SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador
El Salvador town declares anthrax emergency
Associated Press
Authorities said yesterday that they had declared a state of emergency in a small Salvadoran town after dozens of horses apparently died of anthrax infections.
A state of quarantine is also in effect until all area cattle are vaccinated in Berlin, a mountainous village of 25,000 people 70 miles east of San Salvador, said official Julio Arevalo.
The actions were taken Sunday, Arevalo said.
At least 60 horses have died since December in the majority of the 43 small neighborhoods of Berlin, he said.
El Salvador's agriculture department reported only 30 horse deaths.
A quarantine in effect since Sunday prohibits cattle from being brought in or out of Berlin during the inoculations and also bans meat sales.
"They are taking the necessary measures to avoid infecting any people," Arevalo said.
Officials also recommended that farmers and ranchers burn and then bury dead animals at least 10 feet underground to prevent further contamination of humans and animals.
"Anthrax is present in all of our countries ... but we should be concerned by the death of the horses," said Horacio Toro, representative of the Pan-American Health Organization.
CARLSBAD, N.M.
Man who was sentenced for killing friend in desert is released on probation
Associated Press
A man who said he stabbed his best friend to death to put him out of his misery after they became lost in the desert and ran out of water has been released after serving 19 months of a two-year term.
Raffi Kodikian of Boston pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in May 2000 in the death of David Coughlin, who was stabbed in the chest in the backcountry of Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
Park workers rescued Kodikian about six hours after his friend died on Aug. 8, 1999.
Kodikian said he and Coughlin, 26, of Millis, Mass., had entered into a suicide pact and that his friend pleaded with him to end his pain.
Prosecutors said at the time Kodikian entered his plea that he had marks across his wrist but they weren't deep. Kodikian's attorney argued both men tried to slash their wrists and were in "absolute desperate straits."
Kodikian, who was released recently, will remain on supervised probation until Nov. 19, 2006, in Pennsylvania, where he now has a residence and family, the Carlsbad district attorney's office said yesterday. Craig Vandenberg, a spokesman for the prosecutor, said he didn't know where Kodikian would be in Pennsylvania.
HEREFORD
Firefighters battling 400-acre fire in Huachuca Mountains
Associated Press
Firefighters used two helicopters yesterday to help battle a fire that had scorched about 400 acres in steep terrain in the Huachuca Mountains.
The helicopters were dropping water on the east and west sides of the fire's perimeter.
The blaze in the Miller Peak Wilderness Area on the Coronado National Forest was burning in oak, mixed conifer and dense sage at elevations of about 7,000 feet, spokeswoman Joan Vasey said.
No structures were threatened, and there have been no injuries reported, Vasey said.
More than 100 firefighters, including crews from the Tohono O'odham Reservation and the Coronado National Forest, two inmate crews from prisons at Douglas and Fort Grant and seven firefighters from Marana were on the scene.
Vasey said the steep terrain and abandoned mineshafts in the area were posing a challenge.
The fire was reported Friday and grew when winds picked up that afternoon and continued through Saturday.
"If the weather cooperates and we get the resources, we're optimistic about being able to contain it in the next couple of days," Vasey said.
She said officials were scrambling to get fire crews and an air tanker because this isn't the normal fire season.
They opened the Libby Air Field air tanker base at Sierra Vista on Saturday, though it normally doesn't open or have air tankers on standby until May.
The cause of the fire won't be known until after it's been put out and it can be investigated, Vasey said.
She said there's a 90 percent chance the fire was started by people since there has been no lightning and the fire apparently started in an isolated area.
