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To save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction, U. S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls that are crowding out their cousins. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service strategy released Wednesday is meant to prop up declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state and California.

New York — A Delta flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was diverted to New York’s Kennedy Airport on Wednesday after passengers were served spoiled food, airline officials said. The redeye flight took off from Detroit around 11 p.m. Tuesday and landed in New York at 4 a.m. “after reports that a portion of the Main Cabin in-flight meal service were spoiled,” a Delta spokesperson said in a statement. A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, said 14 of the plane’s 277 passengers as well as 10 crew members were treated by medical personnel when the flight landed.

Tensions between enraged Turkish groups and Syrian refugees living in Turkey have reached a boiling point this week, forcing Turkey to close its main border crossing into northwest Syria. The Bab al Hawa border crossing—the main trade and passenger channel for over 3 million people—as well as the Bab al Salam and other smaller crossings are closed until further notice.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to appear on Colorado’s presidential ballot this November under an agreement struck with the state Libertarian Party, his campaign announced Wednesday. The controversial candidate will replace the Libertarian Party’s national presidential nominee in the state under a resolution passed by the Colorado Libertarians’ board Tuesday night.

An unidentified employee of a dairy in northeast Colorado is the fifth person in the U. S. with a confirmed infection of the highly pathogenic avian influenza, but he only had mild symptoms. The person, an adult man who had direct access to infected cattle, developed conjunctivitis, or pink eye, after exposure to infected cows, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said Wednesday. He took an antiviral medication as a precaution and has recovered. State officials haven’t released any other details, including the name of the farm he works at or its location, how the avian flu virus may have hopped from cows to the employee, or whether authorities tested other people who lived or worked with the man. The first person who tested positive for highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu in the United States was a poultry worker in western Colorado in 2022. The current multi-state outbreak linked to dairy cows infected one dairy worker in Texas and two in Michigan this spring. All four prior cases were mild.

NEW YORK — Former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter will be charged with a federal felony connected to the sports betting scandal that spurred the NBA to ban him for life, court papers indicate. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn filed what’s known as a criminal information sheet on Tuesday. The document doesn’t specify a court date or the charge or charges, but it does show the case is related to an existing prosecution of four men charged with scheming to cash in on tips from a player about his plans to exit two games early. The Associated Press sent voice and email messages Wednesday to Porter’s St.