'Like a Disney movie': Three wild dog brothers make Africa's longest journey As three siblings came of age and had to leave their pack, scientists tracked the dogs' perilous 2,500-mile odyssey to find their own territoryIt sounds like a Disney movie: three wild dogs, all brothers, on an epic journey to find a home of their own after their family tells them to leave. They dodge cars and hunters in search of a new life, navigating bushmeat snares and the hostility of a human-dominated landscape until they find a new haven on the African savannah.But this is exactly what happened in Zambia last year, when three endangered African wild dogs made the longest-ever recorded single journey of any mammal from the continent. The brothers travelled more than 2,500 miles (4,100km) over eight months in their "dispersal" - when a young dog comes of age and must establish new territory to find a mate and start a family of their own. Continue reading...
'We are prey': discovery of seven women's bodies fuels anger over femicide in South Africa String of female murder victims found near Johannesburg's international airport, including five in the past weekThe discovery of the bodies of eight women around Johannesburg's international airport, including five in the past week, has prompted an outpouring of fear, grief and anger over a lack of progress in tackling femicide.When Elizabeth "Tsontso" Moselakgomo did not return after going for a run on 9 September, her eight-year-old daughter alerted relatives, who contacted police. The 38-year-old's body was found on Saturday and identified by relatives on Monday. The news of her disappearance had gone viral. Continue reading...
US to bar some South Africans over claims of anti-white discrimination Announcement of visa restrictions follows Trump's false claims of 'white genocide' taking place in South AfricaThe US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans as Donald Trump's administration continues to claim that South Africa's government racially discriminates against white minority Afrikaners.The announcement did not specify individuals who were barred from the US. Trump has spent his second term falsely claiming there is a "white genocide" in South Africa and railing against its affirmative action policies. Continue reading...
Al-Qaida and IS-linked violence in Africa's Sahel belt set to hit record levels this year Twenty-five years after 9/11, figures compiled by conflict monitor underline how Sahel region has become centre of Islamist terrorIslamist extremist violence in Africa's Sahel region is set to reach historic highs after a series of sweeping offensives by groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State, according to new figures compiled by the conflict monitor Acled.As the US marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks launched by al-Qaida against targets in Washington and New York, the statistics underline the continued expansion of the veteran organisation in parts of Africa - in stark contrast with its relative weakness elsewhere. Continue reading...
Slave-trade wealth was embedded in Britain's financial system, research finds Dozens of Bank of England directors and founding subscribers invested in trafficking of enslaved AfricansThe Bank of England and the British financial system were for centuries deeply involved in the enslavement and transatlantic trafficking of millions of African people, according to new research on Britain's slavery history.Research by historians compiling the Register of British Slave Traders has found that the scale of the financial system's involvement in enslavement is greater than previously known or acknowledged. The Bank of England, the central bank owned by the government since nationalisation by Clement Attlee's Labour administration in 1946, had dozens of financiers involved in its foundation who were also significant investors in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. Continue reading...
New cat species identified for first time in more than a century in Bolivia New species of wild feline was discovered in Bolivia's Yungas forest that is smaller than the average domestic catA diminutive wild cat that inhabits Bolivia's cloud forest has been identified as a previously unknown species, marking the first time a new living feline species has been formally named and described in more than a century.The cat, called tilcayo by local communities, is part of a group called tiger cats found across much of South America. It was found in Bolivia's lush Yungas forest, a mountainous region where forests are often covered by clouds and surrounded by high humidity, according to researchers. It measures about 18in (46cm) long and weighs about 3lb (1.4kg), making it smaller than the average domestic cat. Continue reading...
Trump-backed congresswoman criticizes Trump's immigration policies Trump-backed congresswoman criticizes Trump's immigration policies Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) talks to reporters following a House Republican conference in the basement of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 1, 2026. -Chip Somodevilla-Getty ImagesRep. María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican up for re-election in November, released an ad on Thursday in which she criticized President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, just months after he endorsed her campaign."Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," Salazar said in the ad. "The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.""You can be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism," she continued. "I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land. And only you can do that."The video marked a stunning break from the President who backed Salazar's re-election bid earlier this year. In February, Trump said in a Truth Social post that the Congresswoman was "doing a truly fantastic job representing the wonderful people of Florida's 27th Congressional District!" and that she "knows the Wisdom and Courage required to confront the Corrupt Fake News." He said that she had his "Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election" before telling voters that Salazar "WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!"Salazar joins a growing number of Republicans who have publicly pushed back on Trump's policies. Trump has railed against other members of his party who have broken with him, going so far as to endorse several of their challengers in the primaries. The President endorsed Ed Gallrein, for instance, who ultimately defeated Rep. Thomas Massie in the May Republican primary for the Kentucky Congressman's seat, after Massie broke with Trump on various issues, including objecting to the "One Big Beautiful Bill" and leading the effort to push the Department of Justice to release the so-called "Epstein files."Salazar's campaign said that the video released on Thursday is the first of multiple ads that it plans to run before the upcoming midterm elections, in which Salazar is facing off against Democratic nominee Eliott Rodríguez. Both Salazar and Rodríguez are Cuban American, and previously worked as journalists. Rodríguez criticized Salazar for the ad in a video that he shared on social media on Thursday, claiming that she had "desperately sought Donald Trump's endorsement" but was now speaking out "because [Trump's] immigration policy is political poison in her re-election campaign." Rodríguez went on to accuse his Republican opponent of being a "pathetic rubber stamp for Donald Trump."
"María Elvira Salazar did this-make no mistake about it," Rodríguez said. "She owns all of these deportations, ICE harassment, family separations, and racial profiling. She voted for it. She gave Donald Trump the money and the tools to do it. Now, just 47 days before the midterm election, she is trying to convince voters that she disagrees with Trump's inhumane practices on undocumented people with no criminal record."The Cook Political Report indicates that Salazar, a three-term Congresswoman, is expected to hold on to her seat come November, rating it as "Likely Republican."In the district Salazar represents, the foreign-born population makes up more than 54% of the total population-one of the largest proportions of all the districts in the lower chamber.Thursday's ad isn't the first time that Salazar has expressed concerns about the Trump Administration's immigration enforcement efforts. Earlier this week, she responded to reports that Luis Galeano, an exiled Nicaraguan journalist whose U.S. asylum application has been pending for years, had been detained by federal immigration agents."America must always know the difference between a criminal and a political exile," Salazar said in a statement shared on social media. "Luis is a respected journalist who paid a price for telling the truth about the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship. The regime persecuted him, forced him into exile, and stripped him of his citizenship. That history matters. He cannot be sent back into the hands of the people who targeted him.""I have been clear with the Administration: enforce the law and deport dangerous individuals, but do not treat political exiles like criminals," she continued.Salazar has also been backing a bipartisan measure in the House that would grant immigrants who don't have a criminal history a route to secure legal status in the U.S., but not a pathway to citizenship.This article originally appeared on Time at https://time.com/article/2026/09/17/trump-immigration-florida-republican-maria-elvira-salazar-midterms/
Trump's rate hike comments place renewed scrutiny on the Fed's independence Trump's rate hike comments place renewed scrutiny on the Fed's independencePresident Donald Trump with Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 22. - Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/FileThe Federal Reserve's first rate hike in three years has ushered in a new twist to the already unusual relationship between President Donald Trump and the world's most powerful central bank.Trump raised eyebrows on Wednesday evening by appearing to suggest that he gave Kevin Warsh, his handpicked Fed chairman, permission to raise rates - even though it was the "wrong" move. The president implied that Warsh had no choice but to embrace a rate increase because the Fed chief was outnumbered on the "hostile" rate-setting committee he oversees."I talked to Kevin and I said you might as well vote with the board because it's not going to matter…I said, 'Do what you want because it doesn't matter' because he doesn't have the votes," Trump told reporters.The remarks raise plenty of questions about how much - if at all - Warsh is consulting with a president who has been willing to cross red lines in his quest for dramatically lower interest rates.Those questions are especially sensitive because the Fed is designed to be insulated from the political winds in Washington. Central bankers are required to make trillion-dollar decisions on whether to raise or lower interest rates based on what's best for the economy, not for the political party in power.Tellingly, some Fed watchers and former officials reacted to the remarks with disbelief."It's an unusual and unfortunate comment to make. Clearly, the Fed chair does not need the president's permission to raise rates," Eric Rosengren, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, told CNN on Thursday. "The implication is that the chair got a hall pass. I have no idea how truthful the comment was."Krishna Guha, vice chairman and head of economics and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI who criticized Warsh's initial stumbles, dismissed Trump's claims."The market believes - and with good grounds - that Kevin Warsh owned this decision and that the committee was strongly united behind him," Guha said. "There is no evidence here or to the market at large that Warsh was dragged into this by colleagues - or permissioned by the president."
'We stay in our lane'
The risk is that Trump fuels suspicions that swirled on Wall Street this summer that Warsh may not be truly independent. That's dangerous because a Fed doing the White House's bidding could lose control of market-set interest rates, dramatically increasing the cost of mortgages and car loans. And a loss of faith in Fed independence could unhinge inflation expectations among investors and consumers.The Fed declined to comment to CNN about Trump's remarks.For his part, Warsh tap-danced around questions related to the man who nominated him."I'm not a Wall Street newsletter. Part of the independence of the Federal Reserve is we stay in our lane. Independence is a two-way street," Warsh said during the press conference on Wednesday. "We'll let people that do trade policy and fiscal policy stay in their lane, too. That's how we can stand up here and call them the way we see them."Asked by a reporter when he last spoke with the president, Warsh said: "I don't have anything for you on discussions with the president."Tim Mahedy, CEO and chief economist at research firm Access/Macro, said he found that response from Warsh "strange.""The right answer is, 'I didn't talk to the president.' I don't think the president is talking to Warsh beforehand. That would be shocking," said Mahedy, a former official at the IMF and San Francisco Fed.Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh leaves after speaking at a news conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, on September 16, 2026. - Mark Schiefelbein/AP
'The day the Fed became Warsh's'
The other risk is that, intentionally or not, Trump diminishes Warsh as an ineffectual leader - just as he appeared to be starting to find his footing."It makes it seem like Warsh has no control over this committee, like he was completely ineffectual in convincing his colleagues," said Mahedy.Warsh emerged from the meeting looking independent. Not only did he preside over a rate hike the White House did not want, but he explained it clearly and with the unanimous support of his colleagues - including former Fed Chair Jerome Powell."It felt like the day the Fed became Warsh's Fed," Evercore's Guha said. "He was a lot more assured, coherent and credible yesterday. What he's saying basically adds up."But now if Warsh and a majority of his colleagues on the committee decide against a rate hike, he will face questions about whether the president put his finger on the scale.In the past, most presidents have gone out of their way to even avoid the appearance of interfering with the Fed because it was widely accepted that an independent Fed builds confidence.
Trump praises Warsh - for now
None of this is to say Trump unleashed on the Fed in a way that would have unnerved investors. In fact, Trump's initial reaction to the first rate hike under Warsh was relatively mild, especially compared with his relentless and deeply personal condemnation of Powell, his last handpicked Fed chair.While Trump bashed Warsh's colleagues as "very hostile" and "very political," he singled out the Fed chief for praise. "He's a good man, Kevin Warsh," Trump said."People were fearful of a fierce backlash from the president against this decision to raise rates and a resumption of the conflict between the White House and the Fed," Guha said.Of course, the Warsh-Trump relationship will continue to evolve, likely guided by what happens next to inflation, borrowing costs and the path of the S&P 500 and all-important Treasury rates.Mahedy said he worries that the relationship will break down if the Warsh-led Fed continues to raise rates - as many suspect it will be forced to."It's not hard to see more blame being put on the Fed and Warsh - and then it will start to look a lot like Powell," said Mahedy. "It's kind of a train wreck - but a slow-moving one."For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.comThis article originally appeared on CNN Business at https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/17/economy/fed-trump-rate-hike-warsh
Judge sets new condition as Trump talks about Kennedy Center being 'ripped down' Judge sets new condition as Trump talks about Kennedy Center being 'ripped down'By Katharine Jackson and Mike Scarcella WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday to provide at least 30 days' notice before taking any steps to demolish the Kennedy Center, the landmark performing arts venue that has become a flashpoint in his efforts to reshape the U.S. capital. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued the order after lawyers for a Democratic congresswoman who is suing to keep the venue open and Trump's name off its facade submitted new evidence citing the Republican president's comments on Wednesday referring to demolishing the Kennedy Center. "I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down," Trump told reporters in North Carolina, referring to putting his name on the facility established by Congress and opened in 1971 as a memorial to slain President John Kennedy. Matt Floca, the Kennedy Center's Trump-backed executive director, said in a court filing earlier on Thursday that the building was being temporarily closed to assess safety risks in areas "exhibiting severe structural deterioration." Democratic U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty, who sued Trump last year over his Kennedy Center plans, responded in a filing in federal court in Washington that the closure "is a recipe for defendants extending their shutdown forever and closing the Kennedy Center for the next two years - the very thing this court said they could not do without its permission." Beatty's lawyers also cited a photo circulating on social media that depicted the president aboard Air Force One looking at a poster they said appeared to be titled "Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED." The photo has not been independently verified by Reuters. Trump last year had the White House's historic East Wing demolished to make way for a ballroom project he has pursued. EMERGENCY HEARING DENIED Cooper turned down a request by Beatty for an emergency hearing on her lawsuit after the Kennedy Center's board, including Trump and his hand-picked appointees, voted this week to close the venue for up to two years for a $257 million renovation project. Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center's board, said the venue is no longer accessible to the public during normal operating hours. New barriers were visible outside the building on Wednesday. Beatty and other critics have accused Trump of seeking to place his name on the Kennedy Center out of vanity. Trump's name had been placed on the building's facade until the judge in May ordered it removed, saying only Congress can change the name. Cooper earlier directed the board to explain by Thursday whether the administration's plan violates an earlier order he issued limiting its ability to shut its doors. The board said on Thursday morning that it was not in violation of the order, and the seven-day emergency closure was separate from the larger renovation plans. The Trump administration said it would ask the judge by Friday to dissolve the prior order to allow for what the government called "closure necessary to complete the restoration and renovations." Cooper, in a ruling on Tuesday, rejected the center's latest effort to put Trump's name on the building to reflect his role in the planned renovation. The administration has appealed, and Trump said on social media the Kennedy Center "is destined to doom" if it is not permitted to close for repairs. (Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Mike Scarcella; Editing by Will Dunham, Doina Chiacu, Andrea Ricci, David Bario and Rod Nickel) This article originally appeared on Reuters at https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/court-filing-cites-trump-comments-140537765.html
White House withdraws ICE director nominee after Republican blocks hearing White House withdraws ICE director nominee after Republican blocks hearingThe White House on Thursday withdrew the nomination of Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a Republican blocked his confirmation hearing.Schroyer's nomination stalled after Senate Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a foe of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, requested that the Department of Homeland Security provide his committee with more information about its investigation into two ICE and Border Patrol agents accused of killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.Paul, who as chair controls the committee's hearing and markup agenda, did not oppose Schroyer's nomination, per Drew Carmichael, a spokesperson for the senator.Schroyer was a surprise pick to lead ICE. He had no experience leading a major law enforcement agency, let alone an organization the size of ICE. But Schroyer has close ties with the DHS secretary. Schroyer at one point led Mullin's security detail and Mullin made Schroyer a senior adviser at DHS.The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The nomination's withdrawal is a blow to Mullin, who has faced criticism from immigration hardliners over what they have characterized as insufficient progress in achieving mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants from the United States. Mullin had defended his pick to lead ICE, saying he wanted someone who could be confirmed in the Senate.Mullin's pitch for putting Schroyer in the role in part involved highlighting his experience with helping stand up special units in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to locate abducted children, as well as his work implementing a state program allowing local police departments to work with ICE on arresting undocumented immigrants.But immigration hardliners weren't convinced. They and others in the administration doubted Schroyer could lead the complex agency - or even clear the Senate.Schroyer's abrupt exit means the agency's streak of not having a confirmed leader at the top ranks will continue. The Senate has not confirmed an ICE director since 2014 and there is pessimism within the administration's ranks that the Senate could confirm any nominee with a significant track record at ICE, given how polarizing the agency has become under President Donald Trump.Acting ICE chief David Venturella, a close ally of White House border czar Tom Homan, has led ICE while Schroyer's nomination was pending. Under federal law, as long as a nominee is pending Venturella can serve in that role indefinitely. Now, the clock starts ticking on a 210 day limit for his tenure, unless someone else is nominated.Venturella would have his own challenges if he were nominated for the role, including past work for GEO Group, a major private detention company. Some in the administration have said that association would hurt his chances at confirmation to lead ICE in Schroyer's place.This article originally appeared on Politico at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/white-house-pulls-stalled-ice-161820449.html
Scientists discover the first new cat species in more than 100 years Scientists discover the first new cat species in more than 100 yearsIn 2016, Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a biologist and National Geographic Explorer working in Bolivia, received a call from a local wildlife sanctuary that had just been given what they described as "a weird cat." It came from a local man who found it as a kitten on a road near a forest. The man took the animal home, believing it to be a domestic breed. But after about a year of living with the clearly wild animal, he realized it would be better off at a sanctuary.As the lead scientist and founder of the Bolivian Felids Research Program (Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia), Nogales-Ascarrunz was intrigued. The animal had a small, scrunched-up face, short and round ears, and long whiskers. It was, indeed, too small to be a housecat, and, most notably, it was covered in leopard-like spots. So she went to visit the creature at the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary on the subtropical flank of the Bolivian Andes."I took a hundred pictures of it," remembers Nogales-Ascarrunz. "I was so fascinated."What she couldn't know at the time was that this curious cat had a secret. It would become the first new species of felid (i.e. the cat family) discovered in over 100 years, according to a study published today in the journal Current Biology. What's exciting is the discovery is not a validation of a species proposed in the distant past, nor a previously recognized subspecies raised to species status-which are both more commonly reported and important findings. No, this cat was something totally new to science.At the time though, Nogales-Ascarrunz assumed the unusual cat was a member of the species Leopardus tigrinus. Sometimes called tigrinas, oncillas, tigrillos, or little spotted cats, this species was described back in 1775 from a single illustration of an animal seen in French Guiana and was subsequently presumed to exist across Central and South America, including, at the time, Bolivia.But then in 2019, while she was preparing a booklet about Bolivia's cat species, she realized the cat she'd photographed didn't look like a guidebook reference photo from neighboring Brazil. Her tiger cat had rosettes that were much larger than the ones across the border. "This is so wrong," she thought.It would take another few years before Nogales-Ascarrunz developed her skills in genetic analysis to the point where she could investigate the mystery cat's genome with any accuracy. Then, working with Eduardo Eizirik, a geneticist at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and study co-lead author Jonas Lescroart from the University of Antwerp, the team was able to find its distinct place on the cat family tree.In their paper, the researchers propose the cat should be known as Leopardus tilcayo, in honor of the word local people know it by. "We asked the local people, 'Why do you call it tilcayo?'" says Nogales-Ascarrunz, who is herself from Bolivia. "And they said, 'I don't know! My grandpa called it tilcayo, so I call it tilcayo." (The name does not appear to mean anything particular in Spanish or the Quechua language spoken in Bolivia.)So far, all scientists can say is that L. tilcayo lives in Bolivia's Yungas forest ecoregion, which lies on the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains. But as to what these cats eat or get eaten by, how they reproduce, and many other facets of their day-to-day lives, much mystery remains. "So many basic things are not known," says Nogales-Ascarrunz, who is co-lead author of the new study.But the discovery is monumental, and not just because it's the first new cat discovered since the pampas cat in 1923. The new paper doesn't just name a new species; it redraws the cat family tree to have a lot more branches than previously thought. What's more, the researchers hope the methods used to identify L.tilcayo may soon be used to find even more cat species spread across the world, and even transform how we protect them.While physical differences such astail length, rosette size, or teeth shape are always important indicators for scientists looking to delineate species, genomic analyses are increasingly the gold standard, simply because they can tell a story hidden from the naked eye."We've been working on tiger cats for 25 years or so, trying to sort out the whole genus, Leopardes," says Eizirik. The deeper these scientists look into these cat's genomes, the more hidden variation they find.In 2013, scientists provided evidence that Leopardus tigrinus - the species Nogales-Ascarrunz originally assumed the new cat to be a member of - were actually made up of two distinct species. Then in 2024, the landscape changed again with the proposal that another genetically distinct species be peeled off from the previous two. Now, the newest study makes five tiger cat species. "What we once thought to be a single species, we've started to see that it was actually a species complex," Eizirik says.While this kind of confusion would be unheard of in, say, the Panthera genus - which includes cats such as tigers, snow leopards, and lions - the world's small wild cats are much less studied. They are also exceptionally good at remaining out of sight. Even photos taken by remote trail cameras may not provide enough evidence to distinguish the species. For instance, one of the museum specimens included in the new study was originally thought to be another small, spotted cat called a margay, until it was later identified as a tiger cat (L. tigrinus) due to the direction of its nape hairs. Modern genomics lets scientists see deeper differences photographs and fieldnotes miss. In the new study, when the researchers compared complete genomes from 38 individuals across the Leopardus genus, the results showed that not only was L. tilcayo different from the other tiger cat species, but it had diverged from them around 1.4 million years ago-an evolutionary distance comparable to that between modern lions and extinct cave lions.While the discovery of yet another new tiger cat "is itself surprising news, the results obtained profoundly change how small cat specialists group small cat species in genus Leopardus," says James Sanderson, founder and director of the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation who was not an author on the new publication. To that end, the study also provides evidence for a new sub-species of tiger cat in Peru, Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo, and according to Sanderson, its findings also hint that the margay-which scientists have assumed to be one species spread across Mexico through Argentina- is not one species, but four."This study hints that, having split from a common ancestor close to [one million years ago], four distinct margay species exist," says Sanderson, who is also a member of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, in an email. For his part, Eizirik says a more focused study of margay genetics will be needed before he'd make such a claim.Sanderson says this is likely just the beginning of more discoveries. "It's by no means a stretch of the imagination that the improved methods used in this study will reveal new species of small wild cats in Africa and Asia," he says.All of these additional brancheson the cat family tree will have real world consequences for conservation.One of the key factors to establish a species' conservation status is its geographic distribution. "If you think [the tiger cat] is a single thing from southern Brazil all the way to Costa Rica, you're going to find it's not endangered," says Eizirik. "But if we find that it's not a single thing, but actually five things, each of them must be assessed separately."According to Sanderson, such distinctions add urgency to conservation efforts. "Once three species become five species, each population is reduced," he says. "Therefore conservation efforts must increase, perhaps urgently, depending on estimated population sizes." (For now, scientists are unsure of how many tilcayosexist in the wild.)Genetics and questions of taxonomy aside, Nogales-Ascarrunz doesn't want to lose focus on the wonder. "Our world is extremely complex," she says. "Sometimes we think that most of it is known, that there's not a whole lot to discover, but in fact, it's the other way around."It is now commonplace for scientists to announce the discovery of new species, though the description of new insects, microbes, and other small organisms dominates the literature. And that makes sense, because they are easily hidden, hard to find, and often evade our understanding. But a five-pound felid?"Even in the cats, there are things out there that are undescribed, things that people haven't found yet," says Nogagles-Ascarrunz. "So let's go out and find them and protect them."Jason Bittel is a National Geographic Explorer and author of Grizzled: Love Letters to 50 of North America's Least Understood Animals.
Joel Sartore is a National Geographic Explorer, photographer and founder of the National Geographic Photo Ark, which uses the power of photography to inspire people to help protect at-risk species before it's too late.The nonprofit National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funded Explorer Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz'swork. The Society also funds Explorer Joel Sartore's Photo Ark project.Learn more about the Society's support of Explorers.This article originally appeared on National Geographic at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/meet-the-first-new-cat-species-discovered-in-100-years
1,700-year-old fragment of the 'Odyssey' discovered between pages of library book 1,700-year-old fragment of the 'Odyssey' discovered between pages of library bookWhen you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A researcher discovered a fragment of the "Odyssey" in the Utrecht University library in the Netherlands. | Credit: Utrecht University A researcher was perusing a collection of old Egyptian texts in a Dutch library when he stumbled upon a torn piece of parchment containing a pivotal story: a section from Homer's "Odyssey." The fragment appears to be from a pocket edition of the epic produced in Egypt around A.D. 300.The researcher, Mark de Kreij, a Greek literature expert and professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands, found the parchment while studying early Christian manuscripts that the Utrecht University library purchased in the mid-20th century, according to a Sept. 14 statement from Utrecht University. Among a collection of Egyptian and Greek texts, de Kreij found a tiny piece of parchment with words he recognized from Homer's epic."There are so many boring parts in the Odyssey," de Kreij told RTV Utrecht. "This happens to be a really fun passage." The newfound "Odyssey" fragment, which is only about 2.6 by 3 inches (6.6 by 7.7 centimeters), includes verses from Book 12 of the epic. Specifically, the verses describe what happened when the sun god Helios discovered that Odysseus' men had killed and eaten his "immortal" cattle.Odysseus had been warned by the goddess Circe to avoid Thrinacia, the island of Helios. But he and his men arrive at the island after surviving Scylla and Charybdis - a six-headed monster and a monstrous whirlpool. When Eurylochus, Odysseus' right-hand man, begs him to let them land and find food, Odysseus agrees, as long as they don't harm any cattle. But after a month of storms, with food supplies running low, Eurylochus and the men kill and eat Helios' sacred cattle. Helios asks the gods to take vengeance on the crew, and Zeus destroys their ship, killing everyone but Odysseus.The find marks the second time this year that a fragment from a Homeric epic has been found unexpectedly. This past spring, archaeologists in Egypt discovered papyrus fragments of the "Iliad," which details the legendary Trojan War, inside a Roman-era mummy. Both the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" were composed in the late eighth or early seventh century B.C. and detail the 10-year Trojan War and the Greek hero Odysseus' 10-year journey from Troy back to Ithaca, respectively.
The newfound fragment likely originated as part of a parchment codex dating to the third or fourth century A.D. from the Fayum (also spelled Faiyum or Fayoum) oasis in Egypt. According to the statement, only about 30 similar fragments have ever been discovered. In an interview with Dutch News, de Kreij said the fragment may have survived because it came from the middle of the pocket-size "Odyssey" and was protected by other pages.It's unknown how the fragment ended up in the larger collection of old Egyptian texts.Although de Kreij first discovered the fragment in 2024, his full study of the university library's collection of Greco-Roman texts from Egypt will be published soon as a book titled "Hieratic, Demotic, Greek, and Coptic Texts in the Utrecht University Collection."Editor's note: This story's headline was updated at 9:35 a.m. ET on Sept. 17 to clarify that the parchment was found among other texts in a collection of ancient manuscript fragments rather than in the middle of a book.This article originally appeared on Live Science at https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/1-700-year-old-fragment-of-the-odyssey-discovered-between-pages-of-dutch-library-book
