Valerie Plame is an American spy whose identity was revealed by a Washington Post reporter in 2005. President George W. Bush and members of his administration were suspected of orchestrating the leak after Plame's husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson, wrote an article criticizing the Bush administration for exaggerating evidence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. One of Bush's top aides, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison for the "Plame Affair," as it became known. Plame retired her CIA post in response to the incident.
Francisco Toledo, the celebrated Mexican artist and cultural philanthropist who drew on his indigenous pre-Colombian heritage to create striking works suffused with shamanistic animal imagery, died on Thursday. He was 79. Mr. Toledo was regarded by many as Mexico’s greatest living artist, one who could trace his lineage to the Zapotecs, who flourished before the 16th-century Spanish conquests in what is now the southern state of Oaxaca, his native region. His paintings, drawings, prints, collages, tapestries and ceramics were largely inspired by that heritage.
There are several characteristics of the changing climate that are helping to increase the risks of damage from Hurricanes, even though global warming is not directly causing such a storm to spin up. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate researcher at Texas Tech, put the relationship between climate change and storms such as Florence as follows: "Hurricanes are absolutely being affected by our changing climate, in many ways. As the world warms, the rainfall associated with hurricanes is becoming more intense; they are getting stronger, on average; they are intensifying faster; they are moving more slowly; and, as sea level rises, the storm surge from these events can be more damaging."
There is no one gene that determines a person’s sexual orientation, but genetics — along with environment — play a part in shaping sexuality, a massive new study shows. Researchers analyzed DNA from hundreds of thousands of people and found that there are a handful of genes clearly connected with same-sex sexual behavior. The researchers say that, although variations in these genes cannot predict whether a person is gay, these variants may partly influence sexual behavior.
