You could not pay me enough money.
More than 100 passengers and over a dozen crew members have fallen ill with norovirus aboard the Caribbean Princess during a 13-day voyage through the Eastern Caribbean.
The Princess Cruises ship departed Port Everglades, Florida, last week and is scheduled to arrive at Port Canaveral in the state Monday. At the time of the outbreak, the vessel was carrying 3,116 passengers.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 102 passengers became sick with the highly contagious stomach virus. In addition, 13 of the 1,131 crew members onboard also reported illness.
Those affected experienced typical norovirus symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea, according to health officials. The virus is known for spreading rapidly in close-contact environments such as cruise ships, where shared dining spaces and frequently touched surfaces can make containment difficult once an outbreak begins.
Most people who contract norovirus begin showing symptoms within 12-48 hours of exposure, which can speed the spread of outbreaks in confined settings, health officials say.
Cruise lines are required to report outbreaks when illness reaches a certain threshold among passengers or crew, allowing health officials to provide guidance on sanitation, isolation procedures and testing.
The outbreak was reported while the ship was still at sea, prompting monitoring and a coordinated response with the cruise line. Princess Cruises has since stepped up cleaning efforts across the ship and isolated sick passengers and crew members to help limit further spread, according to the CDC.
“We quickly disinfected every area of the ship and added extra sanitizing throughout the voyage. Upon arrive to Port Canaveral on May 11, Caribbean Princess will undergo comprehensive cleaning and disinfection before departing for her next voyage,” a cruise line spokesperson told the New York Post.
Indonesian authorities have launched an urgent mission to rescue at least 20 hikers caught up in a volcano eruption on Mount Dukono.
A number of the hikers are believed to be foreign nationals, with officials saying that at least nine of them are Singaporean.
The volcano, located on Halmahera Island, erupted at 7.41am on Friday, spewing volcanic ash as high as 10km above the crater, said the country's volcanology agency.
Officials urged residents and tourists to avoid going within 4km of the crater while the agency also warned of the risks of rains causing volcanic mudflows.
The agency maintained the alert status at the mountain at its third highest level, agency head Lana Saria said in a statement.
There are not yet any reports of flight disruptions caused by the eruption.
Iwan Ramdani, the head of the local rescue agency, said they have deployed dozens of personnel, including police, to search for the hikers trapped by the eruption
This is not the first time that hikers have been left stranded due to a sudden eruption at Mount Dukono, one of the country’s most active volcanoes.
On 6 April a group of trekkers suddenly found themselves in the middle of an eruption with a towering column of ash and debris shooting into the sky, with dramatic video footage of the episode aired on Channel News Asia.
As panic set in some hikers instinctively rushed downhill, before a local guide intervened and instructed everyone to stay put. "Don't go down, come up! Up, up, up," the guide can be heard screaming in the video.
Descending during an active eruption can actually be more dangerous, as ash clouds, fast-moving debris and volcanic gases often travel downhill.
Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 280 million people with frequent seismic activity. It has 120 active volcanoes and sits along the “Ring of Fire”, a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In November last year, civilians had to run for safety after the country’s Mount Semeru volcano erupted, sending a 2km cloud of ash into the air. Months earlier, Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki in south-central Indonesia erupted in July, blanketing villages in thick volcanic ash.
That was one of the largest eruptions since 2010, when Mount Merapi, the country’s most volatile volcano, erupted on the densely populated island of Java killing 353 people and forcing over 350,000 people to evacuate.
Honestly I think it's a scam. I've heard stories about how people bought clothes only to get something else entirely or it's all staind and torn up.
KERR COUNTY — The sound of construction machinery filled the air as Kylie Nidever walked past properties ravaged months earlier by floodwaters.
Nidever’s home was among those in her Bumble Bee Hills neighborhood untouched by last year’s July 4 flood, one of the deadliest disasters in Texas history. The 35-year-old understood the draw of the tranquil Kerr County subdivision, where she played as a child in a nearby creek that fed the Guadalupe River. But she was taken aback by how enthusiastic most of her neighbors were to rebuild.
Nidever wondered why the government had let people build in any areas long known to be dangerous and whether leaders would intervene now.
“Is somebody going to come in and stop us?” said Nidever, who has considered moving. “If it happens again and it’s worse next time, people will die in this neighborhood.”
After last summer’s disaster, some Texas legislators scolded local officials for their decision not to invest in flood warning sirens and for the chaotic emergency response. Other elected leaders excused the storm as so massive that no one could have prepared for it.
But lawmakers failed to address the underlying problem: They have repeatedly rejected bills that could protect residents in the state’s most dangerous, flood-prone areas, an investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found.
The majority of the 137 people confirmed to have died across five counties in the July 4 tragedy were staying in places identified by the federal government as being at risk for flooding, the newsrooms found. These were places where state lawmakers had a chance to curb development, but didn’t.
The newsrooms reviewed nearly 60 years of legislation and identified over five dozen flood safety bills rejected by lawmakers.
The most consequential measures, experts said, could have saved lives by stopping construction in the areas at greatest risk for flooding, including where people later died on July 4.
“Had the state enacted any of that legislation, we might not have had the excruciating loss,” Char Miller, a Texas environmental historian who now teaches at Pomona College in California, said after learning of the newsrooms’ findings. “The continued inability of the state to pass legislation to protect its citizens means it’s not doing the one thing it’s supposed to do, which is defend the health and safety of those who call Texas home.”
Lawmakers also didn’t pass measures that would have forced buildings in flood-prone areas to be elevated; blocked certain types of structures, such as solid waste facilities, from being built close to bodies of water; or granted local leaders additional authority to curb potentially unsafe development.
Texas has more buildings in flood-prone areas — at least 650,000 structures — than any other state besides Florida, according to a ProPublica and Tribune analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency data. The analysis shows that only eight other states have a higher share of structures in flood-prone spots than Texas.
More people have died from floods in Texas, and more national flood insurance claims have been paid out here since 1980, than in nearly any state with the exception of Florida and Louisiana. Yet Texas trails at least 29 other states, including Florida, that have passed development standards that force structures to be built higher in flood-prone areas, according to a 2020 FEMA report.
“We need to resist this narrative that this disaster was unpreventable,” said Michael Slattery, director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at Texas Christian University. “The disaster is just shaped by policy choices made over what I thought were just years.” Instead, Slattery said, it was decades.
The need for stronger flood protections only grows more urgent, scientists say, as climate change makes heavy storms previously considered once in a lifetime more likely.
After this latest catastrophe, Gov. Greg Abbott called Texas politicians back for two special legislative sessions and tasked them with addressing aspects of the disaster. The only buildings legislators banned from flood-prone areas were youth camps, and only after intense lobbying by the grieving parents of 25 children and two counselors who died on July 4 at Camp Mystic. (Its executive director also died.)
Some Texas lawmakers over the years have pointed to protecting landowners’ rights to evaluate their own property risk as a reason not to pass additional regulations. At a hearing more than a month after the flood, Republican Rep. Wes Virdell, who represents Kerr County, said rural areas “enjoy the freedom to take our risk and build as we would like to.”
None of the top state leaders — Abbott, Lt. Gov Dan Patrick or House Speaker Dustin Burrows — responded to the newsrooms’ questions about whether legislators should enact stricter statewide building rules. Abbott’s office said he has addressed flooding issues by funding mitigation projects to lessen the storms’ impact.
Burrows’ office declined multiple interview requests, and Patrick’s office didn’t answer the newsrooms’ emails.
Without major changes, the same federal, state and local rules that permitted residents to construct their homes so close to the Guadalupe River in the first place are allowing many to build there again.
That includes 82-year-old Joan Connor and her husband, David Stearns, who live near Nidever in Bumble Bee Hills.
The couple had recently returned from an RV trip when last summer’s flood hit.
Water rose to Connor’s chest as she hollered to her 98-year-old husband. They needed to get out of their house. Connor and Stearns survived by wading and swimming out to their front yard, where the river transported them onto their pergola ledge and they clutched the wood structure’s roof supports.
The river’s muck filled the house. But they’d paid off the home. They didn’t fear another storm.
“It never crossed our mind to not rebuild,” Connor said.
The homes that now belong to Connor and Nidever didn’t exist in the 1960s.
Back then, Kerr County was a small community nestled in the rolling hills of Central Texas, 65 miles northwest of downtown San Antonio. Youth camps operated on the river. Family homes passed through generations. Then, the expansion of Interstate 10 in the following decade helped unlock a wave of development in the area, known as the Hill Country. Homes went up along the Guadalupe River, though longtime residents knew it could flood viciously and with little warning.
A national initiative to address the effects of floods was also just beginning. In 1968, Congress launched the National Flood Insurance Program, which offered federally backed insurance to residents in cities or counties that voluntarily joined. In exchange, the program would require local governments to use federal maps that identified regions at risk of floods. Joining also ultimately meant that cities and counties had to enforce specific development rules in those areas, such as requiring buildings to be high enough to withstand a certain level of flooding.
In Texas, the program triggered skepticism from some state lawmakers, local leaders and landowners. They viewed the flood regulations as an infringement of their property rights and worried flood risk maps would cause their property values to plummet.
Amid this resistance, two Democrats put forward what flood experts characterized as a radical proposal in 1973, after a deadly flood struck the Hill Country. The measure would have prohibited all construction of structures “for use by humans” in the floodway, including the area flanking the river where the most dangerous flooding often occurs. That would not only mean houses but also hospitals, schools and nursing homes. The state proposal would go further than the federal rules, which still allowed people to build in the floodway in some instances.
But when the day arrived to discuss the proposal in its first public hearing, one of the bill’s authors handed out a revised version that removed the strict floodway regulations.
Under the updated measure, the state would still have to create its own flood maps to define what areas were most at risk during a deluge, rather than wait for the federal government to draw them.
State lawmakers scoffed at the price tag, at least $16 million.
“I don’t think there’s a chance in the world that you’re going to get this kind of money and tax all people in the state of Texas to do this kind of work, at least not right now,” said state Rep. John Wilson, a Democrat on the committee considering the bill, which did not pass.
And so homes continued to be built in the floodway.
Today, Kerr is one of the Texas counties with the highest share of buildings in that dangerous zone, according to the newsrooms’ analysis, which ranks it eighth in the state.
Roughly half of those who died during last year’s floods were staying in the floodway, according to the latest FEMA map. Many buildings went up after legislators filed the 1973 bills that could have prevented their construction, a review of county appraisal data found.
“This is the biggest shame, that we weren’t able to pass those back then,” said Rachel Hanes, policy director of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance, a nonprofit representing parts of the Hill Country that has pushed for stringent statewide standards. “It would have just made a drastic difference in lives saved and billions of dollars in damage avoided over the past 50 years.”
On one idyllic half-mile stretch that winds along the Guadalupe, at least 27 people died. Sixteen of them were staying in homes in the floodway, the ProPublica and Tribune analysis found.
That part of the river became one of the deadliest spots across the Hill Country that weekend.
The cruise ship at the heart of a suspected hantavirus outbreak will sail to the Canary Islands, where Spain will receive it "in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles”, its health ministry said.
Global health authorities have said the suspected outbreak may be transmitting between passengers on board the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, but maintained the risk to global health is low.
It is currently off the coast of Cape Verde, where it is hoped the medical evacuation of a British crew member, along with a Dutch colleague and a passenger, will take place.
Operator Oceanwide Expeditions said that three people, two needing urgent care and a person associated with the guest who died on 2 May, will be evacuated to the Netherlands.
After that point, the vessel will begin repositioning towards the Canary Islands, which will take three days of sailing, with passengers on board.
"The World Health Organization has explained that Cape Verde is unable to carry out this operation," the Spanish health ministry said. "The Canary Islands are the closest location with the necessary capabilities. Spain has a moral and legal obligation to assist these people, among whom are also several Spanish citizens."
A total of seven suspected cases have been identified – including three deaths.
I could not find a flare that said "world "
El Niño is forecast to return as early as May, which could bring above-normal temperatures to almost everywhere on Earth, according to a new report.
El Niño events occur every two to seven years as part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) natural climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean. The ENSO cycle flips between the warmer El Niño phase and the cooler La Niña phase, with neutral periods in between. El Niño periods bring elevated sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific, thereby weakening or reversing trade winds and strongly disrupting global temperatures and rainfall patterns.
In a Global Seasonal Climate Update published April 21, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that El Niño is set to develop during the May to July season. Although the confidence of the prediction will improve after April, models currently suggest this El Niño could be a "strong event," according to the WMO.
"After a period of neutral conditions at the start of the year, climate models are now strongly aligned, and there is high confidence in the onset of El Niño, followed by further intensification in the months that follow," said Wilfran Moufouma Okia, chief of climate prediction at the WMO.
The impacts of El Niño periods on global agriculture are profound, with studies linking the events to famine in Europe; civil wars in tropical regions; and droughts, floods and forest fires around the world.
The most recent El Niño period lasted from May 2023 to March 2024 and contributed to 2024 being the hottest year on record.
Now, the Global Seasonal Climate Update predicts a "rapid warming trend" for May, June and July. Elevated temperatures are highly likely in southern North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Europe and Northern Africa.
Rainfall patterns will shift greatly across the world. Some parts of North America could get wetter, but the lack of a clear signal means it's currently unknown.
In March, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center announced that there was a 62% chance of El Niño emerging between June and August. NOAA has since said there's a 61% of El Niño returning in May to July and continuing through the rest of the year. The WMO does not use the term "super El Niño," but NOAA predicts a 25% chance of a "very strong" El Niño beginning in November.
The WMO will publish a revised El Niño update in late May.
Anytime I see videos similar to this, I become a little more and more afraid.
This happened five days ago, and since I don't see it posted yet, I thought I'll do so, since it absolutely belongs here...
Video by Taylor Rabe (not me), wolf technician for a non-profit wildlife conservation organisation, Yellowstone Forever - check out her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/taylorlrabe/ for loads of really interesting Yellowstone wolf footage...
By the way, this was a sign from Yellowstone's team to stay away from the area since Grizzlies were in the area due to a carcass. The pup is one of six of the Junction Butte pack.
Oh yeah, turn down the music...