KIGALI — Rwanda said Sunday it had begun administering vaccine doses against the Marburg virus to try to combat an outbreak of the Ebola-like disease in the east African country, where it has so far killed 12 people.
“The vaccination is starting today immediately,” Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana said at a news conference in the capital Kigali.
He said the vaccinations would focus on those “most at risk, most exposed health care workers working in treatment centers, in the hospitals, in ICU, in emergency, but also [in] the close contacts of the confirmed cases.”
The country has already received shipments of the vaccines including from the Sabin Vaccine Institute.
Rwanda’s first outbreak of the viral hemorrhagic fever was detected in late September, with 46 cases and 12 deaths reported since then. Marburg has a fatality rate as high as 88%.
Marburg symptoms include high fever, severe headaches and malaise within seven days of infection and later severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
It is transmitted to humans by fruit bats and then spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected. Neighboring Uganda has suffered several outbreaks in the past.
“We believe that with vaccines, we have a powerful tool to stop the spread of this virus,” the minister said.
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BEIJING — Coco Gauff rallied Saturday from a set down for the third consecutive match as she beat Paula Badosa 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to advance to the final of the China Open.
The sixth-ranked Gauff will play Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic in Sunday’s final as the 20-year-old American bids for her second WTA-1000 level title.
Muchova defeated Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen 6-3, 6-4 in the other semifinal.
Gauff, who has a 7-1 record in tour finals, has made a habit of slow starts in Beijing this week and the script played out again as the No. 19-ranked Badosa took a tight opening set in 59 minutes, saving 10 of 11 break points.
The Spaniard then built a 3-1 lead in the second set before the 2023 U.S. Open champion shifted the momentum by saving four break points and then breaking back to level at 4-4.
Gauff then held for 5-4 and broke Badosa again to force a deciding set.
“I felt like I was playing the right way the whole time, just a couple of unforced errors, she was playing well too,” Gauff said in her on-court interview. “I was trying to stay focused. Mentally, I just tried to reset. I got down a couple of times, and I tried to bounce back.”
With all the momentum, Gauff then broke Badosa three more times — for the loss of one of her own — as she clinched the match in 2 hours, 20 minutes.
Gauff had also lost the first set to Naomi Osaka in the fourth round before winning by walkover as the four-time major winner retired with a back injury at one set-all.
“I’ve had tough opponents the whole tournament,” Gauff said.
In the quarterfinals, Gauff trailed the No. 115-ranked Yuliia Starodubtseva before rallying to win in three.
Shanghai masters
Carlos Alcaraz and top-ranked Jannik Sinner showed no signs of fatigue from their China Open final earlier this week to advance with comfortable straight-set victories in their opening matches.
The second-ranked Alcaraz, who beat the Italian in Beijing on Wednesday for his fourth title of the year, recorded his 10th consecutive win with a 6-2, 6-2 result against 19-year-old Shang Juncheng of China.
The 21-year-old Spaniard won the first nine points of the match and four of seven break points as he rushed into a third-round meeting with another Chinese player, Wu Yibing.
“I’m not used to playing against players younger than me,” Alcaraz said. “He has been playing good tennis lately, lifting his first ATP (title in Chengdu), so I’m pretty sure he’s going to climb the rankings. I’m just happy to be able to win these kinds of matches.”
Sinner, who is dealing with an ongoing doping case, had a comfortable 6-1, 6-4 outing against Taro Daniel of Japan for his 250th career win.
The Italian, who won the U.S Open last month for his second major of the year, fired 12 aces and 38 winners.
“I felt quite comfortable today,” said the 23-year-old Sinner, who next plays Tomas Martin Etcheverry of Argentina. “I feel in good shape also physically, which is very important for me. Of course I will try to improve for tomorrow’s performance, but today I was serving really, really well, especially in important moments, and was moving well.”
No. 65-ranked Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic broke sixth-ranked Andrey Rublev seven times on his way to an upset 6-7 (7), 6-4, 6-3 victory.
Yosuke Watanuki also had a surprise win, beating Number 35-ranked Brendan Nakashima 7-6 (4), 6-3. The Japanese qualifier plays either seventh-ranked Taylor Fritz of the U.S. or French qualifier Terence Atmane next.
Also, 24th-ranked Alexei Popyrin of Australia beat Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-2.
Later Saturday, third-ranked Alexander Zverev began his campaign against Italian qualifier Mattia Bellucci, while fourth-ranked Novak Djokovic faced Alex Michelsen of the United States.
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GOMA, Congo — Congolese authorities on Saturday began vaccinations against mpox, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.
The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the United States were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.
Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases.
Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and frontline workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.
“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.
At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said.
Mostly undetected for years
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.
However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused in gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters.
More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
But access to vaccines remains a challenge.
The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.
Province at risk of outbreak
At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr. Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises caused by armed violence unfolds there.
The news of the vaccination program brought relief among many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak.
“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.
Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.
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LIMA, Peru — Peru on Thursday celebrated two decades since the creation of a genetically modified breed of guinea pig, a rodent whose meat has formed a part of the diet of people in the Andean nation for thousands of years.
The genetically modified breed of guinea pig — known as cuy locally — is called “Peru.” It was created in 2004 at the National Institute of Agrarian Innovation, Juan Solórzano, a research zootechnician, said in the middle of one of the institute’s farms where thousands of guinea pigs are raised for study.
What characterizes the Peru breed is that grows faster, reaching a weight of 1 kilogram in 56 days, rather than the 160 days that was needed before, Solórzano said.
“It is a precocious breed,” said Solórzano.
Guinea pigs are native to the Andes Mountains and are raised in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia, areas where the Inca Empire spread almost 500 years ago.
There are more than 25 million guinea pigs in Peru, according to official figures. The rodent is so popular in the South American country that authorities have decreed the second Friday of October as National Guinea Pig Day to encourage its consumption.
Internal migration from Peru’s Andes in the 20th century brought the custom of eating guinea pigs to the country’s Pacific coast.
“It is eaten at sporting events or religious festivals. Guinea pig is a festive dish,” Solórzano said. It is also used in ritual healing practices by being rubbed over the body of a sick person.
Marina Isabel Briceño, an employee at an air conditioning supply company, said she has eaten guinea pigs since she was a child, calling them a delicacy served at “special events.”
Born in the Cajamarca region, Briceño said that at baptisms the parents often give the godfather and godmother a tray with more than a dozen guinea pigs that have been fried and are “crispy and ready to eat.”
“I know it is a rodent, a distant relative of rats, but those animals eat garbage, whereas guinea pigs eat something else, tender corn leaves which is why they are tasty,” she said.
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wellington, new zealand — A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck near New Zealand’s capital city of Wellington, government seismic monitor GeoNet said on Sunday, but initial reports indicated there were no injuries or significant damage.
The quake hit at 5:08 a.m. on Sunday (1608 GMT on Saturday) striking 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) west of Wellington at a focal depth of 30 km (19 miles).
GeoNet said more than 37,000 people had reported feeling the shake, some as far north as Auckland in the North Island.
GeoNet said there was no tsunami warning as a result of the quake.
A spokesperson for Fire and Emergency New Zealand said the service had not received any calls for assistance.
Government-owned Radio New Zealand said there were no reports of significant damage or reports of injury.
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KAMITUGA, Congo — It’s been four months since Sifa Kunguja recovered from mpox, but as a sex worker, she said, she’s still struggling to regain clients, with fear and stigma driving away people who’ve heard she had the virus.
“It’s risky work,” Kunguja, 40, said from her small home in eastern Congo. “But if I don’t work, I won’t have money for my children.”
Sex workers are among those hardest-hit by the mpox outbreak in Kamituga, where some 40,000 of them are estimated to reside — many single mothers driven by poverty to this mineral-rich commercial hub where gold miners comprise the majority of the clientele. Doctors estimate 80% of cases here have been contracted sexually, though the virus also spreads through other kinds of skin-to-skin contact.
Sex workers say the situation threatens their health and livelihoods. Health officials warn that more must be done to stem the spread — with a focus on sex workers — or mpox will creep deeper through eastern Congo and the region.
Mpox causes mostly mild symptoms such as fever and body aches, but serious cases can mean prominent, painful blisters on the face, hands, chest and genitals.
Kunguja and other sex workers insist that despite risks of reinfection or spreading the virus, they have no choice but to keep working. Sex work isn’t illegal in Congo, though related activities such as solicitation are. Rights groups say possible legal consequences and fear of retribution — sex workers are subject to high rates of violence including rape and abuse — prevent women from seeking medical care. That can be especially detrimental during a public health emergency, according to experts.
Health officials in Kamituga are advocating for the government to shutter nightclubs and mines and compensate sex workers for lost business.
Not everyone agrees. Local officials say they don’t have resources to do more than care for those who are sick, and insist it’s sex workers’ responsibility to protect themselves.
Kamituga Mayor Alexandre Bundya M’pila told The Associated Press that the government is creating awareness campaigns but lacks money to reach everyone. He also said sex workers should look for other jobs, without providing examples of what might be available.
Sex work a big part of economy
Miners stream into Kamituga by the tens of thousands. The economy is centered on the mines: Buyers line streets, traders travel to sell gold, small businesses and individuals provide food and lodging, and the sex industry flourishes.
Nearly a dozen sex workers spoke to AP. They said well over half their clients are miners.
The industry is well organized, according to the Kenyan-based African Sex Workers Alliance, composed of sex worker-led groups. The alliance estimates that 13% of Kamituga’s 300,000 residents are sex workers.
The town has 18 sex-worker committees, the alliance said, with a leadership that tries to work with government officials, protect and support colleagues, and advocate for their rights.
But sex work in Congo is dangerous. Women face systematic violence that’s tolerated by society, according to a report by UMANDE, a local sex-worker rights group.
Many women are forced into the industry because of poverty or because, like Kunguja, they’re single parents and must support their families.
Getting mpox can put sex workers out of business
The sex workers who spoke to AP described mpox as an added burden. Many are terrified of getting the virus — it means time away from work, lost income and perhaps losing business altogether.
Those who recover are stigmatized, they said. Kamituga is a small place, where most everyone knows one another. Neighbors whisper and tell clients when someone is sick — people talk and point.
Since contracting mpox in May, Kunguja said she’s gone from about 20 clients daily to five. She’s been supporting her 11 children through sex work for nearly a decade but said she now can’t afford to send them to school. To compensate, she’s selling alcohol by day, but it’s not enough.
Experts say information and awareness are key
Disease experts say a lack of vaccines and information makes stemming the spread difficult.
Some 250,000 vaccines have arrived in Congo, but it’s unclear when any will get to Kamituga. Sex workers and miners are among those slated to receive them first.
Community leaders and aid groups are trying to teach sex workers about protecting themselves and their clients via awareness sessions where they discuss signs and symptoms. They also press condom use, which they say isn’t widespread enough in the industry.
Sex workers told AP that they insist on using condoms when they have them, but that they simply don’t have enough.
Kamituga’s general hospital gives them boxes of about 140 condoms every few months. Some sex workers see up to 60 clients a day — for less than $1 a person. Condoms run out, and workers say they can’t afford more.
Dr. Guy Mukari, an epidemiologist working with the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Congo, noted that the variant running rampant in Kamituga seems more susceptible to transmission via sex, making for a double whammy with the sex industry.
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ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene brought devastation to western North Carolina, a shiny stainless steel tanker truck in downtown Asheville attracted residents carrying 19-liter containers, milk jugs and buckets to fill with what has become a desperately scare resource — drinking water.
Flooding tore through the city’s water system, destroying so much infrastructure that officials said repairs could take weeks. To make do, Anna Ramsey arrived Wednesday with her two children, who each left carrying plastic bags filled with 7.6 liters of water.
“We have no water. We have no power. But I think it’s also been humbling,” Ramsey said.
Helene’s path through the Southeast left a trail of power outages so large the darkness was visible from space. Tens of trillions of liters of rain fell and more than 200 people were killed, making Helene the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for, and search crews must trudge through knee-deep debris to learn whether residents are safe.
It also damaged water utilities so severely and over such a wide inland area that one federal official said the toll “could be considered unprecedented.” As of Thursday, about 136,000 people in the Southeast were served by a nonoperational water provider and more than 1.8 million were living under a boil water advisory, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Western North Carolina was especially hard hit. Officials are facing a difficult rebuilding task made harder by the steep, narrow valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains that during a more typical October would attract throngs of fall tourists.
“The challenges of the geography are just fewer roads, fewer access points, fewer areas of flat ground to stage resources” said Brian Smith, acting deputy division director for the EPA’s water division in the Southeast.
After days without water, people long for more than just a sponge bath.
“I would love a shower,” said Sue Riles in Asheville. “Running water would be incredible.”
The raging floodwaters of Helene destroyed crucial parts of Asheville’s water system, scouring out the pipes that convey water from a reservoir in the mountains above town that is the largest of three water supplies for the system. To reach a second reservoir that was knocked offline, a road had to be rebuilt.
Boosted output from the third source restored water flow in some southern Asheville neighborhoods Friday, but without full repairs schools may not be able to resume in-person classes, hospitals may not restore normal operations, and the city’s hotels and restaurants may not fully reopen.
Even water that’s unfit to drink is scarce. Drew Reisinger, the elected Buncombe County register of deeds, worries about people in apartments who can’t easily haul a bucket of water from a creek to flush their toilet. Officials are advising people to collect nondrinkable water for household needs from a local swimming pool.
“One thing no one is talking about is the amount of poop that exists in every toilet in Asheville,” he said. “We’re dealing with a public health emergency.”
It’s a situation that becomes more dangerous the longer it lasts. Even in communities fortunate enough to have running water, hundreds of providers have issued boil water notices indicating the water could be contaminated. But boiling water for cooking and drinking is time consuming and small mistakes can cause stomach illness, according to Natalie Exum, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“Every day that goes by, you could be exposed to a pathogen,” Exum said. “These basic services that we take for granted in our everyday lives actually do do a lot to prevent illness.”
Travis Edwards’ faucet worked immediately after the storm. He filled as many containers as he could for himself and his child, but it didn’t take long for the flow to weaken, then stop. They rationed water, switching to hand sanitizer and barely putting any on toothbrushes.
“(We) didn’t realize how dehydrated we were getting,” he said.
Federal officials have shipped millions of liters of water to areas where people also might not be able to make phone calls or switch on the lights.
Power has been restored to about 62% of homes and businesses and 8,000 crews are out working to restore power in the hardest hit parts of North Carolina, federal officials said Thursday. In 10 counties, about half of the cell sites are still down.
The first step for some utilities is simply figuring out how bad the damage is, a job that might require EPA expertise in extreme cases. Ruptured water pipes are a huge problem. They often run beneath roads, many of which were crumpled and twisted by floodwaters.
“Pretty much anytime you see a major road damaged, there’s a very good chance that there’s a pipe in there that’s also gotten damaged,” said Mark White, drinking water global practice leader at the engineering firm CDM Smith.
Generally, repairs start at the treatment plant and move outward, with fixes in nearby big pipes done first, according to the EPA.
“Over time, you’ll gradually get water to more and more people,” White said.
Many people are still missing, and water repair employees don’t typically work around search and rescue operations. It takes a toll, according to Kevin Morley, manager of federal relations with the American Water Works Association.
“There’s emotional support that is really important for all the people involved. You’re seeing people’s lives just wiped out,” he said.
Even private well owners aren’t immune. Pumps on private wells may have lost power and overtopping floodwaters can contaminate them.
There’s often a “blind faith” assumption that drinking water won’t fail. In this case, the technology was insufficient, according to Craig Colten. Before retiring to Asheville, he was a professor in Louisiana focused on resilience to extreme weather. He hopes Helene will prompt politicians to spend more to ensure infrastructure withstands destructive storms.
And climate change will only make the problem more severe, said Erik Olson, a health and food expert at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
“I think states and the federal government really need to step back and start looking at how we’re going to prepare for these extreme weather events that are going to be occurring and recurring every single year,” he said.
Edwards has developed a system to save water. He’ll soap dirty dishes and rinse them with a trickle of water with bleach, which is caught and transferred to a bucket — useable for the toilet.
Power and some cell service have returned for him. And water distribution sites have guaranteed some measure of normalcy: Edwards feels like he can start going out to see friends again.
“To not feel guilty about using more than a cup of water to, like, wash yourself … I’m really, really grateful,” he said.
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washington — Spamouflage networks with connections to China are posting antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media, casting doubt on Washington’s independence from alleged Jewish influence and the integrity of the two U.S. presidential candidates, a joint investigation by VOA Mandarin and Taiwan’s Doublethink Lab, a social media analytics firm, has found.
The investigation has so far uncovered more than 30 such X posts, many of which claim or suggest that core American political institutions, including the White House and Congress, have pledged loyalty to or are controlled by Jewish elites and the Israeli government.
One post shows a graphic of 18 U.S. officials of Jewish descent, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and the head of the Homeland Security Department, Alejandro Mayorkas, and asks: “Jews only make up 2% of the U.S. population, so why do they have so many representatives in important government departments?!”
Another post shows a cartoon depicting Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, and her opponent, Donald Trump, having their tongues tangled together and wrapped around an Israeli flagpole. The post proclaims that “no matter who of them comes to power, they will not change their stance on Judaism.”
Most of the 32 posts analyzed by VOA Mandarin and Doublethink Lab were posted during July and August. The posts came from three spamouflage accounts, two of which were previously reported by VOA.
Each of the three accounts leads its own spamouflage network. The three networks consist of 140 accounts, which amplify content from the three main accounts, or seeders.
A spamouflage network is a state-sponsored operation disguised as the work of authentic social media users to spread pro-government narratives and disinformation while discrediting criticism from adversaries.
Jasper Hewitt, a digital intelligence analyst at Doublethink Lab, told VOA Mandarin that the impact of these antisemitic posts has been limited, as most of them failed to reach real users, despite having garnered over 160,000 views.
U.S. officials have cast China as one of the major threats looking to disrupt this year’s election. Beijing, however, has repeatedly denied these allegations and urged Washington to “not make an issue of China in the election.”
Tuvia Gering, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, has closely followed antisemitic disinformation coming from China. He told VOA Mandarin that Beijing isn’t necessarily hostile toward Jews, but anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have historically been a handy tool to be used against Western countries.
“You can trace its origins back to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories all over the world just to instigate in Western societies,” Gering said, “because it divides them from within and it casts the West in a bad light in a strategic competition. [It’s] the same thing you see here [with China].”
Anti-Semitic speech floods Chinese internet
Similar antisemitic narratives about U.S. politics posted by the spamouflage accounts have long been flourishing on the Chinese internet.
An article that received thousands of likes and reposts on Chinese social media app WeChat claims that “Jewish capital” has completed its control of the American political sphere “through infiltration, marriages, campaign funds and lobbying.”
The article also brings up the Jewish heritage of many current and former U.S. officials and their families as evidence of the alleged Jewish takeover of America.
“The wife of the U.S. president is Jewish, the son-in-law of the former U.S. president is Jewish, the mother of the previous former U.S. president was Jewish, the U.S. Secretary of State is Jewish, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury is Jewish, the Deputy Secretary of State, the Attorney General … are all Jewish,” it wrote.
In fact, first lady Jill Biden is Roman Catholic, and the mother of former President Barack Obama was raised as a Christian. The others named are Jewish.
Conspiracy theories and misinformation abounded on the Chinese internet after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May that would empower the Department of Education to adopt a new set of standards when investigating antisemitism in educational programs.
Articles and videos assert that the bill marks the death of America because it “definitively solidifies the superior and unquestionable position of the Jews in America,” claiming falsely that anyone who’s labeled an antisemite will be arrested.
One video with more than 1 million views claimed that the New Testament of the Bible would be deemed illegal under the bill. And since all U.S. presidents took their inaugural oath with the Bible, the bill allegedly invalidates the legitimacy of the commander in chief. None of that is true.
The Chinese public hasn’t historically been hostile toward Jews. A 2014 survey published by the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based group against antisemitism, found that only 20% of the participants from China harbored an antisemitic attitude.
But when the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out a year ago, the otherwise heavily censored Chinese social media was flooded with antisemitic comments and praise for Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler.
The Chinese government has dismissed criticism of antisemitism on its internet. When asked about it at a news conference last year, Wang Wenbin, then the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, said that “China’s laws unequivocally prohibit disseminating information on extremism, ethnic hatred, discrimination and violence via the internet.”
But online hate speech against Jews has hardly disappeared. Eric Liu, a former censor for Chinese social media Weibo who now monitors online censorship, told VOA Mandarin that whenever Israel is in the news, there would be a surge in online antisemitism.
Just last month, after dozens of members of the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah were killed by explosions of their pagers, Chinese online commentators acidly condemned Israel and Jews.
The attack “proves that Jews are the most terrifying and cowardly people,” one Weibo user wrote. “They are self-centered and believe themselves to be superior, when in fact they are considered the most indecent and shameless. When the time comes, it’s going to be blood for blood.”
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HANOI, Vietnam — More than a dozen tigers were incinerated after the animals died after contracted bird flu at a zoo in southern Vietnam, officials said.
State media VNExpress cited a caretaker at Vuon Xoai zoo in Bien Hoa city saying the animals were fed raw chicken bought from nearby farms. The panther and 20 tigers, including several cubs, weighed between 10 and 120 kilograms when they died. The bodies were incinerated and buried on the premises.
“The tigers died so fast. They looked weak, refused to eat and died after two days of falling sick,” said zoo manager Nguyen Ba Phuc.
Samples taken from the tigers tested positive for H5N1, the virus that causes bird flu.
The virus was first identified in 1959 and grew into a widespread and highly lethal menace to migratory birds and domesticated poultry. It has since evolved, and in recent years H5N1 was detected in a growing number of animals ranging from dogs and cats to sea lions and polar bears.
In cats, scientists have found the virus attacking the brain, damaging and clotting blood vessels and causing seizures and death.
More than 20 other tigers were isolated for monitoring. The zoo houses some 3,000 other animals including lions, bears, rhinos, hippos and giraffes.
The 30 staff members who were taking care of the tigers tested negative for bird flu and were in normal health condition, VNExpress reported. Another outbreak also occurred at a zoo in nearby Long An province, where 27 tigers and three lions died within a week in September, the newspaper said.
Unusual flu strains that come from animals are occasionally found in people. Health officials in the United States said Thursday that two dairy workers in California were infected — making 16 total cases detected in the country in 2024.
“The deaths of 47 tigers, three lions, and a panther at My Quynh Safari and Vuon Xoai Zoo amid Vietnam’s bird flu outbreak are tragic and highlight the risks of keeping wild animals in captivity,” PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.
“The exploitation of wild animals also puts global human health at risk by increasing the likelihood of another pandemic,” Baker said.
Bird flu has caused hundreds of deaths around the world, the vast majority of them involving direct contact between people and infected birds.
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chicago — California is investigating a possible case of bird flu in a dairy worker who had contact with infected cattle, the state’s public health department said Thursday.
The virus’ jump to cattle in 14 states and infections of 13 dairy and poultry farmworkers this year have concerned scientists and federal officials about the risks to humans from further spread.
The worker had a “presumptive positive” result to a test for bird flu, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will do further testing to confirm the finding, the California Department of Public Health said in a statement.
The person, who was not identified, suffered only conjunctivitis, or pink eye, the department said in a statement. The person is being treated with antiviral medication and staying home, it added.
The person works at a Central Valley dairy facility suffering an outbreak in cattle, according to the statement.
Cows at dairy farms in California, the top U.S. milk-producing state, began testing positive for bird flu in late August.
“The risk to the general public remains low, although people who interact with infected animals are at higher risk of getting bird flu,” the department said.
Missouri last month confirmed bird flu in a person with underlying medical conditions who had no immediate known animal exposure. Six health care workers who cared for the Missouri patient developed respiratory symptoms, but the virus was not confirmed in any of them.
Scientists are watching closely for signs that the virus has begun to spread more easily in people.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it would begin testing raw cow’s milk intended for pasteurization at dairy plants to better understand the prevalence of the bird flu virus in milk.
Participation in the study, set to begin October 28, is voluntary, and pasteurized dairy products remain safe to consume, the agency said.
Prior FDA testing of retail dairy samples came back negative, and more such testing is underway.
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GENEVA — The World Health Organization launched a global plan Thursday to address the growing threat of dengue and other deadly arboviruses, which have affected millions of people around the world and put billions more at risk.
“The rapid spread of dengue and other arboviral diseases in recent years is an alarming trend that demands a coordinated response across sectors and across borders,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
An arbovirus is a virus that is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes, ticks, or other arthropods, such as crustaceans, insects and arachnids.
Dengue has emerged as the most problematic arbovirus disease. The WHO notes the number of cases has nearly doubled each year since 2021, with over 12.3 million cases at the end of August of this year, including more than 6,000 deaths.
The WHO aims to “turn the tide” against dengue and arboviral diseases, Tedros said, noting that the measures in the proposal could “protect vulnerable populations and pave the way for a healthier future.”
The WHO chief said everyone has a role to play in the fight against dengue, “from maintaining clean environments to supporting vector control and seeking and providing timely medical care.”
“Factors such as unplanned urbanization and poor water, sanitation and hygiene practices, climate change and international travel, are facilitating the rapid geographical spread of dengue,” Dr. Raman Velayudhan, WHO unit head, global program on control of neglected tropical diseases, told journalists in Geneva Tuesday, in advance of the plan’s launch.
“The disease is now endemic in more than 130 countries,” he said. “Similar trends are also observed for other arboviral diseases, such as Zika, chikungunya, and more recently, the Oropouche virus disease, especially in the Americas.”
Dengue is endemic in tropical and subtropical climates, particularly in Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific and the Americas. The WHO says the majority of dengue cases, as well as several other arboviruses, have been reported from the American region this year.
WHO officials say the situation is also of concern in Africa, “where countries are battling multiple diseases amid conflict and natural disasters,” placing additional strain on already fragile health systems.
The Africa CDC reports more than 15,000 cases of dengue have been recorded in 13 African countries this year.
“This global escalation underscores the urgent need for a robust strategy to mitigate risks and safeguard populations taking into account that urban centers are at greater risk,” Velayudhan said.
Dengue is a viral infection that spreads from mosquitoes to people. Most people who get dengue get better in one to two weeks. However, some people who develop severe cases can die.
According to the WHO, prevention is the best protection from dengue. It recommends people avoid mosquito bites, especially during the day, “by covering up.”
Chikungunya, a virus spread by Aedes mosquitoes, has been reported in 118 countries, with the highest circulation found in Brazil.
Dr. Diana Rojas Alvarez, team lead on arboviruses, epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the WHO, notes newborns, elderly and people with pre-existing conditions “have been identified as a risk factor for poor disease outcome.”
Besides chikungunya, she said Zika and Oropouche, which are spreading widely in the Americas, have symptoms similar to dengue and “can be easily misdiagnosed in areas with co-circulation of multiple arboviruses.”
To avoid misidentifying those diseases, she said it is critical for countries to strengthen their detection, surveillance, and testing activities and “to make sure populations know which measures to take to protect themselves and their communities.”
The World Health Organization says the global escalation of arboviral diseases underscores the urgent need for “a robust strategy to mitigate risks and safeguard populations.”
It urges governments to implement five components of its strategic global plan: Emergency coordination activities, collaborative detection and surveillance, community protection and prevention measures, safe and scalable care to prevent illness and death, and access to countermeasures, such as the promotion of research for improved treatments and vaccines.
The WHO estimates $55 million will be required to put the plan into action over the next year.
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MELBOURNE, Australia — A code of conduct will be enforced on the online dating industry to better protect Australian users after research found that three-in-four people suffer some form of sexual violence through the platforms, Australia’s government said on Tuesday.
Bumble, Grindr and Match Group Inc., a Texas-based company that owns platforms including Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish, have agreed to the code that took effect on Tuesday, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said.
The platforms, which account for 75% of the industry in Australia, have until April 1 to implement the changes before they are strictly enforced, Rowland said.
The code requires the platforms’ systems to detect potential incidents of online-enabled harm and demands that the accounts of some offenders are terminated.
Complaint and reporting mechanisms are to be made prominent and transparent. A new rating system will show users how well platforms are meeting their obligations under the code.
The government called for a code of conduct last year after the Australian Institute of Criminology research found that three-in-four users of dating apps or websites had experienced some form of sexual violence through these platforms in the five years through 2021.
“There needs to be a complaint-handling process. This is a pretty basic feature that Australians would have expected in the first place,” Rowland said on Tuesday.
“If there are grounds to ban a particular individual from utilizing one of those platforms, if they’re banned on one platform, they’re blocked on all platforms,” she added.
Match Group said it had already introduced new safety features on Tinder, including photo and identification verification to prevent bad actors from accessing the platform while giving users more confidence in the authenticity of their connections.
The platform used artificial intelligence to issue real-time warnings about potentially offensive language in an opening line and advising users to pause before sending.
“This is a pervasive issue, and we take our responsibility to help keep users safe on our platform very seriously,” Match Group said in a statement on Wednesday.
Match Group said it would continue to collaborate with the government and the industry to “help make dating safer for all Australians.”
Bumble said it shared the government’s hope of eliminating gender-based violence and was grateful for the opportunity to work with the government and industry on what the platform described as a “world-first dating code of practice.”
“We know that domestic and sexual violence is an enormous problem in Australia, and that women, members of LGBTQ+ communities, and First Nations are the most at risk,” a Bumble statement said.
“Bumble puts women’s experiences at the center of our mission to create a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable, and safety has been central to our mission from day one,” Bumble added.
Grindr said in a statement it was “honored to participate in the development of the code and shares the Australian government’s commitment to online safety.”
All the platforms helped design the code.
Platforms that have not signed up include Happn, Coffee Meets Bagel and Feeld.
The government expects the code will enable Australians to make better informed choices about which dating apps are best equipped to provide a safe dating experience.
The government has also warned the online dating industry that it will legislate if the operators fail to keep Australians safe on their platforms.
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LOS ANGELES — American actor John Amos, who starred as the family patriarch on the hit 1970’s sitcom Good Times and earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries Roots, has died. He was 84.
Amos’ publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed the news of his death Tuesday. No other details were immediately available.
He played James Evans Sr. on Good Times, which featured one of television’s first Black two-parent families. Produced by Norman Lear and co-created by actor Mike Evans, who co-starred on All in the Family and The Jeffersons, it ran from 1974-79 on CBS.
“That show was the closest depiction in reality to life as an African American family living in those circumstances as it could be,” Amos told Time magazine in 2021.
His character, along with wife Florida, played by Esther Rolle, originated on another Lear show, Maude. James Evans often worked two manual labor jobs to support his family that included three children, with Jimmie Walker becoming a breakout star as oldest son J.J.
Such was the show’s impact that Alicia Keys, Rick Ross, the Wu-Tang Clan are among the musicians who name-checked Amos or his character in their lyrics.
Amos and Rolle were eager to portray a positive image of a Black family, struggling against the odds in a public housing project in Chicago. But they grew frustrated at seeing Walker’s character being made foolish and his role expanded.
“The fact is that Esther’s criticism, and also that of John and others — some of it very pointed and personal — seriously damaged my appeal in the Black community,” Walker wrote in his 2012 memoir Dyn-O-Mite! Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times.
After three seasons of critical acclaim and high ratings, Amos was fired. He had become critical of the show’s white writing staff creating storylines that he felt were inauthentic to the Black characters.
“There were several examples where I said, ‘No, you don’t do these things. It’s anathema to Black society. I’ll be the expert on that, if you don’t mind,'” he told Time magazine. “And it got confrontational and heated enough that ultimately my being killed off the show was the best solution for everybody concerned, myself included.”
Amos’ character was killed in a car accident. Walker lamented the situation. “If the decision had been up to me, I would have preferred that John stay and the show remain more of an ensemble,” he wrote in his memoir. “Nobody wanted me up front all the time, including me.”
Amos and Lear later reconciled and they shared a hug at a Good Times live TV reunion special in 2019.
Amos quickly bounced back, landing the role of an adult Kunta Kinte, the centerpiece of Roots, based on Alex Haley’s novel set during and after the era of slavery in the U.S. The miniseries was a critical and ratings blockbuster, and Amos earned one of its 37 Emmy nominations.
“I knew that it was a life-changing role for me, as an actor and just from a humanistic standpoint,” he told Time magazine. “It was the culmination of all of the misconceptions and stereotypical roles that I had lived and seen being offered to me. It was like a reward for having suffered those indignities.”
Early years
Born John Allen Amos Jr. on Dec. 27, 1939, in Newark, New Jersey, he was the son of an auto mechanic. He graduated from Colorado State University with a sociology degree and played on the school’s football team.
Before pursuing acting, he moved to New York and was a social worker at the Vera Institute of Justice, working with defendants at the Brooklyn House of Detention.
He had a brief professional football career, playing in various minor leagues. He signed a free-agent contract in 1967 with the Kansas City Chiefs, but coach Hank Stram encouraged Amos to pursue his interest in writing instead. He had jobs as an advertising and comedy writer before moving in front of the camera.
Amos’ first major TV role was as Gordy Howard, the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show from 1970-73. As the show’s only Black character, he played straight man to bombastic anchor Ted Baxter.
Among Amos’ film credits were Let’s Do It Again with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, Coming to America with Eddie Murphy and its 2021 sequel, Die Hard 2, Madea’s Witness Protection and Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. He was in Ice Cube and Dr. Dre’s 1994 video “Natural Born Killaz.”
He was a frequent guest star on The West Wing, and his other TV appearances included Hunter, The District, Men in Trees, All About the Andersons, Two and a Half Men, and The Ranch.
In 2020, Amos was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He served in the New Jersey National Guard.
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A new exhibit in Washington sheds some light on a little-known layer of the sea and the strange creatures that live there. Artechouse art center and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution collaborated on the spectacle, called Twilight Zone: Hidden Wonders of the Ocean. Maxim Adams has the story.
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Abuja — Hundreds gathered in Abuja, Nigeria for the 2024 Childhood Cancer Awareness Walk, raising awareness and support for pediatric cancer. Despite progress in cancer care, Nigerian children face high costs and delayed diagnoses, which the walk aims to address.
Titilayo Adewumi joined the walk with her 13-year-old son Shittu, diagnosed with leukemia at age 5. With support from the Okapi Children Cancer Foundation, Shittu is now cancer-free.
Adewumi recounts the toll her son’s cancer diagnosis took on her family.
“I had to stop working for like 4 – 5 years so I could concentrate on him,” she said. “We went out of cash, we didn’t have money, that is when the Okapi visited us … I was so excited when the doctor told me that he was free of cancer, I felt like jumping into the roof and back I was so happy because it was not easy.”
Among the walkers was Izuyor Tobi. He brought his daughter Hope, who battled neuroblastoma. Treatment costs nearly drained the family’s finances until Okapi intervened. Today, Hope is healthy.
Tobi believes that spreading awareness about pediatric cancer will save lives.
“If not for Okapi Children Cancer Foundation, I don’t think my daughter will be alive today… What I do is to create more awareness by telling people what Okapi Children Cancer Foundation has done for my daughter,” he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80% of childhood cancers occur in low-income countries like Nigeria, where many cases go undiagnosed or are detected late.
Pediatric oncologist Ifeoma Ezeukwu from the Federal Medical Center explained barriers to care.
“Ignorance is also another barrier,” she said. “I have come across so many people who will tell you, I never knew children could have cancer. … Early detection is key to survival in childhood cancer unlike the adult cancers; children, the prognosis are better in them when they are seen early, once you capture cancer early, you know that cure is what is expected.”
Kemi Adekanye founded the Okapi Children Cancer Foundation in 2017 and has been mobilizing community awareness and support. Funded by friends and family, the foundation has helped over 200 children access treatment, despite costs starting at $180.
Adekanye says they’re focused on influencing government action for pediatric cancer.
“As of today, there’s currently no supports being provided to children battling cancer, so we expect the government to intervene in terms of subsidizing treatment costs for children battling cancer, as well as equipping our hospitals more so people don’t have to travel far and wide to access oncology centers,” she said.
Health policy analyst Ejike Oji called for systemic reforms across Nigeria to ease the burden on families.
“The government should establish dedicated pediatric oncology wards across the country to provide grounds for training health care professionals to ensure their skills are good in diagnosing and treating childhood cancer,” he said. “If you look at the cancer from diagnosis to treatment, it’s a lot of money. Radiotherapy is one of the most expensive; most families cannot afford.”
The large turnout at the 8th Childhood Cancer Awareness Walk — ‘Bridge The Gap’ —showed the power of community mobilization.
Nigerians are advocating for better health care, early diagnosis and family support, ensuring no child faces cancer alone.
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NEW YORK — Pete Rose, baseball’s career hits leader and fallen idol who undermined his historic achievements and Hall of Fame dreams by gambling on the game he loved and once embodied, has died. He was 83.
Stephanie Wheatley, a spokesperson for Clark County in Nevada, confirmed on behalf of the medical examiner that Rose died Monday. Wheatley said the cause and manner of death had not yet been determined.
For fans who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s, no player was more exciting than the Cincinnati Reds’ No. 14, “Charlie Hustle,” the brash superstar with the shaggy hair, puggish nose and muscular forearms. At the dawn of artificial surfaces, divisional play and free agency, Rose was old school, a conscious throwback to baseball’s early days. Millions could never forget him crouched and scowling at the plate, running full speed to first even after drawing a walk, or sprinting for the next base and diving headfirst into the bag.
A 17-time All-Star, the switch-hitting Rose played on three World Series winners. He was the National League MVP in 1973 and World Series MVP two years later. He holds the major league record for games played (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890) and the NL record for the longest hitting streak (44). He was the leadoff man for one of baseball’s most formidable lineups with the Reds’ championship teams of 1975 and 1976, with teammates that included Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan.
But no milestone approached his 4,256 hits, breaking his hero Ty Cobb’s 4,191 and signifying his excellence no matter the notoriety that followed. It was a total so extraordinary that you could average 200 hits for 20 years and still come up short. Rose’s secret was consistency, and longevity. Over 24 seasons, all but six played entirely with the Reds, Rose had 200 hits or more 10 times, and more than 180 four other times. He batted .303 overall, even while switching from second base to outfield to third to first, and he led the league in hits seven times.
“Every summer, three things are going to happen,” Rose liked to say, “the grass is going to get green, the weather is going to get hot, and Pete Rose is going to get 200 hits and bat .300.”
Rose was Rookie of the Year in 1963, but he started off 0 for 12 with three walks and a hit by pitch before getting his first major league hit, an eighth-inning triple off Pittsburgh’s Bob Friend. It came in Cincinnati on April 13, 1963, the day before Rose’s 22nd birthday. He reached 1,000 in 1968, 2,000 just five years later and 3,000 just five years after that.
He moved into second place, ahead of Hank Aaron, with hit No. 3,772, in 1982. No. 4,000 was off the Phillies’ Jerry Koosman in 1984, exactly 21 years to the day after his first hit. He caught up with Cobb on Sept. 8, 1985, and surpassed him three days later, in Cincinnati, with Rose’s mother and teenage son, Pete Jr., among those in attendance.
Rose was 44 and the team’s player-manager. Batting left-handed against the San Diego Padres’ Eric Show in the first inning, he smacked a 2-1 slider into left field, a clean single. The crowd of 47,000-plus stood and yelled. The game was halted to celebrate. Rose was given the ball and the first base bag, then wept openly on the shoulder of first base coach and former teammate, Tommy Helms.
Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, watching from New York, declared that Rose had “reserved a prominent spot in Cooperstown.” After the game, a 2-0 win for the Reds in which Rose scored both runs, he received a phone call from President Ronald Reagan.
“Your reputation and legacy are secure,” Reagan told him. “It will be a long time before anyone is standing in the spot where you’re standing now.”
Four years later, he was gone.
On March 20, 1989, Ueberroth (who would soon be succeeded by A. Bartlett Giamatti) announced that his office was conducting a “full inquiry into serious allegations” about Rose. Reports emerged that he had been relying on a network of bookies and friends and others in the gambling world to place bets on baseball games, including some with the Reds. Rose denied any wrongdoing, but the investigation found that the “accumulated testimony of witnesses, together with the documentary evidence and telephone records reveal extensive betting activity by Pete Rose in connection with professional baseball and, in particular, Cincinnati Reds games, during the 1985, 1986, and 1987 baseball seasons.”
Betting on baseball had been a primal sin since 1920, when several members of the Chicago White Sox were expelled for throwing the 1919 World Series — to the Cincinnati Reds. Baseball’s Rule 21, posted in every professional clubhouse, proclaims that “Any player, umpire or club or league official or employee who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.”
As far back as the 1970s, Bench and others had worried about Rose. By all accounts, he never bet against his own team, but even betting on the Reds left himself open to blackmail and raised questions about whether a given managerial decision was based on his own financial interest.
In August 1989, at a New York press conference, Giamatti spoke some of the saddest words in baseball history: “One of the game’s greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts.” Giamatti announced that Rose had agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball, a decision that in 1991 the Hall of Fame would rule left him ineligible for induction. Rose attempted to downplay the news, insisting that he had never bet on baseball and that he would eventually be reinstated.
Within weeks of his announcement, Giamatti was dead from a heart attack. But the ban remained in place and Rose never made it to the Hall in his lifetime, although he did receive 41 votes in 1992 (when 323 votes were needed), around the time the Hall formally ruled that those banned from the game could never be elected. His status was long debated. Rose’s supporters including Donald Trump, who in 2015, the year before he was elected president, tweeted: “Can’t believe Major League Baseball just rejected @PeteRose_14 for the Hall of Fame. He’s paid the price. So ridiculous — let him in!”
Meanwhile, his story changed. In a November 1989 memoir, written with “The Boys of Summer” author Roger Kahn, Rose again claimed innocence, only to reverse himself in 2004. He desperately wanted to come back, and effectively destroyed his chances. He would continue to spend time at casinos, insisting he was there for promotion, not gambling. He believed he had “messed up” and that his father would have been ashamed, but he still bet on baseball, albeit legally.
“I don’t think betting is morally wrong. I don’t even think betting on baseball is morally wrong,” he wrote in “Play Hungry,” a memoir released in 2019. “There are legal ways, and there are illegal ways, and betting on baseball the way I did was against the rules of baseball.”
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little rock, arkansas — Arkansas sued YouTube and parent company Alphabet on Monday, saying the video-sharing platform is made deliberately addictive and fueling a mental health crisis among youth in the state.
Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office filed the lawsuit in state court, accusing them of violating the state’s deceptive trade practices and public nuisance laws. The lawsuit claims the site is addictive and has resulted in the state spending millions on expanded mental health and other services for young people.
“YouTube amplifies harmful material, doses users with dopamine hits, and drives youth engagement and advertising revenue,” the lawsuit said. “As a result, youth mental health problems have advanced in lockstep with the growth of social media, and in particular, YouTube.”
Alphabet’s Google, which owns the video service and is also named as a defendant in the case, denied the lawsuit’s claims.
“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls,” Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement. “The allegations in this complaint are simply not true.”
YouTube requires users under 17 to get their parent’s permission before using the site, while accounts for users younger than 13 must be linked to a parental account. But it is possible to watch YouTube without an account, and kids can easily lie about their age.
The lawsuit is the latest in an ongoing push by state and federal lawmakers to highlight the impact that social media sites have on younger users. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in June called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms about their effects on young people’s lives, like those now mandatory on cigarette boxes.
Arkansas last year filed similar lawsuits against TikTok and Facebook parent company Meta, claiming the social media companies were misleading consumers about the safety of children on their platforms and protections of users’ private data. Those lawsuits are still pending in state court.
Arkansas also enacted a law requiring parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts, though that measure has been blocked by a federal judge.
Along with TikTok, YouTube is one of the most popular sites for children and teens. Both sites have been questioned in the past for hosting, and in some cases promoting, videos that encourage gun violence, eating disorders and self-harm.
YouTube in June changed its policies about firearm videos, prohibiting any videos demonstrating how to remove firearm safety devices. Under the new policies, videos showing homemade guns, automatic weapons and certain firearm accessories like silencers will be restricted to users 18 and older.
Arkansas’ lawsuit claims that YouTube’s algorithms steer youth to harmful adult content, and that it facilitates the spread of child sexual abuse material.
The lawsuit doesn’t seek specific damages, but asks that YouTube be ordered to fund prevention, education and treatment for “excessive and problematic use of social media.”
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Los Angeles — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died.
Kristofferson died at his home in Maui, Hawaii on Saturday, family spokesperson Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.
McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by his family. No cause was given. He was 88.
Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classics standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.
“There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kristofferson held by BMI. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.”
As an actor, he played the leading man opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a fondness for shoot-out Westerns and cowboy dramas.
He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England and turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.
At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Johnny Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former U.S. Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, while he did land a helicopter at Cash’s house, the ‘man in black’ wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut, and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.
In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.
“Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.”
One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, Performing Songwriter, that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”
Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.
Hits that Kristofferson recorded include “Why Me,” “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do),” “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I’d Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”
In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.
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Cape Canaveral, Florida — The two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station since June welcomed their new ride home with Sunday’s arrival of a SpaceX capsule.
SpaceX launched the rescue mission on Saturday with a downsized crew of two astronauts and two empty seats reserved for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will return next year. The Dragon capsule docked in darkness high over Botswana as the two craft soared 420 kilometers above Earth.
NASA switched Wilmore and Williams to SpaceX following concerns over the safety of their Boeing Starliner capsule. It was the first Starliner test flight with a crew, and NASA decided the thruster failures and helium leaks that cropped up after liftoff were too serious and poorly understood to risk the test pilots’ return. So Starliner returned to Earth empty earlier this month.
The Dragon carrying NASA’s Nick Hague and the Russian Space Agency’s Alexander Gorbunov will remain at the space station until February, turning what should have been a weeklong trip for Wilmore and Williams into a mission lasting more than eight months.
Two NASA astronauts were pulled from the mission to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return leg.
NASA likes to replace its station crews every six months or so. SpaceX has provided the taxi service since the company’s first astronaut flight in 2020. NASA also hired Boeing for ferry flights after the space shuttles were retired, but flawed software and other Starliner issues led to years of delays and more than $1 billion in repairs.
Starliner inspections are underway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with post-flight reviews of data set to begin this week.
“We’re a long way from saying, ‘Hey, we’re writing off Boeing,'” NASA’s associate administrator Jim Free said at a pre-launch briefing.
The arrival of two fresh astronauts means the four who have been up there since March can now return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule in just over a week. Their stay was extended a month because of the Starliner turmoil.
Although Saturday’s liftoff went well, SpaceX said the rocket’s spent upper stage ended up outside its targeted impact zone in the Pacific because of a bad engine firing. The company has halted all Falcon launches until it figures out what went wrong.
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