Biden says Putin ‘will pay a price’ for Russian efforts to undermine the 2020 US election

Washington President Joe Biden said Vladimir Putin “will pay a price” for his efforts to undermine the 2020 US election following a landmark American intelligence assessment which found that the Russian government meddled in the 2020 election with the aim of “denigrating” Biden’s candidacy.

“He will pay a price,” Biden said of Putin in an interview that aired Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America”. “We had a long talk, he and I, and relatively well. And the conversation started — ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, be prepared.'”

Biden held his first call with Putin in late January. The White House said at the time that Biden confronted the Russian president on a number of issues, including Moscow’s interference in the 2020 US presidential elections, the massive Solarwinds cyberattack, the suspected poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny and reports of Russian bounties on American troops serving in Afghanistan.

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The President wouldn’t provide more details to ABC on what “price” Putin will pay, but the Biden administration is expected to announce sanctions related to election interference as soon as next week, three US State Department officials have told CNN. The officials did not disclose any details related to the expected sanctions but said that they will target multiple countries including Russia, China and Iran.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment on Tuesday about foreign threats to the 2020 US federal elections. The assessment found that Russia pursued efforts aimed at “denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.:

The report is the most comprehensive assessment of foreign threats to the 2020 elections to date, detailing extensive influence operations by US adversaries that sought to undermine confidence in the democratic process, in addition to targeting specific presidential candidates.

It also confirms what was largely assumed, and barely hidden, last year: former President Donald Trump and his closest allies publicly embraced Russia’s disinformation campaign against Biden, met with Kremlin-linked figures who were part of the effort, and promoted their conspiracy theories.

During his interview with ABC, Biden was reminded of the 2011 exchange he said he had with Putin at the Kremlin.

Biden claims he told Putin he didn’t think Putin had a soul. Putin’s response, Biden recalls, was to say, “We understand one another.”

“Look, most important thing dealing with foreign leaders, and I’ve dealt with a lot of them over my career, is just know the other guy,” Biden told ABC.

When interviewer George Stephanopoulos asked Biden if he thought Putin was “a killer,” the President said, “Mhmm. I do.”

“The price he’s going to pay, well, you’ll see shortly,” Biden continued. “There are places where it’s in our mutual interest to work together. That’s why I renewed the START agreement with him. That occurred while he’s doing this, but that’s overwhelmingly in the interest of humanity that we diminish the prospect of a nuclear exchange.”

CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Marshall Cohen and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.

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This football coach is leading his players and community in a powerful remembrance of an American tragedy

Oklahoma college football coach Aaron Fletcher and his team will pay their respects to one of the darkest moments in their state’s and America’s racial memory.

The assistant coach of the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane has organized the “Legacy of Black Wall Street” game-day program on Friday to remember the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

The inaugural game will feature video tributes and interviews with descendants and survivors of the attack that leveled the historic Freedmen’s town of Greenwood, Oklahoma. The game will be an annual tradition on the second home football game for the university.

“I thought it was crazy that I never knew about it, that I was never taught about it,” Fletcher tells CNN. “That was shocking, to say the least. And when I learned about it — when I first got here. It changed my life.”

The Texas native, who was raised in Austin, and began coaching at TU five years ago hopes that Friday’s game will break the cycle of excluding the legacy of Black Wall Street from history.

Like many generations of American students, he says he wasn’t taught about the Tulsa Massacre in school. Many records were destroyed, suppressed and deliberately excluded from the curriculum.

“I came up during the time that was right off the heels of segregation,” Fletcher, 43, reflects.

And while he says he knew a lot about history, he didn’t know much about the history in the neighboring state of Oklahoma.

Fletcher received an informal education on the massacre from fellow Black Tulsa residents and it even came up during conversations at a local barbershop.

“It blew my mind because I didn’t know bombs were dropped. I’ve known and read in different parts of history where people were hung or burned and stuff like that. But it never occurred to me that anything was bombed by plane,” he says. “And that’s when I knew this was totally different than any other situation and for people to not have talked about it was alarming to me. And it was just saddening.”

What happened in Tulsa in 1921

Tulsa was once home to one of the most prosperous African American communities in the country. Dubbed Black Wall Street, Greenwood was originally founded as a Freedmen’s colony of emancipated slaves and became a home to thriving schools and businesses. Native Americans and Black residents became wealthy after the discovery of oil in the early 1900s on what had previously been seen as worthless land.

Neighboring White Tulsans had longstanding issues with the self-sufficient Black town, and violence sparked after allegations that a Black man had assaulted a White elevator operator. While Black residents rushed to the Tulsa County Courthouse to prevent a lynching, White residents were deputized and handed weapons.

Over the next 12 hours, the city of Greenwood experienced an all out assault fraught with arson, shootings, and aerial bombings from private planes. By the morning of June 1, 1921, Greenwood had been burned to the ground.

Investigators find a mass grave while searching for 1921 Tulsa race massacre victims

Death toll estimates have fluctuated over the years, but as many as 300 people were killed, and nearly 6,000 Black residents were interned in nearby facilities until it was safe to pick up the remains of their previous lives and start over.

Today, eyewitness accounts of the racial massacre are housed among the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Coffins found in mass graves have been excavated as part of the modern-day study on the American massacre.

Two TU Graduate students even started the #TulsaSyllabus project to serve as a resource for researchers, activists, educators, the press, and general public to gain a better understanding of how race and racism manifest in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

What activism looks like

The strides being made today may not erase the damage done to Greenwood or the collective traumas of Black Americans, but Fletcher and others like him hope these efforts help atone for a tragic history.

By establishing the annual ‘Legacy of Black Wall Street’ game, Fletcher wants to demonstrate to his players how to build social action using the resources available to them.

His activism shows his players as well as his own children that coaching does not strictly limit his influence to the 100 yard field. It is also about influencing others to be conscious, contributing members of their community.

“Under that hat of coach there is counselor, there’s brother, there’s father, there’s mentor, there’s advocate, there’s facilitator. If you want our young people, men and women alike, to be successful you have to start communication.”

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Chicago priest Michael Pfleger faces third allegation of sex abuse

A third man has now accused Father Michael Pfleger, senior pastor of the Saint Sabina parish in Chicago, of sexual abuse, according to an affidavit provided to CNN by an attorney for two other men who have also accused the priest.

Attorneys for Pfleger said he “definitively” denies the allegations.

In the affidavit, a 59-year-old man, whose name has been redacted, alleges Pfleger touched his genitals over his clothes when he was 18.

“I did not consent for Mike [Pfleger] to touch me in a sexual manner,” the man said in the affidavit.

The attorney, Eugene Hollander, said he gave the Archdiocese of Chicago the signed and notarized affidavit Tuesday.

“We have received the affidavit and will process it as we do every such allegation,” the archdiocese said in a statement. It offered no further comment.

Pfleger, a longtime activist on Chicago’s South Side, has gained a national reputation for speaking out on policing, gun violence, community inequality and other issues.

What the affidavit alleges

The man said he first met Pfleger in 1976 or 1977 and viewed him as a “mentor and big brother.” He alleges in the affidavit that he would smoke marijuana with him at the rectory at Saint Sabina and drink alcohol with him there and elsewhere despite being under legal drinking age.

Chicago priest Michael Pfleger on sex abuse allegation: I am devastated

One night in 1979, when the man was 18, he said he had smoked marijuana with Pfleger in Pfleger’s room in the rectory and pretended to fall asleep because he thought Pfleger had done “something inappropriate” another time he’d fallen asleep in his room, the affidavit alleges.

According to the affidavit, the man says Pfleger approached him as he pretended to sleep and called his name a couple of times.

“I did not move and then Mike grabbed my penis over my clothes. I did not consent for Mike to touch me in a sexual manner. I then pushed his hand away,” the man said in the affidavit.

He said in the affidavit that he would occasionally see Pfleger after the alleged incident, but no longer socialized with him.

Pfleger’s attorneys disputed the allegations.

“Father Pfleger definitively states that this alleged incident, which purportedly occurred when the man was 18 years old, did not happen. He never touched this man in any sexual or inappropriate way at any time,” attorneys James R. Figliulo and Michael Monico said in a statement.

They added that Pfleger remembers the man identified in “this false report.”

“During the late 1970s, the man’s mother was very active at St Sabina’s in the Women’s Club and the Church community. He knew the man as a teenager at St Sabina’s, but did not take him to Jazz clubs or give him alcohol or marijuana,” their statement said.

Two men previously accused Pfleger

In a press release accompanying the affidavit, Hollander said the accuser is not filing a lawsuit.

“I do not want to take legal action but when I heard his supporters attacking the other victims and saying Father Mike [Pfleger] could never do this, I knew I had to come forward and tell the truth. Hopefully, my experience will add to their credibility and encourage other victims to come forward,” the man said in the press release.

In their statement, Pfleger’s attorneys questioned Hollander’s motives.

“Hollander has shamelessly used the media to smear the reputation of a truly good priest and advocate for his community in a sordid attempt to get some celebrity time on TV for him and his clients and some money from the Archdiocese,” Figliulo and Monico said.

Two men, brothers now in their 60s, previously accused Pfleger of sexual abuse, alleging it began in the early 1970s, when they were 12 or 13 years old. One of the brothers said he sought refuge at the church to escape from a difficult upbringing and the dangers of Chicago’s West Side.

When those allegations were made in January, Pfleger denied them through his attorneys. At that time, the archdiocese said he would remain removed from the ministry until civil and church investigations were complete.

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Dubai princess claims she is being held ‘hostage’ in secret video recordings

London The daughter of Dubai’s billionaire ruler, who attempted to flee abroad in 2018, has appeared in secret recordings claiming she is being held hostage in a “villa converted into a jail” with no access to medical help, according to a BBC documentary.

Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum — the daughter of UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum — was last seen publicly in March 2018 aboard a yacht off the coast of India before a raid by Indian and Emirati forces took her back to Dubai, according to two people who had helped plan her escape.

It was her second failed attempt to flee abroad after she previously tried to leave the UAE in 2002 as a teenager.

In a video clip, obtained by BBC Panorama and supplied to CNN ahead of ‘The Missing Princess’ documentary airing Tuesday night, Princess Latifa says: “I’m a hostage. This villa has been converted into jail. All the windows are barred shut, I can’t open any window … I’ve been by myself, solitary confinement. No access to medical help, no trial, no charge, nothing.”

CNN has not independently verified the videos or Latifa’s current whereabouts. CNN has contacted the Dubai government for comment.

Princess Latifa secretly recorded the videos herself on a mobile phone whilst hiding in a locked bathroom, according to the BBC. The documentary says around a year after Latifa was taken back to Dubai, her friend Tiina Jauhiainen was contacted by someone who helped her secretly reconnect with her.

Jauhiainen managed to get a phone to Latifa and since then the princess has recorded many video messages “describing her captivity in a villa converted into a jail with its windows barred shut,” according to a BBC press release.

“BBC Panorama has independently verified the details of where Latifa was being held hostage. She was guarded by around 30 police, working on rotation, both inside and outside the villa. The location is just metres from the beach. It is not known if she is still there,” the press release says.

Dubai ruler abducted daughters and threatened ex-wife, UK court finds

In another video to be shown in the documentary Latifa says: “I have been here ever since, for more than a year in solitary confinement. No access to medical help, no trial, no charge, nothing … Every day I am worried about my safety and the police threaten me that I will never see the sun again. I am not safe here.”

Jauhiainen tells the documentary she is greatly concerned for her friend: “She is so pale, she hasn’t seen sunlight for months. She can basically move just from her room to the kitchen and back.”

After her failed escape in 2018, in December of that year Latifa was visited by the former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson. Latifa was seen in grainy photographs alongside Robinson, a former President of Ireland, who said later that Latifa was “troubled” and “regretted” her attempts to escape. Robinson’s account was criticized by human rights activists.

Robinson made the visit at the request of the ruling family, according to a communique the UAE mission in Geneva sent to the Office of Special Procedures at the High Commissioner for Human Rights for the United Nations. “The documents respond to and rebut false allegations that have been made about Her Highness, providing evidence that she is alive and living with her family in Dubai,” the statement said.

However, in the BBC Panorama episode, Robinson gives a different account of her controversial meeting with Latifa in 2018.

“I was misled, initially by my good friend princess Haya, because she was misled. Haya began to explain that Latifa had quite a serious bipolar problem. And they were saying to me, in a way that was very convincing: ‘we don’t want Latifa to go through any further trauma’ … I didn’t know how to address somebody who was bipolar about their trauma. And I didn’t really actually want to talk to her and increase the trauma over a nice lunch,” Robinson says in a clip from the program.

Jordanian Princess Haya bint al-Hussein is the former wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Princess Haya fled Dubai for London with her two children by the sheikh in 2019. The princess, who was the sheikh’s sixth wife and is not the mother of Latifa, later brought a case in London’s high court to seek wardship for her own two children, aged nine and 13, fearing they too would be kidnapped.

Last year, a judge at the family division of London’s High Court found that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum conducted a “campaign of fear and intimidation” against Princess Haya.

The court determined that the sheikh organized abductions of two of his daughters on three occasions — including one from the historic UK city of Cambridge and Princess Latifa in international waters off the coast of India.

Princess Haya, Dubai ruler’s wife, seeks court order to prevent child’s forced marriage

Andrew McFarlane, the UK’s most senior family judge, established as fact that Sheika Shamsa, one of the sheikh’s daughters by another wife, ran away from her family in the summer of 2000 while visiting the UK. She was later abducted and forced into a car in Cambridge by men working for her father, before being driven to property owned by the sheikh. There, she was put on helicopter to Deauville in France and then on a jet back to Dubai.

The other daughter, Latifa, had twice tried to escape her Emirati family but was forced back, once in 2002 from the border of Dubai with Oman, and in 2018 “by an armed commando assault at sea” in international waters near the coast of India, the judge found.

“With respect to both Shamsa and Latifa it is asserted that following their return to the custody of the father’s family they have been deprived of their liberty,” the judgement said, finding the assertion to be true.

CNN reported at that time that Sheikh Mohammed — the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates — said the court’s assessment was a one-sided account.

“This case concerns highly personal and private matters relating to our children. The appeal was made to protect the best interests and welfare of the children. The outcome does not protect my children from media attention in the way that other children in family proceedings in the UK are protected,” he said in a statement issued by his representatives.

“As a head of government, I was not able to participate in the court’s fact-finding process. This has resulted in the release of a ‘fact-finding’ judgment which inevitably tells only one side of the story. I ask that the media respect the privacy of our children and do not intrude into their lives in the UK.”

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English National Opera singers are helping ‘long Covid’ patients breathe

The English National Opera (ENO) is rolling out its singing, breathing and wellbeing program for recovering coronavirus patients around the country following a successful trial.

ENO Breathe is a joint project between the ENO and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, combining musical and medical expertise to help Covid-19 patients suffering with long-term symptoms, according to a press release published Thursday.

Some coronavirus patients are back to normal health within weeks. But for others, issues persist for months or cause damage that might lead to other health issues in the future. This is known as “long Covid.”

The program — described as the first of its kind — uses singing techniques to help patients who are experiencing breathlessness and anxiety.

An initial six week trial involved 12 participants, and the program will now benefit up to 1,000 patients at more than 25 participating healthcare centers across England, in London, Manchester, Newcastle, Cheshire and Merseyside in the next few months.

The English National Opera (ENO) is based the the Coliseum theater in London.

Participants reported “positive impacts for them both emotionally and physically,” said the press release.

“It has really aided me enormously with my breathlessness and also my anxiety a little around re-integrating myself back into society,” a patient named Richard is quoted as saying in the press release.

The program involves weekly online group sessions, plus digital resources designed to help participants focus on their breathing.

Covid-19’s ‘serious, long-term impact’ can improve with time, early evidence suggests

Singing practice uses traditional lullabies, which are designed to calm people down. Participants are taught breathing and singing exercises by professional specialists, and encouraged to practice in their own time using online resources.

“We are hugely proud to be able to roll out ENO Breathe nationally, enabling us to support many more patients in their recovery from Covid and journey back to wellness,” said Jenny Mollica, director of ENO Baylis.

Dr Sarah Elkin, a consultant in respiratory medicine at Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Ongoing breathlessness is debilitating and can be frightening. We hope this program will support people to improve and help reduce their symptoms.”

Participants in the trial ranged from early 30s to early 70s in terms of age and were racially diverse, the release said.

Older patients, women and those with variety of early symptoms most at risk of ‘long Covid,’ paper suggests

All of the participants said they would keep using their breathing exercises after the trial finished, and all said they would “definitely recommend” the program to other “long Covid” patients, the release added.

Older people, women and those with a wide range of symptoms in the first week of their illness appear to be most likely to develop “long Covid,” according to a preprint paper posted online by researchers at King’s College London in October.

The paper defines “long Covid” as having symptoms persist for more than four weeks, while a short duration of Covid was defined as less than 10 days, without a subsequent relapse.

The UK continues to record thousands of new coronavirus cases per day, and on Tuesday Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that more than 100,000 people had died.

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Omarosa Manigault Newman can’t force Trump to testify in lawsuit, judge rules

Former Trump White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman won’t be allowed to get testimony from former President Donald Trump, former Trump chief of staff John Kelly or a member of the White House counsel’s office in a lawsuit she faces related to her exit from the government, a federal judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday.

Newman faces a 2019 lawsuit from the Justice Department that alleges she failed to file a financial disclosure report after Trump fired her.

Her attorneys had sought to depose Trump because they claimed the administration sued the former “Apprentice” contestant out of Trump’s personal retaliation.

But Judge Richard Leon of the DC District Court wrote on Wednesday that Newman hadn’t made a strong enough case that she could only get the information needed for her defense from Trump and the top officials around him. Even though Trump has left the White House, he and his top advisers still have some protection, Leon decided.

“The need to protect the integrity of the underlying decision-making process, and encourage public service by protecting officials from ‘indiscriminate depositions,’ continue to persist after the official leaves government service,” Leon wrote in a 17-page opinion.

He added that the former President and cabinet-level officials can be protected under this standard. “Defendant has not carried her burden of demonstrating that deposing former President Trump is appropriate. Unfortunately for defendant, even assuming former President Trump has first-hand knowledge about how this case was referred to the Department of Justice, this information is irrelevant to any claim or defense in this case,” Leon wrote.

However, Leon said Newman’s legal defense team could depose a Justice Department trial attorney who had spoken to her about boxes of documents of hers kept at the White House.

This comes as several other lawsuits from former government employees against former Trump-era top officials still percolate in court and could prompt fights over testimony of former top Trump administration officials. Those include lawsuits from former FBI officials Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page against the Justice Department, and a case where the Justice Department is suing former national security adviser John Bolton.

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Moderna Covid-19 vaccine authorized by UK medicines regulator

London Moderna became the third Covid-19 vaccine to be authorized for use in the UK, the country’s Department of Health said in a press release on Friday.

The UK’s medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), authorized the vaccine “following months of rigorous clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people and an extensive analysis of the vaccine’s safety, quality and effectiveness,” the Department of Health wrote.

“This is further great news and another weapon in our arsenal to tame this awful disease,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a statement.

The UK government has agreed to purchase an additional 10 million doses of the Moderna vaccine on top of its previous order of 7 million, taking the total to 17 million, the release said.

Supplies will begin to be delivered to the UK from this spring once Moderna expands its production capability, it added.

“We have already vaccinated nearly 1.5 million people across the UK and Moderna’s vaccine will allow us to accelerate our vaccination programme even further once doses become available from the spring,” Hancock said.

Data released in November found the Moderna vaccine was 94.5% effective against coronavirus. The company says its vaccine did not have any serious side effects. A small percentage of those who received it experienced symptoms such as body aches and headaches.

Its results are similar to those of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine because they use the same technique to activate the body’s immune system.

The vaccines deliver messenger RNA, or mRNA, which is a genetic recipe for making the spikes that sit atop the coronavirus. Once injected, the body’s immune system makes antibodies to the spikes. If a vaccinated person is later exposed to the coronavirus, those antibodies should stand at the ready to attack the virus.

Moderna’s vaccine can be kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius. Other vaccines, such as the one against chickenpox, also need to be kept at that temperature.

On Wednesday, the European Commission also authorized the use of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine across the European Union’s 27 member nations, hours after the European Medicines Agency recommended it do so.

CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.

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Climate change is making baby sharks smaller, undernourished and exhausted

Baby sharks are being born smaller, undernourished and exhausted as climate change warms the world’s oceans, researchers say.

Researchers examined the effects of warming temperatures on the growth, development and physiology of the Great Barrier Reef’s epaulette sharks, testing embryos and hatchlings in waters up to 31 degrees Celsius (87.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

The research team found that in warmer waters, shark embryos grew faster and used their yolk sac — their only source of food in this developmental stage — quicker.

The creatures hatched earlier, were born smaller, and needed to feed straight away, but lacked energy, researchers from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and the University of Massachusetts said Tuesday.

There are more than 500 types of shark living around the world, and the majority give birth to live young. Some shark species, like epaulette sharks, lay eggs, which are left unprotected and must be able to survive on their own for up to four months.

Oceans are warming at the same rate as if five Hiroshima bombs were dropped in every second

“The epaulette shark is known for its resilience to change, even to ocean acidification,” Jodie Rummer, co-author and associate professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said in a statement. “So, if this species can’t cope with warming waters then how will other, less tolerant species fare?”

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef, covering nearly 133,000 square miles and is home to more than 1,500 species of fish, 411 species of hard corals and dozens of other species.

The past decade has been the warmest on record for global ocean temperatures. By the end of the century, the Great Barrier Reef is likely to experience average summer temperatures close to or exceeding 31 degrees Celsius, researchers warn.

Rummer said that rising ocean temperatures could threaten future sharks, including egg-laying and live-bearing species, because as temperatures rise, the creatures will be born or hatch into environments that they can barely tolerate.

“The study presents a worrying future given that sharks are already threatened,” lead author Carolyn Wheeler said in a statement.

“Sharks are important predators that keep ocean ecosystems healthy. Without predators, whole ecosystems can collapse, which is why we need to keep studying and protecting these creatures,” Wheeler, a PhD candidate at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, added.

Landmark UN report warns sea levels will rise faster than projected by 2100

“Our future ecosystems depend (on) us taking urgent action to limit climate change,” Rummer said.

The study was published in the Scientific Reports journal.

Oceans serve as a good indicator of the real impact of climate change — covering almost three quarters of Earth’s surface, they absorb the vast majority of the world’s heat.

Although we often can’t see it, ocean warming has a profound impact on the entire world. A warmer ocean causes sea level to rise, bringing problems like dangerous coastal flooding. It leads to the loss of sea ice, heating the waters even further, and can affect the jet stream, allowing cold Arctic air to reach farther south, making winters more intense and threatening animals that depend on sea ice.

A warmer ocean also contributes to increases in rainfall and leads to stronger and longer-lasting storms like Hurricanes Florence and Harvey.

Marine heatwaves which have killed off swathes of Earth’s coral reefs have likely doubled in frequency and are projected to become more common and intense, a landmark report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found in 2019.

CNN’s Jen Christensen, Ivana Kottasová and Drew Kann contributed reporting.

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A 200-pound tortoise named Sparkplug broke out of his enclosure and wound up 30 miles away from his Alabama home

A 200-pound tortoise broke out of his enclosure, evaded capture for two days and wound up over 30 miles away from his Alabama home.

It’s fitting that his name is Sparkplug.

The surprisingly nimble African spurred tortoise, at an estimated 60 years old, returned to his Sardis City home last week after two days on the lam, his owner Ty Harris told CNN. It was the first time the family tortoise had ever attempted an escape.

“He just went out on the town a little bit,” Harris said. “He had to take a journey.”

Sparkplug made a daring escape

Harris and his wife, a school teacher and school principal, respectively, were at school when Sparkplug made his escape. Harris said the hard-shelled runaway must’ve pushed up against the fence until he broke the chain link apart and let himself out.

“I wasn’t worried about anything hurting him,” Harris said, noting Sparkplug’s shell armor and scaly legs. “I was worried about when it got cold.”

Sparkplug relies on artificial heat during the fall and winter months to regulate his body temperature. Without that, Harris worried he’d freeze.

There was a limited window to bring Sparkplug home

So the race was on. With limited time before a cold front moved in, Harris shared a photo of Sparkplug with a plea to return him on Facebook, where friends shared his post widely.

Eventually, the photo of Sparkplug made its way to the man who found him. He told Harris that Sparkplug made it about 100 yards away from the home and crossed a road when he found the tortoise, picked him up (a feat, considering Sparkplug’s size) and hoisted him into the back of a truck.

A 150-pound runaway tortoise is back home after 74 days on the lam

The man owned land about 30 miles away and, thinking that Sparkplug was a turtle and enjoyed being in the water, dropped off the hefty tortoise at a pond on his sprawling country property. He didn’t know then that the “turtle” he’d found on the side of the road was a beloved African spurred tortoise who’d run away from home.

Sparkplug, whose species is native to the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa, did not enjoy the water, so he went back on his way, making him even more difficult to find.

Harris and his daughter searched for Sparkplug on the man’s land, following the tortoise’s trail through soybean fields and heeding tips from neighbors from said they’d spotted him.

But their first night of searching turned up short.

“‘Oh no,'” Harris remembered thinking. “‘We may have lost him.'”

The next day, the man who found Sparkplug the first time found him again, tucked in a corner of the property Harris hadn’t yet searched. He was returned to his family safe and sound after 48 hours away.

A part of the family for over a decade

Harris and his family have had Sparkplug for about 10 years now. He’s the one animal they’ve kept from their days of operating an animal sanctuary for rescued big cats and other wild animals.

“Sparkplug just kinda came with us,” Harris said. “He was part of the family.”

Aside from his quick trip out of town, Sparkplug is content with his backyard home, Harris said. The family dug him a burrow where he can wait out the cold and keep out of the Southern sun for a while.

Diego, the tortoise who saved his entire species, finally retires to uninhabited island

But clearly, the chain link wasn’t cutting it anymore, so Harris is renovating Sparkplug’s enclosure so as to prevent a future escape. This time, he’s using rebar and wooden boards to reinforce his enclosure.

Sparkplug has become something of a celebrity in Harris’ town. Kids and parents stop by for a photo op, and Harris’ family members who garden come toss their extra harvest over Sparkplug’s fence so he can gorge on squash and watermelon.

“Everybody kind of knows about and kind of takes care of him,” Harris said.

He’s even fielding offers to adapt his story into a children’s book, his owner said. But for now, Sparkplug is satisfied in his burrow, back with his family, spending his days chowing down and staying put.

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