I think mentioned an article in the past about efforts to bring good, locally-grown food into schools. Here’s another one:

Now, as awareness of the economic and health benefits of farm-to-school programs grows across Michigan, more school personnel, parents, health advocates, and farmers are urging officials to look to some of these other state models for policy guidance. A recent, pivotal push for doing something about the state’s restrictive food rules occurred on March 12, when nearly 330 people from schools and farms throughout northwest Michigan packed the Farm to School: Healthy Kids, Thriving Farms conference, in Traverse City.

Freakonomics reports on the possible connection between climate change and witchhunts. Really. Take this link to get to the links.

Times columnist Nick Kristof recently highlighted economic research showing that climate change may be driving up the rate of executions of suspected witches in East Africa.

Tough times in the Congo may have been behind the recent witchcraft panic there, where police arrested 13 people accused of using black magic to shrink men’s penises.

University of Chicago economist Emily Oster also found a surge in witch hunts during Europe’s “little ice age,” from the 1500’s to late 1700’s.

Dubner and Levitt also wrote of some other surprising climate results over the ages, ranging from property crime, to life expectancy, to civil war.

What other unexpected consequences, whether economic, social, political, or otherwise, should we expect to see from climate change?

Justin Wolfers in Freakonomics says that election season is prime time for foolish economic policies and points to McCain’s gas tax holiday - now endorsed by Clinton - as a good example. Obama says it’s a gimmick to attact voters.

Wolfers points to this article by Greg Mankiw as a good look at the issue.

The AP reports that US troop deaths in Iraq have reached a seven-month high:

The killings of three U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in Baghdad pushed the American death toll for April up to 47, making it the deadliest month since September.

Surely another sign of the success of the surge and how the dead-enders are on the run and desperate to survive, etc. Oh, and don’t forget Iran.

We have a page of photos from the Earth Day event at Riverside Park, in addition to this one of Megan Cox.

The print edition also includes news about:

And, once again, there’s a lot more to read in the print edition.

Are you good with rhythm? You smarty-pants, you.

People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning.

It’s not like you have to be a talented drummer. Just a simple, steady beat is what it takes.

Do you feel like a dupe? You read all the explanations for why oil prices are so high, and then it’s followed with these reports:

Another quarter, another record. What a surprise.

This looks like damage seen after Hurricane Katrina, but this time it’s tornadoes in Virginia. The AP story reports:

Houses were flattened and cars were thrown against buildings when tornadoes ripped across central and southeast Virginia on Monday, injuring more than 200.

In Suffolk, where the worst damage occurred, warning sirens blared around 4 p.m., and within minutes, the tornado hit, splintering large buildings and bending light poles at their bases.

(Photo by Mandana Marsh of the Progress-Index)

From the BBC:

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.

The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.

The Guardian reports on those nefarious rebels who plant flowers everywhere. Here’s a rundown on guerrilla gardening. Bombs away:

But some people have a different definition of gardening. I am one of them. I do not wait for permission to become a gardener but dig wherever I see horticultural potential. I do not just tend existing gardens but create them from neglected space. I, and thousands of people like me, step out from home to garden land we do not own. We see opportunities all around us. Vacant lots flourish as urban oases, roadside verges dazzle with flowers and crops are harvested from land that was assumed to be fruitless. The attacks are happening all around us and on every scale - from surreptitious solo missions to spectacular campaigns by organised and politically charged cells.

This is guerrilla gardening.

Has anyone around here had an encounter with the Monsanto police force? Vanity Fair has an interesting story about the issue:

Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.

As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.

Not appealing to you? Maybe not to you, but Oxfam is in the business of recycling bras.

Oxfam is an exception. Although it shares this general policy of not reselling underwear, its recycling plant in Huddersfield, Wastesavers, reveals that bras are “invaluable revenue-generating items” - not something your greying M&S job will have been called before. Clothes that cannot be sold in shops end up here, when the material is either recycled, if the item is damaged, or sold to traders who send them to developing countries.

The Britannica Blog calls this uplifting news.

Will going green cost or save? Critics charge that it will ruin the U.S. economy (worse than it already is) to cut back on carbon emissions. A story in the Oregonian (via Gristmill) discusses the new “green collar jobs” in the Northwest.

Yes, it’s true: John McCain sticks his flag pin directly into his flesh to prove his love of country.

Tom Tomorrow is at it again, boiling down the issues of the day to a four-pane cartoon strip. This week’s edition: The Elitist Menace.

Probably the problem with this year’s campaign has far less to do with the candidates as elites as it does the elitism of the TV talking heads who are ranting about the candidates as elites.

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Want details? Head to this NYT article.