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Indianapolis Zoo offers $1 million grant to save endangered species

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The Indianapolis Zoo has launched a million-dollar grant challenge to find a group that can help save a critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, or extinct-in-the-wild species.Field conservationists from around the world are invited to apply by submitting pre-applications by June 4 and full applications by December 3. The grant aims to find a plan that will have a measurable and sustainable impact on the future of a species.A panel of international animal conservation experts will judge the entries and announce the winner in February 2024. The winner will have five years to implement their program and demonstrate progress.“We know that reversing the decline of a species takes time,” said Dr. Rob Shumaker, President, and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoo. “If we trust the science and stay focused, we will save species. This challenge will serve as a model for other conservation organizations to follow.”Members of the zoo are committed to the con...

Serbian president announces gun crackdown after shootings

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić on Friday pledged to disarm the country, which is recovering from two mass shootings in as many days.“We will do an almost complete disarming of Serbia,” Vučić said in a live broadcast, according to French newswire AFP.The president announced plans to review the number of registered firearms in the country, as well as cracking down on unregistered weapons.After a mass shooting in Port Arthur in 1996, Australia implemented a similar measure, running a major gun buyback scheme, and has largely avoided mass shootings since then.Serbia has the third highest rate of civilian firearms in the world, tied with Montenegro, but far behind the U.S. and Yemen, with 39.1 firearms per 100 residents, according to the Small Arms Survey, published in 2018. In spite of that, mass shootings remained relatively rare in Serbia until this week.On Wednesday, a 13-year-old went on a shooting spree in an elementary school in a Belgrade suburb, ...

Ukraine official slaps Russian delegate at Black Sea nations assembly

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

A Russian delegate was taken to the hospital for a checkup Thursday evening after initiating a scuffle with a Ukrainian lawmaker at a parliamentary meeting of Black Sea nations in Ankara, Turkey, according to media reports.Valery Stavitsky, the secretary of Russia’s delegation, snatched a Ukrainian flag out of the hands of a Ukrainian member of parliament, Oleksandr Marikovski, while the latter was taking a selfie in the corridors of the building where the meeting took place. Marikovski then chased the Russian official and slapped him in the face, making his glasses fall — but winning back the flag, video of the incident shows.A scandal at the PABSEC summit in #Turkey – the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.In the first video, Ukrainian MPs unfolded the flag of their country during the speech of the Russian representative, after which a scandal broke out and the Turkish… pic.twitter.com/kDazVGHwkC— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 4, 2023Stavitsky w...

Kentucky Derby’s operators suspend trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. after ‘highly unusual’ racehorse deaths

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

(CNN) — The company operating the famed Kentucky Derby has indefinitely suspended racehorse trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. following what it calls two “highly unusual” horse deaths — meaning one of his other horses cannot run as planned in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.Churchill Downs Inc.’s decision Thursday comes after two horses, both trained by Joseph, died suddenly from what officials have said are unknown causes at the company’s namesake racetrack in Louisville on Saturday and Tuesday.Joseph’s suspension means Lord Miles, another horse that he trains, has been scratched from Saturday’s Kentucky Derby — the first leg of the coveted Triple Crown — the company said.“The suspension prohibits Joseph, or any trainer directly or indirectly employed by Joseph, from entering horses in races or applying for stall occupancy at all CDI-owned racetracks,” Churchill Downs Inc. said Thursday.“CDI’s deci...

Strong earthquake hits Japan, killing one, injuring 13

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — A strong, shallow earthquake hit central Japan on Friday afternoon, killing at least one person and injuring 13 others, but no tsunami warning was issued.The magnitude 6.2 quake struck Ishikawa prefecture on the west coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The Japan Meteorological Agency measured the quake at 6.5 and said it was centered at a depth of about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles).One person was reported dead and at least 13 were injured in Suzu city at the northern tip of Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture, a city official said. He said six homes were damaged and rain could trigger mudslides, causing further damage. He did not say how the person died, but the Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported that a person was found without vital signs after falling from a ladder. It said another person was injured when a cabinet fell on them, and two people were rescued from damaged buildings in the city.A video broadcast by NHK p...

Pope seeks to encourage abuse prevention board amid turmoil

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis sought to encourage his embattled child protection advisory board Friday, following weeks of turmoil sparked by the latest resignation of a founding member and fresh questions about its direction.Francis urged his Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to pursue a “spirituality of reparation” with abuse survivors and build a culture of safeguarding to prevent priests from raping and molesting children. In particular, he praised the commission’s efforts to establish church child protection programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America, where there is less funding than in the U.S. and Europe.“It is not right that the most prosperous areas of the world should have well-trained and well-funded safeguarding programs, where victims and their families are respected, while in other parts of the world they suffer in silence, perhaps rejected or stigmatized when they try to come forward to tell of the abuse they have suffered,” Francis said.Francis anno...

Mourners attend funerals of 7 Shiite teachers in NW Pakistan

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Thousands of mourners on Friday attended the mass funeral of seven minority Shiite teachers who were shot and killed at a school in northwestern Pakistan, drawing nationwide condemnation, officials said.The mourners also rallied against Thursday’s killings. The teachers were gunned down by unidentified assailants who stormed a school in Kurram, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The slain teachers were members of Pakistan’s minority Shiite community, which extremist Sunni militant groups frequently target. The attack happened when the teachers were supervising exams at the school, and just hours after a separate attack killed another teacher — a Sunni Muslim — from the same school.It was unclear who was behind the killings and no one has claimed responsibility.On Friday, Inayat Hussain Toori, a senior Shiite leader, condemned the killings.“We want justice and we don’t know who is behind it,” Toori said, adding that about...

DeSantis celebrates wins at end of busy legislative session

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — On the day he took office, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to pursue an agenda that would heal the state’s political divisions.In an op-ed, he vowed to prioritize environmental protection, the economy and education. And he highlighted the “diverse, bipartisan group of qualified individuals” he hired for his administration.“It is time for our state to come together,” he declared in the January 2019 piece.On Friday, more than four years later, DeSantis is set to conclude a legislative session that establishes him as perhaps the most aggressive and accomplished conservative governor in the nation’s bitter culture wars just as he prepares to enter the 2024 presidential contest as a top rival to former President Donald Trump. Intensifying a hard-right shift that began during the pandemic, the 44-year-old Republican governor in recent weeks pushed the limits of divisive cultural battles over abortion, LGBTQ rights, sex education, guns, immigration and ...

Magna International reports Q1 profit down from year ago, sales up 11%

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

TORONTO — Magna International Inc. upgraded its outlook for its sales and profit for the year as it reported its first-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago and its sales rose 11 per cent.The auto parts company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit attributable to the company amounted to US$209 million or 73 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended March 31, down from US$364 million or $1.22 per diluted share a year earlier.Sales totalled US$10.67 billion, up from US$9.64 billion in the first three months of 2022.The company says the increase in sales came as global light vehicle production gained three per cent, including an eight per cent gain in North America and seven per cent in Europe.On an adjusted basis, Magna says it earned US$1.11 per diluted share, down from an adjusted profit of US$1.28 per diluted share a year ago.In its outlook for the full year, the company says it now expects total sales between US$40.2 billion and US$41.8 billion up fro...

Liverpool to mark coronation, notes ‘strong views’ of fans

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:11:15 GMT

LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — Liverpool will play the national anthem before the start of its Premier League game on Saturday to mark the coronation of King Charles III and acknowledged Friday that “some supporters have strong views on it.”The team said it would play “God Save the King” after the league had contacted clubs playing home games and “strongly suggested” they note the historic occasion.Liverpool supporters booed the national anthem — which was formerly “God Save the Queen” — when it was played ahead of the FA Cup final a year ago and the Community Shield in July because of what is perceived to be a long-held opposition toward the establishment.Queen Elizabeth II held the throne for seven decades until her death in September at the age of 96.Liverpool fans booed the national anthem in the 1980s and during what some refer to as the “managed decline” of the city during the tenure of the Conservative Party-led government. Deepening those feelings were the actions of the governme...