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headline

WORLD VIEW: Repubs. on Race & Diversity, Afghan Activist Women, Mexico Mangroves, More

Nov 05, 2021

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The Associated Press

The Rundown

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans plan to forcefully oppose race and diversity curricula — tapping into a surge of parental frustration about public schools — as a core piece of their strategy in the 2022 midterm elections, a coordinated effort to…Read More

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of intelligence officers could soon face dismissal for failing to comply with the U.S. government’s vaccine mandate, leading some Republican lawmakers to raise concerns about removing employees from agencies critica…Read More

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two women from different walks of life — one a rebel, the other a bureaucrat — face an unknown future in Afghanistan. One decided to work with the Taliban, the other is determined to fight them. …Read More

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BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Three white men are to stand trial Friday for chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man whose death was largely ignored until a leaked cellphone video stirred outrage over the shooting and deepened the na…Read More

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PROGRESO, Mexico (AP) — When a rotten egg smell rises from the mangrove swamps of southeast Mexico, something is going well. It means that this key coastal habitat for blunting hurricane impacts has recovered and is capturing carbon dioxide — …Read More

OTHER TOP STORIES

NEW YORK (AP) — When New Yorkers this week chose Eric Adams as their next mayor and Alvin Bragg as the next Manhattan district attorney, they elevated two more Black men int…Read More

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday sued Texas over new voting laws that outlasted a summer of dramatic protests by Democrats, who face fading hopes of…Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian analyst who helped provide information for a dossier of research used during the Trump-Russia investigation has been arrested as part of an ongoi…Read More

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A commando of drug gang gunmen on Thursday stormed ashore at a beach on Mexico’s resort-studded Caribbean coast in front of luxury hotels and executed two…Read More

The post WORLD VIEW: Repubs. on Race & Diversity, Afghan Activist Women, Mexico Mangroves, More appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

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Mexico: Tourists Flee Deadly Gun Battle on Cancun Beach

A shootout involving rival gangs on a beach near the Mexican resort of Cancún has left two suspected drug dealers dead, prosecutors say.

The shooting happened on a beach in Bahia Petempich, Puerto Morelos, the Quintana Roo state attorney general’s office tweeted.

“Two of them lost their lives,” it said.

People posted on Twitter that guests were told by staff to hide inside a hotel because of an active shooter.

There were chaotic scenes as guests took cover in the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun Resort.

“Guests are telling me they were playing volleyball on the beach, gunman approached firing gun. Everyone ran from beach and swimming pools. Staff hustled us into hidden rooms behind the kitchens,” tweeted former NBC executive Mike Sington, who is staying at the resort.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter
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There have been no reports of any other serious injuries.

More than 300,000 people have lost their lives in cartel-related killings in Mexico since the government deployed the military to combat drug-related crime in 2006.

Riviera Maya, home to popular resorts like Cancún and Tulum, has seen an increase in violence in recent years.

Last month Mexican security forces were sent to Tulum after two foreign tourists were killed and others injured during a shootout between suspected gang members.

The post Mexico: Tourists Flee Deadly Gun Battle on Cancun Beach appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

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Country’s Oldest: Vito Perillo, 97-Year-Old WW2 Vet, Re-Elected Mayor of US Town

The town of Tinton Falls, N.J., has reelected 97-year-old Vito Perillo to his second, four-year term as its mayor.

“Thank you to my fellow residents for trusting me to lead Tinton Falls forward for the next four years. You may know that I am not a politician, but today I stopped to think about why people might vote for me.

“Maybe it’s because I’m a WWII veteran, or an ‘old guy’ (hopefully not), or maybe it’s because you read my flyer highlighting our accomplishments over the last 4 years,” Perillo wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday.

“My hope, however, is that it’s because you see that I care about our town and the people who live in it above anything else. I promise to do my best everyday to ensure every member of our community can be proud to live in Tinton Falls!,” Perillo continued.

Perillo, a World War II veteran and an electrical engineer for the Department of Defense, beat out three contenders in the nonpartisan election on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

According to the unofficial results from the Monmouth County Board of Elections, Perillo earned 2,209 votes from Tinton Falls residents. Retired schoolteacher Ellen Goldberg trailed with 1,898 votes.

Perillo used his reelection campaign to tout the positive changes he made during his first term, including an investment in the town’s infrastructure and equipment, paving more than 10.6 miles of roads and sidewalks, and the acquisition of a new town park, the Post reported.

With no political background, Perillo first ran for mayor in 2018 after sharing concerns about his property tax bill, Tinton Falls’s administration spending practices and numerous scandals facing the town’s police department.

Perillo then defeated a two-term incumbent who had 20 years of experience in local politics in the town’s mayoral race, the Post reported.

Perillo’s daughter Anna Mae Perillo told the Post that she is inspired by her father’s continued work as mayor, calling him her “hero.”

“He doesn’t want to be known as the oldest mayor, he just wants to be known as a good mayor,” Perrillo said.

The post Country’s Oldest: Vito Perillo, 97-Year-Old WW2 Vet, Re-Elected Mayor of US Town appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

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Nevis Department of Agriculture Upping Quality of Small Farm Production

NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS — Small farm production is another area on which the Department of Agriculture is focusing, in keeping with its thrust to ensure food security on Nevis.

Mr. Rohan Claxton, Livestock Extension Officer with responsibility for Production on the Maddens Stock Farm, said the new programme will provide livestock farmers with an opportunity to upgrade the quality of their animals.

“We are starting the programme to provide kids sometime next year to offer for sale at a minimum cost, and we offer breeding bull service for the goats. So if you are interested you can bring your does and we [will] allow the goat boer to serve them, and then we will start a programme.

“To build a nucleus stock we are going to ask farmers to donate back the females that you get back to the stock farms so we could increase the breeding nucleus for the goats,” he said.

The Livestock Extension Officer explained that the department’s recent return to a goat breeding programme replaces the once thriving sheep breeding programme at the farm.

“We just started recently getting back into goats. Some time ago we used to deal with sheep and at that time we used to use the Black Belly sheep, which was a tropical breed that originated in Barbados, and as a result the Black Belly has been spread throughout the Caribbean. Now Barbados is trying to make sure that that gene stays in their country. So we do have a lot of Black Belly sheep around on the island…

“At this point in time we have gotten some F1 does or females and then we brought in a donation from Ross University to start the programme, a purebred ram, Boer Ram,” he said.

The post Nevis Department of Agriculture Upping Quality of Small Farm Production appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

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Covid Related Gene Identified, Europe’s High Infection Rate, World Stats, More

Gene that doubles risk of respiratory failure from Covid identified
Researchers have identified the gene responsible for doubling the risk of respiratory failure from coronavirus.
About 60% of people with south Asian ancestry carry the high-risk genetic signal, a new study found.
Scientists say this partly explains the excess deaths experienced in some UK communities, and the impact of Covid-19 in the Indian subcontinent, but stress that they are not suggesting that socioeconomic factors are not important for Covid risk and outcome.
The gene is also common in the European population, occurring in about 15%.
Study co-lead Prof James Davies, who worked as an NHS consultant in intensive care medicine during the pandemic and is an associate professor of genomics at Oxford University’s Radcliffe Department of Medicine, said:
If you have the high-risk genotype and you get very unwell with Covid, there’s a 50% chance that that wouldn’t have happened to you had you had the lower-risk genotype.
The study, published in Nature Genetics, also found that the gene does not alter immune cell function.
Because the effect is in the biology of the lungs, people with the higher-risk version of the genes should respond fully to vaccination, the scientists say.
Previous research had identified a stretch of DNA on chromosome three that doubled the risk of adults under the age of 65 from Covid. But it was not known how this genetic signal worked to increase the risk, nor the exact genetic change that was responsible.
Study co-lead Prof Jim Hughes, professor of gene regulation at the University of Oxford, said:
The reason this has proved so difficult to work out, is that the previously identified genetic signal affects the ‘dark matter’ of the genome. We found that the increased risk is not because of a difference in gene coding for a protein, but because of a difference in the DNA that makes a switch to turn a gene on. It’s much harder to detect the gene which is affected by this kind of indirect switch effect.
The gene was identified using a combination of artificial intelligence and cutting-edge molecular technology, which visualises the structure of DNA inside cells in unprecedented detail.
Dr Damien Downes, who led the laboratory work from the Prof Hughes research group, said:
Surprisingly, as several other genes were suspected, the data showed that a relatively unstudied gene called LZTFL1 causes the effect.
The researchers found that the higher-risk version of the gene probably prevents the cells lining airways and the lungs from responding to the virus properly.
They hope drugs and other therapies could target the pathway preventing the lung lining from transforming to less specialised cells, raising the possibility of new treatments customised for those most likely to develop severe symptoms.
Davies said:
The genetic factor we have found explains why some people get very seriously ill after coronavirus infection. It shows that the way in which the lung responds to the infection is critical. This is important because most treatments have focused on changing the way in which the immune system reacts to the virus.
The study also found that 2% of people with African-Caribbean ancestry carried the higher-risk genotype, meaning this genetic factor does not completely explain the higher death rates reported for black and minority ethnic communities.
Davies added:
Although we cannot change our genetics, our results show that the people with the higher risk gene are likely to particularly benefit from vaccination. Since the genetic signal affects the lung rather than the immune system it means that the increased risk should be cancelled out by the vaccine.
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UK records 214 deaths and 37,269 new infections

A further 214 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test have been recorded in the past 24 hours in the UK, and another 37,269 new cases reported, according to the latest figures from the government dashboard.

This compares with 41,299 cases and 217 deaths reported the day before.

Cases Soar in Europe

Europe registered a 55% rise in Covid cases in the last four weeks, despite the availability of vaccines, which should serve as a “warning shot” to other regions, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Thursday.
WHO emergency director Mike Ryan said that some European countries had “suboptimal vaccination coverage” despite availability.
“It’s a warning shot for the world to see what is happening in Europe despite availability of vaccination,” Ryan told a news conference.
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that Indian drugmaker Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin showed about 70% efficacy against the Delta variant. The WHO said on Wednesday that it has granted approval for its emergency use listing.
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WORLD STATS

Coronavirus Cases:

249,449,874

Deaths:

5,047,574

Recovered:

225,906,684
Highlighted in green
= all cases have recovered from the infection
Highlighted in grey
= all cases have had an outcome (there are no active cases)

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Latest News

November 5 (GMT)

Updates
  • 40,735 new cases and 1,192 new deaths in Russia [source]
  • 158 new cases and 6 new deaths in Japan [source]

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Gold Coast man who tested positive for COVID-19 released from hospital after two weeks

The man who crossed the Queensland border and brought COVID-19 with him has been released from hospital. He says the state government "exaggerated", his condition.

Duran Raman was diagnosed with COVID-19 on the Gold Coast on October 21 and has spent the last two weeks in hospital.

It's alleged the one-time Uber driver crossed the border by foot, pre-diagnosis, before being hospitalised with severe symptoms at Gold Coast University Hospital.

READ MORE: Man charged over Cleo Smith kidnapping

His positive status prompted extensive police investigations and Queensland Health contact tracing efforts to track his activity.

At the time of his hospitalisation, it was reported Mr Duran was too sick to communicate with health authorities.

"He's so breathless he can hardly talk to us and will probably have to go into intensive care," Dr Young said at the time.

Upon leaving hospital, Mr Raman has denied this was the case.

"I was fine, I was fine. They were exaggerating it like something stupid," he said. 

"It wasn't that bad, I was a little bit crook — a little bit fluey." 

READ MORE: Treasure hunters 'metres away' from $27.5 billion hoard

While Mr Duran wasn't in intensive care for his two weeks in hospital, he was put on oxygen to assist his breathing.

"I had a little bit. But it wasn't like I couldn't breathe and I really needed it," he said. 

"It wasn't like I was on my deathbed needing high-flow oxygen."

READ MORE: The screening test saving babies in some states but not others

During his hospitalisation, he was charged for allegedly breaching border restrictions, and issued a $4135 fine.

"I lost my job so it's a bit much for an unemployed guy now," Mr Duran said. 

He added he'd like to apologise to residents of Queensland and ask for forgiveness, acknowledging his branding by many as "public enemy number one", over the last two weeks.

"My aim is to be Queensland's public friend number one," Mr Raman said.

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'Netflix of furniture' among the latest popular subscription services

The consumer trend of subscription services like Netflix, and 'buy now, pay later' schemes, have extended to home furniture, with consumers signing up to dress their homes in the latest styles.

Speaking to 9News, Melbourne resident Alex Perilli said when he moved into his home, he could not wait to deck it out with the latest furniture.

He wanted high-end quality without having to commit to high-end prices.

READ MORE: Aussie homebuyers borrowing well above budget to get property

"Maybe in 12 months we want to change our style," he said.

"You don't want to keep a sofa because you spent $10,000 on it."

He used a service called Breeze where subscribers pay monthly instalments on pieces of furniture and at the end of the term, they can choose to buy it, swap it, or return it.

"There is a shift in consumer behaviour – more people want access over ownership," TJ Hoon from Breeze said.

Many consumers have opted for subscription services for entertainment such as TV shows and movies, as well as food, cars and now even furniture.

READ MORE: Choice Shonky Awards products revealed for 2021

"You do it online with Airbnb and Netflix every day. So why not furniture?" Mr Perilli said.

The trend to "pay later" continues to grow, with major retailers like Harvey Norman offering "latitude payments" promising "zero interest" with conditions.

New product subscription services like Snaffle are constantly entering the market.

"We really control the spending to what you can afford," Paul Winslow from Snaffle said.

"We offer you the great products that you want and you can pay for them over one, three or four years."

READ MORE: COVID-19 leads to home renovation boom

However, the Consumer Action Law Centre wants people to be aware of the risks and look closely at the terms and conditions.

"Many people are coming up to our service with multiple 'buy now, pay later' products to different providers and becoming over-indebted very quickly," Consumer Action Law Centre CEO Gerard Brody said.

Mr Brody said consumers could wind up paying three to five times more for a product than if they made the purchase outright.

It is also important to be wary even if the service is selling the product interest-free.

"That doesn't mean that there aren't other costs that are hidden and risks to consumers including that they don't abide by the consumer protections," Mr Brody said.

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Rare glimpse into Queensland's early rock and roll era… in Greece

A rare piece of Queensland's history has been discovered on the other side of the world, giving Australians a first-ever glimpse into the state's early days of Rock and Roll.

Black and white video footage shows The Rocketts, Brisbane's early answer to the 1950s rock scene and first ever rock band.

The finding and preservation of the footage is owing to a relative of George Vardas, the man behind the lens.

READ MORE: Man charged over Cleo Smith kidnapping

It's believed on his return to Greece Mr Vardas took a reel of film, which was found recently in his old apartment.

The film was brought back to Australia, making its way into the hands of researchers at the State Library of Queensland and painstakingly preserved.

It's now available to fans of the era wanting a deep dive into history.

"It's so rare to see footage of live music from that era," specialist librarian Reuben Hillier said.

"We don't have any real photographs of fifties rock and roll in our collection. They're very scarce."

READ MORE: The screening test saving babies in some states but not others

State Library engagement officer Myles Sinnamon said while the video provided an interesting look into The Rocketts' performance and dancing fans, there was no way to tell what they sounded like.

"The film doesn't have any sound to it. Certainly if there's a recording out there that would be really good," he said.

But library staff believe they've identified some of the band members: Ron Carroll on piano, with guitarists Ozzie Mengel and Chuck Supplice.

"We're about 99 per cent certain it's The Rocketts but we'd like some more confirmation on that, and certainly there's some other band members we aren't too sure of their names."

READ MORE: Treasure hunters 'metres away' from $27.5 billion hoard

The footage was restored, frame by frame, by experts at the State Library, part of its Reel Rescue program.

As part of the initiative, library researchers are seeking your help, calling on Queenslanders to help uncover or identify fascinating historical records of early life in the state.

"Queensland's climate isn't going to help these films last much longer," Mr Hillier said of the program's digitisation goals.

"We're always interested to see film from smaller towns, outback properties or different communities."

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Group of men haul shark onto shore of popular Adelaide beach

A group of South Australian men have been filmed hauling a shark onto a popular Adelaide beach and posing for selfies with it, before eventually releasing it.

Confronted onlookers told 9News they were horrified by the group's actions on Henley Beach last night.

While the shark was eventually released, one witness said it appeared distressed.

READ MORE: Man charged over Cleo Smith kidnapping

The shark was hauled onto the shore by a rope.

"They hooked it with a rope, they tied it around its tail and they just had it on the beach, taking photos," Asha Reilly said.

"They'd beached it and it clearly couldn't breathe.

"I felt sick to the stomach, and I could see other people, bystanders were as well, it was just horrible."

READ MORE: The real reason why great white sharks might bite humans

The group was seen taking selfies with the animal.

The Primary Industries Department website said "most fisheries adopt catch and release practices" and "it's important that fishers follow appropriate gear and handling procedures to ensure the ethical and humane treatment of our aquatic species".

In a statement, they told 9News the species of shark couldn't be identified.

A rope was tied around the sharks tail before the group started taking selfies.

The RSPCA questioned whether the correct guidelines were being followed to limit the shark's suffering.

They say that would include throwing water over the animal, and covering its eyes to keep it calm.

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'We are humbled by the love and support that we have received ': Cleo Smith's family issue statement

The family of Cleo Smith have issued a statement thanking the police and wider Carnarvon community after their daughter's safe return.

Cleo Smith was found in a home in Carnarvon early Wednesday morning after going missing from Quobba Blowholes while camping with her family on October 16.

The brief statement was issued by her mother Ellie and stepfather Jake.

"We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in the rescue of our daughter Cleo Smith.

READ MORE: Man charged over alleged abduction moved to maximum-security prison

Cleo Smith is carried inside a friend's house by her mother in Carnarvon.

"In particular, we would like to thank WA Police, all those involved in the initial search, the Carnarvon community, local businesses and of course our family and friends.

"We are humbled by the love and support that we have received from not only our local community but the whole of Western Australia and across the country.

"We are so thankful that our little girl is back within our arms and our family is whole again. As we try to get on with our lives, we ask that you respect our privacy."

Cleo was reunited with her family after police rescued her from a locked home in the Western Australian town in Carnarvon just before 1am on Wednesday.

Terence Darrell Kelly, 36, from Carnarvon, has been charged with various offences relating to the abduction.

The alleged offences include one charge of kidnapping.

The man appeared at Carnarvon courthouse shortly after 4pm AWST yesterday and made no application for bail. He will re-appear in a Perth court in December.