(CNN)An elephant's tusks are among its defining features -- they help the animal lift heavy branches, topple trees, strip bark, fight, and dig holes for water and minerals.

But an increasing proportion of female elephants in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park have been born without these crucial tools, and scientists say it's an evolutionary response to the brutal killing of elephants for their ivory tusks during the country's 15-year civil war.

Elephant experts working in the park had begun to notice the phenomenon after the war ended in 1992. Field data and analysis of old video footage from the park found that the proportion of tuskless female elephants increased more than threefold between 1972 and the year 2000. It was a period during which the elephant population plummeted from roughly 2,000 to about 250 individuals, said Ryan Long, an associate professor of wildlife sciences at the University of Idaho.

"During the war, Gorongosa was essentially the geographic center of the conflict," Long said via email. "As a result there were large numbers of soldiers in the area and a lot of associated motivation... to kill elephants and sell the ivory to purchase arms and ammunition. The resulting level of poaching was very intense."

No one was putting money on Republican Curtis Sliwa heading into the first New York City mayoral debate on Wednesday night. As Democratic political strategist Chris Coffey put it to the New York Post earlier in the day, “He needs Eric Adams to drop dead on the stage, and I’m not even sure that would work.”

But Adams not only survived the speedy debate; he coasted through it, doling out in some instances specific policy plans, and in others non-answers to moderators. At the end of the day, it’s still the Democratic Brooklyn borough president’s race to lose.

Because Adams is as good as guaranteed to win the election, Wednesday’s debate offered a chance for a team of moderators to pin him down on how his likely administration will tackle some of the most challenging issues being handed down from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure. On the question of mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for city workers – a policy de Blasio announced on Wednesday – Adams said he supported the move. He’d potentially go further, mandating the vaccine for all students once it’s approved for younger kids. It’s one of just a few issues on which Sliwa staked out the opposite position, opposing the COVID-19 vaccine mandates entirely.

Adams in recent weeks also broke with de Blasio’s plan to end the city’s controversial Gifted & Talented program. Addressing a question on the topic on Wednesday, Adams and Sliwa both said the program should be expanded. One thing that seems likely to change under an Adams administration is the screening test for four-year-olds. “I don’t believe a four-year-old taking the exam should determine the rest of their school experience. That is unacceptable,” Adams said on Wednesday.

Adams and Sliwa were united in their calls for immediate reforms at Rikers Island. Conditions at the jails complex have been described as brutal and dysfunctional. The majority of the 14 deaths in city jails this year occurred there. Adams reiterated on Wednesday his support for the plan to close Rikers and build new borough-based jails, but said that more thought needed to go into where those jails will be built. As for what the city can do to immediately address the crisis, Adams said that improving conditions for corrections officers and speeding up bottlenecks in court that keep inmates there longer are both crucial. In answering the question about how he will address the Rikers crisis, Sliwa said that he will increase the number of corrections officers and divide inmates up so that members of the same gangs aren’t together. “That's what allows them to run Rikers Island and I can say that, because I've been on Rikers Island,” Sliwa said.

A creeping sense of worry among Democrats about the Virginia governor's race spilled into the open on Wednesday, after the release of a new Monmouth University poll showing former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe deadlocked with Republican Glenn Youngkin less than two weeks before Election Day.

And the panic may be a good thing, some of them say.

The Monmouth poll was the latest in a series of data points to increase concern about McAuliffe's prospects. While other recent polls in Virginia have shown McAuliffe staked to narrow leads, President Joe Biden's national ratings have slid into majority disapproval of his tenure, with his agenda still stalled in Congress. Democrats' internal polling elsewhere is similarly bleak, as they look to keep their slim majorities in Washington. And turnout among early and mail voters, which Democrats often look to as a barometer of enthusiasm, paints an uncertain picture two weeks out.

Despite — or because of — the warning signs, Democrats hope the news will wake up slumbering supporters the way it did in California last month, when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared to be slipping into dangerous territory in polls before generating high turnout to beat back a recall attempt with ease.

"There's going to be panic. There's going to be consternation. But what I would tell donors and operatives is, 'You should be worried, so pay attention and put resources into this,’" said Tim Lim, a longtime Democratic strategist. "The same thing happened in California. Once Democrats started paying attention and keyed into it, the numbers shifted. The same can happen in Virginia."

Amherst College announced on Wednesday that it would no longer give the children of alumni a boost in the admissions process, becoming one of the first highly selective colleges in the country to abandon a practice that has held back efforts to diversify the top echelons of American higher education.

With the announcement, Amherst, a private liberal arts school in Massachusetts, joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University and the California Institute of Technology in the handful of highly selective schools that have opted against having so-called legacy admissions programs.

“We want to be a leader among higher education institutions, in policies and programs that support access and equity,” said Matthew L. McGann, Amherst’s dean of admissions and financial aid.

About 11 percent of the students admitted to Amherst in recent years have been children of people who graduated from the college. Most members of this year’s freshman class are students of color, and 18 percent are first-generation college students.