Word: westing
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There are a number of reasons wildfires have grown more destructive in California and elsewhere in the West. As suburban sprawl encroaches on wilderness areas, more homes are in the path of the flames, and there are more people to set fires accidentally--or even on purpose. More than 50% of new housing in California has been built in severe-fire zones. Live near the flames and you'll get burned...
...there's another culprit behind the growing frequency of wildfires in California and elsewhere. As average temperatures climb, the mountain snowpack that waters much of the West thins and melts earlier, producing a longer and drier fire season. The spread of the tree-killing mountain pine beetle, aided by warmer winters, has turned millions of acres of Western forest into kindling. And as the flames burn, they'll reinforce climate change. A report published in the journal Science this spring found that not only are fires worsening as a result of climate change, but the CO[subscript 2] they release...
...Estonian, Latvian, and Russian crew that was nominally bound from Finland to Algeria with a cargo of harmless timber. Initial reports claimed masked men speaking accented English subdued, but did not harm, the crew; then the ship simply vanished. Russia has claimed, once the ship was found off West Africa, that there was no suspicious cargo on board besides the intended logs. Yet experts believe there was more to the ship’s hijacking than pirates seeking ransom...
...demonstrably fallen behind in terms of Internet access, there is still time to catch up. A few years of good policy would create drastic improvement. Further, any claim that the U.S. is losing its edge is nonsense. A huge digital divide still exists between the industrialized countries in the West and East Asia and those of South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In India, for instance, only around 10 percent of the population has Internet access...
...Ultimately, the fate of diplomacy rests on three factors: Iran's willingness to compromise; the West's willingness to compromise; and perhaps most important, the time frame allowed for negotiations. President Obama is under considerable pressure to show that engagement with Iran produces results - but there may not be any by this fall, the unofficial deadline set by the Administration. If that prompts Obama to seek further sanctions via the U.N. or impose them unilaterally, however, the resulting divide between the West and Russia and China will work to Iran's advantage. New sanctions would also end immediate prospects...