内容摘要：Rescue workers clear the rubble of a house damaged by a Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Rescue workers clear the rubble of a house damaged by a Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

“Some of our captive snails are between 25 and 30 years old,” said Flanagan. “They’re polar opposites to the pest garden snail we introduced to New Zealand, which is like a weed, with thousands of offspring each year and a short life.”The dozens of species and subspecies of Powelliphanta snails are only found in New Zealand, mostly in rugged forest and grassland settings where they are threatened by habitat loss.

They are carnivores that slurp up earthworms like noodles, and are some of the world’s largest snails , with oversized, distinctive shells in a range of rich earth colors and swirling patterns.The Powelliphanta augusta was the center of public uproar and legal proceedings in the early 2000s, when an energy company’s plans to mine for coal threatened to destroy the snails’ habitat.Some 4,000 were removed from the site and relocated, while 2,000 more were housed in chilled storage in the West Coast town of Hokitika to ensure the preservation of the species, which is slow to breed and doesn’t adapt well to new habitats.

In 2011, some 800 of the snails accidentally died in a Department of Conservation refrigerator with faulty temperature control.But the species’ slow survival continues: In March this year, there were nearly 1,900 snails and nearly 2,200 eggs in captivity, the conservation agency said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and Ukraine on Wednesday signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, finalizing a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.

The two sides offered only barebone details about the structure of the deal, which they called the United States-Ukraine Reinvestment Fund. But it is expected to give the U.S. access to Ukraine’sDoubts about the U.S. commitment to Europe’s security.

presidential election Sunday, security looms large. So do questions about the country’s strength as a democracy and its place in the European Union. One of the new president’s most important tasks will be maintaining strong ties with the United States, widely seen as essential to the survival of a country in an increasingly volatile neighborhood.Voters in this Central European nation of 38 million people will cast ballots to replace conservative incumbent Andrzej Duda, whose second and final five-year term ends in August.

, a decisive first-round victory is unlikely. Some have appeared unserious or extreme, with a couple expressing openly pro-Putin or antisemitic views. A televised debate this week dragged on for nearly four hours. There are calls to raise the threshold to qualify for the race.A runoff on June 1 is widely expected, with polls pointing to a likely showdown between Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, and Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the Law and Justice party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023.