The Daily Populous

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey gives a COVID-19 update during a news conference at the Alabama Capitol Building in Montgomery, Ala., on Thursday March 4, 2021.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Breaking with other Southern GOP governors, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey extended her state’s mask order for another month Thursday but said the requirement will end for good in April.

And the Alabama Senate approved a resolution Wednesday evening urging Ivey to end the mask mandate. »

Joe Biden called off an airstrike on a second target in Syria at the last minute after intelligence reported the presence of a woman and children at the site.

Following 10 days of deliberations, Mr Biden had ordered the Pentagon to proceed with strikes on two Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria on 26 February.

Battlefield reconnaissance reported a woman with children in a courtyard at one site, and the president cancelled the order to strike that target with F-15E aircraft already in the air for the mission. »

After experiencing a short burst of pain, octopuses showed a conditioned preference for locations where pain was relieved, while avoiding the location where the pain occurred.

The findings, published Feb. 22 in iScience, demonstrate that the octopus brain is sophisticated enough to experience pain on a physical and a dispositional level.

Invertebrates make up at least 97% of the animals on Earth, but not much is known about their experience of pain. »

Mississippi legislators have passed a bill that would ban transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams in schools and universities -- one of over two dozen similar measures proposed by state lawmakers nationwide this year.

Idaho became the first state to pass a law banning transgender women from competing in women's sports last year.

The Mississippi bill would require any public school and university that is a member of the Mississippi High School Activities Association and NCAA, among other associations, to designate their athletic teams as male, female or co-ed and restrict athletes assigned male at birth from joining female teams. »