INDIA
Nipah virus prompts curbs
The government has curbed public gatherings and shut some schools in Kerala state after two people died of Nipah, a virus from bats or pigs that causes fever, officials said yesterday. The virus has no vaccine and a fatality rate of 40 to 75 percent, according to the WHO. Symptoms include intense fever, vomiting and a respiratory infection, but severe cases can involve seizures and encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, and result in a coma. Three others have tested positive and more than 700 people are under observation, health officials said.
UNITED STATES
Judge blocks gun ban
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked part of a public health order that suspended the right to carry guns in public across New Mexico’s largest metro area. The ruling by District Judge David Urias blocked New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency public health order on Friday last week that suspended the right to openly carry or conceal guns in public places based on a statistical threshold for violent crime that applied only to Albuquerque and the surrounding area. Urias agreed with plaintiffs who have accused Lujan Grisham of trampling on constitutional rights, granting a temporary restraining order to block the governor’s suspension of gun rights until another hearing is held next month.
UNITED STATES
Hudson swim completed
British endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh on Wednesday completed a 500km journey down New York’s Hudson River, highlighting its successful decades-long cleanup as a beacon for other waterways. “Fifty years ago, this was one of the most polluted rivers in the whole world,” said Pugh, 53, who was appointed the first UN patron of the oceans a decade ago. “We need to have clean, healthy rivers,” he told reporters after completing the unassisted trip from the Hudson’s mountain source to New York City. He said that in New York’s industrial past, the river would sometimes change color from day to day, depending on what dyes and other pollutants were dumped or ran off, but after decades of action to clean up pollution, Pugh was able to safely swim down the river, a month-long feat he said will hopefully inspire others.
CHINA
Maduro targets moon
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday said that his country could soon send its first astronauts to the moon in a Chinese spacecraft following a scientific cooperation agreement reached with President Xi Jinping (習近平). Maduro arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, meeting Xi on Wednesday and agreeing to “upgrade” ties with Beijing. Maduro said that the two countries had agreed to train young Venezuelan astronauts in China, with plans to eventually send them to the moon. A special task team “on scientific, technological, industrial and aerospace cooperation will sooner rather than later [send] the first Venezuelan man and woman to the moon in a Chinese spacecraft,” Maduro said.
CHINA
Crane collapse kills six
A tower crane on Wednesday collapsed at a bridge construction project in Jianyang City, killing six people and injuring five others, authorities said. The collapse happened during work to build an expressway bridge over the Tuo River, the city’s transportation bureau said in a statement on its social media account. An investigation into the cause of the collapse was under way.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home