According to a new study, the bird is struggling to feed its young in parts of the rainforest that have been stripped of trees.

About 17% of the Amazon has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses have recently been on the rise.

The harpy eagle is the largest in the Americas, with huge talons for hunting monkeys and sloths in the treetops.

The Amazon is regarded as the “last stronghold” for the harpy, with more than 90% of the existing population thought to reside there.

The bird is among millions of animals in the Amazon whose geographic range is shrinking, said study researcher Carlos Peres, professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK.

“Considering that harpy eagles have the slowest life cycle of all bird species, their chances of adapting to highly deforested landscapes are nearly zero,” he said.

Conservation measures, such as moving young eagles and supplementing their diets, will be critical to the survival of the species, Prof Peres added.

The harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) is one of the largest raptors in the world, with adult females weighing in at up to 10 kg (22 lbs).

The birds live in tropical forests from Central America to northern Argentina, but have disappeared in large parts of their former range.

The escalating rate of forest destruction in the region, along with hunting, is threatening the bird’s existence.

Despite having legal protection in several countries, including Brazil, Panama and Suriname, safeguards are difficult to enforce in remote areas of forest.

In the study, researchers led by Dr Everton Miranda of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, monitored 16 nests in Amazonian forests in Mato Grosso, Brazil using cameras.

They also referenced maps and Google Earth to calculate deforestation levels around nests.

Bone fragments revealed the eagles were feasting mainly on two-toed sloths, brown capuchin monkeys and grey woolly monkeys. In deforested areas they did not find alternative food, and fed their young less frequently.

In landscapes with 50-70% deforestation, three eaglets died from starvation, and no nests were found in areas with deforestation over 70%.

The scientists calculated that areas that have lost more than half their trees are unsuitable for harpy eagles to successfully raise young and estimate that around 35% of northern Mato Grosso is unsuitable for harpy eagles to breed.

This may have caused a decline in numbers of breeding pairs by more than 3,000 since 1985.

The research is published in Scientific Reports.

President Joe Biden’s immigration policies are being heavily criticised by Republicans, as large numbers of undocumented migrants cross the US-Mexico border.

Former president Donald Trump says migrants are coming over the border “like this country has never seen”.

So what are the numbers?

The number of migrants intercepted at the border had been steadily rising since April 2020, but since President Biden took charge in January there has been a sharp increase.

In May, the latest month with published data, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded its highest monthly total in more than 20 years of just over 180,000 migrants, mostly single adults.

The head of homeland security in the US, Alejandro Mayorkas, said in March: “This is not new. We have experienced migration surges before – in 2019, 2014, and before then as well.”

During the Trump administration, migrant encounters hit a monthly high of more than 144,000 in May 2019.

There has also been an increase in the number of children crossing the border since President Biden took office.

March saw more than 19,000 minors encountered there, compared to about 12,000 at the same point in 2019.

During the Trump administration, the 2019 financial year (running from October 2018 to September 2019) saw more than 800,000 migrants apprehended at the border – the most since 2007.

But the 2021 financial year has already passed the 2019 total, even though it still has four months to run.

There were years in the early 2000s when more than one million migrants were intercepted crossing the US-Mexico border, with a peak of more than 1.6 million in 2000.

Mr Trump also claimed that drug cartels were “back in business”, saying more drugs were coming over the border since he left office.

CBP records the weight of drugs seized at the border and the amount captured there has increased slightly since President Biden entered office. However, it remains well below the peaks seen under Mr Trump.

The vast majority of seizures are of marijuana, with large amounts of cocaine and methamphetamine also being found.

The first five months of 2021 have seen less drugs seized (by weight) coming over the border than the first five months of 2020.

BBC- US comedian Bill Cosby has left prison hours after his sexual assault conviction was overturned by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court.

The judges said there had been a “process violation” by the prosecution, but admitted their ruling was unusual.

Cosby, 83, served more than two years of a three to 10-year sentence at a state prison near Philadelphia.

In 2018 he was found guilty of drugging and molesting ex-basketball player Andrea Constand.

Cosby is best known for starring in the 1980s TV series The Cosby Show and was once known as “America’s Dad”.

Dozens of women have publicly accused Mr Cosby of sexual assault, but he was only tried criminally for the incident against Ms Constand. His conviction in 2018 was widely seen as a landmark moment in the #MeToo movement.

In a verdict issued on Wednesday, Pennsylvania’s highest court found there was a “process violation” because Cosby’s lawyers had made an agreement with a previous state prosecutor that he would not be charged in the case.

The former actor appeared frail as he slowly walked to waiting media outside his home, shortly after being released from prison.

He did not say anything, instead leaning on his team of lawyers and spokesman Andrew Wyatt to answer questions.

“On this hot day – this is a hot verdict for us,” Mr Wyatt said.

“Mr Cosby has always used his celebrity and his name to uplift women… How could a man who is being watched by the FBI every day be raping and drugging women… especially a black man?” he added.

Off camera, fans of Cosby could be heard yelling their support throughout the media conference.

Cosby was found guilty on three counts of felony indecent assault against Ms Constand.

Decades his junior, she met him in 2002 when working at Temple University in Philadelphia and described the comedian as a mentor figure. She later testified at trial how she became “frozen” after Cosby drugged and molested her at his home in 2004.

Ms Constand first came forward to police about the assault in 2005, but former state prosecutor Bruce Castor did not press criminal charges. She then sued the comedian for sexual battery and defamation, reaching a settlement with a confidentially agreement in 2006.

In 2014 and 2015, dozens of women came forward with similar allegations of drugging and assault by  Cosby. Local authorities knew that statute of limitation rules meant they could not pursue the majority of these accusations – but they reopened the case involving Ms Constand and eventually charged him just days before the 12-year limit on her allegations was set to expire.

A judge declared a mistrial in his first trial in 2017 after the jury failed to reach a verdict.

The testimony of other accusers was then allowed during a second trial, which helped prosecutors paint a pattern of predatory behaviour by Cosby.

The judges’ reasoning is complex – their written finding is 79-pages long.

They cite a written agreement reached by Mr Castor, the former prosecutor, stating that he would not charge Cosby if he testified in Ms Constand’s civil lawsuit.

In Wednesday’s ruling, the Supreme Court judges also found that testimony from accusers unrelated to the case had tainted the trial.

“There is only one remedy that can completely restore Cosby to the status quo ante. He must be discharged, and any future prosecution on these particular charges must be barred”, the finding released on Wednesday reads.

“We do not dispute that this remedy is both severe and rare. But it is warranted here.”

A spokesman for Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, thanked the court in a statement.

“This is the justice Cosby has been fighting for. They saw the light,” Mr Wyatt said. “He was given a deal and he had immunity. He should have never been charged.”

Actor Phylicia Rashad, who played his wife on the Cosby Show, wrote on Twitter: “A terrible wrong is being righted – a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” in response to the news.

Prosecutor Kevin Steele said in a statement that  Cosby “was found guilty by a jury and now goes free on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime”.

“My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims… We still believe that no one is above the law – including those who are rich, famous and powerful.”

Lawyer Gloria Allred, who represented more than 30 accusers of Cosby, described the ruling as “devastating” but said the decision did not vindicate the comedian’s conduct.

“My heart especially goes out to those who bravely testified in both of his criminal cases,” her statement added.