Mod has been inactive for a year, and I’d like to take it over and help it generate more traffic.

The frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires around the globe has doubled in the last two decades due to climate change, according to a study released Monday.

The analysis, published in the journal “Nature Ecology & Evolution,” focused on massive blazes that release vast amounts of energy from the volume of organic matter burned. Researchers pointed to the historic Australia fires of 2019 and 2020 as an example of blazes that were “unprecedented in their scale and intensity.” The six most extreme fire years have occurred since 2017, the study found.

The latest insight comes from a study on butterflies in the Midwest, published on Thursday in the journal PLOS ONE. Its results don’t discount the serious effects of climate change and habitat loss on butterflies and other insects, but they indicate that agricultural insecticides exerted the biggest impact on the size and diversity of butterfly populations in the Midwest during the study period, 1998 to 2014.

I deleted it when it didn't gain enough traction, and I'd like to revive it.

A major expansion underway inside Iran’s most heavily protected nuclear facility could soon triple the site’s production of enriched uranium and give Tehran new options for quickly assembling a nuclear arsenal if it chooses to, according to confidential documents and analysis by weapons experts.

Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed new construction activity inside the Fordow enrichment plant, just days after Tehran formally notified the nuclear watchdog of plans for a substantial upgrade at the underground facility built inside a mountain in north-central Iran.

Iran also disclosed plans for expanding production at its main enrichment plant near the city of Natanz. Both moves are certain to escalate tensions with Western governments and spur fears that Tehran is moving briskly toward becoming a threshold nuclear power, capable of making nuclear bombs rapidly if its leaders decide to do so.

Israel is up against a regional superpower, Iran, that has managed to put Israel into a vise grip, using its allies and proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq. Right now, Israel has no military or diplomatic answer. Worse, it faces the prospect of a war on three fronts — Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank — but with a dangerous new twist: Hezbollah in Lebanon, unlike Hamas, is armed with precision missiles that could destroy vast swaths of Israel’s infrastructure, from its airports to its seaports to its university campuses to its military bases to its power plants.

But Israel is led by a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has to stay in power to avoid potentially being sent to prison on corruption charges. To do so, he sold his soul to form a government with far-right Jewish extremists who insist that Israel must fight in Gaza until it has killed every last Hamasnik — “total victory” — and who reject any partnership with the Palestinian Authority (which has accepted the Oslo peace accords) in governing a post-Hamas Gaza, because they want Israeli control over all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including Gaza.

And now, Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet has fallen apart over his lack of a plan for ending the war and safely withdrawing from Gaza, and the extremists in his government coalition are eyeing their next moves for power.

They have done so much damage already, and yet not President Biden, the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, nor many in Congress have come to terms with just how radical this government is.

Indeed, House Speaker Mike Johnson and his fellow G.O.P. mischief makers decided to reward Netanyahu with the high honor of speaking to a joint meeting of Congress on July 24. Pushed into a corner, the top Democrats in the Senate and the House signed on to the invitation, but the unstated goal of this Republican exercise is to divide Democrats and provoke shouted insults from their most progressive representatives that would alienate American Jewish voters and donors and turn them toward Donald Trump.

A federal judge blocked most of a law championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that strictly limited transgender health care for adults and banned it completely for children.

In his decision, U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle rejected a common mantra of the DeSantis administration, saying that “gender identity is real,” and that the state cannot deny transgender individuals treatment.

“Florida has adopted a statute and rules that ban gender-affirming care for minors even when medically appropriate,” Hinkle wrote. “The ban is unconstitutional.”

More efficient manufacturing, falling battery costs and intense competition are lowering sticker prices for battery-powered models to within striking distance of gasoline cars.

For much of the last four years, automakers and their dealers had so few cars to sell — and demand was so strong — that they could command high prices. Those days are over, and hefty discounts are starting a comeback.

During the coronavirus pandemic, auto production was slowed first by factory closings and then by a global shortage of computer chips and other parts that lasted for years.

With few vehicles in showrooms, automakers and dealers were able to scrap most sales incentives, leaving consumers to pay full price. Some dealers added thousands of dollars to the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, and people started buying and flipping in-demand cars for a profit.

But with chip supplies back to healthy levels, auto production has rebounded and dealer inventories are growing. At the same time, higher interest rates have dampened demand for vehicles. As a result, many automakers are scrambling to keep sales rolling.

Netanyahu reportedly met this month with three foreign policy envoys working with former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump — who could yet win the election despite being convicted Thursday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York state hush money case.

Netanyahu, who benefited immensely from Trump’s first term, is arguably hoping for a similar dividend in the event of a second. In the interim, he has openly rejected the Biden administration’s hopes for the Palestinian Authority to take the lead in the postwar administration of Gaza, and he and his allies have shown no interest in even engaging in the White House on reviving pathways for a Palestinian state. And contrary to the Biden administration’s wishes, Netanyahu may soon act on a Republican invitation to address a joint session of Congress.

It’s not just Netanyahu who is waiting for Trump. The evidence is more clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding out for a Trump victory, which would probably help the Kremlin consolidate its illegal conquests of Ukrainian territory. My colleagues reported last month that Trump and his inner circle have outlined the terms of a potential settlement between Moscow and Kyiv that they would attempt to usher in if in power. “Trump’s proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity because those conversations were confidential,” they reported.

Such a move would fracture the transatlantic coalition built up in support of Ukraine’s resistance to Russian invasion. It would cement the Republican turn away from Europe’s security at a time when Western resolve around Ukraine is flagging. And it would be yet another sign of Trump’s conspicuous affection the strongman in the Kremlin.

Essentially, today’s 213-member Democratic caucus breaks down into a few categories, the largest of which are traditionally liberal lawmakers who come from cities or inner suburbs and are comfortable with incremental victories in helping the working class. There are dozens of moderates who are more friendly toward business but believe in socially liberal values.

And there are dozens of far-left liberals, hailing from the progressive caucus or the small-knit “Squad,” who have clashed with leaders for not pushing for a more purely liberal agenda. This group has been on the rise over the past half decade, both at the ballot box and inside the caucus.

But now, at this stage of the primary calendar, this wing is facing tough political headwinds.

If you are keeping score at home, you have surely noticed that the two most important defense officials in Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet — Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the former military chief of staff Benny Gantz — warned last week that Netanyahu is leading Israel into a disastrous abyss by refusing to present any plan for non-Hamas Palestinians to govern Gaza and appears to be contemplating a long-term Israeli military occupation of Gaza instead. Gantz said he would leave the government if there was no plan by June 8.

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“Netanyahu’s acquiescence to the extreme right, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, has generally been seen as motivated out of his need to keep his coalition together and himself out of jail,” Friedman told me. “Now it seems that he has willingly sold his soul to the extreme right. One explanation is that the extreme religious right projects a Messianic image onto him that corresponds with his own sense of having been called to save Israel and the Jewish people. He has a plan for the day after and it’s very clear to anyone who listens: ‘Total victory’ — and eventually the return of Jewish settlement there. Israel is on the way to reoccupying Gaza.”

If that happens, Israel will become an international pariah and Jewish institutions everywhere will be torn between Jews who will feel the need to defend Israel — right or wrong — and those who, with their kids, will find it indefensible.