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A popular hiking trail in Hawaii had to close this week after 24 hikers became sick from what is believed to be norovirus — an outbreak many blamed on illegal squatters defecating along the remote path. A portion of the Kalalau Trail on the Kalalau section of the Nāpali Coast State Wilderness Park on the island of Kauai was shuttered for seven days beginning Sept. 4, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources posted on Facebook this week. The DOH received reports of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea from hikers who had been on the 11-mile trail, which runs from...

Six common wildlife species in Virginia have high rates of the virus that causes COVID-19 — a disease they likely caught from humans. The virus has been found in deer mice, Virginia opossum, raccoons, groundhogs, Eastern cottontails and Eastern red bats, according to findings in Nature. “I think the big take home message is the virus is pretty ubiquitous,” said Amanda Goldberg of the Virginia Tech Department of Biological Sciences. That meant little danger to humans from wildlife, researchers found. There was no evidence of humans catching COVID-19 from wildlife. The same was not true in reverse. Animals living in...

On July 13, during a heavy rainstorm in Yosemite National Park, an Arizona State University student slipped and fell to her death from the Half Dome cables. Park officials did not issue a statement about the death and declined to comment for this story. But Jonathan Rohloff — who was descending the cables with his 20-year-old daughter Grace when she slipped — confirmed that she did not survive. “Grace was such a beautiful soul,” he said in a phone interview with SFGATE. “She deserves to have her story told.” The father-daughter duo had hiked together countless times and over thousands...

People have been disappearing inside US National Parks at an alarming rate, with at least 10 vanishing never to be seen again since 2016, data examined by The Post shows. One was a hiker whose last message was to his son, telling him he was on his way to Yosemite National Park. Another got separated from his group during a nine-day excursion through the stifling Grand Canyon heat. A young river tour guide, with his whole life ahead of him, also vanished during a group trip. “No trace of man missing on Colorado River in Grand Canyon,” reads a local...

Two 17-year-old boys are lucky to be alive after getting stranded in a snowstorm during a multi-day hike on a mountain trail in Southern California last week, authorities said. Riley Ramirez, of Cyprus, California, and Cole White, of Portland, Oregon, were on a 10-day trek on the Pacific Crest Trail near the San Gorgonio Mountains when the severe weather dumped feet of snow in the mountains and left them unable to contact help, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. After losing contact with the teens, Ramirez’s father, Cesar Ramirez, told The Associated Press that he called the sheriff’s...

A month after a 19-year-old woman was found dead on Mount Lafayette, another hiker has died at the popular hiking spot in Franconia Notch, Fish and Game said. The 28-year-old man departed on the the 8.6-mile Bridle Path/Falling Waters Loop alone around 11 a.m. Saturday, according to a news release. Rescuers were alerted of the overdue hiker just after 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve. A family member in China had been tracking the hiker’s progress when at 6:15 p.m. the phone was dead and the hiker was lost off a trail south of Mount Lincoln. “The hiker was described by...

INVERNESS, Calif. (AP) — An academic couple who got lost during a Valentine's Day hike in the woods of Northern California was found Saturday by rescuers who spent almost a week looking for them and had given up hopes of finding them alive. Carol Kiparsky, 77, and Ian Irwin, 72, were found in a densely forested area near Tomales Bay, a narrow inlet about 30 miles north of San Francisco, and were airlifted to a hospital for treatment of hypothermia, Marin County Sheriff's Sgt. Brenton Schneider said at a news conference. “This is a miracle,” he said. They were unprepared...

Since his arrest last July -- he was accused of helping to plan the post-election uprisings -- Kian's family and friends have made countless appeals for clemency to the Iranian government, written letters to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pleading his innocence, and signed dozens of petitions. All to no avail. I've come now to realize that the regime probably thinks we're obtuse. Indeed, they know better than anyone that Kian is an innocent man. As the expression goes in Persian, "da'va sar-e een neest," i.e. that's not what this fight is about.

The Central District Attorney's Office decided Monday to close the investigation against two residents of Samaria who shot and killed Palestinian Authority resident Mahmoud Odeh during an attempted lynching of a group of Jewish children last year. The State Attorney's Office stated that the decision to close the case on the grounds of lack of guilt was made after examination of the evidence and the relevant circumstances in the case. Odeh, a resident of the village of Qusra, was part of an Arab mob which attacked a group of 25 schoolchildren who were on a Bar Mitzvah hike on November...

A group of 10 hikers in their 50s and 60s were traversing a path called the Little Jimmy Trail at an elevation of about 7,000 feet when cold, snowy conditions caused half the party to fall down a 70-degree slope, according to Michael Granek, a helicopter pilot with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Around 11:30 a.m., about an hour into the hike, a woman slipped and fell down the hill, Granek said. When a male member of the party reached out to grab her, the icy, steep terrain pulled him down as well, propelling both down 300 to 400...

You'll never guess why "Firehole Lake Drive" is temporarily off-limits to tourists in Yellowstone National Park. Yes, the popular 3.3-mile loop is closed for a while because the asphalt is melting, reports National Parks Traveler. "Extreme heat from surrounding thermal areas has caused thick oil to bubble to the surface, damaging the blacktop and creating unsafe driving conditions," says a park release. While that kind of thing isn't uncommon given Yellowstone's geology, the damage to the road is "unusually severe," reports the AP.

Both recalled little from their ordeal, beyond hallucinations. Jack said that she had wild thoughts her parents had been sentenced to prison time, a python was eating her and that Cendoya, 19, had told her he was having visions of a tiger. The search to find them required 1,900 man-hours and cost taxpayers an estimated $160,000. A deputy was injured while trying to rescue Cendoya. He faces up to three years in jail if convicted, reports The Orange County Register.

Three Americans who were imprisoned in Iran and accused of spying voiced their support Monday for activists with the Occupy Wall Street movement and California prisoners protesting solitary confinement conditions. Minnesota native Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd each spoke at the "Occupy Oakland" encampment in front of City Hall where dozens of activists have been sleeping in tents for the past week. The three University of California-Berkeley graduates thanked supporters who advocated for their release and said they are inspired by the Wall Street protests. "This is the perfect place to celebrate our freedom," said Bauer, a freelance...

Americans' lawyer barred from leaving Iran‎ Reuters - Jessica Rinaldi - Ramin Mostafavihttp://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/03/us-iran-usa-lawyer-idUSTRE79238Z20111003--- US Hikers' Lawyer Arrested and Prevented from Leaving Iran The three US hikers (Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal) might all be free and happily back in the States now, but the Iranian lawyer who represented them, Masoud Safii is experiencing his own problems leaving the country. Last week, he was due to fly to the United States and had got as far as boarding the plane when his passport was confiscated by Iranian authorities by order of the judiciary. http://www.radicalislam.org/blog/us-hikers/us-hikers039-lawyer-arrested-and-prevented-leaving-iran

The only explanation for our prolonged detention is the 32 years of mutual hostility between America and Iran. The irony is that Sarah, Josh and I oppose U.S. policies towards Iran which perpetuate this hostility. –Shane Bauer The media like to inject a narrative into the description of public figures. Rodney King was a "motorist," not a violent drug abuser. Louise Woodward was an "au-pair," not a selfish baby killer. Amanda Knox is an "exchange student," not a psychotic knife murderer. The modifier humanizes those whom the Old Time Media decide deserve sympathy. By contrast Lawrence Brewer's modifier was "white...

US Hikers Freed from Iran Speak: Thank Penn And Chomsky, Blame Mutual US-Iran Hostility for Detention --------“The only explanation for our prolonged detention is the 32 years of mutual hostility between America and Iran,” said Bauer. “The irony is Sarah Josh and I oppose U.S. policies towards Iran which perpetuate this hostility. We were convicted of espionage, because we are American.”

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the now freed American hikers who were held in an Iranian prison after being convicted for espionage, appeared before cameras and reporters in New York on Sunday and gave prepared statements about their detentions in Iran. Bauer, a freelance journalist, along with Sarah Shourd, a teacher and women’s rights activist, and Fattal, an environmentalist, were arrested July 31, 2009 while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan. Shourd was released last year. Bauer's and Fattal's remarks were critical of American foreign policy towards Iran as well as the Iranian government's treatment of it's own people. "The only explanation...

Two US men who have been held as spies in Iran for more than two years left their Tehran jail on Wednesday, accompanied by Omani officials who, according to a diplomatic source, drove them to an airport. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal have been in Iranian custody since their arrest on July 31, 2009 on the border with Iraq where they say they were hiking. The deal to release them was delayed because the judge in charge of the trial - who had to sign off on the agreement - was on vacation until yesterday. The judiciary had said on...

Arab riots continue in the Shilo area after local Arabs attacked Jewish hikers resulting in one hiker stabbed and one Arab shot. The hikers were attacked between the Arab village of Kursa and Jewish community of Esh Kodesh in the Shomron (Samaria). The knifed hiker was reported to have in serious condition, while the Arab who was shot died of his wounds after evacuation by a Red Crescent amublance. Esh Kodesh residents said that a group of Jewish hikers who arrived this morning to camp in area adjacent to Shilo and Esh Kodesh were attacked by a group of Arabs...

An Iranian court Tuesday set bail of $500,000 each for two American men arrested more than two years ago and convicted on spy-related charges, clearing the way for their release a year after a similar bail-for-freedom arrangement for the third member of the group, their defense attorney said.