Donald Trump has still not been able to build his wall to keep America safe from Central American kitchen workers who got to the bathroom and don’t wash their hands before returning to work.  But if neighboring aliens are still pouring in to the USSA, news has come of a formidable deterrent to the other kind of alien–things from outer space. The New Horizons spacecraft, cruising somewhere in the neighborhood of Pluto, has detected what could be a hydrogen wall.  Score a big one for Donald! We all know how fond the Democrats are of aliens, but not everyone is...

Herodotus devoted much of the first book to the Persians, their conquest of Lydia, and their subjugation of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and the offshore islands.  He spends a great deal of time on the Ionian Revolt, provoked by Persian expansion, because it is both the predecessor and a major cause of the first Persian War with the mainland Greek cities.  The early Greeks, who were not unified either in dialect or ethnicity, were divided into distinct ethnic and dialect groups:  The Ionians, who were predominant in Asia Minor, the Aegean islands, the great island...