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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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