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National briefs: Meningitis toll increases to 14
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WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials have tracked down 12,000 of the roughly 14,000 people who may have received contaminated steroid shots in the nation's growing meningitis outbreak, warning Thursday that patients will need to keep watch for symptoms of the deadly infection for months.
"We know that we are not out of the woods yet," J. Todd Weber of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said as the death toll reached 14.
Of the 170 people sickened in the outbreak, all but one have a rare fungal form of meningitis after receiving suspect steroid shots for back pain, the CDC said. The other case is an ankle infection discovered in Michigan; steroid shots also can be given to treat aching knees, shoulders or other joints.
WESTMINSTER, Colo. -- Colorado police looking for a 10-year-old girl who disappeared on her walk to school have found a body in a park, but are not saying whether it is linked to the case and noted Thursday that officers are still searching for her.
The discovery of the body is the latest turn in the disappearance of Jessica Ridgeway that has seen police look for clues in a reported sighting in a car with Colorado plates in Maine and a Wyoming abduction. The FBI said Thursday that abduction was unrelated.
The body was found late Wednesday at Pattridge Park in park in the Denver suburb of Arvada, about seven miles from where Jessica disappeared in the nearby suburb of Westminster on Oct. 5.
MIAMI -- Workers inched closer Thursday to pulling a fourth likely casualty from the site of a parking garage collapse as a search for answers continued over what reduced a routine construction project to piles of twisted steel and crumbled concrete.
Family members of a still-missing worker huddled near the site, a day after the collapse at Miami Dade College, waiting for a crane to remove large debris and potentially remove a body from an area search dogs had identified.
Earlier Thursday, a third worker succumbed to injuries from the collapse. Samuel Perez, 53, had been pulled from the piles of wreckage just hours earlier, after being trapped for about 13 hours. He was found after rescue workers heard his cries. Mr. Perez and the two other confirmed fatalities -- Jose Calderon and Carlos Hurtado de Mendoza -- all died at hospitals after being rescued.
WASHINGTON -- The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that it will raise postage rates on Jan. 27, including a 1-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail to 46 cents.
It also will introduce a new global "forever" stamp, allowing customers to mail first-class letters anywhere in the world for one set price of $1.10. Currently, the prices vary depending on the international destination, with letters to Canada and Mexico costing 85 cents.
The mail agency also will increase rates on its shipping services, such as priority mail, by an average of 4 percent.
A 234-pound baby walrus, rescued from the ocean off Alaska in July, arrived Thursday at the Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Aquarium in Brooklyn. ... The baby giant panda at Washington, D.C.'s National Zoo died of lung and liver damage, the zoo said Thursday, citing the high mortality rate for cubs.
First Published October 12, 2012 1:30 am
