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Video shows bear cubs native to Alaska found wandering 3,614 miles away — in Florida
A Florida deputy came upon a strange sight when responding to a recent call in Baker County at 3:30 in the morning.
A man said that he spotted two bear cubs on the side of the road that didn’t look like black bears native to the area. When the deputy arrived on scene, she met the man and the bears, who were looking to explore.
“They want to check out everything. They’re completely friendly,” the unidentified man can be heard saying.
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office
Video shared by the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office shows the encounter, including the bears approaching the deputy and man, and climbing on their cars.
The deputy and man both speculated that the animals were brown bears or grizzly bears. According to the sheriff’s office, those thoughts were correct: The animals were Kodiak cubs, a unique subspecies.
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office
They’re also native to Alaska – which meant the cubs found by sheriff’s office were about 3,614 miles away from home.
The deputy contacted Florida Fish and Wildlife, who were able to transport the cubs to a secure location for safekeeping. The agency also launched an investigation into how the cubs came to be in Florida. The sheriff’s office said that they chose not to share the video of the encounter, which happened on Dec. 5, until the investigation was completed.
Florida Fish and Wildlife determined that the bears had escaped from “an inadequate enclosure at a residence on Old River Road where a self-proclaimed bear trainer lives,” according to the sheriff’s office. That resident, who was not identified by the sheriff’s office, now faces “various Florida wildlife violations” related to the investigation’s findings.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the bears live exclusively on the Kodiak Archipelago in Alaska, and have been isolated from other bears for over a millennium. There are about 3,500 such bears in the area. Kodiaks are larger than brown or grizzly bears, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and male bears of the species can be over 10 feet tall when standing on their hind legs.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says workers at seven Amazon facilities will begin a strike Thursday morning in an effort by the union to pressure the e-commerce giant for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized walkouts in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect any impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies.
At a warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees – including many delivery drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join” them, the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” he said.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for more than a year, aren’t its employees. Under its business model, the drivers work for third-party businesses, called Delivery Service Partners, who drop off millions of packages to customers everyday.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.“
The Teamsters have argued Amazon essentially controls everything the drivers do and should be classified as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made before the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.
NEW YORK — The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon at numerous locations across the country, including in Maspeth, Queens.
The Teamsters are calling it the largest strike against Amazon in United States history, and it’s set to begin at 6 a.m. Thursday. In addition to New York City, workers will be joining picket lines in Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Illinois.
In a video announcement released Wednesday night, workers voiced their frustrations.
“Us being strike ready means we’re fed up, and Amazon is clearly ignoring us and we want to be heard,” one worker says in the video.
“It’s really exciting. We’re taking steps for ourselves to win better conditions, better benefits, better wages,” another worker in the video says.
The union says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and that Amazon ignored a deadline to come to the table and negotiate. The $2 trillion company doesn’t pay employees enough to make ends meet, the union asserts.
At the height of the holiday season, many are wondering what this means for packages currently in transit.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said, “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed.”
Amazon says Teamsters are misleading the public
An Amazon spokesperson says the Teamsters are misleading the public and do not represent any Amazon employees, despite any claims.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An Amazon representative says the company doesn’t expect operations to be impacted.
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