From the Trenches World Report

CNN

The National Park Service proposes more than doubling the entrance fees at 17 popular national parks, including Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone, to help pay for infrastructure improvements.

Under the agency’s proposal, the entrance fee for a private vehicle would jump to $70 during peak season, from its current rate of $25 to $30.

The cost for a motorcycle entering the park could increase to $50, from the current fee of $15 to $25. The cost for people entering the park on foot or on bike could go to $30, up from the current rate of $10 to $15.   Continue reading “National Park Service proposes $70 entrance fee for 17 popular parks”

Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress from both parties on Tuesday called for an investigation into a $300 million contract awarded to a small company based in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown of Whitefish, Montana.

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority awarded the contract to Whitefish Energy Holdings to help crews restore transmission and distribution lines damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Maria. The two-year-old company had just two full-time employees when the storm hit last month, but says it is contracting with hundreds of workers for the Puerto Rico project.   Continue reading “Lawmakers seek probe of power contract to Zinke neighbor”

Health Impact News – by Caitlin Dewey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Excerpts:

Clay Mayes slams on the brakes of his Chevy Silverado and jumps out with the engine running, yelling at a dogwood by the side of the dirt road as if it said something insulting.

Its leaves curl downward and in on themselves like tiny, broken umbrellas. It’s the telltale mark of inadvertent exposure to a controversial herbicide called dicamba.   Continue reading ““Miracle” Weed Killer Dicamba was Supposed to Save Farms – Instead it’s Devastating Them”

The Algemeiner – by Shiri Moshe

A Rutgers University professor has published multiple social media posts containing antisemitic canards and caricatures, including blaming the Armenian genocide on Jews, describing Judaism as “the most racist religion in the world,” and calling Israel a “terrorist country.”

As first reported by the Israellycool blog, Michael Chikindas — a microbiology professor at Rutgers’ department of food science and director of the school’s Center for Digestive Health — promoted dozens of anti-Jewish conspiracies and comments on his Facebook page this past May, among them references to “international fat Jewish pockets,” and descriptions of “orthodox Judaism” and Zionism as “the best of two forms of racism.”  Continue reading “Rutgers Professor Calls Judaism ‘Most Racist Religion,’ Blames Jews for Armenian Genocide, in Flurry of Antisemitic, Homophobic and Sexist Posts”

PJ Media – by Tyler O’Neil

The number of children visiting Britain’s transgender clinic the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) has skyrocketed in recent years, and this past year an average of 39 children a week have visited the clinic. If current trends continue, it will reach 50 children a week in the next year. Many of these children as as young as 4, 5, and 6 years old.

In the past six months, 1,302 kids visited GIDS, according to a report from Britain’s Daily Mirror. This represented an increase of 24 percent over the previous six months.   Continue reading “Almost 40 Kids Per Week — Some Only 4 Years Old — Referred to Transgender Clinics in the UK”

Breitbart – by Frances Martel

“Xi Jinping Thought” has officially become part of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) Constitution following days of codifying a three-hour speech by the Chinese leader asserting that “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” should replace Marxism.

“Xi Jinping Thought,” formally known as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” will also become a mandatory topic in Chinese schools, according to Chinese Education Minister Chen Baosheng.   Continue reading “Xi Jinping Joins Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping in Text of Chinese Communist Party Constitution”

The Great Recession

In a nutshell, here is a graph that summarizes everything you need to know about the unsustainable US economy. Unless you’re in the top ten percent of income producers in the nation — or, at least, living in their neighborhood — you are living in a dingy bedroom economy that has only seen its net worth decline since the Great Recession began. Those who are in the top ten percent, on the other hand, profited astronomically from the Great Recession. It’s the best thing that ever happened to them, and you helped them do it with tax-backed or even tax-funded bailouts and by allowing them a perpetual cycle of savings on their capital gains.   Continue reading “Here’s You and Here’s the Top Ten Percent”

New York Times – by David Gelles

George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager and a major Democratic donor, has given $18 billion to his Open Society Foundations, one of the largest transfers of wealth ever made by a private donor to a single foundation.

The gift, made quietly over the past several years but disclosed only on Tuesday, has transformed Open Society into the second-biggest philanthropic organization in the United States, behind the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It will also place Mr. Soros, a lightning rod for conservative critics, squarely in the middle of the social and political debates convulsing the country.

Continue reading “George Soros Transfers Billions to Open Society Foundations”