Cut in animal enclosure found at Houston Zoo, after Dallas Zoo crimes
FORT WORTH, Texas — The Houston Zoo reported a cut in an animal enclosure Wednesday following a series of crimes at the Dallas Zoo that led to an arrest.
Keepers at the Houston Zoo noticed a 4-inch gap in the mesh of the brown pelican habitat in the Children’s Zoo, according to a statement.
Keepers immediately determined that the animals in the exhibit were secure and unharmed and alerted the zoo’s security team.
Officials at the Houston Zoo believe the cut in the fence is a result of vandalism.
All other animal areas were closely examined and nothing similar was found at the other exhibits, Houston Zoo officials said in a statement. Zoo security also informed the Houston Police Department, which sent officers out to look at the area.
Other investigations were opened by the Dallas Police Department due to missing animals and numerous cuts found in enclosures at the Dallas Zoo in the past weeks.
Davion Irvin, 24, was arrested Feb. 2 and faces charges related to breaking into the enclosures of a clouded leopard and two langur monkeys, according to Dallas police. Irvin was found at The Dallas World Aquarium, where he said he was planning to commit another crime, police said.
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
McCarthy admits Republicans ‘took bait,’ gave Biden political win at speech
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy admitted Wednesday that Republicans “took the bait” by allowing President Joe Biden to turn GOP heckling at his State of the Union address into political gold.
The powerful California Republican said Biden effectively used the outbursts by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and others to win over Americans watching at home.
“The one thing we need to be is, we need to be smart,” McCarthy told Fox News the morning after the widely praised performance by Biden. “Don’t take the bait, stay with the American public about what we want to do.”
Greene, a firebrand conservative, stood to interrupt Biden’s speech and shouted that he was lying when he accused some Republicans of planning to gut Social Security and Medicare.
Other MAGA hard-liners joined in the heckling, prompting McCarthy to shake his head as he sat behind Biden and appeared to shush his fellow GOP lawmakers.
Biden turned aside the nasty outburst by urging Republicans to openly show Americans that they agree that those programs should not be cut.
The result was a bipartisan standing ovation — and a political victory for Biden.
—New York Daily News
Idaho Senate favors limits on gender-neutral bathroom requirements
BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho bill that would bar local governments from requiring contractors to provide transgender people access to restrooms that align with their gender identities cleared a major hurdle Wednesday.
The bill, from state Sen. Scott Herndon, a Sagle Republican, would block state and local governments from requiring that public works contractors provide access to restrooms, showers or changing rooms “on any basis other than biological sex.”
The Senate cleared the legislation Wednesday on a party-line vote. The bill now heads to the House.
Herndon said Bonner County recently required a company seeking a solid waste project contract to “allow biological males to use a women’s restroom facility” and vice versa.
“This general contractor brought this issue to me,” Herndon told the Senate.
Former President Barack Obama in 2014 issued an executive order that compelled federal contractors to accommodate “multi-use restroom facilities or locker facilities for their employees based on gender identity,” Herndon said in a previous committee meeting.
Herndon’s bill would not apply to public works projects that use federal money.
—The Idaho Statesman
Suspected Pan Am Flight 103 bomber pleads not guilty
Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud, the man accused of helping carry out the 1988 airplane bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, pleaded not guilty in a U.S. court Wednesday.
Mas’ud, a Libyan, is facing three federal charges on suspicion that he helped make the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, shortly after taking off for New York from London’s Heathrow Airport. The bombing killed all 259 people aboard the 747 and 11 on the ground. The attack killed 190 Americans.
The 71-year-old faces life in prison if convicted of two charges of destruction of an aircraft resulting in death and one charge of destruction of a vehicle used in foreign commerce by an explosive, resulting in death.
Mas’ud was charged by the Justice Department in 2020 while he was in custody in Libya for unrelated crimes. He reportedly confessed to a Libyan law enforcement official in September 2012.
Mas’ud is in custody in Alexandria, Virginia, and a detention hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23.
He is the only person to be charged in the U.S. for the terrorist attack.
—New York Daily News
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