Lake George Group Fighting Highly Invasive Iris Species

The Lake George
Association is asking landowners and citizen scientists to be on the lookout
for a botanical bully. The Yellow Iris may look pretty, but it's a highly
invasive, non-native species. According
to the association's Director of Education, Emily DeBolt, it is damaging wetlands
throughout the region. "It is taking over from our native wetland plants,
disrupting native habitats for birds, for fish, for other wetland critters," she says. DeBolt says the plants
look much like the native blue flag iris but these European imports trap
sediment and speed up the process of a wetland filling in.

Vermont added the yellow iris to a list of plants that cannot
be sold in garden centers, but it is still legal to buy yellow iris in New York. The Lake
George Association isA man hit Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson in the face with a pie at a charity dinner Wednesday night, and an official says the former NBA star went on the defensive.

The mayor’s chief of staff Crystal Strait called the Wednesday night incident at the Sacramento Charter High School a shocking assault, but said the mayor wasn’t hurt.

She said the mayor defended himself against the man, but she would not give details. The East Bay Express talked to witnesses who said Johnson tackled the suspect, 32-year-old Sean Thompson, and punched him repeatedly. One witness said Thompson was beaten to a “bloody pulp.”

Sacramento police said in a statement that police restrained Thompson, who has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a public official. He was treated for a minor injury