Elephants invade as habitat loss soars

Elephants invade as habitat loss soars

Entertainment SS   4:50 PM

These elephants have been invading farms. These are personal farms. So the people are really suffering,”  Leonard Akam told Mongabay over the phone. Akam is the head of Boje, one of the largest communities near the reserve. “The destruction an elephant can cause in a day is more than the job of three people. It is just like a bulldozer paving a path.”

This increase in human-wildlife conflict comes as habitat in the Afi River reserve and other nearby protected areas is disappearing

The region’s most iconic resident is arguably the Cross River gorilla, Africa’s most endangered ape. However, it is not clear whether the gorillas permanently reside in Afi River Forest Reserve or merely stray in at intervals. Regardless, the reserve is an important corridor that connects fragments of habitat that sustain the estimated 300-or-so surviving gorillas that live along the border between Nigeria and Cameroon.

Gorillas are known to inhabit three key protected areas in Cross River: Mbe Mountains Community Forest, Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary and Cross River National Park. Afi River Forest Reserve joins these areas together, allowing what would be disjunct populations to interbreed.

Research suggests that, because there are so few gorillas left, failure to maintain connectivity between these fragmented populations would severely impede the exchange of genetic material, without which the subspecies would decline.

Hours-long standoff in Pittsburgh's

Hours-long standoff in Pittsburgh's

Entertainment SS   4:39 PM

The situation escalated as the suspect barricaded themselves inside a residence, leading to a prolonged standoff. Hundreds of rounds were reportedly discharged during the confrontation.

Despite the efforts of emergency crews and law enforcement, the confrontation concluded with the death of the gunman at around 5:08pm, as confirmed by Pittsburgh Public Safety officials. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provided assistance to local authorities throughout the incident.

Authorities have not yet released the identity of the deceased suspect. The incident serves as a stark reminder of the challenges law enforcement officers face while carrying out their duties, especially in situations that can unexpectedly escalate.

A spokesperson for the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office mentioned that the deputies were responding to a situation involving an eviction from a property obtained through a sheriff's sale. 

Twist could solve mystery of Lord Lucan’s

Twist could solve mystery of Lord Lucan’s

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 He was last seen in the dead of night after being accused of murdering his family’s nanny. Officially, he was declared legally dead in 2016, but whispers of him being spotted hiding in places as far-flung as Africa and Australia have rumbled on for decades.

And now, a facial recognition expert has claimed that an 87-year-old Buddhist monk near Brisbane is a “definite match” for Lord Lucan, who himself would be 87.The suave Earl lived in upmarket Belgravia, in central London, with his wife Veronica and three children, however their marriage collapsed in 1972.Lord Lucan was accused of bludgeoning the family’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, to death with a lead pipe in November 1974.

Lady Lucan was also attacked that night and named her estranged husband as her assailant.His body was never found, leading some to claim the aristocrat “fell on his sword” by drowning himself at sea.Lady Lucan, who herself committed suicide in 2017, said she believed her husband took his own life “like the nobleman he was”.

But possible sightings in Portugal, Africa and Australia all suggest the peer may have faked his own death.One line of inquiry states that Lord Lucan attended a party in the Algarve, in Portugal, in the weeks after Rivett was murdered.

A woman who worked for one of Lord Lucan’s close friends, the casino owner John Aspinall, told the BBC in 2012 how she helped the aristocrat flee to west Africa.

Scientists: Fishing boats compete with whales.

Scientists: Fishing boats compete with whales.

Article SS   2:14 PM

Two huge fishing vessels make their way through the icy waters of the Southern Ocean, passing among a pod of dozens of whales while slowly hauling on board bulging nets hundreds of meters long. The scene recalls a bygone era before commercial whaling was banned. Now, however, the vessels are not fishing whales but whale food: swarms of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), a small shrimp-like crustacean at the base of the Southern Ocean food chain.

“In the 20th century they used to follow large swarms of krill to help locate whales,” Matthew Savoca, a research scientist at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, told Mongabay. “And now potentially the krill fishery is doing the opposite, using whales to find krill.

In February, Savoca co-authored a  in the journal Ecology documenting a similar case that his co-authors had filmed a year earlier near Coronation Island, the largest of the South Orkneys. On that occasion, scientists encountered four trawlers fishing in the presence of what they described as a “remarkably large aggregation of foraging fin whales” numbering about 1,000 animals.

“This has been happening for years,” Savoca said. “It’s just what we were able to record. The point of the videos is alerting the scientific world that this is happening and will continue to happen, unless we change our policy about how we fish.

THE MAN FROM LARKANA

THE MAN FROM LARKANA

Article SS   1:42 PM

 

When Samo enrolled at school, the tempest followed him there. While his fellow students would be crying for their mothers, Samo would be yanking the ponytails of little girls to get attention. He would also pick fights. Samo was not easy to tutor, his teachers later said.Samo belonged to District Larkana in Sindh. To the surprise of everyone not from the province, he graduated college with top honours, and was admitted to an institute in Islamabad. As the reality of this new academic challenge dawned, however, the chaos finally caught up to him. The artist Samo was born out of academic failures at the university, he later confessed.
Throughout school and college, Samo never exhibited much interest in mathematics, science, or sporting activities. Despite desperate appeals from his parents that he needed to take formal education seriously, Samo never really understood what all the fuss was about. He was more interested in drawing, dancing, singing and comedy.
When he got admission into the university in Islamabad, it was a dream come true for his parents. This is where Samo would turn the corner, they hoped. Samo, however, had other plans. He was excited by the prospect of living away from his parents' watchful eye, but equally aware of the fact that the freedom would come at a personal cost

Donald Trump: The wrecking ball

Donald Trump: The wrecking ball

Article SS   4:48 PM

 Saturday, four years after Trump's shock victory over Hillary Clinton, Americans voted no-confidence in the 74-year-old's brazen claim, turfing him out of the presidency after just one term.As ever, Trump had gone into the fight against Joe Biden supremely sure of his powers.

Polls consistently found that a narrow majority of Americans opposed him, but those who did support Trump expressed rarely seen levels of adoration. The chance of another epic upset could not be ruled out.Yet Trump had taken office vowing to end "American carnage.

On the eve of the election, more than 230,000 had died from the coronavirus, while lockdowns have left millions in economic dire straits. Racial wounds, bared during a summer of protests, festered while Republicans and Democrats in Washington bickered and backstabbed

He was only the third US president to have been impeached and he faced a morass of courtroom probes, ranging from tax issues to accusations of rape and other sexual assault.