James' World 2

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Rabbits in northern Colorado have been spotted with bizarre, somewhat grisly horns on their face. But wildlife officials say the bunnies are likely ultimately going to be okay.

They’re also not a danger to others—at least, not to nonrabbits. The tentacle-faced bunnies are infected with Shope papillomavirus, a member of the same viral family that can cause warts in humans. Shope papillomavirus is known to affect only rabbits and hares, not humans or other animals, says Kara Van Hoose, a spokesperson for Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW). For most rabbits, it’s also a harmless infection.

Infected animals “are able to clear it from their system on their own,” Van Hoose says. Once the virus is gone, the growths, which are made of the same keratin found in hair and nails, eventually fall off. In a minority of cases, the infection can induce squamous cell cancer. The infection can also cause problems if the associated growths pop up near the eyes or mouth, where they might interfere with foraging and eating, Van Hoose says.

It’s not clear whether there are actually more rabbits than usual infected with Shope papillomavirus in northern Colorado this summer, Van Hoose says. CPW had not received any reports of horned-faced rabbits before a local news story published on August 8 drew attention to sightings in Fort Collins, Colo. Since then, multiple people have called the agency, Van Hoose says, but it’s hard to tell how many infected rabbits there really are.

“It’s also difficult to say, if we get 10 reports, if it’s 10 different rabbits or if it’s two rabbits that maybe we’re seeing five different times,” she says.

The growths themselves are not infectious. The virus spreads through bites from mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, so it tends to peak in summer and fade away in the colder months.

The discoverer and namesake of the virus, virologist Richard Shope, first identified the pathogen in 1933 in the U.S. Midwest. Shope also was the first to identify the influenza A virus and was among the first to pinpoint that particular flu pathogen as the culprit of the deadly 1918 pandemic. His work on rabbit papillomavirus formed the basis of understanding human papillomavirus (HPV) strains, some of which can cause cancer. This line of research ultimately led to the development of the HPV vaccine, which dramatically reduces the risk of cervical and other cancers linked to HPV.

Though the horned rabbits aren’t a danger to humans or pets, Van Hoose advises people to keep their distance from the creatures, as they should with any wild animal, because rabbits can pass along other pathogens. “Once you realize these [growths] probably aren’t harmful to rabbits, you can kind of appreciate the science at work,” she says.

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Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge

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“The statute would have no meaning at all if the president can just say, ‘We’re taking over your police department,’” said Judge Reyes, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Biden.

The judge made clear that she was considering a ruling that would block the administration’s entire order as unlawful, but said she would prefer if the lawyers on both sides worked out some modifications to the order. After several hours, the Justice Department lawyers reissued the order, leaving the city in control of the police force.

City officials praised the outcome on Friday as an affirmation of the Washington’s autonomy.

Speaking to reporters, Brian Schwalb, the D.C. attorney general, said the law makes clear “that the authority to appoint a chief of police sits squarely with the mayor, and the right to control the local policing of our city sits with the mayor and the chief of police, notwithstanding the government, the president and the attorney general’s efforts to suggest that they had taken control of our police force.”

In a post on social media announcing the redrafted order, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized Mr. Schwalb for, she said, opposing the administration’s “efforts to improve public safety.” But she said the administration remained committed to working closely with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, “who is dedicated to ensuring the safety of residents, workers, and visitors” in the city.

Local officials were taken by surprise on Thursday evening when Ms. Bondi issued an order naming Terrance C. Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as an “emergency police commissioner.” The directive came after days of assurances by local officials, including the mayor and the police chief, that they would work as partners alongside federal law enforcement.

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Amtrak police officers and National Guard troops patrolling at Union Station in Washington on Thursday.Credit…Eric Lee for The New York Times

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Researchers have captured the very first real-time, three-dimensional images and videos of a human embryo implanting into collagen designed to mimic uterine tissue —a key stage in reproduction. The resulting footage, which shows how embryos push and pull to anchor themselves in the uterus in vivid detail, could lead to improvements for in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques, the scientists say.

“This will allow us to develop treatments specifically targeting implantation, which is the biggest roadblock in human reproduction,” says Samuel Ojosnegros, a bioengineer at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology in Spain and a co-author of the new study, which was published in Science Advances.

Five days after an embryo is fertilized artificially, fertility doctors must implant it into the body so it can continue to grow. “What happens between the transfer and the first ultrasound weeks later is a black box,” says Ojosnegros, who is also co-founder of the biotech company Serabiotics. Implantation failure is one of the main causes of infertility —up to 60 percent of miscarriages occur during this process.

The first successful culture of human embryos beyond implantation was demonstrated in a petri dish in a lab in 2016, but Ojosnegros and his team wanted to see what this process would look like in 3D tissue that was more similar to that of the uterus.

To do this, the team designed a special ex vivo system made of gel and collagen—a protein found in the uterine lining—and used embryos donated by people who had completed an assisted reproduction process. The system works, Ojosnegros says, because the network of collagen fibers signals to the embryo at a molecular level that this is a natural matrix.

By using advanced 3D microscopes, the researchers recorded the action over time. Tracking tiny movements in the gel’s fibers allowed them to map exactly where and how strongly the embryos were pulling. The researchers did the same with mouse embryos to compare movement patterns.

The footage showed that human embryos generate a network of tiny pulling forces that ripple through the womb. They burrow into the surrounding tissue from one side, creating multiple small traction points that tug the lining in all directions. Mouse embryos, on the other hand, spread out more across the surface and pull mainly along two or three strong lines.

When the researchers applied external tension to the matrix, tugging it with tiny forceps, they noticed the embryos reoriented toward those areas. The scientists suggest micro contractions might be guiding the embryo to implant in the optimal direction in the uterus. “We believe these micro contractions are what the embryo uses to guide itself toward the blood vessels and the nutrients it needs,” Ojosnegros explains, adding that more studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis.

In both mouse and human experiments, the strength and pattern of these forces were linked to the embryo’s health, meaning embryos that pulled less were less likely to successfully invade the tissue. Observing implantation in real-time in a 3D model is a “quantum leap” compared with the two-dimensional observations that already exist, says developmental biologist Claudia Spits of the Free University of Brussels, who was not involved in the research. Keeping an embryo alive under these conditions is extremely difficult, she says. “What you see in a 10-second video is years of setting these [conditions] up so that the embryo can survive,” Spits adds.

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Sadie Salazar,

Therapist and COO of Sage Therapy, considers herself to be a Type-A, recovering perfectionist who can be prone to anxiety. To have the best day possible, she uses her mornings to ground herself.

“What I found that really works well for me is making sure that I’m getting up early so that it actually feels like I have time to myself,” Salazar tells CNBC Make It.

“If I don’t wake up on time, it will throw everything off, and then it just compresses the morning so that I feel rushed and chaotic. I think that’s the biggest ritual. No matter what, I’m getting up when the alarm goes off.”

Salazar likes to use the additional time she builds into her mornings for activities that are unrelated to work or household chores. “Maybe it’s reading a chapter of a book or listening to a little bit of a podcast, or taking some extra time to walk my dog,” she says.

As a mom with a new baby, Salazar finds that waking up at 7 a.m. affords her time to prioritize self-care.

But to avoid putting too much pressure on herself, she doesn’t try to stick to a routine that makes each morning look the same.

No matter what, I’m getting up when the alarm goes off.

“A big thing is giving permission for other routines and rituals to ebb and flow. I would love to be the kind of person that does a workout every morning or listens to a podcast or a book or something, but I personally find it hard sometimes to stick with routine,” Salazar says.

“No one wants to start their day feeling like you’ve already failed at something.”

Her only commitment is getting up early, and then Salazar decides how she would like to spend her creative hour, in the moment.

“It’s less structured. It gives me the opportunity to really generate creativity and just have a part of my day that feels rejuvenating, instead of that routine I rush through to get on with, like all of the other tasks of the day,” she says.

She also aims to get dressed for work to help her stay focused, even though she works from home.

“There’s so much temptation to wear our comfy clothes and just kind of lounge about, and I found very quickly that I was just not feeling as

motivated or creative,” Salazar says.

“I try to resist the temptation to stay in pajama bottoms, and really get myself ready for the day [to] feel like I’m actually going to work. [And] actually getting out of the house is really helpful, especially for those days where maybe I’m working remotely back to back.”

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President Trump on Saturday split from Ukraine and key European allies after his summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, backing Mr. Putin’s plan for a sweeping peace agreement based on Ukraine ceding unoccupied territory to Russia, instead of the urgent cease-fire Mr. Trump had said he wanted before the meeting.

Skipping cease-fire discussions would give Russia an advantage in the talks, which are expected to continue on Monday when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visits Mr. Trump at the White House. It breaks from a strategy Mr. Trump and European allies, as well as Mr. Zelensky, had agreed to before the U.S.-Russia summit in Alaska.

Mr. Trump told European leaders that he believed a rapid peace deal could be negotiated if Mr. Zelensky agreed to give up the rest of the Donbas region to Russia, even those areas not occupied by Russian troops, according to two senior European officials briefed on the call.

In return, Mr. Putin offered a cease-fire in the rest of Ukraine at current battle lines and a written promise not to attack Ukraine or any European country again, the senior officials said. He has broken similar promises before.

Mr. Trump had threatened stark economic penalties if Mr. Putin left the meeting without a deal to end the war, but he has suspended those threats in the wake of the summit.

The American president’s moves got a chilly reception in Europe, where leaders have time and again seen Mr. Trump reverse positions on Ukraine after speaking with Mr. Putin.

Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social early on Saturday that he had spoken by phone to Mr. Zelensky and European leaders after his meeting with Mr. Putin. He claimed “it was determined by all” that it was better to go directly to negotiating a peace agreement without first implementing a cease-fire.

European leaders, publicly and privately, made clear that was not the case. They issued a statement that did not echo Mr. Trump’s claim that peace talks were preferable to a cease-fire. Britain, France, Germany, and others threatened to increase economic penalties on Russia “as long as the killing in Ukraine continues.”

Mr. Zelensky, who was left out of the Alaska summit, said in a statement that he and Mr. Trump would on Monday “discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”

Here’s what else to know:

• Zelensky’s challenge: Ukraine was left scrambling to piece together what Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin had discussed and striving to avoid being sidelined. Mr. Zelensky is heading to Washington on Monday. An official briefed on his call with Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky said Kyiv does not understand why the American president suddenly dropped the demand that a cease-fire precede negotiations. Read more ›

• European response: European leaders moved to support Ukraine and voice caution of Russia. They neither endorsed Mr. Trump’s changed stance on how to achieve peace nor openly contradicted it. A virtual meeting between the leaders of France, Britain, and Germany is due on Sunday.

• Russia’s advantage: Mr. Trump’s swing into alignment with Russia’s vision of ending the war came as Moscow’s forces have the upper hand on the battlefield. Discarding the prospect of a cease-fire allows Russia to press that advantage further.

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Doug Mills/ The New York Times

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