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Penn State head coach James Franklin had a hilarious way of preparing his undefeated Nittany Lions for a road game at Northwestern this Saturday: turning the music down. Yes, you read that right. Franklin told reporters after practice Wednesday that the team has spent time practicing with the music off to prepare for a quieter road atmosphere at Ryan Field in Evanston. Northwestern is averaging just 17,500 fans per game this season, by far the lowest mark in the Big Ten. For reference, Penn State’s Beaver Stadium has a capacity of 106,572, more than six times higher than Northwestern’s average...

A remarkable situation is evident right now. Fires over the western U.S. are producing a dense veil of smoke that moved across the continent and then descended over the East Coast. And there is a great irony in all this: most of the West Coast has excellent air quality while the air is unhealthy over the northeast U.S. To illustrate this strange situation, here is the latest AIRNOW air quality map showing the air quality based on PM2.5, small particles that can move deep into your lungs. ( I want to acknowledge UW Bothell professor Dan Jaffe, who brought this...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An unprecedented heat wave and ongoing drought in the U.S. Pacific Northwest is damaging white wheat coveted by Asian buyers and forcing fruit farm workers to harvest in the middle of the night to salvage crops and avoid deadly heat. The extreme weather is another blow to farmers who have struggled with labor shortages and higher transportation costs during the pandemic and may further fuel global food inflation. Cordell Kress, who farms in southeastern Idaho, expects his winter white wheat to produce about half as many bushels per acre as it does in a normal year when...

Iran claimed today that it had arrested anti-government separatists with links to British intelligence services, accusing them of involvement in violent protests and a recent spate of deadly bombings. A statement issued on state-run TV did not say how many people had been detained or reveal their nationalities, but alleged they were arrested in the south-western Khuzestan province, which borders British-controlled southern Iraq. “The agents arrested have confessed to belonging to separatist opposition groups and having links with foreign especially British intelligence services,” a TV announcer said, quoting a ministry statement. British Embassy officials in Tehran could not be reached...

Iran accused the US and Britain of stoking the unrest that has broken out among its Kurdish and Arab minorities. FM spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi offered little evidence for his allegations, but he suggested that Washington and London were giving encouragement to Arabs and Kurds who have rioted in western and northwestern Iran. "This is not acceptable at all," Asefi told a news conference. Asefi said the United States is "stuck" in Iraq and is trying to divert attention from its plight by sowing unrest across the border. Under U.S. protection, Iraq's Kurds have enjoyed autonomy and a booming economy,...

The Iranian government has deployed large numbers of troops in cities in the northwestern region which borders Iraq in an effort to quell three weeks of civil unrest that has left up to 20 people dead and more than 300 wounded, according to reports from dissident groups. They said as many as 100,000 state security forces, backed up by helicopter gunships, had moved into the region to crack down on pro-Kurdish demonstrations. The claims, from Kurdish groups in Iraq, could not be independently verified, and Iranian officials remained silent about the unrest. The state-owned news agency IRNA said the trouble...

7,000-year-old relics unearthed in NW China Story Filed: Monday, October 14, 2002 10:22 PM EST XI'AN, Oct 15, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- About 300 pieces of pottery, jade and bone utensil relics have been unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Ash pits and ruins of houses and tombs dating from 7,000 to 600 years ago were dug up by Chinese archaeologists in an area covering over 2,500 sq meters of Shaanxi's Baoji County. More than 100 pottery utensils unearthed were complete or restorable, according to the archaeologists. Most of the Neolithic pottery, including bowls, cups, pots and vases, are...