By Elyssa Goodman, CNN

New York (CNN) — In a windowless room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Antonio Ratti Textile Center, several swaths of lace hundreds of years old are spread out on a giant expanse of black paper. The tiniest of stitches have been formed into circles, swirls and even animals, some of which took years to make by hand with painstaking precision.

In previous centuries, making lace even a few feet long would have required a years-long commitment. Today, it can be produced much faster by machine, and over the past year, was seen all over fashion week runways including those of Chloé and Fendi. During the holiday season, lace styles are particularly popular – adding a touch of sexiness or sophistication to partywear.

Lace historian Elena Kanagy-Loux traces lace’s origins to the late 15th century, when it was likely used on a smaller scale “as these tiny, little, kind of minor, pointed edgings and trimmings,” she said. What started as a “little decorative ornament” later became more elaborate and subsequently a status symbol, costly because of its laborious creation process, not to mention its intricacy and fragility, she explained.

Lace was not something a garment needed. As the 17th century English historian Thomas Fuller declared, the fabric was “superfluous wearing, because it doth neither hide nor heat, seeing it doth adorn.” The ability to wear it on one’s clothing, especially in places like collars and cuffs where it could easily become dirty, was a powerful pronouncement of one’s stature, Kanagy-Loux said. Not only did one require the means to afford lace, one also needed the resources to maintain it.

At one point, lace became so in demand that it was regulated by 16th and 17th century sumptuary laws “restricting extravagance in consumer goods,” according to the Smithsonian Institution. These kinds of laws were not uncommon — there were also limits on velvet, gold embroidery, and satin, among other textiles — but the bans didn’t always work and smuggling became an active part of lace’s history.

With the Industrial Revolution’s arrival in the 19th century, rudimentary machines attempted to duplicate the fabric’s delicate stitches, but to no avail. Kanagy-Loux notes that Luddites, British weavers and textile workers who protested against the mechanization of their craft, even took to smashing lace machines. And while many lacemakers eventually found themselves out of a job at the hands of industrialization, handmade and antique lace subsequently became more valuable.

With the onset of World War I, some lacemakers in Belgium found success in keeping their practice alive by making American-commissioned “war lace” — lace featuring Allied symbology — during German occupation. But interest in it faded some 10 years later, with the onset of the Great Depression. There became less effort and attention paid to lacemaking, and it developed “fuddy-duddy associations” in the latter half of the 20th century, according to Kanagy-Loux. For a long time, a common stereotype in parts of the West was that only elderly ladies made the fabric, but this was only partly true as it would have been a skill they picked up in their youth and didn’t give up, she explained.

While lace would fall in and out of popularity in subsequent decades, it continued to be used in bridal attire and lingerie. Lace had been used as trimming on linen undergarments, but the pieces got smaller over time, morphing from long-sleeved constructions into “a little nylon slip.” As technology evolved, clothing became more fitted and made from thinner materials, so underwear naturally became sexy, Kanagy-Loux said. Sexiness also increased the demand for lace.

When Kanagy-Loux first started posting videos on TikTok, where she shares lace history with over 400,000 followers, some commenters said they didn

By Ariel Edwards-Levy, Amy O’Kruk, and Kathryn Squyres CNN

(CNN) — Most Americans don’t have faith that their political leaders care what they have to say.

But if they had the chance to tell Washington something, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, they’d say plenty, much of it about the economy.

That was the most common response when Americans were asked to share in their own words what they’d tell President Donald Trump to make life in the US better.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 40% mentioned economic or cost-of-living concerns.

“My message to him right now would be, ‘Please take care of the economy because it’s awful,’” said Betty Glazebrook, a 78-year-old Trump voter from Massachusetts who spoke to CNN after taking the survey. “You know, being out of work now, I wonder down the road, you know, how will I survive? And I just don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say that neither the president nor Democratic leadership is listening to people like them. Just 34% of US adults say that Trump cares even somewhat what they have to say and just 36% say that the leadership of the Democratic Party does.

Glazebrook said she feels like Trump cares more about himself than people like her, but she’s also unconvinced that Democrats have her best interests in mind. “I’m starting to feel like nobody does, honestly,” she said.

While Trump has often downplayed affordability as a concern, the issue remains top of mind for many voters and likely to dominate next year’s midterms. Mentions of the economy dwarf other political issues in the survey. Just 5% of Americans said their advice to Trump would touch on immigration with fewer still mentioning foreign policy.

Not all messages have to do with policy. Many simply want a chance to make their feelings about Trump known; 16% say they’d call on him to resign or leave office, while 8% say they’d pay him a compliment. Around 15% say Trump could most help Americans by changing something about his personal conduct, with 6% wanting him to modulate his tone or to be more respectful, thoughtful or presidential. A few say they would refuse to speak with him at all.

Many Americans also have advice for Democrats on how they should deal with Trump. Ten percent say Democratic leaders could most help by standing their ground or fighting harder against Trump or the GOP, while another 10% say they should instead focus more on compromising or working across the aisle.

The sentiment among the Democratic base is more clear-cut: 19% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they’d tell their party’s leadership to take more of a stand compared with just 2% who say they’d advocate for greater compromise.

“Stop being gentle and palatable to the opposing side,” one Democratic-leaning independent from New Jersey in their 20s wrote in response to the survey. “They take extreme and aggressive measures to force change backwards, and when laws get broken, even constitutional ones, many remain silent. We should have an equal reaction to balance out the scales of power.”

That desire for increased forcefulness from their party doesn’t map as neatly onto a preferred set of political views. Few Democratic-aligned adults said that they’d share a message about the party’s ideological direction, and those who did were about equally as likely to suggest that the party should move to the left as they were to say it should become more moderate.

Many Americans, meanwhile, just want to feel like they’re being heard: 8% say they’d tell Democratic leaders to help people, listen to people, or put the people over partisan politics; 5% say they’d deliver a similar message to Trump.

“Take a step outside and look in your own neighborhood, your own backyard and see that who’s really struggling and who’s actually needing the help,” said

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday blocking President Donald Trump from sending the National Guard into American cities is likely to raise a politically fraught debate about the president’s willingness to invoke a 19th-century law to deploy the regular military on American soil instead.

Throughout his campaign and in the early months of his second term, Trump and his aides repeatedly teased the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the military for domestic purposes — a move that, while perhaps politically unpopular, would give him broad discretion to skirt the general prohibition on using the military domestically.

In its order Tuesday, the Supreme Court focused on another federal law Trump tried to use to federalize hundreds of members of the Illinois National Guard. That law allows a president to call up the guard if he is unable to execute the nation’s laws with the “regular forces.” Over dissent from three conservative justices, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had not met that law’s requirements.

But the decision on the court’s emergency docket did not deal directly with other authorities Trump could attempt to use.

“As I read it, the court’s opinion does not address the president’s authority under the Insurrection Act,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative who sided with the majority, wrote in a footnote. “One apparent ramification of the court’s opinion is that it could cause the president to use the US military more than the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property in the United States.”

That is a possibility that has lurked in the case at the Supreme Court for months as the administration has attempted to send National Guard troops into Democratic-run cities to help protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and facilities.

Trump has repeatedly flirted with invoking the Insurrection Act, which would give him broad authority to evade the restrictions on using the military domestically imposed by the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.

“I’d do it if it’s necessary. So far it hasn’t been necessary,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in October. “But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement after the court’s order Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said that nothing in the Supreme Court’s decision detracts from the administration’s “core agenda” of ensuring that “rioters did not destroy federal buildings and property.”

The current version of the Insurrection Act was last invoked by President George H.W. Bush during the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of four White police officers in the beating of Rodney King. Perhaps the best-known use of the Insurrection Act was in 1957, when President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to integrate its schools.

That order followed the Supreme Court’s historic decision three years earlier in Brown v. Board of Education that declared segregated schools unconstitutional.

William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor and expert on the Insurrection Act, told CNN that such a move would almost certainly be more polit

Por CNN Español

El Departamento de Justicia publica nuevo lote de archivos de Epstein. La Corte Suprema bloquea el despliegue de la Guardia Nacional en Chicago. Lo que los votantes dicen que quieren para Navidad. Esto es lo que debes saber para comenzar el día. Primero la verdad.

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En medio de la creciente tensión, y cuando el Gobierno de Trump ya lleva incautados dos buques petroleros, Venezuela anunció una ley que impone penas de entre 15 y 20 años de cárcel para quienes respalden “piratería y bloqueo” naval de Estados Unidos. En un acto transmitido por VTV, Nicolás Maduro detalló que la normativa se llama Ley para Garantizar la Libre Navegabilidad y Comercio contra la Piratería en los Mares del Mundo.

• EE.UU. asegura que impondrá sanciones “al máximo” a Venezuela tras bloqueo de petroleros
• ANÁLISIS: El nuevo plan de acorazados de Trump podría transformar la Marina estadounidense… o hundirla

El Departamento de Justicia publicó un nuevo lote de documentos relacionados con el delincuente sexual convicto Jeffrey Epstein, que incluyen muchas más menciones al presidente Donald Trump que los de la tanda de la semana pasada. Aquí hay cuatro conclusiones sobre la última publicación. (Análisis).

• Departamento de Justicia afirma que la carta firmada por ‘J. Epstein’ y que hace referencia a ‘nuestro presidente’ es falsa
• Read more

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Optimal growing conditions are a crucial component of what enables modern agriculture to continue delivering efficiently. As commercial growing needs evolve, having an alternative to open-field farming that allows you to control the microclimate and growth of crops or cannabis without seasonal or climate-related concerns is essential.

Well-optimized grow houses can contribute to year-round crop production and help develop faster growth cycles for healthier plants. For these reasons, learning to create and maintain a suitable environment for plants that offer high yields is important.

Here is Meritus Gas Partners‘ guide on how to maintain optimal conditions in your grow house, which elaborates on the science behind creating ideal grow house conditions and how to control the environment to ensure maximum yield.

What Are the Best Conditions for a Grow Room?

Understanding the best conditions for a grow room requires some basic knowledge about controlling the room’s environment. The ideal conditions for a specific grow room will depend on growth stages and the type of plant being grown. However, the key environmental factors to achieve the best conditions will always revolve around the following aspects:

• Light
• Temperature and humidity
• Carbon dioxide (CO2)
• Air circulation and ventilation

Meritus Gas Partners

Exploring Each Element of Your Grow House Environment

Optimal growing conditions are an important balancing act to get right. It can provide plants with an environment that encourages growth by replicating the conditions that help them thrive in their natural habitat. For grow houses, achieving this means exploring ways to replicate each important environmental factor indoors to cultivate those ideal growth conditions.

Below are the critical factors that go into maintaining optimal conditions and how they can be achieved in a well-crafted grow house environment.

Light

Optimal growing conditions indoors require lights that can imitate sunlight. These are used for photosynthesis — a process that green plants use to convert light, water and carbon dioxide into chemical energy, releasing dissolved oxygen in the process. To achieve photosynthesis, your plants will need to grow under a specific light spectrum, which mainly consists of blue and red light.

While different plants and phases will need