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To fight berry-busting fruit flies, researchers focus on sterilizing the bugs

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

Paul Nelson is used to doing battle with an invasive fruit fly called the spotted wing drosophila, a pest that one year ruined more than half the berries on the Minnesota farm he and his team run. In recent years, they’ve cut their losses closer to 5%, but it’s been labor-intensive and expensive.“It’s a pest that if you’re not willing to stick the time into it, it’s going to take over your farm,” said Nelson, the head grower at Untiedt’s, a vegetable and fruit operation about an hour west of Minneapolis.Nelson and other growers may someday get a new tool as a result of research at North Carolina State University into the insects, which ruin the berries by laying their eggs in them and have been estimated to cost growers hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The researchers, using a concept called “gene drive,” manipulated the insects’ DNA so that the female offspring would be sterile, and the method they used to achieve it significantly reduced the chance...

Historic Boston church where the Revolution was sparked to host its first play

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — Old North Church played a pivotal role in the nation’s fight for independence and has continued to be an active house of worship for 300 years. Today, one of Boston’s most popular tourist attractions is also, for the first time, a theater hosting an original play.“Revolution’s Edge,” set the day before the start of the American Revolution, is a dramatic imagining of the interactions of three real people with different views whose lives are about to be upended by the impending war, and explores what the events will mean for their families.The play opening Thursday is set just hours before two men hung two lanterns in the church’s bell tower on April 18, 1775 — to signal that British soldiers were heading across the Charles River, and to Lexington and Concord. The event has been immortalized in the line “One if by land, and two if by sea” in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”“This is a moment of intense drama and a moment...

No winning ticket sold for Tuesday’s $10 million Lotto Max jackpot

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

There was no winning ticket sold in Tuesday’s Lotto Max $10 million draw.The jackpot for the next draw on June 16 will be an estimated $15 million.The Canadian Press

An Amazon rainforest rite of passage in threatened territory

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

ALTO RIO GUAMA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil (AP) — The Indigenous adolescents danced in a circle under the thatched-roof hut from nearly dawn to dusk while parents looked on from the perimeter. Some of the adults smoked tobacco mixed with the wood from a local tree in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. The seemingly endless loop of the procession, taking place over six long days this month, was leaving some Tembé Tenehara youngsters with swollen and bandaged feet. They were receiving little to eat and spending each night sleeping in hammocks slung in the hut. But in the Alto Rio Guama territory, it is all part of a vital rite of passage known as “Wyra’whaw.”Girls taking part in the coming-of-age ritual had already had their first period. Boys’ voices had begun to slip into lower registers. Upon the final day, the girls and boys would be viewed by the Teko-Haw village as women and men, and assume their roles leading the community into an uncertain future. “We know of other ethnic (Indigenou...

18-year-old trainee shot 3 soldiers at firing range on Japanese army base, killing 2, officials say

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — An 18-year-old army trainee shot three fellow soldiers at a firing range on a Japanese army base Wednesday, killing two of them, officials said.The suspect was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder at the scene in Gifu prefecture in central Japan, police said. The suspect fired a rifle at other soldiers during a shooting exercise at the Hino Kihon firing range, police said. Among the three wounded is a 25-year-old soldier, police said. The Ground Self Defense Force, Japan’s army, confirmed that two of those wounded were later pronounced dead at a hospital.A number of other people were believed to be participating in the training when the shooting occurred, but details are still under investigation, an army official said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.Japan has been known for its safety, with strict gun control laws, but high-profile violence has occurred in recent years, including shootings and random knifings on subways and arson attacks, and there is g...

Toyota shareholders reject proposal demanding better performance on climate change

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

TOYOTA, Japan (AP) — Toyota executives fielded challenges and reaped praise from investors at an annual general meeting Wednesday where shareholders ultimately rejected demands the automaker do better on fighting climate change. The investor proposal was initiated by AkademikerPension, a $20 billion Danish investment fund. It accused Toyota Motor Corp. of lobbying to weaken efforts by governments around the world to phase out the internal combustion engine. Shareholders applauded in rejecting the proposal, as expected, at the meeting in Toyota city, central Japan.The majority of Toyota shares are held by the company and its group companies, retired employees and others sympathetic to the company’s perspective.The shareholders’ proposal challenged the reappointment of Toyota’s chairman, Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company founder and a board director, arguing the company has lagged in keeping up with the global shift to battery electric vehicles.Toyoda and other company ...

Milwaukee bankruptcy avoidance plan up for approval in Wisconsin Legislature

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A plan to prevent Milwaukee from going bankrupt, struck between Republican lawmakers, leaders in the heavily Democratic city and Gov. Tony Evers, was expected to win bipartisan approval Wednesday in the Wisconsin Legislature.The measure is part of a larger deal reached with the Democratic governor and Republicans who control the Legislature that also includes spending more than $1 billion more on K-12 schools. Once approved by the Legislature, the bills would head to Evers, who is expected to sign them into law.Both the Milwaukee plan and the corresponding school funding proposal have their detractors, despite the bipartisan deal. Conservatives deride the Milwaukee bill as a bailout for the state’s largest and most Democratic city and say local sales tax increases should need voter approval. The state schoolteachers union doesn’t like increasing voucher payments to private schools that are a part of the education funding plan and called on Evers to v...

Republicans delay vote on University of Wisconsin budget after promises to cut diversity funds

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican state lawmakers on Tuesday suspended a vote on funding for University of Wisconsin campuses, just hours after a top GOP leader promised to slash the college system’s budget as part of an ongoing fight over diversity and inclusion initiatives.Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the state’s top Republican, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he expected the GOP-controlled Legislature’s budget-writing committee to cut all funding that the university system would use for diversity initiatives. He estimated the cuts would total $32 million.“I hope we have the ability to eliminate that spending. The university should have already chosen to redirect it to something that is more productive and more broadly supported,” Vos said.That generated a wave of angry reactions from Gov. Tony Evers and other Democrats. After nearly seven hours of closed-door discussions, Republicans who control the finance committee could not come to an agreement and pos...

Activists work to get giraffe removed from small enclosure in dusty Mexican border city

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Benito the giraffe arrived in Mexico’s arid northern border city of Ciudad Juarez just last month, and already the climate appears to be a problem — and he’s only had to deal with the scorching heat of summer.The snow and freezing temperatures of winter are still to come, and animal activists are up in arms and pushing a campaign under the hashtag “Save Benito” seeking to have the animal moved somewhere more hospitable.On a recent day, the 3-year-old male giraffe could be seen crouching with only its head under a small, circular canopy for shade. The structure did little to protect him from a pelting rain and a hail storm later. There is also a small shed for winter, but activists say it is cruel for the city-run Central Park to keep the giraffe in a small fenced enclosure, by himself alone, with only about a half-acre to wander and few trees to nibble, in a climate he’s not used to.“We have been fighting for a month, a group of animal activists, to demand t...

Stove wars: Republican-controlled House takes up bills to protect gas stoves

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:12 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Venturing back into the nation’s culture wars, the Republican-controlled House is taking up legislation that GOP lawmakers say would protect gas stoves from overzealous government regulators.A bill approved Tuesday would prohibit use of federal funds to regulate gas stoves as a hazardous product, while a separate bill set for a vote Wednesday would block an Energy Department rule setting stricter energy efficiency standards for stovetops and ovens.Both bills were set for approval last week, but action was postponed after House conservatives staged a mini-revolt in retaliation for Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s leadership on a measure to raise the debt ceiling. Led by outspoken members of the House Freedom Caucus, 11 Republicans broke with their party on an otherwise routine procedural vote that threw the House schedule into disarray for a full week. McCarthy appeared to resolve the dispute late Monday after promising more meetings with GOP holdouts and seeki...