Storms are carrying grass-destroying pests to northeastern U.S.
CBSN
Homeowners beware: Armyworms are on the march in numbers not seen in decades, threatening yards, golf courses, athletic fields and crops in the northeastern U.S. Defenses against the invasion are weak.
"The general consensus is that this is the worst outbreak of fall armyworms in decades," David Shetlar, professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Ohio in Columbus, said in an email. "From Iowa to New England and south, this is the worst." Hot weather and drought conditions have helped produce higher-than-usual numbers of the subtropical moths in the southern U.S. The dry climate, coupled with recent storms, have the insects heading north, where they are feasting on lawns as far up as New York, Thomas Kuhar, a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, told CBS MoneyWatch.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.