Matthew Osman stands atop an ice cap in western Greenland looking out over the Nuussuaq Peninsula. In the distance and more than 2,000 meters below, the village of Ilulissat is a tiny speck in the vast expanse of snow and ice. As Osman steps into the snow, he sinks into a crevasse up to his thigh. Carefully easing his way out, he’s reminded of the hazards of working on ice. Like others who have ventured to drill into Greenland’s ice, Osman and his colleagues are braving the dangers to search for clues as to how the climate has changed in the past, and, by extension, how it may change…
(CNN)President Joe Biden is confronting a series of distinct but interlocking global crises and hotspots with US foes lining up to test the mettle of an under-pressure leader and their own sense that the United States is a retreating global power.Biden made the kind of fateful decision on Monday that might be more at home in the tense 1970s, putting up to 8,500 troops on alert to rush to Eastern Europe to counter the Kremlin’s move to force the US away from its Western flank. But his trial of nerves with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is holding Ukraine hostage in a bid to reverse the West’s expansion after the Cold War, is far from his only global headache.On the other side of the globe, a strategic ballet of military might is playing out as the US and China maneuver armadas and warplanes amid tensions over Taiwan, and other disputed territories, in a long-term duel for dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. While the prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is fixating the world right now, a future Chinese strike against the self-governing democratic island is the more likely trigger for a disastrous superpower conflict.
US places up to 8,500 troops on alert for possible deployment to Eastern Europe amid Russia tensionsThen there is the Middle East, from which America has been trying to extricate itself for years. US forces at a base in Abu Dhabi leapt into action early Monday, using Patriot missiles to shoot down several missiles flung at the Gulf emirate by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The emergency was a reminder that despite some hopes of renewed nuclear talks with Iran, the Islamic Republic’s regional power plays are a grave risk to US personnel. And the vicious war in Yemen, prosecuted by Washington ally Saudi Arabia with terrible civilian consequences, endangers the US by association.
And if Washington was tempted to forget the frightening prospect of a nuclear North Korea, its leader Kim Jong Un has other ideas. One of a string of recent missile tests by Pyongyang triggered extraordinary ground stops at some US West Coast airports, which underscored the nightmare scenario for any US President that the extreme hermit state could have the US mainland in its sights.
Putting American power to the test
Each of these challenges concern foreign states and nationalistic leaders making hard-eyed decisions to advance strategic goals, seeking to increase their power, expand or cement anti-democratic political systems and dominate their spheres of influence outside their own sovereign territory. They also know that with the US under pressure elsewhere, they may have an opening.
Putin, for example, is well aware that Biden wants to pivot to the China threat — so it makes sense to probe to see whether the US is distracted. Beijing, for one, would be happy for the US to get bogged down in Europe. The US probably needs China to help cool North Korea’s provocations. And Russia is a key player in the Iran nuclear talks. It didn’t go unnoticed in Washington that Iran, Russia and China held a third set of naval drills in the Indian Ocean last week.close dialog
Want to understand American politics?We’ve got you.Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Since the US is, still, the world’s dominant power, with allies across the globe, and the leader of the democratic bloc of nations, each thrust by one of its adversaries draws it deeper into a confrontation and preventive diplomacy.The building challenges to US authority come at a moment when there is a widespread perception abroad that Washington is not the power it was for the second half of the 20th century. Despite Biden’s assurances that “America is Back,” the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last year raised questions about US competence and commitment. US adversaries know Americans are exhausted by 20 years of war abroad, a factor that may lead some to calculate that Washington could waver on its strategic obligations for political reasons.
Biden caught on hot mic calling Fox reporter ‘a stupid son of a bitch’And foreign leaders understand domestic US politics too. With a significant percentage of the country convinced Biden is illegitimate thanks to former President Donald Trump’s election lies, and Republicans lambasting him as weak under Putin’s challenge, there’s rarely been a better time for foreign nations to test a modern President’s character and stamina. The possibility that Trump, who was a four-year force for global instability, could return to office, meanwhile, has some allies doubting that the US can keep any commitments it does make.Some foreign leaders might look at events in Washington on Monday and wonder whether the stress is beginning to weigh on the President. After a White House event, Biden was asked about inflation by a Fox reporter and in a stunningly unguarded moment on an open mic, he responded: “What a stupid son of a bitch.” The President later called the reporter to apologize.
Putin’s infuriating maneuvering
Each of the geopolitical factors listed above are on display in Putin’s challenge to the West over Ukraine as he seeks to restore some of the strategic sway once held by the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe around the symbolic 30th anniversary of his beloved empire’s collapse.After massing more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, the Russian leader made a series of demands for US concessions, including an assurance that the Kyiv government will never join NATO and for the alliance to pull back troops and armaments from ex-Warsaw Pact states that joined the West since they feared the kind of Russian resurgence that Putin is trying to engineer.Biden has responded by seeking a gradual escalation of pressure designed to convince Putin that the cost of invading Ukraine would be too high, promising sanctions that could cripple the Russian economy and cause knock-on political threats to his rule.Now, the President is mulling a reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank with possible troop deployments. The alliance on Monday announced some smaller deployments to the Baltic and Eastern European member states. For the first time since the Cold War, a US carrier strike group will be placed under NATO command in the Mediterranean for a high-level maritime exercise this week.This is all meant to project resolve, deterrence and to show that Putin’s attempt to get the US out of Europe will fail. It is incumbent on Biden to show Washington has the back of its allies. If he doesn’t, NATO will count for nothing. But it’s a high-risk plan since US deployments could prompt the Russian leader to pull the trigger he has to Ukraine’s head and to argue he must invade to protect Russian security.Putin is an infuriating, unpredictable adversary, and has forced the US to react to his provocations for weeks. It’s impossible to read his intentions. US diplomacy so far, including a Biden-Putin meeting in Geneva last year and more recent online encounters between the presidents, have yielded no breakthroughs. It has, however, handed Putin the prestige of Cold War-style summits that led Republicans to accuse Biden of that dreaded word — appeasement.In the latest demonstration of Putin’s penchant for mind games, he and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel spoke by phone on Monday and agreed to deeper cooperation. Some Russian military officials have suggested deploying military assets to Cuba and Venezuela during the crisis over Ukraine. The allusions to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 — the US-Soviet standoff in which the world came close to nuclear war — are hard to miss.
More showdowns lie in wait for Biden
Some analysts believe that Putin has put himself in a box and will be unable to exit the showdown without at least a limited penetration into Ukraine that would save face. This is why Biden whipped up so much controversy last week when he suggested that a “minor incursion” by Russia would not draw the full sanctions broadside. But the US President was also telling the truth, apparently referring to divisions among allies in Europe about how to handle Putin.The Russian leader’s timing is no accident as he tries to probe divisions between European powers internally and with the United States over the crisis. This is a transitional period for the three major European powers. Germany has a new governing coalition that is split on foreign policy, knows it is reliant on Russian gas in the winter and remains wary of offensive military operations owing to its historic scar of militarism. French President Emmanuel Macron faces reelection in April, and is using the crisis to push for a more aggressive European Union role that might weaken US authority. And British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is mired in boozy scandals and struggling to cling onto power. The government in London is also locked in a bitter estrangement with its near allies over its exit from the EU.Biden made a public point of addressing divides in Europe on Monday, gathering leaders in a video call and orchestrating a series of statements on both sides of the Atlantic promising unity on the crisis and the costs that Russia could face.”I had a very, very, very good meeting — total unanimity with all the European leaders,” Biden told reporters afterward.But there’s reason to doubt his confidence. The European Union, for example, saw no need to follow the US in authorizing the departure of nonessential staff and family members from Kyiv. Officials on the other side of the Atlantic have not used the same kind of alarmist language as the Biden administration about the imminent threat of a Russian invasion.The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Monday that though unity and pressure on Russia was vital, the situation was not irretrievable.”Certainly, I have reason to be concerned but I don’t want to go in a nervous attack,” Borrell told Hala Gorani on CNN International.
Managing different threat perceptions with Europe is just one of the challenges that Biden faces in navigating the Ukraine showdown, one of the most testing moments in the recent history of NATO.And he knows that even if he can engineer a peaceful resolution, China, North Korea and Iran are up next, posing more intractable challenges for a presidency never free from crises.
PUBLISHED MON, JAN 24 202210:29 AM ESTUPDATED MON, JAN 24 20227:14 PM ESTDan Mangan@_DANMANGANSHAREShare Article via FacebookShare Article via TwitterShare Article via LinkedInShare Article via EmailKEY POINTS
Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin tested positive for Covid, and is unvaccinated, a federal judge told a courtroom.
The positive coronavirus test by the one-time Alaska governor led to the postponement of the scheduled start of a trial for Palin’s civil defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.
Palin in March disclosed that she had been diagnosed then with the coronavirus, and recently said that she will get a Covid-19 vaccine “over my dead body.”
She sued the Times and its former editorial page editor for allegedly damaging her reputation with a 2017 editorial linking her PAC’s ad to the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords.
A hunter from North Carolina was hospitalized Monday after authorities said he was accidentally shot while hunting near Admire.
According to a written release from Lyon County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Travis Mishler, Nathan Lindeman of Wake Forest, North Carolina, was hunting with a group in north Lyon County when deputies were dispatched to the 1800 block of U.S. Highway 56 at 2:45 p.m. for reports of a shooting.
Lindeman, 54, reportedly drove himself to the Admire toll plaza after calling 911 for help. Mishler said Lindeman had several minor wounds from being struck with 12-gauge birdshot while he was hunting.
Undersheriff John Koelsch confirmed to The Gazette that the unidentified man shot himself accidentally.
Lindeman was transported to Newman Regional Health by Emporia EMS with non-life-threatening.
According to information released by the International Hunter…
It took biologists decades to repopulate the state with enough river otters to support this winter’s inaugural trapping season.
But trappers in 23 counties triggered the close of the season in a lot less time.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission gave them four months, November through February, to trap a total of 75 otters, with a limit of one apiece. The 75th animal would start a three-day countdown to end the season.
That happened Jan. 7, and three more were trapped through Jan. 10, for a total of 78.
“I thought the limit would be reached before the end of the harvest,” said Sam Wilson, the commission’s furbearer program manager. “But with initial seasons, you never know.”
Wilson has studied the animals for years. Though once common to Nebraska, they were gone by the early 20th century — victims of unregulated trapping, hunting and habitat destruction.
In the mid-1980s, the state launched a five-year repopulation program, releasing 159 otters from around the country and Canada into Nebraska’s river systems.
The imported animals thrived. The commission removed them from the endangered species list in 2020 — after their numbers had increased to about 2,000 and they’d spread across the state — and announced Nebraska’s first regulated river otter trapping season late last year.
Wilson plans to dive into the first-year trapping data and write a report, but he had initial thoughts.
Based on surveys and sightings from the public, officials knew the areas that were home to the most otters. And that’s where trappers snared the most animals — along the Platte River, in Hall and Buffalo counties; along the Elkhorn River in Holt and Antelope counties; the Niobrara River in Cherry County; and in Southeast Nebraska, near the Nemaha and Missouri rivers.
“The harvest, to me, matches or aligns with what we already understood the distribution to be.”
Wilson will likely propose a second season, he said, which commissioners would have to approve.
Bird flu cases have been on the rise recently, with reports of outbreaks in the UK, China, mainland Europe and Israel. Outbreaks typically happen in commercial flocks, such as in large-scale poultry farming operations – which is why bird flu is often only a concern to people working in these professions. But with a growing number of people now keeping chickens and other birds in their backyards, the close contact they have with their birds could potentially be putting them at risk of contracting and spreading bird flu too.
This was never more evident than when it was reported that a 79-year-old English man had recently tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu. H5N1 is a strain of bird flu which is mild in wild birds, but much more deadly in domestic birds. If it infects humans, it has a mortality rate of 53%. The man lived with around 20 ducks in his Devon home, with another 100 elsewhere on his property. While the man is still alive, the ducks were culled to prevent further spread.
Current bird flu biosecurity measures focus primarily on large-scale poultry farming. But with outbreaks becoming more common and more severe, the risks are increasing – and may actually be found much closer to home.
Domestic chicken-keeping
Backyard chicken-keeping has been on the rise in Britain for at least a decade. Numbers peaked during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 as people flocked to get backyard hens both as a hobby, and to have ready access to food.
In the UK, domestic flocks do not need to be registered with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on The Great Britain Poultry Register unless there are more than 50 birds. Voluntary registration is however encouraged for backyard keepers specifically so that they can be notified of disease outbreaks. The poultry register was introduced in 2006 and is used specifically to manage disease outbreaks in all commercial birds, including chickens, ducks, turkey, geese and quail.
Bird flu spreads primarily to domestic flocks from water birds such as ducks and geese, who spend spring and summers mixing in Siberia. When they migrate to Britain in the autumn, they bring influenzas with them. These viruses spread through faeces and saliva, which is why separating domestic flocks from wild birds is essential during outbreaks.
This is why during outbreaks – as in November 2021 – Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) might impose an Avian Influenza Protection Zone (AIPZ). This means all captive birds are legally required to be kept indoors until the outbreak is over, usually in the spring. While Defra points out that backyard hens are subject to these restrictions, the AIPZ is written with commercial flocks in mind.
Since most backyard flocks are made up of just a handful of birds, keepers often believe that their risk of bird flu is low. When the AIPZ restrictions came into force in November, I was interviewing domestic chicken keepers. Most understood that the measures were put in place to ensure birds were kept safe and to stop the spread of the virus, but many also felt the AIPZ didn’t apply to them because they only have a handful of birds. Some even felt that their risk of contracting bird flu was low because of their small flock numbers.
But home flocks are still vulnerable to infection – especially from interactions with wild bird populations. And if owners don’t take precautions, they can catch it themselves.
Reducing risk
Infection of bird flu in humans is rare. Since 2003, there have been just 863 cases of human infection reported from 18 countries. But the growth of domestic flocks might be a potential new reservoir for disease. Another issue is that infections might go unreported – not just because birds die quickly, but due to owners fearing that beloved pets may be culled. This is why it will be important in the future for Defra and APHA to provide specific policy for backyard chicken keeping.
But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t still many things that backyard chicken keepers can do to protect themselves and their birds, including:
Keeping birds undercover and fenced away from wild birds;
Disinfecting their boots before and after interacting with birds and cleaning pens frequently;
Quarantining any new birds for 30 days before adding them to a flock;
Monitoring flocks for signs of illness;
Reporting suspected cases of bird flu to Defra and APHA.
Bird flu season usually lasts until the spring, when migratory birds leave Britain’s shores. Given the risks that backyard chicken keepers might also experience, it’s important to follow any rules set in place to curb the spread of this disease.
The Conversation is a nonprofit organization working for the public good through fact- and research-based journalism. Nearly half of our budget comes from the support of universities, and higher education budgets are under unprecedented strain. Your gift can help us keep doing our important work and reach more people. Thank you.
The fast-moving pathogen, which has already invaded Europe, was found in East Coast ducks. The last outbreak that tore through the US killed 50 million birds.
IN THE FIRSTdays of the new year, on the marshy coastal edge of South Carolina’s Lowcountry, a hunter shot an American widgeon, a rusty-fronted duck with a pale beak and a brilliant green stripe. This was not a big deal; the state’s duck hunting season runs from Thanksgiving through the end of January. Neither was what happened next: Before taking it home, the hunter let a wildlife biologist affiliated with a government program swab the carcass for lab analysis.
But what happened after that was a big deal indeed. After the sample went through its routine check at Clemson University, it made an unusual second stop at a federal lab halfway across the country, in Iowa. The news of…
A sign at the edge of an exclusion zone warns of the closure of a footpath after an outbreak of bird flu in the village of Upham in southern England, February 3, 2015.(photo credit: REUTERS/PETER NICHOLLS)Advertisementhttps://trinitymedia.ai/player/trinity-player.php?pageURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2Fhealth-and-wellness%2Farticle-694366&unitId=2900003088&userId=43dabe08-2b1a-4c7c-bafe-85ac9a956566&isLegacyBrowser=false&version=20220124_f72f860bfd9c3551b2d6b109e6a4485f247ff3b3&useCFCDN=0&themeId=140
Two additional wild birds have been found to be infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus in South and North Carolina, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced on Tuesday.
The two birds were found to be infected just days after a wild American wigeon was found to be infected with the virus in Colleton County, South Carolina, thefirst case of Eurasian H5 avian influenzain the US since 2016. Other variants of the bird flu…
The late rocker Meat Loaf was outspokenly anti-vaccine mandate and anti-mask before his death — once telling a reporter, “If I die, I die, but I’m not going to be controlled,” according to reports Friday.
The 74-year-old “Bat Out of Hell” singer — who was reportedly critically ill with COVID-19 before he passed away Thursday — was opposed to pandemic restrictions, slamming lockdowns and mask mandates during an interview last summer.
The Grammy Award-winning musician, whose real name was Marvin Lee Aday, also railed against vaccine mandates in Australia, sources told TMZ.
Meat Loaf, who struggled with asthma and other health conditions, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in August he considered lockdowns “political” and masks “useless” before offering reporter Scott Mervins an embrace.
“I’m happy to give you a hug. I hug people in the middle of COVID,” Meat Loaf said, adding that he refused to live life in fear.
Meat Loaf was reportedly anti-vaccine mandate and anti-mask before his death.The singer said he did not want to be “controlled” before his COVID-related death.
“I’m sorry, I understood stopping life for a little while, but they cannot continue to stop life because of politics. And right now they’re stopping because of politics,” he said.
“And on CNN last night, it finally came out that the masks we’re all wearing are useless. But I’ve known that for six months. They don’t do anything. They don’t stop you from getting COVID. They’re just a nuisance and make your nose itch and make it so you can’t breathe.”
He added, “If I die, I die, but I’m not going to be controlled.”
The rocker’s official cause of death wasn’t immediately known Friday. He had not said publicly whether he had been vaccinated for COVID-19.
The “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” singer also suffered from a back injury in November, which played a role in his declining health.
Meat Loaf won a Grammy for the 1993 hit “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That),” which soared to number one on the charts in more than two dozen countries.
Len LisenbeeOutdoors ColumnistView Comments0:501:32https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.496.0_en.html#goog_275514962
I just cannot get over just how dumb some people are. It’s almost as if they took college courses on how to be really dumb.
But based on the number of notes I receive asking for more of them or saying how much they enjoyed a Dumb Outdoor Crooks column that I wrote, many of you folks really enjoy them. And since I am a firm believer in job security, here is another installment of really dumb outdoor crooks.
The king of all dummies
If your significant other calls police for a domestic dispute, you might think twice about maintaining evidence of an outdoor crime, right. But that is exactly what happened recently in Decatur, Michigan.
And shortly after the police arrived and secured the situation, they called the Michigan Department of Environmental Conservation officers and asked them to respond to that location…
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