The politics of a plume

US Vice President J D Vance has written to the Environmental Protection Agency’s acting inspector general Nicole N Murley, demanding demanded an investigation into “who knew what, and when” about public-health risks after the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine,…

From Cotton Fields to Rocket City

Two centuries ago, Alabama was a raw, restless frontier on the edge of the young American republic. In the 1820s, shortly after achieving statehood in 1819, it was a land of fertile river valleys and dense forests, drawing ambitious settlers…