内容摘要：Dutton has said his political outlook is shaped by almost a decade working in the Queensland state police force, which he joined at 19. He worked in the drug and sexual crime squads.

Dutton has said his political outlook is shaped by almost a decade working in the Queensland state police force, which he joined at 19. He worked in the drug and sexual crime squads.

“You’re seeing more bears because there are more bears on the land for longer periods of time to be seen” and they are willing to take more risks, getting closer to people, said Polar Bears International research and policy director Geoff York. There are about 600 polar bears in this Western Hudson Bay population, about half what it was 40 years ago, but that’s still close to one bear for every resident of Churchill.Yet this remote town not only lives with the predator next door, but depends upon and even loves it. Visitors eager to see polar bears saved the town from shrinking out of existence when a military base closed in the 1970s, dropping the population from a few thousand to about 870. A 2011 government study calculated that the average polar bear tourist spends about $5,000 a visit, pumping more than $7 million into a tiny town that boasts fancy restaurants and more than two dozen small places to stay amid dirt roads and no stoplights.

“We’re obviously used to bears so (when you see one) you don’t start to tremble,” Mayor Mike Spence said. “It’s their area too. It’s important how the community coexists with bears and wildlife in general to really get along. We’re all connected.”Erin Greene holds one of her rescued sled dogs, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)Erin Greene holds one of her rescued sled dogs, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

It’s been more than a decade since a bear mauled two people in an alley late on Halloween night before a third person scared off the animal.“It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened in my life,” said Erin Greene, who along with a 72-year-old man who tried to fight off the bear with a shovel survived their injuries. Greene, who had come to Churchill the year before for a job in the tourist trade, said it was the other animals of Churchill — the beluga whales that she sings to as she runs paddleboat tours and her dozen rescued retired sled dogs — that helped her recover from the trauma.

There have been no attacks since then, but the town is watchful.

At Halloween, trick-or-treating occurs when bears are hungriest, and dozens of volunteers line the streets to keep trouble at bay. Any time of year, troublesome bears that wander into town too often may be put into the polar bear jail — a big Quonset hut-style structure with 28 concrete-and-steel cells — before being returned to the wild. The building doesn’t fill up, but it can get busy enough to be noisy from banging and growling inside, Van Nest said.“If this is civilized,” Riyad Mansour said, “what is barbarism?”

Wael Tabsh, a displaced man from the city of Khan Younis, urged world leaders to help end the war.“How long will this torture last?” he asked.

Palestinians are desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli border closures have pushed GazaIsrael says it helped establish the new aid mechanism to prevent Hamas from siphoning off supplies, but it has provided no evidence of systematic diversion, and U.N. agencies say they have mechanisms in place to prevent it while delivering aid to all parts of the territory.