$30,000 reward offered for information on missing Indian baby Saanvi Venna

[email protected] (Agencies )
October 25, 2012

SaanviKing of Prussia, October 25: The local police and the Telugu community have announced a $30,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of 10-month-old baby Saanvi Venna, who has been missing from her parents' apartment in the US state of Pennsylvania since Monday. Her paternal grandmother, who was baby-sitting her, was found murdered in the apartment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined the massive search for the baby.

Investigators believe Saanvi was abducted between 8 am and 1 pm local time on Monday from the family's apartment in King of Prussia, a Philadelphia suburb. The baby's grandmother, 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna, had arrived from Andhra Pradesh in India in July and was scheduled to return home in January. Investigators would not immediately say how the grandmother was killed or whether there were any suspects. "All of our resources are focused on finding Saanvi and reuniting her with her parents," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said in an interview. "The search for the child is intricately connected to the homicide investigation", he added.

The FBI is assisting in the investigation, said Frank Burton, a spokesman for the agency's Philadelphia office. The police, who issued an "Amber alert" or child abduction energency alert for the missing baby, have been searching the apartment complex and surrounding areas, apart from announcing the $30,000 reward.


Baby Saanvi's parents, father Venkata Konda Siva Venna, and mother Chenchu Latha Punuru, emigrated to the US from India in February 2007. The couple lived in San Antonio, Cleveland and Troy, Michigan, before moving to the Philadelphia-area apartment complex in June this year.They have made frantic appeals for any information on the baby's whereabouts.

Venkata Konda Siva Venna issued a tearful plea for his baby's return. "If someone finds my baby, could you please bring my baby back?" he was quoted as saying by the Philly Inquirer.

Ram Venna, the child's uncle, who has flown in from his home in San Jose, California, said, "Pleading everyone's help in finding my 10-month-old niece. Please call the police if you have any information that can help in locating Saanvi. All the family is grieving my mother's tragic death and praying for the safe return of my niece Saanvi. I hope we can successfully locate Saanvi."

Madhukar Sanikommu of Warren, New Jersey, a cousin of Saanvi's father, said the family was trying to hold on to hope that the girl would be found. "We're all devastated right now," Sanikommu said.

The Telugu Association of North America (TANA) organised a candle light vigil on Tuesday night in memory of Satyavathi Venna.


Earlier post: Indian woman killed, grand-daughter abducted in US

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News Network
January 23,2020

Jan 23: Hundreds of Central Americans trying to reach the United States were stuck at the Mexico-Guatemala border on Wednesday after the Mexican government beefed up security to meet US demands to contain migrant flows.

Under sustained pressure from President Donald Trump, Mexico's government has adopted tougher measures to reduce the number of people heading towards the U.S. border.

Migrants in Tecun Uman, on the Guatemalan side of the border, were taken by surprise.

"We thought we'd be allowed through just like with the October caravan when they reached Tijuana," said Honduran migrant Ritzy Anabel, who did not give her surname.

"People from Mexico and Guatemala treated them well. But now it's changed because Mexicans don't want (us) to enter."

Many Central Americans migrants heading north are fleeing economic hardship and violence at home. A large caravan of migrants crossed into Mexico and went north in October 2018. Migrants crossing into Mexico earlier this week faced tear gas from security forces, who delivered a firmer response than in previous mass movements at the border.

Even so, about 1,000 migrants, most of them from Honduras, managed to reach Mexican soil on Tuesday. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said several hundred of the new arrivals were immediately deported on planes and buses.

On Wednesday, Mexican authorities said that 460 Honduran migrants were deported throughout the day. Other migrants from the group, including families traveling with children, were pondering their next moves.

Honduran Carlos Amador said that while some of his compatriots were returning home, others were hoping for positive news.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to punish Mexico and Central American countries if they fail to clamp down on the migrant flows. That has resulted in a series of agreements aimed at delivering on Trump's campaign promises to curb immigration.

Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf called the measures put in place by the Mexican National Guard "effective", adding that dozens of his personnel was on the ground in Central America assisting local immigration and security officials. Trump tweeted: "Sorry, if you come you will be immediately sent back!"

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News Network
June 2,2020

Minneapolis, Jun 2: An official autopsy released Monday ruled that George Floyd, the African-American man whose death at police hands set off unrest across the United States, died in a homicide involving "neck compression".

George, 46, died of "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression," and the manner of death was "homicide," the Hennepin County Medical Examiner in Minneapolis said in a statement.

Floyd's other significant health conditions were listed as "arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease; fentanyl intoxication; recent methamphetamine use."

The statement added that the "manner of death is not a legal determination of culpability or intent."

It emphasized that under Minnesota state law "the Medical Examiner is a neutral and independent office and is separate and distinct from any prosecutorial authority or law enforcement agency."

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News Network
March 24,2020

New Delhi, Mar 24: Reports of a person in China dying due to a virus called hantavirus have spread panic at a time when the world is battling the pandemic of novel coronavirus, which began in China.

The novel coronavirus has killed over 16,000 people around the world and the outbreak is yet to be brought under control.

This morning, hantavirus became one of the top trends on Twitter after the Chinese state media tweeted about one person in the country dying due the virus. However, it turns out, hantavirus is not a new virus and has been infecting humans for decades.

Global Times, a state-run English-language newspaper, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, "A person from Yunnan Province died while on his way back to Shandong Province for work on a chartered bus on Monday. He was tested positive for hantavirus. Other 32 people on bus were tested."

Global Times's hantavirus report on Twitter has been shared over 6,000 times.

On Tuesday, hantavirus was one of the top trends on Twitter.

WHAT IS HANTAVIRUS?

Some people are calling it a new virus but so is not the case. United States's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in a journal writes that currently, the hantavirus genus includes more than 21 species.

"Hantaviruses in the Americas are known as 'New World' hantaviruses and may cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome [HPS]," CDC says. "Other hantaviruses, known as 'Old World' hantaviruses, are found mostly in Europe and Asia and may cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome [HFRS]."

Any man, woman, or child who is around mice or rats that carry harmful hantaviruses can get HPS.

People get HPS when they breath in hantaviruses. This can happen when rodent urine and droppings that contain a hantavirus are stirred up into the air. People can also become infected when they touch mouse or rat urine, droppings, or nesting materials that contain the virus and then touch their eyes, nose, or mouth. They can also get HPS from a mouse or rat bite.

In the US, 10 confirmed cases of hantavirus infection in people who visited Yosemite National Park in California, US, in November 2012, were reported. Similarly, in 2017, CDC assisted health officials in investigating an outbreak of Seoul virus infection that infected 17 people in seven states.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF HANTAVIRUS?

If people get HPS, they will feel sick one to five weeks after they were around mice or rats that carried a hantavirus.

At first people with HPS will have:

Fever
Severe muscle aches
Fatigue

After a few days, they will have a hard time breathing. Sometimes people will have headaches, dizziness, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and stomach pain.

Usually, people do not have a runny nose, sore throat, or a rash.

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