Doomsday Arctic Seed Vault Gets Deposit of 30,000 New Samples

FILE PHOTO: Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008.  REUTERS/Bob Strong
FILE PHOTO: Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. REUTERS/Bob Strong
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Doomsday Arctic Seed Vault Gets Deposit of 30,000 New Samples

FILE PHOTO: Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008.  REUTERS/Bob Strong
FILE PHOTO: Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. REUTERS/Bob Strong

An Arctic seed vault on Norway's Spitsbergen island has received new samples from the largest number of depositors since 2020, reflecting fear about the threat of conflict and climate change to food security, a custodian of the facility said on Wednesday.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, set deep inside a mountain to withstand disasters from nuclear war to global warming, was launched in 2008 as a backup for the world's gene banks that store the genetic code for thousands of plant species.
Billed as a doomsday vault protected by permafrost, the deposit has received samples from across the world, and played a leading role between 2015 and 2019 in rebuilding seed collections damaged during the war in Syria.
"Climate change and conflict threaten infrastructure and impact food security for over 700 million people in more than 75 countries worldwide," Reuters quoted Executive Director Stefan Schmitz of the Crop Trust as saying in a statement.
Among the new deposits, Bolivia's first contribution to the vault was made by the 400-year-old Universidad Mayor Real y Pontificia de San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca, and assembled by some 125 farming families from local communities.
"This deposit goes beyond conserving crops; it's about protecting our culture," the project coordinator of the Norway-funded Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods, and Development in Bolivia said in a statement.
Chad, another newcomer, deposited 1,145 samples of sesame, rice, maize and sorghum - all adapted to the country's climate and crucial for developing crops that can withstand rising temperatures and erratic rainfall.
The total of more than 30,000 new samples from 21 countries, also included seeds of vegetables, legumes and herbs from the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Located on a sparsely populated island halfway between mainland Europe and the North Pole, the vault's chambers are only opened two or three times a year to limit exposure to the outside world.



Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

 US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
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Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

 US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)

US First Lady Melania Trump visited with sick patients at Children’s National hospital in Washington on Thursday as the children made Fourth of July arts and crafts ahead of the holiday.

Trump, continuing a tradition of support by first ladies for the pediatric care center, also stopped by the hospital's rooftop “healing” garden she dedicated during the first Trump administration to first ladies of the United States.

The first lady decorated rocks for the garden with the children, drawing a red heart on one. A few kids played with stretchy slime while Trump engaged them in questions.

“Wow, that’s a big slime!” she told one child that was more focused on stretching the sticky goo.

Trump gave each of the children gift bags with blankets and teddy bears that had shirts reading, “Be Best,” her campaign focused on children’s well-being.

She quizzed the kids on their favorite sports, what music they like and how they’re feeling. Trump also took an informal poll, asking the kids whether they like chocolate and ice cream.

Most of the hands shot up, including the first lady’s.

“I like it too,” she said.

She then took the children out to the Bunny Mellon Healing Garden, where they placed small American flags and patriotically-colored pinwheels into the soil.

The garden, decked out in decorations for Independence Day on Friday, was named to honor Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a friend of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Mellon was a philanthropist and avid gardener who designed the Rose Garden and other White House gardens during the Kennedy administration.

The garden was dedicated to America’s first ladies because of their decades-long support for the hospital and its patients, including a traditional first lady visit at Christmastime that dates back to Bess Truman.

Trump, along with chief White House groundskeeper Dale Haney, inspected a new yellow rose bush donated by the White House and planted earlier in the week at the hospital garden.

After, the first lady visited the heart and kidney unit at the hospital and met privately with a 3-year-old patient.

Later Thursday, the first lady joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office where they met with Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, who was released in May.