What happened
The death of a 28-year-old woman who worked at an anti-plague lab in Siberia prompted international concern yesterday as the Kremlin urged calm. Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer welfare and public health agency, said late Sunday that the woman had pneumonia of “unknown” origin, and “extensive” testing had found “no microorganisms” tied to her “professional activities” at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov. But “the case has raised alarm,” The Associated Press said, “after unconfirmed media reports suggested she might have died of pneumonic plague” following a lab accident. 

Who said what
“At least one hospital” in Shelekhov was under quarantine, NBC News said, and “nearly 200 people who had been in contact with the woman” were reportedly under medical observation. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov yesterday said people should “rely on official statements from Rospotrebnadzor” and not “rumors and speculation.” 

Russia needs to “share accurate information quickly and openly,” the U.S. State Department said. “It’s a rough disease,” President Donald Trump told reporters yesterday. “We’re looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it,” and the U.S. would help Russia “as much as we can.”

What next?
Pneumonic plague is “virulent” and “almost always fatal when untreated,” but easily treated with antibiotics when caught early, The Washington Post said. If that’s what this is, the odds it “becomes a larger outbreak” are “exceedingly low,” former White House Covid-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said to NBC News. But “if there were weapons programs, biological weapons programs in these labs, that would be much more concerning.”

What happened
President Donald Trump yesterday said he would start using his super PAC, not government funds, to pay for campaign-style ads promoting himself and his policies. “More than $10 million in taxpayer-funded ads” have run on network and cable TV since last month, The New York Times said, after Trump “personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money” for them. The “Radical Left is upset” that “U.S.A. money” is paying for this “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.,” Trump said yesterday on social media, so “I have decided” to “pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”

Who said what
Trump has “faced bipartisan criticism for the spots,” which may violate at least two federal laws, Politico said. The dozen-plus ads developed so far include “one entitled ‘God made Trump.’” If he uses MAGA Inc. funds for the ads, Trump “will be dipping into a deep well” of about $400 million, The Wall Street Journal said. But that would also “add fodder to another formal complaint” about him “violating federal election laws by directing his super PAC” spending decisions, the Times said. 

What next?
Trump did not say if he or his super PAC “would repay the U.S. government for the money already spent or just pay for ads going forward,” the Journal said. 

Chacma baboons are increasingly coming into conflict with human residents of South Africa’s capital. The baboons can be “intimidating,” Reuters said — males can grow more than 3 feet tall and weigh about 110 pounds — and they have adapted to city life, raiding garbage cans, cars and houses for food. So Cape Town authorities plan to round up about 60 of these monkeys and move them to a newly built sanctuary. 

This has “triggered a bitter dispute” over ‌whether the baboons should be “confined, culled or allowed to coexist with residents,” said Reuters. Protests are ongoing, and the issue could play a major role in Cape Town’s upcoming municipal elections.

Problems with baboons in the city stretch back decades, but they have hit a “boiling point” over the past two years, said The Guardian. In the early 2000s, city authorities stopped culling baboon troops in response to public pressure, but the population has since swelled by a third to roughly 500.

Geography is “partially to blame,” said The Guardian. The baboons are “boxed in” between the steep landscape of the Table Mountain National Park and “sprawling urban development that stretches to the Atlantic Ocean.”

The “best solution to resolving conflicts is to prevent them,” said Shirley C. Strum, an anthropology professor at the University of California San Diego, at The Conversation. Preventing undesirable baboon behavior, such as stealing food, is easier than tackling it once it has become ingrained with translocation and culls. And “conflict between baboons and humans won’t change unless human behavior and attitudes change.”