LONDON – Malaria may be killing around twice as many people as experts previously thought, and it could also be hitting older children and adults – long considered the least susceptible – a new study suggests.
Malaria cases and deaths have been dropping since 2004, largely because of big campaigns to distribute bednets, spray homes with insecticide and make better drugs available. In December, the World Health Organization reported about 655,000 had died from the disease in 2010.
But researchers using newly available data and modeling tools put the 2010 figure at about 1.2 million, about 90 percent of which are in Africa.
The findings also challenge the belief that children who grow up in areas with malaria develop immunity to the disease as they get older. Doctors have long thought children under 5 years old and pregnant women were the most susceptible to the mosquito-borne disease.
Nation
America’s no-fly list doubles in past year
The Obama administration has more than doubled, to about 21,000 names, its secret list of suspected terrorists who are banned from flying to or within the United States, including about 500 Americans, the Associated Press has learned. The government lowered the bar for being added to the list, even as it says it’s closer than ever to defeating al-Qaida.
The size of the government’s secret no-fly list has jumped from about 10,000 in the past year, according to government figures provided to The AP.
N.Y. police wanted to spy on mosques
The New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Shiite Muslims and their mosques, based solely on their religion, as a way to sweep the Northeast for signs of Iranian terrorists, according to interviews and a newly obtained secret police document.
The document offers a glimpse into the thinking of NYPD intelligence officers and how, when looking for potential threats, they focused their spying efforts on mosques and Muslims. Police analysts listed a dozen mosques from central Connecticut to the Philadelphia suburbs. None has been linked to terrorism, either in the document or publicly by federal agencies.
Abuse accusations not first for teacher
Sheriff’s deputies recommended in 1994 that a sex charge should be filed against a Los Angeles teacher now suspected of taking bondage-style photographs of children in his class, but prosecutors said there wasn’t enough evidence in the case involving a 10-year-old girl, authorities disclosed Thursday.
The girl claimed elementary school teacher Mark Berndt reached toward her genitals during class, but she pushed his hand away, sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Scott said.
Court clears way for cuckolded plaintiff
Over the years, Eric Fischer had grown suspicious of whether he was really the father of his youngest daughter. So he secretly got a sample of the girl’s hair, grabbed one from his own head and sent them to a lab for DNA testing.
Sure enough, he was right. The girl was the product of an affair between Fischer’s wife, Pamela Tournier, and her business partner, Richard Zollino.
Now, five years later, the Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that Fischer can proceed with a lawsuit demanding that the girl’s biological father pay him $190,000 – half the cost of raising her. She’s now a young woman of 19.
World
U.N. rebuke of Syria revised, embraced
Western ambassadors on the U.N. Security Council on Thursday embraced a revised resolution aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria and predicted rapid approval after removal of an explicit demand that President Bashar Assad step aside.
The latest draft, obtained by The Associated Press, still “fully supports” the Arab League’s Jan. 22 decision to “facilitate a political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system.” But it removes a clause calling for Assad to hand power to a deputy before a new government is created.
Panetta: NATO allies accept Afghan plan
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that NATO allies have agreed broadly to step back from the lead combat role in Afghanistan and let local forces take their place as early as next year, a shortened timetable that startled officials and members of Congress.
Obama administration officials scrambled with varying degrees of clarity to explain that Panetta’s announcement en route to the NATO defense ministers’ meeting here that he hoped combat troops would move into a training and assistance role beginning in 2013 was not a policy change, but an optimistic look at the already-established timetable.
William arrives in Falklands for duty
Prince William arrived in the Falkland Islands on Thursday for a six-week deployment as a search and rescue helicopter pilot, British officials said, amid an escalating sovereignty dispute with Argentina over the territory that sparked a war between the nations 30 years ago.
The prince’s visit has riled Argentina, which claims the islands 290 miles off its coast that it calls Las Malvinas. Britain’s defense ministry has insisted William’s deployment is routine, but Argentina’s foreign ministry likened the move to a conquistador’s arrival.
