Beaver named Cauliflower escapes NY zoo and is killed by car. ‘Heartbreaking'

A beaver escaped a zoo and was later found dead after being hit by a car, New York keepers said.
A 2-year-old American beaver named Cauliflower escaped his enclosure at the Utica Zoo in April, which sparked a search that led to a 'heartbreaking' discovery, according to a May 8 Facebook post.
'We are immensely grateful to everyone who helped in the search—those who sent in tips and the volunteers who gave their time and care to search for any signs of him,' keepers said in the post.
A helping hand returned Cauliflower to the zoo after he was fatally hit by a car, zoo officials told WKTV.
Keepers scanned Cauliflower's microchip and confirmed it was him, officials said.
Cauliflower 'was entering a natural phase of life when young beavers begin to venture out on their own,' zoo keepers said.
Zoo officials urge the public to be on 'the lookout' and to drive carefully when around water in case there are beavers or other animals around.
Utica is in central New York, about a 55-mile drive east from Syracuse.

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Los Angeles Times

25 minutes ago

• Los Angeles Times

Man opened fire outside Michigan church before staff fatally shot him, averting mass shooting, police say

WAYNE, Mich. — A man who opened fire outside a Michigan church filled with worshipers Sunday was struck by a vehicle and then fatally shot by security staff who averted a potential mass shooting, police said. Churchgoers attending a morning service at CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne spotted a man driving recklessly and then saw him exit his car wearing a tactical vest and carrying a rifle and a handgun, Wayne Police Chief Ryan Strong said at an evening news conference. The man began firing as he approached the church, striking one person in the leg, Strong said. 'A parishioner struck the gunman with his vehicle as the gunman shot the vehicle repeatedly,' Strong told reporters. 'At least two staff members shot the gunman, causing the fatal wounds.' Police described the suspect as a 31-year-old white male with no known connection to the church. His motive remains unclear, but it appears he was suffering from a mental health crisis, Strong said. The shooting occurred around 11 a.m. in Wayne, a city of about 17,000 people about 25 miles west of Detroit. The person who was shot in the leg was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, the chief said. Nobody else besides the gunman was hurt. Strong said a church member ran the suspect over with his pickup truck, giving security staff time to shoot him. 'We are grateful for the heroic actions of the church's staff members, who undoubtedly saved many lives and prevented a large-scale mass shooting,' the chief said. About 150 people were inside the church at the time. The church's website says it hosts a worship service on Sundays at 10:45 a.m. Worshiper Wendy Bodin said that she heard a loud boom and that when she looked outside, she saw a man sprawled out on the grass in front of the church. 'I thought he got hit or crashed his car or was hurt,' Bodin told WXYZ-TV. 'And another lady saw and pointed to me and said, 'Oh, my, call 911!'' Wayne Police Deputy Chief Finley Carter III said hours later that it was too early to know a motive. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino tweeted that bureau 'leadership and support teams' were at the scene and helping with the investigation. Messages left by the Associated Press on Sunday by voicemail and on a Facebook page for the church were not immediately returned. Sancya and Ramer write for the Associated Press and reported from Wayne and Concord, N.Y., respectively. AP writer Todd Richmond in Madison, Wis., and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Boston Globe

an hour ago

• Boston Globe

‘Humanitarian rescue' of migrants, or the EU's dirty work?

Though illegal under international law, the Libyan capture of migrants on the Mediterranean Sea has become commonplace in recent years as the EU has outsourced its effort to stop refugees from crossing its borders. Of course, Europe is not alone in this effort; Australia detains undocumented migrants in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Under the Obama administration, the American government paid the Mexican government to detain undocumented people trying to enter the United States. The Trump administration has since gone a big step further: shipping hundreds of undocumented people from US soil to a notoriously brutal mega-prison in El Salvador. Migrant prisoners sit on the floor at Sabah Detention Center. Pierre Kattar / Mohammed David /The Outlaw Ocean Project Candé's story unfolds over the first three episodes of the new season of For more than a decade, the EU has supplied the coast guard cutters, supplies for detention centers, aerial intelligence, and vehicles that the Libyans use to capture migrants crossing the Mediterranean hoping for a better life. Efficient and brutal, the at-sea capture and internment of these migrants in prisons in and around Tripoli is what European Union officials hail as part of a successful partnership with Libya in their 'humanitarian rescue' efforts across the Mediterranean. But the true intent of this joint campaign, according to many human rights advocates, legal experts, and members of the European Parliament, is less to save migrants from trafficking or drowning than to stop them from reaching European shores. A handout from on Frontex aerial drones operating on the Mediterranean to locate migrant boats for the purpose of blocking them from entering Europe. Ed Ou//The Outlaw Ocean Project Though the Libyan Coast Guard routinely opens fire on migrant rafts, has been tied by the United Nations to human trafficking and murder, and is now run by militias, it continues to draw strong EU support. Since at least 2017, the EU, led by Italy, has trained and equipped the Libyan Coast Guard to serve as a proxy maritime force, whose central purpose is to stop migrants from reaching European shores. As part of a broader investigation, a reporter for The Outlaw Ocean Project, Ed Ou, spent several weeks in 2021 aboard a Doctors Without Borders vessel, filming its attempts to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. The work is a life-or-death race. While the humanitarian ship tries to rescue migrants and take them to safety in Europe, the far faster, bigger, and more aggressive Libyan Coast Guard ships try to get to the migrants first so they can instead arrest them and return them to prisons in Libya. The EU has long denied playing an active role in this effort, but the reporters filmed drones operated by Frontex that are used to alert the Libyans to the exact location of migrant rafts. An aid worker on a MSF ship keeps an eye on a Libyan Coast Guard vessel cutting across their bow at high speed. Ed Ou//The Outlaw Ocean Project '[Frontex] has never engaged in any direct cooperation with Libyan authorities,' the Frontex press office said in a statement responding to requests for comment on the investigation. But a mounting body of evidence collected by European journalists and nongovernmental organizations suggests that Frontex's involvement with the Libyan authorities is neither accidental nor limited. In 2020, for instance, Aside from the EU role in helping Libya capture migrants at sea, the UN as well as humanitarian and human rights groups have roundly criticized European authorities for their role in creating and subsidizing a gulag of brutal migrant prisons in Libya. The EU has provided Libya with coast guard cutters, SUVs, and buses for moving captured migrants to prison. For the EU, the challenge of how best to handle desperate migrants fleeing hardships in their native countries will only grow in coming years. Climate change is expected to displace 150 million people across the globe in the next 50 years. Rising seas, desertification, and famine promise to drive desperate people to global north countries like the US and Europe, testing the moral character and political imagination of these wealthier nations. These factors were especially palpable for Aliou Candé, who grew up on a farm near the remote village of Sintchan Demba Gaira, Guinea-Bissau, a place without basic amenities like plumbing or electricity. Candé had a reputation as a dogged worker, who avoided trouble of any kind. 'People respected him,' his brother Jacaria said. In May 2021, journalists for The Outlaw Ocean Project reported from Libya, the Mediterranean, and Guinea Bissau to piece together the story of Aliou Candé. They spoke with friends, relatives, community leaders, and other prisoners held in cell four of Al Mabani to understand the circumstances leading up to his death. Critically, Candé's uncle had contacts for Candé's family back in Guinea-Bissau, and we were able to begin to put together a portrait. But the 28-year-old would become a climate migrant. Droughts in Guinea-Bissau had become more common and longer, flooding became more unpredictable and damaging, and Candé's crops — cassava, mangoes, and cashews — were failing and his children were going hungry. Milk production from his cows was so meager that his children were allowed to drink it just once a month. The shift in climate had brought more mosquitos, and with them more disease. He believed there was only one way to improve their conditions: to go to Europe. His brothers had done it. His family encouraged him to try. In the late summer of 2019, he set out for Europe with six hundred Euros. He told his wife he was not sure how long he'd be away, but he did his best to be optimistic. 'I love you,' he told her, 'and I'll be back.' In January 2020, he arrived in Morocco, where he tried to pay for a passage on a boat to Spain, but learned that the price was three thousand Euros, much more than he had. Candé then headed to Libya, where he could book a cheaper raft to Italy. In February 2021, he and more than a hundred other migrants pushed off from the Libyan shore aboard an inflatable rubber raft. After their boat was detected by the Libyan Coast Guard, the migrants were taken back to land, loaded by armed guards into buses and trucks, and driven to Al Mabani, which is Arabic for 'the buildings.' Candé was not charged with a crime or allowed to speak to a lawyer, and he was given no indication of how long he'd be detained. In his first days there, he kept mostly to himself, submitting to the grim routines of the place. The prison was controlled by a militia that euphemistically calls itself the Public Security Agency, and its gunmen patrolled the hallways. Cells were so crowded that the detainees had to sleep in shifts. In a special room, guards hung migrants upside from ceiling beams and beat them. In an audio message recorded on a hidden cell phone, Candé made a plea to his family to send the ransom for his release. In the early hours of April 8, 2021, he was shot to death when guards fired indiscriminately into a cellblock of detainees during a fight. His death went uninvestigated, his killer unpunished. Aliou Candé was buried in an overcrowded migrant cemetery in Tripoli, more than 2,000 miles from his family in Guinea-Bissau. Bir al-Osta Milad Cemetery where Aliou Candé and other dead migrants are buried. Pierre Kattar/The Outlaw Ocean Project One month after Candé's death, a team of four reporters from the Outlaw Ocean Project traveled to Libya to investigate. Almost no Western journalists are permitted to enter Libya, but, with the help of an international aid group, they were granted visas. Initially, Libyan officials said the team could visit Al Mabani, but after a week in Tripoli it became clear that this would not happen. So the journalists found a hidden spot on a side street, a half-mile from the detention center, and launched a small drone. The drone made it to the facility unnoticed, and captured close-ups of the prison's open courtyard. The team also interviewed dozens of migrants who had been imprisoned with Candé at the same detention center. A week into the investigation, the lead reporter, Ian Urbina, was speaking with his wife from his hotel room in Tripoli when he heard a knock at the door. Upon opening it, he was confronted by a dozen armed men who stormed into the room. He was immediately forced to the ground, a gun pressed to his forehead, and a hood placed over his head. What followed was a violent assault: The journalist sustained broken ribs, facial injuries, and internal trauma after being kicked repeatedly. Other members of the team — including an editor, photographer, and filmmaker — were also detained. The group was blindfolded, separated, and interrogated for hours at a time. Under Libyan law, authorities may detain foreign nationals indefinitely without formal charges. The US State Department became involved after the journalist's wife, who had heard the commotion over the phone, raised the alarm. American officials quickly identified the detaining authority and began negotiating for the team's release. After six days in custody, the team was unexpectedly told they were free to leave. No formal charges were filed and no official explanation for their detention was provided. They were lucky. The experience — deeply frightening but mercifully short — offered a glimpse into the world of indefinite detention in Libya. With no explanation from the government, fanfare by aid groups, nor coverage by domestic or foreign media, Al Mabani officially closed on January 13, 2022. In its roughly 12-month lifespan, the prison became emblematic of the unaccountable nature of Libya's broader detention system. The quiet shuttering of Al Mabani illustrates the ever-shifting nature of incarceration in Libya and how such transience makes protection of detainees nearly impossible. In the same month that Al Mabani was closed, the team behind the reporting presented details of their investigation to the European Parliament's human rights committee, and outlined the EU's extensive support for Libya's migration control apparatus. European Commission representatives took issue with the reporters' characterization of the crisis. 'We are not funding the war against migrants,' said Rosamaria Gili, the Libya country director at the European External Action Service. 'We are trying to instill a culture of human rights.' And yet, just a week later, Henrike Trautmann, a representative of the European Commission, told lawmakers that the EU was going to provide five more vessels to the Libyan Coast Guard to bolster its ability to intercept migrants on the high seas. A small wooden boat packed with refugees waving and smiling with elation after being found by MSF aid workers. Ed Ou//The Outlaw Ocean Project 'We know the Libyan context is far from optimal for this,' Trautmann conceded. 'We think it's still preferable to continue to support this than to leave them to their own devices.' Meanwhile, the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean continues. At least two thousand migrants died in 2024 while making this perilous passage, according to the UN, and, during the same period, the Libyan Coast Guard captured an additional twenty thousand that were brought back to prisons like Al Mabani in and around Tripoli. In February of this year, Libyan authorities held a training exercise with the EU border officials. The Trump administration has also taken note: In May, The status of both of those plans remains unclear.

San Francisco Chronicle​

6 hours ago

• San Francisco Chronicle​

How the US bombarded Iranian nuclear sites without detection

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — It was an unprecedented attack years in the making, with some last-minute misdirection meant to give the operation a powerful element of surprise. U.S. pilots dropped 30,000-pound bombs early Sunday on two key underground uranium enrichment plants in Iran, delivering what American military leaders believe is a knockout blow to a nuclear program that Israel views as an existential threat and has been pummeling for more than a week. American sailors bolstered the surprise mission by firing dozens of cruise missiles from a submarine toward at least one other site. Dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, U.S. officials say the plan was characterized by a 'precision strike' that 'devastated the Iranian nuclear program,' even as they acknowledged an assessment was ongoing. For its part, Iran denied that any significant damage had been done, and the Islamic Republic pledged to retaliate. Taking off from the U.S. heartland, B-2 stealth bombers delivered a total of 420,000 pounds of explosives, aided by an armada of refueling tankers and fighter jets — some of which launched their own weapons. U.S. officials said Iran neither detected the inbound fusillade, nor mustered a shot at the stealthy American jets. The operation relied on a series of deceptive tactics and decoys to maintain the secrecy, U.S. officials said hours after the attack, which was preceded by nine days of Israeli attacks that debilitated Iran's military leadership and air defenses. A decoy plan Even before the planes took off, elements of misdirection were already in play. After setting parts of the plan in motion, Trump publicly announced Thursday that he'd make a decision within two weeks on whether to strike Iran — ostensibly to allow additional time for negotiations, but in actuality masking the impending attack. One group of B-2 stealth bombers traveled west from Missouri on Saturday as decoys, drawing the attention of amateur plane spotters, government officials and some media as they headed toward a U.S. air base in the Pacific. At the same time, seven other B-2s carrying two 'bunker buster' bombs apiece flew eastward, keeping communications to a minimum so as not to draw any attention. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at Sunday's briefing that it was all "part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise' and that only 'an extremely small number of planners and key leaders' knew about it in Washington and Florida, where U.S. Central Command is based. After 18 hours of furtive flying that required aerial refueling, the armed B-2 Spirit bombers, each with two crew members, arrived on time and without detection in the Eastern Mediterranean, from where they launched their attack runs. Before crossing into Iran, the B-2s were escorted by stealthy U.S. fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft. A graphic released by the Pentagon showed the flight route as passing over Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. It was unclear whether those countries were notified of the U.S. overflight in advance. Most U.S. lawmakers were also kept in the dark, with some Republicans saying they were provided a brief heads-up by the White House before the strike. 'Our B-2s went in and out and back without the world knowing at all,' Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters Sunday. A multifaceted attack About an hour before the B-2s entered Iran, Caine said that a U.S. submarine in the region launched more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles against key targets, including a site in Isfahan where uranium is prepared for enrichment. As the U.S. bombers approached their targets, they watched out for Iranian fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles, but encountered none. At 6:40 p.m. in Washington and 2:10 a.m. in Tehran, the first B-2 bomber dropped its pair of GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators on the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant. It was the first time these so-called 'bunker busters' had ever been used in combat. Each 30,000-pound bomb is designed to burrow into the ground before detonating a massive warhead. The Fordo site received the bulk of the bombardment, though a couple of the enormous bombs were also dropped on a uranium enrichment site at Natanz. The U.S. bombs fell for about half an hour, with cruise missiles fired from submarines being the last American weapons to hit their targets, which included a third nuclear site at Isfahan, Caine said. Both Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the sites. A look at the numbers The mission included: — 75 precision-guided weapons: these included 14 GBU-57 'bunker buster' bombs deployed by the seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, and more than two-dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a U.S. submarine. — 125 aircraft, including the B-2 bombers, fighter jets and refueling planes. A female pilot Hegseth said Sunday that 'our boys in those bombers are on their way home right now.' But a U.S. official said one woman was among those piloting the B-2 bombers. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the mission publicly. A bit of history Caine said the use of the bunker-buster bombs made the mission historic, as did other elements. 'This was the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history, and the second longest B-2 mission ever flown, exceeded only by those in the days following 9/11," he told reporters Sunday. ___ Lolita C. Baldor in Narragansett, Rhode Island and Nicholas Ingram in Knob Noster, Missouri, contributed reporting. Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina.