The wait is over for April the giraffe and her legions of fans. Before an online audience of more than a million viewers, April gave birth to a healthy male calf Saturday at the Animal Adventure Park in New York. The 15-year-old giraffe delivered her calf shortly before 10 a.m. EDT in an enclosed pen at the zoo in rural Harpursville. The newborn stood up on his wobbly legs about 45 minutes after he was born. He began nursing not long after. At least 1.2 million people watched the Adventure Park’s YouTube streaming of the event. Zoo owner Jordan Patch says both mom and calf are doing fine. [Business Insider]
Video of the Day –
Animal Adventure Park’s April the Giraffe – Live Birth – Archive footage
Other News Stories –
- Armed conflicts and attacks
- Nine people are injured in a shooting at the J&R Party Hall after-hours club in Columbus, Ohio. Two are in critical condition. (CNN) (Daily Mail)
- Fatah–Hamas conflict
- The Gaza Strip‘s sole power plant is shut down due to running out of fuel, amid unpaid bills and a dispute over tax bills on fuel imports to the blockaded Palestinian territory. (Deutsche Welle)
- International relations
- North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- The U.S. Pacific Command and South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff report that a North Korean missile, tested near the city of Sinpo on the country’s east coast, blew up almost immediately after the launch, just hours before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was due in South Korea for talks about the North’s arms program. (ABC News) (Reuters)
- Law and crime
- Politics and elections
- Turkish constitutional referendum, 2017
- Voters in Turkey go to the polls for a referendum that seeks to replace the country’s parliamentary system with an executive presidency, thereby giving President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sweeping new powers. Erdoğan’s AK Party has claimed victory while the opposition CHP has said that it will challenge the result. (The Washington Post), (AP via Yahoo!)
- Sports
- In ice hockey, SKA St. Petersburg wins the Gagarin Cup, the championship of the Kontinental Hockey League, with a 5–3 win over Metallurg Magnitogorsk in Game 5 to win the championship series 4–1. (ESPN)
- in rugby union, RGC 1404 win the Welsh SWALEC National Cup for the first time in their short history (BBC News)
News from Wikipedia – please