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4 animals caught after India wolf attacks see 7 children, 1 woman killed in Uttar Pradesh, officials say
New Delhi — One of the wolves from a pack that has killed eight people in a forested district of north India was caught Thursday, officials said. The victims, seven children and a woman, were killed by the wolves over the past six weeks in the Bahraich district of India’s Uttar Pradesh state.
Thousands of people in dozens of villages in the district have spent sleepless nights since the first attack on July 17, when a one-year-old boy was killed by the wolves in Sikandarpur village. The second attack a week later saw the wolves snatch a three-year-old girl from a courtyard where she was sleeping at night. Her badly mutilated remains were discovered in a nearby field, spreading a wave of terror across the district.
Six more people were killed in similar attacks over the next few weeks, with the wolves sneaking into the yards of people who were sleeping outside their homes. It’s common in rural India for people to sleep outdoors to beat the summer heat.
An infant was killed in the latest attack Tuesday night.
Anwar Attar/iStock/Getty
On Thursday, officials with the Uttar Pradesh forestry department said they had captured one of the wolves from the pack of six. The animal was tranquilized and then sent to a zoo. Three others were captured earlier, but two remain on the loose, according to the officials.
“On the basis of pugmarks (pawprints), drone footage, we came to know that there were around six stray wolves, and hence we installed the traps accordingly,” Vineet Singh, Divisional Forest Officer for the Bahraich district, told reporters Thursday.
He said the first wolf was captured on Aug. 19 and the latest on Thursday in the Mahsi area of the district. The forestry department deployed 16 teams of experts who were using technologies including thermal cameras and drones to track the remaining wolves.
They have also burned elephant dung to create smoke and spread elephant urine in a bid to create a natural scent barrier to keep the wolves within a targeted area. The illusion of elephants created by the smells has helped officials contain the wolves in an area where the traps have been set, as wolves tend to avoid large animals like elephants, senior Forest Department officer Akash Deep Badhawan explained.
State authorities have warned people against sleeping out in the open or moving around at night alone, but some houses in the area don’t even have doors and many lack indoor toilets, so residents have little option but to go out to relieve themselves in the night, according to a report by one Indian news outlet.
While attacks by big cats and elephants are not rare in India, wolf attacks are unusual. More than 300 people were killed in tiger attacks in the country between 2018 and 2022, according to the latest available government data.
Experts say the expansion of towns and villages into wilderness areas, reducing the natural habitats and hunting grounds of many species, is a major factor behind the increasing people-animal encounters.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
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Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
