Khalid Al-Khateb was born in Libya in the 1990s without the use of his legs. Despite wars and economic collapse in his country, the greatest challenge he has faced is trying to function in a world where disabilities are mostly ignored. From Tripoli, Libya, Malik Ghariani has this animated story.
…
Month: March 2025
Academy Award-winning actor Gene Hackman likely died on Feb. 17, the last day there was any activity on his pacemaker, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Friday. “According to the pathologist,” Mendoza said, “that is a very good assumption that was his last day of life,” nine days before investigators found his body.
The bodies of Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 64, a classical pianist, were found, along with the dead body of one of their three dogs, Wednesday in their home in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico.
The initial findings of autopsies on the couple revealed that Hackman and his wife both tested negative for carbon monoxide poisoning and “no external trauma” was reported to either of them. Mendoza said, “There were no apparent signs of foul play.”
However, the couple’s “manner and cause of death has not been determined,” according to the sheriff. “The official results of the autopsy and toxicology reports are pending.”
Investigators have retrieved an assortment of prescription and over-the-counter medications, in addition to cellphones and records from medical diagnostics testing from the house.
“I’m pretty confident there is no foul play,” Mendoza said Friday on The Today Show. He said the autopsy results “will steer us in the right direction” in determining what happened to Hackman and his wife.
Without the autopsy, the sheriff said, it is difficult to determine how long the couple had been dead.
A search warrant affidavit issued Thursday said the circumstances surrounding the couple’s deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.”
Mendoza told The Today Show that several doors around the house were unlocked and one door in the rear of the house was open. Earlier reports said the front door was open.
Hackman’s body was found near the rear of the house, while his wife’s body was found in a bathroom. The dead dog’s body was found in a dog crate, not far from Arakawa’s body. The couple had three German shepherds. The other two dogs were found alive and healthy at the property.
The search warrant affidavit also revealed that police called the Santa Fe Fire Department and the New Mexico Gas Company to Hackman’s residence, but no toxic fumes or leaky pipes were found on the grounds.
Storied career
Hackman had a lengthy career on stage and screen, including appearing in Broadway shows, on television and in more than 80 films.
He won an Oscar for best actor for his role in the 1971 film The French Connection and a best supporting Oscar for the 1992 film Unforgiven.
Hackman’s resume featured three other Oscar nominations, including his breakout role in Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 as well as I Never Sang for My Father in 1970 and Mississippi Burning in 1988.
His work crossed genres as he appeared in action movies, thrillers and off-beat comedies.
In addition to his award-nominated works, he was also known for roles in films such as The Poseidon Adventure, Young Frankenstein, Superman, Hoosiers, The Birdcage, and The Royal Tenenbaums.
His last film was Welcome to Mooseport in 2004.
His loss was immediately felt throughout the entertainment community as fellow artists praised him on social media. Director Francis Ford Coppola and actor Morgan Freeman were among those who posted their remembrances of the actor.
“The loss of a great artist, always cause for both mourning and celebration,” Coppola posted on Instagram. “Gene Hackman a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity. I mourn his loss and celebrate his existence and contribution.” Hackman starred in Coppola’s 1974 film The Conversation.
Freeman posted on Instagram: “One of the personal highlights of my career was bringing the French Film Gardé a Vue (Under Suspicion) to life with the incredibly gifted Gene Hackman. And of course… Unforgiven. Rest in peace, my friend.”
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…
DALLAS, TEXAS — The number of people with measles in Texas increased to 146 in an outbreak that led this week to the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, health officials said Friday.
The number of cases — Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years — increased by 22 since Tuesday. The Texas Department of State Health Services said cases span over nine counties in Texas and 20 patients have been hospitalized.
The child who died Tuesday night in the outbreak is the first U.S. death from the highly contagious but preventable respiratory disease since 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official and a vaccine critic, said Wednesday that the U.S. Department of the Health and Human Services was watching cases but dismissed the outbreak as “not unusual.”
But on Friday afternoon, Kennedy said in a post on X that his heart went out to families impacted by the outbreak, and he recognized “the serious impact of this outbreak on families, children, and healthcare workers.”
Kennedy also said his agency will continue to fund Texas’ immunization program and that ending the outbreak is a “top priority” for him and his team.
The virus has largely spread through rural, oil rig-dotted West Texas, with cases concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton has said.
Gaines County has a strong homeschooling and private school community. It is also home to one of the highest rates of school-aged children in Texas who have opted out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% skipping a required dose last school year.
Texas law allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs. Anton has said the number of unvaccinated kids in Gaines County is likely significantly higher because homeschooled children’s data would not be reported.
The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is safe and highly effective at preventing infection and severe cases. The first shot is recommended for children ages 12 to 15 months, and the second for ages 4 to 6 years. Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
Vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, and most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks.
The U.S. had considered measles eliminated in 2000, which meant there had been a halt in continuous spread of the disease for at least a year. Measles cases rose in 2024, including a Chicago outbreak that sickened more than 60.
Eastern New Mexico has nine cases of measles, but the state health department said there is no connection to the outbreak in West Texas.
At a news conference Friday in Austin, officials urged people to get vaccinated if they are not already.
“We’re here to say quite simply: Measles can kill, ignorance can kill and vaccine denial definitely kills,” said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat.
…