Free Republic

For decades, Democrats have controlled the nation’s largest cities. The results have been catastrophic, including high crime rates, blight, failing public educational systems, rampant poverty, and an expanding homeless population. These horrific outcomes are due to Democrats supporting failed policies, such as raising taxes, increasing regulations, growing the government, and refusing to prosecute violent criminals. Consequently, citizens voted with their feet and left in droves, a trend which has started to accelerate. For example, while the country’s population soared sixty million to 341 million since 2000, it was a much different situation in the progressive hellhole of Chicago. The “Windy...

The coronavirus pandemic solidified the idea people don’t have to show up at an office to get work done. That fresh reality has led to a growing number of people relocating to more affordable cities across the country. But while the development is beneficial to remote — or so-called Zoom — workers, it is leading to rent increases in areas where newcomers are settling in. And in some cases forcing low-income residents to leave the neighborhood.

The traumas of the past few years have rearranged all of our lives. Many Americans have new needs, new desires, new possibilities and new priorities. They’re looking for bigger homes, second homes or any home at all. They’re searching for work — or trying to escape work. Some fear encroaching heat, fire or flood. Others are repulsed by bitter local politics. Many simply hear the distant siren of a better life elsewhere. As the Golden Gate shuts, the Lone Star beckons. If you’re looking for an affordable, economically vibrant city that is less likely to be damaged by climate change...

... Eklund has built his New York–based Elliman subsidiary, the Eklund Gomes Team, around what he calls the “golden triangle” of U.S. real estate: New York, Miami, and L.A. But as he and his partners got wind of Texas’s booming population and economy in recent years, they started planning to expand here—to Houston, Austin, and Dallas, another kind of golden triangle. As he would tell me later, “I was in Beverly Hills yesterday, and Texas real estate was the only thing anyone wanted to talk to me about.”

A massive population of grasshoppers is proliferating in the sweltering American west, where a deep drought has made for ideal conditions for grasshopper eggs to hatch and survive into adulthood. “I can only describe grasshoppers in expletives,” said Richard Nicholson, a cattle rancher in Fort Klamath, a small community in southern Oregon, who once recalled seeing grasshopper bands eat 1,000 acres a day and cover the ground like snow. The insects cause innumerable headaches for farmers and ranchers, competing with cattle for tough-to-find wild forage and costing tens of thousands of dollars in lost crops and associated costs. “They are...

Everywhere you look, things are getting weird, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Throughout all of our ups and downs over the decades, one thing that our society could always count on for a certain degree of consistency was nature. But now nature is going haywire at the same time that the very fabric of our society seems to be unraveling all around us. In this article, I am going to share with you a number of items that have been brought to my attention over the past month. On their own, each one of these items...

By now, it’s become quite evident that the western half of the U.S. is facing one of the worst megadroughts in decades. We’ve spoken about fallow land and drying up reservoirs, but the question remains what happens next? Well, it’s not great, and it’s straight out of the playbook from the 1930s Great Depression when the same parts of the U.S. were transformed into a desert, triggering a grasshopper plague. A.P. News said federal agriculture officials are set to launch one of the largest grasshopper-killing campaigns in three decades amid an outbreak. The insects belong to the suborder Caelifera family...

A second wave of desert locust swarms has begun striking an already hard-hit East Africa in recent weeks after heavy rains and a late-season cyclone sparked a new round of breeding, with swarms invading Kenya and southern Ethiopia, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The first wave of locusts was reported in East Africa in January of last year, when heavy rains sparked a round of largescale breeding, according to FAO. Weather conditions remained favorable for locust reproduction and growth throughout the year, feeding outbreaks of locust from East Africa to Iran. With the...

Every five or so years, it rips me apart to watch the same tragedy: a La Niña weather cycle brings devastating drought and hunger to East Africa, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. Using climate models and Earth observations, we can now predict these droughts. And once again, dry conditions are predicted from this month until December, with a very good chance of another poor rainy season in March to May 2021. Advances in predictive science allow us to anticipate these potential crises. Scientists issued alerts in August. East African climate experts...

Inhabitants and small farmers of Agua Amarilla and the Huacho in Combarbalá, Chile are facing the invasion of millions of locusts, devastating crops, trees and pastures. Heavy damage has already been reported in both communities, with people starting to worry for their livelihoods and asking officials to eradicate the insect plague. The flying insects move westward within the region of Combarbalá a trail of devastation behind them. First investigations show that the locusts are the endemic Chilean species Elasmoderus Wagenknechti (Orthoptera: Tristiridae), also known as “Lobster of Combarbalá.” Historical books indicate that such gigantic plagues have already occurred in the...

The numbers are staggering. According to online real estate company Zillow, the city by the Bay is emptying out. A flood of new listings began during the pandemic, a 96% increase compared to last year’s housing inventory. Silicon Valley pushed staff to work from home, an effort many tech giants are thinking of making permanent. But that doesn’t explain the exodus since San Jose hasn’t seen the same effect. Neither have Miami, Boston or Washington, D.C., at least not at this level. The sad fact is, San Francisco has become unaffordable and unlivable at the same time. The harsh pandemic...

As if 2020 hasn’t thrown enough curveballs already, desert locusts are setting off a global panic. From Kenya to Pakistan to, most recently, Argentina, locust swarms have been on the move. The infestation is most advanced in East Africa, which is experiencing the worst locust outbreak in generations. There’ve been six major locust plagues in the last century, one of which lasted nearly 13 years, according to the U.N. But the current infestation in East Africa is technically an upsurge, as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Depending on locust control efforts and favorable breeding conditions in terms of...

After ravaging countries in Africa, the Middle East, and India, swarms of locust have now made their way to Europe as the Italian region of Sardinia recently saw its worst attack in 70 years. Around 30 000 ha (74 000 acres) of crops have been affected in Nuoro City alone, according to the Italian Journalist Agency (AGI). "When the locusts arrived in mid-May, my cabbages were small, it wasn't harvesting time yet, they were all still in the field. Then the swarm came through, started to devour all the leaves, leaving only the stem," a Sardinian farmer named Giovanni said....

A swarm of locusts is threatening to invade Brazil as the country also battles one of the world's worst coronavirus outbreaks. The swarm - thought to contain 40million insects - formed in Paraguay last month and has been eating its way through Argentina since May 21, damaging crops of cane, oats, wheat and corn. But nine days ago it made a turn to the east, and is now heading towards the border with Brazil and Uruguay. It also comes after two other locust swarms - in India and eastern Africa - also devastated crops in those countries. Two Brazilian states...

Uganda on Wednesday said it was preparing to take on a looming invasion of desert locusts from neighboring Kenya where they are already causing havoc. The Minister of Agriculture Vincent Ssempijja said that scientists warned that the country would be invaded by billions of the migratory inserts that are hatching in Kenya. The country, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, has already faced three waves of the destructive insects’ invasion since this year started. The swarms have spread to 26 districts in the country. Ssempijja, when receiving a donation from China to boost the country’s efforts to contain the insects,...

India has been hit by the worst locust storm the country has experienced in nearly 30 years, as the nation grapples with the ongoing coronavirus crisis that has overrun hospitals. Swarms of millions of desert locusts that stretch up to 4 miles long crossed into the Western state of Rajasthan from Pakistan at the beginning of May and have since entered Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) believes that the current locust crisis was caused by the strong winds that followed the Cyclone Amphan that hit India and Bangladesh on May 20. The...

A second wave of desert locusts in Africa and Asia is threatening famine for millions as critical resources are directed towards the COVID-19 crisis, scientists warn. Desert locusts are already swarming in East Africa and breeding in Iran and Pakistan, as well as Yemen, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says. The outbreak, which has been raging since last year, has so far placed around 20 million people at acute food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, according to the FAO. “The biggest challenge we are facing at the moment is the supply of pesticides and...

It’s easy to farm organically in the wealthy EU and USA, where consumers can afford to demand much more expensive organic meats, eggs, fruits and vegetables. It’s much harder if you have to deal with the insects and crop diseases that plague African farmers on constant massive levels and locusts that bring true catastrophes every few decades – and then sell your meager crop yields to impoverished families. That modern pesticides might save billions of dollars of crops every year and stop locusts before they can swarm by the tens of billions – or that bioengineered crops might feed more...

A new wave of locusts is threatening Africa with devastation and starvation, even as the COVID-19 pandemic undermines efforts to fight the locust plague. Parts of the continent already experienced the biggest locust outbreak in 70 years, just weeks before the coronavirus hit. Now a second wave is on its way, with some locust swarms 20 times the size of the first. Billions of young desert locusts are coming, threatening plants and crops. This second invasion includes more developed locusts known as “young adults,” which are especially voracious eaters. Some Africans view the locust swarms as more destructive than the...

The China coronavirus and COVID-19 outbreaks, deaths and responses continue to dominate US, European and Asian news. Meanwhile, an equally or even more serious infestation is devastating East African crops and leaving tens of millions at risk of starvation and death. If COVID hits these weakened populations, amid their malaria and other systemic diseases, it would bring tragedy on massive scales. “Across Somalia, desert locusts in a swarm the size of Manhattan have destroyed a swath of farmland as big as Oklahoma,” the Wall Street Journal’s Nicholas Bariyo reports. “In Kenya, billions-strong clouds of the insects have eaten through 800...