It was a slow-ish news week, this week with very few small stories but two huge ones about Chemical Weapons threats against airplanes and an inadvertent shipment of live Anthrax spores. We’ve also got a few stories you may have missed.
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Have a great weekend!!
U.S. Military Says It Mistakenly Shipped Live Anthrax Samples
It was a big story this week when live anthrax spores were inadvertently shipped from Dugway Proving Ground—an army facility in Utah—to 19 military and civilian labs across as many as nine states and an overseas site. The shipments were supposed to contain dead spores. Army and CDC officials have emphasized that these shipments pose no risk to the public and there are no suspected or confirmed cases of anthrax infections among lab workers.
NBC New York—“The Defense Department, acting “out of an abundance of caution,” has halted “the shipment of this material from its labs pending completion of the investigation,” [Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve] Warren said.”
FBI Looking Into Chemical Weapons Threats Against Planes
While many of us had a day off from work on Memorial Day, the FBI was investigating threats made against at least 10 flights claiming that chemical weapons were aboard the planes. These included a Delta Airings flight from London Heathrow, a United Airlines flight from Edinburgh, Scotland, and an Air France flight into New York that was escorted to the ground safely by two F-15 fighter jets.
NBC News—“The threats are not deemed credible, but the information has been passed along to the airlines anyway, out of an abundance of caution.
The male caller made threats against at least 10 flights in a quick series of calls to local police around the country. All but three planes have landed with nothing of concern found.”
Stories You May Have Missed
- South Korea has two more reported MERS-CoV cases, brining the total number of cases to five. It appears the patients either travelled to the Middle East themselves or had contact with those who had.
- MSF reports there is an ongoing cholera outbreak in Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania. According to the WHO, 31 people have died and more than 3,000 have been affected.
- Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, has said Russia’s promises to put nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad and Crimea are deeply troubling, unjustified, and destabilizing.
Image Credit: United States Government
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