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Editor’s Note: Notice the date discrepancy? Remember, this report stems from Italy…a few time zones before here on the USA! 🌹
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- The Russians in Donetsk Oblast have assembled a “Tsar-Train” to hinder the advance of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. The construction spans 30 kilometers, according to the team of the interactive online map of military operations in Ukraine, DeepState. The continuous structure made from freight cars stretches from the railway station in Olenivka to Volnovakha, comprising approximately 2,100 cars of various types. The assembly of this train convoy began in July 2023, with experts suggesting that mobile equipment, likely stolen from temporarily occupied territories, was used for construction. Experts note that the structure can be considered a defensive line. “This is a very specific engineering structure, the effectiveness of which is challenging to assess. The idea is clear – to obstruct the advance of Ukraine’s Defense Forces. It can be viewed as a separate line of defense because damaging, displacing, or detonating a 30-kilometer mass of metal is extremely difficult, and moving equipment through such an obstacle without creating a corridor is impossible,” writes DeepState.
- A German zoo has sparked outrage with plans to cull some of its 45-strong tribe of baboons and feed them to captive predators after contraception failed to stop the primates from breeding. The director of the Nuremberg Zoo, Dag Encke, announced the ‘sensible’ plan to kill off nearly half of the baboon population in the zoo – to allegedly ‘ensure the survival’ of the species. Zookeepers even tried putting the protected Guinea baboons on contraction, but this ‘didn’t work’ as the monkeys kept replicating and the population continued to grow, according to a statement by the zoo.
- A Moscow court on Monday said it had ordered the arrest in absentia of Meta Platforms spokesperson Andy Stone for two months pending trial on a number of terrorism-related counts. Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, while Stone declined to comment. Russia grew increasingly hostile towards Meta after Moscow sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022. Meta’s main social platforms – Facebook and Instagram – were both banned soon after the conflict began and Meta was subsequently found guilty of “extremist activities” in Russia. Russia’s interior ministry opened a criminal investigation into Stone late last year, without disclosing specific charges. The court also said Stone was put on wanted lists both in Russia and internationally.
- No matter where the body is buried, the microbial network behind the cadaver’s decomposition remains essentially the same. Researchers from Colorado State University (CSU) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), showed that decomposer microbiomes are the same across cadavers, regardless of location, climate, and seasonal effects. These microbiomes break down organic matter through complex cross-feeding and interkingdom interactions. The implications of this research extend to the disciplines of ecology, criminology, and forensic science. The article was published in Nature Microbiology. Decomposition is a fundamental Earth-based process that recycles deceased organic matter to sustain life. Approximately two billion metric tons of nutrient-dense animal biomass increase ecosystem productivity, soil fertility, and other ecosystem functions and characteristics.
- An investigation is underway after a man allegedly boarded a British Airways flight from London Heathrow to JFK Airport in New York City without a ticket or a passport. He was sent back to the UK on a charter flight and arrested on arrival at Heathrow. The Met Police told The Telegraph that Craig Sturt was “charged with obtaining services by deception; being unlawfully airside and boarding an aircraft without permission and remanded to appear at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court”. Since 9/11, airport security has tightened up immeasurably. Gone are the days when you could get all the way to your departure gate without showing a single document. We are now subject to biometric facial recognition, multiple ticket checks, full-body scans and micro-chipped e-passports. Airports are watertight, and sneaking onto a plane feels like it should be impossible. So how do some passengers get away with it?
- Heba Alhayek, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, (middle and bottom left) attached images of paragliders to their backs with tape, while Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, (top left) stuck one to the handle of a placard. The trio displayed the images on October 14, 2023, just seven days after militants from Hamas used paragliders to enter Israel from Gaza on October 7 (see images, right) before randomly murdering civilians. They were charged under the Terrorism Act with carrying or displaying an article to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of banned organisation Hamas, which they denied but were found guilty of this afternoon after a two-day trial. Reacting to the verdicts, the Crown Prosecution Service said displaying the images amounted to the ‘glorification of the actions’ of Hamas. But the judge said he had ‘decided not to punish’ the women and gave them a 12-month conditional discharge instead on the basis that he did not believe they were true Hamas supporters and ’emotions’ had ‘run very high’ at the time of their offence.
- [OMG] Environmentalists are urging Americans to ditch the roses on Valentine’s Day and opt for a more carbon-friendly option like sunflowers. Roses are the most popular cut flower in the world and are the classic floral pick when it comes to romantic occasions – like weddings, engagements and of course Valentine’s Day. However, the bouquets have a huge carbon footprint as they are usually imported from Colombia and Ecuador on planes, usually shortly after being picked to stop them wilting.
- Arizona park visitors were frightened into dialing 911 after seeing what they believed to be an eleven foot alligator floating in the park lake. But Mesa Parks and Recreation officials have now clarified that the reptile is fake and made of Styrofoam. The park said it had placed a fake 11-foot alligator on Riverview Lake in order to create a safe area for the turtles to step in and out of the water to sunbathe. The park, which previously tried using steps to allow turtles to get out and sun themselves, has resorted to using the fake animal after the turtles kept getting out of the water along the banks of the pond and ending up on the street which led to them getting killed.
- A 39-year-old man who has become the first person in England and Wales to be convicted of the new offence of cyberflashing, MailOnline can reveal. Cyberflashing – sending sexual images via text messages, social media, datings apps or data sharing services such as Bluetooth and Airdrop – became an offence in England and Wales on January 31, having been illegal in Scotland since 2010.
- A key Chinese bank used by Russian importers has stopped all settlements with Russia, setting the stage for a “logistics collapse” in the coming weeks, the business daily Vedomosti reported, citing anonymous businesspeople and financial consultants familiar with the matter. Chouzhou Commercial Bank, which became the main transaction channel for Russian importers, reportedly notified clients last week that it was terminating relations with all Russian and Belarusian organizations. With Chinese New Year scheduled for Feb. 10-17, an “almost imminent logistics collapse” will hobble exports to Russia at least until March, one of Vedomosti’s sources was quoted as saying.
- In Mexico, an ancient church appeared in a reservoir due to drought. Low water levels in the Benito Juarez dam meant less fishing and crops, said fisherman Alejandro Olivera, who lives in the town of Jalapa del Marques. “When this church appears, we start thinking about the drought because there’s less water. As fishermen, we know there will be less fish. That affects us. When the dam is full of water, we have a lot of places where we can fish.” Locals said that the decrease in water is due to low levels of rainfall in recent years. In late January, water levels in the Benito Juarez dam had decreased by 47%, local media reported.
- In a forest of Ecuador, a roughly 1-foot-long creature with spiky “eyelashes” perched on a plant and waited. The venomous animal was hunting, but what came along next was not a meal. Scientists encountered the patient predator and captured it. It turned out to be a new species. Researchers wanted to study a group of snakes known as eyelash pit vipers, according to a study published Feb. 8 in the peer-reviewed journal Evolutionary Systematics. These snakes have scales above their eyes that resemble “eyelashes” but vary greatly in coloring and habitat. Because of this variation, researchers suspected that some species of pit viper were being misidentified, the study said. They analyzed over 400 specimens from museum collections and started noticing a pattern. Some of the pit vipers from Ecuadorand Colombia had pink bands and spiky “eyelashes.” Researchers quickly realized they’d discovered a new species: Bothriechis rahimi, or Rahim’s eyelash pit viper. Rahim’s eyelash pit viper can reach up to 19 inches in length, the study said. They have “raised,” “spinelike” scales above “pale straw yellow” eyes. Their tails are “prehensile” and capable of grasping.
- South Africa urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to evaluate whether Israel’s planned ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah requires the court to intervene to prevent further breaches of Palestinian rights in an emergency filing on Monday. “The unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large-scale killing, harm and destruction,” the South African Presidency said in a statement published on Tuesday, suggesting the ICJ take further “provisional measures” to restrain Israel. Israel ignored the ICJ’s preliminary ruling and continued its bombardment of the Palestinian territory, even further limiting the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid by accusing the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA of aiding and abetting Hamas in its raid last October. During a press conference on Monday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell recalled the words of US President Joe Biden, who said last week that the Israeli response to the Hamas attack had been “over the top.” He also noted that other high-ranking Western officials have been making similar statements recently.
- US President Joe Biden has not modified his Israel policy despite mounting frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to compromise in Gaza, which has erupted into name-calling in private, NBC reported on Monday, citing multiple sources. “He just feels like this is enough. It has to stop,” one of the insiders told the news outlet. Biden has complained that Netanyahu is “giving him hell” by refusing to consider a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza, the sources said, adding that the US president is upset the Israeli leader has rejected several “good deals” put before him. Biden’s frustration has spilled over into allegedly calling the Israeli PM an “assh*le” on three separate occasions, according to his confidants.
- The French government will amend the constitution to discontinue the practice of “birthright citizenship” in its department of Mayotte, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has said. Mayotte consists of two islands between the African mainland and Madagascar, which chose to remain French while the rest of the archipelago became the independent Comoros Islands in 1973. “We are going to take a radical decision,” Darmanin told reporters on Sunday, visiting Mamoudzou on the island of Grande-Terre. “It will no longer be possible to become French if you are not the child of a French parent.” The measure should make Mayotte less “attractive” to immigrants, he added.
- Russia’s release of documents exposing major pharmaceutical companies in America and beyond “confirms not only the existence of a secret bioweapon program targeting Slavic-DNA, but explains why the West in general has become so pathologically obsessed with trying to keep Ukraine in the NATO-EU-US orbit of influence,” Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer and US state department counterterrorism analyst, told Sputnik. “The large network of pharmaceutical and medical research and development companies involved show a constellation of connecting points that lead back into the heart of the City of London, the United States, and their secret intelligence proxies, mercenaries, and slaves willing to sell out their own country, Ukraine, for ‘30 pieces of silver,’ with the face of America on the coin,” Bennett pointed out.
- For the first time, astronomers have detected dark matter hanging from massive filaments that stretch across the universe and form a “cosmic web” that trap galaxies like morning dew on a spiderweb. Researchers from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, used the Subaru Telescope — an 8.2-meter optical-infrared telescope near the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii — and an effect that gravity has on light to indirectly observe dark matter sitting on cosmic web filaments in the Coma Cluster. This marks the first-ever detection of dark matter on the cosmic web, and could help confirm how this structure — with strands that run for tens of millions of light-years — has influenced the evolution of the universe.
Rose Rambles... 