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Scientists Sound Alarm After 6 Rare Whale Deaths in One Month

Scientists, government officials and conservationists are calling for a swift response to protect North Atlantic right whales after a half-dozen died in the past month.

All six of the dead endangered species have been found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Canada. At least three appear to have died after being hit by ships.

There are only a little more than 400 of the endangered species left. 
 
The deaths have led scientists to sound the alarm about a potentially catastrophic loss to the population.

Some say the whales are traveling in different areas than usual because of food availability. That change has apparently brought whales outside of protected zones and left them vulnerable.
 

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 Trump Claims Census Question on Citizenship Still Alive 

U.S. President Donald Trump contended Wednesday that the government will still try to ask a question about citizenship in the once-a-decade census in 2020, a day after top officials announced they had given up on including the citizenship question following a Supreme Court ruling on the matter last week.

“The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE!” Trump claimed on Twitter. “We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”

The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2019

But his comment sowed confusion about the inclusion of the question, coming after both the Department of Justice and the Commerce Department said they had abandoned the effort for the census that starts April 1. The government has said it already has started printing the questionnaires this week in order to have them all ready for use in nine months.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said, “I respect the Supreme Court but strongly disagree with its ruling regarding my decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 Census,” for the first time since 1950. “The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question. My focus, and that of the Bureau and the entire Department, is to conduct a complete and accurate census.”

In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices in ruling that the reasoning the Trump administration offered for including the citizenship question — that the information was needed to protect minority voting rights — was “contrived” and did not meet the standards for a clear explanation of why it should be asked.

Government officials offered no explanation of why they were dropping their effort to include the question, but were confronting weeks and maybe months of new challenges to the question. The census is important because it determines how many seats in the House of Representatives each state is allotted and how $800 billion in federal aid is disbursed.

Trump’s Democratic opponents have claimed that including the question is a Republican ploy to scare immigrants in to not participating in the census out of fear that immigration officials might target them for deportation when they determine that they are in the country illegally. An undercount in Democrat-leaning areas with large immigrant and Latino populations could reduce congressional representation for such states and cut federal aid.

After the Supreme Court heard arguments on the citizenship question but before it ruled, documents emerged from the files of a deceased Republican election districting expert showing that the citizenship question was aimed at helping Republicans gain an electoral edge over Democrats.  

Although the citizenship question has not been asked in 70 years, Trump tweeted that it was”A very sad time for America when the Supreme Court of the United States won’t allow a question of ‘Is this person a Citizen of the United States?’ to be asked on the #2020 Census!” 

When the high court issued its ruling, Trump called it “totally ridiculous.”

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Study Finds Even Spiders Get Grumpy When They’re Alone Too Long

Baby spiders like to mingle, but adult spiders tend to eat each other.

New research published in PLOS Biology found that adult spiders seem to forget how to behave with each other after being alone too long, which causes them to become aggressive. These findings could help researchers understand why some spider species like to hang out together their whole lives but most would eat another spider if given the chance.

Regardless of how you feel about spiders, they’re an important part of many ecosystems. Despite that, they are often misunderstood, said Violette Chiara, a graduate student at the University of Toulouse, France, who led the study.

“Spiders are not just aggressive, cannibalistic monsters,” Chiara said. “There are spiders that are social at the beginning of their lives, and there are also some species that remain social during their whole lives.”

A friendly start in life

Baby spiders, known as spiderlings, begin their lives cozied up to their siblings — sometimes as many as several hundred. But when they grow up, they tend to live alone. Of the more than 40,000 known spider species, all but 30 lead solitary lives in adulthood.

It’s not clear why so few spider species remain social their whole lives. Many researchers believe that spiders become more aggressive as they grow, which drives them to avoid each other. Chiara decided to test which comes first: aggressive behavior or social isolation.

Chiara and team members Felipe Ramon Portugal and Raphael Jeanson studied labyrinth spiders, which are common in France. They observed that baby labyrinth spiders started to move away from each other five days after emerging from their eggs, which the researchers initially thought pointed to a natural increase in aggression.

However, they found that even spiderlings raised alone started to move around more after five days. In other words, the spiders weren’t fleeing from their siblings because they were worried they’d get eaten, they were just stretching their (many) legs and becoming more mobile as they grew.

If an increase in aggressive behavior doesn’t happen naturally as the spiders age, something must cause it. To test this, the researchers raised some spiders alone and others in groups. They then brought together pairs of spiders that weren’t familiar with each other to see if they reacted peacefully or violently.

Spiders that were raised in groups almost never tried to eat the unfamiliar spider, but those raised alone went on the attack 40% of the time. The more time they had spent alone, the more likely they were to try to eat the unfamiliar spider. The researchers concluded that isolation causes spiders to become aggressive and not the other way around.

Questioning assumptions

Jonathan Pruitt, an evolutionary ecologist who was not involved in the research, said that the study was a good example of “going back and scrutinizing what a lot of people have assumed but don’t even realize that they’ve assumed, and questioning it and finding a very different story.”

The researchers hope to learn what happens to the loners that makes them more likely to attack other spiders they encounter.

“We know that they’re more aggressive, but from a cognitive point of view, what is the change?” said co-author Raphael Jeanson.

One possibility is that when spiders spend too much time away from other spiders, they forget how to read social cues — in this case, chemicals in their “skin” that help them recognize each other. The researchers hope to explore this possibility by studying a species that is closely related to labyrinth spiders, but lives in groups all their lives.

Leticia Aviles, a specialist in social spiders who was not involved in the study, agreed that the lack of social interactions could lead spiders to become more aggressive.

“When they remain together, they are familiar with each other, they have these chemical cues that they can read from each other, so they remain tolerant. But when they have been isolated, the familiarity is lost, and that’s what leads to this intolerant and aggressive behavior,” Aviles said. “I think that has implications for all kinds of systems, not just spiders.”

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White House Defends Migrant Detention Policy as Criticism Mounts

President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday pushed back against mounting criticism of its migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border, even as the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog issued a report detailing serious overcrowding at some facilities in Texas.

Conditions at these detention centers have become a flashpoint since May when an internal DHS watchdog warned of dangerous overcrowding at a facility in El Paso, Texas.

In a follow-up report issued on Tuesday after visits to five U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency facilities and two ports of entry, the watchdog said “serious overcrowding” and “prolonged detention” of children, families and single adults had been observed.

Members of a visiting congressional group on Monday said the migrants, many coming from Central America, were being kept in deplorable conditions and, according to U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, told to drink out of toilets.

“I don’t know what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is talking about,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in an interview with Fox Business Network, calling members of CPB “some of the bravest men and women on the planet.”

“They put their lives in danger every single day. They provided three meals a day to people who are here illegally and unlawfully, two snacks in between,” Gidley said.

The Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform announced that the panel has invited the acting heads of the Department of Homeland Security and CPB to testify on July 12 on the administration’s border policies including the conditions at detention centers.

“The Trump administration’s actions at the southern border are grotesque and dehumanizing,” Elijah Cummings said in a statement. “There seems to be open contempt for the rule of law and for basic human decency.”

Trump has made a crackdown on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda and 2020 re-election bid. But his efforts to build a wall on the southern border have been blocked in Congress, and he was forced last year to backtrack after his “zero tolerance” border policy of separating migrant children from their parents provoked widespread outrage.

The detention facilities have become an issue among Democratic candidates vying to face Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker would “virtually eliminate immigration detention” if he wins the White House, his campaign said Tuesday, including ending the use of for-profit detention facilities and minimizing the time unaccompanied children were in custody.

Migrant rights protests

Dr. Lisa Ayoub-Rodriguez, a Texas pediatrician who has been providing health care to migrant families, said she recently saw a mother suffering from dehydration with a baby whose fingers and toes were still blue after time in a detention center.

“I asked her if in CBP custody she had been given water. She said no. I asked her if she asked. … She said no. She didn’t want to be a bother or a burden, she said,” Ayoub-Rodriguez told a news briefing in El Paso alongside other doctors who help migrants.

“I see this often in the population. This is a population that’s afraid to ask for help,” Ayoub-Rodriguez said.

Several hundred people gathered Tuesday in New York City to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants, part of a planned nationwide day of protests by rights groups targeting members of the U.S. Congress.

The demonstrations were fueled by fears that Trump’s administration is preparing to move forward with a round-up of illegal immigrants in U.S. cities. Last month, Trump delayed the raids by two weeks.

Criticism of the CPB intensified after a report Monday by the nonprofit news site ProPublica detailing offensive content posted on a private Facebook group for current and former CBP officers that included jokes about the deaths of migrants and sexually explicit references to Ocasio-Cortez.

Senator Bernie Sanders, a top Democratic presidential candidate, on Twitter called the report was “horrific” and said the dehumanization of immigrants must end.

Ocasio-Cortez, a first-term New York Democrat who was part of a Congressional Hispanic Caucus visit to the border Monday, suggested in a Twitter post Tuesday that the CBP was a “rogue agency.”

CBP condemned the Facebook group and acknowledged that the group may include a number of the agency’s employees.

Reuters did not independently confirm the report.

Migration levels

The migration flows from Central America have dropped sharply since hitting their highest level in more than a decade in May, as Mexico deployed thousands of militarized police as part of a June 7 deal with the United States to avoid U.S. tariffs on Mexican goods and other enforcement measures. 

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday touted his country’s success in curbing the migrant crush, three days after Trump praised Mexican efforts.

“I am grateful that even President Trump is making it known that Mexico is fulfilling its commitment and that there are no threats of tariffs,” Lopez Obrador told reporters in Mexico City.
 

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Ethiopian Mediator Urges Sudan Military, Opposition to Hold Direct Talks

Ethiopia’s mediator in the Sudan crisis urged the military rulers and the opposition coalition to hold direct talks on Wednesday to strike a deal on handing over power to civilians.

The Transitional Military Council, which has ruled Sudan since President Omar al-Bashir was ousted in April, and the Forces of Freedom and Change opposition coalition have agreed on proposals presented by the Ethiopian and African Union mediators to solve the crisis, said Mahmud Dirir, the Ethiopian mediator.

But they still disagree over the structure of a sovereign council meant to lead the country during the transitional period, Dirir told reporters in Khartoum on Tuesday, urging the two sides to engage in face-to-face talks to clinch a deal.

Meeting place a secret

A time and a place for the meeting are set but will not be disclosed for security reasons, and both sides have already received invitations, he added.

“The two sides are just around the corner to reach an agreement but one issue remains disagreeable,” Mohamed El Hacen Lebatt, the African Union mediator to Sudan, told the press conference. “We call the two parties to reach a compromise on this remaining issue.”

Sudan’s military overthrew Bashir on April 11 after months of demonstrations against his three decades in office.

Opposition groups kept up protests as they pressed the military to relinquish power, but talks collapsed after members of the security services raided a sit-in protest camp outside the defense ministry on June 3.

Raid left 100 dead

A doctors’ group linked to the opposition said that more than 100 people were killed in the raid and ensuing crackdown.

The opposition alliance organized a major show of force on Sunday when tens of thousands of people took to the streets.

It said it was calling for another mass march on July 13 and a day of civil disobedience on July 14. Nine people were killed during Sunday’s protests and some 200 were injured, it said.

The military council has accused the opposition groups of being responsible for the violence and said at least three members of the security forces were injured by live fire.

Both the Ethiopian and African Union mediators urged both sides on Tuesday to avoid escalation to help reaching an agreement.

UAE calls for dialogue

Earlier on Tuesday, United Arab Emirates said it is important to continue dialogue in Sudan and avoid an escalation.

“Dialogue should continue without antagonism and towards an agreement on transition … It is necessary to avoid conflict and escalation,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on Twitter.

Sudan is strategically positioned between the Middle East and Africa and its stability is seen as crucial in a volatile region. Various powers including wealthy Gulf states are vying for influence in the nation of 40 million.

Egypt, which deems security and stability in its southern neighbor as important for its own stability, said on Tuesday its ambassador to Khartoum met a leader in the opposition coalition on Monday. Cairo is seen as a supporter of the army rulers.

“The ambassador stressed during the meeting that Egypt stands at the same distance from all the Sudanese parties,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

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Malawi Musician Fight Myths About Albinism

In Malawi, a young albino man is using music to fight discrimination and misconceptions about the genetic condition in a country where more than 100 people with albinism have been attacked since 2014. Lazarus Chigwandali has long been performing on the streets of Lilongwe.  But after catching the eye of a Swedish producer, he began work on an album that is due out in August. He’s also about to embark on a nationwide tour to promote a documentary, produced by American pop star Madonna, about the plight of albinos in Malawi. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe.

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Malawi Musician Fights Myths About Albinism

In Malawi, a young albino man is using music to fight discrimination and misconceptions about the genetic condition in a country where more than 100 people with albinism have been attacked since 2014. 

As teens, Lazarus Chigwandali and his late brother, who also had albinism, played on the streets of Lilongwe, mostly to raise money to buy protective skin lotion.

He says in those days it was difficult to find skin lotion that would protect them from the sun, so they had sores all over their bodies. As a result many people discriminated against them because of the way their bodies looked.

Attacks continue

Discrimination and attacks against albinos like Chigwandali continue. Some Africans believe their body parts, used in so-called magic potions, will bring good luck.

At 39, Chigwandali began composing songs about the myths and misperceptions about people with albinism.

Then he heard music producers from abroad wanted to meet him at his home village to record his music, something that worried his wife, Gertrude Levison.

She says she was afraid that maybe they wanted to kidnap them all. But she realized that it was a peaceful move when she heard her husband talking with a friend of his on the phone.

The recording deal enabled Chigwandali to produce a 30-track music album, Stomp on the Devil, which denounces attacks on albinos. It is due out in August

Esau Mwamwaya, is Chigwandali’s manager.

“With the challenge which people with albinism face in Malawi we felt like, with his powerful voice, he can be an instrument to send the message across the world that you know, people born with albinism, are just like anybody else,” Mwamwaya said.

Much work to be done

While some of his songs are playing on local radio stations, Chigwandali says there is still a long way to go before the attacks end.

He says there are still others who ignore the messages in his songs. This means a lot of work. But, he says, “We will soon start a nationwide tour to screen my documentary which shows attacks on people with albinism in Malawi.”

The documentary, produced by American pop star Madonna, is about the plight of albinos in Malawi.

His wife worries that Chigwandali’s growing fame could expose him and their two albino sons to potential attackers.

To ease their concerns, Chigwandali’s managers have launched a fundraising initiative to build a house for the family that will provide greater security.
 

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Analysts: Iran Unlikely to Return to Nuclear Negotiations

Iran announced Monday that it has exceeded its low-enriched uranium stockpile limit, violating the amount it agreed to hold in the 2015 international deal. The move is aimed at forcing the signatories of the nuclear deal to give Iran relief from U.S. sanctions. VOA’s Kurdish Service discussed the consequences of Iran’s action with two experts on Iranian issues. Zlatica Hoke has a summary of what they said.

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US targets Al-Qaida Militants in Northern Syria

The U.S. military says it has struck an al-Qaida leadership and training facility in northern Syria where attacks threatening Americans and others were being planned.

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the strike occurred on Sunday near the northern province of Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor, said Monday that the strike killed eight members of the al-Qaida-linked Horas al-Din, which is Arabic for “Guardians of Religion.”

The Observatory says the dead included six commanders: two Algerians, two Tunisians, an Egyptian and a Syrian.

Al-Qaida-linked militants control wide parts of northern Syria, mostly in Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the war-torn country.

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A Village Benefits as India Links Welfare to Digital Economy

India spends billions of dollars on social welfare support for the poor but corruption, fraud and inefficiencies often prevent the benefits from reaching them. But now, the government is starting to transform the way it gets welfare to the poor by linking welfare programs to the world’s biggest biometric identity project under which more than one billion people have been given biometric cards. Anjana Pasricha reports on how residents of a rural hamlet in the northern Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh are benefiting after it switched from cash to digital payments.

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Bomb, Gun Attack in Afghan Capital Leaves Dozens Dead, Wounded

A powerful car bomb-and-gun attack in the Afghan capital of Kabul is reported to have killed and wounded dozens of people. Officials said the ensuing clashes between the assailants and Afghan security forces were raging six hours into the siege.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for plotting the suicide raid against what it said was the logistics and engineering center of the Afghan Defense Ministry.

Residents said Monday’s blast occurred in a central part of the city during morning rush hour, sending a plume of black smoke over Kabul.

Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said in a statement that several gunmen later took positions in a nearby under construction multi-story building following the blast and started firing at Afghan police forces on duty.

Rahimi added that Afghan special forces reached the site and an operation was underway to neutralize the assailants. He said two attackers had already been killed while the rest were currently holed up in “civilian homes” around the site of the attack. Rahimi noted that security forces have rescued more than 200 people to safety.

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah condemned the Taliban attack, saying it “showcases the group’s inherent criminal nature” and vowed the violence will not deter security forces from pursuing and punishing the “miscreants.”

Ambulances rushed to the scene and ferried one dead and around 100 injured people to hospitals, including children, the Afghan health ministry spokesman said. The education ministry announced in a statement that 52 students were among those injured.

Staff at the nearby office building of the Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) were also among the casualties. Television footage showed the AFF’s acting chief was among those who suffered injuries.

A senior Afghan journalist, Bilal Sarwary, tweeted the massive blast killed at least 40 people and wounded 80 others, quoting Afghan intelligence, police and government officials.

Authorities in Kabul, however, have not immediately offered any details about whether the blast caused fatalities.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that a vehicle-born bomb was detonated before “multiple” suicide attackers entered the Defense Ministry-related compounded and engaged Afghan security forces.

Mujahid said the raid killed “tens of officers and workers of the Defense Ministry, though the insurgent group often releases inflated claims for such attacks.

The violence coincided with intensified Taliban battlefield attacks across Afghanistan that officials said have killed nearly 100 Afghan security forces over the past two days.

Monday’s attack comes as the Taliban and the United States are engaged in a fresh round of talks in Qatar aimed at finding a political settlement to the war in Afghanistan.

Washington says it is trying through the dialogue to lay the ground for inter-Afghan talks for a sustainable peace in Afghanistan.

But a Taliban spokesman on Monday reiterated it will participate in talks with Afghan stakeholders only after a timetable for withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign troops from Afghanistan in the presence of “international guarantors.”

Suhail Shaheen, who speaks for the Taliban’s negotiating team, however, ruled out peace talks with the government in Kabul “as government.” The insurgent group dismisses the Afghan administration as an American “puppet” with no decision-making authority.

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