Latest news with #Greely
CBC
9 hours ago
- Politics
- CBC
Isabelle Skalski is Ottawa's new city councillor for Osgoode
Social Sharing Isabelle Skalski is the new Ottawa city councillor for the rural seat of Osgoode. Voters elected Skalski in a byelection on Monday night with about 34 per cent support in the unofficial results. She beat out 10 other candidates to replace longtime councillor George Darouze, who gave up the Osgoode seat in February to represent the provincial riding of Carleton at Queen's Park. The ward is home to 32,000 people and includes the villages of Greely, Osgoode and Metcalfe. The municipal electoral map was redrawn in 2022 to take in Vars to the east. Skalski, who has been president of the Greely Community Association since 2022, will have just over a year to establish herself on council before the city's next general election on Oct. 26, 2026. In addition to tackling issues like speeding and emergency service response times, Skalski will need to weigh in on the future of Tewin, a divisive development project that could see tens of thousands of homes built.
CTV News
10 hours ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Isabelle Skalski elected city councillor of Osgoode ward
Voters in the rural ward of Osgoode have chosen Isabelle Skalski to be their new city councillor. Unofficial results on the City of Ottawa website at 8:30 p.m. show Skalski as the declared winner of the special byelection with 34.01 per cent of the vote. Doug Thompson, who previously served three terms as the city councillor for the ward until 2014, finished second with 22.60 per cent of the vote. Colette Lacroix-Velthuis came closely behind at 22.55 per cent. Turnout was 24.17 per cent with 6,223 ballots cast. Skalski resides in the community of Greely and has two decades of experience as a public servant, according to her website. She currently serves as the president of the Greely Community Association. Her website says she will fight for well-maintained roads, core services, low taxes, less red tape and safer streets at City Hall. The City of Ottawa held the byelection on Monday to replace George Darouze, who resigned in March after being elected the MPP for Carleton in the provincial election. This is the fourth byelection to fill a vacant council seat since the City of Ottawa's amalgamation in 2001. Unofficial results for Ward 20 Osgoode Ward (percentage):
CBC
09-04-2025
- Science
- CBC
A biotech company has, sort of, revived the long-extinct dire wolf
It's a fierce, majestic beast that disappeared thousands of years ago, save for artistic renderings in books and on screen, as in Game of Thrones. Or, maybe, it's just a grey wolf with a few tweaks. American biotech company Colossal Biosciences made a surprise announcement Monday, claiming it had brought the dire wolf back from the dead, thus achieving the company's first successful "de-extinction." Colossal showcased videos of the fluffy white wolf pups roaming in its 2,000-acre habitat at an undisclosed location in the northern U.S., marking a big win for the company that is also working on reviving the woolly mammoth, the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger. But some scientists say that while the wolves' existence is an impressive feat, they are not exactly as advertised. "I want to see some peer-reviewed papers coming out of this, to get a better sense of what actually was done and what's known and what's not done," said Hank Greely, director of Stanford University's Center for Law and the Biosciences. He says seeing the puppies put a smile on his face, and was a welcome surprise in an otherwise bleak news landscape. But in his view, the creation is more of a "dire-ish wolf." "I do think that it is important for people to remember that these are not dire wolves. There are grey wolves that have some dire wolf characteristics," Greely said. "On the other hand, they seem to be closer to dire wolves than anything else anybody's seen for 13,000 years, and that's pretty cool. And they're cute as hell." Once hunted large prey The large wolf species roamed the Americas for more than 100,000 years, before going extinct some 13,000 years ago. It was believed to have hunted large prey like horses, bison and giant sloths, and to have disappeared largely because its prey species went extinct — partly because of hunting by humans. Colossal's chief scientific officer Beth Shapiro says scientists extracted DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old inner ear bone from a dire wolf skull, and extracted and sequenced the DNA to assemble genomes. They determined the grey wolf was its closest living relative — "99.5 per cent identical" in DNA, she says — and similar in appearance but bigger, more muscular and with a lighter coloured coat, wider skull and stronger jaw. Scientists then altered grey wolf cells to give them dire wolf traits, making 20 edits in 14 genes before creating embryos and implanting them into large domestic hounds. Three of the eight dogs used as surrogate mothers gave birth to dire wolves, Shapiro said, and the mothers were then adopted out anonymously through the American Humane Society — "so, somewhere out there, there are families that have adopted a dog that gave birth to a dire wolf, and they don't know." Colossal says two male pups, Romulus and Remus, were born on Oct. 1 — putting them now in the early stages of adolescence — while Khaleesi, a female, was born on Jan. 30, and is almost at the age where she can be "introduced to the boys," Shapiro said. Kevin Campbell, a professor at the University of Manitoba's Department of Biological Sciences, says while the pups look very much like dire wolves, it's hard to know how similar they are physiologically. "They edited 20 different mutations… which affected 14 genes. And to put this in perspective, a wolf probably has 22- or 23,000 different genes," he said. "Right now what we have is a 99.999 per cent grey wolf, with .001 per cent dire wolf." Bringing back the phenotypes Shapiro acknowledges the pups are not exactly the same as the dire wolves of yore, but says the idea was to create something with the same characteristic features that can live a healthy life in the modern age. "When we're thinking about de-extinction, we're not imagining that we're going to recreate something that's genetically identical to something that used to be alive," she told CBC News. "This is impractical and probably also not what we want. Instead, we want to bring back these phenotypes, the extinct traits that defined this species." Colossal CEO Ben Lamm says the project started about two years ago, as a way to get people talking about wolves and saving the critically endangered red wolf. On that front, the private, Dallas-based company simultaneously announced Monday it had also produced four cloned red wolves using a new, less invasive technique it developed while working on the dire wolves. Lamm says several Indigenous American communities have expressed interest in having dire wolves reintroduced on their land, but says that would be a complicated process requiring extensive consultation with landowners, governments and other stakeholders. For now, Colossal is closely studying the dire pups and has no plans to introduce them to a wild habitat. Some have criticized Colossal's de-extinction projects for taking attention away from the less flashy work being done by organizations dedicated to conserving existing species and their habitats. Joe Walston, head of global conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, says he appreciates that de-extinction projects can inspire people to think about species conservation, and he's not opposed to using technology as one tool to help preserve species like the red wolf. But most species, he says, can recover at an "incredible rate" if their habitats are simply conserved and left alone. "We have tigers, we have lions, we have wolves themselves, we have these great predators ranging this earth which are in trouble and need our help," he said. "Sometimes we get too distracted by the newness of something and forget that what we have already on Earth at the moment is the most remarkable assemblage of species the world has ever seen."
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cumberland-North Yarmouth parents, students hold rally supporting trans students
Mar. 23—Members of the Cumberland-North Yarmouth school community rallied on Sunday to support transgender students as protests surrounding the Trump administration's policies continue to crop up around the state. Parents and students from Maine School Administrative District 51 organized the "We Won't Back Down" rally in the Cumberland Commons across from Greely schools after the district became embroiled in the national conversation around transgender athletes in girls sports. "Children should have access to a safe, welcoming school environment where they are encouraged to attain their own personal happiness and explore their own identity," Greely High School senior Vigolia Walsh told the large crowd gathered by the gazebo on Sunday. "Ensuring that our schools can provide safety, privacy and support to all students, regardless of their identity, is crucial to the stability of our state and country," Walsh said. The U.S. Department of Education informed Maine officials Wednesday that the state is in violation of federal Title IX law for its policy on transgender athletes. The notice came just two days after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services amended its notice of violation of Title IX aimed at the Maine Department of Education to include both the Maine Principals' Association, the independent organization that governs high school athletics, and Greely High School in Cumberland. The department cited a transgender Greely student's win at an indoor track championship this winter, as well as a report of a different transgender student from the Maine Coast Waldorf School competing in a girls nordic skiing race last month. In both investigations, the Trump administration proposed corrective action and gave the state 10 days to comply or face the prospect of losing federal funding. The federal investigations into Maine schools came shortly after state Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, shared the name and photo of an athlete she identified as transgender on social media, in an effort she said was aimed at defending women's sports. Protestors at Sunday's rally said that they don't want to see children being used to make political points. "This administration is targeting the members of our community who are most vulnerable to being harmed, and that is completely unacceptable," organizer and MSAD51 parent Leah McDonald said in an interview. "So we are also here to stand up against the bullying — it is not OK to target minors." One eighth grade Greely Middle School student who attended the rally said it was "scary" to see her community in the national spotlight, adding that it made her fear for her classmates' safety. She said she was happy to see so many people at the rally on Sunday. "Its really inspiring to be with a huge community, of everybody supporting us," the student, Lora, said. Another eighth grader, Sage, agreed. "Just seeing everyone who supports each other, I think it's going to bring us closer; it already has," she said. The Trump administration has been targeting Maine since a meeting of governors last month, where the president and Gov. Janet Mills clashed over his executive order banning athletes not assigned female at birth from competition in girls and women's sports. Mills has maintained that the order conflicts with the Maine Human Rights Act. Mills' comment that she would see Trump "in court" has galvanized some Mainers behind the governor, while others have called for her removal and protested her administration at the State House. Protestors at the rally in Cumberland on Sunday could be seen wearing "see you in court" T-shirts. Organizers said they hope Mills remains steadfast in her support of the Maine Human Rights Act — which permits equal participation in extracurriculars, regardless of gender identity. North Yarmouth select board member Andrea Berry and state Rep. Anne Graham, D-North Yarmouth, also made speeches at the rally supporting transgender students. "To our LGBTQIA+ community and neighbors, you are a vital part of the fabric of our town, and we stand with you," Berry said. Protestors stressed that the rally was about more than the transgender athlete debate. Rather, McDonald said she hoped to highlight what she sees an egregious federal overreach into state law. "We are a group of concerned citizens from the Cumberland district, and actually around Maine, wanting to demand our leaders to continue upholding state law, the Maine Human Rights Act, and stand strong against what we perceive as fear-mongering and bullying," McDonald said. The rally in Cumberland on Sunday was just one of many demonstrations planned in the greater Portland area in recent weeks against federal influence in Maine's schools and industries. Also on Sunday, the Letter Carriers' union protested on Forest Avenue in Portland against cuts, layoffs and the potential privatization of the U.S. Postal Service. Trump's cuts to the U.S. Department of Education have also drawn attention in Maine, with local teachers showing their support for public education at rallies last week. Copy the Story Link We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others. We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion. 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