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Hunt underway for Sumatran tiger after screaming leads workers to man’s body, tiger footprints
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A man has been found dead in western Indonesia after a suspected attack by a Sumatran tiger authorities were still hunting, a local official said Saturday, the latest case of conflict between humans and the critically endangered species.
There are only several hundred tigers on the western island of Sumatra left in the wild and they are often targeted by poachers for their body parts, while rampant deforestation has significantly reduced their habitat.
A team of conservationists was deployed to search for the big cat on Saturday after the 26-year-old male victim was found dead at a plantation in Riau province on Sumatra island on Thursday afternoon with wounds indicating a tiger attack.
“Our team has left this morning (to search for the tiger). Based on the report, the area is within the tiger habitat,” local conservation agency head Genman Suhefti Hasibuan told AFP Saturday.
Local police chief Budi Setiawan said late Friday they had received a report that two workers heard their friend screaming while they were spraying weeds in an acacia plantation.
The workers tried to look for their colleague but instead found tiger footprints on the ground.
They reported the incident to the plantation management who deployed more people to search for the victim.
The victim’s body was later found with a severed right hand as well as bite wounds on his neck, Setiawan said.
In February, at least four farmers in Indonesia’s westernmost province of Aceh were attacked by Sumatran tigers in two separate incidents.
Sumatran tigers, which are a kind of Sunda Island tiger, are considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature with fewer than 400 believed to remain in the wild.
“The last of the Sunda island tigers are holding on for survival in the remaining patches of forest on the island of Sumatra,” according to WWF. “Accelerating deforestation and rampant poaching mean this noble creature could end up extinct like its Javan and Balinese counterparts.”
The attack in Indonesia marks at least the third time a tiger has killed a human in the past five months. In December, a Siberian tiger attacked a dog and then killed the pet’s owner after he followed its tracks in Russia. Also that month, a zoo in Pakistan was shut down after a man was mauled to death by tigers in an attack discovered during routine cleaning.
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Watch Live: Biden awards Medal of Honor to 2 Union soldiers who hijacked train behind enemy lines
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Washington — President Biden is awarding posthumous Medals of Honor on Wednesday to two Army privates who were a part of a plot to hijack a train and destroy Confederate infrastructure during the Civil War.
The president will honor Philip Shadrach and George Wilson for their “gallantry and intrepidity” in carrying out a covert operation called the “Great Locomotive Chase,” which played out 200 miles behind Confederate lines in Georgia in 1862, the White House said.
“In one of the earliest special operations in U.S. Army history, Union Soldiers dressed as civilians infiltrated the Confederacy, hijacked a train in Georgia and drove it north for 87 miles, destroying enemy infrastructure along the way. During what later became known as the Great Locomotive Chase, six of the Union participants became the Army’s first recipients of the newly created Medal of Honor,” a White House official said.
The operation was hatched by James Andrews, a Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout. He proposed penetrating the Confederacy with the goal of degrading their railway and communications lines to cut off Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Confederate supplies and reinforcements.
Andrews, together with 23 other men, infiltrated the South in small groups, coming together north of Atlanta. On April 12, 1862, 22 of the men commandeered a locomotive called The General and ventured north, tearing up railroad tracks and cutting telegraph wires as they went. The men became known as the Andrews’ Raiders.
Shadrach, originally from Pennsylvania and orphaned at a young age, was just 21 when he volunteered for the mission. On Sept. 20, 1861, he left home and enlisted in a Union Army Ohio Infantry Regiment. Wilson, born in Ohio, was a journeyman shoemaker before he enlisted in a Union Army’s Ohio Volunteer Infantry in 1861. He also volunteered for the Andrews’ Raid.
After the operation, both men were captured, convicted as spies and hanged.
“It is unknown why Private Shadrach and Private Wilson were not originally recommended for the Medal of Honor,” a White House official said. “Both were deserving in 1863, and on July 3, 2024, by order of the President of the United States both will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.”
The ceremony comes as questions mount over Mr. Biden’s future as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, with his public appearances under intense scrutiny following his halting performance at last week’s presidential debate. After the Medal of Honor ceremony, the president is meeting with Democratic governors to address their concerns and chart his path forward.
How to watch Biden present the Medal of Honor
- What: President Biden awards the Medal of Honor
- Date: July 3, 2024
- Time: 4:45 p.m. ET
- Location: White House
- Online stream: Live on CBS News in the player above and on your mobile or streaming device.
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