UNITED STATES
Actress mothers ducklings
Tina Chen has her hands full as a New York City actress, director and now surrogate mother to 16 ducklings that have hatched on her apartment roof deck. Local mallards often nest on high floors on Manhattan’s Upper East and West sides, experts say. Chen’s 12th-floor deck between Madison and Park avenues has been home to wild ducklings for the last four years. She is feeding 16 baby birds born a week ago meals twice a day of duck pellets and shredded greens, putting out water for them to swim in and cleaning up after them. “It’s really a lot of work. The poop out there is tremendous,” she said. “That’s a lot of ducklings.”
UNITED STATES
New trails for zoo’s tigers
The Philadelphia Zoo, the nation’s oldest, is unveiling an exhibit that allows its large cats to walk along enclosed, overhead trails that span the zoo’s pathways. The new walkway officially opens today, but two tigers, Wiz and Dimitri, have already tested it a few times. They had never encountered humans at anything other than eye level before, said Kay Buffamonte, lead keeper of the zoo’s Big Cat Falls exhibit. “Being elevated for them is a position of power,” she said. Visitors also seem to be enjoying the unusual close encounters. The project, featuring mesh-enclosed walkways just 4.2m above the ground, is part of an initiative to give animals more room to run and explore.
UNITED STATES
Syphilis rising in gay men
Syphilis is rising among gay and bisexual men after being nearly eliminated in the country more than a decade ago, according to a federal study released on Thursday. The increase in syphilis among gay men is a major public health concern, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said because it indicates sexual behavior that could lead to an increase in HIV transmission. The syphilis rate last year was 5.3 cases per 100,000 people, more than twice the all-time low of 2.1 cases per 100,000 people in 2000, the centers reported. From 2005 to last year, the number of syphilis cases reported nearly doubled, from 8,724 to 16,663, the centers said.
UNITED STATES
Hunt expands for firefighter
Homicide detectives searching for a battalion chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection suspected of fatally stabbing his girlfriend have turned their attention to the state’s massive mountain ranges on Thursday. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department said Orville Fleming, 55, has deep knowledge of the Sierra and Santa Cruz mountains and the Yosemite Valley. Fleming, who has fire department keys giving him access to gated trails and roads, disappeared a week ago after his 26-year-old girlfriend, Sarah Douglas, was found stabbed to death at the home they shared.
UNITED STATES
Imam explains hands loss
Radical London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri has been known for years as much for the metal hook he wears in place of his right hand as for his sermons. On Thursday, for what appeared to be the first time, he said he lost both hands and one eye in an accidental explosion in Pakistan two decades ago. His account, which came as he testified in New York City at his trial on terrorism charges, conflicted with media stories that he suffered the injuries while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He said his image as a veteran of the Afghan war was exaggerated. “Unfortunately, the reputation is larger than the reality,” he told the jury.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in