Nation/World Briefly: Swine flu pandemic officially declared over

LOS ANGELES — The 2009-10 swine flu pandemic is officially over, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

“The new H1N1 influenza has largely run its course,” WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said. “We are now moving into the post-pandemic period.”

Some localities may see localized outbreaks of the pandemic H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu, she said, but overall activity is expected to be about normal for the season.

Worldwide, 18,449 people have died from laboratory-confirmed pandemic H1N1 infections, according to the WHO, but the true toll is thought to be much higher because most victims aren’t tested.

Arizona: Skeletal remains believed to missing toddler

Skeletal remains found Tuesday near a central Arizona campground are believed to be that of a toddler reported missing in the area more than two weeks ago, and foul play is suspected, authorities said. The remains were found at the bottom of a wash less than 2 miles from the Beaver Creek Campground, where 2-year-old Sylar Newton of Flagstaff was last seen the night of July 24, Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said. The cause of death was not given.

D.C.: Rangel refuses to resign

A combative Rep. Charles Rangel told the House on Tuesday he’s not resigning despite 13 charges of wrongdoing and demanded the ethics committee not leave him “swinging in the wind.” Expulsion is the harshest penalty that can result from an ethics case. In addition to solicitations of donors who lobbied Rangel’s committees, he’s also accused of belated payment of taxes from income on his rental unit at a Dominican Republic resort, the failure to file disclosure statements on time and of taking advantage of a New York rent subsidy for residential units by using a Harlem apartment as a campaign office.

Wyoming: Search for inmate focuses on Montana, Canada

Authorities Tuesday focused on western Montana and southwest Canada in the search for an escaped convict from Arizona, John McCluskey, and his suspected accomplice. U.S. marshals said there were reports that the accomplice, Casslyn Welch, was spotted Sunday at a restaurant in St. Mary, Mont., near Glacier National Park. Two inmates who broke out of prison with McCluskey on July 30 have been captured. McCluskey was serving a 15-year sentence for attempted second-degree murder and other charges.

Connecticut: Geronimo suit denied

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by descendants of the Apache warrior Geronimo, who claimed some of his remains were stolen in 1918 by a student society at Yale University. The lawsuit was filed last year in Washington by 20 descendants who want to rebury Geronimo near his New Mexico birthplace. It claimed Skull and Bones members took some remains from a burial plot at Fort Sill, Okla., where Geronimo died in 1909.

Nevada: Horse roundup cleared

A federal appeals court on Tuesday cleared the way for the roundup of more than 2,000 wild horses in California and Nevada, rejecting critics’ claims that the free-roaming mustangs have a legal right to remain on the range. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to grant an emergency stay sought by animal rights groups ahead of the scheduled roundup today. The government had argued in court filings that leaving the overpopulated herds on public rangeland would do the mustangs more harm than good.

Russia: Prime minister takes to skies to help with fires

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin climbed into a firefighting plane Tuesday and dumped water on two of the hundreds of wildfires sweeping through western Russia and cloaking Moscow in a suffocating smog. Damage from the fires was expected to hit $15 billion, or about 1 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, the newspaper Kommersant reported Tuesday. The hottest summer, and resulting dry conditions, since record-keeping began 130 years ago has cost Russia more than a third of its wheat crop and prompted the government to ban wheat exports.

Poland: Fire at ex-Nazi camp

A fire swept through a barrack at the former Nazi death camp of Majdanek, destroying more than half the building and possibly the 10,000 shoes of Holocaust victims kept there, officials said Tuesday. The cause of the fire is not yet known. An estimated 80,000 people, including about 60,000 Jews, were killed at the SS-run Majdanek camp in occupied Poland between October 1941 and its liberation July 1944.

From Herald news services