Rural Midwest hospitals struggling to handle surge
Rural Jerauld County in South Dakota didn’t see a single case of the coronavirus for more than two months stretching from June to August. But over the last two weeks, its rate of new cases per person soared to one of the highest in the nation.
“All of a sudden it hit, and as it does, it just exploded,” said Dr. Tom Dean, one of just three doctors who work in the county.
As the brunt of the virus has blown into the Upper Midwest and northern Plains, the severity of outbreaks in rural communities has come into focus. Doctors and health officials in small towns worry that infections may overwhelm communities with limited medical resources. And many say they are still running up against attitudes on wearing masks that have hardened along political lines and a false notion that rural areas are immune to widespread infections.
It ripped through the nursing home in Wessington Springs where both his parents lived, killing his father. The community’s six deaths may appear minimal compared with thousands who have died in cities, but they have propelled the county of about 2,000 people to a death rate roughly four times higher than the nationwide rate.
FRANCE Suspect in beheading was Chechen teen
A suspect shot dead by police after the beheading of a history teacher near Paris was an 18- year- old Chechen refugee unknown to intelligence services who posted a grisly claim of responsibility on social media minutes after the attack, officials said Saturday.
France’s anti- terrorism prosecutor’s office said authorities investigating the killing of Samuel Paty in Conflans- SainteHonorine on Friday arrested nine suspects, including the teen’s grandfather, parents and 17- year- old brother.
Paty had discussed caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad with his class, leading to threats, police officials said. Islam prohibits images of the prophet, asserting that they lead to idolatry. The officials could not be named because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing investigations.
French anti- terrorism prosecutor JeanFrancois Ricard told reporters that the Moscow- born suspect, who had been granted a 10- year residency in France as a refugee in March, was armed with a knife and an airsoft gun, which fires plastic pellets.
NEW YORK ‘ Big pile’ of eels dumped in park; impact not known
Andrew Orkin was taking a break from his evening jog to sit by Prospect Park Lake when he turned around and was startled to see a tangle of wriggling snakes.
“And quite a big pile — fully alive,” said Orkin, a music composer who lives near the Brooklyn park.
They turned out to be eels that had escaped from one of two large plastic bags that split open as a man dragged them to the shoreline. After dumping the eels in the lake, the man walked away, explaining to bystanders that “I just want to save lives.”
The illegal release late last month became a curiosity on social media, but the dumping of exotic animals in urban parks isn’t new. In cities across the country, nonnative birds, turtles, fish and lizards have settled into, and often disturbed, local ecosystems.
New Yorkers free thousands of nonnative animals every year, many of them abandoned pets that quickly die. But others can survive, reproduce and end up causing lasting harm.
AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA Countries announce new attempt at cease- fire
Armenia and Azerbaijan on Saturday announced a new attempt to establish a cease- fire in their conflict over NagornoKarabakh starting from midnight, a move that comes a week after a Russia- brokered truce frayed immediately after it took force.
The new agreement was announced following Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s calls with his counterparts from the two nations, in which he strongly urged them to abide by the Moscow deal. There were no immediate claims of violations after the truce took effect at midnight.
Nagorno- Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. The latest fighting that began on Sept. 27 has involved heavy artillery, rockets and drones, killing hundreds in the largest escalation of hostilities between the South Caucasus neighbors in more than a quarter- century.
Russia, which has a security pact with Armenia but has cultivated warm ties with Azerbaijan, hosted top diplomats from both countries for more than 10 hours of talks that ended with the initial cease- fire agreement. But the deal frayed immediately after the truce took effect last Saturday, with both sides blaming each other for breaching it.