Sun: Starbucks Has the Weakest Possible Explanation

Bibi Will Totally Screw Up the Middle East to Stay in Power

Egypt is threatening to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if Israeli troops are sent into the densely populated Gaza border town of Rafah, and says fighting there could force the closure of the besieged territory’s main aid supply route, two Egyptian officials and a Western diplomat said Sunday.

The threat to suspend the Camp David Accords, a cornerstone of regional stability for nearly a half-century, came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said sending troops into Rafah was necessary to win the four-month war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Over half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled to Rafah to escape fighting in other areas, and are packed into sprawling tent camps and U.N.-run shelters near the border. Egypt fears a mass influx of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who may never be allowed to return.

Bibi's Buddies Continue to Be Disgusting

Illegal Israeli settlers threw stones at Palestinians in their cars in the West Bank on Sunday, before tear-gassing drivers, according to an Israeli human rights group.

The news was reported by Al-Jazeera citing Yesh Din, a non-governmental organization based in Israel. The organization has been tracking incidents of violence committed by Israeli settlers illegally living in the West Bank against Palestinians.

"The Israel government is coming out against the U.S. imposing sanctions on violent settlers but continues to do nothing to stop West Bank settler violence," Yesh Din said in a post on social media last week.

It's Not As If the Talks Were Going Anywhere

Any Israeli ground offensive on Rafah will “blow up” the captive exchange negotiations, Al-Aqsa television channel quoted a senior Hamas leader as saying on Sunday.

Where's Michael?

Donald Trump never fails to go low.

In a Saturday speech in Conway, South Carolina, the former reality star scraped the barrel’s bottom when he mocked his opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, because her husband Michael hasn’t been at her side during the contentious 2024 GOP presidential primary.


He'll Probably Start Selling Her Houses to Pay His Legal Bills

Since leaving the White House, Melania Trump’s world has gotten smaller.

Just how she likes it.

Cloistered behind the gates of her three homes, she sticks to a small circle — her son, her elderly parents and a handful of old friends. She visits her hairdressers, consults with Hervé Pierre, her longtime stylist, and sometimes meets her husband for Friday night dinner at their clubs. But her most ardent pursuit is a personal campaign: helping her son, Barron, 17, with his college search.

What she has not done, despite invitations from her husband, is appear on the campaign trail. Nor has she been at his side for any of his court appearances.

These are the days of Melania Trump, former first lady, current campaign spouse and wife to one of the most divisive figures in American public life.

Get Ready For QOP Senate Leader Ted Cruz

Top U.S. Senate Republican Mitch McConnell's negotiations with Democrats to try to secure more Ukraine aid has drawn mounting attacks from hardliners within his party that some lawmakers say is a direct result of Donald Trump's rising influence.

The Kentucky Republican, the chamber's longest-serving party leader at 81, has faced more heat from hardliners since Trump, the party's likely presidential nominee, torpedoed a bipartisan deal McConnell backed that aimed to stem the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border and provide aid to Ukraine and Israel.

After party hardliners rejected that deal -- which some had sought as a trade-off for the Ukraine aid -- McConnell has continued to work with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to advance a standalone $95 billion security bill.

His willingness to work across the aisle -- a practical necessity given a narrow Democratic majority -- has become a liability among some of his Trump-aligned colleagues.

"Who has more influence? Probably Trump," Senator Josh Hawley told reporters. "I mean, he's the future. He is going to be the nominee of the party. He may well win in November. Senator McConnell is probably not the future."

There is No Way to Get Ready for Ted Cruz

Love them or loathe them, pinyon-juniper woodlands are a growing biofuel battleground

When Varlin Higbee eyes the scrubby forest of pinyon pines and juniper trees that fill the high desert outside this old Union Pacific Railroad town, there's just one thought that crosses his mind:

“They’re just a wildfire waiting to happen,” the Lincoln County commissioner says of the low, bushy trees.

And Higbee is not alone in his distaste for the plants.

Despite the many uses Native Americans once had for pinyon-juniper woodlands — not the least of which was sustenance from pine nuts — ranchers and federal land managers throughout the American Southwest have now come to regard them as a highly flammable and invasive scourge.

In parts of California and much of the Great Basin, land owners have declared war on pinyon pines and juniper trees, clearing them from rangelands with chains, bulldozers, saws and herbicides. At the same time, the trees are drawing increasing interest as a source of renewable energy — such as in California's Lassen County, where 150,000 tons of the trees are fed into the Honey Lake Power Plant each year to generate energy for customers including San Diego Gas & Electric.

Most recently, Higbee and other Nevada officials have proposed converting them into green methanol — a biofuel that could be used for everything from generating electricity to powering cargo ships calling on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

In January, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a declaration of understanding with Denmark to develop an industrial park in Lincoln County where methanol would be extracted from wood and used as a fuel additive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from diesel engines.

Bead on the Lookout For Plastic

It’s a beloved century-old Carnival season tradition in New Orleans — masked riders on lavish floats fling strings of colorful beads or other trinkets to parade watchers clamoring with outstretched arms.

It's all in good fun but it's also a bit of a “plastics disaster,” says Judith Enck, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator and president of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics.

Carnival season is at its height this weekend. The city's annual series of parades began more than a week ago and will close out on Tuesday — Mardi Gras — a final day of revelry before Lent. Thousands attend the parades and they leave a mess of trash behind.

Despite a massive daily cleanup operation that leaves the post-parade landscape remarkably clean, uncaught beads dangle from tree limbs like Spanish moss and get ground into the mud under the feet of passers-by. They also wash into storm strains, where they only complicate efforts to keep the flood-prone city's streets dry. Tons have been pulled from the aging drainage system in recent years.

And those that aren't removed from the storm drains eventually get washed through the system and into Lake Pontchartrain — the large Gulf of Mexico inlet north of the city. The nonbiodegradable plastics are a threat to fish and wildlife, Enck said.

“The waste is becoming a defining characteristic of this event,” said Brett Davis, a New Orleans native who grew up catching beads at Mardi Gras parades. He now heads a nonprofit that works to reduce the waste.

One way of making a dent in the demand for new plastic beads is to reuse old ones. Parade-goers who carry home shopping bags of freshly caught beads, foam footballs, rubber balls and a host of other freshly flung goodies can donate the haul to the Arc of New Orleans. The organization repackages and resells the products to raise money for the services it provides to adults and children with disabilities.