Also on today’s menu:
Maine Parents Sue School District Over Son’s Death
Hurricane Idalia Approaches Florida
Yuck: Live Worm Taken From Australian’s Brain
A common lament these days is that the large number of unfilled jobs is due to people not being willing to work. Perhaps that is true in some cases, but another reason might by the high cost of childcare.
A University of New Hampshire study has found that childcare in the Granite State often costs more than national averages, and in some cases can cost $13,645 — not far from UNH’s annual in-state tuition cost of $15,500 a year. County-level data from the Department of Labor found that the average cost of putting an infant in a childcare center exceeds $14,000 a year in some counties.
Despite such fees, childcare workers earn such small wages that it is difficult to keep the centers staffed.
Lebanon is working with the Boys and Girls Club and Vital Communities to open a childcare center, and Sullivan County officials are also looking into creating a childcare center for their employees.
Maine Parents Sue School District Over Son’s Death
Amy Tait and Christopher Strecker, whose son, Michael Strecker, died two years ago of heat stroke during a Lake Region High School trip to South Baldface Mountain in Chatham, New Hampshire, in the eastern White Mountains, are suing the school district in Bridgton, Maine, alleging that the chaperones were not adequately trained in safety and emergency response measures.
The school had said the chaperones were experienced hikers, trained in emergency medical aid, and that students would be able to turn around at any point on the hike, according to the lawsuit. Instead, a humanities teacher who was Strecker’s chaperone urged him to keep going and ignored his pleas for help, despite his pale appearance, blue lips, and vomiting.
The lawsuit names the teacher and Superintendent Alan Smith as defendants.
Hurricane Idalia Approaches Florida
Florida is bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Idalia, which forecasters say will intensify into an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” by the time it reaches the state’s western shoreline on Wednesday. Officials say that much of Florida will be affected by high winds, heavy rain, and potentially deadly storm surges.
Fort Myers Beach, still recovering from Hurricane Ian’s arrival last year, is one of the areas in southwest Florida where residents are weighing whether to evacuate. In all, some 14 million people in the state are under hurricane and weather warnings due to Idalia’s uncertain path as it moves northward over the Gulf of Mexico.
Idalia brought intense rain and winds as it skirted Cuba on August 28, with brown floodwaters swamping the small fishing village of Guanimar, south of Havana. It was expected to produce sustained winds topping at least 111 mph before coming ashore north of Tampa.
Yuck: Live Worm Taken From Australian’s Brain
“Even if you take away the yuck factor, this is a new infection never documented before in a human being,” said Australian parasitologist Mehrab Hossain regarding the living three-inch worm that Dr. Hari Priya Bandi found in the brain of an Australian woman. The “string-like structure” was pulled from the patient’s damaged frontal lobe during surgery in Canberra last year.
Scientists say the woman most likely caught the roundworm while collecting Warrigal greens, a type of native grass, beside a lake. The area is inhabited by carpet pythons and Hossain suspects the woman became an “accidental host” after using plants contaminated by python faeces and parasite eggs.
The 64-year-old woman had endured symptoms like stomach pain, a cough, and night sweats, leading to forgetfulness and depression. A brain scan later revealed “an atypical lesion within the right frontal lobe of the brain” and Dr. Bandi did a biopsy.
The neurosurgeon recalled feeling something odd. “I took my tweezers and I pulled it out and I thought, ‘Gosh! What is that? It’s moving!’ Everyone was shocked. And the worm that we found was happily moving, quite vigorously, outside the brain.”
Doctors say the woman, who lived in southeastern New South Wales, is recovering well.
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