Giovanni Paolo Pannini Gallery of Views of Ancient Rome 1758 Oil on canvas, 231 x 303 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

Giovanni Paolo Pannini Gallery of Views of Modern Rome 1759 Oil on canvas, 231 x 303 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

Giovanni Paolo Pannini View of the Forum Looking towards the Capitoline 1751 Oil on canvas, 58 x 94 cm Private collection

Giovanni Paolo Pannini Interior View of the Pantheon, Rome 1732 Oil on canvas, 119 x 98 cm Private collection

Happy 2,779th birthday to Rome, founded on this day 753 BC

[Some semi-imaginary views by Giovanni Paolo Pannini]

Former Capitol Police officer Shauni Kerkhoff doesn't say how much she wants from the Blaze for accusing her of being the J5 pipe bomber, but it's going to be a big number.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I am begging every Senate Democrat to vote against confirmation of this clown. Take a stand. Don't try to triangulate. This is an easy call.

Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo

The Trump administration, after shutting down a resettlement program for Afghans who aided U.S. forces, is now negotiating to relocate up to 1,100 of those individuals to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Neo-Nazi and Extremist Connections Emerging Related to Perpetrator of Deadly Shooting in Mexico A deadly shooting at Teotihuacán, Mexico, exposes the accelerating convergence of neo-Nazi ideology and online subcultures that glorify mass violence, after a self-identified Nazi sympathizer carried ...

A deadly shooting in Mexico, exposes the accelerating convergence of neo-Nazi ideology and online subcultures that glorify mass violence, after a self-identified Nazi sympathizer carried out a calculated attack, highlighting how this digital ecosystems are shaping acts of terror.

Read more:

This is important and shocking news from NYT.

And it doesn’t mention the DRC third-country deportation program has already begun. ICE sent 15 immigrants from Latin American countries there five days ago.

gillianbrockell.com/breaking-ice...

New site of critically endangered Tasmanian species found A group of bushwalkers walking in remote southwest Tasmania has discovered a new population of a critically endangered plant, King’s lomatia.

Well, I guess this is my first ever piece of breaking news - probably the biggest rare plant story in Australia this year. Over at @tasinquirer.bsky.social.

tasmanianinquirer.com.au/news/very-ex...

Fractures Emerge Between GOP’s Pro-Pedophilia, Extremely Pro-Pedophilia Wings

we all know I have no life, so:

Acknowledging the stark, ugly truth that the Republicans basically had no good reason to do what they have done for the last 11 years and have lapsed into vast collective psychosis over totally immaterial and utterly depraved delusions is terrifying, and as such most commentators simply do not do it

The World’s Forests Won’t Be Saved by Science Alone: We Need Better Communication • The Revelator Research tells us that we need sustainable forest practices. But how does this knowledge lead to action?

Research tells us that we need sustainable forest practices. But how does this knowledge lead to action?

Check out the latest from @therevelator.org, our news and ideas initiative.

A baby raccoon

A baby raccoon

Meanwhile
A timeline cleanse:

I went to change my snow tires to summer tires this afternoon...

And discovered I've got a raccoon nursery in my shed.

A Year After U.S.A.I.D.’s Death, Fired Workers Find Few Jobs and Much Loss

This is so sad. “Nights are the hardest.

“I can’t sleep because of our own situation,” Ms. Uccello, 49, said over coffee on a recent afternoon. “I can’t sleep because of what I know what’s happening around the world. I can’t sleep because my former colleagues and friends are also suffering.”

This Isn't Trading. It's Theft from Your Retirement. Someone keeps making perfectly-timed bets right before the President speaks. The victims are your pension, your 401(k), and the country I took an oath to defend.

Fifteen minutes before the President announced he was pausing strikes on Iran, somebody moved $500 million in oil futures. Somebody knew. Somebody told them. Or somebody is them.
New piece ↓
open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...

Trump’s latest border barrier plans to slice through Big Bend national park: ‘Our lives are being upended’

The rural Texas region, long spared, is being fast-tracked for the border wall amid bipartisan opposition

A person with purple glasses and blue hair standing in front of the window and some trees

It's my 25th birthday! 🥳🎉

Despite being a queer, neurodivergent Gen Z in such a rough time, I'm still alive 💜

My only ask is that you support my freelance editing business so I can build a life & career for myself.

Hire me as your editor, repost, share my website, read my blogs! Anything helps!

Quick walk at a park just now, saw a tree swallow with the white feather and almost deaded on the spot ❤️ He dropped it, then zoomed back to scoop it up, wittering away

How is it that we don’t just subsidize all the swallows? every building should have a bank of nests waiting for them in spring

114 Years Ago Today: View of the fans arriving for the first game at brand new Fenway Park! (April 20, 1912) #MLB #Boston #RedSox #History

My photo shows a Paleo-Babylonian clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform text, still partially enclosed in its original clay envelope. The clay is pale orangey-brown in colour displayed against a grey display case background. The outer envelope has been broken open, revealing the inner tablet beneath. Both surfaces are covered with densely packed wedge-shaped characters, which record a contract for the sale of a house purchased by Mannum-balu-Samas at the price of 1/3 shekel and 15 grains of silver. This is followed by the names of the numerous witnesses including the mayor Sin-magir and the courier Apil-ilisu. The same text is repeated on the envelope in the event of a dispute, which was broken to inspect the internal document. It is dated 32nd year of Hammurabl's reign, 10th month, c. 1750 BC. The clay envelope measures 87 mm (height) × 55 mm (width), while the inner tablet measures 64 mm (height) × 43 mm (width). On display at the Museum of Antiquity in Turin. Collection number MAT 740.

A 3,750 year-old contract for the sale of a house recorded on a clay tablet, still in its original clay envelope!

Museo di Antichità, Turin
📷 by me

#Archaeology

Latest Mass. bald eagle death renews calls for poison ban A bald eagle found dead near its nest in Arlington last month died from exposure to rat poison, officials said. It’s the fourth such death in Massachusetts, renewing calls for a statewide ban on the t...

Awful and infuriating; there’s no other damn way to solve your mouse and rat problem?

www.nbcboston.com/news/local/l...

A small, slate-gray bird with a slightly hooked beak is perched upside down on a flowering plant. It is focused on a bright pink flower bud, seemingly searching for nectar. The background consists of soft-focus green leaves and reddish-brown stems.

I spent some quality time with this wonderful Slaty Flowerpiercer this morning in San Gerardo de Dota #CostaRica

These little nectar thieves pierce the base of flowers to extract nectar, bypassing the pollination process.

#birds #nature

Opinion | New Hungarian PM says government was funding CPAC but won’t anymore “I believe the state should never have financed them in the first place,” Péter Magyar said this week. “It was a crime.”

Not enough people are talking about this.

Hungary’s incoming PM has said that Viktor Orbán used Hungarian government funds to help finance CPAC, the flagship networking event for GOP candidates, members of Congress, and conservative media in this country.

BirdCast map showing 85.7 million birds in flight early on in the evening at 10:10pm EDT on April 20, 2026.

NEXRAD radar map showing birds and weather.

One more quiet night in the east and then I think tomorrow and especially Wednesday night will really start moving again as a high pressure builds off FL.

Nice movement coming from FL & along the Gulf coast, and central flyway is lighting up tonight.
#birds #spring #migration
#LightsOutForBirds

Two Mourning Doves at a bird feeder with a built-in camera. One dove is in profile, very close to the camera, and appears to be looking at it, and the other dove is further back, but also looks like it’s staring straight into the lens.

These two Mourning Doves at my feeder cam look like they just rang my doorbell because Tony Soprano sent them to collect a debt I owe.

This is a war based on lies

Chief Justice’s Wife Made $10M+ as Legal Recruiter: Report At least one of the firms reportedly had a case before Chief Justice Roberts.

The corruption is just stunning.

www.thedailybeast.com/chief-justic...

According to reports, Corey Lewandowski took kickbacks to secure DHS contracts for paying contractors.

Fired Secretary Kristi Noem handed $220M in taxpayer funds to her allies for self-promotion. This is blatant corruption.

These partners in crime need to be fully investigated.

Federal agents detain wife of another US army member: ‘ICE is out of control’ Jose Serrano, a sergeant, said Deisy Rivera Ortega, his wife, was arrested at an immigration appointment

A US army sergeant with 27 years of military service – including deployment to Afghanistan – has said that federal immigration agents recently arrested his wife during an appointment at an El Paso, Texas, immigration office.

After targeting Latinos, farmworkers, and day laborers in Kern County last year, Border Patrol vowed to continue dragnet sweeps across the Central Valley. We sued.

On Wednesday, we’ll ask the appeals court to uphold the court order barring the agency’s unlawful stop-and-arrest practices.