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CARL AZUZ: Welcome to all of our viewers worldwide.
My name is Carl Azuz.
In the early morning hours of Thursday local time with as
many as 150,000 Russian troops surrounding the neighboring
country of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir
Putin made a televised address.
He said for years, Russia had been promised
that NATO, an alliance of North American
and European countries, would not
expand toward Western Russia, but that that expansion
had occurred anyway.
He said this was making things more dangerous for Russia,
and that it would be quote, irresponsible if his country
didn't take action.
INTERPRETER: A decision has been made--
a special military operation.
CARL AZUZ: Afterwards, CNN reporters in Ukraine
said they were hearing explosions as Russia launched
the beginning of a full scale invasion of the country
next door.
NATO leaders railed against Russia's attack
on an independent country.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian President
Putin wanted to destroy Ukraine and everything it was building,
and US President Joe Biden said the responsibility for the war
rests completely with the Russian leader.
JOE BIDEN: Putin is the aggressor.
Putin chose this war, and now he and his country
will bear the consequences.
Today I'm authorizing additional strong sanctions.
This is going to impose severe cost on the Russian economy
both immediately and over time,
CARL AZUZ: Several other nations joined the US
in announcing economic penalties on Russia,
but that country's decision to attack Ukraine
came despite the international threat of sanctions,
and it happened despite Russia's repeated statements
that it had no intention of invading Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government said yesterday that dozens of people
had been killed in the conflict.
The United Nations says 100,000 have fled
their homes in Ukraine, and thousands
have moved to other countries.
All of this is having a wide ranging impact
on geopolitics with Russian ambassadors being summoned
and diplomats being kicked out of various nations.
There are some economic impacts being felt with global stock
markets dropping, and we plan to have more on that in the days
ahead.
But right now, we'd like to give you
a sense of what was happening on the ground around Ukraine
after the Russian attack began.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN: If we pan up, there's
another salvo being fired right now,
so you can see in this area the Russians firing artillery
rockets towards Ukraine.
MATTHEW CHANCE: I'm standing outside the perimeter
of this Antonov airbase, and it has not been taken
back by the Ukrainian military.
It is the Russian military.
You can see them now moving back to a different position.
It is the Ukrainian military who say they are now in control.
This is about--
I would say about 20 miles from the center
of the Ukrainian capital, and so it just shows us
now for the first time just how close
Russian forces have got towards the center
of the Ukrainian capital.
Stand by.
We're hearing some aircraft in the air, Jim.
You can see over here-- there's a plume of black smoke,
gray smoke, brown smoke that's coming up
from inside the compound of the air base.
I think there are jets in the sky.
Jets in the sky above us.
OK.
Jim, we're going to have to leave it here, I think.
The situation's deteriorating.
I'm going to hand it back to you.
CLARISSA WARD: People have been waiting here, some of them
for hours and hours.
You can see they have their pets.
They have their families.
And there's just no sense of what happens next.
What is their new reality?
Because the reality is here in Kharkiv,
Russian tanks are making their way here,
and nobody knows what their objective is.
CARL AZUZ: Ukraine's military said Russia's objectives
included blocking off the Ukrainian capital of Kiev
and carving out more land for Russia that would connect
the country with Crimea, which Russia
annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Meantime, organizations around the world
are planning shipments of emergency supplies
to those Ukrainians in need.
10 second trivia.
Which of these European nations is the oldest?
Portugal, Spain, Italy, or Germany?
In terms of becoming a unified independent nation,
Portugal's founding in 1143 makes it the oldest
country on this list.
In northeastern Portugal, conservationists are working
to rewild a particular region.
The idea is to set aside an area of land
and bring back the plants and animals
that lived there in the past.
There is some controversy with this.
Some experts say if certain species are no longer found
there naturally, they may not be suited to living there again,
and people who live nearby could be
threatened if an aggressive animal
is reintroduced to the region.
But those working to rewild part of Portugal
hope their efforts will help people and animals.
- Here in the valley of the Coa River in northeastern Portugal
stretches acres of agricultural land
that have fallen into disuse.
For centuries, this area was used for farming and mining,
but the economic downturn in recent decades
prompted many thousands of people to leave.
Today, a small group of rewilders
is claiming the land back.
PEDRO PRATA: The aim is to allow nature to recover,
wildlife to come back, but also for people
in nature to benefit alike.
This means that the whole landscape is more connected
and more abundant in wildlife.
- Pedro Prata works for Rewilding Portugal guarding
the region from wildfires, animal poisoning, and poachers,
and securing new areas of protection.
PEDRO PRATA: Me and my team, we're constantly
present in this landscape.
We live in the landscape.
We are all the time here.
- The Coa Valley provides a migratory corridor
for rare species.
By rewilding these targeted areas,
Prata hopes to encourage the return
of some of Portugal's chief predators,
such as lynxes and wolves.
But for the top of the food chain to flourish,
it needs to be supported by the rest of the ecosystem,
so the team is focusing first on the reintroduction
of roe deer and wild horses.
PEDRO PRATA: They are the ones who
manage the growth of the vegetation,
but also they spread seeds, and they take the nutrients back
into the soil with their dung.
And so they are the real engineers of the vegetation.
- Progress will be slow.
Predator numbers cannot increase until herbivores grow.
PEDRO PRATA: Footprints-- it's better, yeah.
- Once the system is up and running,
it is hoped that Lynx will follow in the footsteps
of the wolves, or indeed, these badgers
being tracked by the team.
But predators bring risk.
Local human populations need reassurance.
PEDRO PRATA: The biggest obstacles we're facing nowadays
actually is cultural.
Our aim here is that people understand there is ways
to coexist with the wolves.
- Promoting wild herbivores prevents
the likelihood of domestic animals being lost as prey.
Prata and his team hope that by promoting species biodiversity
in Portugal, they are ensuring the longevity for environment,
wildlife, and community alike.
PEDRO PRATA: We live in a fantastic world
full of fantastic species and creatures that
has the same right to be here and to exist into the future
as much as we do.
I think my main message is just let nature be.
Just let nature rewild.
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CARL AZUZ: More than 12 years ago,
a woman named Michelle got a dog named
Zoe from an animal shelter.
They lived together for six months,
but then Zoe went missing, and Michelle never found her.
Flash forward more than a decade.
An old dog turned up this year in a rural area
of California looking sick.
Animal Services found she had a tracking chip,
and they used it to find her original owner
who hopes to get Zoe healthy and enjoy the rest of her life.
We may never know where she spent the last four
legs of her journey, not even the mutts and bolts,
and it won't do any good to hound her with questions.
You can't keep booching for answers.
You've got to stray away from some topics
and let sleeping dogs lie when it
comes to who let the dog out.
But now that she's barking home safe,
we have a nice tale to tell about a reunifi-canine.
I'm Carl Azuz.
Somerset Area High School is in Somerset, Pennsylvania.
Shout out to you.
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We hope all of you have a good weekend ahead.
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