NPR

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Supreme Court Pipeline Fight Could Disrupt How The Appalachian Trail Is Run : NPR

The Appalachian Trail – the 2,200-mile hiking stretch that goes from Georgia to Maine — is at the center of a legal battle that has risen to the Supreme Court.

The case involves a proposed pipeline that would connect natural gas fracked in West Virginia to population centers in Virginia and North Carolina. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would cross the Appalachian Trail within the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, and some environmental groups are challenging the legality of the permit the U.S. Forest Service issued allowing that to happen.

February 23, 2020 Night

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Good evening! Clear and 39 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. There is a dusting of snow on the ground. ☃ Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around noontime. ☃️ Nice mild evening, saving on the heating bills. I don’t think the heat kicked on at all this weekend with the sun hitting the roof, at least today.

It was a good weekend ☀, lots of sun and time in the woods. While I decided against doing any camping, it was still nice in the wilderness. Visited Schodack Island, Albany Pine Bush, Five Rivers Environmental Education Center and Partridge Run in one weekend. Not too bad. 🌲🌲🌲🌲

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 25 degrees at 5am. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 14th. South wind around 5 mph. In 2019, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became light drizzle by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 34 degrees. The record low of -11 occurred back in 1894.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon. The Worm 🐛 Moon is on Monday, March 9. The darkest hour is at 12:10 am, followed by dawn at 6:14 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:42 am in the east-southeast (103°) and last for 2 minutes and 58 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 32 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 7:21 am with sun in the east-southeast (110°). Tonight will have 13 hours and 2 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 48 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 55 degrees at 3pm. 18 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 7th. South wind 3 to 6 mph. Exceptional but not unheard of. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 42 degrees. The record high of 74 was set in 2017. 8 inches of snow fell back in 1962.❄

In four weeks on March 22 the sun will be setting in the west (272°) at 7:10 pm (Daylight Savings Time),🌄 which is one hour, 33 minutes and 37 seconds later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had rain showers, mostly cloudy and temperatures between 43 and 30 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 47 and 28 degrees. The record high of 81 degrees was set back in 2012.

Been trying to figure out how to do shadow analysis in QGIS. 🏢 It would be great to do with all the buildings proposed by Crossgates and the impacts on Save the Pine Bush. The formula for shadows is simple as I noted yesterday if you know the altitude and direction of the sun. But adding the shadows of a specific length for each building in QGIS is not able to be automated as far as I can figure out.🌐

Spring and the last of the snow will be hear before you know it. I‘m thinking about taking off several days in April around Easter to take a road trip. ⛺ Have some nice nights in the wilderness.

Looking ahead, Daylight Savings Time 🌆 is in 2 weeks, Ides of March ✝ is in 3 weeks, Palm Sunday 🌴 is in 6 weeks, Easter 🐰 is in 7 weeks, Mothers Day 👩‍ is in 11 weeks, Pack Rat Day 🐀 is in 12 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 3 months, Strawberry Moon 🌕 is in 15 weeks, Fathers Day 👨 is in 16 weeks and Primary Day 🗳️ is in 4 months.

🇺🇸🦅Only 88 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!🦅🇺🇸

Towards the Valley

NPR

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6 Takeaways From The Nevada Caucuses, Including Bernie Sanders As Front-Runner : NPR

The 2020 Democratic nomination is now Sen. Bernie Sanders' to lose.

The independent from Vermont ⁠— who is running as a Democrat and often speaks about the ills not just of Republicans, but also of Democrats ⁠— handily won the Nevada Democratic caucuses.

And he did it by broadening his coalition beyond his base of young voters and progressives. Sanders won the popular vote in Iowa, the New Hampshire primary and now the Nevada caucuses. The man who calls himself a democratic socialist and has been seemingly running as an outsider all his life is now the inside man.

How the Holocaust shaped Bernie Sanders’s politics | The Times of Israel

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How the Holocaust shaped Bernie Sanders’s politics | The Times of Israel

WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders thinks US President Donald Trump represents a unique threat to the body politic. The most powerful man in America, he argues, is a demagogue and a racist. He targets and oppresses racial and ethnic minorities. He stirs discord and division.

But it’s Trump’s hostility to immigrants that bothers Sanders with an acute resonance, he said. In a rare interview this week in which the Democratic presidential hopeful opened up about his personal story, he accused the president of trying to “demonize people because they were not born in this country.”