How to Catch a Polar Bear

From a helicopter, it can be hard to spot a polar bear against the frozen tundra. So when the polar bear biologist Jon Aars heads out for his annual research trips, he scans the landscape for flashes of movement or subtle variations in color — the slightly yellowish hue of the bears’ fur set off against the white snow.

“Also, very often, you see the footprints before you see the bear,” Dr. Aars said. “And the bear is usually where the footprints stop.”

Dr. Aars is one in a long line of polar bear researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute,

Inflation Forces Parisian Vendors to Raise Prices on Staples

PARIS — At the Marché d’Aligre, a bustling open-air food and antiques market in the Bastille district of central Paris, Mohamed Sharif grabbed a piece of chalk and reluctantly marked up the price of the fragrant Valencia clementines that he sells to throngs of shoppers.

Transport costs for produce imported to France had more than doubled since autumn amid a surge in gasoline prices, he said, one of several factors that have driven up wholesale costs for oranges from Spain, lychee from south China and passion fruit from Vietnam — and the prices he must charge at his fruit stand.

Royal Caribbean cruise ship prevented from entering 2 island nations due to Covid-19 outbreak

(CNN) — A Royal Caribbean cruise ship was denied entry into two island nations after 55 fully vaccinated crew members and passengers contracted Covid-19 only days after the ship had set sail from Fort Lauderdale, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.
Odyssey of the Seas was barred from entering Curacao and Aruba, effectively remaining at sea until its planned return December 26 to Fort Lauderdale, according to the Herald.
Health officials in Curacao refused to allow the ship to dock because the percentage of infected people on board was too high, the Curacao Chronicle reported.

There were 51 positive cases on

‘Koala Massacre’: Australia Files Hundreds of Animal Cruelty Charges

MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian landowner and two companies have been hit with hundreds of animal cruelty charges after a land-clearing operation last year led to the deaths of 70 koalas, an episode that one lawmaker described as a “massacre.”

The authorities discovered dozens of dead, injured or starving koalas on private property in Cape Bridgewater in southwest Victoria in February of last year, after the landowner and a forest and earth-moving business cleared their habitat, the state’s conservation regulator said in a statement on Wednesday.

The operation wreaked havoc on more than 200 koalas, causing “unreasonable pain or suffering

Fees for US passports are about to pop way up

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(CNN) — It seems few things are escaping the scourge of inflation these days — and that will soon include US passports.

On December 27, the fee for a US passport book will shoot up by $20 for all customers, the US State Department has announced.

Why the price hike?

In a tweet, the State Department said, “The increased fee is

As Humanitarian Disaster Looms, U.S. Opens Door for More Afghanistan Aid

Facing pressure to prevent a humanitarian and economic catastrophe in Afghanistan, the Biden administration on Wednesday took steps to allow more aid to flow into the Taliban-led country.

The measures exempt aid groups from stringent economic sanctions that were imposed against the Taliban before they seized control of the government and have been strangling Afghanistan’s economy under its leadership. But diplomats and activists said that easing the restrictions might not be enough to rescue the country from what one U.N. official on Wednesday called “shocking” need and suffering.

At the same time, some Republicans said the Biden administration risked legitimizing

Omicron Infections Seem to Be Milder, Three Research Teams Report

Three separate teams of scientists on two continents have found that Omicron infections more often result in mild illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus, offering hope that the current surge may not be quite as catastrophic as feared despite skyrocketing caseloads.

The researchers examined Omicron’s course through populations in South Africa, Scotland and England. The results in each setting, while still preliminary, all suggested that the variant was less likely to send people in hospitals.

“Given that this is everywhere and given that it’s going to be so transmissible, anything that would lower severity is going to be better,”

Three Dead and Many Missing as Migrant Boat Sinks Near Greece

Three people drowned and up to three dozen more were missing on Wednesday after a smuggling boat carrying migrants from Turkey sank in the Aegean Sea, Greece’s Coast Guard said.

The sinking came just a few weeks after 27 people drowned in an attempt to cross the English Channel to Britain from France, a tragedy that brought back into sharp focus the lethal risks faced by asylum seekers who board overcrowded smuggling vessels.

Early Wednesday morning, a rescue vessel plucked 12 survivors from a dinghy off the Greek island of Folegandros, the Greece Coast Guard said in a statement. The

U.K. System Strained as Health Care Workers Get Covid Themselves

LONDON — In the hospital in southwest England where Joanna Poole works as an intensive care doctor and anesthesiologist, the last few weeks have been a blur of canceled operations for lack of beds and a scramble to plug holes in schedules because of coronavirus cases among the staff.

From day to day she is unsure who will be available to work, including herself. One day this month, she said, most of her department had to go home to take tests after coming into contact with an infected colleague, throwing the staffing schedule into turmoil.

Dr. Poole, 32, wants to

California Requires Health Workers to Get Boosters by Feb. 1

California will require health care workers to get booster shots by Feb. 1, officials announced on Wednesday, as part of a series of measures intended to stave off hospital staffing shortfalls and to keep schools open despite the unsettlingly rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The state will also require workers in high-risk congregate settings like nursing homes and prisons to get booster shots.

Public health officials said the Feb. 1 deadline applies to workers who are eligible for booster shots under federal guidelines because it has been six months since they received their second dose of