the island. Boa constrictors, which are native to South and Central America, are now common on the west side of the island. Meanwhile, reticulated pythons, the longest snakes in the world known to reach 30 feet, are abundant in the central mountains. In their native range of South and Southeast Asia, retics, as snake enthusiasts call them, have swallowed humans whole. Yet another invasive constrictor — the ball python — is starting to spread, too.  This is highly troubling for the island’s native animals, as well as for pets.  Boas and reticulated pythons are apex predators in Puerto Rico, meaning they are at the top of the food chain. And big snakes have big appetites. “It’s very, very bad,” said Alberto R. Puente-Rolón, a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez and a leading authority on invasive snakes in the region. “We have a serious problem and a serious threat to the bird species here,” said Puente-Rolón, who was with me that night in Cabo Rojo.  This problem is especially clear in the wildlife refuge. Cabo Rojo is considered the most important stopover site for migratory species and shorebirds — including rare plovers and warblers — in the eastern Caribbean. These birds are critical pieces of complex and ancient island ecosystems. They help control the number of insects and other small animals that they consume, and they spread nutrients throughout the Caribbean (through their feces).  Invasive snakes are similarly threatening outside of Cabo Rojo and across the island, where there are thousands of other native species. Dozens of them are endemic, meaning they’re found nowhere else on Earth. These include birds like the native Puerto Rican parrot, one of the world’s rarest avian species. Because many trees rely on native birds to spread their seeds, losing the parrot would send ripples of destruction through the island’s native forests.  Scientists are also concerned that invasive constrictors will introduce diseases that harm the island’s native snakes, including the Puerto Rican boa, a federally endangered species that’s found only on the island. Other regions in the tropics have experienced the devastation wrought by invasive snakes. In Guam, the venomous brown tree snake — which is native to Papua New Guinea and Australia — wiped out 10 of the island’s 12 native forest birds after it was introduced to the territory in the mid-20th century. That loss is now threatening the future of Guam’s forests; like in Puerto Rico, many of the island’s trees need birds to spread their seeds. In south Florida, meanwhile, scientists have linked the spread of Burmese pythons to the severe decline of some native mammals like rabbits and foxes. The situation in Puerto Rico isn’t this extreme yet. While invasive constrictors are already widespread in some parts of the island, they are only just starting to fan out across Puerto Rico, scientists told me. That means local experts and environmental officials still have an opportunity to limit the destruction they can cause.  The big question now is whether Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean and a US territory, will act fast enough to stem the spread. It faces ongoing financial troubles — rooted in a long history of colonialism — as well as frequent natural disasters, which together stand in the way of progress. And as epicenters of the extinction crisis have demonstrated (see, Hawaii), the US often fails to spend money on interventions until native species have all but disappeared.  “Do we have to wait to press the panic button?” Puente-Rolón said. “Or can we be proactive?” Puerto Rico is filling up with invasive snakes On that April night in Cabo Rojo, which is about three and half hours from the capital of San Juan, we spotted two more invasive boas in the next hour. They were larger and wrapped around tree branches several feet above the ground.  Encountering three snakes in three hours is not normal. “Now you can understand the problem,” said Puente-Rolón, who has a handful of serpent tattoos on his upper body. (One is of a coral snake that he says almost killed him on a trip to the Amazon.) The boas weren’t far from a flock of shorebirds that nest by salt flats in the refuge. Last summer, researchers found three of them in the nesting area of least terns, small seabirds with black caps and smoky gray plumage that are declining in parts of the US. Two of the snakes were captured and dissected. One of them had the feathers of a young tern in its stomach.  “There is an ecological imbalance,” said Ana Román, who manages the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge. “These invasive species don’t belong.” Like nonnative species everywhere, the invasive snakes are here not because of their own actions but because of human beings. Pet traders have been selling constrictors and pythons in Puerto Rico for decades, although owning boa constrictors and retics without a permit is illegal. (The law, scientists told me, is not strictly enforced.) Pet snakes escape, experts warn. Plus, reckless owners sometimes release their animals into the wild when they get too big and hard to care for.  There are also potentially stranger routes of entry. In the ‘90s, a zoo just north of Cabo Rojo was robbed and, like a plot point in a cheap horror movie, a reptile cage was damaged and baby boas escaped, according to Puente-Rolón. (I couldn’t identify any Spanish or English news reports from the time to verify this claim, and the zoo has since closed. Puente-Rolón told me that he was at the zoo the day after the alleged break-in because he was studying one of its native snakes.)  In the last four months, a team of surveyors led by Fabián Feliciano-Rivera, a wildlife biologist, has captured more than 150 invasive boa constrictors in Cabo Rojo. Puente-Rolón estimates that there are roughly 13 of them per hectare (meaning more than 5 per acre) in the refuge, which is something close to extraordinary, he said.    It’s not just the number of snakes that’s surprising but that they’re in Cabo Rojo at all. The habitat here is extreme — it’s hot and dry, and the forest is sparse, leaving snakes with few places to hide. It’s certainly not like the humid forests full of fresh water that these snakes tend to prefer. To Feliciano-Rivera, that suggests boa constrictors are so abundant that they’re spreading to more challenging habitats.  As snakes disperse across the island, they’re showing up in backyards, chicken coops, and even cars. When people find them, they typically kill the animals or call local authorities, who retrieve the snakes and hand them over to DRNA, Puerto Rico’s wildlife agency. DRNA then brings them to a place called Cambalache.  A holding facility for exotic animals, Cambalache gets invasive snakes almost daily. Many of them come from the wild, though others are confiscated from breeders who sell them illegally.  Cambalache looked like a rundown zoo when I visited the facility one afternoon in April. A few dozen metal cages scattered around outside held nonnative monkeys. I saw large tubs of alligator-like reptiles called caimans. Cages inside of a small concrete building, meanwhile, were full of sugar gliders, adorable, palm-sized possums with large skin flaps that allow them to glide from tree to tree. Rangers had confiscated more than 50 of them from a breeder earlier in the week. Then there were the snakes. Tons of them. Outside in a wooden pen, roughly the size of a small storage shed, were some 30 writhing boas and reticulated pythons. One of the pythons was 11 feet long.  “My cats are gone, my chickens are gone. It’s a problem.” —Odalis Luna, python hunter Timothy Colston, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Puerto Rico, picked up one of the pythons. The snake coiled itself around his arm and, like a blood pressure cuff, caused the skin around it to bulge. (Colston, who’s been bitten by dozens of snakes, said it felt like a “little hug.”) No one knows how many invasive snakes there are in Puerto Rico. Hardly any scientific literature or public government documents have been published on the topic. That’s partly because the invasion is still new. It’s also because the island’s government and scientific institutions lack resources to study it (for a number of complicated reasons).   But there’s no doubt that invasive snakes are spreading.  One sign is the sheer number of boas in Cabo Rojo and Cambalache. Puente-Rolón has also noticed a surge in social media posts and news stories about sightings. In the last few years, scientists have also received intel from a small number of python hunters on the island, civilians who volunteer their time to capture invasive snakes. Just seven or so python hunters, also known as reticuleros, can catch 20 snakes a month, according to Jean P. Gonzalez Crespo, a doctoral researcher and invasive snake expert at the University of Wisconsin.  Do you have information about the spread of invasive species in Puerto Rico? Contact the author of this story here. I talked to a group of these reticuleros on a recent afternoon. They work normal jobs by day — one runs a pizzeria, another works in recycling — but by night they’re hunting snakes. It’s a way to safeguard their local community and the island’s rich biodiversity, said Odalis Luna, a reticulero who hunts with a small crew that includes her husband and their friend Wilson Maldonado. In the last three years, Luna said, they’ve captured around 170 snakes across several counties. Their reptile bounty includes babies, which suggests that invasive pythons are now breeding in the wild.  Finding the snakes is relatively easy, said Luna, who once caught a 17-foot reticulated python in front of her house. “We need to find more, because my cats are gone, my chickens are gone,” Luna said. “It’s a problem.” The uncertain fate of Puerto Rico’s native wildlife Scientists at the University of Puerto Rico are now racing to study the spread of invasive snakes. They still have a lot of unanswered questions — including where they are and which native animals they threaten most.  Those studies start by wrangling these scaly reptiles. When we’d come across an invasive boa in Cabo Rojo, one of the biologists would grab it using a specialized pole with a hook on the end and then put it in a pillowcase. The researchers also collect snakes from Cambalache, the DRNA holding facility, and from reticuleros.  Most of those snakes are then taken to a lab at the University of Puerto Rico.  Visiting the lab was a shock to the senses: Fluorescent lights lit up several tables, on which a handful of euthanized snakes were stretched out. It smelled of alcohol and rotting flesh. I watched as Colston and a group of students began slicing open the animals using surgical scalpels and poking around inside. On the most simple level, the researchers are trying to figure out what the snakes are eating. In some cases, it’s obvious: In late 2020, they pulled a cat out of a boa constrictor’s stomach, like some kind of sick magic trick.  But often, the team has to analyze the snakes’ feces. That morning, Mia V. Aponte Román, an undergraduate, squeezed poop out of a snake’s intestines and into a strainer. When she ran it under water, a handful of claws appeared. “Green iguana,” said Puente-Rolón, who was standing next to her, peering into the sink. Puente-Rolón’s team has examined the guts of more than 2,000 invasive boas, he said. That analysis — which hasn’t yet been published — suggests that the snakes are most frequently eating rats and mice, followed by a variety of birds and lizards, including iguanas.  When I first learned this, I wondered if the panic about invasive snakes was overblown. Rats and iguanas are invasive species, too. Aren’t the snakes just doing their own version of pest control?  This is not how ecology works. “The rats are going to end at some point,” Puente-Rolón says, meaning their numbers will eventually dwindle. “What we have learned from Guam with the brown tree snake is that mammals are going to disappear and then birds are the next target.” (Other places have learned the same lesson. In Hawaii, enormous colonies of free-ranging cats eat rats, but they’ve also decimated endangered birds.) Cutting open snakes also serves another, deeper purpose: helping scientists understand how exotic species adapt to their new homes once they arrive. Typically, scientists try to predict the harm that invasive animals will cause by looking at what they do in their native range. Where do they live? What do they eat? But according to Colston, who studies evolution, invasive species can also evolve after they move in, picking up new behaviors. Importantly, some of those behaviors may make these animals more damaging invaders. In their homeland, boas and pythons have to contend with other large snakes and predators, such as big cats. These are constraints that shape their behavior, and their evolution. Here in Puerto Rico, however, invasive constrictors have no natural predators and few competitors. Under these conditions, it’s possible that they may evolve traits that help them thrive in all kinds of habitats on the island. Colston’s team at the University of Puerto Rico will analyze DNA from snakes captured across the island to try and figure this out. They’re looking for ways in which the genome is changing — and how those changes might manifest in the animal’s body and behavior. There are actually hints that some of this evolution may already be underway. In Cabo Rojo, boa constrictors are smaller than those elsewhere on the island. Miniaturization could be an adaptation to drier conditions; smaller bodies retain water more easily. (It’s not clear whether the snakes are actually evolving to be smaller, generation after generation, or just failing to reach a larger size within their lifetimes. Colston’s work will likely provide answers.) A worst-case scenario is still avoidable That’s the good news. Sure, there are loads of giant snakes slithering through the forests and grasslands of Puerto Rico right now, not far from homes and rare species. But so far, the damage to the island’s native species has been minor. “We are in the phase that the impact is not that bad on our species,” Puente-Rolón said. To stop the snake problem from becoming a crisis, the state needs to act quickly, scientists say. Authorities — or an educated public — need to quickly ramp up efforts to remove snakes that are already in the wild and clamp down on the illegal pet trade.  To date, DRNA, the island’s wildlife agency, has done frustratingly little on both accounts, according to a number of biologists I spoke to for this story including Puente-Rolón, Feliciano-Rivera, and Gonzalez Crespo. They say the biggest issue is a lack of personnel and funding, they said. “They don’t have biologists, they don’t have the money,” Puente-Rolón said of DRNA. “If you have a forest infested with snakes and you only have one manager, what can he do?” —Ricardo Lopez-Ortiz, DRNA Instead of proactively removing snakes from the forest, DRNA rangers typically just respond to calls about sightings, and often only if someone is available, the scientists told me. Meanwhile, the wildlife holding facility is falling apart from a lack of upkeep and damage from hurricanes, a constant and worsening force of destruction.  Remarkably, it’s likely that snakes have actually escaped from Cambalache, several biologists told me. This isn’t difficult to fathom: On the morning I visited Cambalache, a monkey that had apparently broken out of its enclosure was rattling some of the other cages. What’s more is that officials at the municipal level, who are often the first to get calls about invasive snakes, have been slow to share information about where, exactly, they’re picking up the animals. That information would help scientists map the spread. “We really don’t get any help from the local government,” Gonzalez Crespo said.  I brought this up with Ricardo Lopez-Ortiz, who leads DRNA’s commercial fisheries division and is one of the few people at the agency who focuses on invasive species, including snakes. He acknowledged that there’s a lot to do, starting with getting more information. “We don’t know much,” he said of the spread of invasive snakes, adding that it’s possibly the “worst scenario” of any invasive species on the island. “We need to do more,” he told me. A lack of money isn’t the main issue, he said; the agency can get grants from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. But staff shortages have indeed been a serious problem, he said. “We don’t have enough personnel,” he told me. (More than a decade ago, when the country faced a financial crisis, the agency lost a large number of employees in an effort to cut government spending, he said. It’s been slow to refill the positions ever since, he added.)  “If you have a forest infested with snakes and you only have one manager,” Lopez-Ortiz said, “what can he do?”  (DRNA did not respond to a request for comment regarding the state of Cambalache facility. Lt. Ángel E. Atienza Fernández, a DRNA employee who oversees the Cambalache facility, also did not respond to direct requests for comment.) Puerto Rico also faces a number of forces that work against efforts to eradicate invasive species that are largely out of DRNA’s control, from natural disasters to the island’s much broader financial hardship. That leaves wildlife conservation lower on the government’s list of priorities. DRNA isn’t doing nothing. Lopez-Ortiz says the agency is developing a project in collaboration with biologists to study a number of invasive species including reticulated pythons and boas. That will involve gathering data from municipal authorities who are often the first to respond to snake calls. The agency is also working with government employees who manage state forests to help them identify and monitor invasive species.  “We have plans and we are working,” he said.  In the meantime, the heaviest burden of managing Puerto Rico’s snake problem falls on academic scientists — and the reticuleros, the python hunters. “This is going to be a problem in the long run,” Luna, one of the reticuleros, said. On my last night in Puerto Rico, Colston took me python hunting.  Like most of my experiences in Puerto Rico that week, it was the stuff of nightmares. Colston had gotten a tip earlier in the day from a DRNA official that we might find snakes in an abandoned sports stadium in the mountains south of San Juan. We drove to the stadium and, after dark, went inside.  The building was enormous, a huge ring of concrete surrounding a large, covered arena. Clumps of moss and plants grew in the stands. Old mattresses were strewn about. Bats flew overhead. And giant toads hopped around the stadium floor. Invasive snakes would fit right in. But we never saw any.  This left me feeling conflicted. I honestly wanted to see a python in the wild, mostly for the thrill of it. At the same time, I knew there was hope in their absence. Certainly one python-free night means nothing; snakes avoid people and can be hard to spot, even in areas with loads of them. Still, it was a subtle reminder of something important: It’s not too late to act.

The news that in 2021 Justice Samuel Alito's wife joined radical Trump supporters in flying the United States flag upside down should remind us that we still need an enforceable ethics code for the Supreme Court.

Ray Romano recently spoke about his relationship with "Everybody Loves Raymond" costar, Peter Boyle, and how lucky he was to work with him on the show.

The second of three trials for an alleged far-right plot to stage a coup against the German government began on May 21, 2024, this time for nine suspected leaders of the group.

Dale Chorman, 70, was attacked by a moose in Homer during an attempt to take photos of her calves, Alaska state troopers said.

An attempted coup in Kinshasa involving three Americans ended in failure and fatalities. The attackers targeted the presidential palace and the residence of a political figure.

The footage showed the 50-year-old culprit leaping from the pleasure craft off Devonport, Auckland.

Southeast Asian governments have been trying to retrieve as many as thousands of items misappropriated abroad.

Four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles slammed fans for disrespecting her husband, Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens, on social media over the weekend.

"The interior of the planet must be significantly hotter than we thought," said researcher David Sing.

Witness testimony from Robert Costello is set to continue Tuesday in Donald Trump’s trial on allegations of business fraud related to a hush money payment.

Arman Tsarukyan would like to set the record straight. Yes, the UFC’s top lightweight contender turned down a short-notice opportunity to face Islam Makhachev with championship gold on the line next month at Prudential Center. Arman Tsarukyan (right) punches Charles Oliveira during their UFC 300 bout on April 13 in Las Vegas. Yes, Tsarukyan had...

Babes has a familiar, Apatow-like mixture of raunchiness and heart. Is that no longer enough?

A 22-year-old hiker from Hillsboro, Oregon, has died near Horsetail Falls in the Columbia River Gorge after falling from a cliff, officials say.

Asma al-Assad will “adhere to a specialized treatment protocol that includes stringent infection prevention measures" after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.