This all-female team is working to protect the Maldives' manta rays
CNN
Manta rays are one of the world's largest fish, yet relatively little is known about them. One team is trying to change that by studying these gentle giants.
Landaa Giraavaru, Maldives (CNN) — As Beth Faulkner bobbed up and down in the Maldives' Hanifaru Bay, she did some quick mental math.
"There's probably about 100," she said in reference to the number of reef manta rays swimming just below her. "Usually it's about 50 to 60."
Faulkner is a project manager at the Manta Trust, a conservation and research charity that studies these gentle giants. Close relatives of sharks, the largest mantas have wingspans that can reach over 20 feet. Unlike their stingray cousins, which can deliver deadly injuries, mantas are harmless, according to Faulkner.
Over and over at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Democratic senators confronted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about controversial comments they said he had made in the past. And over and over, President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services either denied having said those things or said he wasn’t sure he had said them.
Investigators are intensifying their search into what caused the collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, with recovery crews still working to pull wreckage from the Potomac River and initial concerns already raised about the path of at least one of the aircraft.