To grape vines, the glassy-winged sharpshooter is as deadly as a malarial mosquito. The bug spreads a fatal bacterium called Pierce’s disease that chokes off a vine’s circulation, making it impossible for water to circulate and nourish the plant. The bacterium itself is present in small amounts in almost every vineyard, but infected plants can usually be identified and plucked out since Pierce’s disease grows slowly. Throw the sharpshooter into the mix, however, and the disease spreads like wildfire as the insect inserts its stylus into the woody grapevine and then jumps from plant to plant....

Alyssa Milano, Charlize Theron, Eva Longoria and more have joined calls to urge Joe Biden to support moms amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The campaign is led by Girls Who Code CEO Reshma Saujani and asks president Biden to put into place a “Marshall Plan for Moms.” “This is not an isolated incident—it is a national crisis, and we can start to address it within the first 100 days of this administration,” Saujani said....

The senator gained national attention in December when she called for President Donald Trump to invoke martial law so the military could hold a new election, a comment that was condemned by Virginia Delegate Kirk Cox, her GOP gubernatorial rival. Chase doubled down by accusing Democrats of treason, and she was later censured by the state Senate for attending Trump’s January 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot. Despite the public outcry, Chase is leading the Republican field for governor and isn’t drastically far behind former Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat....

Sure, Alex showed up with an engagement ring, but pretty much all he proposed was that he and Amanda hang out more often. “Before we walk down the aisle together,” he said, “I want to make sure we feel the same way about each other outside the fancy world of mansions and limousines.” So was this all a big scam? Not exactly. From the very start, the show’s producers carefully avoided saying whether or not there would be a wedding on the final episode....

Last year, the company provided free tests to its warehouse employees as the tests were more difficult to procure. Warehouse workers were considered essential as they worked through the pandemic on packing and shipping orders. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below: U.S. cases of COVID-19 last week increased by 17,000 nationwide over a 14-day period for the first time since late fall, and an increase in death historically follows a spike in illness....

Researchers writing in Nature Communications say that “regime shifts” tend to have a disproportionate effect on larger ecosystems. This means that though they tend to shift more slowly than smaller ecosystems, they do so disproportionately faster. For the study, the researchers analyzed empirical data collected from 42 ecosystems from across the world—four terrestrial, 25 marine and 13 freshwater-based, and then confirmed their findings using five separate computational models. “Ultimately, if we do not stop the decline of our ecosystems then we will lose them,” said Wilcock....

Dan Whittington, a deputy with the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office on Florida’s east coast, was responding an unrelated call on October 8 when he noticed the delivery driver standing by the overturned, partially submerged car. A collision with another vehicle had sent the car tumbling top-first with an elderly couple and their caretaker inside. Whittington and the driver went into the canal together, helping each other through the treacherous mud....

Earlier this month, a Buffalo, New York, Starbucks voted in favor of unionization, meaning the coffee giant would have to negotiate with a labor union for the first time in its 70-year history. According to the agreement, the online behemoth said it would reach out via email to its warehouse workers—former and current—who were on the job anytime since March 22 to notify them of their organizing rights. Recent worker unrest comes as labor shortages are giving workers a rare upper hand in wage negotiations and demands for more flexibility in their work schedules....

Heard, 36, recently sat with Today’s Savannah Guthrie for a bombshell interview, with previews of the upcoming NBC News special showing that she has doubled down on her allegations that Depp, 59, abused her during their relationship. Depp has consistently denied the allegations. The interview comes after Depp sued her over a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post, in which she said that she was a domestic abuse survivor. While Heard didn’t name Depp in the article, his lawyers argued it was clear she was referring to the actor....

The Aquaman actress officially filed a motion on Thursday at the Circuit Court of Fairfax County to appeal the defamation trial ruling she lost to her ex-husband. “We believe the court made errors that prevented a just and fair verdict consistent with the First Amendment. We are therefore appealing the verdict,” a spokesperson for Heard said in a statement. A spokesperson for Depp responded to the motion, telling Newsweek last week that his team is “confident” in the jury’s decision....

Amber McLaughlin, 49, was convicted of stalking and killing former girlfriend Beverly Guenther, then dumping the body near the Mississippi River in St. Louis. A jury deadlocked on the sentence, but a judge sentenced McLaughlin to death in 2006. During her execution, she spoke quietly with a spiritual adviser at her side as the fatal dose of pentobarbital was injected, the Associated Press reported. McLaughlin breathed heavily a couple of times, then shut her eyes and was pronounced dead a few minutes later....

Well, maybe-just maybe-not. A couple of fundamental changes may have occurred in social attitudes toward the economy in the United States and other Western democracies that might give Bush a shot at squeaking back in. For one thing, voters have clearly reduced their expectations of the benefits that the economy can deliver. Also, many voters may have discovered that, in a modern middleclass welfare state, a cleaner environment and rising amounts of social security (a projected $300 billion and $800 billion respectively in 1993) are now part of their own personal incomes–a fact that may offset the hurt caused by stagnant takehome pay....

A group of House Republicans have been discussing the formation of an America First Caucus, according to the Associated Press, with Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida saying he was joining. Punchbowl News, which first obtained the document, reported that Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona were behind the move. Gaetz also indicated Greene’s involvement. A number of historians took to Twitter on Friday to criticize the use of the phrase “Anglo-Saxon” in relation to U....

American foreign policy in the Middle East needs a restart. It has not been able to achieve anything of value. In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi continues to do as he wishes, with little American resistance. In Syria and Iraq, American soldiers continue to be attacked and little headway has been made in protecting both Syrians and Iraqis. In Saudi Arabia, the government that killed Jamal Khashoggi continues to act freely with impunity....

“The MAX has received more scrutiny than any aircraft in a number of years,” James E. Hall, managing partner of Hall & Associates in Washington, a transportation safety expert and former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told Newsweek. “The plane is back in the air, but what’s not back up is the reputation of Boeing and the FAA regarding their safety culture,” he said. “The FAA tarnished itself along with Congressional oversight, and Boeing’s action may yet be seen as criminal – we haven’t heard from the Justice Department yet....

Indeed, what is more pathetic than the sight of a broken down 81-year-old institution so devoid of creativity and spunk that it must seize upon gimmicky “reality TV” techniques to drum up viewers in the coveted “Below 90” demographic? Virtually every newspaper in the country had the story last week: In the face of decades of declining ratings, the Miss America pageant would add a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”-style current events and history quiz, would take a page from “Survivor” and allow non-finalists to convene a tribal council (albeit one with a lot of hairspray) to vote for whom they think should win, and even mimic “Big Brother” by having cameras film the supposedly candid “behind-the-scenes deliberations....

The new guidelines published on December 14 in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, identify 25 important questions that doctors frequently ask patients. It then uses the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to evaluating the data. The hope, the guideline authors wrote, is to help get better, more targeted care to patients with IBS. These aren’t the first-ever guidelines on how to care for patients with IBS—those came out in 2014, guidelines co-author Darren Brenner, MD, a gastroenterologist at the Digestive Health Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, tells Verywell....

Joseph Bainton, the lawyer representing Howard Rubinsky, the man suing Zayat for $1.65 million, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Monday in United States District Court in New Jersey. Bainton seeks $10 million in damages. After the initial suit was filed, Zayat gave statements to several media outlets calling it “blackmail” and “extortion.” Bainton, a practicing lawyer in the New York area since 1974, said he was offended by these claims....