Visitors may be flocking to Europe this summer, but the number of people who can visit Greece’s most famous archaeological site will soon be capped at 20,000 per day.

On Wednesday, the Greek government announced that visits to the Acropolis in Athens will be limited to that quota next month, and subject to hourly entry limits based on the time of day.

According to the Associated Press, Greek culture minister Lina Mendoni said the new controls are needed to prevent bottlenecks and overcrowding. The monument complex has seen as many as 23,000 people per day coming to the UNESCO World Heritage site, most of them as part of large groups arriving before noon.

“The measure will address the need to protect the monument, which is the main thing for us, as well as (improving) visitors’ experience of the site,” Mendoni told the Associated Press.

Mendoni called it a “huge number” in an interview with the Real FM radio network. “Obviously tourism is desirable for the country, for all of us. But we must work out how excessive tourism won’t harm the monument.”

Donald Trump has been indicted three times in four months. He faces charges in New York, DC, and Florida, with Georgia expected to join the list soon. Those cases, in local and federal courts, include 78 separate counts for crimes he allegedly committed in 2016, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

The most likely explanation for this litany of alleged crimes is that the former president is a criminal—a guy who concluded that he was above the law, broke laws with abandon, and now, without the presidency to protect him, faces a backlog of criminal consequences. The courts—jurors and judges—will ultimately decide his guilt or innocence if the cases make it to trial.

But for Trump and many of his fans, the rising pile of charges against him seems to be reinforcing the view that he is the innocent victim of a conspiracy aimed at keeping him out of the White House.

Trump is not pretending he’d respect even the appearance of prosecutorial independence.

Trump was hit Tuesday with a four-count indictment alleging that he mounted three criminal conspiracies to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Even before the indictment appeared, Trump claimed that Jack Smith—the special counsel overseeing both that case and the prosecution related to Trump’s hoarding of classified documents—timed the new charges “to put it right in the middle of my campaign.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was even more specific, tweeting Tuesday that Smith released the indictment to “distract from” supposedly new allegations about Hunter Biden. McCarthy suggested that the timing of the charges was connected to a Monday poll showing that “President Trump is without a doubt Biden’s leading political opponent.”  

During a barbecue campaign event on Sunday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told New Hampshire voters that if he makes it to the White House, he will be “slitting throats on day one” in order to root out the so-called “deep state” lurking in the federal government.

“We’re going to have all of these deep state people, you know, we are going to start slitting throats on day one,” DeSantis said during a three-day trip to the Granite State. The event comes as the DeSantis campaign attempts a high-profile reset amid disappointing poll numbers and a major staff reduction. 

The promise to the slit throats of people who essentially don’t exist—that is, unless you’re a conspiracy-addled Republican—aligns with the strategy the DeSantis campaign recently outlined in a confidential memo, which reportedly includes more attacks on the “deep state,” to convince donors that the Florida governor can still win this game. Now will his latest comments do the trick? Or is this simply more evidence of the governor’s infamous lack of social skills?

Whatever the case, it’s safe to say that these remarks fall in line with DeSantis’ authoritarian approach to governing, using the state to punish his perceived enemies, from Disney to whatever new item he’s declared as “woke.” As Harvard professor Steven Levitsky told my colleague Pema Levy, “That’s authoritarianism at its core. That’s what authoritarians do.”  

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Beverly Grimmett thought the kids magazines she saw stacked on a coworker’s desk this spring were perfectly innocent, until she picked one up. 

“My stomach turned,” Grimmett said. 

The guides were decorated in bright colors and cheerful cartoons, with titles like, The Kids Guide to Socialism, The Kids Guide to Our One Nation Under God, and, finally, The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change.

Grimmett, who works in construction project management at a six-person office in Norfolk, Virginia, had happened upon one of former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s educational ventures, a series called The Kids Guide from Ever Bright Media, the children’s publishing company he founded.

Not long ago, I was one of 22 authors honored at a fundraising dinner for my local library. It was a swanky affair, with a multicourse meal, a pair of emcees, and a photographer to capture the rare sight of authors in cocktail attire rather than the sweatpants and baggy T-shirts we tend to favor. Midway through the meal, a waiter placed a full bottle of wine in front of me. “Thanks for giving ’em hell,” he said. “Keep up the good fight.”

An emcee had just announced that my Stonewall Award–winning New York Times bestseller, The 57 Bus, was the 10th most frequently challenged book in Texas and the 35th in the United States last year, a fact that caused the entire room to burst into applause. Bottles of wine are a rare response to such news, but high fives and congratulations are common. Having my book banned is a badge of honor, people often tell me.

I appreciate the sentiment, of course, but it does feel a bit like being congratulated for getting kicked in the teeth by the neighborhood bully. I’m not actually giving the book banners hell, much as I’d like to. I’m receiving hell. We all are: readers, writers, teachers—everyone who cares about the freedom to read.

“They say there’s porn in schools, and then they ban ‘Dim Sum for Everyone!'” says Ellen Oh. “Pretty sure there’s no porn in ‘Dim Sum for Everyone!’”

 

The American Library Association reports that more than 2,500 books were challenged in 2022, a big uptick from the already astonishing 1,858 challenged in 2021, which was already five times the number challenged in 2019. Last year, some 41 percent of challenged books were by or about LGBTQ people, and 40 percent were by or about people of color. The 57 Bus, a nonfiction narrative about two teenagers on either side of a high-profile crime, is a twofer: One main character is Black, the other nonbinary. The Tennessean reported just last month that The 57 Bus is now one of that state’s top five most challenged books.

We know the history. Now, what about Luton Town’s future? 

In this episode, Kate Mason speaks to EFL experts, Luton’s CEO and manager, and fans to find out if Luton are ready for the next stage of their journey. Or has it come too soon?

Not listened to Episode 1 yet? Find it directly below this one in your podcast app!

Special thanks to the Luton Town Supporters’ Trust, the Oh When The Town Podcast, and everyone connected to Luton Town Football Club who helped us make this episode.

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Luton Town will be a Premier League club this season. But they’ll be a Premier League club like no other. Over the next two days on the Ramble feed, we’re going to tell the story of Luton’s extraordinary rise, fall and rise through the divisions.

Join Kate Mason as she speaks to fans, residents, and the people at the very heart of the club. 

Episode 2 is out tomorrow, right here on the Football Ramble feed!

Special thanks to the Luton Town Supporters’ Trust, the Oh When The Town Podcast, and everyone connected to Luton Town Football Club who helped us make this episode.

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Watch out! Mind you don’t get infected with Pete Donaldson-lookalike syndrome…

Pete, Luke and Jim round-up the latest as another Viking joins the Premier League, Harry Kane keeps looking for less spicy food, and John Terry sings at Ashley Cole’s wedding. It’s as bad as it sounds. Come join us!

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It was 115 degrees outside when I left my house, around 5 P.M. My steering wheel was hot to the touch. So hot, in fact, that I had to steer with the bottom of my palms; some people store gloves in their car during the summer, but I keep forgetting. This was the second Friday of Las Vegas’s heat wave, our seventh consecutive day over 110 degrees. The National Weather Service had issued an excessive heat warning: “Dangerously hot afternoons with little overnight relief expected.” Emergency room doctors treated heat illness patients. At the airport, several passengers and crew members fainted after a plane sat without air conditioning on the tarmac for hours. A man was found dead on the sidewalk outside a homeless shelter.

I drove a few minutes downtown to a Deuce bus stop near Fremont Street, and when I parked I saw a woman in a one-piece swimsuit and tube socks posing for photos in a square of shade. My bus pulled up, and I climbed to the second level. We cruised south, down Las Vegas Boulevard, past wedding chapels and personal injury attorney billboards. The Deuce is my favorite way of traveling to the Strip.

At the Treasure Island stop, two women, their faces pink and perspiring, slid into the seats behind me. “I couldn’t stand there for much longer,” the first woman said.