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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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