Election Section

16th child added to cancer
cluster in Nevada town 

RENO, Nev. — A sixteenth case of childhood leukemia has been confirmed in a cancer cluster that has baffled scientists and frightened residents in the northern Nevada town of Fallon, state health officials announced. 

Acute lymphocytic leukemia was diagnosed in a 2 1/2-year-old former resident of Churchill County, according to the Nevada State Health Division. The child’s name and gender were not released. 

Health officials have said that, given an average rate of about three childhood cases per 100,000 children, they would normally expect to see about one case every five years in the Fallon area, which has a population of 26,000. 

Of the confirmed childhood leukemia victims linked to Fallon since 1997, two have died. 

Floyd Sands, the father of one of those who died, called news of the latest Fallon case disturbing. 

“When are these people going to do something real?” he asked the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I don’t believe those people have done anything real so far.” 

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been testing for potential environmental contaminants since September 2001, according to the state. 

9 beached whales die
on Cape Cod beach 

DENNIS, Mass. — More than 50 pilot whales beached themselves on a stretch of Cape Cod sand Monday and nine of them died before vacationers and other volunteers could push the animals back out to deeper water in a feverish rescue effort. 

Hundreds of vacationers lined a quarter-mile of Chapin Beach and watched as rescuers tended to the small, glistening black whales, first discovered stranded about 6 a.m. 

One of the whales was dead when rescuers arrived, and another was euthanized after it went into shock, said Sallie Riggs, director of Cape Cod Stranding Network. Seven others died after spending hours in the hot sun. The carcasses were taken away in a dump truck while volunteers poured buckets of water over the others and draped them with wet towels to keep them moist. 

Researcher charged with
stealing biological material  

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A former Cornell University researcher was charged Monday for allegedly stealing biological materials from the Ivy League school and attempting to return with them to his native China. 

FBI agents detained Yin Qingqiang, 38, at Syracuse’s Hancock International Airport after security workers conducting a random luggage search found more than 100 glass vials and containers holding unknown substances Sunday. 

Yin was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States government by transporting stolen property and one count of conspiracy to commit fraud in interstate or foreign commerce. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.