The Week In News

South and Southeast are seeing their earliest spring on record this year, with leaves already budding on trees as much as three weeks early. Other parts of the South and Southeast are seeing their earliest spring in 40 years. On the other hand, in southern Arizona, they are seeing their latest start to spring in 40 years.

The National Phenology Network, which keeps track of the arrival of spring, maps the locations where it believes spring has already arrived. It does this by tracking the bloom of two plant species typically among the first to leaf out each year and are also “common across much of the country.”

Much of the “early spring” has to do with the warm start to 2023. Much of the South and Southeast are off to their top-10 warmest years on record, and several cities are seeing their top-five warmest: Houston, Jackson, Nashville, and Atlanta.

It is even more dramatic in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Philadelphia and New York City are experiencing their warmest start to the year on record, so the early bloom will most likely expand into the Northeast in the weeks ahead.

“Plants are really sensitive to temperature, humidity and rainfall. They’re sensitive to photo periods – the sun and things like that. They’re responding to these kinds of triggers in the environment, these cues that the climate is giving them, and they respond to that,” Megan O’Connell, a research associate with the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, explained.

It’s not always a good thing when spring comes early. Pollinators –like bees and butterflies – depend on certain plants. If the blooms appear early, they could already be gone by the time pollinators appear, creating what scientists call “ecological mismatch.”

One example is the monarch butterfly. Scientists have seen the milkweed they depend on to lay their eggs bloom earlier and earlier, but the butterflies are still showing up on time to fields where milkweed has already finished blooming and is gone.

“One out of every three bites of food that we eat” is directly con - nected to a pollinator, noted Ron Magill, communications director and wildlife expert at Zoo Miami. Around 30% of the food on our tables gets there because of things like butterflies, bees, and bats.

Architect of the Capitol Fired

President Joe Biden on Monday fired J. Brett Blanton, the federal official responsible for the maintenance and operation of the Capitol complex, amid bipartisan calls for his resignation, after an investigative report accusing him of misusing his position and revelations that he avoided the Capitol during the January 6, 2021, attack. Blanton, who was appointed in 2019 as the architect of the Capitol, had been under scrutiny since last fall after a report by the inspector general of his office documented evidence supporting serious allegations against him. Among the accusations were that he had misused government-issued vehicles, misled investigators, and impersonated a police officer on multiple occasions.

But concerns among lawmakers in both parties intensified at a 90-minute hearing on Friday in which Blanton gave noncommittal and at times contradictory answers about his conduct, including his decision to stay away from the Capitol during the January 6 riot.

On Monday morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter that Blanton “no longer has my confidence to continue in his job” and should resign or be removed by Biden.

A White House official said that after conducting due diligence on the matter, the president had directed that Blanton be fired.

Rep. Joseph D. Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which over-