BRAVE MAG

A student at a Rhode Island university has diedfollowing the record-setting blizzard on Feb. 23, police said.

Joseph Boutros, 21, wasdiscovered unconscious inside a running vehicle on Monday evening. He was transported to Newport Hospital's Emergency Room, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. He attended Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island.

"Our community mourns this tragic loss," said Salve Regina President Kelli Armstrong in a statement. "Our hearts ache with Joseph's family, teammates, faculty, coaches, friends and all who loved him. May perpetual light shine upon him and may he rest in peace."

Newport Police Department attributed the death to carbon monoxide poisoning, as the entire vehicle, including the tailpipe, was covered with snow.

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"This tragic incident was accidental and a reminder to be vigilant to keep exhaust pipes clear of snow and debris when vehicles are idling," the department's news release on the death states.

The death came as Rhode Island broke a state record for snowfall. Several towns in Rhode Island broke records for heaviest snow, reported theProvidence Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. The storm dumped 37.9 inches of snow on Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport in Warwick by 7 p.m., on Monday, a state record, according to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service. The prior record snowfall was the Blizzard of 1978, which dropped 28.6 inches of snow in February of that year.

The snow that fell Monday alone, 35.5 inches, set the record for the highest single-day snow total, the Weather Service said. The previous record was the 19 inches that fell on Jan. 8, 1996.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal:College student dies of carbon monoxide poisoning amid blizzard

PARIS (AP) — The Louvre Museum's director resigned Tuesday after months of pressure following the October theft of theFrench crown jewels, as the world's most visited museum faced widening scrutiny over security failures, labor unrest and a suspected ticket fraud scheme.

France Louvre

Laurence des Carsquit after a punishing year for the former royal palace — the high-profile jewels heist from the Apollo Gallery, a mid-February burst pipe near the "Mona Lisa," water leaks damaging priceless books, staff walkouts and a wildcat strike over overcrowding and understaffing.

The landmark has faced a widening narrative of an institution spiraling out of control.

And that pressure deepened in recent weeks when French authorities revealed a suspected decadelong ticket fraud operation linked to the museum that investigators say may have cost the Louvre 10 million euros ($11.8 million).

PresidentEmmanuel Macronaccepted des Cars' resignation as "an act of responsibility" at a moment when the Louvre needs "calm" and new momentum for security upgrades, modernization and other major projects, according to a statement from his office.

Macron wants to give des Cars a new mission during France's presidency of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, focused on cooperation among major museums, the statement said.

For many in France's cultural world, the resignation answers months of head-scratching over why no top official had fallen after the heist: a daylight robbery that many in the country saw as the most humiliating breach of French heritage security in living memory.

It also came as lawmakers and cultural officials widened scrutiny of the museum's leadership and security practices in the months since the breach.

Brazen theft

Thieves tookless than eight minutesin October to steal crown jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) from the Louvre, in a weekend operation that stunned visitors, exposed glaring vulnerabilities and left one of France's most symbolically charged collections in criminal hands.

Several suspects were later arrested, but the stolen pieces remain missing.

Des Cars, one of the most prominent museum directors in Europe, hadoffered to resignon the day of the robbery, but it was initially refused by the culture minister.

In remarks after the theft, she described the moment as a "tragic, brutal, violent reality" for the Louvre and said that, as the person in charge, it had felt right to offer her resignation.

Lightning rod

In an interview published on Tuesday by daily newspaper Le Figaro, des Cars said that she had tried to steer the Louvre through the fallout from the heist, but had concluded that she could no longer carry out the museum's transformation in the current institutional climate.

Staying on, she said, would have meant managing the status quo when the museum still needs deep reform.

"I was there to take the lightning" as museum director, she said.

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Des Cars also said that the October break-in exposed problems that she had been warning about since taking office, including aging infrastructure, obsolete technical systems and severe congestion.

She had led the Louvre since 2021, taking over one of the museum world's most prestigious jobs as the institution emerged from the coronavirus pandemic and mass tourism returned.

Multifaceted crisis

In June, awildcat strikeby front-of-house staff and security workers forced the Louvre to halt operations, stranding thousands of visitors outside the glass pyramid and underscoring the depth of anger among employees over overcrowding, understaffing and what unions called untenable working conditions.

Workers said that the pressure of daily visitor flows — particularly around the "Mona Lisa" — had become unmanageable and that promised reforms were arriving too slowly. There were growing complaints that the infrastructure and staffing of the crumbling medieval structure haven't kept pace with the crowds pouring through its galleries.

The resignation came at an especially punishing moment, less than two weeks after French authorities revealed the separate ticket fraud scheme.

That case widened scrutiny beyond the jewels robbery and toward the museum's day-to-day controls.

Fraud scheme

Prosecutors say tour guides are suspected of — up to 20 times a day — reusing the same tickets to bring in different visitor groups, at times allegedly with the help of Louvre employees, in a system investigators believe operated for a decade.

In a rare interview just days ago with The Associated Press after the fraud case was made public, the Louvre's No. 2, general administrator Kim Pham, said that fraud at an institution the size of the Louvre was "statistically inevitable."

He argued that the museum's sheer scale — millions of visitors, multiple checkpoints and a sprawling historic complex — makes it uniquely exposed.

But he also acknowledged shortcomings, and said that the museum had tightened validation checks and increased controls.

New Renaissance

The succession of crises has put new political weight on a project Macron has heavily championed: the Louvre's sweeping overhaul plan, branded the "Louvre New Renaissance."

Unveiled by Macron in January 2025, the renovation, which could take up to a decades, aims to modernize a museum widely seen as overstretched and physically worn down by mass tourism.

The plan includes a new entrance near the Seine River to ease pressure on I.M. Pei's pyramid, new underground spaces and a dedicated room for the "Mona Lisa" with timed access — all intended to improve crowd flow and reduce the daily crush that has become a symbol of the Louvre's success and its dysfunction.

The project is expected to cost roughly 700 million-800 million euros ($826 million-$944 million), with funding from ticket revenue, state support, donations and Louvre Abu Dhabi-related income.

The scale and cost of that plan now loom over the search for des Cars' successor.

Macron has framed the overhaul as a national priority, comparing its ambition to other landmark French restoration efforts and casting it as part of a broader defense of French cultural prestige.

Seventy-two tigers have died at a tourist parkin Thailandin less than two weeks.

The animals died at two facilities operated by Tiger Kingdom, in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Visitors to the park are allowed to touch and interact with the big cats.

Samples taken from the tigers showed signs of canine distemper virus, a highly contagious disease that attacks the respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous systems, the local livestock department said.

The virus is normally found among dogs but can also infect big cats. It is not known to affect humans.

The carcasses also tested positive for a bacteria associated with respiratory disease, and some for feline parvovirus. The livestock department said it was expediting post-mortem examinations and would conduct an investigation into the deaths.

On Tuesday, officials said the virus was no longer spreading and no more tigers were dying, but the remaining gravely ill animals were recommended to be euthanised.

A veterinarian said nearly all the tigers across the park fell ill, but it is unclear how many will be culled.

At a news conference in Bangkok, Pattana Promphat, the public health minister, said no humans had been infected.

"If we detect any sick persons, we will prepare for a nationwide monitoring measure," said Monthien Khanasawat, the director-general of the public health ministry's disease control department.

More than 240 tigers are kept at the park. The animals appeared to have been infected and become sick rapidly, with officials initially suspecting that the outbreak came from contaminated raw chicken used to feed them.

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"By the time we realised they were sick, it was already too late," Somchuan Ratanamungklanon, the director of the national livestock department, previously told local media.

He said it was harder to detect sickness in tigers than animals such as common household cats or dogs.

Veterinarians or park staff working in the tiger enclosures were placed under observation for 21 days, but none had so far shown signs of illness, Thai PBS reported.

The deaths have prompted condemnation from animal rights groups over the treatment of captive tigers used as tourist attractions in Thailand.

'Prioritise profit over animal welfare'

"Currently, Thailand has approximately 1,500 captive tigers in over 60 locations. Many of these tigers are kept in deplorable conditions, bred for tourism, and it is believed that some may enter the illegal wildlife trade," Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand said in a statement.

"These venues prioritise entertainment and profit over animal welfare and conservation and this outbreak highlights the devastating consequences."

Dr Jan Schmidt-Burback, the director of wildlife research and veterinary expertise at World Animal Protection, said she had visited the facility on a number of occasions.

She said: "This case is a tragic reminder that tigers do not belong in captivity. The smallest issue can quickly endanger many animals, and the poor welfare conditions they face exacerbate disease outbreaks.

"The inadequate conditions for tigers at Tiger Kingdom, the high frequency of breeding them for commercial gain, and the proven failure to protect the tigers from disease outbreaks should be a wake-up call for the Thai government to take steps to ensure this is the last generation of tigers exploited for captivity.

"The facilities have zero benefit for conserving wild tigers, provide no educational benefit, and, apart from causing immense suffering to tigers, put staff and visitors at risk of injury and disease."

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