NATION & WORLD BRIEFS
CORRECTION
A USA TODAY story Thursday about toxic air emissions contained an inaccurate statistic. According to Environmental Protection Agency assessments, about 104,000 people who live within about 6 miles of plants that make synthetic organic chemicals and various polymers and resins, including neoprene, have cancer risks greater than 1 in 10,000 – which the EPA considers an “elevated” risk level.
Kennedy threatens legal action after 5th protection denial
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threatened to sue the Department of Homeland Security after being denied Secret Service protection for the fifth time.
In a March 29 letter posted to X, Kennedy’s attorney said the department was “ignoring the real risks” to the candidate, including an event attendee who carried two loaded handguns, and withholding protection because Kennedy is challenging President Joe Biden.
The Secret Service began protecting presidential and vice presidential candidates after the 1968 assassination of Kennedy’s father. Criteria for independent and third-party candidates include polling at 20% in the Real Clear Politics national average for 30 days, according to the Secret Service website. Kennedy was polling at around 11% Thursday.
The Homeland Security secretary also has “broad discretion” in determining which candidates qualify, the website says.
Michigan health sites to offer free gun locks for residents
DETROIT – Gun locks will soon be available free to the public at local health department offices in Michigan as part of a new program by the Michigan State Police and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The locks are to be given out at MDHHS county offices and many local health departments statewide to help Michiganders comply with a new secure gun storage law that went into effect in February.
The law now requires all unattended firearms to be unloaded and locked with a locking device or stored in a locked box or safe if a child could have access to it. Anyone who fails to properly lock a gun that a child later uses to injure themselves or another person can be charged with a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $7,500.
If an unsecured gun is used by a child to kill another person or themselves, the owner can be charged with a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
Police say astrologer suspected of eclipse day double murder-suicide
A Los Angeles woman who police say fatally stabbed her partner before throwing her two children out of her moving car was an astrologer who posted days earlier that the eclipse is “a form of spiritual warfare” and “the apocalypse is here.”
Danielle Johnson, 34, who went by the alias “Danielle Ayoka” online and described herself as an astrologer, was responsible for what authorities say was a “double-murder suicide” hours before the eclipse became visible in the area.
Investigators are not looking at the eclipse as a possible motive for the crimes, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Guy Golan. “Unfortunately, both parties are no longer with us, and that makes uncovering the facts of the motive problematic,” he wrote of Johnson and her partner, Jaelen Chaney, 29. Investigators will continue to interview friends, families and witnesses in an attempt to piece together events, he added.
UN: Nearly 55 million people face hunger in West, Central Africa
DAKAR, Senegal – Soaring prices have helped fuel a food crisis in West and Central Africa, where nearly 55 million people will struggle to feed themselves in the coming months, United Nations humanitarian agencies warned Friday.
The number of people facing hunger during the June-August lean season has quadrupled over the last five years, they said, noting that economic challenges such as double-digit inflation and stagnating local production had become major drivers of the crisis, beyond recurrent conflicts in the region.
Among the worst-affected countries are Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Mali, where around 2,600 people in northern areas are likely to experience catastrophic hunger, the World Food Program, U.N. children’s agency UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint statement.
Due to the food shortages, malnutrition is alarmingly high, the agencies said, estimating that 16.7 million children younger than 5 are acutely malnourished across West and Central Africa.
Russian city calls for mass evacuations due to rapidly rising flood waters
ORENBURG, Russia – Authorities in the Russian city of Orenburg called on thousands of residents to evacuate immediately on Friday due to rapidly rising flood waters after major rivers burst their banks due to a historic deluge of melting snow.
Water was also rising sharply in another Russian region, Kurgan; and in neighboring Kazakhstan, the authorities said 100,000 people had been evacuated so far, as rapidly warming temperatures melted heavy snow and ice.
The deluge has forced over 120,000 people from their homes in Russia’s Ural Mountains, Siberia and Kazakhstan as major rivers such as the Ural, which flows through Kazakhstan into the Caspian, overwhelmed embankments.
Emergency workers said water levels in the Ural River were more than 6 feet above what they regarded as a dangerous level.
Surrogate parenthood is ‘inhuman,’ Italy’s Meloni says
ROME – Surrogate parenthood is an “inhuman” practice that treats children as “supermarket products,” Italy’s prime minister said on Friday, urging Parliament to pass a bill to prosecute those who go abroad for it.
Parenting via surrogacy is already illegal in Italy, punishable with jail and fines, but the right-wing coalition of Giorgia Meloni has vowed to impose an even stricter ban on it as part of its conservative agenda.
“No one can convince me that it is an act of freedom to rent one’s womb; no one can convince me that it is an act of love to consider children as an over-the-counter product in a supermarket,” she said at an event in Rome.
The Italian Parliament is discussing a bill drafted by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party to prohibit Italians from having a baby in countries where surrogacy is legal – such as the United States and Canada.
The bill, approved by Italy’s lower house Chamber and now at the Senate, has been criticized by rights groups and some opposition politicians who see it as targeting LGBTQ people.
Frail pope to embark on Asia trip, his longest ever, in September
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis will take his first overseas trip of the year and the longest of his 11-year papacy, traveling to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore Sept. 2-13, the Vatican said Friday.
The Asia and Oceania trip has been on the papal agenda for some time, but there had been doubts on whether the 87-year-old pontiff would embark on it given his increasing frailty and a record of skipping engagements due to health problems.
His last international journey was a two-day stay in Marseille, France, in September. In November, he pulled out of a trip to the COP28 climate conference in Dubai because of a lung inflammation.
In recent months, the pope has been suffering on and off from what the Vatican has described as a cold, bronchitis and influenza, and he needs a wheelchair or a cane to move around due to a knee ailment.
His agenda this year also foresees Italian day trips to Venice on April 28, Verona on May 18 and Trieste on July 7 and a visit to Belgium whose dates have not been confirmed but that is expected in the second half of September.