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GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization's Zika response team is predicting that Brazil will host a "fantastic Olympics" and that the mosquito-borne virus will be "way down" by the time the Summer Games begin in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO's executive director for outbreaks and health emergencies, says the mosquito population is expected to drop off in the area around Rio since it will be the southern hemisphere's winter by then. He said Olympic venues are also in a relatively confined area, making it easier for authorities to control the local mosquito population.
Brazil has recorded hundreds of thousands of cases of suspected Zika infection in recent months amid strong concerns that the virus could be linked to a spike in the number of abnormally small heads in newborn babies.
The Summer Olympics run from Aug.5-21.
MONROEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — This south Alabama town with a domed courthouse and tree-lined streets served as both a literary inspiration and a place of refuge for "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee.
Lee tweaked names and locations in her hometown of Monroeville to come up with the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The same town appears in her novel "Go Set a Watchman," released last year. Residents easily point out locations depicted in both books, including the historic Monroe County Courthouse.
But above all Monroeville was simply home to Lee, who died Friday at age 89. She had lived in an assisted living facility there for years as her health worsened. Two black blows hung on the doors of the old courthouse, which now is a museum, following her death.
Here, before a stroke and failing hearing and eyesight limited her mobility, Lee wasn't the hermit often depicted by news outlets. Instead, she was the woman in the pew at the First United Methodist Church, the shopper on the bread aisle at the grocery store, the golfer who enjoyed playing a round with sister Alice Finch Lee, who died in 2014 at age 103.
Connie Baggett, who met Lee while working as a newspaper reporter in the region for years, said the author typically was friendly and chatty as long as she knew the conversation wasn't for an interview.
"She was in no way reclusive. She went golfing, she went to church, she went to parties with friends. She, when she was able, went to the casino in Atmore quite often," Baggett said Friday. "But she did not like publicity; she didn't like reporters. She was an intensely private person."
Neighbors knew all about Lee's dislike for the media and for surprise visitors, so they would rarely direct outsiders to the red-brick home where she lived with her sister for years when not in New York. People who knew Lee best typically wouldn't discuss her life out of respect for her wishes and fear of being shut out of a tight loop of friends.
But Lee's relationship with Monroeville also could be tense. She was known to speak up if she thought someone was trying to appropriate her book or its characters, and she had a court fight with the town's museum over its use of "Mockingbird."
Wayne Flynt, a Lee friend and historian, said those mixed feelings were evident when he visited Lee last week.
"She was coming up on 90 in a couple of months and we talked about her birthday, and I said my wife was going to bring a cake and we were going to put 90 candles on it and burn down the entire town of Monroeville as she tried to blow out the candles," Flynt said. "She laughed. She chortled. She giggled. Given her love-hate relationship with Monroeville, you can certainly appreciate the possibility of burning down the entire town of Monroeville on her 90th birthday."
Yet Lee was perfectly at ease and happy during a luncheon held last summer in the days before the release of "Watchman," said Alabama tourism director Lee Sentell, who attended the event and drove Lee home afterward to The Meadows, the senior center where she lived.
"The thing I remember most is that she was asked whether she expected 'Watchman' to be published and she said, 'Well of course I did, don't be silly,'" Sentell said. "She was in very good form, animated and happy to be around people she knew and liked."
Monroeville, a city of about 6,300 located 90 miles north of Mobile, is where Lee and childhood friend Truman Capote spent summer days together, much as Lee's character Scout Finch and her friend Dill did. It's also where her father, A.C. Lee, worked as an attorney and became her model for fictional lawyer Atticus Finch.
The town has called itself Alabama's literary capital for years in large part because of their fame, but the entire state claims a share of Lee.
"'To Kill A Mockingbird' has impacted people around the world," Gov. Robert Bentley said in a statement. "It is because of Harper Lee that the world knows about her special hometown of Monroeville ...."
ST. FRANCISVILLE, La. (AP) — The last inmate of a group known as the "Angola Three" pleaded no contest Friday to manslaughter in the 1972 death of a prison guard and was released after more than four decades in prison.
Albert Woodfox and two other men became known as the "Angola Three" for their decades-long stays in isolation at the Louisiana Penitentiary at Angola and other prisons. Officials said they were kept in solitary because their Black Panther Party activism would otherwise rile up inmates at the maximum-security prison farm in Angola.
Woodfox consistently maintained his innocence in the killing of guard Brent Miller. He was being held at the West Feliciana Parish Detention Center in St. Francisville, about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge. He was awaiting a third trial in Miller's death after earlier convictions were thrown out by federal courts for reasons including racial bias in selecting a grand jury foreman.
Woodfox, who turned 69 on the same day he was released from custody, spoke to reporters and supporters briefly outside the jail before driving off with his brother. Speaking of his future plans, he said he wanted to visit his mother's gravesite. She died while he was in prison, and Woodfox said he was not allowed to go to the funeral.
As to whether he would have done anything differently back in 1972, Woodfox responded: "When forces are beyond your control, there's not a lot you can do. Angola was a very horrible place at the time and everybody was just fighting to survive from day to day."
In a press release earlier Friday, Woodfox thanked his brother and other supporters who have lobbied over the years for his release.
"Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no contest plea to lesser charges. I hope the events of today will bring closure to many," he said.
He had been twice convicted of murder and pleaded guilty Friday to manslaughter and aggravated burglary.
At the time of Miller's killing, Woodfox was serving time for armed robbery and assault. Inmates identified him as the one who grabbed the guard from behind while others stabbed Miller with a lawnmower blade and a hand-sharpened prison knife.
The star witness, a serial rapist who left death row and was pardoned by the Louisiana governor after his testimony, died before the second trial.
Woodfox was placed in solitary immediately after Miller's body was found in an empty prison dormitory, and then was ordered kept on "extended lockdown" every 90 days for decades.
The other Angola Three inmates were Herman Wallace, who died a free man in October 2013, just days after a judge granted him a new trial in Miller's death, and Robert King, who was released in 2001 after his conviction in the death of a fellow inmate was overturned.
Woodfox appeared close to freedom in recent years.
U.S. District Judge James Brady ordered his release in June and barred a third trial, saying the state could not try Woodfox fairly more than 40 years after Miller's death.
But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Brady, setting up a third trial.