Polio has been officially wiped out in Somalia. Though torn by war and ravaged by poverty, the African nation has been polio-free for the last year, thanks to a massive inoculation program by the World Health Organization. “This truly historic achievement shows that polio can be eradicated everywhere,” said the WHO’s Hussein Gezairy. Among the 10,000 volunteers who helped vaccinate the population was Ali Mao Moallim, a Somalian who, more than 30 years ago, was the last person in the world known to contract smallpox. “I wanted to help ensure that we would not be the last place with polio, too,” he said.
A note in a plastic bottle, cast into the Pacific off the coast of Seattle in 1987, has been found in a remote fishing village in Alaska. Merle Brandell found the bottle while beachcombing along Nelson Lagoon. The message read, in part: “This letter is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands.” It was signed Emily Hwaung, grade four. It took some doing, but Brandell tracked her down; she is now a 30-year-old accountant who still lives in Seattle. “I don’t remember the project,” she admitted. “It was so long ago. Elementary school is kind of foggy.”
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