May 2, 2022
U.S.A.
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 9
Pandas devour ice cake to celebrate 50 years at National Zoo
50 YEARS OF PANDA DIPLOMACY. Giant
panda Mei Xiang eats a fruitsicle cake in celebration
of 50 years of achievement by the Smithsonian’s Na-
tional Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in the
care, conservation, breeding, and study of giant pan-
das at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington,
D.C. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
By Ashraf Khalil
The Associated Press
ASHINGTON — The “cake” was
made from frozen fruit juice,
sweet potatoes, carrots, and
sugar cane and it lasted about 15 minutes
once giant panda mama Mei Xiang and her
cub Xiao Qi Ji got hold of it.
The National Zoo’s most famous tenants
had an enthusiastic breakfast in front of
adoring crowds as the zoo celebrated 50
years of its iconic panda exchange
agreement with the Chinese govern-
ment.
Xiao Qi Ji’s father Tian Tian largely sat
out the morning festivities, munching
bamboo in a neighboring enclosure with
the sounds of his chomping clearly audible
during
a
statement
by
Chinese
ambassador Qin Gang. The ambassador
praised the bears as “a symbol of the
friendship” between the nations.
Pandas are almost entirely solitary by
nature, and in the wild Tian Tian would
probably never even meet his child. He
received a similar cake for lunch.
In addition to hailing the 1972
agreement sparked by President Richard
Nixon’s landmark visit to China, the
celebration also highlighted the success of
the global giant panda breeding program,
which has helped bring the bears back
from the brink of extinction.
W
Xiao Qi Ji’s birth in August 2020 was
hailed as a near miracle, due to Mei
Xiang’s advanced age and the fact that zoo
staff performed the artificial insemination
procedure under tight restrictions shortly
after the COVID-19 pandemic shut the
entire zoo. At age 22, Mei Xiang was the
oldest giant panda to successfully give
birth in the United States.
Normally they would have used a
combination of frozen sperm and fresh
semen extracted from Tian Tian. But in
order to minimize the number of
close-quarters medical procedures, zoo
officials used only frozen semen.
“It was definitely a long-shot preg-
nancy,” said Bryan Amaral, the zoo’s
senior curator for mammals.
In honor of that long shot, the now
20-month-old cub was given a name that
translates as “little miracle.” His birth
mid-pandemic sparked a fresh wave of
panda-mania, with viewership on the zoo’s
panda-cam livestream spiking by 1,200
percent.
“I know how passionate people are about
pandas,” Amaral said. “I’m not surprised
by that passion at all.”
Sure enough, crowds started streaming
straight for the panda section at 8:00am
when the zoo opened. Sisters Lorelai and
Everley Greenwell, ages 6 and 5, ran
Birth of endangered Hawaiian monk seal caught on camera
By Audrey McAvoy
The Associated Press
ONOLULU — Images of a
Hawaiian monk seal being born
on an O‘ahu beach have been
captured on camera.
An employee of the state Department of
Land and Natural Resources shot video
and photos of the pup emerging from the
mother onto white sands last month.
“As soon as its (amniotic) sac burst, the
little one starting wiggling around,” Lesley
Macpherson, who works for the
department’s Division of State Parks, said
in a news release. The mother monk seal
checked on her pup by barking as the
H
Wisconsin woman
accused in scheme to
defraud Hmong investors
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin
woman is accused of leading a scheme to
bilk Hmong-American investors mostly
from Minnesota and Wisconsin of at least
$16.5 million.
A civil complaint filed by the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged
Kay Yang, 40, of Mequon, of defrauding
about 70 investors between April 2017 and
April 2021. Her husband, Chao Yang, 47,
is charged as a secondary defendant for
improperly receiving proceeds of the fraud.
Investigators said the scheme operated
in six other states.
“Some of these investors do not speak
English as [their] first language, and some
of them were not sophisticated investors,”
the complaint said.
Authorities said Kay Yang spent about
$1.5 million on real estate, $790,000 on
living expenses, $585,000 on travel, and
$313,000 on luxury vehicles for her and
her husband, including a Lexus, Tesla, and
two BMWs. She had homes in Mequon,
Sheboygan, Saukville, as well as
Zimmerman, Minnesota.
The couple withdrew about $1.4 million
in investor funds, much of it from ATMs at
casinos in Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Atlantic
City, and elsewhere, the complaint said.
The SEC seeks to stop Yang and her
husband from working as investors and
force them to pay penalties and return
money to their investors with interest.
Court documents do not list an attorney
for the Yangs.
newborn flapped its flippers.
Hawaiian
monk
seals
are
an
endangered species. There are only about
1,400 seals in the world. About
three-quarters of this total live in the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a remote
string of small atolls northwest of Hawaii’s
populated islands. The rest, about 300
seals, live in the Main Hawaiian Islands
including O‘ahu and Maui.
The pup, named PO5, was one of two
baby seals born on O‘ahu in April. Officials
Baton Rouge International
School closing after 22 years
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A small
private school in Baton Rouge is closing
after 22 years of operation, leaving parents
looking for a place to enroll their children
for next school year.
The Baton Rouge International School
blamed a coronavirus pandemic-related
drop in enrollment from which it never
recovered as a reason for the closing,
according to The Advocate. The school
offered a full multilingual immersion
program in English, Spanish, French, and
Chinese. It is part of a global network of 50
schools known as the International
Schools Partnership.
“It is ... with deep and heartfelt sadness
that I write to tell you that Baton Rouge
International School will permanently
close at the end of this school year,” read a
letter sent to parents last month.
The last day of classes is May 26. The
closure announcement was made after
most other private schools had already
enrolled students for next year.
“We’re stabbing in the dark hoping we
might get on a wait list,” said Dawn
DePorter-Kimmence, who has two
children at the school. She told the
newspaper she’s still hoping a benefactor
will save the school.
She said her children can communicate
in French and Spanish and also know some
Chinese. And she said the school provided
challenging lessons in regular subjects.
“You don’t get exposure to that every-
where,” she said. “It sets them up in life for
success that not everyone has access to.”
Enrollment
at
pre-K
through
12th-grade school declined from 309
students in fall 2019 to 188 students in
February, according to the Louisiana
Department of Education.
and volunteers will actively monitor the
moms and their pups until weaning in
about five to six weeks. After weaning,
officials will aim to tag the pups and may
apply temporary satellite transmitters to
the seals to help keep track of them.
Three other pups born on O‘ahu this
year died from complications related to
birth, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration said.
Ryan Jenkinson, who leads the state’s
protected species program, said it’s
important for people to stay outside roped
barriers set up to safeguard the mothers
and their pups. He urged people to keep
their dogs on leashes at all times.
toward the enclosure chanting “Pandas!
Pandas!”
They watched the cub tumble around,
try to wrestle his mom, and tear the zero
off the giant 50 emblazoned on the ice cake.
“They knew this was coming,” their
mother, Kayleigh Greenwell of Mount
Ranier, Maryland, said of her girls. “We’ve
been talking about it all week.”
The zoo’s original 1972 panda pair,
Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were star
attractions at the zoo for decades, but
panda pregnancies are notoriously tricky
and none of their cubs survived.
Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived in
2000, and the pair has successfully birthed
three other cubs: Tai Shan, Bao Bao, and
Bei Bei — also by artificial insemination.
All were transported to China at age 4,
under terms of the zoo’s agreement with
the Chinese government.
Similar agreements with zoos around
the world have helped revitalize the giant
panda population. Down to just over 1,000
bears in the 1980s, the species has since
been removed from the lists of animals in
danger of extinction.
Experts say Asian population
overcount masks community
Continued from page 8
“UCLA was pretty swamped with trying
to figure out how to get people their
belongings. ... It was a very messy moment
and I don’t think I knew anyone that got
mail or anything like that,” Chen said.
“(The census) is definitely something that I
paid attention to, especially with the way
that my dad focused on it.”
Tang reported from Phoenix and is a member of
The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team.
Department of Consumer & Business Services
Ombuds Office for Oregon Workers
Who we are and what we do:
The Ombuds Office for Oregon Workers is the state office that serves as an
independent advocate for workers by helping them understand their rights,
protections, and responsibilities related to safety in the workplace and the
workers’ compensation system. Our services are free.
Ombuds for Oregon Workers
Call: (503) 378-3351 or 800-927-1271 (toll-free)
E-mail: oow.questions@dcbs.oregon.gov
Website: www.oregon.gov/DCBS/OOW
dcbs.oregon.gov
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