On this coming Thursday evening, after the Thanksgiving feast and the football games, take a walk under the stars, weather permitting. It’s a great way to fight off the drowsing effects of tryptophan and to get away from relatives, even the ones you like. Seriously, it’s a magical activity on any night this time of the year because of the early sunset and the fact that it’s generally not too outrageously cold yet.

The first thing you’ll notice later this week or this weekend is the lovely crescent moon perched in the southwestern sky.

While there aren’t any turkey constellations on the celestial stage, there are a lot of other birds up there. In fact, out of the 88 human-made constellations seen from Earth, nine of them are birds, more than any other animal. Through the course of a year over Minnesota and western Wisconsin, we can see four of the bird constellations, and the two biggest ones are available now in the evening skies.

Cygnus the Swan and Aquila the Eagle are flying in the low western sky. They’re easy to spot by using the Summer Triangle, not a constellation but a very handy tool. Just look for the three brightest stars you can see in the western sky and that’s it. I know it’s strange to be talking about a summer triangle in November but believe it or not there are still a few summer stars and constellations hanging in there in the western sky. The highest star is Deneb. The star on the lower left is Altair. The brightest star Vega, occupies the lower right corner. All three of these stars are the brightest in their respective constellations.

(Mike Lynch)

Two of the summer triangle constellations are birds. Deneb is the brightest star of Cygnus the Swan, which is making its annual swan dive toward the western horizon. It’s easier at first to see Cygnus by its nickname, “The Northern Cross.” Deneb is at the top of the nearly upright cross and just below it are three moderately bright stars arranged horizontally that depict the crosspiece of the cross. Pan down from the crosspiece, and the next brightest star you’ll see is Albireo, which marks the foot of the cross.

Turning the Northern Cross into a swan is easy with a meager amount of imagination. Deneb’s the tail of the Swan, Albireo’s the head, and the crosspiece becomes the major section of its wingspan. Look for a dim star to the upper left of the crosspiece and two dim stars to the upper right. Join them all together and you’ll end up with the nice curved wingspan.

(Mike Lynch)

Altair, on the lower left corner of the Summer Triangle, is the brightest star in Aquila the Eagle and marks the eagle’s heart. Look for a large sideways diamond that outlines the wingspan of the mighty eagle. Altair is on the top corner of the diamond.  Off the lower corner of the diamond see if you can spot a faint line of stars that makes up Aquila’s tail feathers.

The brightest star, Vega, at the lower right corner of the Summer Triangle, is also the brightest star in the very small constellation Lyra the Lyre, which is a very old-fashioned harp. That wasn’t always the case, though. In India, over 2,000 years ago, Lyra was seen as a heavenly vulture, as contrary as that sounds. Arabs saw Lyra as a goose, and in fact, in early American history, Lyra was seen as a small eagle with a harp clutched in its beak.

All three of these birds, or if you prefer, the two birds and an old-fashioned harp, are about history for the season. As 2025 eases into 2026, all three constellations will start each evening lower and lower in the western sky and will eventually slip below the western horizon before sunset. The birds will be back again next spring, flying into the eastern skies after a well-deserved winter slumber.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

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(Courtesy of Penguin Random House)
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde delivers a sermon during the funeral service for conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall at the Washington National Cathedral on Nov. 12, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

On Jan. 27, 2025, Mariann Edgar Budde, first female bishop and spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., and the Washington National Cathedral, gave a homily during a prayer service following the second inauguration of President Donald Trump. Directly addressing the president, who was present, Budde asked him to “have mercy” on the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and all who were scared. What seemed to be a Christian message to Budde sparked a firestorm of controversy. Critics said she had politicized prayer. Her allies thought she was brave to confront the president publicly.

Budde stood up for herself in later media interviews that made her name known to millions of Americans. It wasn’t the first time she had faced criticism during a career that includes 18 years as a parish priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis..

How did this woman of deep faith take on the challenge of spiritual leadership in 2011 when she was elected bishop? She answered in her 2023 bestseller “How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith” (Penguin Random House). Now she and Bryan Bliss have partnered for “We Can Be Brave,” a Young Reader’s edition of the original book. Bliss is a writer, priest and theologian who chairs the religion department at Breck School in Minneapolis.

Bryan Bliss (Courtesy of the author)

“In these pages,” Budde writes, “Reverend Bryan Bliss and I have sought to place the events of June 1, 2020, and January 21, 2025, within a larger context, exploring how we learn to be brave over the course of a lifetime, and in all aspects of life, especially when the courageous decisions we make are known only to God.” (June 1, 2020, refers to the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis; Jan. 21, 2025, is the day after Trump was inaugurated for his second term as president.)

“We Can Be Brave,” in which Budde divulges a lot of her personal story, divides the journey to bravery into stages: Deciding to Go, Deciding to Stay, Deciding to Start, Stepping Up To the Plate, and the Inevitable Letdown.

Budde weaves pop culture into her narrative, including a conversation between Gandalf and Frodo in “Lord of the Rings” and references to Harry Potter. She also writes of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. Especially helpful are little sidebars titled Learn About It and Think About It that give brief explanations of names or events on that page. What, for instance, is King’s concept of redemptive suffering?  Why can Biblical stories be described as archetypes or “myths”?

Although “We Can Be Brave” is marketed to young readers, it’s equally compelling for adults as we grapple with questions of church and state.

Budde, Bliss and Andrew Karre, St. Paul-based executive editor at Dutton Books for Young Readers, will talk about the new book at 6 p.m. Monday at Red Balloon Bookshop, 891 Grand Ave., St. Paul. If the free event needs to be moved to a bigger venue, it will be at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, 60 N. Kent St., St. Paul. Advance registration necessary. Go to redballoonbookshop.com.

Also this week:

PEG GUILFOYLE: Discusses her new book “An Eye for Joy: Noticing the Good World Everywhere.” 4 p.m. Nov. 23, SubText Books, 6 W. Fifth St., St. Paul. 10 a.m. Saturday, Lake Country Booksellers, 4766 Washington Ave., White Bear Lake.

STEPHANIE HANSEN: Discusses “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol. 2.” 1 p.m. Saturday, Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.

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While America has been obsessing over Jeffrey Epstein, Vladimir Putin has been making dangerous headway in Ukraine — and expanding his war into Europe.

Under such circumstances, genuine peace negotiations are impossible because Putin thinks he is winning. America’s top foreign policy priority should be to reverse the Russian leader’s mindset by increasing military sales to Ukraine — which the Europeans will pay for.

Instead, the Trump team and Russian officials together have drawn up a new 28-point “peace” plan, without first consulting Ukraine or European allies. This pro-Russian plan calls for major Ukrainian concessions and would leave the country naked to further Russian aggression.

The White House has already denied Ukraine the weapons that could still stop the Russians, thereby effectively helping Putin slaughter Ukrainian civilians nightly with missiles and drones that target apartment buildings and heating systems.

In pursuit of his mythical Nobel Peace Prize, Trump appears poised, yet again, to sell out Ukraine. If so, he will also be selling out our European allies — and the United States.

Russia’s already at war with Europe

Most Americans don’t realize Russia is already at war with Europe. This new mode of hybrid warfare is carried out on land, air, and sea, but without ground troops — yet. Moscow is frequently using drones to shut down airports in Germany, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and Poland. Russian hackers are attacking European networks.

Russian ships are cutting Europe’s underwater cables, its warplanes are invading European airspace and buzzing military planes, and its saboteurs are carrying out assassinations and arson attacks, including failed plans to bring down European airliners.

Because this war is unconventional, and hitting individual countries in Europe, the European Union and its members haven’t yet figured out how to respond.

Putin seeks not only to frighten Europeans but to unnerve Americans, as well. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that failed Russian arson attempts on planes were a “test run” for using similar devices on transatlantic cargo shipments, according to the Washington Post. And Putin frequently hints at nuclear war against the West.

Has Trump denounced such behavior, or warned Putin to stop his attacks on U.S. allies? Nyet. Only occasional grumbling has been heard from the White House.

The president probably never even took briefings on Russian sabotage. Anything negative about Putin is rebuffed as the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.”

Trump won’t stand up to Putin

Instead, Trump has been busy misusing U.S. forces to threaten war on Venezuela (which poses no military threat to America, and, contrary to Trump’s claims, ships no fentanyl to U.S. shores). Perhaps this wag-the-dog war is meant to scare a weak Nicolás Maduro.

But Trump has made clear he doesn’t dare (or want to) stand up to Putin.

His new secondary sanctions on Russian oil sales haven’t been seriously pursued against India or China, which buy huge and increasing shares of Russian oil and gas.

Moreover, as Moscow takes advantage of Ukraine’s dire shortage of manpower, air defenses and long-range missiles, Trump refuses to help. Even though Europe has pledged to pay for key weapons systems for Kyiv, Trump won’t sell them.

Although Ukraine makes an array of drones, they can’t shoot down ballistic missiles or cope with Russia’s current mass production of drones, helped by thousands of North Korean workers and endless shipments of parts from China.

Promised U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, which could take out the ballistic missiles, have never arrived in Ukraine. Only this past week, after a nine-month delay, did Washington permit Kyiv to once again fire long-range U.S.-made ATACMS missiles. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had banned their use early this year.

And most cowardly, after hinting for months that he would send desperately needed long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Trump finally came out with a big “No Tomahawks.”

There’s more. Although Ukraine is a world champion producer of all varieties of drones, and the United States lags far behind in unmanned warfare, Trump has yet to conclude a much-discussed drone deal with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whereby Ukraine would swap drones, technology, and testing for U.S. weapons.

White House weakness

Such White House blindness — and weakness — convinces Putin he can get away with destroying Ukraine.

And so the Russian leader is doing with a disastrous plan pushed by Trump’s supremely naive negotiator, real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, who has has no grasp of Putin’s history or goals and seems to swallow his lies whole.

Witkoff’s draft plan would reportedly require Ukraine to give up the 14 percent of the Donbas region it still controls, and cut the size of its armed forces by half. It would require Ukraine to abandon key categories of weapons, endorse a permanent rollback of vital U.S. assistance including long-range weapons, and ban foreign troops from basing on Ukrainian soil.

And the deal provides no U.S. guarantees except lip service to protect against Putin’s certain violations in the future.

Trump might as well say publicly that he endorses Putin’s dream of swallowing Ukraine. He is effectively telling Ukraine and Zelenskyy: Drop Dead.

A Putin-induced trance

Putin isn’t fighting for a piece of land. He wants to absorb Ukraine back into the Russian empire.

Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian traitor and close Putin ally, whom the Russian president wanted to install in Zelenskyy’s place after the invasion, recently spelled out Kremlin goals to the official TASS newswire. He said that Ukraine will not “survive as a state” in the future, and Moscow considers the reunification of Ukraine with Russia a strategic goal.

Trump clearly doesn’t care.

The administration is pushing to strip language from an annual U.N. General Assembly Human Rights Committee resolution that recognizes Ukraine’s territorial integrity and rights as a sovereign nation. The U.S. delegation will vote against anything that condemns Putin.

Trump has made clear he believes Putin bears no blame for invading Ukraine (it’s all Zelenskyy’s fault or even Joe Biden’s). He has crossed over totally to the Russian dictator’s camp.

Unless he wakes up from his Putin-induced trance, he is incapable of making peace.

Courage, senators?

Although things look bleak for Ukraine, I believe its fighters will manage to hold back the Russians this winter, but at a brutal cost to civilians’ and soldiers’ lives. Trump will bear much blame for the suffering to come.

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But after the Epstein-induced awakening of GOP members of Congress, I hope some Republican senators will find the courage to denounce Trump’s attempt to hand over Ukraine to Russia.

They should recognize that the retort of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R.-Ga., after Trump called her a traitor also applies to his position on Ukraine.

“Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American (who) serves foreign countries and themselves,” Greene said. With his heedless pursuit of Putin and a peace prize, Trump is serving the Kremlin, in service to his ego, as he attempts to sacrifice Ukraine.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member forThe Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101. Her email address is trubin@phillynews.com.

If you’re a woman of a certain age, your social media feed is likely filled with advice on what hormones you should take. The promises made by menopause influencers about hormone therapy are expansive: easing hot flashes and night sweats for starters, but also promoting better brain and heart health, improving muscle mass and bone strength, boosting energy, and even enhancing your sex life.

What bone-tired, middle-aged woman balancing childcare, elder care and a job — while also trying to maintain some semblance of a healthy long-term partnership — wouldn’t want all that?

And yet, as women’s health influencers, participants on menopause message boards, and now the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will tell you, doctors have for too long been “gatekeeping” hormone therapy. Millions of women, the narrative goes, are being deprived of something that could help them live longer and feel better.

If only the evidence supporting those claims about hormones were as strong as their conviction in them.

Hormone therapy can help many women, but it’s not the panacea many advocates are promising. And while women’s health has indeed suffered from neglect, it does women a terrible disservice to overpromise on what any single therapy can do for their health.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has long been a proponent of expanding access to hormone therapy so that more perimenopausal and menopausal women can benefit from it. (He devotes a chapter to the topic in his most recent book, Blind Spots.) Earlier this month, he directed the FDA to remove the black box warning labels from several forms of hormone therapy, theoretically making it easier for women in midlife and beyond to access these treatments.

A pall was cast over such treatments in 2002, when a large, long-term study — the Women’s Health Initiative — ended abruptly after researchers found hormones increased the risk of heart disease, strokes and breast cancer. Over time, it became clear that those warnings were not only overblown but also wrong: Hormone therapy did not increase the likelihood of a heart attack, and short-term use didn’t increase women’s chances of developing breast cancer. Moreover, new and safer products have emerged that minimize those already small risks.

Yet some doctors spent decades reluctant— or even refusing — to prescribe hormones to alleviate women’s symptoms. In a podcast discussion about the policy change, Makary described the 2002 pullback as “maybe one of the greatest screw-ups of modern medicine.” By getting rid of the black box warnings, he said, “we are getting rid of that fear machine.”

As I’ve written, a corrective to that frustrating period is overdue. And yet by making these changes without nuance, Makary is ushering in a new, equally frustrating era — one where the pendulum swings too far toward treatment for all, regardless of their symptoms or the data, and where expectations for what the therapy can deliver are overstated.

Let’s start with the good in this month’s decision: The FDA removed the so-called black box warning on topical estrogen. Doctors have long argued that this warning mistakenly conflated the risks of systemic medicines with those of a locally applied, low-dose formulation that clinical studies have shown to be very safe. That label has discouraged its use, even though it can help prevent and treat a number of menopause-related conditions.

Doctors are less in agreement on the FDA’s decision to remove the black box warning from other forms of hormone therapy, which deliver estrogen systemically and may carry longer-term risks for some women. While it’s true that many physicians might have been overly cautious, and that the field has needed to do better by women, patients still deserve all the pertinent information when considering a new treatment.

But Makary didn’t stop at removing the labels. During a press conference announcing the labeling change, he and several menopause doctors (who have built vast social media followings — and lucrative private practices — by promoting hormones) significantly overstated the benefits of hormone therapy while minimizing its potential risks.

Research shows that hormone therapy can help relieve many of the symptoms of menopause — including hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness — and can help protect against bone loss and lower the risk of developing diabetes. Yet Makary claimed it has “profound long-term health benefits that few people, even physicians, know about.” Those purported benefits, he said, include cutting their risk of heart disease by as much as half and Alzheimer’s disease by 35%, and even extending the lives of breast cancer patients.

Menopause researchers who have spent years studying the effects of hormone use were stunned by some of the unfounded claims. “They’re making menopause and hormone therapy synonymous,” says Monica Christmas, associate medical director of the Menopause Society. They’re suggesting that hormone therapy is “this magic antidote to aging and it’s not,” she says.

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The hype was enough to draw Pauline Maki, director of the University of Illinois College of Medicine’s Women’s Mental Health Research Program, off the social media sidelines. In an Instagram video — one of only six posts she’s ever made — Maki walks through the results of a randomized study she conducted comparing brain function and memory in women taking hormones with those receiving a placebo. She found no difference between the groups — and neither did three larger studies conducted by other researchers in her field. “Not one of them found an improvement in cognition,” she says. “Zero, zip, zero.”

In subsequent research, Maki found that hormone therapy may improve cognition — but only in women experiencing the most severe symptoms. “They’re having these hot flashes and waking up in the middle of the night,” she says. “You don’t need me and all my decades (of research) to tell you that if you’re not sleeping well, your cognition is bad.”

A more open conversation about menopause and greater access to therapies for women who might truly benefit from them should be welcomed. But women also deserve accurate, evidence-based information so they can make informed decisions about their health. Anything short of that isn’t progress, it’s more paternalism.

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.