Dengue cases on the rise in Kanchanpur
Kanchanpur district has witnessed increasing risk of dengue virus outbreak. According to the District Health Office, four out of 20 tested were diagnosed with dengue in Dodhara-Chadani Municipality last week. Chief at the District Health Jaya Bahadur Mahara said that four India returnees were detected with dengue. "Three men and a woman were diagnosed with dengue", he said, adding, "The dengue-infected men had returned from India while the father and brother of the infected woman were also India returnees". Dodhara-Chadani is the territory of Nepal sharing an open border with India. Chances of dengue transmission are high here due to frequent mobility of the people across the border. Dengue is transmitted through the bites of Aedes Argypti and Aedes albopictus. Despite the rise in the cases, the health facilities here have come across a shortage of testing kits, the office sources said. Medical Superintendent of Mahakali Province Hospital, Dr Arjun Bhatta said the number of patients of Malaria and dengue has increased in the hospital of late. "There is an immoderate rise of patients with viral fever in the hospital", he said.
Elderly man killed in Jhapa wild elephant attack
An elderly man died in a wild elephant attack in Jhapa on Wednesday. The deceased has been identified as Devi Bahadur Adhikari (80) of Bahradashi Rural Municipality-1. DSP Basanta Pathak of the District Police Office, Jhapa said that the wild elephant attacked him while he had gone to the Manakamana Community Forest to collect fodder for the cattle at around 10 am. Critically injured in the incident, he was rushed to a hospital in Birtamod. After he could not be treated at Birtamod, he was taken to the Dharan-based BP Koirala Institute of Health and Sciences but breathed his last on the way, DSP Pathak said. Further investigation into the incident is underway, police said.
Indianapolis man arrested in shooting of 3 Dutch soldiers
Indianapolis police arrested a man Tuesday in connection with a shooting over the weekend that left one Dutch soldier dead and two wounded, BBC reported.
Shamar Duncan, 22, of Indianapolis, was arrested on a preliminary charge of murder, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said.
Duncan was being held in jail and will not be eligible for release from jail while the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office reviews the case, police said.
Duncan’s arrest did not appear in online court records, and it wasn’t clear whether he has an attorney who might comment on the case.
A 26-year-old member of the Dutch Commando Corps, identified by U.S. authorities as Simmie Poetsema, died of his injuries “surrounded by family and colleagues,” the Dutch Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday.
The shooting occurred Saturday in downtown Indianapolis.
“IMPD detectives want to thank members of the community for their cooperation during this investigation,” IMPD spokesman Shane Foley said. “During the investigation, multiple individuals spoke with detectives and provided detectives with video connected to the investigation.” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren expressed concern Tuesday about gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the shooting.
“We do many trainings of our servicemen in the United States, and we really don’t expect this to happen. So it’s very, very concerning for us.” Ollongren told The Associated Press at a meeting of European Union defense ministers in Prague.
Poetsema and the two other soldiers were shot after what Indianapolis police believe was a disturbance outside the hotel where they were staying about 3:30 a.m. Saturday near several downtown bars and nightclubs, authorities said. The soldiers were in the US for training exercises at a southern Indiana military base.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said Monday that the soldiers had returned to the hotel after a “scuffle” at a bar and were outside when the gunfire came from what he called “a drive-by shooting.”
Indianapolis police declined to confirm Hogsett’s account Tuesday or release more information on the circumstances or the investigation of the shooting, according to BBC.
Ollongren declined to comment on the shooting while investigations continue. She said there is “good contact” between Dutch military police and authorities in Indianapolis.
“We have read things in the media, we have heard what the mayor said but we feel it’s very important to have a real thorough investigation. So we’re waiting for that until we comment on what actually happened,” she said.
Ollongren said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin contacted her Monday “to express his regrets and his condolences.”
Hogsett said he believed the city’s downtown area was safe and that city officials were working to reduce violence.
“Too often, not just in Indianapolis, conflict resolution has become just people pulling out guns and shooting each other,” Hogsett said.
Artemis: Nasa will try to launch Moon rocket on Saturday
The US space agency says it will try to launch its new Moon rocket on Saturday, BBC reported.
An attempt at a lift-off on Monday had to be scrubbed when one of four engines on the vehicle would not cool down to its required operating temperature.
After reviewing data, engineers believe they now understand why the issue occurred.
They think it is likely related to an inaccurate sensor reading and that they can develop a strategy to deal with the problem on launch day.
This involves starting the process of chilling the engines earlier in the countdown.
"We've got a path forward to get to where we need to get to, to support the next launch," said John Honeycutt, who manages the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket project at Nasa.
Controllers will be given two hours to get the rocket off Earth.
SLS is the biggest launch vehicle ever developed by the US space agency.
It's the modern equivalent of the Saturn V rockets that sent humans to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s - but with considerably more thrust off the launch pad.
SLS will send a big new crew capsule called Orion on a series of missions to the Moon under Nasa's Artemis programme. This first mission is called Artemis I and will be an uncrewed demonstration.
The reason for Monday's scrub was not related to the engine itself (Engine Number 3), but rather with the system that conditions it for flight, according to BBC.
On Monday, sensor readings suggested the engine was 15-20 degrees C short of where it needed to be.
Engineers believe the bleed-through system was working properly; it was just that the sensor system didn't accurately reflect real temperature conditions.
The engineering team plans to start the cooling process about 45 minutes earlier in Saturday's countdown, hoping this will bring everything into line.
"We are going to try to launch on the third (September). And, you know, coming into this prior attempt, yesterday's attempt, we said that if we couldn't thermally condition the engines we wouldn't launch, and that's the same posture that we're going into Saturday," said Mike Sarafin, Nasa's Artemis mission manager.
The weather forecast for Saturday is not brilliant. There is currently a 60% chance that controllers will encounter a violation of their launch criteria - principally showers. The SLS is not allowed to lift off in the rain.
"We have two hours to work with. The showers tend to have quite a bit of real estate between them, so I still think we have a pretty good opportunity weather-wise to launch on Saturday," he told reporters.
The scope of the coming 42-day mission is to send Orion looping around the back of the Moon before bringing it home for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off California.
A major objective of the test fight is to check the heatshield on the capsule can survive the heat of re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Nasa says it's going back to the Moon as part of a stepping stone to learn how to get to Mars. But researchers say there is also unfinished business at the Moon, scientifically. There is more we need to understand about lunar origins, and by extension the formation and early evolution of the Earth, BBC reported.
Future Artemis missions will target the lunar South Pole where permanently shadowed craters hold reserves of ice.
"Artemis is a series of increasingly complex missions, to explore the Moon in preparation for missions to Mars. When we go to Mars, the more we can learn about what resources are available to us and how to use them, the better prepared we'll be," Nasa's chief scientist Kate Calvin told BBC News.
