内容摘要：“It was the hardest decision in my life to leave my village. My soul is still here,” he said. But he also acknowledged he was thinking less and less of returning as “urban life has possessed and softened me.”

“It was the hardest decision in my life to leave my village. My soul is still here,” he said. But he also acknowledged he was thinking less and less of returning as “urban life has possessed and softened me.”

Threats that had devastated the Spix’s macaws still loom, and the birds now face another menace: climate change. The species’ original territory overlaps what has recently been officially designated Brazil’s first arid climate region.The drier conditions worry Cromwell Purchase because of their potential impact on habitat for the few surviving Spix’s macaws.

“A dry area only gets rain for a very short period of the year. A drought in that period might go an entire year before you’re going to get your next rain,” said Purchase, a tall and slim 46-year-old. “The animals are adapted to harsh environments, but they are on the edge. Any small increment of change will decimate populations.”Biologist Cromwell Purchase helps his wife Candice walk on a dry stream at the Spix’s macaws breeding facility project in a rural area of Curaca, Bahia state, Brazil, Monday, March 11, 2024. The South African couple is reintroducing the Spix’s macaw to nature through breeding and reintroduction efforts. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)Biologist Cromwell Purchase helps his wife Candice walk on a dry stream at the Spix’s macaws breeding facility project in a rural area of Curaca, Bahia state, Brazil, Monday, March 11, 2024. The South African couple is reintroducing the Spix’s macaw to nature through breeding and reintroduction efforts. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

The Spix’s macaws breeding facility is visible in a rural area of Curaca, Bahia state, Brazil, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)The Spix’s macaws breeding facility is visible in a rural area of Curaca, Bahia state, Brazil, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

In November, two federal research institutes released a study of rainfall water loss in plants and soil between 1960 and 2020. It showed that northern Bahia state, including Curaca, where the Spix’s macaws are trying to survive, is now consistent with a desert area. It also identified the expansion of semi-arid climate in the Northeast, where nearly 55 million people live.

“If the planet is warmer, there will be much greater evaporation. So, the water leaves the environment and generates aridity,” the director of Brazil’s anti-desertification efforts, Alexandre Pires, told The Associated Press.“We heard more plans to mitigate tariff impacts than in prior months and than during 2018” from U.S. companies, including pre-ordering, shifting production and increasing prices for their own products, according to Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian. But she also said in a report that she’s seeing “some indications of a pause: no hiring/no firing, no new projects/no cancellations etc.”

A fear is that Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs may be pushing households and businesses to alter their spending and freeze plans for long-term investment because of how quickly conditions can change, seemingly by the hour.All told, the S&P 500 rose 3.54 points to 5,528.75. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 114.09 to 40,227.59, and the Nasdaq composite edged down by 16.81 to 17,366.13.

So far, economic reports have mostly seemed to show the U.S. economy is still growing, though at a weaker pace. On Wednesday, economists expect a report to say U.S. economic growth slowed to a 0.8% annual rate in the first three months of this year, down from aBut most reports Wall Street has received so far have focused on data from before Trump’s “Liberation Day” on April 2, when he announced tariffs that could affect imports from countries worldwide. That could raise the stakes for upcoming reports on the U.S. job market, including Friday’s, which will show how many workers employers hired during all of April.