Toxic algae blooms in a warmer Pacific, endangering marine life and forcing seafood bans
Toxic algae blooms in a warmer Pacific, endangering marine life and forcing seafood bans
SEATTLE (AP) — One of the largest toxic algae blooms recorded off the West Coast is denser, more widespread and deeper than scientists feared even weeks ago.
Researchers sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are sampling the Pacific Ocean. They say this algae bloom is flourishing amid unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures, and now stretches from at least California to Alaska.
This bloom, as much as 40 miles wide, has severe consequences for the Pacific seafood industry, coastal tourism and marine ecosystems.
Shellfish managers on Tuesday doubled the area off Washington’s coast that is closed to recreational and commercial Dungeness crab fishing, after finding elevated levels of marine toxins in tested crab meat.
GOP candidates seize on an insecure border, but the flow of immigrants is down sharply
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — In the weeks leading up to Thursday’s first debate of the 2016 presidential race, Republican candidates have sought to distinguish themselves from each other — and President Barack Obama — with ever-tougher positions on border security and illegal immigration, claiming current measures are failing.
And yet by many standards, the situation is not nearly as urgent as it was during last summer’s crisis and has improved steadily and markedly in some respects over the past decade or so — partly because of actions taken by the U.S. government, but also because of factors beyond Washington’s control.
Last year’s alarming surge of unaccompanied children and families arriving from Central America via Mexico has been cut by about half, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a drop-off attributed in part to a crackdown by Mexico and better enforcement along the U.S. border.
Also, illegal immigration from Mexico has plunged dramatically since 2000, when Border Patrol agents arrested roughly 1.6 million Mexicans. Last year, agents stopped about 230,000.
In addition, since 2007, about 1 million Mexicans living illegally in this country have left, according to Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
Erratic wildfire produces painful, familiar scene in Northern California
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. (AP) — A predictable but painful summertime ritual played out in half a dozen resort communities near California’s largest freshwater lake on Tuesday as an erratic, week-old wildfire that has wiped out dozens of buildings continued to threaten nearly 7,000 more.
As firefighters and equipment from outside the state poured in to battle the blaze burning 10 miles from Clear Lake, more than 13,000 people were required or urged to leave their homes, vacation cabins and campsites in the latest fire-prone region to find itself under siege.
“This never gets easier,” said Gina Powers, who with her husband and cats on Sunday night fled the Spring Valley home she has evacuated before in the more than two decades she has lived there. “This time it was scarier.”
State and federal fire officials said the stubborn fire had consumed more than 101 square miles by Tuesday morning after flames jumped a highway in several places. It remained 12 percent contained and was not expected to be corralled until at least Monday.
The fire, by far the largest of 11 burning in Northern California on Wednesday, started on July 29 in drought-withered brush that has not burned in years in the Lower Lake area, about 100 miles north of San Francisco. A cause has not been determined.
Facing Islamic State threat, Iraq digitizes national library
BAGHDAD (AP) — The dimly lit, dust-caked stacks of the Baghdad National Library hide a treasure of the ages: crinkled, yellowing papers holding the true stories of sultans and kings; imperialists and socialists; occupation and liberation; war and peace.
These are the original chronicles of Iraq’s rich and tumultuous history — and now librarians and academics in Baghdad are working feverishly to preserve what’s left after thousands of documents were lost or damaged at the height of the U.S.-led invasion.
As Islamic State militants set out to destroy Iraq’s history and culture, including irreplaceable books and manuscripts kept in the militant-held city of Mosul, a major preservation and digitization project is underway in the capital to safeguard a millennium worth of history.
In darkrooms in the library’s back offices, employees use specialized lighting to photograph some of the most-precious manuscripts. Mazin Ibrahim Ismail, the head of the microfilm department, said they’re testing the process with documents from the Interior Ministry under Iraq’s last monarch, Faisal II, who ruled from 1939-58.
Obama, Netanyahu make dueling appeals on Iran to US Jews
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made dueling appeals to the American Jewish community Tuesday as they sought to rally support for their opposing positions on the Iranian nuclear deal.
Netanyahu made his case in a live webcast with more than 10,000 participants, according to the U.S. Jewish groups that organized the event. The prime minister railed against the agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief, calling it a “bad deal” that leaves Tehran on the brink of a bomb.
“The nuclear deal with Iran doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb,” he said. “It actually paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
Netanyahu, one of the fiercest critics of the nuclear accord, also disputed Obama’s assertion that opponents of the diplomatic deal favor war. He called that assertion “utterly false,” saying Israel wants peace, not war.
Obama held a private meeting at the White House later Tuesday with Jewish leaders — some who support the deal, some who oppose it, and others whose organizations are undecided. The White House said Obama emphasized that the deal would allow the world to verify that Iran wasn’t acquiring a nuclear weapon and affirmed his support for Israel’s security.