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Why It Matters: Penguins are already under pressure.The familiar black-and-white birds are facing numerous threats, including climate change, pollution and commercial fishing. Three Antarctic penguin species — emperor penguins, southern rockhopper penguins and macaroni penguins — are listed as vulnerable or near threatened.Before H5N1 arrived in the Antarctic region last fall, highly pathogenic bird flu viruses had never been documented in the area before. That means that the penguins are likely to have little existing immunity. And because they breed in large, crowded colonies, once one penguin is infected, the virus could spread rapidly, causing mass mortalities. (As the virus…

Sam and Olga had concluded that only involuntary treatment could break the cycle for Andrey — something open-ended, combining long-term injectable medications with intensive therapy and counseling.They are part of a much larger ideological shift taking place, as communities grope for ways to manage ballooning homeless populations. California, one of the first states to turn away from involuntary treatment, has passed new laws expanding it. New York has made a billion-dollar investment in residential housing, psychiatric beds and wraparound services.Sam had staked his hopes on Washington’s new involuntary treatment law, and found it maddening that this fall, when Andrey was…

Jon Franklin, an apostle of narrative short-story style journalism whose own work won the first Pulitzer Prizes awarded for feature writing and explanatory journalism, died on Sunday in Annapolis, Md. He was 82.His death, at a hospice, came less than two weeks after falling at his home, his wife, Lynn Franklin, said. He had also been treated for esophageal cancer for two years.An author, teacher, reporter and editor, Mr. Franklin championed the nonfiction style that was celebrated as New Journalism but that was actually vintage narrative storytelling, an approach that he insisted still adhere to the old-journalism standards of accuracy…