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Indonesian maleo conservation faced setbacks due to development and plans for a new capital city

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

MAMUJU, Indonesia (AP) — A pair of tall birds with black feathers and pinkish breasts crossed a noisy road to reach a quiet part of a sandy tourist beach in the outskirts of Mamuju, a small town at the westernmost part of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.There the maleos took turns digging a deep hole with their feet, then the female laid an egg several times as big as a chicken’s and buried it. When the birds departed, one of several poachers watching and waiting unearthed an egg prized as a delicacy. The maleo is a critically endangered and declining species that’s endemic to Sulawesi and its surrounding islands — a revered symbol of the country’s lush biodiversity. But the bird now is facing a new threat as Indonesia builds a new capital hundreds of miles away. West Sulawesi has been set up as a “support region,” so the regional government has been constructing roads and planning to build more ports here for transporting building materials to develop the new capital on Borneo. The mal...

Lawmakers to vote on censuring Rep. Jamaal Bowman for pulling a fire alarm in House office building

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House will again vote Thursday on punishing one of their own, this time targeting Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman for triggering a fire alarm in one of the U.S. Capitol office buildings in September when the chamber was in session. If the Republican censure resolution passes, the prominent progressive will become the third Democratic House member to be admonished this year through the process, which is a punishment one step below expulsion from the House.“It’s painfully obvious to myself, my colleagues and the American people that the Republican Party is deeply unserious and unable to legislate,” Bowman said Wednesday as he defended himself during floor debate. “Their censure resolution against me today continues to demonstrate their inability to govern and serve the American people.”He added that he’s since taken accountability for his actions. “No matter the result of the censure vote tomorrow, my constituents know I will always continue to fight for them...

A sea otter pup found alone in Alaska has a new home at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — An 8-week-old arrival from Alaska chirps loudly before devouring ice chips in the nursery at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.He is Pup EL2306 — proper name to be determined — a northern sea otter who was found alone and malnourished in the remote town of Seldovia in October and taken to the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward. Shedd, one of only a few facilities in the United States with the resources to care for rescued otters, was contacted by the SeaLife Center and the aquarium’s otter team made the cross-country journey with the fluffy brown marine mammal who arrived in Chicago at the end of November.“Caring for a little otter pup is just like caring for an infant,” including round-the-clock feeding, said Lana Gonzalez, a manager of penguins and otter at Shedd. “He also needs to get groomed. Sea otters have a very dense coat — there’s anywhere from a 700,000 to a million hairs per square inch, and that’s what they use to keep themselves warm. They don’t have a thick layer of...

From SZA to the Stone of Scone, the words that help tell the story of 2023 were often mispronounced

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

Some of the words tied to this year’s hottest topics were also among the most mangled when it came to saying them aloud, with stumpers ranging from the first name of “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy to the singer SZA to the name of a sacred slab of sandstone used in the coronation of King Charles III.This year’s lists of the most mispronounced words in the U.S. and Britain were released Thursday by the online language learning company Babbel, which commissions The Closed Captioning Group in the U.S. and the British Institute of Verbatim Reports in the U.K. to identify the top words that news anchors, politicians and other public figures have struggled with.Going through the lists provides a bit of a year-end review that ranges from scientific discoveries to entertainment to politics. Babbel teacher Malcolm Massey said the diversity of the words struck him, with words coming from several different language.“I think a lot of it is due to how close our cultures have become...

Hopes for a Mercosur-EU trade deal fade yet again as leaders meet in Brazil

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

SAO PAULO (AP) — Heads of state from South America’s Mercosur trade bloc were in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday for a meeting all but certain to once again disappoint members hoping to finalize a long-delayed deal with the European Union.Negotiations with the EU were set to be the gathering’s main topic, and host Brazil had aimed for a swift conclusion to finalize a deal. However, the outgoing government of Argentina, the bloc’s second-biggest economy, has already said it opposes the agreement, although right-wing President-elect Javier Milei, who will be sworn in on Sunday, has expressed support.Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is an advocate of the agreement that has been in the works for two decades. His main partners so far have been Spain, which holds the presidency of the EU, and Germany. Paraguay and Uruguay are also a part of the bloc and the membership of Bolivia, which has been in the process of joining, is expected to be announced Thursda...

Trump expected to attend New York fraud trial again Thursday as testimony nears an end

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — He’s been a frustrated observer, a confrontational witness and a heated commentator outside the courtroom door. Now former President Donald Trump is poised to return to his civil business fraud trial again, first to watch and then to serve as star witness for his own defense.With testimony winding down after more than two months, court officials and Trump’s attorneys and aides have indicated that the Republican 2024 presidential front-runner is expected to show up voluntarily as a spectator Thursday, when his legal team is calling an accounting professor to testify about some financial topics important to the case. Then Trump himself is scheduled to take the stand Monday, for a second time.Even while campaigning to reclaim the presidency and fighting four criminal cases, Trump is devoting a lot of attention to the New York lawsuit. The case is putting his net worth on trial, scrutinizing the real estate empire that first built his reputation, and threaten...

Divides over trade and Ukraine are in focus as EU and China’s leaders meet in Beijing

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — The leaders of China and the European Union were holding wide-ranging talks Thursday that included their disputes over trade and a deep divide on the war in Ukraine.Chinese President Xi Jinping met at a state guesthouse in Beijing with the two European presidents, Ursula von der Leyen from the EU Commission and Charles Michel from the EU Council. The two European leaders were going to meet Premier Li Qiang, China’s No. 2 leader, later on Thursday. The European Union is calling on China to improve market access for products from its 27 member countries to address an annual trade imbalance of more than $200 billion between the two sides. China exported $458.5 billion worth of goods to the EU in the first 11 months of this year, and imported $257.8 billion, according to Chinese customs data released Thursday.The EU also has angered China by launching an investigation into the latter’s subsidies for electric vehicles to determine whether they give manufacturer...

Who are the Houthis and why hasn’t the US retaliated for their attacks on ships in the Middle East?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched missiles and hit three commercial ships in the southern Red Sea last weekend, it triggered an immediate question: Will the U.S. military strike back?The Houthis have sharply escalated their attacks against ships as they sail toward the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait. And U.S. Navy ships have shot down an array of drones headed their way and believed to have been launched by the militant group from territory it controls in Yemen.But so far, the U.S. has avoided military retaliation — a marked difference from its multiple strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria that have fired rockets, missiles and drones at bases housing American forces in both countries.No one has been reported hurt in the Houthi incidents, although the commercial ships suffered some damage. And U.S. officials argue that the Houthis haven’t technically targeted U.S. vessels or forces — a subtlety that Navy ship captains watching ...

Centenarian survivors of Pearl Harbor attack are returning to honor those who perished 82 years ago

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — Ira “Ike” Schab had just showered, put on a clean sailor’s uniform and closed his locker aboard the USS Dobbin when he heard a call for a fire rescue party. He went topside to see the USS Utah capsizing and Japanese planes in the air. He scurried back below deck to grab boxes of ammunition and joined a daisy chain of sailors feeding shells to an anti-aircraft gun up above. He remembers being only 140 pounds (63.50 kilograms) as a 21-year-old, but somehow finding the strength to lift boxes weighing almost twice that. “We were pretty startled. Startled and scared to death,” Schab, now 103, said at his home in Beaverton, Oregon, where he lives with his daughter. “We didn’t know what to expect and we knew that if anything happened to us, that would be it.”Eighty-two years later, Schab plans to return to Pearl Harbor Thursday on the anniversary of the attack to remember the more than 2,300 servicemen killed. He’s expected to be one of just six surv...

Climate talks shift into high gear. Now words and definitions matter at COP28

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:27:21 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The mood is about to shift, the hours grow longer and the already high sense of urgency somehow amp up even more as the United Nations climate summit heads into its final week.Every sentence, every word — especially those about the future elimination of planet-warming fossil fuels — will matter at the U.N. conference in oil-built Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Professional negotiators who have been working on getting options into shape will turn over their work to senior national officials, many at minister levels, who will have to make the tough political choices.“We’re heading into quite a political process, less access into the negotiating rooms, negotiations will go deep into the night, a number of nights,” said David Waskow, international climate initiative director for the World Resources Institute.Even with the hard work to come, some of those who are about to do it have this sense of optimism, especially because everyone has the d...