Sotheby’s International Realty (March 9, 2023) – Haiku is a small village in the northern part of Maui, approximately 14 miles (22.5 km) east of Kahului. Though Haiku is located about 2 miles (3.2 km) inland, a few beaches are nearby, including popular Ho’okipa Beach, also known as the windsurfing capital of the world.
Haiku was once a thriving pineapple plantation with two canneries. However, the town experienced a decline in commercial activity when the main refinery transferred to Kahului. After a few years, people started returning and inhabit the place. Only then the commercial life in Haiku resumed. Today, this rustic community has eateries, shops and cafés.
Visit Melbourne (March 9, 2023) – Step outside the city and spend a night or two with Stella the Stargazer, Victoria’s newest limited-edition off-grid accommodation experience.
Stella is a uniquely Victorian tiny home, paying homage to the Aussie shed, crafted with repurposed timber and steel salvaged from a historical farming shed.
Stella is fitted with everything a hotel guest needs, and nothing they don’t. She’s all about quality over quantity, exuding authenticity and craftsmanship not before seen in a tiny home. With a focus on low environmental impact, the materials provide an aesthetic which is sustainable and distinctively Victorian.
Guests will truly be able to get back to nature and embrace the elements during their stay – enjoying a bespoke roll-out sleeping platform for stargazing.
Europe is witnessing its bloodiest cross-border war since 1945, but Asia risks something even worse: conflict between America and China over Taiwan. Tensions are high, as American forces pivot to a new doctrine known as “distributed lethality” designed to blunt Chinese missile attacks. Last week dozens of Chinese jets breached Taiwan’s “air defence identification zone”. This week China’s foreign minister condemned what he called America’s strategy of “all-round containment and suppression, a zero-sum game of life and death”.
Human hunt at least 19% of bat species worldwide — especially flying foxes, which can have wingspans of 1.5 metres.
The Mauritian flying fox (Pteroptus niger). As relatively large bats, flying foxes are hunted more heavily than other species. Credit: Fabrice Bettex Photography/Alamy
Large tropical bats with narrow home ranges are disproportionately likely to be hunted by humans, according to a global analysis of 1,320 bat species — nearly all of the 1,400 known to science1.
From tracking the disease’s spread in wild birds to updating human vaccines, there are measures that could help keep avian influenza in check.
A goose being vaccinated against avian influenza in China.Credit: Wei Liang/China News Service/Getty
Fears are rising about bird flu’s potential to spark a human pandemic, as well as its destruction of wildlife and farmed birds. An 11-year-old girl tragically died in Cambodia last week after catching avian influenza. That followed reports earlier this year of the virus spreading from mammal to mammal through a mink farm, and causing mass mortality in Peruvian birds and sea lions. Since the beginning of 2022, more than 50 million poultry birds in the United States, and a similar number in Europe, have either died of the disease or been killed in efforts to stem its spread. Can bird flu be stopped, and if yes, how?
ABC News In-depth (March 9, 2023) – On Australia’s northern doorstep lies one of the most extraordinary places on earth – some environmentalists call it the second Amazon. The Sepik River Basin in Papua New Guinea is a natural wonder and home to rich and ancient cultures.
It’s a place few outsiders ever get to see. For some time, PNG correspondent Natalie Whiting has been hearing rumours about what’s going on in the remote areas upriver – claims of a logging land grab, police brutality, even killings. She undertakes the journey far up the Sepik River to see for herself what’s happening. In the rainforest of the Upper Sepik a community is divided.
Logging operations and a proposed massive mine site bring hope of economic prosperity for some. But others fear development of the land by international companies means environmental destruction with little benefit. PNG is the world’s largest exporter of tropical round logs but out of sight in the Sepik region some landowners say the logging is happening without proper consent and there are consequences for those who stand in the way.
With a long history of mistrust of big corporations and the promises they make, many of the locals are angry and ready to do whatever it takes to preserve some of the most unspoilt rainforests and waterways on the planet. Read more here: https://ab.co/3Jr8kWE
March 9, 2023: Defence ministers warn not to jump to conclusions on who was behind the Nord Stream explosions; and the trial of four bankers accused of helping Putin deposit millions of francs in Switzerland kicks off in Zürich.
The president’s plans have little in common with the budget Republicans are set to release this spring, as the nation hurtles toward a possible default on its debt.
Frank Carone, who stepped down as Mayor Eric Adams’s chief of staff in December, has found work with two commercial real estate titans, including one seeking a casino.
Ancient philosopher Anaximander’s discoveries about rain, wind and the cosmos may make him the true force behind modern science, argues physicist Carlo Rovelli in his newly republished first book
It’s no secret that methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, with scientists attributing 25% of global heating to its atmospheric release. A new Guardian analysis by environment editor Damian Carrington lays bare the extent of the problem, identifying more than 1,000 of the world’s worst emitters.
But methane is also a double-edged sword: while it traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide, it fades from the atmosphere in about a decade, far faster than the century or more taken by CO2, which is why urgent action to tackle leaks would be so effective in the push to limit global heating. Find out more in Damian’s Big Story report for us this week.
Eater (March 8, 2023) – In Bermuda, spiny lobsters are only in season for seven months. Fisherman and restaurant owner Delvin Bean has been catching lobsters for 30 years, and he takes them straight to his restaurant where they are one of his most sought-after dishes.
Commonly referred to as the Florida spiny lobster, the Caribbean spiny lobster inhabits tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. Spiny lobsters get their name from the forward-pointing spines that cover their bodies to help protect them from predators. They vary in color from almost white to dark red-orange. Two large, cream-colored spots on the top of the second segment of the tail make spiny lobsters easy to identify. They have long antennae over their eyes that they wave to scare off predators and smaller antennae-like structures called antennules that sense movement and detect chemicals in the water.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious