Category: News
4 more arrested in $102M Louvre jewel heist, Paris prosecutor says
PARIS — The Paris prosecutor announced four more arrests Tuesday in connection with the stunning heist at the Louvre Museum in October by a gang that made off with $102 million worth of jewels.
The two men and two women in custody are from the Paris region and range in age from 31 to 40, said the prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, whose office is heading the investigation.
Her statement didn’t say what role they’re suspected of having played in the Oct. 19 theft. Police can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.
The loot hasn’t been recovered. It includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
The police dragnet has previously caught other suspected members of the four-person team thought to have carried out the daring daylight robbery.
Investigating magistrates filed preliminary robbery and criminal conspiracy charges against three men and one woman arrested in October.
The robbery has focused attention on security at the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum.
The thieves took less than eight minutes to force their way through a window into the ornate Apollo Gallery, break into the jewelry display cases with disc cutters and make off with the trove, descending on a freight lift to meet up with riders on scooters who whisked them away.
The emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/25/louvre-jewel-heist-paris/
Israel dice que milicianos palestinos han entregado los restos de un rehén a la Cruz Roja
DEIR AL-BALAH, Franja de Gaza (AP) — Israel dice que milicianos palestinos han entregado los restos de un rehén a la Cruz Roja.
Aurora Fire Chief David McCabe set to retire: ‘We’re in a good place’
On the night of Oct. 29, the Aurora Fire Department responded to a house fire on Grant Place.
Department leadership gets automatic alerts about confirmed fires at any time of day or night, and so Fire Chief David McCabe started listening to his radio. It didn’t seem to be going well — every time firefighters turned around, there was fire inside another enclosed space of the house — so he drove over, he said.
As he’s walking around the scene, watching for hazards, he felt this “aura of peace” come over him. McCabe said he isn’t really a spiritual guy, it was just that he realized all the stuff he and others in the offices at the department do that’s monotonous and stressful, and all the meetings they sit through, they do it because of this.
“I felt completely at ease watching them work,” McCabe said. “I’m like, ‘We’re in a good place at the fire department.’
“And I decided the next day to submit my retirement papers.”
After a career at the Aurora Fire Department that started in March 1997, McCabe will serve out his last day as fire chief on Wednesday. In his years at the department, McCabe rose through the ranks, starting from being a firefighter and paramedic before moving up to lieutenant, captain, battalion chief, assistant chief of Support Services and deputy chief before being appointed to fire chief in 2022.
Aurora Mayor John Laesch commended McCabe for his 28 years of service, and wished him well in his retirement.
“I appreciate his efforts as the leader of our fire department, as he worked around-the-clock to answer calls, helped the team achieve impeccable response times, oversaw the construction of three fire stations and spearheaded the implementation of new trucks and ambulances throughout the city,” Laesch said.
Although McCabe has been fire chief for the last nearly three-and-a-half years, and in upper department leadership for years before that, he said that he still tells people who ask him what he does that he’s a firefighter, since that’s what he was hired to be. If they ask his rank, then he’ll tell them he’s the chief, but he doesn’t identify as someone who’s “outside of the department,” and he’s never lost that “sense of belonging and vision,” he said.
No one in their 20s takes a fire department test to become fire chief, according to McCabe. He said they take it to fight fires, to help people and to be on the trucks, so it’s a major life change going from that to a Monday-to-Friday job where time is mostly spent in the office.
Different people have different reasons they want to move up in the fire department, McCabe said, and one of the big ones for him was that he believed he had good ideas for how to move the department forward. When asked for examples of those ideas, McCabe spoke about changes to help reduce response times, particularly around alerts within fire stations.
McCabe also took over as fire chief soon after the completion of a 2021 study that looked at the placement of fire stations in Aurora and response times. That study recommended moving Fire Station 4 and Fire Station 9, plus building a Fire Station 13 — projects that broke ground under McCabe’s leadership.
Aurora Fire Chief Dave McCabe speaks last year during a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Fire Station 13. (R. Christian Smith/The Beacon-News)
During a groundbreaking ceremony for Fire Station 13 late last year, McCabe said that a station in that area had been talked about since he started at the department. The city’s new fire station is the first to be located north of Interstate 88 in Aurora.
And the $35 million Fire Station 4 project includes more than just a typical station. The building is also set to be the fire department’s new headquarters, moving leadership out of its current headquarters in downtown that was built in the 1980s, which McCabe told The Beacon-News last year was “busting at the seams.”
The new fire department headquarters and Fire Station 4 building is being constructed on the same site as the Aurora Police Department, creating a public safety campus.
The Aurora Fire Department has needed the City Council’s support for all the growth it has been able to do over the last few years, according to McCabe. And although some may think the department grew too much, he said, fire staff has grown only 20% over the last eight years as compared to a 31% increase in calls over that same time.
Plus, calls went up “immensely” from 1998 to 2017, but the fire department didn’t add a single vehicle in that time, so “now we’re playing catch-up,” McCabe said. While vehicles have been replaced over the years, Aurora last year added the first new fire truck to its fleet since 1998.
There are times, McCabe said, when he gets very torn between the mission of the fire department and “what’s being directed … from other places.” While those new on the job may see him as the ultimate decision-maker, everyone has a boss they need to work with, he said.
Recently, Aurora put out a joint statement between Mayor Laesch, Police Chief Matt Thomas and McCabe about cuts to public safety departments included in the proposed 2026 city budget, with Laesch and McCabe saying in the statement that the reductions would not have an impact on services.
The statement said that “the idea that Aurora’s 2026 budget ‘cuts public safety’ is simply inaccurate,” and noted that public safety departments received the lowest percentage funding reductions of any city departments, plus that both police and fire would still be receiving more funding than was included in this year’s budget.
The International Association of Firefighters Local 99, which represents Aurora firefighters, recently put out a statement opposing the city’s joint statement.
“There is no scenario where fewer firefighters, less training support, fewer officers and fewer trucks on the street equates to the same level of safety, readiness, or service,” said the statement posted to the local’s Facebook page. “To claim otherwise is irresponsible.”
McCabe told The Beacon-News that he doesn’t want to lose positions either, but he realizes the financial constraints the city has put on the department. He and Deputy Chief Kevin Nickel had multiple meetings with the mayor’s office to fight to get some positions back and push back against discussed layoffs of some recruits, he said.
Ultimately, he said, the mayor’s office agreed to cut positions through attrition instead of layoffs.
When there are less positions, a decision has to be made to either staff vehicles with people working overtime or to not staff some vehicles at all, according to McCabe. Laesch has previously said that two of the department’s four ladder trucks would go unstaffed under the proposed 2026 budget.
McCabe said he is hoping that, in the new year, the city’s “financial picture” changes and any cut positions are able to be restored as soon as possible.
But really, this budget situation is playing, if anything, only a minor part in McCabe’s decision to retire, he said. He isn’t leaving “disgruntled by any means.”
Instead, the biggest contributing factors to his retirement are a combination of health concerns he’s had this year and the fact that his youngest child is finishing up her last semester of college, McCabe said.
Aurora Fire Chief David McCabe works in his office in 2023. McCabe is retiring, with Wednesday his last day at work as Aurora fire chief. (Megan Jones/The Beacon-News)
He had been going back and forth on whether or not he was going to retire, with his paperwork already filled out but not yet turned it, he said. But it was that fire on the night of Oct. 29 that showed him that the department was in a good place, with incredible staff and leadership, and finally led to him submitting the papers.
As a complete coincidence, McCabe is retiring on the same day as someone he was partnered with on an ambulance for around six years, he said. He recounted times at the station when they’d get into “knock-down, drag-out arguments” but also times when “we laughed so hard we thought were going to throw up.”
Sometimes, firefighters may think leadership forgets what its like to be out on the vehicles, sometimes all night, but “I really haven’t,” McCabe said. And sometimes he really misses it, since “that’s our core mission.”
As for what’s next, McCabe said he isn’t going to be out golfing, lying on the beach or sitting around the house all day — he wants to do something productive.
He’s had people reach out to him about some possibilities, but he’s going to be “very selective” about where he goes next. He doesn’t need to work, he said, but he wants to.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/25/aurora-fire-chief-david-mccabe-to-retire/
Indultos de pavos marcan ritual festivo en un momento precario para Trump
Por CHRIS MEGERIAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — El presidente Donald Trump planea otorgar indultos ceremoniales a dos pavos y volar a su resort privado en Florida el martes para celebrar el Día de Acción de Gracias, un interludio festivo durante lo que ha sido un capítulo turbulento e incierto de su segundo mandato.
Waddle y Gobble, los dos pavos que serán perdonados, disfrutaron de alojamientos de lujo en un hotel antes de su visita a la Casa Blanca. El indulto a pavos es una tradición presidencial que se remonta a años atrás.
Sin embargo, el Día de Acción de Gracias puede no ofrecerle a Trump mucho respiro político después de que los demócratas obtuvieran victorias contundentes en Nueva Jersey, Virginia y otros lugares a principios de este mes. Algunas investigaciones indican que las comidas festivas podrían costar más este año, a pesar de la insistencia del presidente en lo contrario, un recordatorio de la frustración persistente con los precios elevados.
Mientras tanto, Trump está luchando por avanzar en un plan para poner fin a la invasión rusa de Ucrania después de que una versión anterior enfrentara críticas rápidas de los aliados europeos e incluso de algunos republicanos. El ejército de Estados Unidos también está preparado para apuntar a Venezuela con ataques militares, como parte de una operación antidrogas que podría desestabilizar finalmente el liderazgo del país.
En Washington, Trump enfrenta la posibilidad de una coalición republicana fragmentada antes de las elecciones de mitad de período del próximo año, que determinarán el control del Congreso. Algunos miembros de su partido ya dieron el paso inusual de enojar al presidente al impulsar con éxito una legislación para obligar al Departamento de Justicia a difundir más documentos sobre el caso de Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump enfrentó un revés en la corte esta semana cuando un juez federal desestimó los casos contra James Comey y Letitia James, dos adversarios políticos contra los cuales el mandatario buscaba venganza.
Comey, un exdirector del FBI a quien Trump despidió durante su primer mandato, fue acusado de hacer una declaración falsa y obstruir al Congreso. James, la fiscal general de Nueva York que investigó al presidente entre sus dos mandatos, fue acusada de fraude hipotecario.
Ambos se declararon inocentes y calificaron los procesos de políticamente motivados, señalando las demandas públicas de Trump al Departamento de Justicia para que castigara a sus enemigos.
El juez tomó la determinación al determinar que la fiscal, otrora abogada personal de Trump, había sido designada ilegalmente. Sin embargo, la decisión se tomó sin prejuicio, por lo que el Departamento de Justicia podría intentar nuevamente procesar a Comey y James.
Todos los últimos desarrollos contribuyen a un momento de actividad frenética para la Casa Blanca, que normalmente estaría preparándose para una temporada festiva tranquila y festiva.
Sin embargo, a pesar de la llegada tradicional de un árbol de Navidad el lunes, la residencia presidencial será muy diferente este año. Aunque las visitas turísticas continúan, la decisión de Trump de demoler el ala este del edificio para hacer espacio para un nuevo salón de baile ha convertido parte de los terrenos de la Casa Blanca en un sitio de construcción.
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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.
Benet’s Lynney Tarnow, an All-American, is the 2025 Naperville Sun Girls Volleyball Player of the Year
Benet senior Lynney Tarnow has always stood out on and off the volleyball court.
The 6-foot-5 middle hitter is a towering presence everywhere she goes.
“I was always tall when I was a kid,” Tarnow said. “I was always about 4 inches taller than the girls in my grade, and I think that I started to get into the 6-foot range around seventh grade.”
By the time Tarnow got to high school, she was 6-4. The Wisconsin commit made a tremendous impact as a freshman and just kept improving her game as she grew.
“I think that height obviously just came naturally for me, but then you have to put it together with not only being flexible, having agility, being quick on your feet,” Tarnow said. “That’s not always easy for us 6-5 people all the time, so I’m balancing what I’m eating, weightlifting and taking care of my mind and body because it is hard being tall sometimes.”
But not as hard as trying to oppose a player like Tarnow, the 2025 Naperville Sun Girls Volleyball Player of the Year. She led Benet to four consecutive Class 4A state championship matches and a 155-13 record.
Tarnow, a two-time All-American who finished her high school career with 944 kills and 222 blocks, ranks with Meghan Haggerty, who played at Nebraska, as the greatest middle hitter in Benet history.
Tarnow’s best all-around season was her last. She had 227 kills, 55 digs, 40 blocks, 22 aces and 15 assists, becoming the leading force on a team that had lost seven Division I players to graduation.
“It was definitely an adjustment losing so many great players, but I think that it was just taking nuggets of wisdom that each senior had taught me from being a freshman on the team,” Tarnow said. “That really helped me as a senior.
“I can kind of take all what I learned from the older girls and use it to be the best senior I can be. We’ve all blended together so well. That’s why we saw so much success.”
Tarnow was successful in many ways, particularly with her blocking. But her signature move was the backslide, in which she moved behind senior setter Ellie Stiernagle, who set the ball to Tarnow on the right side. Then it was hammer time as Tarnow smashed the ball down for kill after kill.
She was rarely stopped, and the sequence was fascinating for players and spectators.
“The slide down the line is my favorite for sure,” Tarnow said. “That’s been my move for four years.”
Tarnow pounded a kill on a slide to end the first set of the sectional championship match against St. Charles North.
“The last play of that first set, everybody was basically on their hands and knees bowing down to her,” Stiernagle said. “It was amazing.
“It’s always amazing, and she can just put the ball down in incredible ways, just hammer it on the ground. But she also has a lot of tools in that box, so it’s not always a hammer. She can get kills any other way.”
Benet’s Ellie Stiernagle (11) and Lynney Tarnow (12) go up to block against Marist during the Class 4A state championship match at CEFCU Arena in Normal on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (Rob Dicker / Naperville Sun)
That’s one of the hallmarks of a great middle.
“You have to be able to hit multiple shots and be able to hit them with power,” Benet coach Brad Baker said. “And her confidence, with being in so many big matches, has helped our team, not just with her play but her mental ability and how calm she keeps us.”
Baker said talent and success aren’t the only qualities that make Tarnow stand out.
“It’s one thing to be a great athlete, but also to be humble about it is pretty fantastic,” Baker said. “She’s always been extremely humble and extremely kind to not only her coaches but to players and staff.”
That endeared Tarnow to teammates like the Northwestern-bound Stiernagle, who will play against her in the Big Ten.
“She’s just an amazing person,” Stiernagle said. “I think a lot of people look at her for her height, but she’s just an amazing person in general. I’m just grateful to have played with her the last four years.”
Benet’s Lynne Tarnow, left, chats with teammate Ellie Stiernagle before a match in the Crown Point Invitational in Crown Point, Indiana, on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025. (Andy Lavalley / Post-Tribune)
Tarnow is grateful to have played at Benet.
“It means so much,” she said. “I’m really happy to be a Redwing.
“I just thank the program for all the support they’ve given me. It prepared me for Wisconsin, and I’m excited to start that journey now.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter.
Players Era headlines list of Thanksgiving-week offerings on the college basketball slate
Rick Barnes didn’t have long on Monday to enjoy 17th-ranked Tennessee’s lopsided win against Rutgers.
Not with No. 3 Houston awaiting Tuesday as part of a loaded field at this week’s Players Era, the headlining event in a national schedule filled with college basketball tournaments and marquee matchups as part of a beloved Thanksgiving-week tradition in the sport.
“We’ve got a month or so before we get into conference play,” Barnes said after Monday’s 85-60 win in Las Vegas. “And get a chance to really leave here and know which direction you need to move with your team.”
Indeed, this is a measuring-stick week for AP Top 25 teams.
The Players Era has grabbed center stage with eight ranked teams in its 18-team field, an event that quickly rose to prominence since last year’s launch by guaranteeing at least $1 million in name, image and likeness money to what was then eight participating teams.
There are also ranked teams playing in the longer-running Maui Invitational in Hawaii and Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas, as well as at the Fort Myers Tip-Off in Florida. There’s also a marquee nonconference matchup in Chicago for Thanksgiving Day.
Here’s a look around the country for this week’s holiday festivities:
Players Era
The event, which opened Monday, will feature a pair of ranked-versus-ranked matchups on Tuesday with Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars taking on Barnes’ Volunteers. There’s also a matchup between seventh-ranked Michigan and No. 21 Auburn.
Meanwhile, No. 8 Alabama (against UNLV), No. 12 Gonzaga (Maryland), No. 14 St. John’s (Baylor) and No. 15 Iowa State (Creighton) are also in action Tuesday.
The championship and third-place game take place Wednesday; consolation games are set for Wednesday and Thursday.
Maui Invitational
N.C. State climbed two spots to No. 23 in Monday’s poll as the lone ranked team in the eight-team field, arriving in Hawaii after a fast start to Will Wade’s coaching tenure.
Yet the Wolfpack opened the three-day tournament in Lahaina with a loss to Seton Hall, dropping N.C. State into the consolation bracket to play Boise State on Tuesday followed by a third game against an undetermined opponent on Wednesday.
Fort Myers Tip-Off
The event’s headlining “Beach Division” schedule features No. 11 Michigan State and No. 16 North Carolina. The Spartans open play Tuesday against East Carolina, while the Tar Heels face St. Bonaventure. Then the Spartans and Tar Heels meet Thursday in the round-robin schedule.
Both already have marquee wins this year. The Spartans have beaten Kentucky and Arkansas, while the Tar Heels have a win against Kansas.
Battle 4 Atlantis
The eight-team event at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas got a late addition of a ranked team with Vanderbilt jumping into Monday’s poll at No. 24.
The Commodores face Western Kentucky on Wednesday in that three-day event’s opening game. The tournament also features one of the leading vote-getters among unranked teams in Saint Mary’s and preseason Atlantic 10 favorite VCU.
Big-city pairings
Fourth-ranked Duke continues a demanding nonconference schedule — one going all the way back to the preseason — by facing No. 22 Arkansas in Chicago in the CBS Sports Thanksgiving Classic. It marks Duke’s third matchup against a power-conference opponent after opening the season with a win against Texas, followed by beating then-ranked Kansas last week.
The Blue Devils will next host reigning NCAA champion and 10th-ranked Florida in next week’s ACC/SEC Challenge, visit Michigan State (Dec. 6) and face No. 20 Texas Tech in New York (Dec. 20) before opening Atlantic Coast Conference play.
And on Friday, No. 5 UConn and No. 13 Illinois will meet in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Both teams lost last week, the Huskies at home to now-No. 2 Arizona and the Illini to Alabama.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/25/college-basketball-thanksgiving-schedule/
“Geographic Rotation Is Striking”: Home Prices Are Falling In A Majority Of US Cities
“Geographic Rotation Is Striking”: Home Prices Are Falling In A Majority Of US Cities
US home prices in the 20 largest cities rose 0.13% MoM in September (very slightly better than the 0.1% rise expected) and up for the second month in a row (after falling for five straight months before). This MoM rise left the average priers up just 1.36% YoY – the lowest since July 2023…
Source: Bloomberg
This (admittedly lagged and smoothed) data fits with the recent trend from Zillow that homes have lost value…
“As of October 2025, 53 percent of homes have lost value over the past year as measured by their Zestimate,” said Zillow.
“This share has climbed from only 16 percent just a year ago. This is on the highest share of homes declining in value since April 2012, when the housing crash was starting to bottom out.”
But of course, the Case Shiller data is actual sales, Zillow is an ‘estimate’ of value – not a transaction.
Regional performance reveals a tale of two markets.
Chicago continues to lead with a 5.5% annual gain, followed by New York at 5.2% and Boston at 4.1%. These Northeastern and Midwestern metros have sustained momentum even as broader market conditions soften.
At the opposite extreme, Tampa posted a 4.1% annual decline – the sharpest drop among tracked metros and its 11th consecutive month of negative annual returns. Phoenix (-2.0%), Dallas (-1.3%), and Miami (-1.3%) likewise remained in negative territory, highlighting particular weakness in Sun Belt markets that experienced the most dramatic pandemic-era price surges.
Home Prices are now falling (YoY) in a majority (11/20) of America’s largest cities…
“The geographic rotation is striking,” said Nicholas Godec, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, Head of Fixed Income Tradables & Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
“Markets that were pandemic darlings—particularly in Florida, Arizona, and Texas—are now experiencing outright price declines.
Meanwhile, traditionally stable metros in the Northeast and Midwest continue to post solid gains, suggesting a reversion to prepandemic patterns where job markets and urban fundamentals drive appreciation rather than migration trends and remote-work dynamics.”
For context, this represents the weakest annual price growth since early 2023, when the market was absorbing the initial shock of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking cycle.
“Yet unlike that period, which saw a quick rebound,” says Godec, “current conditions suggest more persistent headwinds. With mortgage rates stubbornly elevated and affordability at multi-decade lows, the market appears to be settling into a new equilibrium of minimal price growth—or, in some regions, outright decline.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/25/2025 – 09:12
Amazon Announces $50B Plan For Dedicated Government AI Supercomputing
Amazon Announces $50B Plan For Dedicated Government AI Supercomputing
Amazon Web Services is making a major push into government-focused artificial intelligence and supercomputing, announcing plans to build the first AI- and HPC-dedicated cloud infrastructure designed specifically for U.S. federal agencies, according to Amazon’s PR.
The company said it will invest up to $50 billion beginning in 2026 to expand capacity across AWS Top Secret, AWS Secret, and AWS GovCloud (US), adding nearly 1.3 gigawatts of advanced compute power.
The expansion will give agencies access to a broader suite of AI tools—such as Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Nova, Anthropic Claude, leading open-weights models, AWS Trainium chips, and NVIDIA AI systems—while providing classified and unclassified environments for model training, simulation, and mission-critical workloads.
Amazon wrote that the investment will help agencies apply AI to large-scale modeling and simulation, enabling “autonomous experimental steering and real-time feedback loops” and shrinking processes that once took weeks down to hours.
The company highlights applications ranging from analyzing global security data to automating threat detection across satellite imagery and sensor streams. The expanded infrastructure is also positioned to accelerate research in fields like energy, healthcare, cybersecurity, and autonomous systems.
“Our investment in purpose-built government AI and cloud infrastructure will fundamentally transform how federal agencies leverage supercomputing,” said AWS CEO Matt Garman. “We’re giving agencies expanded access to advanced AI capabilities that will enable them to accelerate critical missions from cybersecurity to drug discovery. This investment removes the technology barriers that have held government back and further positions America to lead in the AI era.”
AWS frames the move as aligned with the Administration’s AI Action Plan and as part of a broader shift from traditional supercomputing to AI-accelerated workflows, where natural-language interfaces and AI agents help researchers explore complex problems.
The announcement also builds on more than a decade of government-focused cloud development, including milestones such as the launch of AWS GovCloud in 2011, the first air-gapped commercial cloud for classified workloads in 2014, and full accreditation across all U.S. classification levels by 2017.
With more than 11,000 government customers already on AWS, the company says the new investment is meant to provide secure, scalable infrastructure for a new era of computational discovery—one in which AI and HPC converge to support national security, scientific innovation, and the broader U.S. industrial base.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/25/2025 – 09:05
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/amazon-announces-50b-plan-dedicated-government-ai-supercomputing
Empeora el tráfico mundial de tigres; se incautan 9 grandes felinos por mes
Por EILEEN NG
KUALA LUMPUR, Malasia (AP) — Las autoridades de todo el mundo han incautado un promedio de nueve tigres cada mes en los últimos cinco años, destacando una crisis de tráfico que empeora y que amenaza la supervivencia de una de las especies más icónicas del planeta, según una investigación publicada el martes.
Un nuevo informe de la red de monitoreo del comercio de vida silvestre TRAFFIC advirtió que las redes criminales están evolucionando más rápido de lo que los esfuerzos de conservación pueden responder. La población mundial de tigres salvajes, que hace un siglo era de alrededor de 100.000, ha caído ahora a entre 3.700 y 5.500, señaló.
A pesar de medio siglo de protección internacional, los hallazgos de TRAFFIC mostraron que el tráfico de tigres está acelerándose y cada vez más se enfoca en animales enteros, vivos o muertos. Los expertos dicen que este cambio parece estar vinculado a operaciones de cría en cautiverio, pero también puede reflejar que los tigres son incautados poco después de ser cazados furtivamente o antes de ser desmembrados para sus partes. Además, podría estar impulsado por un aumento en la posesión de mascotas exóticas o la demanda de taxidermia, afirman.
Tendencias alarmantes
El informe, el sexto de la serie Skin and Bones de TRAFFIC que examina el comercio ilegal de tigres, destaca tendencias alarmantes. Entre 2000 y mediados de 2025, autoridades a nivel mundial registraron 2.551 incautaciones que involucraron al menos 3.808 tigres.
En los cinco años desde 2020 hasta junio de 2025, las autoridades realizaron 765 incautaciones, confiscando el equivalente a 573 tigres, aproximadamente nueve al mes durante 66 meses. El peor año fue 2019, cuando se registraron 141 incautaciones, seguido de 139 en 2023.
La mayoría de las incautaciones ocurrieron dentro de los 13 países que tienen poblaciones de tigres salvajes, liderados por India con la mayor población de tigres del mundo, China, Indonesia y Vietnam. Entre los países sin tigres, se reportó un número considerable de incidentes en México, Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido, según el informe. Aunque la aplicación de la ley se ha fortalecido, también lo ha hecho el comercio.
“Este aumento refleja mejores esfuerzos de aplicación, pero también indica una actividad criminal persistente y, en algunas áreas, en aumento, así como una demanda generalizada de tigres y sus partes”, explicó Ramacandra Wong, analista senior de delitos contra la vida silvestre y coautor del informe.
El último análisis de TRAFFIC revela un cambio dramático: en la década de 2000, las partes de tigre representaban el 90% de los productos incautados, pero desde 2020 esa proporción ha caído al 60%, reemplazada por un aumento en las incautaciones de cadáveres de animales enteros y vivos. Más del 40% de las confiscaciones en países como Vietnam, Tailandia, Indonesia y Rusia ahora involucran tigres enteros.
El informe identificó puntos críticos arraigados donde las intervenciones deberían priorizarse: las reservas de tigres de India y Bangladesh; la región de Aceh en Indonesia; en la frontera entre Vietnam y Laos; y los principales centros de consumo de Vietnam, incluidas su capital Hanoi y Ciudad Ho Chi Minh.
El tráfico de tigres involucra a otras especies amenazadas
El informe también documenta una creciente “convergencia de especies”, ya que casi uno de cada cinco incidentes de tráfico de tigres involucra a otras especies amenazadas, siendo los leopardos, osos y pangolines los más comunes.
Los patrones de consumo varían drásticamente según la geografía. En México y Estados Unidos, la demanda se inclina hacia tigres vivos, a menudo para la posesión de mascotas exóticas. Europa muestra un mercado más fuerte para los derivados de tigre utilizados en ciertas medicinas tradicionales y taxidermia para decoración. En toda Asia, la demanda abarca pieles, huesos, garras y animales muertos enteros para la moda y la medicina tradicional.
El informe señala que las investigaciones no deben terminar en la incautación. Indicó que la cooperación internacional sólida es crucial, y que la interrupción de las redes de crimen organizado a lo largo de la cadena de comercio ilegal a través del cumplimiento de la ley basado en inteligencia y de múltiples agencias es esencial.
Leigh Henry, directora de conservación de vida silvestre en la organización benéfica ambiental World Wildlife Fund, dijo a The Associated Press que el aumento en el tráfico de animales enteros subraya el “papel prominente de las instalaciones de cría de tigres en cautiverio en alimentar y perpetuar el comercio ilegal”.
“El comercio ilegal sigue siendo la mayor amenaza inmediata para los tigres salvajes. Si no aumentamos urgentemente las inversiones para combatir el tráfico de tigres, en todos los puntos a lo largo de la cadena de comercio, enfrentamos absolutamente la posibilidad de un mundo sin tigres salvajes”, afirmó.
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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.
Techos arrancados y ventanas rotas entre los daños en más de 100 casas por tornado cerca de Houston
HOUSTON (AP) — Un tornado que atravesó áreas residenciales al norte de Houston dañó más de 100 hogares, arrancando techos, moviendo garajes de sus cimientos y rompiendo ventanas, informaron las autoridades en Texas.
No se reportaron heridos en la tormenta que el lunes arrancó árboles, derribó líneas eléctricas y creó caminos de escombros en algunos vecindarios.
La densa niebla dificultó la evaluación de los daños el martes por la mañana, pero se prevén condiciones más templadas después. Se pronosticaron lluvias intensas y tormentas eléctricas severas más al sur durante el día, considerado uno de los días de viaje más concurridos del período de vacaciones de Acción de Gracias. Según el Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, habrá lluvias y nieve en otras áreas del país cerca de Acción de Gracias.
Algunas personas se refugiaron en sus hogares y se escondieron en armarios durante la tormenta en Texas. Más de 20.000 clientes se quedaron sin electricidad en un momento el lunes.
“Tenía la puerta y estaba tratando de mantenerla cerrada para que nada entrara en la casa”, relató Miriam Harris a KTRK-TV. “Así de fuerte estuvo”. Su casa sufrió daños en el techo y los árboles, y parte de su exhibición de luces navideñas quedó destrozada.
En Klein, a unos 40 kilómetros (unas 25 millas) al norte de Houston, los funcionarios estaban trabajando para reparar múltiples fugas de gas, remover árboles en carreteras y limpiar escombros alrededor de hogares y negocios, dijo Ja’Milla Lomas, portavoz del Departamento de Bomberos de Klein. También se reportaron daños en Cypress y Spring.
Un equipo de bomberos se refugió temporalmente en el garaje de un residente mientras los fuertes vientos atravesaban el área, publicó el Departamento de Bomberos de Cy-Fair, que representa una colección de estaciones en toda la región de Houston.
Fotos y videos de drones publicados en Facebook por la policía del condado Harris mostraron techos con tejas arrancadas. Algunos escombros bloqueaban las carreteras.
El daño afectó al vecindario de Memorial Northwest, según el jefe policial Mark Herman. También hubo varios accidentes de vehículos relacionados con el clima.
El Departamento de Bomberos de Houston envió a cinco miembros de su equipo de sierras para cortar y remover árboles caídos, dijo el portavoz Rustin Rawlings.
El servicio meteorológico había emitido una alerta de tornado para el sureste de Texas, incluyendo Houston, hasta la 1 de la mañana del martes. También emitió una advertencia de tormenta eléctrica para partes del sureste de Texas.
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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.
