Women on Weibo call out men who said they wanted to take in attractive Russia-Ukraine war refugee girls



Bryan Ke
Fri, February 25, 2022, 12:59 PM·3 min read

Chinese female Weibo users expressed outrage online after several men "jokingly" said they were willing to accept female Ukrainian refugees amid the Ukraine crisis in eastern Europe.

The Twitter-like platform exploded with differing views on the crisis, with hashtags like “the latest update on the Russia-Ukraine situation” taking over the platform’s trending topics and garnering millions of views early Thursday morning, according to SupChina.

Comments expressed viewpoints ranging from support for Russia’s attack on Ukraine to outrage and disbelief. Among the commenters were reportedly several men who left comments saying they would open their doors to take in attractive Ukrainian refugees amid the crisis.

One of the men who commented on the topic said he only cares about “the girls in Ukraine.” Another one wrote, “I am withdrawing myself from participating in the discussion about Russia’s attacks on Ukraine. But due to my humanitarian beliefs, I am open to taking in Ukrainian teenage girls who become homeless because of the war.”

“I am saddened by what Ukrainian citizens have to deal with. I propose that China should give entry to 10,000 Ukrainian refugees. Unmarried Ukrainian girls need to be protected from the misery of the war,” one user wrote.

“I only care about whether pretty women from Ukraine can be safely imported into China,” another said.

A female Weibo user revealed via her account that she had been subjected to harassment after her post that called out men on their comments about Ukrainian women went viral online with more than 200,000 likes. She said some angry men responded by sending messages calling her a "b*tch" and other pejorative terms.

“When seeing the suffering of civilians in another country, instead of showing any sympathy, these men are delighted that a new group of women will become available to them,” one of the comments in her trending post read. “Their brains are completely dictated by their d*cks.”

Another Weibo user named Dezhou Meimaoxi wrote in response to the men: “You’re ignoring the pain of civilians on this side of the world, fanning up war and empathizing with power, making jokes of ‘taking in pretty girls.’ You don’t realize that [even though] you’re temporarily fortunate enough to just watch the war, you might be in one by the next second. Nobody alone can escape the turbulence of our time,” reported Free Malaysia Today.

Weibo reportedly became a battleground for the war of words between the United Kingdom and Russia last week when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to reconsider his plans to invade the eastern European country.

“We urge everyone to engage in dialogue – the Russian government should avoid making decisions that would be disastrously wrong for their country,” Johnson wrote on his Chinese social media account, South China Morning Post reported.

In a Weibo post, the Russian embassy in China described Johnson's statement as "absurd," claiming that the post was designed to "further inflame the hysteria surrounding the so-called imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine."

“The continued military development in Ukraine supported by Nato countries through the supply of large amount of weapons to the country is an example of the escalation of the situation,” the embassy continued.

Russia began its invasion of Ukraine early Thursday morning, raining down airstrikes and shelling from land and sea, targeting several cities, Al Jazeera reported. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about 137 civilians and military personnel were killed on the first day of the attack, while 316 people were wounded.

The United Nations refugee agency has also said that more than 100,000 Ukrainians have been displaced.

WAIT, WHAT?
Kenya's ruling party backs opposition leader Odinga for presidency


 Kenyan opposition leader Odinga to unveil 2022 presidential race candidature in Nairobi

Sat, February 26, 2022, 
By Duncan Miriri

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's ruling Jubilee party endorsed veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga in a presidential election scheduled for August, in a pointed rejection of Deputy President William Ruto, who has also announced his candidacy.

Former political prisoner Odinga, 77, ran his previous four races as an anti-establishment candidate keen to shake up governance if elected, but now he has teamed up with President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Kenyatta, who will not be on the ballot due to a constitutional limit of two five-year terms, opted to back Odinga against his deputy Ruto, whom Kenyatta says is unfit to be president of Kenya, East Africa's biggest economy.

"Very early in my second term I did make it clear to the Kenyan people that mine was a choice of leadership over politics," Kenyatta said at a meeting of the party's national delegates council on Saturday.

In Odinga's last three campaigns for office in 2007, 2013, and 2017, he challenged the outcomes, saying his victories were stolen. Deadly clashes followed the 2007 and 2017 votes.

But he made peace with Kenyatta in early 2018, effectively sidelining Ruto, who is standing with a new party called United Democratic Alliance, after quitting Jubilee.

Odinga is touting his long experience in national leadership, including a stint as prime minister.

He has also promised to stamp out widespread graft, give a monthly stipend of 6,000 shillings ($52.75) to the unemployed, and unite Kenya's ethnic groups.

Odinga, Kenyatta and Ruto come from three of the four biggest ethnic groups. Both candidates are fighting to secure the support of Kenyatta's Kikuyu group, the nation's most populous, which has produced three of the nation's four presidents since independence from Britain in 1963.

Ruto has wooed Kikuyu voters by pledging to shift the government's economic focus from large infrastructure projects, and big state-owned firms, to small enterprises owned by what he calls "hustlers."

He has sought to portray himself as an advocate for the poor and dismissing Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president, and Odinga, the son of its first vice president, as dynastic elites who are out of touch.

The delegates, all donning the party's signature red, also formally removed Ruto as Jubilee's deputy party leader at Saturday's convention.

($1 = 113.7500 Kenyan shillings)

(Reporting by Duncan Miriri Editing by Katharine Houreld and Mark Potter)

Scientists hunt for remains of earth’s ‘lost continent’


Denise Chow
Sat, February 26, 2022

A "lost" continent that once connected Asia to southern Europe may have formed an ancient passageway that helped animals migrate west, leading to a sudden and widespread extinction event around 34 million years ago, according to new research.

In a study published in the March 2022 edition of the journal Earth-Science Reviews, scientists described a forgotten continent that was once sandwiched between Europe, Asia and Africa. This low-lying landmass, which they dubbed Balkanatolia, enabled mammals from Asia to cross into Europe, triggering the extinction of native European fauna in an event known as the Grande Coupure, which fundamentally altered the region's biodiversity.

The research helps fill in a long-standing mystery of how distinctly Asian mammals — ranging from ancient relatives of the rhinoceros to rodents and hoofed animals that were distant ancestors of modern-day horses — wound up colonizing another continent.

"People have basically known for decades that Asian mammals invaded Europe somehow," said K. Christopher Beard, a paleontologist and distinguished professor at the University of Kansas and one of the study's co-authors. "What was unknown was: How did they do it? What route did they take?"

Beard and his colleagues used fossils found in Turkey and elsewhere on the Balkan Peninsula, which encompasses what remains of the lost continent, to trace the movements of ancient animals across the region.

Scientists excavated fossils in Turkey to study how mammals from Asia moved into southern Europe. (Alexis Licht & Grégoire Métais)

During the Eocene Epoch, which spanned 55 million to 34 million years ago, Europe and Asia were home to distinctly different types of mammals. At the end of the Eocene, however, there was a dramatic shift.

"A lot of animals that had been living in Europe for millions of years and were doing fine went extinct," Beard said. "They got replaced by mammals that clearly had no ancestral forms in Europe."

The discovery of fossilized remains with seemingly inexplicable origins suggested that the area had undergone profound paleogeographic changes over time.

"There were hints that something really weird was going on," Beard said. "Some of the animals that were inhabiting Balkanatolia simply don't occur anywhere else. And then the combinations of animals living there didn't live together anywhere else."

The scientists found that roughly 50 million years ago, Balkanatolia existed as an island continent, separate from its neighbors. The landmass had its own unique fauna, different from the animals that inhabited Europe and Asia.

Beginning around 40 million years ago, a combination of tectonic shifts, expanding ice sheets and fluctuating sea levels joined Balkanatolia first to Asia and then connected the continent to southern Europe, creating a giant land bridge across the region.

"At that time, the sea levels dropped by 70 meters [about 230 feet], which is huge," said Alexis Licht, a scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, who led the study. "This event alone would have created many land bridges, and it's the main hypothesis to explain the connection between Balkanatolia and Europe."

Licht said fossils found in Turkey dating back 35 million to 38 million years ago also suggest that the flow of Asian mammals into southern Europe may have occurred earlier than was previously thought — up to several million years before the Grande Coupure extinction event. Among the Turkish fossils were jaw fragments from Brontotheres, a mammal that resembled a large rhinoceros that died out at the end of the Eocene Epoch.

"The site in Turkey helped confirm and validate our hypothesis because this time frame fits everything else we've found in the Balkans," Licht said.

But while Balkanatolia helps paint a cohesive narrative of the distribution of mammals across Eurasia, many questions remain unanswered. For one, it's not well understood what drove the tectonic shifts that altered sea levels at the time, causing parts of the lost continent to become submerged and then re-exposed.

The researchers are also hoping to find older fossils in the region, dating back more than 50 million years, which could shed light on Balkanatolia's early history. These clues could help the scientists understand how the lost continent's own collection of mammals got there in the first place.

"We have animals on Balkanatolia living side by side that never cohabitate anywhere else on Earth," Beard said. "How did that happen? How did this strange, unique island get assembled?"

The search for the origins of mankind leads here: 19.4N, 33.7E

Sarah Knapton
Thu, February 24, 2022,

Grid reference - 19.4N, 33.7E - in Sudan

It is an unassuming patch of desert, about 250 miles north of Khartoum in Sudan, but it may be the ancestral homeland of everyone alive today.

Scientists at the University of Oxford have applied computer modelling to thousands of ancient and modern genomes to create a vast family tree showing how individuals across the world are related to each other, and from where they originated.

It suggests that everyone is partially related to a group of hominids who lived in north-east Africa more than a million years ago. It even points to a grid reference: 19.4N, 33.7E, a small area of Sudan.

“The very earliest ancestors we identify do indeed trace back in time to a geographic location that is in modern Sudan,” said Dr Anthony Wilder Wohns, the study’s lead author, who undertook the research as part of his PhD in Oxford and is now at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University.

“These ancestors lived up to and over one million years ago – which is much older than current estimates for the age of modern humans – so bits of our genome have been inherited from individuals that we wouldn’t recognise as modern humans, but who most likely lived in north-east Africa.

“Essentially, we are reconstructing the genomes of our ancestors and using them to form a vast network of relationships. We can then estimate when and where these ancestors lived.”

Network of nearly 27 million predecessors

South Africa fossils Johannesburg - AFP Photo/Inrap/Laurent Bruxelles

Researchers said there is some uncertainty about the exact location because of sampling bias, which means that certain areas are not represented. However, they said the findings are compatible with early modern human fossils from eastern and northern Africa.

“At any point in the past we would have had very large numbers of genetic ancestors,” added Dr Yan Wong, an evolutionary geneticist at Oxford’s Big Data Institute.

“The ones that our method locates at the oldest times happen to primarily live in NE Africa, but there are likely to have been others scattered over that continent, which our approach is not powerful enough to pinpoint.”

The earliest evidence of ancient hominids comes from South Africa. However, Kenya’s Rift Valley and Botswana have all been suggested as locations for the birthplace of humans.

Researchers plan to add more genomes to the database as they become available, which will help to give a more accurate location of where the ancestors of humans originated.

“It is likely that if we had more comprehensive sampling of modern and ancient genomes within Africa, the estimated locations of our earliest genetic ancestors would change,” added Dr Wilder Wohns.

‘A genealogy for all of humanity’

To create the family tree, researchers took 6,500 modern and ancient genomes from more than 215 different human populations and used computer power to work out how they were linked, and the timing of genetic changes.

The algorithms predicted where common ancestors must have been present in evolutionary trees, eventually leading to a network which contained almost 27 million predecessors.

After adding location data on these sample genomes, the authors were able to estimate where the ancestors had lived.

The results successfully recaptured key events in human evolutionary history, including the migration out of Africa and when the Americas were first inhabited. However, the team hopes that when more genomes are added, it will start to show ancient human movements which have been lost in time.

Dr Wong said: “We have basically built a huge family tree, a genealogy for all of humanity that models as exactly as we can the history that generated all the genetic variation we find in humans today.

“This genealogy allows us to see how every person’s genetic sequence relates to every other. This study is laying the groundwork for the next generation of DNA sequencing.

“As the quality of genome sequences from modern and ancient DNA samples improves, the trees will become even more accurate and we will eventually be able to generate a single, unified map that explains the descent of all the human genetic variation we see today.”

The research has been published in the journal Science.

Philippines marks Marcos overthrow as son homes in on presidency



Filipinos mark anniversary of 1986 People Power


Thu, February 24, 2022

By Karen Lema

MANILA (Reuters) - Thousands of Filipinos gathered on Friday to mark the anniversary of a "People Power" uprising against late dictator Ferdinand Marcos - with a new Marcos era potentially just 10 weeks away.

Thirty-six years after his father was overthrown and driven into exile, Ferdinand Marcos Jr is a runaway leader in opinion polls for the presidency, the end-game of a decades-long political fightback by a family accused of leading one of Asia's most notorious kleptocracies.

Rival Leni Robredo, the incumbent vice president, trailed by 44 points in the latest survey.

Opponents to the 64-year-old Marcos Jr, a former congressman and senator, have scheduled events throughout Friday seeking to discredit his election campaign and thwart what they warn will be a return of dictatorship and the demise of democracy.

"I can't contain my anger. He is proudly talking about his father. We should explain to everyone that the Filipino people threw Marcos Sr out," said Felix Dalisay, 69, who said he was tortured during the rule of Marcos rule.

Other protesters carried placards with phrases such as "No to Marcos" and "Return stolen wealth", while others danced at an event arranged by survivors of Marcos Sr's harsh era of martial law.

The rally took place at a monument on a Manila thoroughfare known locally as EDSA, where more than a million people massed in 1986 to drive out the disgraced leader.

The elder Marcos ruled for two decades, almost half of it under martial law during which thousands of his opponents were beaten and tortured, and disappeared or were killed.

The Marcos family lived extravagantly and were accused of siphoning off about $10 billion from the central bank, spending it on real estate, jewellery and artworks by Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet. About $3.4 billion has been recovered.

Despite its downfall, the family remains one of the wealthiest and most influential political forces in the country, as demonstrated by Marcos Jr's dominant lead in the latest independent opinion poll.

His spokesperson and media team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Marcos has not commented on the anniversary and posts on his widely followed social media on Friday were about upcoming campaign events.

That high social media profile is attractive to Filipinos born after his father's rule, and attempts to disqualify him over a tax crime have so far been dismissed by the election commission.

Marcos has been campaigning on a promise to bring unity to the Philippines but is not entertaining questions about atrocities during his father's rule, which his critics say his family has neither apologised for, nor properly acknowledged.

In the past few months Marcos has described his father as his idol and a man who had a clear vision for the country during what was a "golden age".

(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Ed Davies and Kenneth Maxwell)

Trump, who was impeached for withholding nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine, said 'this deadly Ukraine situation would never have happened' if he were in office

Lauren Frias

Thu, February 24, 2022

• Donald Trump said Russia's invasion of Ukraine wouldn't have happened if he were still president.

• Trump was impeached in 2019 after freezing nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine.

• He previously said Crimea was part of Russia and praised Vladimir Putin's actions as "genius."

Former US President Donald Trump, who was impeached for withholding nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine, said the country's current crisis "would never have happened" if he were still in office.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine early Thursday, with Russian troops swarming into the country from its northern, eastern, and southern borders. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Thursday-evening address that 137 Ukrainians had died and 306 had been wounded as a result of the invasion.

Trump released a statement Thursday, saying, "If I were in Office, this deadly Ukraine situation would never have happened!"

Trump earlier this week praised Putin's justification for invading Ukraine as "genius" and "savvy."

"I went in yesterday, and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful," Trump said when asked about the news. "I said, 'How smart is that?' And he's going to go in and be a peacekeeper."

His comments stood in contrast to those of US officials, who warned that Putin's recognition of two Kremlin-backed separatist regions in Ukraine was part of an effort to create a false pretext and invade the country.

Trump was impeached in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The articles of impeachment were related, in part, to Trump's efforts to strong-arm Zelensky into launching politically motivated investigations against the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election and withholding vital military aid while doing so.

The hold on the security assistance was lifted after Politico reported on Trump's actions and House Democrats launched an investigation into the matter.

In 2018, Trump again shocked American allies by eschewing years of US foreign policy and telling G7 leaders that the territory of Crimea was part of Russia. His remarks were especially jarring to the leaders of other member states given that it was Russia's decision to annex Crimea in 2014 that led to its expulsion from the G8.

But Trump told reporters before that year's G7 summit that he believed Russia should be admitted back into the alliance, and he also reportedly wondered aloud at the summit why world leaders sided with Ukraine over Russia.

Before Trump's statement Thursday, he made similar remarks during a Fox News interview. Just as the Russian offensive in Ukraine was beginning to unfold, he blamed the situation on the 2020 US election, which he called "rigged."

"Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn't be there and a man that has no concept of what he's doing," Trump said on Fox News, adding that the invasion "never would have happened with us — had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened."

 WAR FOR THE ARCTIC

'If we don’t deter Russia, Canada is going

to be affected directly': 

Attacks on Ukraine could threaten 

security of Canada

Elianna Lev

Thu, February 24, 2022

An international relations expert is warning that the attacks on Ukraine by Russian forces will lead to dire consequences unless the leaders of other nations change how they deal with Russia - and that includes Canada.

Russia is in the midst of invading Ukraine from land, sea and air, zeroing in on cities and military targets.

Aurel Braun is a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto, as well as an associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Harvard University. He says so far, leaders in countries like the U.S. have used tactics that are too soft, which is why Russia is escalating its presence in the Ukraine.

Unless we change our collective approach to Russia, we’re not going to be able to stop this. It’s likely to get worse. Not because Putin is some mad aggressor who wants to conquer countries all over the world, but because he’s an opportunist who will take whatever he can if he finds weakness.Aurel Braun, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, University of Toronto

It appears sanctions against Russia haven’t been enough. Braun says the lack of defence armament from other countries makes Ukraine a soft target. Meanwhile, diplomacy talks with the US have only appeared to make Putin more emboldened.

VIDEO 

Domestically, Canada is close to Ukraine because of the large diaspora that live here.

When it comes to our role in the current situation, Canada has sent $7.8 million for lethal military equipment, which Braun says would add up to roughly three hours of ammunition. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has issued a first round of sanctions against Russia and more troops have been sent to Europe. About 400 Canadian troops have been stationed in Latvia for the last several years, which Braun says puts Canada closer to the frontlines.

If Mr. Putin decides to attack Latvia, Canadians soldiers will die, it’s that basic,” he says. “This is very real for Canada. We’re not bystanders.Aurel Braun, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, University of Toronto

Canada needs to protect the Arctic, expert says

Another thing to consider is Canada’s geographical position across the Atlantic Ocean from Russia. The Arctic has become an important and contested area, thanks to its vast natural resources – 20 to 30 per cent of the world’s hydrocarbons are there. It's also an incredibly fragile ecological area, so that if an accident were to occur there, it would be catastrophic.

Though Canada has banned any exploration in most areas of the Arctic, Russia has moved full steam ahead with exploration, since 60 per cent of their exports are hydrocarbons.

“They’re not restrained by the Glasgow or Paris Agreements,” says Braun. “They’ve paid lip service to it, but in reality they’ve disregarded it...any accident would have horrific effects to the Canadian Arctic coastline.”

Russia has militarized the Arctic since it’s becoming more of a strategic area for them, which directly affects Canada.

“If we don’t deter Russia, Canada’s is going to be affected directly,” Braun says. “Materially, ecologically, and strategically.”

Russian army deploys its TOS-1 heavy flamethrower, capable of vaporizing human bodies, near Ukrainian border, footage shows

Joshua Zitser

Sat, February 26, 2022

• CNN footage shows a TOS-1 heavy flamethrower being deployed near the Ukrainian border.

• The TOS-1 heavy flamethrower is able to shoot thermobaric rockets.

• Thermobaric weapons are capable of vaporizing human bodies and crushing internal organs, say reports.

Footage from inside of Russia appears to show a thermobaric rocket launcher being deployed towards the Ukrainian border, according to The Guardian.

 

The video, shared on Twitter by CNN correspondent Frederik Pleitgen, displays a TOS-1 heavy flamethrower, which can shoot thermobaric rockets mounted on a T-72 tank chassis.

The footage was captured south of Belgorod, Pleitgen said, which is about 45 miles away from Kharkiv, Ukraine.

The footage was captured south of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, according to CNN.Google Maps

The TOS-1 was first used during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, The Guardian said, and was also deployed in Chechnya and the Syrian civil war.

It can launch two types of warheads — incendiary and fuel-air explosives. The latter, also called vacuum or thermobaric rockets, work by using oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion.

The weapons system is extremely effective against entrenched personnel. The TOS-1A is used to clear out buildings, field fortifications and bunkers, according to Military-Today.com.

They are considerably more destructive than conventional explosives.

According to i News, thermobaric weapons can vaporize human bodies and crush internal organs.

 

Western officials first publicly expressed concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin might use thermobaric bombs to seize control of Ukraine on Friday, HuffPost reported.

"My fear would be that if they don't meet the timescales and objectives, they would be indiscriminate in the use of violence," one Western official said, per i News. "They don't adhere to the same principles of necessity and proportionality and the rule of law that Western forces do."

What weapons has Russia sent to India?

Chris Martin
Fri, February 25, 2022, 

President of Russia

WASHINGTON — India’s prime minister on Thursday spoke with the Russian president and called for an immediate end to the violence in Ukraine and a return to the diplomatic path.

Narendra Modi told Vladimir Putin by phone “the differences between Russia and the NATO group can only be resolved through honest and sincere dialogue,” according to a news release by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The conversation between the two leaders came hours after the Ukraine envoy in New Delhi urged Modi to contact Putin, saying the country “has a special relationship with Russia and New Delhi can play a more active role in controlling the situation.”

The arms trade makes up part of that “special relationship.” An October report by the Congressional Research Service found that, from 2016 to 2020, India accounted for 23% of Russia’s total arms exports, while Russia provided 49% of Indian imports.


Here are some major Russian weapons sales and deliveries to India during that time period, courtesy of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute:



AEW: Airborne early-warning


AEW&C: Airborne early-warning and control


ASM: Air-to-surface missile


ASW: Anti-submarine warfare


BVRAAM: Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile


FGA: Fighter/ground attack


IFV: Infantry fighting vehicle


MRL: Multiple rocket launcher


SAM: Surface-to-air missile


SSM: Surface-to-surface missile

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Graphic by Jacki Belker/Staff. Images by Denis Sinyakov/AFP via Getty Images, STR/AFP via Getty Images, and Staff Sgt. Joshua Turner/U.S. Air Force.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Bald eagle lays two eggs in Washington's National Arboretum


The last rays of sunlight illuminate an American Bald Eagle as it soars 

above the Hudson River just before sunset near Croton Point in 

Croton-on-Hudson


Fri, February 25, 2022

(Reuters) - The drought for celebrity bald eagle couple Lotus and Mr. P is officially over as the Washington pair is expecting.

The bald eagles known as "Lady of the U.S." and "Mr. President" - or Lotus and Mr. P for short - made eagle-watching news over the last week when she laid two eggs in their nest in the National Arboretum in the nation's capital.

It marked the first time in three years that a bald eagle laid eggs in the park. The eggs are expected to hatch at the end of March, said Dan Rauch, a wildlife biologist with the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment.


"This nest kind of mirrors the recovery of bald eagles," he said. "Every single green light is go. This is awesome, just great."

The national symbol of the United States, the bald eagle has recently lifted itself from the brink of extinction and was removed from the national endangered and threatened list in 2021.

The popular eagle couple has quite a following. Their own Twitter account has 7,500 followers and live American Eagle Foundation cameras trained on their nest are a hit for eagle watchers on social media.

The pair spent Friday morning perched in their nest in a tulip poplar tree about 80 feet (24 cm) above ground taking turns sitting on their eggs and angrily chirping at another eagle soaring high above, who was intruding on their air space, video footage showed.

It is not the first time Mr. President has mated with a female bald eagle in the nest. In 2014, Mr. President and a bald eagle named "First Lady" made it their a home. It was the first time bald eagles nested in this spot since 1947, according to the American Eagle Foundation.

The couple went on to raise one eaglet successfully in 2015 and two in 2016. In 2018, the pair had two eaglets, but lost one to West Nile Virus.

But First Lady ditched Mr. President - on Valentine's Day 2021 of all days - after she had trouble producing eggs and other eagles came to visit him when she left in the warmer months. The day after her final departure, Lotus arrived.

Lotus "is doing really well. They are good partners," Rauch said. "They are a really good match."

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft)