Giant water bugs eat turtles, ducklings, and even snakes National Geographic

Giant water bugs are voracious predators that take down everything from ducklings to venomous snakes, according to a new study that brings together decades of research on the aquatic insects.

They’re “lie-and-wait predators,” says Charles Swart, a senior lecturer at Trinity College in Connecticut who has studied giant water bugs.

“They just take up a position holding onto a plant in the water, and anything that moves in front of them, they’ll grab it and try to eat it.”

The research, published in March in the journal Entomological Science, takes a closer look at the ecology of giant water bugs, which are found nearly the world over and comprise some 150 known species. …

 

The Deficit Is Growing Far Faster Than Predicted 

Fortune.com

…“People have been talking about bringing government spending and deficits into more reasonable rates, but every time we hear politicians say, ‘Don’t worry about it,’” Edward Stringham, president of the American Institute for Economic Research, also a professor of economic organizations and innovation at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. told Fortune. “They’ve been essentially kicking the can down the road and we are now in the situation where United States government debt is at record levels and there are no signs in sight of how this is going to be rectified.” …

 

These Trinity students can help do your taxes, and teach you a thing or two about welfare – By Rebecca Lurye

Hartford Courant (4/10/19)

…This is the first year that Trinity has trained students to participate in Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA), a nearly 50-year-old IRS program that offers free tax counseling to individuals earning up to $55,000 per year.

The participants belong to a new class, “Tax Policy and Inequality in Hartford,” taught by visiting lecturer Serena Laws, whose work ties into Trinity’s increasing commitment to engaging with Hartford residents.

Laws, who joined Trinity six years ago, calls it a “win-win-win” — students are learning about the community, providing a service the community needs, and connecting their experience to academics…

 

As Pope Benedict XVI re-enters the fray, experts take broad look at U.S. Catholicism

GetReligion.org

…“The Future of Catholicism in America,” is part of a book series on U.S. religions’ prospects edited by Trinity College’s Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh (the Hartford Courant’s onetime religion writer) and published by the Columbia University Press. Prior books have treated “evangelical” (2016) and “mainline” (2018) Protestants. Further volumes will examine U.S. Judaism, Islam, Mormons (er, Latter-day Saints), Asian religions and those religiously disengaged “nones” we hear so much about.

This anthology from nine writers, co-edited by Silk and Patricia O’Connell Killen of Gonzaga University, will help veteran religion writers recall the major events and trends since the Second Vatican Council concluded in 1965, and provide a rundown for writers who are relatively new on the beat…

 

No, Non-Believers Are Not Increasing In America

The Federalist

The stats are given as often and with as much confidence as they are wrong. The story goes that our nation is growing more secular with every passing day. Christianity is tanking, and atheists and generic non-believers mushrooming. The Daily Wire proclaimed that last week, with the headline, “God Help Us; Atheism Becomes Largest Religion In U.S.” CNN just reported something similar: “There Are Now as Many Americans Who Claim No Religion as There Are Evangelicals and Catholics.”

It’s not true. Not even close…

…In fact, Professor Barry A. Kosmin, director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, the man who coined the term “the nones,” expresses frustration that the larger press has not really gotten the story right on what belief group is actually seeing the largest size increase. He told me, “The rise of nondenominational Christianity is probably one of the strongest [religious growth] trends in the last two decades” in the United States…