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Seabirds get jet-lagged just like humans — and it causes navigational errors in their foraging trips, according to a study published today in the journal Science.
Researchers who study bird navigation wanted to understand better how seabirds know where they are, and where they’re going, across vast distances. Birds generally use the Earth’s magnetic fields and the position of the sun when flying, which they use in combination with their natural circadian rhythm or internal clock to gauge time of day.
When birds fly east to west they “experience time shifts, potentially causing mismatches between their internal clock and local time,” the study said.
If the birds’ clocks are thrown off by jet lag, they can misjudge where they are and their intended destination, said Patrick Lewin, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and co-author of the new study.
Lewin and his colleagues tracked the migratory seabird Manx shearwaters, which take long fishing trips to find food and then return to their nests, taking the most direct route possible.
“Shearwaters make it really easy for us,” Lewin said. “Because we know where their nests are, we know exactly where they’re aiming for. And so that means we can measure whether they’re going a little bit too far clockwise or a little too far anticlockwise and compare that to what we would expect if they’re using the sun as a compass and experiencing this time shift.”
Lewin said he hopes his research will help to better understand humans’ internal clocks, too.
“The way that our clocks work is very similar to how a bird’s clock works,” Lewin said. “It might be quite interesting to know how these animals are coping with frequently jet-lagging themselves.”
President Donald Trump will no longer travel to Kansas for a rally on Saturday as previously announced, instead holding a series of telerallies that day, according to four people with knowledge of his plans.
Trump was originally scheduled to visit Salina, Kansas, on Saturday, one of the final stops in his packed schedule of midterm rallies to boost Republican candidates. Republicans are worried about losing the seat, as incumbent GOP Sen. Roger Marshall is locked in a close race with his Democratic challenger and is trailing in some polls. Trump will instead hold a telerally for Marshall.
The GOP has been scrambling to drum up enthusiasm from its base as Trump and Republican candidates face poor approval ratings among swing voters. Campaigns were pressing for Trump to hold rallies in their states in the final stretch, said three of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss planning publicly, so the president’s team instead opted to schedule a number of telerallies.
Trump is still set to travel to Daytona Beach, Florida, on Friday, and to Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday. On Thursday, he traveled to Rock Hill, South Carolina. The trip to Kansas would have accounted for a substantial stretch of time in the final weekend before the elections, compared to holding virtual events for candidates in multiple states, said one person with knowledge of the change.
“President Trump will continue connecting directly with Americans nationwide through more than 20 telerallies before Election Day,” a White House official said in a statement to The Washington Post.
David Crowley, Milwaukee County executive, was always going to celebrate a Milwaukee Brewers World Series win.
But the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race may have another reason to celebrate the Brewers’ first World Series title: Academic research shows that incumbents, or the party in power, do better in elections when the local sports team is winning.
A 2010 study by Neil Malhotra at the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that when major college teams won games two weeks before an election, incumbents’ vote share in the county jumped by as much as 1.61 percent in gubernatorial, presidential and U.S. Senate elections. The study found that winning a championship so close to the election had an even stronger effect, boosting support by 2.3 to 2.42 percentage points more than when the team was losing.
Crowley is not an incumbent — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is not running for a third term — but he is an extension of the party in power and Evers is arguably the most powerful figure behind the Crowley campaign. Crowley will face Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany on Tuesday, with polls showing the Democrat with a slight advantage.
“When people’s teams win, they become happier and more satisfied with the status quo, and that mood carries into the polling booth,” Malhotra said of the study.
Crowley also played a central role in a 2023 dispute over the team’s future in Milwaukee, helping strike a deal to keep the team in its ballpark through 2050.
“This was a great investment,” he told WISN during the celebrations in Milwaukee after the victory. He added, “It’s an investment in the culture of who we are.”
White House border official Tom Homan told reporters on Thursday that a massive data breach at the Department of Homeland Security could put thousands of officers whose identities were made public at greater risk.
A “hacktivist” group on Wednesday published a searchable databaseof more than 41,000 names of DHS employees and contractors, including border and undercover agents.
The group said it wanted more oversight of the agency and its activities, which have faced public backlash since the launch of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
Homan said the Justice Department is investigating the data breach. He noted that threats against and attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have increased sharply since Trump began his second term.
“I want the American people to know that ICE agents are mothers and fathers, too. They have families, too.” Homan said during a Miami news conference. “They don’t hang their heart on a hook when they come into work. They got a difficult job, a dangerous job.”
If members of the public don’t like what ICE is doing, Homan said, they should contact U.S. lawmakers and ask them to change the immigration laws that officers are enforcing.
Arizona on Wednesday became the third state to report a case of New World screwworm, a parasitic fly that feeds on warm-blooded animals, after a dog was confirmed to be infested.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the case was reported in Cochise County, which borders Mexico.
The Arizona Department of Agriculture said the animal had a maggot-infested wound consistent with screwworm. Scientific testing then confirmed the case.
“We have been preparing for this possibility for a long while and are acting swiftly,” State Veterinarian Ryan Wolker said.
For decades, screwworm flies had been largely eradicated in U.S. livestock.
USDA has confirmed 71 animal cases of screwworm since June, including in Texas and New Mexico. Last week, USDA reported the first wildlife case.
Screwworm is a “devastating pest,” according to USDA, whose larvae, or maggots, can inflict serious wounds as they burrow into the flesh of living animals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there have been no reports so far of human cases contracted in the United States, adding that the risk for people “remains very low.”
The U.S. has resumed some cattle imports from Mexico, which were mostly stopped in November 2024 after a screwworm case was confirmed there.
A senior House Democrat is urging congressional leaders to block the Trump administration from using taxpayer money to help turn East Potomac Park into a championship golf course and from transferring the public land to President Donald Trump, his family or their businesses.
Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, argued that the administration’s planned seawall repair and Trump’s golf-course overhaul are closely linked. He asked House and Senate appropriations leaders Thursday to attach restrictions to year-end spending legislation, ensuring that money for the failing seawall cannot be used to advance the larger redevelopment project.
The Trump administration says it will close East Potomac Golf Course on Nov. 15 and move forward with plans for a Tom Fazio-designed championship course. In a court filing Wednesday, the administration also laid out the serious, long-documented problems with the aging seawall surrounding the park’s peninsula. The agency said it plans to close the park south of Buckeye Drive next month, citing the seawall’s safety hazards.
Trump’s administration is seeking $500 million for National Park Service construction, including “targeted restoration and construction” for the East Potomac seawall and the World War II Memorial.
The restrictions proposed by Huffman would allow routine maintenance and seawall replacement along its current path. But they would bar federal money from redesigning or expanding the golf courses, altering roads, removing healthy trees, constructing new buildings or reshaping the land.
They would also prevent the sale or transfer of East Potomac and bar agreements that could give Trump, his family or their businesses an interest in the property, though the administration has not signaled an intent to sell East Potomac.
“Congress should now use the power of the purse to close the door on a land sale,” Huffman wrote.
DoorDash has agreed to buy Instacart, the two delivery companies announced Thursday, combining the restaurant delivery platform with the grocery delivery app in a $17 billion deal.
Even with the acquisition, Instacart is likely to stick around as a distinct brand. DoorDash and Instacart will continue to operate as separate companies until the deal closes, which is expected in late 2027 or early 2028; once that happens, DoorDash says it expects to keep Instacart’s brand and app.
The deal marks DoorDash’s biggest foray yet into groceries and follows a 2025 deal with Kroger-owned grocery stores that investors saw as a potential competitor to Instacart.
DoorDash said Thursday it had completed nearly 1 billion orders in the third quarter of 2026, up 28 percent year over year. Instacart reported 91.4 million orders over the same period, up 10 percent compared to the third quarter of 2025.
The two companies are part of a generation of food delivery start-ups that have relied on an army of gig workers to drop off orders including toilet paper and late-night McDonald’s. But the business model has come under scrutiny for labor issues and for cutting into the margins of restaurants and other local businesses that use the apps.
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