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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — The Tyrannosaurus rex seemingly came out of nowhere tens of millions of years ago, with its monstrous teeth and powerful jaws dominating the end of the age of the dinosaurs. 

How it came to be is among the many mysteries that paleontologists have long tried to solve. Researchers from several universities and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science say they now have one more piece of the puzzle. 

On Thursday, they unveiled fossil evidence and published their findings in the journal Scientific Reports. Their study identifies a new subspecies of tyrannosaur thought to be an older and more primitive relative of the well-known T. rex. 

There were oohs and ahs as the massive jaw bone and pointy teeth were revealed to a group of schoolchildren. Pieces of the fragile specimen were first found in the 1980s by boaters on the shore of New Mexico’s largest reservoir. 

The identification of the new subspecies came through a meticulous reexamination of the jaw and other pieces of the skull that were collected over years at the site. The team analyzed the specimen bone by bone, noting differences in numerous features compared with those synonymous with T. rex. 

“Science is a process. With each new discovery, it forces us to go back and test and challenge what we thought we knew, and that’s the core story of this project,” said Anthony Fiorillo, a co-author of the study and the executive director of the museum. 

The differences between T. rex and Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis are subtle. But that’s typically the case in closely related species, said Nick Longrich, a co-author from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. 

“Evolution slowly causes mutations to build up over millions of years, causing species to look subtly different over time,” he said. 

The analysis suggests the new subspecies Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis was a side-branch in the species’ evolution, rather than a direct ancestor of T. rex. 

The researchers determined it predated T. rex by up to 7 million years, showing that tyrannosaurs were in North America long before paleontologists previously thought.

T. rex has a reputation as a fierce predator. It measured up to 40 feet (12 meters) long and 12 feet (3.6 meters) high. Study co-author Sebastian Dalman and the other researchers say T. mcraeensis was roughly the same size and also ate meat. 

Thomas Richard Holtz, a paleontologist at the University of Maryland who was not involved in the study, said the tyrannosaur fossil from New Mexico has been known for a while but its significance was not clear. 

One interesting aspect of the research is that it appears T. rex’s closest relatives were from southern North America, with the exception of Mongolian Tarbosaurus and Chinese Zhuchengtyrannus, Holtz said. That leaves the question of whether these Asian dinosaurs were immigrants from North America or if the new subspecies and other large tyrannosaurs were immigrants from Asia. 

“One great hindrance to solving this question is that we don’t have good fossil sites of the right environments in Asia older than Tarbosaurus and Zhuchengtyrannus, so we can’t see if their ancestors were present there or not,” Holtz said. 

He and the researchers who analyzed the specimen agree that more fossils from the Hall Lake Formation in southern New Mexico could help answer further questions.
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WASHINGTON — John Kerry, the U.S. special envoy on climate, is stepping down from the Biden administration in the coming weeks, according to two people familiar with his plans. 

Kerry, a longtime senator and secretary of state, was tapped shortly after Joe Biden’s November 2020 election to take on the new role created specifically to fight climate change on behalf of the administration on the global stage. 

Kerry’s departure plans were first reported Saturday by Axios. 

Kerry was one of the leading drafters of the 2015 Paris climate accords and came into the role with significant experience abroad, as secretary of state during the Obama administration and from nearly three decades as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden’s decision to tap Kerry for the post was seen as one way the incoming president was making good on his campaign pledge to battle climate change in a more forceful and visible manner than in previous administrations. 

“The climate crisis is a universal threat to humankind and we all have a responsibility to deal with it as rapidly as we can,” Kerry said in a visit to Beijing last summer, when he met with Vice President Han Zheng on climate matters. 

At international climate summits, Kerry always kept a breakneck pace, going from one meeting to another, with world leaders, major business figures and scientists, all interspersed with one press conference after another — to share what he just learned, announce an initiative, or say a few words as civil groups announced their own plans to help combat climate change, thus lending his credibility and weight. 

In the span an hour, at one meeting Kerry would talk in detail about the need for oil companies to drastically reduce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, then go to another gathering and detail his latest idea to help pay for green energy transition in developing countries and then, some minutes later, go into a long explanation of illegal fishing around the world while attending an event with leaders of Pacific Island nations. 

“John Kerry’s tireless work to deliver global progress on the climate crisis has been heroic,” former Vice President Al Gore, who has focused primarily on climate in his post-public office life, said in a statement Saturday. “He has approached this challenge with bold vision, resolute determination, and the urgency that this crisis demands. For that the U.S. and the whole world owe him a huge debt of gratitude.”

While his gravitas has made him a central climate figure around the world, Kerry also has strong critics who argue America’s climate policies don’t amount to leadership in fighting global warming. The Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate law in U.S. history, is pumping billions of dollars into renewable energies. But many facets of the law emphasize domestic production, thus leading other nations to complain that the law is protectionist and detrimental to their own green industries.

And for years, the United States opposed the creation of a “loss and damage” fund that would see rich nations contribute billions of dollars to help developing countries, often hit hard by extreme weather events driven by climate change. During COP27 in Egypt in 2022, the fund was approved, as the U.S. and other rich countries relented and supported it. However, Kerry is always quick to say the fund is not about “reparations” or “compensation,” and so far the U.S. has promised only modest funding for it.

Kerry represented Massachusetts for 28 years in the Senate and was also the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said Saturday the United States had delivered a private message to Iran about Iran-backed Houthis responsible for attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea. 

“We delivered it privately, and we’re confident we’re well-prepared,” Biden told reporters at the White House before departing to the Camp David presidential retreat for the weekend. 

The Houthi movement threatened a “strong and effective response” after the United States carried out another strike in Yemen overnight, further ratcheting up tensions as Washington vows to protect shipping from attacks by the Iran-aligned group. 

The latest strike, which the U.S. said hit a radar site, came a day after dozens of American and British strikes on Houthi facilities in Yemen. 

White House spokesperson John Kirby said Friday the initial strikes had hit the Houthis’ ability to store, launch and guide missiles or drones, which the group has used to threaten shipping. 

He said Washington had no interest in a war with Yemen. 

Biden, whose administration removed the Houthis from a State Department list of “foreign terrorist organizations” in 2021, was asked by reporters Friday whether he felt the term “terrorist” described the movement now. “I think they are,” Biden said. 
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WASHINGTON — The United States launched a follow-up strike against a Houthi target in Yemen early Saturday, after officials said they were not satisfied with the damage inflicted during the initial round of airstrikes late Thursday.

U.S. Central Command said it launched the additional strike from the USS Carney, a guided missile destroyer, firing multiple Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles to take out a radar site that it said presented a continuing threat to maritime traffic.

The strike comes a little more than a day after the U.S. and British militaries carried out dozens of strikes against Houthi positions in Yemen, in retaliation for weeks of Houthi attacks that have disrupted shipping and damaged vessels transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Houthi militants did launch an anti-ship ballistic missile early Friday, U.S. military officials confirmed, though it did not hit any ships.

U.S. and British officials expressed optimism Friday that the initial strikes late Thursday, which are now being described as two waves of strikes, were successful.

A U.S. defense official told VOA on Friday that the initial assessment indicates the first wave of precision strikes late Thursday degraded the ability of the Houthis to launch further attacks.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details, said a more comprehensive assessment of the strikes was still underway. But the sentiment echoed other early assessments by senior U.S. officials, who have described the damage to Houthi capabilities as “significant.” 

“We feel very confident about where our munitions struck,” Lieutenant General Douglas Sims, the director of the Joint Staff, told reporters Friday. “But we don’t know at this point the complete battle damage assessment.”

U.S. Central Command late Thursday said that U.S. fighter jets, naval vessels and submarines hit more than 60 targets at 16 locations across Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen, including command and control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, and production facilities.

But Sims said Friday, the U.S. and Britain launched a second wave of strikes against another 12 locations 30 minutes to an hour after the initial strikes were carried out.

The additional sites, each with multiple targets, “had been identified as possessing articles that could be potentially used against forces, maritime and air,” he said, noting the strikes were taken in self-defense.

U.S. officials said, in all, more than 150 precision guided munitions were aimed at Houthi targets, including Tomahawk missiles.

At least three U.S. guided missile cruisers and destroyers (the USS Gravely, the USS Philippine Sea, and the USS Mason) took part in the strikes along with an Ohio-class submarine, fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, and U.S. Air Force jets.

A separate statement Friday from the British Defense Ministry said four of its Typhoon fighter jets, accompanied by an air refueling tanker, used laser-guided bombs to hit two locations: a drone launch site in Bani, in northwestern Yemen, and an airfield in Abbs, used to launch cruise missiles and drones at ships in the Red Sea.

“Early indications are that the Houthis’ ability to threaten merchant shipping has taken a blow,” the ministry said.

Despite the optimistic strike assessments, U.S. officials have said they believe the Houthis are likely to retaliate.

“My guess is that the Houthis are trying to figure things out on the ground and trying to determine what capabilities still exist for them,” Sims said. “Their rhetoric has been pretty strong and pretty high, and I would expect that they will attempt some sort of retaliation.”

“I would hope they wouldn’t,” he added, describing the Houthi efforts as “generally fruitless.”

But the White House repeated its warning Friday that the Houthis would face additional consequences if their attacks persist.

“We will make sure that we respond to the Houthis if they continue this outrageous behavior, along with our allies,” President Joe Biden said in response to reporters’ questions during a stop at a coffee shop in Pennsylvania on Friday.

Also Friday, the U.S. unveiled new sanctions aimed at commodity shipments that have been funding the Houthis and their Iranian backers.

U.S. Treasury Department officials imposed sanctions on a Hong-Kong-based company and another company in the United Arab Emirates, both of which have been working with Sa’id al-Jamal, a financier who has been supporting both the Houthis and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.

“We will take all available measures to stop the destabilizing activities of the Houthis and their threats to global commerce,” Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a statement.

Since mid-November, the Houthis have launched at least 28 attacks, affecting citizens, cargo and vessels from more than 50 countries, according to the U.S.

U.S. officials have said that Biden made the decision to launch Thursday’s strikes following a Houthi attack on shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on Tuesday that involved 18 one-way attack drones, two cruise missiles and one ballistic missile.

U.S. combat jets, along with U.S. and British military vessels, responded by shooting down the drones and missiles, averting any damage to ships or injuries to their crews in the area.

Last week, the United States and 12 allies issued a statement warning the Houthis of unspecified consequences if their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea continued.

The statement followed the launch in mid-December of Operation Prosperity Guardian by the United States, Britain and nearly 20 other countries to protect ships from Houthi attacks.

Since the launch of Prosperity Guardian, at least 1,500 vessels have passed safely through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

The U.N. Security Council adopted its own resolution Wednesday, calling on the Houthis to stop the attacks immediately.

But Russia, which abstained in the vote, called for an emergency meeting of the council Friday evening to discuss the strikes. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called the U.S.-British strikes a “blatant armed aggression against another country.” He argued that the strikes did not meet the conditions for self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.

“Article 51 does not apply to the situation with commercial shipping,” Nebenzia said. “The right to self-defense cannot be exercised in order to ensure the freedom of shipping. Our American colleagues know this fact very well.”

In a statement Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea area are “not acceptable” and endanger the safety and security of global supply chains and have a negative impact on the economic and humanitarian situation worldwide. He urged the Houthis to immediately cease their attacks and called for all parties to respect the Security Council resolution in its entirety.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Council that the strikes were consistent with international law and Article 51. She said Washington does not take such strikes lightly and they were only carried out “after non-military options proved inadequate to address the threat.”

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara and U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.   
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