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Cumbres & Toltec Railroad riders enjoy being 'lifted'
137 feet high on the High Cascade Creek Trestle.
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As summertime vacation beckons, consider boarding a historical train and chugging through parts of North America you've never explored. "Railroads revolutionized transportation in North America, permanently accelerating the pace of travel across the continent,"
reports Michael Harmon of
The New York Times. "Today, many of those railroad tracks host an assortment of historic excursion trains, inviting riders to slow down and enjoy a grand day out."
The Skunk Train, the
Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad, and The
Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad are all spectacular picks.
When young people leave home, they often see life through the lens of their upbringing. For author Jane Brox, that lens is generations of family farming in Dracut, Mass. Brox added a third book to complete her trilogy,
In the Merrimack Valley, which celebrates early immigrant dreams, farm routines that enrich daily life, and all that is gained and lost when young adults set out into the world. Danny Heitman for
The Wall Street Journal writes, “Brox created a multipart work that is more broadly about the nature of origins — what we might owe to the places where we started. Even and, perhaps, especially when we leave them."
Reversing a previous decision, the Trump administration "temporarily
reinstated dozens of fired federal workers who help screen coal miners
for black lung, a deadly and incurable disease caused by inhaling toxic coal dust," reports Maxine Joselow of The Washington Post.
"The screening program offers contracts to radiologists across the
country who are certified to evaluate X-rays for black lung. It also
employs epidemiologists who recently concluded that 1 in 5 longtime coal
miners in Central Appalachia has black lung — the highest level
recorded in 25 years."
The Immigration Reporting Legal Guide is a free resource developed by
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to help journalists navigate coverage of the complex web of federal and state entities that make up the American immigration system. The guide divides the topic into three parts: Immigration-related public records, how to access immigration proceedings and and details about journalists' rights to observe and record immigration enforcement officers on the ground. The guide is available in
English and
Spanish. There's also an extensive collection of
free legal resources.
Spring and summer can be glorious times for hiking, fishing and taking nature walks. But sometimes, uninvited buzzing guests such as wasps and yellow jackets come along on warmer-weather adventures and sting humans -- often for unexplained reasons. And while no anti-sting plan is foolproof, Ashley Leath of
Country Living has a
few suggestions.
- Don't swat at wasps. Swatting tells a wasp to release pheromones that will trigger other nearby wasps to see you as a threat, exactly what you don’t want to happen.
- To prevent wasp nest building, try putting up a fake wasp nest. Wasps are territorial and don't like waspy neighbors.
- Don't remove a large yellow jacket nest on your own. They can sting more than once. Call a professional.
- To remove a smaller yellow jacket nest, read here.
Mysterious, massive and yet strangely elusive, Big Foot remains a North American legend with hundreds of sightings by locals, tourists and scouts paired with an equal number of people who are outspokenly skeptical Sasquatch exists. Beyond the argument, a separate exploration has formed which asks why some people want to believe that strange and unlikely creatures lurk just out of plain site. Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder writes, "I’m more interested in exploring why mysterious wildlife inspires obsession and fanaticism, and what it says about the American environmental psyche."
Map by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder, from Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization data
