Nation
Student diagnosed with leprosyLOS ANGELES — A case of leprosy, extremely rare in the United States, has been diagnosed in a Southern California elementary school student, sending health officials scrambling to reassure parents and the public that the disease is hard to transmit and easy to treat.Two children from Indian Hills Elementary School in Jurupa Valley had initially been diagnosed by a local doctor with the condition known medically as Hansen’s disease, Riverside County health officials said Thursday. But this week they received results from the National Hansen’s Disease Laboratory Research Program in Baton Rouge, La., and they showed that only one of the children had tested positive.E-mails were sent to parents at the elementary school, where classrooms had been sanitized since the initial diagnosis, emphasizing how hard it is to contract leprosy and that there is no danger to the child’s classmates.“It is incredibly difficult to contract leprosy,” said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County’s public health officer. “The school was safe before this case arose and it still is.”
Chicago mayor has anti-crime blueprintCHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel appealed to Chicago residents for help fighting the troubling rise in city violence, announcing youth mentoring efforts, policing strategies and gun legislation as his plan to fight and prevent crime.He used the invitation-only speech Thursday to cap off announcements in recent days that the city will add nearly 1,000 police officers, expand the use of body cameras and require de-escalation training, reforms in the wake of an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the police department.The former White House chief of staff highlighted a new $36 million public-private mentoring partnership that’ll help over 7,000 youths over the next three years, veering from prepared remarks when describing the struggles young people face in neighborhoods tormented by gangs and violence.
Weiner investigated in 2 states for chatsNEW YORK — Online communications between disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner and a 15-year-old girl are being investigated by law enforcement agencies in New York and North Carolina, officials said Thursday.The office of Jill Westmoreland Rose, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina in Charlotte, has “begun investigative efforts,” a spokeswoman said. An FBI task force in New York designed to combat the sexual exploitation of children also is investigating, according to a law enforcement official who wasn’t authorized to discuss an ongoing case and spoke on the condition of anonymity.The investigations were launched after an online outlet, DailyMail.com, on Wednesday published an interview with the girl in which she describes online and text exchanges with Weiner that went on for several months this year. The girl said that during a Skype chat Weiner asked her to undress and touch herself.Weiner, a Democrat who resigned from Congress in 2011 amid a sexting scandal, didn’t return text or e-mail messages seeking comment on Thursday.
