Cliser, flanked by Sheriff E L Lucas (left) and Deputy Claude Shaver (Photos: clisereviction/blogspot) In 1935, Melanchton Cliser and his family were forced out of their 46-acre property in Virginia as the state pushed ahead with plans for what would become Shenandoah National Park. Cliser owned the land along US 211 and also operated a…

Deep in the Caxiuanã National Forest in northern Brazil, a patch of rainforest the size of a football pitch tells the story of what a drier Amazon might look like. Since 2002, scientists have suspended nearly 6,000 transparent plastic panels above one hectare of pristine forest, diverting roughly half the rainfall away from the soil…

Representative Image (AI-generated) A tiny concentration of a synthetic hormone was enough to trigger a dramatic ecological change in a remote Ontario lake. In 2001, scientists began adding the synthetic estrogen 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) to Lake 260 in northwestern Ontario, maintaining concentrations of about 5 to 6 nanograms per litre. The experiment continued for seven years,…

A former California mayor has been sentenced to four years and four months in prison after admitting to sexually abusing a 17-year-old foreign exchange student who had been staying at his home.Robert Brian Bassett, 58, was sentenced on Wednesday after pleading no contest to three felony child-sex-abuse charges, The New York Times reported.The teenager had…

Imagine finishing a meal at an Italian restaurant and leaving with the plate on which your food was served. It sounds unusual, but for more than six decades, a group of Italian restaurants has turned this simple piece of tableware into a lasting souvenir. Known as the Piatti del Buon Ricordo, or “Plates of Good…