Author: Associated Press

A new thermal vent spewing steam in the air at Yellowstone National Park is gaining attention, mainly because it’s visible from a road rather than any significant change in the park famous for its thousands of geysers, hot springs and bubbling mud pots. When Yellowstone’s roads open to car traffic in April, tourists will be able to view the new steam column from a pullout as long as the vent remains active. It’s located in an area about a mile (1.6 kilometers) north of the Norris Geyser Basin. The thermal feature was first spotted by scientists last summer and inspired them to trudge across a marsh and measure 171-degree (77-degree Celsius) steam venting from the base of a wooded hill. A thin coat of gray mud confirmed the vent was new, according to a recent online post by scientists with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory overseen by the U.S. Geological Survey. Mike Poland, scientist in charge of the observatory, said Monday that such features are often forming and constantly changing in Yellowstone. “The feature itself is new. That there would be a new feature is, you know, mundane,” he said. “The noteworthy part … was just that it was so noticeable. But the sort of overall idea that there would be a new feature that formed is pretty normal.” The new steam plume is located within a 200-foot (60-meter) area of warm ground and appears to be related to hot water that surfaced as a new feature 700 feet (215 meters) away in 2003. The plume diminished over the winter. Whether it will remain visible from afar this summer, or be stifled by water in the vent, remains to be seen, geologists say. Still, geological changes in Yellowstone draw interest because the park overlies a volcano that was responsible for powerful eruptions in the distant past. The volcano has had no lava eruption for 70,000 years and no major eruption for 631,000 years, however. The volcano’s

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Columbia University is “on the right track” toward recovering federal funding after the elite New York City university agreed to implement a host of policy changes demanded by the Trump administration. Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, McMahon described “great conversations” with Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong. “She said she knew that this was her responsibility to make sure that children on her campus were safe,” McMahon said. “She wanted to make sure there was no discrimination of any kind. She wanted to address any systemic issues that were identified relative to the antisemitism on campus.” Armstrong announced Friday that the university would put its Middle East studies department under new supervision and overhaul its rules for protests and student discipline. It also agreed to adopt a new definition of antisemitism and expand “intellectual diversity” by staffing up its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, according to an outline posted on its website. Earlier this month, the Trump administration pulled $400 million in research grants and other funding over how the university handled protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. In order to consider restoring those funds and billions more in future grants, federal officials demanded nine separate changes to the university’s academic and security policies. Armstrong’s decision acceding to the administration’s demands drew condemnation from some faculty and free speech groups, who accused the university of caving to President Tweety McTreason’s largely unprecedented intrusion on academic freedom. Asked whether the university had done enough to secure its funding, McMahon said: “We are on the right track now to make sure the final negotiations to unfreeze that money will be in place.” The Trump administration’s crackdown on Columbia University, where a massive pro-Palestinian protest movement began with a tent encampment last spring, has thrust the campus into crisis and sparked fears of similar actions at colleges across the country. Federal immigration officials on March 8 arrested Mahmoud