DEVELOPING Final night of the RNC: Donald Trump addresses the convention, accepts the Republican nomination
The final day of the Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee where Donald Trump is currently speaking.
Visitors to the Edinburgh Zoo had their final chance to see and bid farewell Thursday to a pair of popular giant pandas who are returning home to China after more than a decade in Scotland.
Yang Guang and Tian Tian are leaving in early December after a 12-year stay. They have been a popular attraction since people lined the road outside the zoo to greet them when they arrived in 2011.
They are the latest pandas to leave the West after exchange agreements have expired and not been renewed by China.
The only U.S. zoo with pandas is in Atlanta and its agreement expires next year. Washington's National Zoo sent its three pandas -- Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub, Xiao Qi Ji -- to China earlier in November. The black and white bears at the San Diego Zoo were sent home in 2019 and the remaining panda at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo returned earlier this year.
Veteran political observers have speculated that the People's Republic is gradually pulling its bears from American and European zoos due to tensions with Western governments over a host of issues.
However, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during his recent trip to the U.S. that his government was "ready to continue" lending bears to American zoos, giving hope to U.S. panda fans that they haven't seen the last of them.
The pair in Scotland are the only pandas in the U.K. After unsuccessful breeding attempts -- natural and artificial -- the zoo said it has no plans to bring in others because a global biodiversity crisis requires it to work on protecting more endangered animals.
"With more than a million species at risk of extinction and our natural world in crisis, Yang Guang and Tian Tian have had an incredible impact by inspiring millions of people to care about nature," said David Field, chief executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. "That added interest in the pandas' departure this year has allowed us to connect many more people with the conservation causes (we are) actively involved with, and with nature more generally."
The pandas were loaned to the zoo in 2011 under a 10-year agreement that the China Wildlife Conservation Association extended for two more years.
The panda exhibit was being closed to the public Thursday afternoon to allow staff to begin preparing the bears for their return.
The final day of the Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee where Donald Trump is currently speaking.
Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan has announced he will not run in the next federal election, and will be quitting his cabinet position Friday.
An Ontario Provincial Police sergeant with 26 years of experience has been charged with impaired driving in Cochrane.
Donald Trump, sombre and bandaged, accepted the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in a speech where he described how he felt during an assassination attempt that could have ended his life.
U.S. President Joe Biden is taking calls to step aside as the Democratic presidential candidate seriously and multiple Democratic officials think an exit is a matter of time, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
A three-year-old boy who was reported missing from a resort near Walt Disney World in central Florida early Thursday was found dead in a body of water on the resort's grounds several hours later, the sheriff's office said.
A B.C. woman has been ordered to repay her ex for a ticket to Coldplay's 2023 concert in Vancouver – in a small claims decision that highlights the distinction between gifts and loans under Canadian law.
Two people died and a third was seriously injured in a fiery plane crash in Tofino, B.C., on Thursday, according to authorities.
Researchers say they know the 'Big One' is coming, but when should we expect it? Scientists say predicting when a megathrust earthquake will occur is a guessing game.
A donated clawfoot bathtub has become the preferred lounging spot for a pair of B.C. grizzly bears, who have been taking turns relaxing and reclining in it – with minimal sibling squabbling – for the past year.
A pair of cemetery investigators are cleaning and preserving as many gravestones they have permission to work on, as they conduct their research and document gravestones.
After more than three years, a B.C. woman has been reunited with a lost family heirloom.
One of Edmonton’s main contributors to Google Street View is a man who dresses up as an alien.
Nearly 10 years after it was first proposed, an interactive piece of public art is officially open in Vancouver's Hastings Park.
An event July 22 at Dynamic Earth in Sudbury will mark the 60th anniversary of the iconic Big Nickel, the largest coin in the world.
Cyclist Jagjeet Singh cruised through Montreal on Sunday morning as he rides across the country to raise money for a children's charity.
A rare ammonite fossil – about 75 million years old - has been discovered in eastern Saskatchewan.
Seven-year-old goalie Hudson Hardill is an unlikely Calgary Flames fan, being that he lives in Peterborough, Ont., and his dad Chris is a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.