14th MERS death

14th MERS death

SEOUL, South Korea

Authorities in South Korea temporarily closed two hospitals amid persistent fears over the MERS virus outbreak, which has killed 14 people through today, though health officials continue to claim the outbreak already has peaked.

Twelve new infections were reported today, and a 67-year-old woman became the latest fatality, the Health Ministry reported.

Nearly 140 people in South Korea have been diagnosed with Middle East respiratory syndrome since the country reported its first case last month. The outbreak, the largest outside Saudi Arabia, has been occurring only in hospitals, among patients, family members who visited them and medical staff treating them.

Boy takes bat to school; 8 get shots

HELENA, Mont.

Eight people in Montana are receiving rabies shots as a precaution after a middle-school student found a bat at home and brought it to science class in a bag, health officials said.

The seventh-grade boy released it in a field before officials could test it for rabies. But the boy’s family of seven and a classmate who touched the bat Tuesday at North Middle School in Great Falls started the series of shots, officials said.

Rabies is transmitted through saliva, most often through bites and scratches, and it can be fatal if it is not treated soon after exposure.

N. Korea accuses US of biological warfare

UNITED NATIONS

North Korea is accusing the United States of targeting it with anthrax and wants the U.N. Security Council to look into they called America’s “biological warfare schemes.”

A letter from North Korea’s U.N. ambassador to the council president and the U.N. chief, made public Friday, claims that the U.S. “possesses deadly weapons of mass destruction” that it is trying to use against them.

U.S. defense officials disclosed in late May that low-concentration samples of live anthrax were shipped to labs in 19 states and four countries, including a U.S. military facility in South Korea.

The anthrax was supposed to have been killed with gamma rays before being shipped.

Listeria again found at Jeni’s factory

COLUMBUS

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams has found listeria in its plant again and has halted production and closed retail shops for the second time since April, the company said Friday.

Listeria was discovered during routine swabbing that is part of the monitoring process, and the Columbus-based company is taking steps to figure out how it got into the plant, CEO John Lowe said in a statement on the company’s website.

He said safety protocols worked as intended, and no ice cream was contaminated.

Mexico high court ruling step forward for gay marriage

MEXICO CITY

Mexico’s supreme court has ruled it is unconstitutional for Mexican states to bar same-sex marriages.

But the court’s ruling is considered a “jurisprudential thesis” and does not invalidate any state laws, meaning gay couples denied the right to wed would have to turn to the courts individually. Given the ruling, judges and courts would have to approve same-sex marriages.

The high court ruled that any state law that considers the ultimate purpose of marriage to be “procreation, and or defines [marriage] as celebrated between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.”

Gay marriage is legal in some parts of Mexico, including Mexico City and the northern state of Coahuila.

Associated Press