Dubbed a super ship, the Svaelget 2 is nearly 92 feet long and was likely built around 1410.

Getty / Futurism Surprise! A public policy initiative panned by drivers and pro-car pundits turned out to instead be a roaring success that improved traffic congestion, road safety, and even reduced pollution — a godsend not just for those living in Manhattan, but for transit riders, drivers, and outer-borough residents. Congestion pricing is a policy which charges drivers a toll of up to $9 for using surface-roads below Manhattan’s 60th street, an area known as the Congestion Relief Zone (CRZ), which is enforced by over 1,400 license-plate cameras. Critics, including president Donald Trump, assailed the program during the runup period, but after a full year of congestion pricing, the _New York Times_ reports massive wins for people living in Manhattan and beyond. Since the CRZ went into effect on January 5, 2025, the _NYT_ reports an 11 percent decrease in daily vehicle traffic throughout the borough’s central business district. In real terms, that comes out to about 73,000 fewer vehicles per day, or 27 million fewer trips than expected in the program’s first year alone. As a result, those who do drive or use surface-level transit like buses experience much less traffic. Over the past year, average travel speeds increased 4.5 percent in the congestion zone, while the rest of New York City experienced a 1.4 percent increase. Local bus speeds are also up noticeably, increasing 2.4 percent in the CRZ, and 0.8 percent throughout the rest of the city. The gains haven’t just been about convenience, either. The reduced volume of cars has led to marked improvements in pollution and traffic safety for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. It also raised more than half a billion dollars for the city’s beleaguered public transportation system. “It turns out that mostly when people say ‘New York is noisy’ they really mean ‘cars are noisy,'” Grant Louis of Manhattan told the _NYT_. And even the commuters who criticized the program are gaining back untold hours of their life that would have otherwise been spent in traffic. Those who trudge into the city via the Lincoln Tunnel, for example, saw travel speeds increase by an average of almost 25 percent, while average speeds in the Holland tunnel were 51 percent faster compared to pre-congestion data. Even outside of New York City, people noticed a marked difference in vehicular traffic, confirming earlier studies which found positive run-off effects in surrounding communities. “I supercommute weekly from Kingston by bus,” resident Rob Bellinger told the paper. “Each week, my bus round trip is 30-60 minutes faster than it was before congestion pricing.” The implications are clear for other busy metropolitan areas: even gently discouraging unnecessary automotive traffic can have immense benefits for a city’s wellbeing. **More on transit:**_It’s Starting to Feel a Lot Like Tesla’s Robotaxi Program Is Mostly Smoke and Mirrors_ ## Joe Wilkins ### Correspondent I’m a tech and transit correspondent for Futurism, where my beat includes transportation, infrastructure, and the role of emerging technologies in governance, surveillance, and labor. * * * * TAGS IN THIS STORY * Advanced Transport * Mass Transit

A key right-wing constituency is feeling the pain

Roman and Neolithic items dating back 5,000 years found during relief road dig in Bracebridge Heath.

The War of 1812 was a conflict between the United States and Great Britain, ending in a stalemate that affirmed US independence and national identity.

The Bayeux Tapestry, an enormous length of embroidered cloth depicting events culminating in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, has long been a mystery, but the once-forgotten artwork might have finally found its place. While it's almost universally agreed that the tapestry was designed by monks who lived at St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, England, and made by a team of skilled embroideresses, we're still not totally sure why it was created, or where it was hung. Historian Benjamin Pohl presents his theory in a new paper: The tapestry, he believes, was mealtime reading material for the monks at St Augustine's, or someplace like it. **Related:Medieval Monks Twice as Likely to Be Infected by Parasitic Worms, Study Finds** "I wondered whether a refectory setting could help explain some of the apparent and puzzling contradictions identified in existing scholarship," Pohl says, referring to the communal dining halls where monks shared meals. "Just as today, in the Middle Ages mealtimes were always an important occasion for social gathering, collective reflection, hospitality, and entertainment, and the celebration of communal identities. In this context, the Bayeux Tapestry would have found a perfect setting." While there is no concrete evidence that the Bayeux Tapestry was housed at St Augustine's, Pohl notes there are many clues to suggest that it may have once hung upon the abbey's refectory walls. The tapestry's enormous size – measuring more than 68.4 meters (224 feet) long and weighing about 350 kilograms (772 pounds) – means that, for display, it would have to be mounted directly onto a solid wall. Previously, researchers have suggested it could have always been housed at the eponymous Bayeux Cathedral (where it was found in the 15th century). But Pohl notes the vaulted bays and colonnades of the cathedral walls would have made it "one of the least suitable spaces for exhibiting the giant embroidery". The tapestry was still likely designed for a religious audience, Pohl writes, because "its conspicuous (and perhaps deliberate) political ambiguity and lack of partisanship… seems difficult to square with the identity and self-perception of England's post-Conquest aristocracy". Medieval mealtimes were usually raucous, as this Bayeux Tapestry scene of soldiers feasting shows. (Public domain) Meanwhile, its various Latin inscriptions, though simple, would have required a degree of literacy uncommon among 11th-century nobles. Monks, on the other hand, would've made easy work of the tapestry's inscriptions. A monastic audience makes even more sense in light of the strict rules that governed the monks at mealtimes: They had to maintain complete silence, even going so far as to use sign language to ask, for instance, if someone could please pass the salt. Perhaps the tapestry was akin to moral, educational mealtime entertainment. Bishop Odo rallying Duke William's troops during the Battle of Hastings in 1066. (Public domain) "With the monastic community of St. Augustine's as its primary audience, the Bayeux Tapestry did not have to tell the stories of patriotism and national pride/resentment read into it by modern commentators," Pohl writes. Instead, he suggests its narrative could be read as "one that revealed God's workings through the actions of human agents in much the same way as the episodes from scripture and other kinds of historiography/hagiography read to them during mealtimes." **Related:Medieval Monks Could Have Unknowingly Recorded The Ferocity of Volcanic Activity** The refectory at St Augustine's would have been the ideal place for hanging such an unwieldy work of art: With at least 70 meters of internal wall space, the building had more than enough room for the tapestry to hang, even if the final, missing section spanned several extra meters. In the 1080s, a new refectory was designed for the abbey, but a series of disruptions stymied its construction. First, there was the untimely death in 1087 of St Augustine's first post-Conquest abbot, Scolland (who championed the renovation). Then, the death of Scolland's unpopular successor, Wido, against whom the monks had openly rebelled, left the position of abbot vacant for more than a decade. And when the role was finally filled by Hugh I, priorities at St Augustine's lay elsewhere, meaning the refectory was not completed until the 1120s. Perhaps, amidst this drawn-out renovation, Pohl suggests, the tapestry was packed away and receded from the monastic community's collective memory. "Consequently, the Tapestry might have been put in storage for more than a generation and forgotten about until it eventually found its way to Bayeux three centuries later," Pohl says. This could explain how it managed to survive various disasters that struck the abbey – a fire, an earthquake, and a 13th-century renovation – and also its absence from any records until it turned up in a Bayeux inventory in 1476. "There still is no way to prove conclusively the Bayeux Tapestry's whereabouts prior to 1476, and perhaps there never will be," explains Pohl. "But the evidence presented here makes the monastic refectory of St Augustine's a serious contender." The full Bayeux Tapestry can be viewed on Wikipedia, here. The paper is published in _Historical Research. _

Trump’s economy since he imposed tariffs has created one-tenth of the jobs per month as Biden’s economy, while manufacturing has lost jobs each month.

A 476,000-year-old wooden structure uncovered in Zambia predates Homo sapiens by centuries, showcasing ancient construction skills.

It seems like China tried for 40 years and has finally succeeded in what seems like the biggest transformation in history. In just 40 years, the nation has

The amount of money Americans are paying toward their energy bills has increased since President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, according to a new report.

Electricity bills have gone up by over 100% in two years in several states. In almost all cases, the increase was double digits in the same period. Electricity is an affordability crisis, Douglas A McIntyre, Editor-In-Chief of Climatecrisis247, explains. * * * Sponsor ### Find a Vetted Financial Advisor 1. Finding a fiduciary financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to 3 financial advisors that serve your area in 5 minutes. 2. Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. Get on the path toward achieving your financial goals!

## Project 2026 is not destiny. It is a warning—and one we must answer with the full force of a movement that has never accepted a future written for us by someone else. Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, speaks at the National Conservative Convention in Washington D.C., Sept. 3, 2025. Vought is a key author of Project 2025’s 900‑page governing guide. (Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images via AFP) When the Heritage Foundation released its new policy blueprint for 2026 this week—an extension of the now-infamous Project 2025—it did so with the calm confidence of an institution convinced no one will stop it. The document is shorter than last year’s 900-page “Mandate for Leadership,” but no less dangerous. It is, in fact, more candid. Project 2026 lays out a government redesigned to control women’s bodies, erase LGBTQ+ lives, dismantle civil rights protections and roll back decades of hard-won progress. Wrapped in the language of “family,” “sovereignty” and “restoring America,” it is a direct attempt to impose a narrow, rigid ideology on an entire nation. Make no mistake: This is a plan for forced motherhood, government-policed gender and the end of women’s equality as we know it. ## A National Strategy to Control Women’s Bodies Project 2026 picks up where Project 2025 left off: banning abortion pills, weaponizing the 150-year-old Comstock Act to criminalize medication by mail, embedding fetal personhood across federal agencies, and stripping every federal safeguard protecting reproductive freedom. As the Women’s March’s analysis notes bluntly, this blueprint is “designed to rebuild a country where women, queer people, trans people, and anyone outside their ‘ideal family’ have fewer rights.” Heritage puts this in softer words—saying that “every child conceived deserves to be born to a married mother and father” and pledging to reduce “the supply and demand for abortion at all stages.” But we know exactly what this means. A country where a woman’s future is no longer her own. ## Eliminating the Department of Education—and Women’s Rights With It The plan also endorses dismantling the U.S. Department of Education entirely. Heritage has pledged to “reclaim higher education from the radical Left,” a phrase that has become a catch-all for eliminating protections for survivors of sexual assault, Title IX enforcement, LGBTQ+ inclusion and academic freedom itself. Who benefits when civil rights oversight disappears? Not girls. Not young women on campus. Not any student whose gender, sexuality, race or disability puts them at risk of discrimination. This is not “parental rights.” It is state-engineered ignorance. ## A Direct Assault on Democracy, Via Women Voters Across the documents, Heritage also renews its push for nationwide voter suppression: requiring proof of citizenship to register, ending ranked-choice voting and weakening federal oversight of elections. A polling station in Smyrna, Ga., on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. (Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP via Getty Images) These are not isolated proposals. They are a coherent strategy to weaken the political power of the very groups most likely to oppose an authoritarian agenda—women, young voters, immigrants and voters of color. When women vote, democracy strengthens. When authoritarian movements rise, suppressing women’s votes is always among the first steps. ## The Disappearing Safety Net and the Burden on Women Project 2026 also doubles down on shrinking federal agencies that regulate health, safety and labor protections. Newsweek reports that Heritage wants to reduce government spending and regulation in ways that will “especially” hit working families struggling to make ends meet. Cut Medicaid, and women suffer. Cut childcare, and women leave the workforce. Cut workplace enforcement, and women face more harassment, discrimination and injury. These are not abstract policy debates. They are decisions that determine whether millions of women can survive. ## Targeting LGBTQ+ People and Calling It ‘Family’ Project 2026 places “restoring the nuclear family” at the center of its agenda—explicitly defining that family as a married man and woman parenting children. This is not accidental language. It signals a deliberate effort to undermine same-sex marriage, eliminate gender-affirming care, and erase transgender people from public life and federal policy. A society that tries to legislate gender and dictate family structure is not a free society. ## The Threat Is Not Hidden. It Is Declared. … But So Are We. Heritage’s leaders now openly celebrate what they are calling “Heritage 2.0,” complete with national advertising campaigns and promises to “dismantle the deep state,” which includes the very agencies charged with enforcing civil rights for women and marginalized communities. Their message is unmistakable: They are coming for reproductive freedom. They are coming for voting rights. They are coming for LGBTQ+ equality. They are coming for the federal protections that women rely on every day. The United States has faced coordinated backlash against women’s rights before—and every time, women have organized, resisted and reshaped the nation. The women who fought for suffrage did not stop when they were dismissed as unreasonable. The women who pushed Title IX into law did not stop when they were told girls didn’t need equal opportunities. The women who built the modern reproductive rights movement did not stop when the courts narrowed their freedoms. And we will not stop now. Project 2026 is not destiny. It is a warning—and one we must answer with the full force of a movement that has never accepted a future written for us by someone else. The coming year will test our resolve. But we have marched before. We have organized before. We have voted in record numbers before. And we will do it again. Because women’s rights are not a “radical ideology.” They are the foundation of a free and democratic society. And we intend to keep it that way. * * * ### **_You may also like:_** > Actually It’s Good That Fewer High Schoolers Want to Get Married > Escaping Abuse Isn’t Easy. Here’s What Survivors and Experts Want You to Know. * Email * Facebook * Bluesky * Threads * Pinterest * X * LinkedIn * Flipboard

A scholar claims to have deciphered Cryptic B, a mysterious alphabet in the Dead Sea Scrolls long thought impossible to read.

Archaeologists reveal that an ordinary house in Bosham was the private headquarters of King Harold II, which changes local history.

Combining solar panels and farming, agrivoltaics is proving to be a win-win for farmers and the planet. According to CleanTechnica, this "solar grazing" is a match made in heaven. For years, solar farms have used sheep to control vegetation. The sheep get to graze, and their excrement provides free fertilizer. As CleanTechnica noted, ranchers get paid, and solar operators avoid mowing. Everybody wins. Okay, but why stop at sheep? One company, Silicon Ranch, is now working to introduce cattle. As Nick DeVries, the company's head of technology, told Inside Climate News, this is a big challenge. "[Cows] are very large animals," he said. "They scrape on things. They like to rub." How do you stop a 1,400-pound bored and curious cow from demolishing a solar panel? Silicon Ranch's solution is a new system called CattleTracker. Each cow gets a tracking device. When the herd gets close, the tracker tells the solar array to reorient horizontally, letting the animals roam underneath without damaging the equipment. And the payoff for farmers is huge. This dual-use model, which is a key part of agrivoltaics, helps them generate new, reliable income and even helps plants retain moisture. There are reports of farmers in California's Central Valley earning $50,000 per acre annually from solar. Then there's the study in Japan that showed how panels over rice paddies produced a top-quality crop and nearly 44,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in one year. Farmer Daniel Bell, who grazes sheep at a Silicon Ranch, put it best. "I just can't even stress how awesome this opportunity is," he told Inside Climate News. CleanTechnica readers were enthusiastic about the idea, too. "Architects building new houses? Start with a solar roof for shade and rain-protection, and then build a nice house underneath," one user suggested. ## TCD Picks » Upway Spotlight 💡Upway makes it easy to find discounts of up to 60% on premium e-bike brands ### These city bikes are perfect for daily rides Starting at $599 ### Tackle any climb with these rugged mountain bikes Starting at $849 ### Go farther and faster with this road collection Starting at $1,119 ### These adorable bikes fold up for convenient storage Starting at $749 ### Snag limited-time price drops on these top models Starting at $849 **Are you thinking about installing solar panels in the near future?** ** Yes 👍 ** ** No 👎 ** ** I'm on the fence 🤔 ** ** Maybe a few years from now 📅 ** Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "Solar panels plus sheep sounds like a good combination, I'm a little doubtful about solar with cattle," another wrote. A third commenter added, "We have a few large farms with big barns that are loaded with Solar Panels and there's a lot of room up there..." Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices — and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD's exclusive Rewards Club. * share * __ Facebook * __ Twitter * __ Link Copied! ## Cool Picks #### How the Expedia of solar panels helps homeowners save money and avoid a common trap: 'Giving you confidence in the systems' #### This innovative company will install solar panels on your roof with no upfront costs — here's how its business model works #### Startup turns grocery shopping into an adventure with 70% discounts: 'A fun experience akin to a treasure hunt' #### New analysis reveals next-gen HVACs can save homeowners over $10,000 — here's how to buy one with government incentives

Make easy crochet christmas ornaments with a super simple ball tutorial—perfect for beginners. Find ideas like “crochet Christmas ornaments free pattern.”

Trump first announced his massive tariffs on “Liberation Day,” which was April 2. This was supposed to be the beginning of the United States rebuilding

The European Space Agency's Juice spacecraft has captured an image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on its way to visit Jupiter's icy moon.