Top eight

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National

1.) After a record-setting hurricane season last year and even with sea surface temperatures not expected to be as warm this year, the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season is already off to a record-setting start with few signs of slowing down, experts warned Wednesday.

2.) U.S. law has long barred gun manufacturers and sellers from being held liable for the misuse of their products, but a federal complaint filed Wednesday says legislators never contemplated violence south of the border.

3.) A week after the Justice Department ordered the Treasury to release his financial records to House investigators, former President Donald Trump is arguing that improper political motives make the legislative subpoenas invalid.

Regional

4.) The man who oversees the federal government’s wildland firefighting forces stood in the burn scar of the largest forest fire in California's recorded history Wednesday and acknowledged the federal government needs to do more. 

5.) A Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge charged in state and federal courts with multiple counts of possessing child pornography has agreed to plead guilty to the federal charges, according to a plea agreement approved by prosecutors and filed with the court on Wednesday.

6.) Ocean City, Maryland, was justified in banning the baring of women's breasts based on its interest in protecting moral sensibilities, the Fourth Circuit ruled Wednesday.

Science

7.) The combined effects of multiple agricultural chemicals, such as pesticides and herbicides, are having a greater impact on bee mortality than previously believed, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

8.) A 3,700-year-old clay tablet contains a curious list of Pythagorean angles and a math problem scholars have been trying to solve for more than a century. Now, in an analysis published in Foundations of Science on Wednesday, an Australian mathematician argues the Mesopotamian scribe who carved it was calculating rectangles, not triangles.

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