What the Intelligencer covered

The most important story in this morning's Intelligencer (by headline and picture size) is obviously Moundsville's chicken problem. "Moundsville Has a Fowl Problem."

According to Alan Olsen:

The city is looking into regulating ownership of chickens within city limits, after reports of odor and noise issues ruffling feathers of those living near the animals.

Okay, chickens are important but what about the story at the bottom of the page (which also featured a picture of Representative Paul Ryan): "Ryan Says Federal Regs Are 'Out of Control'"? Here's the lede:

Declaring the regulatory system in the nation's capital "out of control," House Speaker Paul Ryan laid out his vision for the nation to regain its direction and footing to the visiting presidents from the Ohio Farm Bureau on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

So Paul Ryan gave what is likely his boilerplate speech attacking the EPA and Federal regulations to Ohio's farm bureau representatives. How is this news? Thinking that maybe I missed something newsworthy in the article and to see how other news sources covered the story, I googled his speech. All I could find was similar coverage by a couple of Ogden newspapers. I then checked Paul Ryan's webpage since members of congress never miss a chance to publicize their speeches. It had no mention of the speech.

Okay, as even Paul Ryan's staff concluded, there was nothing newsworthy in the speech. Why, then, was this speech covered (with an accompanying Ryan picture)? I don't know. Perhaps the Intelligencer is getting ready for a deadlocked Republican convention and sees Ryan as the party's savior. Or maybe, somehow, Ryan is connected to the chicken (overreaching governmental regulations?) at the top of the page.

What the Intelligencer did not cover

February Sets "Insane" Heat Record

That's the headline used by a number of news sources for yesterday's AP article on global warming and climate change:

Earth got so hot last month that federal scientists struggled to find words, describing temperatures as "astronomical," ''staggering" and "strange." They warned that the climate may have moved into a new and hotter neighborhood.

This was not just another of the drumbeat of 10 straight broken monthly global heat records, triggered by a super El Nino and man-made global warming. February 2016 obliterated old marks by such a margin that it was the most above-normal month since meteorologists started keeping track in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The old record was set just last December, which also saw the warmest Christmas Day ever recorded for parts of the United States. That closed out a record-breaking year, with 2015 declared the hottest year worldwide since modern record keeping began in 1880.

The last three months have been the most above-normal months on record, said NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden. And it's not just NOAA. NASA, which uses different statistical techniques, as well as a University of Alabama Huntsville team and the private Remote Sensing System team, which measure using satellites, also said February 2016 had the biggest departure from normal on record.