WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. flu season has arrived on schedule after taking a year off, with flu hospitalizations rising and two child deaths reported. Last year’s flu season was the lowest on record, likely because COVID-19 measures — school closures, distancing, masks and canceled travel — prevented the spread of influenza, or because the coronavirus somehow pushed aside other viruses. “This is setting itself up to be more of a normal flu season,” said Lynnette Brammer, who tracks flu-like illnesses for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The childhood deaths, Brammer said, are “unfortunately what we would expect when flu activity picks up. It’s a sad reminder of how severe flu can be.” During last year’s unusually light flu season, one child died. In contrast, 199 children died from flu two years ago, and 144 the year before that.

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JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A South African court on Tuesday blocked Shell from using seismic waves to explore for oil and gas in the Indian Ocean, in a victory for environmentalists worried about the impact on whales and other species. Backing a suit filed by conservationists, the High Court in the Eastern Cape town of Makhanda ruled that Shell was “hereby interdicted from undertaking seismic survey operations.” The fossil fuel giant had announced plans to start exploration over more than 6,000 square kilometers (2,300 square miles) of ocean off South Africa’s Wild Coast region. Shell’s scheme entails using seismic shockwaves which bounce off the sea bed, and whose signature can point to potentially energy-bearing sites. “Many sea creatures will be affected, from whales, dolphins, seals, penguins to tiny plankton that will be blasted,” said Janet Solomon, of the environmental group Oceans Not Oil in the runup to the hearing.

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LONDON (AFP) -- Save the Children confirmed on Tuesday that two of its staff were killed in a Christmas Eve massacre blamed on junta troops that left the charred remains of more than 30 people on a highway in eastern Myanmar. Anti-junta fighters said they found over 30 burnt bodies, including women and children, on a highway in Kayah state where pro-democracy rebels have been fighting the military. Save the Children later said two of its staff members had been caught up in the incident and were missing. Myanmar has been in chaos since the February coup, with more than 1,300 people killed in a crackdown by security forces, according to a local monitoring group. Self-proclaimed “People’s Defense Forces” have sprung up across the country to fight the junta, and drawn the military into a bloody stalemate of clashes and reprisals.

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BIREUEN, Indonesia (Reuters) -- Indonesian authorities will help repair a stranded boat packed with over 100 Rohingya off its coast but will not allow its passengers to seek refuge in the Southeast Asian country and will turn the vessel away, officials told Reuters on Tuesday. Fishermen spotted the skiff on Sunday, adrift off the coast of Bireuen, a district on the western island of Sumatra, with around 120 men, women and children on board. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday that the boat had suffered engine damage and should be allowed to land. Badruddin Yunus, a local fishing community leader, said that the refugees had been at sea for 28 days and some of them had fallen ill and one had died. More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar in August 2017 after a military crackdown that refugees said included mass killings and rape. Rights groups have documented killings of civilians and burning of Rohingya villages.

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BOGOTA (Reuters) -- Colombia’s police captured five people during raids in the Andean country’s second city Medellin and surrounding areas in connection with a bombing earlier this month at an airport in the northern city of Cucuta, it said on Tuesday. Three people, including two police officers, were killed on Dec. 14 after bombs exploded at the airport, which is located in Colombia’s Norte de Santander province. The province, which shares a border with Venezuela, has become the new epicenter of Colombia’s long internal conflict as security forces fight crime gangs dedicated to drug trafficking and rebel groups amid growing output of coca, the chief ingredient in cocaine. A bombing at a military base in Norte de Santander in June injured 44 people including two U.S. military advisers. In an incident later that month, shots were fired at a helicopter carrying President Ivan Duque as he traveled to Cucuta, the province’s capital.

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BRASILIA (Reuters) -- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will not vaccinate his 11-year-old daughter against COVID-19, he said on Monday, maintaining the firm anti-vaccine stance that has drawn criticism from public health experts and hit his poll numbers. The right-wing leader added that the nation’s health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, will divulge on Jan. 5 the manner in which Brazil will carry out its coronavirus vaccination campaign for 5 to 11-year-olds, which was approved earlier this month. “Children have not been dying in a way that justifies a vaccine for children,” he told reporters in the southern state of Santa Catarina. Vaccination of children has been a hot topic in Brazil, where Bolsonaro’s core supporters have fervently opposed the measure, even as the vast majority of the population supports vaccines.