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New York Times
7 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
What if Everything We Know About Sacagawea Is Wrong?
In a conference room in the middle of the Great Plains, 50 people gathered to correct what they saw as a grave error in the historical record. It was July 16, 2015, on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, not too far upstream from the camp on the Missouri River where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first met Sacagawea, the teenage girl who would accompany them to the Pacific Ocean and back. The story of that journey has been told many times: in the journals that Lewis and Clark kept; in more than a century of academic histories; and in countless more fanciful works that have turned the expedition, and Sacagawea's supposed role as guide to the Americans, into one of the country's foundational myths. The people in the conference room, members of three closely related tribes, the Mandans, the Hidatsas and the Arikaras, thought basically all of it was nonsense. Jerome Dancing Bull, a Hidatsa elder, took the microphone first. The day was warm enough that someone had propped the door open to the outside; the sun was blindingly bright, the prairie a labrador's scruff in the distance. 'They got it all wrong!' he told the people in the room, referring to the bare-bones, truncated life sketched out for Sacagawea by Lewis and Clark and the historians who followed them. In that telling, Sacagawea was born a member of the Shoshone tribe in present-day Idaho, was kidnapped by the Hidatsa as a child, spent most of 1805 and 1806 with the expedition and died in 1812, while she was still in her 20s. The Hidatsas insist that she was a member of their tribe all along and died more than 50 years later, in 1869. And not of old age, either: She was shot to death. History has always been a process; it has also long attracted partisans who insist that its judgments should be frozen in time. In March, the Trump administration released an executive order with the title 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which condemned the 'widespread effort to rewrite history' and called for 'solemn and uplifting public monuments.' It was a timeworn complaint turned into a wanton threat: Mess with our national symbols, and we'll pull your funding. Sacagawea long ago left the realm of the apolitical dead. Over the years, she has been pressed into service as an avatar of patient humility or assertive feminism, of American expansionism or Indigenous rights, of Jeffersonian derring-do or native wisdom. Her face is on U.S. currency, her name has been affixed to a caldera on Venus and there are statues of her spread throughout the nation, each incarnation seeming to pull her further out of context. The Trump administration has said it wants to include a sculpture of her in a planned National Garden of American Heroes, effectively claiming her as an honorary citizen — though to the federal government at the time, she was closer to being an alien enemy. 'The Hidatsas' portrait of Sacagawea is both richer and more ambiguous than the one found in standard histories.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBC
20-07-2025
- Climate
- CBC
Hail-focused research projects 'long past due' in Canada, U.S., prof says
A new project that aims to better predict when hail will hit and how big it will be might save people big bucks in damage repairs someday. Project ICECHIP (In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains) involved dozens of researchers who spent six weeks chasing, driving and running into storms across the Great Plains in the U.S. to collect fresh hail and study it by measuring, weighing, slicing and crushing the stones to reveal what's inside. Researchers hope the hailstones will reveal secrets about storms, damage and maybe the air itself. The research was done to help improve radar-based hail detection, hail models and forecasting. The aim is to better predict hailstorms and lessen the costly damage they cause. The project, which was the largest hail-focused study in the U.S. in over four decades, involved two teams of researchers, 15 different research institutions and three international partners — including Canada's Northern Hail Project. Becky Adams-Selin, Project ICECHIP's lead principal investigator, says although hail is a worldwide problem, it hasn't gotten much attention until recent decades because it "doesn't kill people like tornadoes do." "There was a lot of focus on tornadoes first to kind of get that warning system down, which makes sense," she said. "Hail didn't really start hitting people's pocketbooks until maybe the last two decades." 40,000 hail-related claims Hail, combined with urban sprawl and deteriorating roofing materials, has created "a perfect storm," she said, and insurance companies are starting to feel the pinch. "It's become a lot more evident that some of the things we don't know about hail are really causing a lot of problems," Adams-Selin said. Data from Manitoba's public auto insurer suggests how the number of hailstorms has varied in the province over the last five years. Manitoba Public Insurance says it has received over 40,000 hail-related claims since 2021. There were 1,300 hail-related claims in 2021 and nearly 3,700 claims in 2022, but the number skyrocketed in 2023, with nearly 28,000 claims submitted. It received almost 9,300 hail-related claims in 2024. So far this year, MPI has gotten just over 700 claims submitted as of Friday. a temporary hail-damage estimate centre in order to deal with a barrage of claims, on top of claims from a massive storm in Winnipeg in August 2023 that brought golf-ball-sized hail to some areas, MPI said. Hail-focused research in Canada and the U.S. is "long past due," said John Hanesiak, a professor at the University of Manitoba's department of environment and geography who works with the Northern Hail Project, which is conducting similar research in Alberta this summer. "This is sort of one of the first projects that's been dedicated to hail [in the U.S.] in 40 years, and the same thing can be said in Canada," he said. Canada's last major hail-focused research project was the Alberta Hail Project, which ran from 1956 to 1985, Hanesiak said. Predicting when hail will hit and how big it will be is "an evolving science," but cutting open a hailstone and analyzing its shape and density can give researchers a better idea of how it grew, he said. "If we're able to measure at the ground, if we're able to measure the size distributions of the hail and collect hailstones from real storms, we can much better understand how they grow in certain conditions." Weather balloons can also help researchers understand what meteorological conditions produce specific hailstorms and hail sizes, but Hanesiak said weather balloons are limited in Canada. The balloons gather weather data from the upper atmosphere, including temperature, humidity and air pressure. In southern parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, there are no readings from weather balloons, he said. Hanesiak said his hope is that the projects will help researchers determine whether there are any differences between American and Canadian hailstorms. Keith Porter, chief engineer at the Ontario-based Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, which partially funds the Northern Hail Project, says hail is rarely deadly but can be extremely costly. A Calgary hailstorm in August was Canada's most destructive weather event of 2024, damaging homes, businesses, cars and the Calgary International Airport, resulting in $3 billion in insured losses, according to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification, which provides data to the insurance industry. The best way to protect property from hail damage is by parking in a garage and installing impact-resistant roofing and siding on houses and other buildings, Porter said. "The research helps us to tell [people] what the benefit of doing that is, why they should do it, [and] what's in it for them to save." Porter said hail damage is everyone's problem.
New York Times
08-07-2025
- New York Times
On Colorado's Wild Prairies, the Rest of the World Disappears
For a moment, caught between sky and prairie, I felt like the only being on earth. Fields of undulating green wheat and grass extended from horizon to horizon. The wind whispered. Clouds gathered and darkened, shifting from light gray to deep cobalt. This was not the Colorado of snow-capped peaks and glitzy ski towns. There, on the shoulder of County Road M, a stitch of dirt in the Comanche National Grassland, closer to Oklahoma than to Denver, the vastness filled me with a spine-tingling sense of awe. I had come all this way seeking solitude. I just hadn't planned for so much of it. Suddenly, I caught movement in my peripheral vision. A pronghorn bounded across the prairie, leaped over a fence, then bounced across the road a mere 10 feet away — its white rump flashing as it rocketed across the grassland. Pronghorns, more closely related to giraffes than to antelope, are the fastest land mammals in North America, and by the time I grabbed my camera, the animal had faded back into the landscape. Alone again. Legacy of the Dust Bowl The Comanche National Grassland sprawls across 440,000 acres of southeastern Colorado about 300 miles from Denver. The grassland's roots go back to the 1930s when, during the Dust Bowl, this corner of Colorado — like much of the Great Plains — was blowing away. In 1935, an estimated 850 million tons of topsoil were lost. 20 miles Denver colorado Colorado Area of detail 50 Lamar La Junta Vogel Canyon Dinosaur Footprints Trailhead Comanche National Grassland Springfield Purgatoire River 385 160 Carrizo Canyon N.M. okla. By The New York Times Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
30-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
What Are The Wealthiest Cities In Nebraska? Latest Census Data Shows
Many towns along the Platte River rank among the richest places in Nebraska, most of them centered ... More on a series of man-made bodies of water. In a series of recent studies, states have been analyzed in terms of their household finances, home values, and property taxes, the point of which is to determine the richest cities in those states. Much of the Midwest and states of the Great Plains have been covered, including the richest cities in North Dakota, Kansas, and Illinois (the Prairie State). For this article, it is Nebraska's turn to get analyzed. Out of 592 places in Nebraska that the Census Bureau has data on, there are 512 cities in Nebraska with complete data for the financial datasets used: their median household income, mean (average) household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid per year. These were used to come up with a list of the 15 richest cities in the state. Read on to find out what the richest city in Nebraska is, plus the top 15 wealthiest cities in the state overall. What Are the Richest Cities in Nebraska? In order to compile this list of the richest cities in Nebraska, some important financial data was sourced from the Census Bureau's 2023 American Community Survey. These data points included these four datasets: 1) median household income, 2) mean household income, 3) median home value, 4) median property taxes paid per household. Once these were gathered, they were scored using and the sum of their individual scores used to rank them. It is important to note some things that the Census Bureau does with its data. For a couple factors, the Census numbers have upper limits, so there's no exact value for certain factors. When it comes to median household income, for example, the Census Bureau has an upper limit of '$250,000+', so no median incomes are recorded above $250,000. For median home value, the upper limit is '$2,000,000+'. For median property taxes paid, the upper limit is '$10,000+'. Because of this, the mean household income (which is the same as average household income) dataset is crucial because the Census Bureau has exact figures for it. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities' combined scores. Another feature of the Census to point out is the use of Census-designated places — CDP. The Census essentially treats CDPs as cities, though in many cases the terminology is 'place'. This list of the richest cities in Nebraska uses this classification. Thus, if you see cities on this list that may be part of a larger township or you consider a neighborhood, it's because the Census Bureau has designated it as a 'place'. You'll find a table detailing the top 15 richest cities in Nebraska and their respective dollar figures for each metric, below: The No. 1 richest place in Nebraska in this ranking is Woodland Hills, an unincorporated community east of Lincoln. This place is essentially centered on Woodland Hills Golf Course. It has two segments where its homes are located, one in the western half of the town and other in the northeast corner. This is a very small place, both in surface area and in terms of residences, with only 86 households. The median household income here is $134,022. The average household income is $169,172, the highest in the state. The median home value reported by the Census Bureau is $419,400, the fourth highest in Nebraska. Its property taxes are on the high end, at a median of $4,793 paid per household, but several towns have much higher figures. Beaver Lake came in as the No. 2 wealthiest city in Nebraska. This place is due south of Omaha and just west of the Missouri River. So many lake towns have made the top of these richest cities list and Beaver Lake is no different. Centered on Beaver Lake, this is a beautiful town of 766 households. Beaver Lake Marina is located in the northeast corner, while Lake Ridge Golf Course is on the south shore. The median household income here is slightly higher than Woodland Hills, at $136,364. The average income is slightly lower, at $166,788. Compared to other states' wealthiest cities, the median home value is reported as $384,500, though sale prices are likely higher. The median property taxes paid by household is $4,221, which isn't too bad. Coming in as the No. 3 richest city in Nebraska is Lake Waconda. This place is south of Beaver Lake and just as exquisite. Oddly, like Beaver Lake, it also has 86 households. It has the second highest median household income in Nebraska, at $140,221. Interestingly, its average household income is lower, at $134,883, which is not that common. Also interesting, the reported median home value here is $339,200, though it's likely they increased since the time of the 2023 American Community Survey. The property taxes paid by households, on the other hand, are the highest in the state: the median is $8,971 per household. The Bottom Line on the Richest Cities in Nebraska The top five wealthiest places in Nebraska are all centered on some kind of body of water: No. 1 Woodland Hills, Beaver Lake, Lake Waconda, Valley (which has a series of enclosed bodies of water off the Platte River), and Buccaneer Bay (which has two enclosed lakes and is south of the Platte River). The largest of the 15 wealthiest cities in Nebraska is Papillon, an oddly shaped city southwest of Omaha that's home to 9,247 households.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Millions of people across central and eastern US under ‘heat dome' warning
Scores of millions of people across the central and eastern US will swelter under the summer's first 'heat dome' beginning this weekend and extending through the end of next week as extreme hot air and humidity get trapped in the atmosphere. The arrival of the heatwave coincides with Friday's first day of summer and will bring temperatures at or above 100F (37.7C) to numerous cities as it moves to the east of the US in the coming days, forecasters say. As estimated 170 to 200 million people will be affected from the central Great Plains to mid-Atlantic states including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, with no respite expected until the 'lid' of strong high pressure eases by next weekend. Experts are warning residents to stay cool indoors as much as possible, even after darkness falls. 'It will be exceptionally warm at night with little relief once the sun goes down,' Bernie Rayno, chief on-air meteorologist at AccuWeather, said in a Friday afternoon bulletin. 'Many urban areas may struggle to drop below 80 at night, and that can take a toll on the body without air conditioning.' Heat domes, which form when high pressure from Earth's atmosphere compresses warm air and pushes it down to the surface, have become increasingly common in the US in recent years amid rising global temperatures fueled by the climate emergency. Extreme heat has killed more people in the US since 1995 than hurricanes and tornadoes, National Weather Service figures show, including 238 last year. 'Extreme heat is tragically the leading cause of weather-related fatalities in America,' Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather's chief meteorologist, said. 'There is an amplified risk of heat-related illnesses because this is the first heat wave of the year for millions of people, and their bodies are not yet acclimated to this type of heat and humidity.' More than 40 million people were already under heat alerts by Friday lunchtime as temperatures began to rise across the midwest. Large areas of Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa were experiencing temperatures above 90F. On Saturday, extreme heat is forecast to spread north and east into Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri; while Sunday will see states including Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York beginning to experience peak temperatures. By early to midweek, the entire region stretching as far east as Maine will have high temperatures and humidity. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The health risks of the extreme heat cannot be underestimated, experts say, especially if temperatures do not drop significantly after the sun sets. 'Your body needs a reprieve,' Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University, told the Associated Press. 'You don't get that overnight, we start the next day at a deficit. When we have overnight temperatures that don't drop below 75F you start to see some pretty extraordinary outcomes with respect to heat illness and heat stroke, and even mortality.' Some states and municipalities have set up cooling stations to ease conditions for vulnerable populations, especially those who are unhoused. Only a handful of states have legal heat protections such as shade and water breaks for outdoor workers. In Phoenix, Arizona, the hottest city in the US with 143 days at or above 100F in 2024, city leaders last year unanimously approved regulations including mandatory access to air conditioning. Some states, however, have actively removed such measures. In Florida, which has an estimated 2 million outdoor workers, Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed a law last year banning municipalities from enacting heat protections after lobbying from business owners.
