Hey everyone. So I live in an area that is mostly clay underneath the ground. To keep my foundation from shifting when it contracts during the dry months, I have to water it regularly. I have a soaker hose that runs around the house, placed 1 foot away from the foundation.

This creates a problem with mowing where I can't just let my robot mower (or my push mower) run freely because of the risk of the soaker hose getting caught up in the blades, which has already happened once when I accidentally mowed too close.

To resolve this, I want to kill the grass (using landscaping fabric) in the 1 foot space between the foundation and hose and replace it with something else so I don't need to bother manually trimming it. At the same time, I don't want to use organic stuff like mulch because underground termites also exist in my area and I don't want it to attract them close to the foundation.

A brief search pointed me to using gravel. However, the problem with stones (especially larger ones) is that they also trap moisture underneath them, and the dark and damp areas can also maybe attract termites. Reading a bit more, I think a good compromise would be smaller and uneven gravel/rocks, as more space between them means sunlight penetrates more and moisture gets dried up quickly. Is this a good solution?

The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that monitors marine ecosystems and the effects of climate change.

A federal IT staffer filed a complaint about DOGE, then went public. Shortly after Elon Musk boosted a post calling his claims false, his brake lines were cut. Now he’s suing for defamation.

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Experts worry that some young people are turning to AI bots during mental health crises, which the tech isn’t made to handle. An author of the survey said regulations are needed.

Nearly 1 in 5 adolescents and young adults are turning to AI chatbots for advice when they’re sad, angry, nervous or stressed, according to a new study.

The findings, from the research institute RAND, represent an increase from early 2025, when the nonprofit conducted a similar survey. At the time, around 13% of respondents said they used chatbots for such advice, but the share rose to 19% in the group’s latest survey in November, the results of which were published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

“It’s a sad number, because you’d hope that young people would have the sorts of supportive relationships that they would feel comfortable and empowered reaching out to those around them,” said Ryan McBain, a senior policy researcher at RAND and the lead author of the study.