Canada’s British Columbia is a region of stunning national beauty. The Pacific Northwest city of Vancouver, nestled between coastal mountains, the calm waters of English Bay, and the Burrard Inlet, is in many ways an ideal place to settle. Vancouverites are always ready to extol the virtues of their home – its gentle climate and its wealth of recreational options: You can ski, you can sunbathe, you can take a walk on the seawall around Stanley Park, or you can simply enjoy breathtaking views from any number of spots in and around the city.

A magnificent natural phenomenon is slowly vanishing right above our heads. The great North-South bird migration, which stitches the skies each autumn and spring, is steadily subsiding. Scientists blame the decline of migratory birds on habitat loss throughout the Americas.

"Free parking," it’s a lovely phrase, isn’t it? Since so many of the things we do are not free, it’s great that at least we can stow our vehicles at no cost, right? Well, actually, we are paying dearly for parking, according to a new book by David Shoup, a professor at UCLA.

Millions of Americans were shocked to find out last Wednesday that their Senators had approved oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by a vote of 51-49. Knowing they didn’t have the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster, pro-drilling Senators tacked the drilling provision onto the filibuster-proof budget resolution proposal for 2006.

Despite backing from the majority of the G8 nations currently meeting in Derby, UK, the United States is opposing a British proposal calling on industrialized nations to combat illegal logging in the world’s threatened rainforests by banning the purchase of timber harvested in unsustainable manners.

<I> One Friday night last June, 95 million Americans watched O.J. Simpson’s white Ford Bronco glide along the highway at 16 miles-per-gallon followed by a team of police cruisers on the most famous car chase this country has ever seen. A posse of newscopters hovered overhead as the sunset grew pinker in the Los Angeles haze. The ozone level reached .09 parts-per-million, just exceeding California’s air quality limits. Across the land millions of viewers wondered if O.J. would step out of the Bronco alive.</I>

MALIBU, CALIFORNIA–Howard Hughes may have ended up nuttier than a fruitcake (<I>The Aviator</I> spares us most of the gory details), but he certainly did a lot for science. In the 1940s, the still-dynamic Hughes wanted to keep up on the latest developments in radar for his aircraft business and so set up the Hughes Research Labs.