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      President of Florida A&M Resigns Amid Donation Controversy

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      Larry Robinson took responsibility for accepting a $237 million gift that is now on hold and under investigation.The president of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University is stepping down from the top post two months after he acknowledged that he had mishandled a large donation that a donor had promised to the university but has since been put on hold.During commencement festivities in early May, Florida A&M, a historically Black public university in Tallahassee, announced that a business executive was making a donation worth more than $237 million. Questions soon arose over whether the source of the donation had been properly vetted, The Tallahassee Democrat reported.President Larry Robinson did not give a reason for his resignation in his open letter announcing his resignation or in a news release on July 12. But two months earlier, at a board of trustees meeting on May 15, Mr. Robinson took responsibility for “mishandling” the proposed donation and decided to “cease the engagement agreement” with the donor, according to the meeting’s minutes log.“He apologized to all parties involved and acknowledged the missteps in the University’s approach,” the log said.The gift had been promised by a business executive named Gregory Gerami and a family trust. Mr. Gerami was invited to speak in May at commencement, during which the donation was promoted. Photographs show Mr. Gerami, Mr. Robinson and others posing behind a large, ceremonial check for the amount of $237,750,000.But just four days later, Mr. Robinson told the university’s board that he had “received information suggesting the gift was not as it appeared,” according to minutes from the May 15 meeting. Mr. Robinson and Shawnta Friday-Stroud, who at the time was the school’s vice president, then “contacted the donor to cease the engagement agreement.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      3 Presumed Bird Flu Cases Reported in Colorado

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      The cases, which have yet to be confirmed, were identified in farmworkers culling infected birds. The risk to the public remains low, health officials said.Three workers at a poultry farm in northeast Colorado have preliminarily tested positive for bird flu, according to state health officials.The workers had been culling birds from an infected population at the farm, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said on Friday. All three workers had direct contact with infected birds and were experiencing mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis and “common respiratory infection symptoms,” the department said.The results are preliminary, and the tests have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation, the C.D.C. said.So far, four farmworkers in the United States have been infected with the virus, called H5N1, which is tied to a continuing outbreak among dairy cattle in several states.One case has been reported in Colorado, another in Texas and two more in Michigan, according to the C.D.C. All of those cases involved direct exposure to dairy cows, according to the state and federal health authorities, and officials have said that there is no evidence that the H5N1 virus spreads easily among humans.The risk to the public remains low, the C.D.C. said, but the agency added that it had sent a team to Colorado at the state’s request to help investigate.The C.D.C. said that it would look into whether workers were wearing personal protective equipment. Farmworkers are advised but not required to wear such equipment, including masks, safety goggles and gloves.“These preliminary results again underscore the risk of exposure to infected animals,” the C.D.C. said of the three new cases in Colorado. “There are no signs of unexpected increases in flu activity otherwise in Colorado, or in other states affected by H5 bird flu outbreaks in cows and poultry.”Avian influenza refers to a group of flu viruses primarily adapted to birds. The virus infecting farmworkers, H5N1, was first identified in 1996 in China and reported in people in 1997 in Hong Kong. A new form of H5N1, which surfaced in Europe in 2020, has rapidly spread around the world, and an outbreak in the United States has affected more than 99 million birds.The outbreak has been spreading among dairy farms since at least March, and 152 dairy herds in 12 states have tested positive for the virus. Scientists are researching how the virus is being transmitted through cows.The virus has also spread to a wide array of animals, including marine mammals like seals and bottlenose dolphins, skunks, squirrels and even domestic cats. More

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      How Reliant Is the U.S. on Avocados From Mexico?

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      A temporary halt on inspections by U.S.D.A. workers in Mexico on safety concerns highlighted how dependent the United States had become on one region for supplies of the popular fruit.Americans have a growing appetite for avocados, and a single state in Mexico supplies nearly all of the fruit eaten in the United States.This reliance is highlighted when imports are disrupted. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently suspended inspections of avocados and mangoes set to be shipped from Mexico, citing security issues for agency workers stationed in Michoacán, a state in western Mexico where criminal groups have sought to infiltrate the thriving avocado industry.The U.S. ambassador to Mexico said in late June that inspections would “gradually” resume, and visited Michoacán last week to meet with state and federal authorities.Here’s what to know about the avocado trade between the United States and Mexico.Where does the U.S. get its avocados from?The average American consumes more than eight pounds of avocados per year, roughly triple the amount in the early 2000s, according to the U.S.D.A.Most of that rise in demand has been met by imports. The United States imported a record 2.8 billion pounds of avocados in 2023, accounting for about 90 percent of the fruit supply, up from 40 percent two decades ago. A vast majority of U.S. avocado imports come from Mexico, which has become the world’s top producer, largely in response to the pull of rising demand from U.S. consumers. Most of Mexico’s avocado production is centered in Michoacán.California produces about 90 percent of the avocados grown in the United States. But irregular weather patterns linked to climate change, including droughts and wildfires, have put a strain on the state’s farms in recent years, further feeding a reliance on imports.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For South Africa’s Cabinet, Bigger May Not Mean Better

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      To accommodate a broad and diverse alliance of parties, President Cyril Ramaphosa increased the size of his executive team. Now the challenge is getting a diverse group of politicians to agree.After South Africa’s president announced the largest cabinet in the nation’s democratic history on Sunday, some critics were questioning whether the attempt to pacify diverse political interests would complicate efforts to tackle the country’s myriad economic and social problems.President Cyril Ramaphosa had for years promised to shrink the size of government — partly because of demands by the public and political opponents. But with his party, the African National Congress, having failed in the recent election to secure an absolute majority in Parliament for the first time since the end of apartheid 30 years ago, he has had to incorporate a broad coalition of parties in his executive.He increased the number of cabinet ministers to 32 from 30, and the number of deputy ministers to 43 from 36. The combined 75 ministers and deputy ministers is the most in any administration since the first democratic election in 1994. Now comes the challenge of bringing together this diverse array of politicians to form a coherent policy agenda for a nation struggling with high unemployment, entrenched poverty and the shoddy delivery of basic services.“So every political party had a thorough critique of an unnecessarily bloated cabinet up until the choice was between a bloated executive or their party member not receiving” a position, Moshibudi Motimele, a political studies lecturer at the University of the Free State in South Africa, wrote on social media.“I repeat,” she added, “the politics being played here is about power and positions and absolutely nothing to do with people and policy.”But Mr. Ramaphosa and the leader of the second-largest party, the Democratic Alliance, have insisted that the executive formed out of about a month of negotiations following the election in May will work together to set South Africa on the right path.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S.D.A. Suspends Avocado Inspections in Mexico, Citing Security Concerns

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      The move, prompted by fears for agency workers’ safety, could eventually affect U.S. avocado supplies if the inspections are not resumed.Security concerns for agency workers have led the United States Agriculture Department to suspend its inspections of avocados and mangos imported from Mexico “until further notice,” the U.S.D.A. said on Monday.Produce already cleared for export will not be affected by the decision, but avocado supplies in the United States, which mostly come from the Mexican state of Michoacán, could eventually be affected if the inspections are not resumed. The inspections “will remain paused until the security situation is reviewed and protocols and safeguards are in place,” a U.S.D.A. spokesman said in an email. The agency did not say what had prompted the security concerns. But Mexican news outlets recently reported that two U.S.D.A. inspectors had been illegally detained at a checkpoint run by community members. In Michoacán, which stretches from the mountains west of Mexico City to the Pacific Ocean, some Indigenous communities have set up security patrols to defend themselves against criminal groups.The United States Embassy in Mexico confirmed on Monday that the inspectors were no longer in detention.“The interruption of avocado exports from Michoacán was due to an incident unrelated to the avocado industry,” Julio Sahagún Calderón, the president of Mexico’s association of avocado producers and packers, known as APEAM, said in a statement. He added that the group was working “intensively” with Mexican and U.S. authorities to resume the inspection of avocados from Michoacán.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Climate Challenges That India’s Next Government Will Face

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      India, the world’s most populous country, is also among the most vulnerable to climate hazards. That’s not only because of the heat and floods that global warming has exacerbated, but also because so many of the country’s 1.4 billion people are vulnerable to begin with. Most people are poor, by global standards, and they have no safety net.Early election results Tuesday signaled that the party led by Narendra Modi, the two-term Hindu nationalist Indian prime minister, is poised to win the largest number of seats in the Indian Parliament but may have to join with smaller parties to form a coalition government.That government will face major challenges brought on by climate change.Heat is now an election issue, literally.The six-week process of voting took place amid a scorching heat wave in several parts of the country. In the northern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, at least 33 people, including poll workers, died of complications from the heat last week, according to government authorities cited by Reuters.Rohit Magotra, deputy director of Integrated Research and Action for Development, called on national election officials to reschedule elections in the future to avoid such calamities. He pointed out that workers from every political party suffer in the heat, and so do voters, who often have to line up under the sun.“I definitely see the momentum building up, and elections are unlikely to be scheduled in peak summer in future,” said Mr. Magotra, whose organization has advocated heat solutions in Indian cities.The Election Commission this year did set up a task force to monitor weather conditions, but only after voting got underway amid abnormally high temperatures. It also sent election workers a list of heat precautions prepared by the National Disaster Management Agency. However, according to a report published in Scroll, an Indian news site, political-party campaigners were not told to do anything differently because of the heat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Disease Detectives Trying to Keep the World Safe From Bird Flu

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      As Dr. Sreyleak Luch drove to work the morning of Feb. 8, through busy sunbaked streets in Cambodia’s Mekong river delta, she played the overnight voice messages from her team. The condition of a 9-year-old boy she had been caring for had deteriorated sharply, and he had been intubated, one doctor reported. What, she wondered, could make the child so sick, so fast?“And then I just thought: H5N1,” she recalled. “It could be bird flu.”When she arrived at the airy yellow children’s ward at the provincial hospital in Kratie, she immediately asked the child’s father if the family had had contact with any sick or dead poultry. He admitted that their rooster had been found dead a few days before and that the family had eaten it.Dr. Luch told her colleagues her theory. Their responses ranged from dubious to incredulous: A human case of avian influenza had never been reported in their part of eastern Cambodia. They warned her that if she set off the bird flu warning system, many senior government officials might get involved. She risked looking foolish, or worse.Anxious but increasingly certain, Dr. Luch phoned the local public health department, located just across the street. Within minutes, a team arrived to collect a sample from the child, Virun Roeurn, for testing in a lab.By then, Virun’s distraught parents had lost faith in the hospital. They demanded that he be sent by ambulance to the capital, Phnom Penh. His flu swab sample traveled with him.Virun died on the journey. At 8 p.m., Cambodia’s National Public Health Laboratory confirmed Dr. Luch’s suspicion: He had died of highly pathogenic avian influenza.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      8 Killed After Bus Carrying Farm Workers Crashes in Central Florida

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      Another 40 passengers who had been on the bus were taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for injuries, the local authorities said.At least eight people were killed and dozens of others were injured on Tuesday after a bus carrying farm workers collided with a pickup truck in Central Florida, the local authorities said. The bus was carrying 53 farm workers when it sideswiped a pickup truck, drove through a fence and overturned in Ocala, Fla., according to a spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol, which is investigating the incident.About 40 passengers were taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for injuries, the spokeswoman said. She did not say the extent of their injuries.The authorities did not confirm where the bus was traveling, but the local station WCJB reported the bus was carrying migrant workers employed at a watermelon farm in the area.The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said a stretch of State Road 40, where the incident occurred, would be closed for most of the day.This is a developing story. More