SIOUX FALLS (AP) – An ostrich brought traffic to a halt in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Tuesday as motorists tried to lure and nudge the towering bird off a multilane thoroughfare.
Drivers called Sioux Falls police just before noon to report the roughly seven-foot-tall bird in the middle of a busy four-lane road.
As police and animal officials responded, motorists hopped out of their cars and managed to carefully corral the flightless bird. Video shot by bystanders showed people coaxing the bird off the road by offering up food in a plastic container and a few gentle nudges.
A police spokesman said the bird was among several ostriches being hauled in a trailer owned by an out-of-state traveller before it escaped. The owner helped capture the bird and managed to get it back into the trailer.
“The ostrich suffered no injuries, appeared just fine by us and was back with its owner before we had to take over,” a Sioux Falls Animal Control officer Thomas Rhoades told the Argus Leader newspaper.
People attempt to lure an ostrich away from traffic in South Dakota, United States. PHOTO: AP
FRESNO (AP) – The second elephant calf in two weeks has been born at a California zoo.
African elephant Amahle gave birth early Monday morning, according to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. The event came 10 days after Amahle’s mother, Nolwazi, gave birth to another male calf.
The new additions are the first elephants born at the zoo, about 240 kilometres southeast of San Francisco, which has embarked on a programme to breed elephants in the hope that they can be seen by zoogoers in years to come.
“To have two healthy calves is a historic milestone,” the zoo’s chief executive Jon Forrest Dohlin said in a statement on Tuesday. “We cannot wait for the public to see the new additions to our herd and share in our excitement.”
The elephants and their calves will continue to be monitored behind the scenes for now, Dohlin said. While the zoo expanded its exhibit in anticipation of growing its herd, some animal activists have opposed the breeding program, saying elephants shouldn’t be in zoos because of their complex needs.
In 2022, the zoo brought in male elephant Mabu hoping he’d breed with the two females.
The future of elephants – which have relatively few offspring and a 22-month gestation period – in zoos hinges largely on breeding.
A newborn African elephant at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo in California, United States. PHOTO: AP
CHEYENNE (AP) – A “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born.
Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic – and often misunderstood – reptiles. They’re observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks.
The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chatroom and to scientists by names including Woodstock, Thea and Agent 008.
The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
By involving the public, the scientists hope to dispel the idea that rattlesnakes are usually fierce and dangerous. In fact, experts say they rarely bite unless threatened or provoked and often are just the opposite.
Rattlesnakes are not only among the few reptiles that care for their young. They even care for the young of others. The adults protect and lend body heat to pups from birth until they enter hibernation in mid-autumn, said CalPoly graduate student researcher Max Roberts.
“We regularly see what we like to call ‘babysitting’, pregnant females that we can visibly see have not given birth, yet are kind of guarding the newborn snakes,” Roberts said on Wednesday.
As many as 2,000 rattlesnakes spend the winter at the location on private land, which the researchers are keeping secret to discourage trespassers. Once the weather warms, only pregnant females remain while the others disperse to nearby territory.
This year, the scientists keeping watch over the Colorado site have observed the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies. They’ve also seen how the snakes react to birds swooping in to try to grab a scaly meal.
The highlight of summer is in late August and early September when the rattlesnakes give birth over a roughly two-week period.
“As soon as they’re born, they know how to move into the sun or into the shade to regulate their body temperature,” Roberts said.
An adult rattlesnake rests with juveniles at a den under remote observation in Colorado, United States. PHOTO: AP
SEOUL (AP) – A sinkhole suddenly opened and swallowed an SUV in South Korea’s capital yesterday, injuring the two occupants, emergency workers said.
Photos from the scene showed a white sport utility vehicle engulfed in the 2.5-metre-deep hole that appeared on a street in the central part of Seoul.
Emergency workers rescued the vehicle’s 82-year-old male driver and a 76-year-old female passenger. No one else was hurt in the incident, which occurred at around 11.20am, according to Seoul’s Seodaemun district fire station.
The conditions of the injured victims weren’t immediately known. Traffic in the Seondaemun area continued to be restricted as of yesterday evening as workers and officials repaired the damaged road and investigated the cause of the sinkhole.
South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport told lawmakers last year that at least 879 sinkholes were reported in the country from 2019 to June 2023.
Nearly half of those sinkholes were caused by damaged sewer pipes, the ministry said at the time.
South Korean firefighters prepare to lift a vehicle that fell into a sinkhole on a street in Seoul, South Korea. PHOTO: AP
MANAUS (AP) – Smoke from wildfires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest on Wednesday was causing people in the region to cough, burning their throats and reddening their eyes.
Large swaths of the country have been draped in smoke in recent days, resulting from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo.
Fires are traditionally used for deforestation and for managing pastures, and those man-made blazes are largely responsible for igniting the wildfires.
In the Amazon, there have been 53,620 fire spots between January 1 and August 27, an 83-per-cent increase from the same period last year, according to the National Institute for Space Research, a federal agency.
Across the Amazon, many areas were classified as having “very bad” or “terrible” air pollution on Wednesday, according to the State University of Amazonas’ environmental monitoring system.
Smoke from wildfires fills the air along the Jornalista Phelippe Daou bridge over the Negro River in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil. PHOTO: AP
In cases of wildfires and due to the resulting smoke, Amazonas state’s civil defence authority has recommended staying hydrated and remaining indoors.
But street vendors, garbage collectors, crossing guards and other workers have to be out and about. That means they can’t avoid the smoke. Even worse, because they have to work harder to breathe in those conditions they inhale more of the dangerous particles into their lungs, according to Jesem Orellana, a resident of Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon, and an epidemiologist and researcher at the state-run Fiocruz Institute.
Residents of Manaus have come to expect “the smoke of death” in mid-September and October when fires and deforestation approximately peak, but this year the smoke became a problem much earlier, he added.
“That means that we are exposed to this toxic smoke for an even longer period of time, which has direct implications for the health of the population,” Orellana told AP. And the smoke’s impact goes beyond physical health, he said, causing anxiety which can impact sleep quality.
Maria Soledade Barros Silva, who lives in the Ponta Negra neighbourhood of Manaus, said the nearby riverside beach where people normally bike, skate, rollerblade and jetski is clouded with thick smog.
Navigation of waterways that residents depend on has become more complicated, too.
“It’s not normal. I’ve lived here for 40 years. We didn’t have this before,” Barros said.
LOS ANGELES (AFP) – A Las Vegas politician was jailed for life yesterday for killing an investigative journalist who wrote critical articles detailing wrongdoing in the department he headed.
Robert Telles lay in wait outside the home of longtime reporter Jeff German, and then stabbed him to death, a jury in Clark County, Nevada concluded.
“Justice has been served,” Clark County prosecutor Steve Wolfson told reporters.
“Today’s verdict should send a message, and that message is a clear message that any attempts to silence the media or to silence or intimidate a journalist will not be tolerated.”
The two-week trial had heard how German, a 69-year-old reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, had written an article months before his death describing a toxic environment in the county office that Telles led.
Robert Telles. PHOTO: AP
The piece, published a month before an election in which Telles was standing to retain his role, detailed complaints of favouritism and allegations that Telles had been involved in an inappropriate relationship with a member of staff.
Telles denied the allegations but lost his reelection bid.
The jury of seven women and five men heard how an irate Telles had driven to German’s home in September of 2022 and hidden in some bushes, from where he launched a frenzied and fatal knife attack.
Telles had denied carrying out the killing, arguing that the police had ignored evidence that other people could have been responsible.
In a lengthy monologue from the witness stand, Telles – a lawyer by training – claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy.
After returning their guilty verdict, the jury retired again to consider the sentence, imposing a life term with a minimum of 20 years before Telles is eligible for parole.
Executive editor Glenn Cook of The Las Vegas Review-Journal said on Wednesday the jury had rendered “a measure of justice for Jeff German”.
AP – SpaceX launches are on hold after a booster rocket toppled over in flames while landing on Wednesday.
United States’ Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the company’s Falcon 9 rockets and ordered an investigation following the predawn accident off the Florida coast.
No injuries or public damage were reported.
It’s too early to know how much impact this will have on SpaceX’s upcoming crew flights, one private and the other for NASA. A billionaire’s chartered flight was delayed just a few hours earlier because of a poor weather forecast.
The rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and got all 21 Starlink internet satellites to orbit. But the first-stage booster fell over in a fireball moments after landing on an ocean platform, the first such accident in years.
It was the 23rd time this particular booster had launched, a recycling record for SpaceX.
The authorities said it must approve SpaceX’s accident findings and corrective action before the company can resume Falcon 9 launches.
A launch from California with more Starlinks was immediately called off following the accident.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster in flames after landing on an ocean platform offshore. PHOTO: AP
DETROIT LAKES (AP) – A state senator from Minnesota, United States has pleaded not guilty to burglarising the home of her estranged stepmother after her father’s death.
Senator Nicole Mitchell, a Democrat from the St Paul suburb of Woodbury, was charged in April. She told police at the time that she broke into the home in the northwestern Minnesota town of Detroit Lakes because her stepmother refused to give her items of sentimental value from her late father, including his ashes, according to the felony criminal complaint.
In a joint court filing on Tuesday, defense and prosecution attorneys said Mitchell was pleading not guilty, and was asking the court to schedule both a settlement conference and jury trial.
The two sides also agreed that prosecutors won’t be able to argue that Mitchell stole a laptop computer that police seized when they arrested her. Ownership of the laptop had been in dispute.
The agreement said that prosecutors can, however, use evidence from the laptop if the case goes to trial.
Mitchell’s arrest roiled the 2024 legislative session, which came to an acrimonious end, and ethics proceedings against her remain on hold pending developments in her criminal case.
She denied stealing and rejected Republican calls for her resignation. Her status posed a dilemma for her fellow Democrats because they held only a one-seat majority in the Senate, so they needed her vote to pass anything that lacked bipartisan support.
Democratic State Senator Nicole Mitchell. PHOTO: AP
AFP – At least 16 people have been killed in flash floods in a rebel-held district of Yemen, rebel media reported yesterday, as search efforts continued for others still missing.
Civil defence teams recovered the bodies of 16 of the 38 people posted as missing in Al-Mahwit province west of the capital Sanaa, the Iran-backed Huthi rebels’ Al-Masirah television reported, citing a local official.
Landslides triggered by torrential rains had crashed through homes and businesses in the province’s Melhan district on Tuesday night burying some of their occupants.
The rebel administration’s Deputy Prime Minister Mohammed Miftah, told Al-Masirah that “road closures due to the floods hindered the arrival of rescue teams for several hours”.
The heavy rains that have been falling in highland provinces for a week have also affected neighbouring Hodeida province on the Red Sea coast.
In the government-held town of Hais, Ahmed Suleiman and his children survived, but he told AFP “the floods swept away our homes, our livestock, all our belongings, our blankets, everything we had in the house”.
Another resident, Saud Majashi, said “our belongings, our beds, our food… the floods took everything”.
The mountains of western Yemen are prone to heavy seasonal rainfall.
Since late July, flash flooding has killed 60 people and affected 268,000 across Yemen, according to the United Nations.
“In the coming months, increased rainfall is forecast, with the central highlands, Red Sea coastal areas and portions of the southern uplands expected to receive unprecedented levels in excess of 300 millimetres,” the World Health Organization warned on Monday.
Earlier this month, the United Nations warned that USD4.9 million was urgently needed to scale up the emergency response to extreme weather in war-torn Yemen.
Yemenis at a flooded street in Sanaa, Yemen. PHOTO: XINHUA
AFP – The death toll climbed yesterday as Israel pressed a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank for a second day, despite United Nations (UN) concerns it is “fuelling an already explosive situation”.
The operation was launched as violence raged on in the other main Palestinian territory, the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by war since October 7.
Israel began coordinated raids in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem early on Wednesday, in what the military called a “counter-terrorism” operation.
Columns of Israeli armoured vehicles backed by troops and warplanes were sent in before soldiers encircled refugee camps in Tubas and Tulkarem, as well as Jenin, and exchanged fire with Palestinians.
The army said it killed five in Tulkarem yesteday, bringing to 14 the overall death toll since the launch of the West Bank operation.
“Following exchanges of fire, the forces eliminated five terrorists who had hidden inside a mosque” in Tulkarem, the military said.
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad confirmed the death of Muhammad Jabber, also known as Abu Shujaa, its commander in the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem.
The violence has caused significant destruction, especially in Tulkarem, whose governor described the raids as “unprecedented” and a “dangerous signal”.
AFPTV footage showed bulldozers ripping up the asphalt from streets in the city.
Widespread damage was reported to infrastructure, including to water and sewage networks.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 12 Palestinians were killed on the first day of the operation.
Witnesses said the Israeli forces had withdrawn from Al-Farra refugee camp in Tubas where several Palestinians were killed on Wednesday.
Palestinians inspect damage to a mosque building following an Israeli military operation in the Fara camp for Palestinian refugees near Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank. PHOTO: AFP
