A Norwegian woman has died after contracting rabies from a stray puppy in the Philippines. Birgitte Kallestad, 24, was on holiday with friends when they found the puppy on a street, her family said in a statement. The puppy is thought to have infected her when it bit her after they took it back to their resort.

She fell ill soon after returning to Norway, and died on Monday at the hospital where she worked. It is the first rabies-related death in Norway for more than 200 years. “Our dear Birgitte loved animals,” said her family. “Our fear is that this will happen to others who have a warm heart like her”.

Rabies is treatable but left untreated, it can cause a life-threatening infection of the brain and nervous system in humans. The disease kills thousands of people every year, mostly in Asia and Africa, where it is prevalent. Norway’s government does not make rabies vaccinations compulsory for citizens travelling to the Philippines, but Ms Kallestad’s family has now called for a change in the law. “If we can achieve this, the death of our sunbeam can save others,” the family said. No-one from Norway’s public health body was immediately available for comment.(BBC)…[+]

WASHINGTON- entrepreneur Jeff Bezos unveiled yesterday a mockup of a lunar lander being built by his Blue Origin rocket company and touted his moon goals in a strategy aimed at capitalizing on the Trump administration’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years. The world’s richest man and Amazon.com Inc’s chief executive waved an arm and a black drape behind him dropped to reveal the two-story-tall mockup of the unmanned lander dubbed Blue Moon during an hour-long presentation at Washington’s convention center, just several blocks from the White House.

The lander will be able to deliver payloads to the lunar surface, deploy up to four smaller rovers and shoot out satellites to orbit the moon, Bezos told the audience, which included NASA officials and potential Blue Moon customers. His media event followed Vice President Mike Pence’s March 26 announcement that NASA plans to build a space platform in lunar orbit and put American astronauts on the moon’s south pole by 2024 “by any means necessary,” four years earlier than previously planned.

“I love this,” Bezos said of Pence’s timeline. “We can help meet that timeline but only because we started three years ago. It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.” While Bezos went out of his way to praise Pence’s timeline, the billionaire has been the target of repeated criticism from President Donald Trump, who has referred to him as Jeff “Bozo.” Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which Trump has frequently targeted in his broadsides against the news media.(Reuters)…[+]

Teach­ers at the Ari­ma Hin­du School were forced to send pupils home and shut down op­er­a­tions for the rest of the day yes­ter­day, af­ter a gun at­tack near the com­pound left one man dead and a woman in­jured. Po­lice said around 7.40 am, Do­minic Almerales and De­siree Sparkle Layne went to serve evic­tion no­tices to their for­eign ten­ants who were rent­ing apart­ments from Almerales’ house on Tem­ple Street, Ari­ma.How­ev­er, po­lice said they were both greet­ed by bul­lets from two armed men. Almerales was re­port­ed­ly struck sev­er­al times and died on the spot. Layne was shot on her arm and leg but po­lice said the in­juries were not life-threat­en­ing. She was tak­en to Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where she was treat­ed and ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion last evening.

It was re­port­ed that Almerales, a fa­ther of one, was a me­chan­ic and land­lord who lives close to his apart­ments on Tem­ple, Street. Guardian me­dia was told Almerales had heard his for­eign ten­ants were team­ing up with gangs in the area and de­cid­ed to evict them from his prop­er­ty. A res­i­dent, who was tak­ing her child to school at the time of the at­tack, told Guardian Me­dia she had to run for cov­er when she heard loud ex­plo­sions close to the school. This was fol­lowed by po­lice sirens blar­ing as of­fi­cers ar­rived on the scene.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]