Officials: Tourists likely have bubonic plague

Officials: Tourists likelyhave bubonic plague
NEW YORK -- Two tourists were hospitalized in New York City after they likely contracted bubonic plague in their home state of New Mexico, health officials said.
Authorities stressed that the plague is not a threat to the public. The disease occurs in 10 to 20 people each year in the United States -- mostly in rural areas of the West -- and are rarely spread person-to-person.
City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said Wednesday that a 53-year-old man had tested positive for the plague in preliminary tests and was hospitalized in critical condition.
A preliminary test on his 47-year-old wife was expected to be complete today. She was hospitalized in stable condition.
Their symptoms included fever and swollen lymph nodes, Beth Israel hospital spokesman Mike Quane said. They are taking antibiotics, which can usually treat the disease effectively.
Officials said the disease has not been seen in New York City in at least a century.
Florida county loses100,000 votes
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- In yet another Florida election blunder, officials in Broward County misplaced more than 100,000 ballots cast in this week's election.
Officials said the amended totals did not change the result of any races.
The county elections office discovered 103,222 votes Wednesday that had not been counted -- although officials had said 100 percent of the precincts were included in Tuesday night's results.
"It's another screw-up, and I'm not satisfied this is correct," Broward Republican leader George Lemieux said.
Two years ago, dimpled and hanging chads in Broward's punchcard ballots helped hold up the presidential election of George W. Bush for five weeks. More problems cropped up earlier this year, when difficulties with Florida's expensive new voting machines delayed results from the Democratic gubernatorial primary for a week.
After the primary, Broward spent at least $2.5 million to make things right.
Broward deputy elections supervisor Joe Cotter called Tuesday's mistake "a minor software thing."
"Once we realized it, we took the proper steps to fix it," he said.
Sentenced to death
TEHRAN, Iran -- A prominent reformist scholar has been sentenced to death on charges of insulting Islam's prophet and questioning the hard-line clergy's interpretation of Islam, his lawyer said today.
A court in Hamedan in western Iran sentenced university professor Hashem Aghajari to death, Saleh Nikbakht told The Associated Press.
Aghajari was detained in August after a closed hearing in Hamedan where he made a speech in June questioning the hard-line interpretations of the ruling clerics.
In his speech, Aghajari had said clerics' teachings on Islam were considered sacred simply because they were part of history, and he questioned why clerics were the only ones authorized to interpret Islam.
Victims of train fire
NORTH BRANFORD, Conn. -- A family that perished in a train fire in France early Wednesday was returning from a one-day visit to Paris, where the father had asked his wife to marry him more than 16 years ago.
Salvatore Michael Amore, 43, and his relatives had been vacationing in Germany, said sister-in-law Anna Marie Amore.
"They called Saturday. They were excited. They were having a great time," she said.
Besides Salvatore Amore, the victims were his wife, Jeanne, 43; daughter Emily Jeanne, 12; son Michael Bernhardt, 8; and mother, Susanne, 72.
The mother was born in Germany and the family was visiting relatives there, Anna Marie Amore said. They decided to take a side trip to Paris to show the children where Salvatore had proposed to Jeanne.
It was the first time the family had been overseas with their children, she said.
Associated Press