California to require COVID-19 vaccines for schoolchildren, governor says

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) -California will become the first U.S. state to mandate statewide COVID-19 vaccinations for schoolchildren as early as January, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday.

But first the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must fully approve inoculations for their age groups, he said.

The Democrat made the announcement at a news briefing as the United States remains a few hundred deaths shy of 700,000 COVID-19 deaths.

Several large school districts in California, the most populous U.S. state, already mandate COVID-19 vaccines for some students.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s largest, requires them for children over the age of 12, for whom the FDA has authorized their emergency use.

Public schools in San Diego will require vaccines for students over the age of 16 in December, and in Hoboken, New Jersey, students must be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing for the virus.

Newsom’s new policy would add COVID-19 to the list of ailments against which children must be vaccinated to attend public or private schools.

Public health officials say the state’s strict COVID-19 public health orders helped to slow the transmission of the virus in recent weeks.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Additional reporting by Anurag Maan; Editing by Howard Goller)

Joy as parents reunited with kidnapped Nigerian students

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Ninety children abducted from a school in Nigeria were reunited on Friday with their parents after being held captive for nearly three months, part of a wave of mass kidnappings by armed gangs that have spread fear across the north of the country.

“Today is the happiest and most joyful day for me and my family,” said Ali Gimi, whose five children were among those kidnapped from an Islamic school in Niger state on May 30.

“We had lost our joy and happiness. This is like a dream, after I had started losing hope,” he said. “As I am speaking to you, the whole of our family has gathered at my house to celebrate their safe return.”

Authorities say 136 children were initially seized at the school, though some later escaped. One, a five year old boy, died during captivity. The kidnappers had initially said six had died, but this proved to be a lie to scare parents into paying the ransom.

“We suffered terribly in their hands,” one child, Ahmed Mohamed, told journalists. “They tied us up from morning till evening.”

Mass kidnappings of schoolchildren, once a notorious tactic by Islamist militants to intimidate the population, have become a money-spinning industry for armed gangs demanding ransom payments. Authorities say 1,000 children have been abducted since December in northwestern Nigeria.

The 90 schoolchildren, along with two other abductees who were not identified, were released late on Thursday. Parents had sent a total of 65 million naira ($160,000) and six motorbikes as ransom, three parents told Reuters.

In a separate incident on Friday, kidnappers also released 15 students and four staff members who were taken earlier this month from an agricultural college in Zamfara state, a school source told Reuters.

The government has implored states not to pay ransoms, but desperate parents and communities often raise the funds themselves.

“We will do whatever it takes to bring them to justice,” Niger state Governor Abubakar Sani Bello said of the kidnappers. “We have put in place all necessary measures to hunt down and prosecute those involved in this heinous act.”

($1 = 411.0000 naira)

(Reporting By Maiduguri newsroom; Writing by Libby George; Editing by Peter Graff)

Driver hijacks, sets ablaze school bus in Italy, children flee unharmed

The wreckage of a bus that was set ablaze by its driver in protest against the treatment of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, is seen on a road in Milan, Italy, March 20, 2019. Vigili del Fuoco/Handout via REUTERS

MILAN (Reuters) – A bus full of schoolchildren was hijacked and set on fire by its own driver on Wednesday in an apparent protest against migrant drownings in the Mediterranean, Italian authorities said.

All 51 children managed to escape unhurt before the bus was engulfed in flames on the outskirts of Milan, Italy’s business capital. Police named the driver as Ousseynou Sy, a 47-year-old Italian citizen of Senegalese origin.

“He shouted, ‘Stop the deaths at sea, I’ll carry out a massacre’,” police spokesman Marco Palmieri quoted Sy as telling police after his arrest.

A video posted on Italian news sites showed the driver ramming the bus into cars on a provincial highway before the fire took hold. Children can be seen running away from the vehicle screaming and shouting “escape”.

One of the children told reporters that the driver had threatened to pour petrol over them and set them alight. One of group managed to call the police, who rushed to the scene and broke the bus windows to get everyone to safety.

Palmieri said some children were taken to hospital as a precautionary measure because they had bruises or were in a state of shock, but none suffered serious injuries.

A teacher who was with the middle school children was quoted by Ansa news agency as saying that the driver had said he wanted to get to the runway at Milan’s Linate airport.

An unnamed girl was also quoted as saying that Sy blamed deputy prime ministers Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio for the deaths of African migrants at sea.

The United Nations estimates that some 2,297 migrants drowned or went missing in the Mediterranean in 2018 as they tried to reach Europe.

A Libyan security official said on Tuesday that at least 10 migrants died when their boat sank off the Libyan coast near the western town of Sabratha.

The Italian government has closed its ports to charity rescue ships that pick up migrants off the Libyan coast. Salvini says this has helped reduce deaths because far fewer people are now putting to sea.

Human rights groups say deaths might have increased with hardly any boats now searching for the would-be refugees.

(Reporting by Sara Rossi and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

At least 18 people, mostly children, die in flash flood in Jordan

A child survivor is helped as residents and relatives gather outside a hospital near the Dead Sea, Jordan October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

DEAD SEA Jordan (Reuters) – At least 18 people, mainly schoolchildren and teachers, were killed on Thursday in a flash flood near Jordan’s Dead Sea that happened while they were on an outing, rescuers and hospital workers said.

Thirty-four people were rescued in a major operation involving police helicopters and hundreds of army troops, police chief Brigadier General Farid al Sharaa told state television. Some of those rescued were in a serious condition.

Many of those killed were children under 14. A number of families picnicking in the popular destination were also among the dead and injured, rescuers said, without giving a breakdown of numbers.

Hundreds of families and relatives converged on Shounah hospital a few kilometers from the resort area. Relatives sobbed and searched for details about the missing children, a witness said.

King Abdullah canceled a trip to Bahrain to follow the rescue operations, state media said.

Israel sent search-and-rescue helicopters to assist, an Israeli military statement said, adding the team dispatched at Amman’s request was operating on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.

Civil defense spokesman Captain Iyad al Omar told Reuters the number of casualties was expected to rise. Rescue workers using flashlights were searching the cliffs near the shore of the Dead Sea where bodies had been found.

A witness said a bus with 37 schoolchildren and seven teachers had been on a trip to the resort area when the raging flood waters swept them into a valley.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Alison Williams)