Dengue Re-emerges in U.S., Spurring Race for Vaccine
June 28 — For the first time in more than 65 years, dengue has returned the continental United States, according to an advisory the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued in late May. While a few cases were reported earlier, they were primarily in Americans who had caught the virus abroad or at the Texas-Mexico border.
The upsurge is not unexpected. Experts say more than half the world’s population will be at risk by 2085 because of greater urbanization, global travel and climate change. Over the past 30 years, a global outcry against using the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, has led to the resurgence of the mosquito, a voracious consumer of human blood and carrier of infectious disease.
Epidemics have become routine in Latin America, a continent on the verge of becoming highly endemic. Outbreaks are today raging in Brazil, Guatemala and other nations. Thailand, within a week of its annual dengue season this year, has already reported 18,000 cases and 20 deaths, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
BLOG: Rikers Island, NYC
12/08– “Visitor for Dawkins,” shouted the corrections officer at Rikers Island, New York City’s prison.
I nodded at him and joined the line of mostly women and a few kids. A few frisks later, we walked into a hall filled with plastic playroom furniture. A door opened and officers escorted a line of men into the room.
I didn’t remember what Dawkins looked like. He’d had his back turned to me in court. Always in a frumpy gray sweatshirt, a tattoo on his neck.
Dawkins arrived. He looked like his dad (Winston, always impeccably dressed in a three piece suit and fedora), but younger and taller. I pumped his hand thinking melodramatically, hands that’ve killed twice. He was again in gray, this time a standard issue jumpsuit, torn at the crotch. He had seven tattoos, none from prison, he assured me. Tattoos acquired in prison are a sign of gang affiliation.
I asked him at one point why he was carrying a steak knife in his pocket at the age of 14? For his first murder, Dawkins had stabbed the neighborhood bully in the neck, severing a major artery and killing him.
He smiled his first smile. It lighted up his face, revealing for an instant something deeper, a shade of the personality he had been hiding. His lightly bearded cheek dimpled.
Then it closed up. He launched into his lie, repeating it again and again with increasing pitch and crescendo. He talked in circles. He touched my knee to reinforce his point. My body strained against the light touch.
I was disappointed. I’d expected an ideal character for my narrative, but the perfect is often the exception rather than the rule. He was what he was, perfectly human.
I asked him about his second murder. He said he didn’t do it. His lawyer had said he was a nasty piece.
High-Speed Rail Will Spur Growth in Hub Cities, Says Mayors Report
June 14 – Billions of dollars of new business and tens of thousands of jobs will flow to four hub cities — Los Angeles, Chicago, Orlando and Albany, N.Y. — where plans for major high-speed rail networks are located, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Their report, released in Oklahoma City today, is the first attempt to put numbers on the widely held belief that high-speed rail can stimulate local economies and act as a driver of growth. The Obama administration has invested $8 billion in federal stimulus money to create 13 high-speed rail corridors.
The benefits of traveling between 110 and 220 miles per hour will mean better connectivity, shorter travel times and new development around train stations, according to the report. The changes will create 150,000 new jobs and some $19 billion in new businesses by 2035.