Has anyone had any success in eliminating magnolia scale

from their flowering magnolia trees/bushes? Mine are about 15-20 ft and those bugs are dripping that honeydew all over the lower leaves that attract bees and wasps at around my front door. Sooty black mold will then feast on it and kill the leaves as well since they won't be able to perform photosynthesis.

I don't want to kill pollinators or other plantings: yew, vinca ground cover, holly, sand cherries or red cane varigated-leaf dogwoods, but hate the thought of those pests sucking all the juice out of my magnolias all summer long thus weakening the whole tree during summer droughts and killing the young branches that flower next spring. Are any systemic pesticides very effective?

I've also heard one could use horticultural oils, possibly Neem oil sprays, to smother the critters if it's sprayed at a very specific time, when "crawlers" emerge, mate, and lay eggs, or dormant oils later, late fall, but these magnolias are very tall.

I can't afford the services of an arborist - HELP!

U.S. issues new indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sought to recruit hackers at conferences in Europe and Asia to provide his anti-secrecy website with classified information, including military secrets, according to a new Justice Department indictment announced Wednesday.

The superseding indictment does not contain additional charges beyond the 18 counts the Justice Department unsealed last year. But prosecutors say it underscores Assange’s efforts to procure and release classified information, allegations that form the basis of criminal charges he already faces.

Assange was arrested last year after being evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and is at the center of an ongoing extradition tussle over whether he should be sent to the United States.

The Justice Department last year charged him with conspiring with former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. It says the WikiLeaks founder damaged national security by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents, including diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afgahnistan, that harmed the U.S. and its allies and aided its adversaries. [snip]

Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-issues-new-indictment-against-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-2020-06-24

State Investigating Hospital With Coronavirus Policy That Profiled Pregnant...

Native American Mothers and Separated Them From Newborns

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham cited “significant, awful allegations” in a ProPublica and New Mexico In Depth story on a hospital where clinicians said pregnant Native women were singled out for COVID-19 testing and separated from newborns after delivery...read more here:

https://www.propublica.org/article/state-investigating-hospital-with-coronavirus-policy-that-profiled-pregnant-native-american-mothers-and-separated-them-from-newborns

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-hospitals-secret-coronavirus-policy-separated-native-american-mothers-from-their-newborns

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National racial/ethnic epidemics(s) of cruelty run viral!

I hope this video presentation is true, relevant, and

IMPORTANT to our health and well-being:

To encourage you tonight: