Ex-Ohio State players to join a sex abuse lawsuit against the school

Thirty former Ohio State football players, including some former NFL players, have agreed to join a federal lawsuit against the university over the sexual abuse of student athletes decades ago by a team doctor, a lawyer in the case said Thursday.

The lawyer, Rocky Ratliff, said in an interview that the men came forward some eight years after the first lawsuit was filed because they needed to overcome the shame of revealing that they’d been sexually abused by another man and the fear of taking on the university publicly.

They are “tearful and living with it,” Ratliff said. “But as this case progresses on, they see how Ohio State’s treating athletes from the university and I think they want people to know it’s OK, even if it is male to male (sexual abuse), to come forward.”

Ohio State has fought lawsuits in federal court since 2018 brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss.

Health officials track dozens who left hantavirus-stricken ship after fatality

MADRID — Health authorities across four continents Thursday were tracking down and monitoring passengers who disembarked a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship before its deadly outbreak was detected, and trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.

In Argentina, a team of investigators has yet to leave for the southern town where they suspect the outbreak originated, officials from the country’s Health Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday. The Argentine investigators suspect a Dutch couple may have contracted the virus while on a bird-watching trip before they boarded the cruise ship.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, the ship’s operator and Dutch officials said Thursday.

Three passengers have died in the outbreak — a Dutch couple and a German national — and several others are sick. .

Source: US not looking at military action in Cuba despite Trump threats

WASHINGTON — The United States is not looking at imminent military action against Havana despite President Donald Trump’s repeated threats that “Cuba is next” and that American warships deployed in the Middle East for the Iran conflict could return by way of the island, U.S. officials say.

The officials involved in preliminary discussions with Cuban authorities also told The Associated Press that they are not optimistic the communist government will accept an offer for tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, two years of free Starlink internet access for all Cubans, agricultural assistance and i