Free Republic

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has delayed a decision on whether to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies indefinitely despite years of warnings from conservationists that populations are shrinking. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced during the waning days of then-President Joe Biden’s term in December 2024 that the agency planned to add the beloved backyard pollinator to the threatened species list by the end of 2025, calling the insect “iconic” and “cherished across North America.” But the Trump administration quietly listed the effort as a “long-term action” in a September report on the status of...

Homero Gomez Gonzalez, 55, had been missing since January 13, police told CNN Espanol. He was found in Ocampo, Michoacán state, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during a Thursday press conference. Lopez Obrador called Gomez’s death “lamentable and painful” and vowed to continue to fight criminal groups believed to be behind his disappearance and death. An official autopsy will be released at a later date, but a state official said Gomez’s body showed signs of asphyxiation. Mexico’s State Commission for Human Rights said they believe Gomez, known as the “Defender of the Monarch Butterfly,” might have come into...

Thanksgiving was right around the corner, and a sizable number of one of America’s most famous migrants could be seen still sputtering south. Not across the Texas-Mexico border, where most monarch butterflies should be by that time of year. These fluttered tardily through the migratory funnel that is Cape May, N.J., their iconic orange-and-black patterns splashing against the muted green of pines frosted by the season’s first chill. This delayed migration is not normal, and it alarmed monarch researchers across the country. Scientists fear that climate change is behind what they’re calling the latest monarch migration ev er recorded in...

This image popped in my head and I went with it.

The bus is always the center of attention. Partly because it's a hulking 1970s tour bus that somehow made it from Arizona all the way to Charlotte, but mostly because of what's inscribed on the side of it in thick, black letters. "Sin Papeles, Sin Miedo," it reads in Spanish. "No papers, no fear." Carrying a bunch of undocumented activists, the bus rolled through the country, through states like Arizona, Texas, Louisiana and Georgia, and into Charlotte on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. The activists participated in a march that snaked through Charlotte on Sunday and by Monday,...