Good News

At a time when Congress is passing a deficit-exploding budget that will 1. cut health benefits for the poor by $10 billion, 2. give $106 billion in tax breaks to the wealthy, and 3. open up the Alaskan wildlife refuge to largely pointless but destructive oil drilling, this at least is unequivocally good news:

The ivory-billed woodpecker, a symbol of the fading American wilderness that was thought to have been pushed into extinction, has been spotted by scientists for the first time in 60 years, taking wing in the wild swamplands of Arkansas.

The reappearance of the bird, one of the world's largest woodpeckers, was hailed Thursday as a validation of efforts to preserve and restore forested areas throughout the country.