A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Dengue in Florida after 50-year break
MIAMI – Health authorities in Miami, one of Florida’s top tourist attractions, have reported the first case of dengue fever in 50 years, an official said yesterday.The person diagnosed with the sometimes deadly mosquito-born virus has fully recovered after a brief hospitalisation, said Liliana Rivera, a director at the Miami-Dade County Health Department.
The case comes four months after officials announced more than 1,000 people in Key West, Florida, were believed to have been exposed to the virus last year, marking its re-emergence in the US state for the first time in decades. It can cause flu-like symptoms or sudden death through internal bleeding and bleeding from bodily orifices. – (Reuters)
Pre-teen gangster hunted in Mexico
MEXICO CITY – Soldiers are hunting a 12-year-old suspected drug gang hitman accused of helping wage a gruesome turf war in Mexico, a state prosecutor and media said yesterday.
The boy, known only as “El Ponchis”, is believed to be working for the South Pacific cartel in Morelos state, just outside Mexico City, and is one of a group of teenagers who have committed “terrible acts”, Morelos state prosecutor Pedro Luis Benitez said.
“These minors are still not fully developed and so it is easy to influence them, to give them a gun, pretending it is plastic, that it is a game,” Mr Benitez said.
“They’re persuaded to carry out terrible acts; they don’t realise what they are doing,” he added. – (Reuters)
Claimed Baptist relics on display
SOFIA – Bulgaria’s main Orthodox cathedral yesterday displayed jaw and arm bones and a tooth said to be relics of John the Baptist in a move that state officials hope will boost tourism to the Black Sea resort where they were found.
Prominent politicians and some of the faithful flocked to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia to view the remains, found near the town of Sozopol in July.
John the Baptist is revered in Christianity and Islam. The Gospels say King Herod had John beheaded at the request of his stepdaughter Salomé after she danced for him.
“About 150,000 people have visited Sozopol since the relics were found,” minister without portfolio Bozhidar Dimitrov said.
– (Reuters)