08Feb
Brazil team probing possible COVID-19 deaths among Yanomami
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The Brazilian agency that provides health care for the Indigenous says it has sent a team to the Yanomami people’s territory in the remote Amazon rainforest to investigate a report that nine children have died with COVID-19 symptoms. A member of the Yanomami group who is president of the local health council alerted the Sesai agency about the deaths after receiving the information second-hand from residents of two villages. He told The Associated Press on Thursday that the nine victims died in January and had not been been tested for the coronavirus. He also says that neither of the villages near the border with Venezuela have received visits from government health workers in more than 60 days.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Park officials reported more than 3.8 million people visited Yellowstone National Park last year despite the closures related to the coronavirus pandemic, down only 5% compared to 2019. The Billings Gazette reported that the park closed March 24 to help limit the spread of COVID-19 and was closed all of April. The two entrances in Wyoming reopened on May 18 and the three entrances in Montana reopened June 1. Officials say visitation in September and October were the busiest on record with more than 837,000 people in September and more than 359,000 people in October. In comparison, visitation at Yellowstone reached 4 million in 2019, 4.11 million in 2018 and 2017 and 4.25 million in 2016.
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — Sentencing has been delayed for a former staffer at a West Virginia veterans hospital who pleaded guilty to intentionally killing seven patients with fatal doses of insulin. A federal judge on Friday granted a motion by attorneys for Reta Mays to push back her sentencing. It now will be held on May 11-12. It had been scheduled for Feb. 18-19. Prosecutors had opposed the request as unreasonable. The former nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg admitted in July to purposely killing the veterans by injecting them with unprescribed insulin. She faces life sentences in each death.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaragua’s government says it has approved Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. The government outlet El 19 Digital said Wednesday that “Nicaragua is advancing in its negotiations with Russia to supply” the vaccine. It was the first vaccine approved in Nicaragua, which still awaits its first doses. The government had said in January that it had initiated efforts to acquire vaccines from various laboratories around the world and hoped to vaccinate 3.7 million people in an initial stage. The government of President Daniel Ortega has been criticized for not implementing stricter health measures to slow the virus’ spread.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have decided to stand by two GOP lawmakers who have polarized the party, voting to retain Liz Cheney as their No. 3 leader and saying they’d fight a Democratic push to kick Marjorie Taylor Greene off her committees. In a 145-61 vote by secret ballot Wednesday, House Republicans overwhelmingly rebuffed a rebellion by hard-right conservatives to toss Cheney over her vote last month to impeach then-President Donald Trump. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ridiculed Democrats for slating a House vote on Thursday that would remove Greene from her committees.
NEW YORK (AP) — Three business partners in a Manhattan-based private equity firm have been charged in a high-stakes scheme to use clients’ money to cover fake returns. Federal and state authorities said on Thursday that the defendants had raised more than $1.7 billion by creating an “aura of success.” New York officials were seeking $700 in restitution for 1,400 investors. A lawyer for one of the defendants said he would plead not guilty. Messages were left with attorneys for the others.