There’s been little respite for California in this record-setting wildfires season, with more hot weather forecast this week. State agencies, scientists and conservation groups increasingly agree that California needs to vastly scale up forest restoration efforts – thinning trees and clearing decades of accumulated brush that fuels huge blazes.

But as University of California Merced engineers Roger Bales and Martha Conklin explain, that won’t be easy or cheap. These projects can cost up to $4,000 per acre, and California needs to treat as much as 10 million acres. Bales and Conklin see local partnerships and innovative financing as the best hopes for taking on this mammoth job.

Also today:

Jennifer Weeks

Environment + Energy Editor

Pete Musico, left, is one of the founding members of the Wolverine Watchmen, as is Joseph Morrison, right. Both were charged in the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Jackson County Sheriff’s Office via AP) Jackson County Sheriff’s Office via AP

Plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor grew from the militia movement’s toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths

John E. Finn, Wesleyan University

A scholar of militia movements describes the 'peculiar' -- and erroneous -- principles that right-wing militias subscribe to, including believing themselves to be defenders of the Bill of Rights.

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  • Why males may have a worse response to COVID-19

    Meghan E. Rebuli, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    A new study is the first to identify sex differences in inflammation and immune cell activation in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, which causes COVID-19.

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