West African scientists warn of weakening health systems and urge stronger outbreak detection

• September 19, 2026

By ERICK KAGLAN

LOME, Togo (AP) — West African laboratory scientists called on governments Friday to strengthen capacity to detect disease outbreaks to avoid another major outbreak, saying health systems across the region are becoming weaker.

The scientists issued their warning in Togo’s capital, Lome, where they have gathered this week to discuss the region’s level of preparation for disease outbreaks and dependence on vaccines from Western countries.

They said governments in the region have to cooperate to strengthen disease detection and invest in diagnostic capacities, citing lessons from Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks that the region has grappled with in the past decade.

Between 2014 and 2016, an Ebola outbreak killed at least 11,000 people across West Africa, overwhelmingly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“We need to anticipate these outbreaks,” said Kossi Kabo, the head of the Association of Medical Biologists of Togo and a co-chair of the congress. “We shouldn’t wait for an epidemic to emerge somewhere before responding. By then, it would be too late.”

Africa as a whole remains at risk for outbreaks. The rare Bundibugyo virus has killed over 3,600 people among nearly 7,500 cases in Congo since mid-May, when Congolese authorities announced a fresh deadly Ebola outbreak. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the tolls are likely three times the official figures and the outbreak is already history’s fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak. The virus spread without detection for several weeks. Also, Hantavirus was detected on a cruise ship that docked in the Atlantic off Cape Verde in May.

Scientists are worried that in the absence of a major outbreak threatening the region, maintenance of the health systems has waned, leaving them unprepared for potential future epidemics.

Arthur Bodurie Calvin Garber, president of the Sierra Leone Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists, said the governments must also invest in people as much as infrastructure.

​ Orange County Register 

Santa Ana residents grill developer over latest One Broadway Plaza proposal

• September 19, 2026

Tensions between Santa Ana residents and representatives of developer Caribou Industries remained high throughout a second sunshine meeting held Thursday to discuss revisions proposed for One Broadway Plaza, a 37-story tower first approved by the city more than 20 years ago.

One Broadway Plaza was pitched in 1999 as a commercial skyscraper, and the City Council approved the needed zoning changes in 2004. During the pandemic, the developer asked to reduce the office space and introduce a residential component to the project. The current proposal being reviewed is for a residential tower with 572 housing units — a mix of studio and one- to three-bedroom apartments — and retail, dining, and community-serving uses on the vacant North Broadway parcel, between West Washington Avenue and West 10th Street. Next door is the Orange County School of the Arts.

More than 50 people attended the meeting Thursday night, packing into a room inside the former Original Mike’s restaurant near downtown Santa Ana, a building also owned by Caribou Industries President Mike Harrah. Many attendees donned black shirts that read “Stop One Broadway Plaza” on the front and “Santa Ana No Se Vende,” or “Santa Ana is Not for Sale,” on the back.

The sunshine meetings are required by Santa Ana for certain development projects early in the review process to gather public input.

“I’m all for entrepreneurship and people improving Santa Ana,” said Irene Cabañas, president of the Willard Neighborhood Association. “If it was five or 10 stories, let’s review that. But this will be the tallest thing in all of Orange County, double the size of the Big A at the Angel Stadium. It just does not belong in the community.”

But Caribou Industries representatives argued that “demand was high” for the type of residential units being proposed.

The meeting was run by William Beaubeaux, an architect for Caribou Industries, and Katie Cawelti, an external contractor from Curt Pringle and Associates, who said she was hired to help facilitate the event. Beaubeaux said Harrah “would have loved to attend,” but had other meetings and could not make it.

Residents at the meeting repeatedly referenced a glossy, COVID-era marketing brochure selling One Broadway Plaza as “the tallest, greenest, most technologically advanced, luxury urban community in the history of Orange County,” asking if some of the touted features, such as an onsite data center with “military-grade security,” a rooftop sports complex and a commercial heliport, are still included in the project’s latest iteration.

The current proposal has shifted almost entirely to housing, with the office component entirely dropped. It is still proposed at 37 stories, but the plan now calls for the residential apartments across 32 floors, a nine-level garage holding more than 2,400 parking spaces, a grocery store, and about 64,000 square feet of retail.

During Thursday’s meeting, Caribou representatives fielded questions attendees submitted on cards, with most residents using the gathering to voice opposition rather than seek information. Several questions also drew non-answers.

Pricing is “hard to determine right now,” data-center questions were waved off because no commercial tenant “can be determined at this point,” and concerns about gentrification were met with “that was all discussed prior,” while the rooftop helipad was explained only as being “mainly for emergencies”.

Technical questions were deferred to the city’s environmental review.

One resident asked, “Why are we having this meeting then, if you guys don’t have all the information? I don’t understand. What’s the point?”

Cawelti explained the meeting had a limited scope of what could be discussed.

“What we’re here to talk about today are the amendments within the building itself, which includes the makeup of how many residential units there are, and the exact square footage of the office commercial space,” she said. She told residents the project is still going through the city’s public review and entitlement process and hasn’t gone up for approvals yet.

“This meeting is an opportunity to share the current proposal, answer questions, and garner your feedback,” she said.

In a room that overwhelmingly opposed the tower, one 55-year-old Santa Ana resident, who said he had experience being unhoused earlier in life, shared a different perspective.

“The more housing, the better,” he said.

He said Orange County needs “10 more towers like this one,” adding that building on a vacant dirt lot adds more units rather than removing them. He argued that when high-earners move into the proposed tower, they vacate older Santa Ana units and allow people to “move up a seat.” He asked not to be named, citing fear of being “harassed” over his views.

The project revisions are now expected to be reviewed by the Planning Commission before heading to the City Council for final approval, though those dates have not been determined yet.

​ Orange County Register 

A humpback whale was spotted in a California river, 60 miles from its Pacific Ocean home

• September 19, 2026

By TERRY CHEA and PATRICK WHITTLE

ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) — Denny Glover was hoping for a big catch when he went fishing with buddies on the Sacramento River, but he wasn’t expecting a fully grown humpback whale.

Glover saw the whale surfacing on Wednesday while he was fishing for salmon and striped bass from a 21-foot boat, less than half the length of the animal. He shot a few videos as the whale broke the surface of the water in California’s largest river, about 60 miles from its more typical home of the Pacific Ocean.

“One of the guys on the boat, he said, ‘I see a whale.’ He saw the spout,” Glover said. “At first we didn’t believe it. We thought he had mistaken a dolphin or a porpoise. Then we saw the spout again, and there’s no mistaking a whale spout.”

The rare inland visit from a whale has attracted the attention of scientists who want to know what kind of condition it’s in and how it wound up so far from the sea. The whale entered San Francisco Bay earlier in the week and has been traveling east in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California’s largest river delta, The Marine Mammal Center said in a statement.

The center, which is in Sausalito, said its cetacean team is planning to assess and monitor the animal. The public should avoid interacting with the whale and trying to change its course, said Kathi George, the center’s director of cetacean conservation biology.

“While it’s unknown whether this whale is just passing through or if there is an underlying, unknown ailment, the best thing people can do is experience this adult whale’s presence from a respectful distance,” George said.

The whale is known to researchers through a photo identification catalog and has been documented 15 times over the past 24 years, the center said. The most recent documented sighting before this week was in Baja California in February, the center said. Researchers don’t know whether the whale is male or female.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration both declined to comment about this week’s sighting.

The whale isn’t the first to travel so far inland. In 1985, a humpback whale known as Humphrey spent several weeks in the Rio Vista area before returning to the ocean, The Marine Mammal Center said. A mother-calf pair known as Delta and Dawn spent nearly three weeks in the Sacramento River Delta in 2007 before returning, the center said. The whales eventually made their way back to the ocean, the center said.

Humpback whales are among the largest animals on Earth and can weigh up to 80,000 pounds. They are known for their dramatic lunges at the water’s surface, an activity called breaching, and their complex underwater songs.

Seeing the whale so far upriver was a thrill, Glover said. The animal seemed in good shape despite being far from home, he added.

“It came up and went down in fairly regular intervals,” he said. “It was moving along at a fair clip. It wasn’t acting erratically other than that it was upstream in a freshwater river.”

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.

​ Orange County Register 

A season of learning comes to an end for Angels’ Nolan Schanuel

• September 19, 2026

ANAHEIM — Nolan Schanuel was just getting hot when he suffered the injury that, as it turns out, ended his season.

“It definitely sucks because I was doing really well when I got hurt,” the Angels first baseman said on Friday, after Manager Kurt Suzuki revealed that he wasn’t going to make it back this season from the strained intercostal muscle that put him on the shelf. “I would say I understand better the player that I am and the player that I can be. I definitely learned a lot this year that I can carry on and bring it to next year.”

Schanuel last played on Aug. 20. He started a rehab assignment last weekend, but he felt some continued soreness, so the Angels brought him back to Anaheim. They then decided that there was no point in trying to get back with so few games left in the season.

Schanuel, 24, finishes his third full season with a career-high .276 batting average and a .736 OPS, which is slightly lower than last year’s .742. He hit seven home runs, after hitting 12 last season.

Schanuel’s on-base percentage was .351, which is right in line with his career numbers.

Schanuel’s season started poorly, which he has said was partly because he played with a bad ankle after hurting it running the bases in early April. He eventually went on the injured list.

After coming back in June, Schanuel hit .295 with a .781 OPS for the rest of the season.

“Just understanding that I can be a really good contact bat in the lineup, hit for high average, and the power will come,” Schanuel said. “I think if my power shows up in doubles, that’s kind of the hitter I have to be.”

Suzuki said he still sees upside for Schanuel.

“There’s always ways to improve, whether it’s working on bat speed, doing speed training,” Suzuki said. “The guys do workouts. You’re always trying to evolve through the offseason and find ways to get better. We’re going to come up with a plan and sit down and have a conversation and help him prepare something to try to improve this offseason.”

The big question about Schanuel will remain whether his power will lead to more homers.

“I think it can,” Suzuki said. “He’s fairly young, and his bat-to-ball is elite. I think as he gets older, the power is going to show up in games. You see it in BP. He’s got power in BP. Time will tell. You can’t just say, ‘This guy is going to hit 20 homers,’ because you never know. But I think it’s in there.”

GOOD NEWS FOR NATERA

Left-handed reliever Samy Natera Jr., who is on the injured list because of forearm inflammation, said his MRI exam showed nothing that requires surgery. He’s planning to be down for about six weeks and then have a normal offseason.

Natera said it was a “big time” relief.

“I wanted to finish strong, but it happen,” Natera said. “Just excited for next year and getting ready for that.”

Natera, 26, put himself on the map as a high-leverage reliever during his first three months in the big leagues, posting a 3.13 ERA with 48 strikeouts in 31⅔ innings.

BAD NEWS FOR PARIS

Utility player Kyren Paris suffered a fractured right index finger when a ground ball hit him awkwardly during pregame work on Thursday. He was placed on the injured list on Friday, ending his season. Paris said it’s a small fracture, so he’ll be fine in three or four weeks, leaving his winter unaffected.

The Angels recalled outfielder Bryce Teodosio to replace Paris on the roster.

Paris, 24, went 0 for 15 in his only eight major league games this season. He had shown encouraging signs at Triple-A, hitting .307 with a .981 OPS, even though it hasn’t yet translated to the majors.

NOTES

Left-hander Reid Detmers comes into Saturday’s start with 199 strikeouts this season. Shohei Ohtani was the last Angels pitcher to reach 200 strikeouts, in 2022. The last left-hander to do it was Chuck Finley in 1998. …

Double-A Rocket City will play Game 1 of the best-of-three Southern League championship series against Biloxi, a Milwaukee Brewers affiliate, on Sunday night. The Angels haven’t won a league title in Double-A since 2008.

UP NEXT

Twins (RHP Joe Ryan, 6-10, 3.84 ERA) at Angels (LHP Reid Detmers, 6-8, 3.36 ERA), Saturday, 6:38 p.m., ABTV, 830 AM

​ Orange County Register 

LAFC heads to San Jose trying to shake woeful defeat

• September 19, 2026

What happened last weekend for the Los Angeles Football Club to lose 3-1 to a historically bad Major League Soccer team?

Sporting Kansas City hadn’t defeated LAFC in 11 meetings since 2021. They entered the contest as the lone MLS team without 20 points this season – and still are despite adding three times as many points to their total against LAFC as their previous seven games combined. Hosting an opponent they lost 4-0 to a couple of months ago, SKC had the fewest goals in MLS and is on pace to smash the record for the most goals conceded in league history.

So how did LAFC lose?

“The problem is in the first half we stayed on the plane,” LAFC head coach Marc Dos Santos said after the match. “I think in the first half we were still in L.A., maybe. Very disappointing how we defended far from each other, passive. We didn’t win any duels in the first half and you know it was very clear from all of us that you don’t win games just looking at standings. You have to win them on the field.”

A match that looked ripe for the picking, the players no-showed?

“I would say they wanted to win this game more than us, and obviously that’s not a great case because the big teams want to win every time and maybe we are not there yet,” said Ukrainian defender Yevhen Cheberko, who apologized unprompted for his pass that led to Sporting’s third goal, which put the lid on a comeback.

“If we want to be contenders – and our goal is to win the MLS and reach as far as possible – this is not good enough from everybody these types of games,” Cheberko said.

Whatever justification that could be offered to understand LAFC’s first 45 minutes – a third match in eight days while SKC did not compete midweek; integrating players returning from injury into the starting lineup; consistently falling short of converting chances, particularly on corner kicks and set plays; overconfidence; etc. – the result should have gone their way under any condition, stressed Chekberko, who called the performance “a bit shameful for us.”

Last weekend’s defeat was the first for LAFC in five league games, but Dos Santos said it felt like they had lost all five. Falling from third to sixth in the MLS Western Conference standings as a consequence, the outcome was exactly what LAFC could not afford while playing five of six games on the road over a period when coaches and players expected to learn a lot about their postseason possibilities.

The second-to-last away date on that challenging list comes Saturday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, where the San Jose Earthquakes (12-8-5, 41 points) will host LAFC (11-8-7, 40 points) instead of at PayPal Park for the fourth consecutive season.

Positioned fourth in the West after back-to-back wins, San Jose is looking for its first regular-season sweep of LAFC. Led by head coach Bruce Arena, the Earthquakes opened the year 9-1-0 before falling off a cliff and collecting eight of 39 points until going unbeaten in their last four outings.

San Jose beat LAFC at the home of the San Francisco 49ers in 2023 (2-1) and 2024 (3-1). Last year, a hat trick from Denis Bouanga plus a goal by Son Heung-min sent LAFC home a 4-2 winner in front of a crowd of 50,978 that featured a strong contingent wearing black and gold. It was the first time in seven matches at the stadium that San Jose had lost.

“If we want to get back to winning and winning a big game because it’s a California kind of derby, I would call it, you need your fans, you need the support of them and that’s what the team needs right now,” Dos Santos said. “So I think at Levi’s Stadium we have that opportunity to get them behind us.”

LAFC (11-8-7, 40 points) AT SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES (12-8-5, 41 points)

When: 4:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara

TV/Radio: Apple TV/710 AM, 980 AM, 1230 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Florida confirms a death from dengue as the state struggles with one of its worst recent outbreaks

• September 18, 2026

By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — Florida is experiencing one of its worst surges of dengue fever in decades, and the toll now includes a death.

The Florida Department of Health confirmed the death Friday, though it didn’t provide further details. It’s one of more than 130 locally acquired dengue cases reported so far this year in Hillsborough County, which typically sees only a handful.

“This is wildly unusual for us,” said Chris Wilkerson, a spokesperson for the county.

The Tampa Bay Times first reported the death, described as an elderly Tampa woman who died Sept. 4.

Dengue is caused by a virus spread by a type of warm weather mosquito that is expanding its geographic reach because of climate change, experts say. The current Florida outbreak is likely due to recent weather conditions that allowed the virus-spreading mosquitoes to multiply.

For decades in the U.S., most reported dengue cases were in travelers infected in other countries, along with locally acquired cases in Puerto Rico.

But in 2009-2010, Key West, Florida, reported the first dengue cases acquired in the continental U.S. outside of the Texas-Mexico border since 1945.

The state’s largest number — nearly 200 — was reported in 2023. But this year’s total so far already ranks second, with 152 cases of locally acquired dengue cases so far, according to the Florida Department of Health.

Many infected people don’t get sick, meaning the number of cases reported in an outbreak can be an undercount of the real number of infections.

But some experience headache, fever and flu-like symptoms. Severe cases can cause serious bleeding, shock and death.

Across the world, more than 2.2 million infections have been reported so far this year, according to the World Health Organization, and nearly 1,200 have died.

In the United States, there have been nearly 1,500 locally acquired U.S. cases, most of them in Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The current outbreak is centered just north of Tampa, and workers have been spraying to kill mosquitoes day and night. They also have been checking properties for pooled water, including in tires, where mosquitoes might breed, said Paolo Pecora, senior environmental scientist for Hillsborough County Mosquito Management Services.

Recent sampling of mosquitoes has not been finding the virus, a sign that the likelihood of new infections is waning, Pecora said.

Outbreaks can start when a person travels, gets infected and then is bitten back in the U.S. by a mosquito capable of spreading the virus. It can mushroom from there, said Michael von Fricken, a University of Florida associate professor of environmental and global health.

Given the recurring abundance of those kinds of mosquitoes in Florida, the threat of dengue is not likely to tail off, he added. “I do think it’s going to be somewhat the new normal,” he said.

The Associated Press’ health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

​ Orange County Register 

Rams WR Puka Nacua misses practice with hip injury

• September 18, 2026

LOS ANGELES — Star wide receiver Puka Nacua did not practice Friday afternoon for the Rams and appeared on the injury report with a hip injury.

Nacua, who missed parts of the preseason with a injury of his core and lower back muscle, played in the season-opening defeat against the San Francisco 49ers. The 25-year-old wideout recorded five receptions for a team-high 74 yards in the 27-7 defeat, a slight bright spot for the Rams who struggled in the first NFL regular-season game in Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

On Thursday afternoon, Nacua was a full participant in practice. Before the segment of practice that the media is allowed to watch Friday concluded, Nacua walked out toward the field in team-issued blue shirt and shorts, rather than football gear.

When asked about his recovery from his psoas injury early last week, Nacua said that it feels “great.” Nacua returned to practice in full during the preparation for Week 1.

“Being out there on the field just being able to move around, especially with some of the isolation and not being able to participate in all of the team drills, lifting and things like that, being around the guys I think has got some of that energy and blood flowing in the body, and then also being excited to have that preparation of coming into game one. It’s been great,” Nacua said.

Nacua continued: “(Senior Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance) Reggie (Scott) and the crew in there, especially [Associate Director, Athletic Trainer and Return to Play Coach) Mark (Dydasco) that I work with have been great every day. Just constant communication about how we’re feeling and what’s the best way for us to move forward.”

Rams coach Sean McVay is set to speak with the media Saturday, but did not speak Friday afternoon, which was a planned coordinators day with offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase and defensive coordinator Chris Shula speaking at the podium before practice.

The Rams host the New York Giants for their home opener at 5:15 p.m. Monday at SoFi Stadium.

Extra points

The Rams signed safety Tanner Ingle off their practice squad and onto the active roster Friday morning. Ingle was active for the season opener last week in Melbourne, Australia, when he was elevated off the practice squad, and could be cover for Week 2 if Kamren Kinchens (hamstring) or safety Kam Curl (ankle) are unable to go against the New York Giants.

Outside of Nacua, wide receiver Jordan Whittington also did not practice Friday with a quadricep injury and safety Kinchens remained out for a second consecutive day. Kinchens worked off to the side with a trainer during the media-watching period of practice.

Inside linebackers Nate Landman (shoulder) and Omar Speights (hip) remained limited, and so did Curl on Friday.

Wide receiver Davante Adams, who rested Thursday, returned to practice in full.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump says his son’s wedding party being bankrolled by a Russian oligarch is ‘totally allowed’

• September 18, 2026

By WILL WEISSERT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday defended his son’s recent wedding party being partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch, but also said he’d been told the money would be paid back.

“It’s totally allowed. And a lot of people have parties and all,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, before adding, “But, as I understand it, he paid them back.” He also said, “I hear he paid them back” without elaborating.

ProPublica first reported this week that Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, helped pay to rent a private island and for a fireworks show when Donald Trump Jr. and socialite Bettina Anderson were married in the Bahamas in May.

In a subsequent post on her Instagram page signed by the couple, Bettina Trump wrote that Kremlev, head of the International Boxing Association, was a “dear friend” who “very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding.”

In the post, Bettina Trump said she and the president’s son were married in a private ceremony “surrounded ONLY by our family.”

Still, the president — who did not attend the wedding, saying at the time he was too busy — defended Kremlev’s involvement as part of the festivities. Without providing details he said of his son, “a person that he knows — I guess a friend of his — gave him a wedding party.”

“That’s very common,” Trump said, adding, “I’ve given wedding parties to numerous people,” while also seeming to suggest that there was no background check done for these kinds of gifts.

“With all of that being said, I understand that Don’s paying him back,” Trump said.

The president also divulged for the first time that he’d previously heard about Kremlev’s involvement, saying of his son, “I asked about it.”

“He said, ‘No, I’m paying him back, Dad,”’ Trump said as he recalled their past conversation, which he noted had occurred “a while ago.”

“So I heard he’s paying him,” Trump said.

ProPublica reported that the wedding was heavily funded by Kremlev, including that he “footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars” in expenses like renting out one of two private islands where the three-day party was held.

The gift came as Russia remains at war with Ukraine following its invasion more than four years ago, and as Trump has failed to broker a promised peace deal between both sides.

Kremlev was recently honored with the Order of Friendship by Putin, according to the International Boxing Association. He also accompanied Putin to China as part of a Russian delegation, according to the Chinese state media cited by ProPublica.

​ Orange County Register