#US Central Command said the #strikes were aimed at degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping and to “swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps" after attacks against #US troops

New research aims to protect honeybees and strengthen Canadian #agriculture. Honeybees are best known for producing honey, but their most important contribution is the role they play in pollinating #Canada’s food crops.

However, the western honeybee (Apis mellifera) faces growing threats from disease, parasites and environmental stressors driven by a changing climate.

To address these growing issues, Dr. Nuria Morfin of the University of Manitoba is researching how microbes, parasites and environmental conditions combine to impact the health of honeybees.

“Honeybees are very important and contribute billions of Canadian dollars to the economy through the pollination of crops and also providing jobs and other sources of revenue,” said Morfin, an assistant professor of entomology in the faculty of agricultural and food sciences.

One of the greatest threats to these honeybee colonies is the parasitic mite Varroa destructor. The mite weakens bees’ immune systems by feeding on them, leaving colonies more vulnerable to viral infections such as deformed wing virus.

While the effects of the mite are well documented, researchers like Morfin are still working to understand how the mite interacts with different bacteria and viruses that affect honeybee colonies.

“We’re working to understand how these stressors interact and affect bees, and at the end, we want to propose solutions to the beekeeping industry so they can have more productive and healthier bees,” she said.

“We are also testing, for example, new treatments against Varroa mites, but also other diseases like European foulbrood and American foulbrood,” she said.

Morfin’s research at the University of Manitoba’s UM Honey Bee Lab uses the pathobiome approach — a research framework that recognizes diseases rarely have a single cause.

The team is investigating how Varroa destructor, microorganisms and environmental stressors work together to weaken honeybee immunity and trigger disease.

The research will also explore how changing environmental conditions, including temperature fluctuations and humidity, influence bee health and their ability to resist infection.

“We believe these will not stop, and we want to be prepared, understand more and provide more tools to the beekeeping industry,” she said.

“Apart from that, from a scientific point of view, honeybees are a very interesting model organism to understand diseases, behaviour and behavioural immune responses, so they are an amazing way of conducting basic research as well,” she said.

Morfin was awarded a new Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) discovery grant to conduct these studies, which she estimates will take around five years.

Master’s student Danika Strelaeff says it’s important to understand all the different factors that impact honeybees to protect them for the future

“Honeybees are the pollinators that we rely on for large agricultural practices, so if we can keep them safe, then we can keep our agriculture safe,” she said. “I think it’s especially important that we take these diseases with high importance and we look for new, innovative solutions.”

Charu Sharma, a technician in apicultural research with the University of Manitoba, says honeybees don’t just have an impact across Canada, but globally.

“They are found in all the continents except Antarctica; it’s too cold for them,” she said.

“Honeybees are very important organisms in many ways, and the thing that I like about this is that they are part of research, they are part of industry, and food production.”
Beekeeping industry feeling the effects

For Manitoba beekeepers, managing these diseases remains a major concern.

Paul Gregory, vice-president of the Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association and co-founder of Interlake Honey Producers in Fisher Branch, about 150 kilometres north of Winnipeg, says it’s been tough to manage all the stressors bees are facing.

“Last year, we lost almost half the bees, and the bees that did come through were weaker,” said Gregory. “We’ll eventually get back to our numbers of 1,200 colonies, but it’s a lot of work and a lot of cost, and it’s a lot of stress for my son and myself.”

“We had a neighbour, in fact, that lost 90 per cent of his bees, so there’s a lot of stress,” Gregory said.

He says the issues honeybees face have intensified in recent years.

“It’s frustrating because the practices that we used two or three years ago are obviously not working today,” he said. “We’ve got to control the mites, but we have to be careful.”

Air defenses destroyed 375 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions last night, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported.

One civilian was killed and four others suffered injuries in a drone attack on the Yaroslavl Region. Several people were injured in a drone strike on the city of Engels in the Saratov Region, where civilian infrastructure facilities sustained damage.

TASS has gathered the key information about the consequences of the attacks.
Scale of attack

- On-duty air defenses intercepted and destroyed 375 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles over Russian regions between 9:00 p.m. Moscow time on July 15 and 8:00 a.m. Moscow time on July 16 (6:00 p.m. - 5:00 a.m. GMT), the Defense Ministry said.

- According to the ministry, the drones were shot down over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Rostov, Ryazan, Saratov, Smolensk, Tver, Tula, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Krasnodar, and Stavropol regions, as well as Crimea, the Sea of Azov, and the Black Sea.
Aftermath

- Several people were injured in a drone strike on the city of Engels in the Saratov Region, Governor Roman Busargin said on the Max social media platform.

- Response teams are working at the site of the attack.

- Civilian infrastructure was damaged in the drone attack on Engels.

- A civilian was killed and four others suffered injuries in a Ukrainian drone attack on the Yaroslavl Region, Governor Mikhail Yevrayev wrote on Max.

- The injured were provided with the necessary medical assistance.

- According to the governor, three men received outpatient care.

- Earlier, Yevrayev said that traffic had been blocked just outside of Yaroslavl on a road leading to Moscow due to a drone strike.

- Three ambulance workers were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Gorlovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, city administration head Ivan Prikhodko said on Max.

Extreme weather making insurance more expensive for Canadians, However, Maloney says his insurance company won’t cover any of the damages because he’s had two other flooding claims in the last few years.

“I went upstairs, laid on the bed, and I’m like, ‘OK, what’s the next step?’” Maloney said, describing the moment his insurer informed him the claim would be denied. “It just, it was a gut punch. It hollowed me out.”

With extreme weather becoming a more common occurrence, it’s increasingly more difficult for some to get protection against sudden natural disasters. Maloney’s policy didn’t cover overland flooding or drain backup because of the two recent claims.

“An insurance company might say, ‘We’re not going to offer that coverage anymore, because it makes no sense for an insurance company to pay tens of thousands of dollars every year, or every couple of years, for the same thing,’” said Anne Marie Thomas, director of consumer and industry relations with the Insurance Bureau of #Canada.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A group of Caribbean leaders met with senior clergy from the Church of England on Tuesday as the push for slavery reparations intensifies, with activists also calling for the independence of British, French, Dutch and U.S. territories in the region.

The reparations commission from Caricom, a Caribbean trade bloc, was scheduled to also meet with British parliamentarians as part of a four-day official trip to the United Kingdom to seek reparations, the second such trip since November.

The group said the commission is creating a framework to launch negotiations because the time for making the case for reparatory justice is overdue.

“We in the Caribbean remain the most colonized part of the world, and this has to stop,” said Hilary Beckles, chairman of Caricom’s reparations commission and vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies.

The meetings in London come after Caribbean leaders bristled at the recent suggestion by a U.K. lawmaker that Britain’s former colonies should repay it for its historic investment in them.

The commission noted that the Caribbean has at least 20 territories with ties to Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States.

“I am quite sure the people of the Caribbean… will be looking to see whether their king … is going to advance this conversation about sovereignty, decolonization and reparatory justice for these crimes that have been committed,” Beckles said.

David Comissiong, Barbados’ ambassador to Caricom, echoed those comments, stressing that the first step of reparations must be the recovery of national sovereignty and self-determination.

He said the commission had a “productive meeting” with three senior clerics from the Church of England, calling it a “possible ally.”

He also praised King Charles III for expressing in recent years “personal sorrow at the suffering of so many” as he noted “slavery’s enduring impact.”

However, Comissiong and others criticized the United Kingdom for abstaining from a U.N. resolution passed in March that called for reparations and declared the trafficking of enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity.” All 27 members of the European Union also abstained, while Argentina, Israel and the United States voted against the resolution.

Comissiong noted that some European governments have offered apologies, memorials, museums and the preservation of slavery infrastructure on Africa’s west coast.

“These are some preliminary gestures that we appreciate,” he said. “But those gestures are not negotiations. … The damage that was done and that still exists today was so consequential, so deeply rooted, that it goes way beyond, way beyond gestures of memorialization.”

An estimated 12 million Africans were forcefully taken by European nations from the 16th to the 19th century, and those who survived the trip across the Atlantic Ocean were enslaved on plantations in the Caribbean and elsewhere under brutal conditions.

Commission members spoke during a press conference in London, ahead of the meeting with parliamentarians.

Among the questions was whether the commission would publish rules as to who should receive reparations.

The answer for the Caribbean remains unclear, although Ron Daniels, head of the National African-American Reparations Commission, said talks in the United States have centered on land, economic development and the restoration or building of communications and healthcare infrastructure.

“Reparations is proceeding quite effectively in the United States as a blueprint,” Daniels said.

Caricom leaders are seeking a formal apology; education and public health improvements; development programs for Indigenous people; repatriation and resettlement for those seeking to live in their homeland; debt cancellations; and monetary compensations, among other things.

In early September, Jamaica’s government is expected to file a formal petition asking King Charles III to refer legal questions on slavery reparations to the Privy Council, the island’s final court of appeal.

Dánica Coto, The Associated Press

#Israel elections to be held on October 27: parliament. Israel will hold national elections on October 27, the last date allowed by law, its parliament said on Sunday, with the vote widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership since the Gaza war erupted.

The Knesset, as parliament is known, is set to end its current term on July 17, allowing the ruling coalition to complete a full four-year term for the first time in decades.

“Since the current Knesset is expected to serve its full term and the next general election is already set by law for October 27, with no intention of shortening the legislature’s tenure, there is no need to enact a Knesset Dissolution Law in the usual sense,” parliament said in a statement.

Netanyahu, 76, is already the country’s longest-serving prime minister across multiple terms, and has declared his intention to run again.

In recent days, his government -- one of the most right-wing coalitions in Israel’s history -- has been racing to pass a series of bills in a bid to shore up his alliance and enter the election from a position of strength.

Last month, Netanyahu even said that he intended to “establish a broad national government, not a right-wing, not a left-wing government that depends on Arab parties, but a broad national government”.

By reaching across the aisle, Netanyahu appears to be trying to reframe his electoral pitch around national unity rather than ideological alignment.

But recent polls show that a majority of Israelis want him out of office, with former military chief Gadi Eisenkot emerging as his main rival.

Public opinion turned critical of the ceasefire that halted the war Israel and the U.S. launched against Iran in late February, which led to a deal between Tehran and Washington that many view as unfavorable to Israel.

Anger also lingers over the security failures surrounding the October 7 attacks, which continues to weigh on Netanyahu’s standing.

No evidence of political motive in former U.K. minister’s murder: #Police.

HAYTOR, England, July 12 - There is no evidence that the suspected murder of former British government minister Ann Widdecombe was politically motivated, police said on Sunday, adding that they were not seeking anyone else after arresting a 28-year-old man.

Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home in rural southwest England on Thursday with what police described as “serious injuries.” Officers arrested a white British man in Rotherham, northern England, late on Saturday.

Police urged the public not to speculate about possible motives while the investigation remains ongoing.

“At this point, there is still no information to suggest that this is a terrorism-related incident, and at this point, we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this murder,” Devon and Cornwall Police Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman told reporters.

“Detectives remain open-minded about the potential motive. At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that it was politically motivated.”

A second suspect arrested on Saturday was later released without charge.

A social conservative, Widdecombe served as a junior minister in John Major’s Conservative government in the 1990s. She stepped down as a lawmaker in 2010 but later joined Nigel

Farage’s Reform UK as its immigration and justice spokesperson. Two serving British members of parliament have been murdered in the last decade.

Labour lawmaker Jo Cox was shot and stabbed by a Nazi-obsessed attacker during the Brexit campaign in 2016.

Conservative lawmaker David Amess was stabbed to death in 2021 by a man inspired by the militant group Islamic State.

(Reporting by Jack Taylor in Haytor, southern England and Alistair Smout in London. Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter)

Climate change is costing Canadian cities billions. Experts say there’s a better solution. An Ontario highway, Highway 402, east of Windsor, had to be shut down last week because extreme heat caused it to buckle and expand for the second straight year in a row -- while one of Ontario’s key transit services, GO Transit, said it will have to slow down its trains in extreme heat because of the risk of tracks buckling.

These are just a couple of examples of cities having to react to mitigate or repair damage caused by climate change, unless they begin investing into climate-proofing their infrastructure, say climate experts.

“The level of heat that we’re now seeing and the frequency at which we see temperatures ... are beyond what infrastructure was designed for,” said Ryan Ness, director of adaptation at the Canadian Climate Institute, in an interview with CTV News Saturday.

“Steel, concrete, asphalt are expanding and contracting more often than they used to. They’re reaching temperatures they’re not designed for, which leads to either catastrophic damage like the heaving we’ve seen on Highway 402 or longer-term chronic damage: rotting potholes, degrading bridges that need maintenance more often.”

A report released earlier this year by the Canadian Climate Institute titled “Prepare or Repair: How Climate-Proofing Public Infrastructure Pays Off” found that investing in climate-proofing infrastructure could save Canadian cities billions of dollars each year.

The report estimates that over the next 75 years, Canada will have to pay roughly $15.1 billion per year on average to maintain, renew and reactively repair infrastructure but if Canada spends roughly $4.1 billion, proactively adapting infrastructure to make it climate-resilient, costs from climate change damage could be reduced to $2.5 billion per year.

The total cost of the $4.1 billion investment plus $2.5 billion in repairs means Canada could save $8.6 billion annually, according to the report.

Ness says roads are the first things governments should start tackling, taking advantage of doing maintenance work to repair the pavement with heat-resistant asphalt.

“Roads are by far Canada’s most expensive and valuable form of infrastructure just because there’s so much of it -- and it’s so important to how, not only people get around, but goods get around -- and how the economy functions in this country,” said Ness.

The New York City Health Department said it tested the cooling towers of 183 buildings in neighborhoods encompassed by three zip codes that are among its wealthiest and most densely populated

Death toll from Venezuela’s twin quakes rises to 3,889. The death toll from the powerful twin tremors that struck Venezuela two weeks ago has risen to at least 3,889, a government report published Thursday stated.

Nearly 17,000 people were injured in the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes on June 24, while almost 18,000 more lost their homes.

The death toll rose from 3,811 to 3,889 on Thursday, according to a report from National Assembly chief Jorge Rodriguez posted on Telegram.

Interim leader Delcy Rodriguez on Wednesday called for the release of Venezuelan funds frozen abroad to help the country cope with the disaster.

The United Nations is meanwhile trying to raise some US$300 million in recovery funds for Venezuela.

The South American country is also negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unblock its financial assets, according to IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack.

In the hardest-hit coastal area of La Guaira, over 800 buildings sustained damage while 190 collapsed entirely.

While rescue teams were abandoning the search for survivors a fortnight after the disaster struck, some families had not given up hope of finding their loved ones.

Ciro Ocando believes he has located the spot where his teenage sons are buried under mountains of rubble in Playa Grande in the city of La Guaira.

He, like many others, just wants to find the bodies of his boys aged 13 and 18, having accepted that their chances of survival are non-existent at this stage.

“I’m in the right place, but there are a lot of obstacles,” he told AFP, using his own tools to dig through the debris.