Experts say wolves aren’t endangered
MINNEAPOLIS – A group of wolf experts disputed Monday that gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are endangered or that a judge’s ruling will help the region’s population spread to other states.
In a conference call organized by the International Wolf Center in Ely, regional wolf experts including David Mech of the U.S. Geological Survey in Minnesota, who’s vice chair of the center, said hunting and trapping as it was regulated by the three states did not threaten the species’ survival.
A federal judge on Friday threw out the Obama administration’s decision to remove wolves in the three states from the endangered list. The move banned sport hunting and trapping of wolves in the region, where the combined population is around 3,700.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had dropped federal protections in the three states in 2012 and returned management to the states. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., ruled that the decision violated the Endangered Species Act.
N. Korea hit with Internet outages
WASHINGTON – North Korea experienced sweeping and progressively worse Internet outages extending into Monday, with one computer expert saying the country’s online access is “totally down.” The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the U.S. government was responsible.
President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. government expected to respond to the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., which he described as an expensive act of “cyber vandalism” that he blamed on North Korea. Obama did not say how the U.S. might respond, and it was not immediately clear if the Internet connectivity problems represented the retribution. The U.S. government regards its offensive cyber operations as highly classified.
North Korea has forcefully denied it was responsible for hacking into Sony. But the country has for months condemned the “The Interview,” a Sony satirical comedy about a plot to assassinate the North Korean leader. Sony canceled plans to release the movie after a group of hackers made terroristic threats against theaters that planned to show it.
Yazidi girls abducted by IS endured horror
BAGHDAD – Women and girls from Iraq’s Yazidi minority endured horrors at the hands of Islamic State group extremists after they were taken as slaves last summer leaving them deeply traumatized, an international watchdog group said in a report issued on Tuesday.
The Amnesty International report based on interviews with more than 40 former captives who were among hundreds of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority captured by IS fighters in early August when the militants overran their hometown of Sinjar. Hundreds were killed in the attack, and tens of thousands were either stranded in nearby Mount Sinjar or fled mostly to the Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq.
The London-based group said the captives, including girls aged 10-12, faced torture, rape, forced marriage and were “sold” or given as “gifts” to IS fighters or their supporters in militant-held areas in Iraq and Syria. Often, captives were forced to convert to Islam.
“Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls have had their lives shattered by the horrors of sexual violence and sexual slavery in IS captivity,” Amnesty’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera said in a statement.
Associated Press
