Massive Alaskan malamute Tydus grows even bigger than his owner.
One of the biggest factors that many people consider when looking to adopt a dog is size. Big pups are great, but they present a lot of challenges. Conversely, while small dogs are convenient, sometimes you just want more to love! Ultimately, it’s a personal choice.
When Yumna, a resident of South Africa, adopted Tydus the dog, she wasn’t too concerned. After all, the puppy was so tiny! Inevitably, of course, Tydus would grow… and grow and grow.
In the end, Yumna never could have predicted how humongous Tydus would become…
Here’s one way to put this extraordinary week into perspective, after sexual misconduct allegations felled three members of Congress: To find a comparable moment of mass resignations, you’d have to go back to the Civil War.
In the months leading up to that conflict, Southern senators resigned en masse from the U.S. Senate over disputes about slavery. In January 1861, five senators in one day left their jobs as their states seceded from the Union. Senators from Northern states expelled an additional 10 Southern senators before they could resign.
“I think it’s quite unprecedented,” said Brooklyn College historian and professor Robert David Johnson. “If you look over the history of the 20th century in Congress, there just is no comparable event.”
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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) leaves the Capitol after announcing his resignation Thursday. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
In one all-too-plausible worst-case scenario, millions die from mistakes and a tweet.
No one wants to fight a nuclear war. Not in North Korea, not in South Korea and not in the United States. And yet leaders in all three countries know that such a war may yet come — if not by choice then by mistake. The world survived tense moments on the Korean Peninsula in 1969 , 1994 and 2010. Each time, the parties walked to the edge of danger, peered into the abyss, then stepped back. But what if one of them stumbled, slipped over the edge and, grasping for life, dragged the others down into the darkness?
This is how that might happen, based on public statements, intelligence reports and blast-zone maps.
MARCH 2019: For years, North Korea had staged provocations — and South Korea had lived with them. The two had come close to war before: In 2010, a North Korean torpedo detonated just below a South Korean navy corvette, cutting the ship in two and sending 46 sailors to their deaths. Later that year, when North Korean artillery barraged a South Korean island and killed four more people, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak reportedly ordered aircraft to deliver a counter-strike deep inside North Korea, but the U.S. military held him back.
As President Donald Trump attends the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on Saturday, lawyers for his Justice Department are defending a voting law in Texas that a district court judge found intentionally discriminated against black and Latino voters.
Trump’s presence at the ceremony has already attracted controversy, after civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said he would not attend, saying Trump’s presence was an insult to the people of the civil rights movement. And the Texas case is just one of a series of examples of how the Trump administration so far has failed to advance a key civil right: the right to vote.
In the Jim Crow South, measures like poll taxes and literacy tests restricted African-Americans from casting ballots. As a result, voting rights were a key piece of the civil rights movement in Mississippi and across the country. In the summer of 1964, hundreds of volunteers came to Mississippi to increase black voter registration in the state. Three of those civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered that summer while working to extend the franchise. In 1965, Lewis was nearly killed during a march for voting rights in Alabama. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, a key plank of the civil rights movement, continues to be one of the most powerful tools for protecting the right to vote.
With Twitter as his Excalibur, the president takes on his doubters, powered by long spells of cable news and a dozen Diet Cokes. But if Mr. Trump has yet to bend the presidency to his will, he is at least wrestling it to a draw.
Around 5:30 each morning, President Trump wakes and tunes into the television in the White House’s master bedroom. He flips to CNN for news, moves to “Fox & Friends” for comfort and messaging ideas, and sometimes watches MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” because, friends suspect, it fires him up for the day.
Energized, infuriated — often a gumbo of both — Mr. Trump grabs his iPhone. Sometimes he tweets while propped on his pillow, according to aides. Other times he tweets from the den next door, watching another television. Less frequently, he makes his way up the hall to the ornate Treaty Room, sometimes dressed for the day, sometimes still in night clothes, where he begins his official and unofficial calls.
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President Trump during a news conference in the Rose Garden last month.Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
This year has been terrible for wildfires, and the ones currently blazing a path of destruction through Southern California are shaping up to the be the worst of the worst. Remember the wildfires that devastated Northern California wine country in October? The Thomas Fire, which is the largest of the fires currently burning, is three times larger than the largest of the wine country fires.
The blazes are massive, dramatic and dangerous. Here’s why they’re so historic, and how they’re affecting everything: Traffic, weather, thousands of lives and homes, and the future of one of America’s largest, most populous cities.
They could be the most destructive in California history
There are four different fires burning in the Los Angeles area. The biggest, the Thomas fire, has already burned 96,000 acres north of Los Angeles – an area more than twice the size of Washington, DC. In fact, it is on pace to become one of the most destructive fires in the state’s history. It’s also raging at a shocking pace. At one point, it spread over 31,000 acres in about nine hours. That’s an acre a second.
Together, the four fires – the Thomas and Rye fires, which are north of LA, and the Creek and Skirball fires, which are directly in the LA metro area, have burned more than 116,000 acres.
As the Los Angeles area battles massive wildfires that have scorched more than 140,000 acres and forced nearly 200,000 people to evacuate, a rapidly advancing blaze in nearby San Diego County is sparking new concerns.
Firefighters from across California, some 5,700 in total, traveled to Ventura and Los Angeles counties on Thursday to help halt the massive wildfires that have destroyed more than 500 structures.
In San Diego County, firefighters worked to stop a rapidly intensifying blaze that prompted officials to clarify burn estimates from about 500 to some 4,000 acres in less than three hours. Authorities continued to release evacuation warnings throughout the night as the fire spread with zero percent containment.
The blazes are fueled by strong winds, which have made it increasingly difficult to get them under control. The Santa Ana winds, which blow in hot and dry from the California desert, could potentially reach hurricane-force speeds of 75 mph on Thursday, creating an “extreme fire danger,” according to an alert sent by the countywide emergency system in Los Angeles.
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MARK RALSTON via Getty Images
A wall stands in the burned-out Vista del Mar Hospital after the Thomas wildfire swept through Ventura, California, on Wednesday.
Four siblings wrote hundreds of letters to each other during World War II. The story they tell of service, sacrifice and trauma was hidden away in an abandoned storage unit — until now.
The storage unit’s corrugated metal door slid upward, revealing 100 square feet of mostly empty space. Not very promising, thought Joe Alosi, a businessman who bid on units, sight unseen, when tenants stopped paying the rent. Several plastic bins sat in the middle of the floor, and dust billowed as Alosi peeled off the first lid.
Inside, tightly packed, were rows of envelopes. Alosi opened one, and then another, and then another. The Marine Corps veteran felt a slight chill.
The mostly handwritten letters, on tissue-thin paper, dated to World War II and were penned mostly by the members of a single family — the Eydes of Rockford, Ill. Three brothers were in the military: one in the Marine Corps, one in the Army and one in the Army Air Forces.
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said Thursday that he will not attend the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum this weekend because President Donald Trump’s “attendance and hurtful policies are an insult to the people portrayed” in the museum.
“After careful consideration and conversations with church leaders, elected officials, civil rights activists, and many citizens of our congressional districts, we have decided not to attend or participate in the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum,” Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, said in a statement.
Lewis said the president’s “disparaging comments about women, the disabled, immigrants, and National Football League players disrespect the efforts” of civil rights leaders.
“The struggles represented in this museum exemplify the truth of what really happened in Mississippi,” he added. “After President Trump departs, we encourage all Mississippians and Americans to visit this historic civil rights museum.”
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Paul Morigi via Getty Images
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) speaking at an event in Washington, D.C., in May. He announced on Thursday that he will not attend the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum this weekend.
Facing a string of sexual misconduct allegations and mounting pressure from fellow Democrats, Sen. Al Franken announced Thursday he will leave office in the coming weeks. But Franken, a former comedian, didn’t go down without taking some scathing parting shots at President Donald Trump and Republicans who have been accused of similar actions.
“I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has preyed on underage girls is running for the Senate with the full support of his party,” Franken, D-Minn., said in emotional speech on the Senate floor.
He was referring to Trump, who has also been accused of sexual misconduct, and Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama, who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. Trump and Moore have both denied the claims.
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Sen. Al Franken holds hands with his wife, Franni Bryson, as he leaves the Capitol after announcing his resignation. Jacquelyn Martin / AP
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
A Tiny Dog?
Civil Rights Museum
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War correspondence
James' World 2 