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How leprosy arrived in Florida, and how it is spreading: New clues are emerging

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

By Cindy Krischer Goodman, South Florida Sun-SentinelHealth officials are seeing more cases of the rare disease of leprosy in Florida, and want to find out why.Are foreign travelers bringing the disease to Florida with them? Are people in the state getting it from armadillos, which are naturally infected with the bacteria that causes the disease? How is this rare disease spreading in the Sunshine State, and who is vulnerable to it?Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, has been around for centuries, and now mostly is in countries like India, Brazil and Indonesia. People untreated who have the infectious disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae often have disfiguring skin sores or deformities like claw hands or hammer toes.Knowing you have leprosy and getting treated early is crucial. However, it could take about five years after contracting the disease to show symptoms, such as patches of pink skin that become numb, lumps on your face or earlobes, and numbness in your h...

New Hampshire is sued over removal of marker dedicated to Communist Party leader

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Supporters of a former historical marker dedicated to a feminist and labor activist from New Hampshire who also led the U.S. Communist Party sued the state Monday, saying officials violated a law around administrative procedures and should put it back up.The green and white sign describing the life of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was installed May 1 in Concord close to where she was born Aug. 7, 1890. It was one of more than 275 across the state that describe people and places, from Revolutionary War soldiers to contemporary sports figures. But it was taken down two weeks after it went up.Known as “The Rebel Girl” for her fiery speeches, Flynn was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and advocated for women’s voting rights and access to birth control. The marker said she joined the Communist Party in 1936 and was sent to prison in 1951. She was one of many party members prosecuted “under the notorious Smith Act,” the marker said, which forbade attempts to a...

NATO, EU send aid to Slovenia after devastating floods that killed at least 6 and left many homeless

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — The European Union and NATO began sending urgent aid Monday to Slovenia after severe flooding over the weekend affecting two-thirds of the small European country killed at least six people and left hundreds homeless.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke by phone with Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob on Monday, expressing his sympathy and NATO’s strong solidarity with Slovenia, a NATO statement said.“I express my deepest condolences to the people of Slovenia for the loss of life and widespread devastation caused by this weekend’s floods,” Stoltenberg said.On Sunday, Slovenia and Cyprus activated a European Union Civil Protection Mechanism because of the floods in Slovenia and wildfires in Cyprus that have affected those EU states.The EU is sending to Cyprus two Canadair firefighting airplanes from the EU’s Civil Protection Pool stationed in Greece. Greece is also sending 20 tons of liquid retardant via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.The floo...

Scouts, including hundreds of Canadians, to evacuate Korea jamboree ahead of storm

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

South Korean officials say they will evacuate tens of thousands of scouts, including hundreds of Canadians, from an international scouting jamboree along the country’s western coast before the expected arrival of a typhoon. Kim Sung-ho, a vice minister at South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety, says more than 36,000 scouts from 158 countries will begin leaving Tuesday morning, with most heading to venues in the capital city, Seoul, and the nearby metropolitan area.Scouts Canada says 235 Canadian youth and 143 volunteers are attending the event.Spokeswoman Anissa Stambouli says the weather at the jamboree site remains normal and jamboree activities will continue in the Seoul area.More than 4,000 British scouts and hundreds of scouts from the United States began leaving the campsite on Saturday due to extreme heat. Scouts Canada says six Canadian youth and four volunteers suffered from heat stress, but no members of the Canadian contingent have been hospitalized...

Indigenous leader inspires an Amazon city to grant personhood to an endangered river

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

GUAJARA-MIRIM, BRAZIL (AP) — On the banks of the Komi Memem River, the activity never ceases: women go down the embankment from Laje Velho village carrying basins to wash clothing, while men embark in small canoes on hunting and fishing expeditions. At day’s end, it’s the children’s turn to dive into its tea-colored waters.The river, named Laje in non-Indigenous maps, is vital to the Oro Waram, one of the six subgroups of the Wari’ people, who have inhabited the Western Amazon for centuries. However, this immemorial relationship is under increasing threat. The relentless expansion of soybeans and pastures encroaches on their land, while land-robbers promote illegal deforestation. To protect themselves, the Wari’ people are resorting to a new strategy: the white man’s law. In June, the municipality of Guajara-Mirim passed a groundbreaking law proposed by an Indigenous councilman that designates the Komi Memem and its tributaries as living entities with rights, ranging from maintainin...

West African leaders will meet Thursday after Niger’s junta defies key deadline and shuts airspace

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Leaders of West Africa’s regional bloc said Monday that they would meet later this week to discuss next steps after Niger’s military junta defied a deadline to reinstate the country’s ousted president while its mutinous soldiers closed the country’s airspace and accused foreign powers of preparing an attack.The meeting was scheduled for Thursday in Abuja, the capital of neighboring Nigeria, according to a spokesman for the ECOWAS bloc.State television reported the junta’s latest actions Sunday night, hours before the deadline set by ECOWAS, which has warned of using military force if the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum is not returned to power.A spokesman for the coup leaders, Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, noted “the threat of intervention being prepared in a neighboring country,” and said Niger’s airspace will be closed until further notice. Any attempt to fly over the country will be met with “an energetic and immedi...

Palestinian teenager dies after he was shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank last week

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian teenager who was shot by Israeli troops last week after throwing a firebomb in the occupied West Bank died Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. It was the latest in a long string of violent incidents involving Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank in the last year and a half. It came after a bloody weekend in which a settler killed a Palestinian man and a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli security guard in Tel Aviv.The Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported that Ramzi Hamed, 17, was shot near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, near his hometown of Silwad north of Ramallah.Fathi Hamed, the boy’s father, told The Associated Press that his son was shot by Israeli troops early last Wednesday after throwing firebombs at soldiers operating near Silwad.The Israeli military said “it appears” that Hamed had thrown the firebomb toward the settlement’s front gate. It provided security camera footage of what it said was the inci...

Two rivals claim to be in charge in Niger. One is detained and has been publicly silent for days

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Nearly two weeks have passed since the coup in Niger, and the two men making competing claims to power have gone quiet in recent days. One is the ousted president, who said last week he’s being held hostage and has been publicly silent since then. The other is the military junta leader who asserts he acted out of concern for the country’s security and has encouraged Nigeriens to defend it from any foreign intervention.Here’s a look at President Mohamed Bazoum and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani as Niger’s junta defies a threat by the West African regional bloc to step in and use force if necessary:PRESIDENT MOHAMED BAZOUMAs neighbors in West Africa experienced multiple coups and kicked out the military forces of former colonizer France in recent months, Niger’s president came to be seen as a crucial partner of the West in the fight against groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization in what has become the global epicenter of extremism, the vast...

Worker injured as explosion at Texas paint plant sends fireballs into sky

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

GARLAND, Texas (AP) — A worker was injured early Monday when an explosion set a paint manufacturing plant in the Dallas suburbs ablaze and shot a series of fireballs into the night sky.A company spokesperson said the blast at the Sherwin-Williams plant in Garland happened around 1:15 a.m., and people who live and work nearby reported feeling buildings tremble as flames engulfed the industrial facility.“It felt pretty hard. Like the whole house shook,” Giovanny Gamboa, who felt the explosions from miles away, told KDFW-TV. “I felt the shake. I came and investigated myself. I didn’t expect it to be something this far away.”Firefighters extinguished the blaze in a few hours and the employee who was injured has been released from a hospital, Sherwin-Williams spokesperson Julie Young said in an email. She said all employee have been accounted for.Young said production has been suspended at the plant, which primarily makes industrial coatings and resins, but did not respond to a que...

Québec solidaire members pick byelection candidate, ignore calls to nominate a woman

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:33:49 GMT

QUEBEC — Members of the left-wing party Québec solidaire have chosenOlivier Bolduc to run in an upcoming provincial byelection, rebuffing suggestions from party leadership that a woman should be nominated.The party announced at a nomination meeting late Sunday that Bolduc, a court stenographer, would run in the Quebec City riding of Jean-Talon, which was left vacant by the departure of Coalition Avenir Québec legislature member Joelle Boutin last month.The choice came after The Canadian Press revealed the existence of an internal party communication that “strongly” suggested party members should choose a woman to run in the riding.The party’s interim president had also thrown his support behind Bolduc’s rival, accounting professor Christine Gilbert.While Gilbert positioned herself as a unifying candidate with strong financial knowledge, Bolduc stressed the experience he’s gained by running in four previous campaigns, including a second-place finish to B...