WASHINGTON — Caretakers at Washington’s National Zoo hope to get the first close look at a newborn panda cub during a weekend exam.
National Zoo to wait for closer look
at newborn panda
WASHINGTON — Caretakers at Washington’s National Zoo hope to get the first close look at a newborn panda cub during a weekend exam.
During the checkup, officials will try to listen to the cub’s heart and lungs, record its weight and collect a DNA sample. The minutes-long health assessment was initially planned for Saturday, but mom Mei Xiang didn’t give keepers an opportunity to take her cub, which was born Friday evening and is about the size of a stick of butter.
Brandie Smith, the zoo’s curator of mammals, said she and others are “cautiously optimistic” about this cub’s health. She compared the planned exam to a race car pit stop, a fast and highly choreographed checkup before reuniting mom and cub.
The cub is the 15-year-old panda’s third. The cub she gave birth to last year died after just six days. That cub’s lungs hadn’t fully developed and likely weren’t sending enough oxygen to its liver. Mei Xiang’s first cub, a male named Tai Shan, was born in 2005.
An early exam at the zoo is a change from last year, and staff members have made several other changes in preparation for another cub. Mei Xiang’s den has been altered to allow keepers to get closer to her, and the zoo also invited a panda expert from China who specializes in newborns to help out. Two of the zoo’s panda keepers have also recently spent time in China learning more about examining newborns.
3 Dead, 2 Wounded
in Fla. shooting
LAKE BUTLER, Fla. — A longtime employee of a Florida trucking company drove around Saturday shooting former co-workers and his onetime boss, killing two and wounding two, authorities said. The gunman then killed himself.
Hubert Allen Jr., 72, shot the men at several locations around Union County, including the headquarters for Pritchett Trucking Inc., according to a Union County Sheriff’s Office news release.
Authorities said Allen shot and killed former co-worker Rolando Gonzalez-Delgado, 28, around 9 a.m. then went a short distance and fatally shot his former employer, 80-year-old Marvin Pritchett.
A few minutes later, he pulled over where another former co-worker was driving a farm tractor, exchanged words with him and then fired one shot from a shotgun, authorities said. That victim, 66-year-old Lewis Mabrey Jr., was in good condition and receiving surgery for a broken arm and other injuries.
Not long after that, Allen went to the company’s headquarters and shot 44-year-old David Griffis in the stomach, the release said. Griffis was in critical condition.
NY AG sues ‘Trump University,’ for
fraud, deception
ALBANY, N.Y. — New York’s attorney general is suing Donald Trump for $40 million, saying the real estate mogul helped run a phony “Trump University” that promised to make students rich but instead steered them into expensive and mostly useless seminars.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said many of the 5,000 students who paid up to $35,000 thought they would at least meet Trump. Instead, Schneiderman said all they got was their picture taken in front of a life-size picture of Trump.
Schneiderman filed suit Saturday against the program and Trump, accusing them of engaging in persistent fraud, illegal and deceptive conduct and violating federal consumer protection law. He seeks the $40 million mostly to pay restitution to consumers.
There was no immediate comment from Trump’s spokeswoman Saturday.
Hannah Anderson’s mother, brother memorialized
SANTEE, Calif. — Calling their deaths “an abomination,” a priest memorialized a California mother and young son killed by a family friend who also abducted the woman’s 16-year-old daughter.
Saturday’s service for Christina Anderson and 8-year-old Ethan Anderson at the Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church in Santee was open to the public.
“For the death of Tina and Ethan there are no easy words,” the Rev. Kevin Casey told the memorial gathering, according to the Los Angeles Times. “We are touched by this evil and we can never be the same again.”
The pair was found at the home of James Lee DiMaggio, who set it ablaze earlier this month and then took off with Hannah Anderson.
DiMaggio was killed by FBI agents Aug. 10 in the Idaho wilderness, ending a six-day search that spanned much of the western United States and parts of Canada and Mexico.
Police arrest two more in India rape case
NEW DELHI — Police arrested two more suspects Saturday in the rape of a 22-year-old photojournalist in Mumbai, according to police and local media, in a case that has unnerved India and drawn parallels with an attack in December that led to tougher laws and nationwide protests.
According to media reports, a suspect named Vijay Jadhav, 19, was arrested early Saturday morning after being found hiding at a friend’s video shop in south Mumbai. Local news reports, citing police sources, reported that another suspect, Siraj Rehman, 25, was arrested late Saturday, without revealing details.
The news followed the reported arrest Friday of suspect Chand Shaikh, who also used the alias Mohammed Abdul. Police said he was also 19, but his family has claimed he’s a minor and did not commit the crime.
The victim, an intern at a lifestyle magazine, was photographing an abandoned mill with a male companion for an assignment about 6:30 p.m. Thursday when she was allegedly accosted by two men who called three friends, tied up and beat her male companion and raped her repeatedly. Mumbai is usually considered one of India’s safest cities for women.
The hospital where she was being treated said Saturday in a statement that her condition was improving.
By wire sources