Events

Travel site Frommer's reports that foreign travel to the U.S. has plummeted since the inauguration, for obvious reasons: [T]he prestigious Travel Weekly magazine (as close to an “official” travel publication as they come) has set the decline in foreign tourism at 6.8%. And the fall-off is not limited to Muslim travelers, but also extends to all incoming foreign tourists. Apparently, an attack on one group of tourists is regarded as an assault on all. As far as travel by distinct religious groups, flight...

The Illinois State Climatologist reports that 257 daily high temperature records have been set statewide this month. He worries that the early warmth could cause damage to agriculture as similar events did in 2007 and 2012: A batch of crocus on the south side of our office building is a reminder of the impacts of warm weather in February. Both January and February have been mild. But on top of that has been a record-setting streak of 60s and 70s in the past week. As a result, many early season...

Yesterday, Major League Baseball agreed with its players union to ditch the four-pitch intentional walk: Major League Baseball and its Players Association agreed to replace it with an automatic walk triggered by a signal from the dugout. The curious part was its cause of death: It was sacrificed in the name of shorter games. That is curious, to say the least, because the intentional walk had neither the frequency of use nor the potential time-savings to make it an obvious target of league officials, led...

Cool little video:

Sigh: Your neighborhood affects how you age. My neighborhood is on its 6th day of record warmth. Sean Spicer demonstrated some of the administrations worst problems in one exchange. A top Blagojevich aide offers some advice on how to deal with a crazy boss. Could Vice President Pence unseat President Trump? David Brooks says this century is broken. NASA announced today they've discovered seven exoplanets about 40 light years from Earth that could support life. ReSharper supports unit-testing .NET Core...

Things to read later: We're heading into our fifth day of record temperatures in Chicago. Since records began in the 1870s, we've had five days above 21C—two of them this year. Tomorrow should be similarly warm. Followed, of course, by normal February weather this weekend. James Fallows takes a break from his book to warn about President Trump's assault on the media. Brian Beutler suggests FBI Director James Comey should treat Donald Trump just the way he treated Hillary Clinton, if for no other reason...