Nation in brief: Whale-herding efforts unsuccessful
Biologists tried unsuccessfully Thursday to use recorded siren songs of humpback whales to lure an injured female and her wounded calf from a shipping channel and back toward the Pacific Ocean 90 miles away.
When the researchers played the underwater recordings from an 87-foot Coast Guard cutter, the whales swam away from the sound rather than toward it.
Hours later, the whales were still swimming at the Port of Sacramento, where they have been since Tuesday.
Scientists then decided to move the sound equipment to a 25-foot Coast Guard vessel, believing the noise from the larger ship’s generator may have interfered with the whale sounds.
The whales twice began swimming out of the port after the sounds were broadcast from the smaller boat but turned back into a large basin that oceangoing freighters use for turning around.
The Coast Guard and a team of scientists called off their efforts shortly before 5 p.m. It could take weeks to get the whales back where they belong, scientists said.
Washington
Dobson says he won’t back Giuliani
A second prominent Christian leader said Thursday he “cannot and will not” vote for Rudolph Giuliani, slamming the former New York mayor over his views on abortion, his multiple marriages and his trustworthiness.
The Rev. James Dobson of Focus on the Family published a blistering opinion piece on the Internet Thursday saying Giuliani’s “tap dancing” can’t hide his support for abortion rights and gay rights that put him outside the Republican mainstream.
Dobson also got personal, questioning Giuliani’s “decorum and dignity” for dressing in drag at costume shows and accusing him of “philandering” during his second marriage – a charge Giuliani has repeatedly denied.
Dobson joins Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention in ruling out a vote for Giuliani.
Riverton, Wyo.
Bat-keeping teacher to get rabies shots
Catching a bat in a school basement and keeping it as a classroom pet is a great way to learn – about rabies.
Two staff members at Trinity Lutheran School are getting a weeks-long series of rabies shots after a bat kept in a locked terrarium tested positive for the disease.
On May 9, seventh- and eighth-grade teacher Steve Coniglio used a stick and a bucket to capture the bat, which died two days later.
The bat had been displayed in classrooms and students gave it crickets, but Susan Tucker, head teacher at the central Wyoming school, said Coniglio made sure students did not handle the animal.
State and county health officials on Tuesday interviewed all 95 staff members and students at the school and decided that Coniglio and a teaching assistant who cleaned the cage after the bat died needed to be treated as a precaution.