A third endangered whale has been spotted entangled in fishing gear off the East Coast, marking an alarming end to the year for a species threatened with extinction.
The whales are North Atlantic right whales, which number fewer than 400 and are vulnerable to ship collisions and entanglement in gear. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said an aerial survey found an entangled whale about 60 miles (96 kilometers) east of the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Dec. 16.
Another aerial survey found two entangled right whales off Nantucket, Massachusetts, just days earlier, NOAA officials said. Like one of the whales spotted off Nantucket, the whale spotted off North Carolina has suffered a serious injury and is likely to die as a result of the entanglement, NOAA said.
“Entanglement response teams are on alert, although current weather conditions in the area are not safe for mounting an immediate response. As future conditions permit, we will work with authorized responders and trained experts to monitor the whale,” NOAA said in a statement.
The North Carolina whale was spotted by an aerial survey team from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute. The whale is a juvenile male born in 2021 and the animal has several lines crossing over and wrapping his head and mouth, NOAA said.
The North Carolina whale “has not yet been seen again,” said Melanie White, North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation Project Manager and research biologist at Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute.
The whales migrate along the East Coast because they give birth off Florida and Georgia and feed off New England and Canada. The journey has become increasingly perilous as waters have warmed because their food availability has changed and that has caused them to stray from protected areas of ocean, scientists have said.
Right whales' population fell about 25% from 2010 to 2020. It has ticked up slightly since then, but the animals are in need of new protections to stave off extinction, conservationists have said.
The whales were once numerous off the East Coast but were devastated during the commercial whaling era. They have been a protected species for decades.
FILE - This photo provided by NOAA Fisheries shows a North Atlantic right whale documented with two fishing lines exiting the left side of the mouth, Dec. 9, 2024. (NOAA Fisheries via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police have a person in custody who is suspected to have set a woman on fire in the subway early Sunday and then watched from a bench as she became engulfed in flames and died.
Surveillance video showed the man calmly approach the woman, who was sitting motionless and may have been sleeping, while aboard a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station and then set her on fire.
Her clothing “became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” said New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, describing the case as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being.”
The man then sat on a nearby bench outside the train car and watched as officers and a transit worker extinguished the flames. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
The man was arrested hours later while riding on the same subway line.
The suspect and victim did not appear to know each other and did not interact before the incident, police said.
Police have the man in custody but have not yet released his identity. The woman's name has not yet been released.
Authorities had circulated images of the man from surveillance cameras and police body camera videos taken at the crime scene. A group of high school students tipped off police to the man's presence on a train later Sunday, and he was taken into custody.
He was wearing the same clothes and had a lighter in his pocket when he apprehended, police said.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez released a statement that said “we will do everything in our power to ensure accountability in this case.”
Police patrol the New York City subways, and there are a vast network of cameras in stations and in all subway cars.
But the sheer size of the subway system — 472 stations with multiple entry points and millions of riders each day — make policing the transit system a logistical nightmare.
In Sunday's incident, officers were at the station but were patrolling a different subway platform. They responded after seeing and smelling smoke coming from the fire.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year directed members of the state's National Guard to assist with random bag checks at certain stations.
Violent incidents in the subway often put people on edge, in part because many New Yorkers take the train multiple times a day and often have their own experiences with uncomfortable interactions in the system.
Broadly, crime is down in the city transit system this year compared to the same time period in 2023. Data compiled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority show a 6% decline in what the agency calls major felonies between January and November of this year and 2023.
At the same time, murders in the transit system are up, with nine killings this year through November compared to five in the same time period last year.
High-profile incidents on the train, such as the case of Daniel Penny, a military veteran who choked an agitated New York subway rider and was acquitted of homicide this month, often attract national attention and further unnerve passengers.
FILE - New York Police officers clear a train at the Coney Island Stillwell Avenue Terminal, May 5, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, file)
