JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A World Boxing Council championship belt belonging to former South African President Nelson Mandela has been stolen from a museum in Soweto.

The belt was given to Mandela by American boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard during one of his visits to South Africa.

It was one of many artifacts inside the Nelson Mandela National Museum museum, a major tourist attraction for local and international travelers.

Mandela, a former amateur boxer, revered the belt and it was prominently displayed in the museum, which is in a house where he once lived.

South African media outlet eNCA reported that police took fingerprints upon learning about the theft.

However, police spokeswoman Dimakatso Sello said that no suspects have been arrested.

Mandela died in 2013 at the age of 95.

On this day in 1990, Nelson Mandela, the leader of the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, was released from prison after 27 years. Born in 1918, Mandela joined the African National Congress, the oldest black political organization in South Africa, in 1944. In 1952, he became deputy national president of the ANC, advocating for nonviolent resistance to apartheid. After 69 people were killed in the Sharpeville massacre on March 21, 1960, Mandela helped organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in guerilla warfare against the government. Mandela was arrested for treason in 1961 and again in 1962 for illegally leaving the country. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and was put on trial again in 1964 on charges of sabotage. In June 1964, he and other ANC leaders were convicted, and Mandela was sentenced to life in prison.Watch the video above to see the full story.

JOHANNESBURG — Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon, an uncompromising foe of the country’s past racist policy of apartheid and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, died Sunday at 90. South Africans, world leaders and people around the globe mourned the death of the man viewed as the country’s moral conscience.

Tutu worked passionately, tirelessly and non-violently to tear down apartheid — South Africa’s brutal, decades-long regime of oppression against its Black majority that only ended in 1994.

The buoyant, blunt-spoken clergyman used his pulpit as the first Black bishop of Johannesburg and later the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town as well as frequent public demonstrations to galvanize public opinion against racial inequity, both at home and globally.

Nicknamed “the Arch,” Tutu was diminutive, with an impish sense of humor, but became a towering figure in his nation’s history, comparable to fellow Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela, a prisoner during white rule who became South Africa’s first Black president. Tutu and Mandela shared a commitment to building a better, more equal South Africa.

Upon becoming president in 1994, Mandela appointed Tutu to be chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which uncovered the abuses of the apartheid system.

Tutu’s death on Sunday “is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

“From the pavements of resistance in South Africa to the pulpits of the world’s great cathedrals and places of worship, and the prestigious setting of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, the Arch distinguished himself as a non-sectarian, inclusive champion of universal human rights.”

Tutu died peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Center in Cape Town, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Trust said Sunday. He had been hospitalized several times since 2015 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997.

“Typically he turned his own misfortune into a teaching opportunity to raise awareness and reduce the suffering of others,” said the Tutu trust. “He wanted the world to know that he had prostate cancer, and that the sooner it is detected the better the chance of managing it.”

In recent years he and his wife, Leah, lived in a retirement community outside Cape Town.

“His legacy is moral strength, moral courage and clarity,” Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba said in a video statement. “He felt with the people. In public and alone, he cried because he felt people’s pain. And he laughed — no, not just laughed, he cackled with delight — when he shared their joy.”

A seven-day mourning period is planned in Cape Town before Tutu’s burial, including a two-day lying in state, an ecumenical service and an Anglican requiem mass at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, according to church officials. Cape Town’s landmark Table Mountain will be lit in purple, the color of the robes Tutu wore as archbishop.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among the world leaders paying tribute to Tutu. “He was a critical figure in the fight against apartheid and in the struggle to create a new South Africa — and will be remembered for his spiritual leadership and irrepressible good humor.”

Throughout the 1980s — when South Africa was gripped by anti-apartheid violence and a state of emergency giving police and the military sweeping powers — Tutu was one of the most prominent Black leaders able to speak out against abuses.

A lively wit lightened Tutu’s hard-hitting messages and warmed otherwise grim protests, funerals and marches. Short, plucky, tenacious, he was a formidable force, and apartheid leaders learned not to discount his canny talent for quoting apt scriptures to harness righteous support for change.

The Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 highlighted his stature as one of the world’s most effective champions for human rights, a responsibility he took seriously for the rest of his life.

With the end of apartheid and South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, Tutu celebrated the country’s multi-racial society, calling it a “rainbow nation,” a phrase that captured the heady optimism of the moment.

In 1990, after 27 years in prison, Mandela spent his first night of freedom at Tutu’s residence in Cape Town. Later, Mandela called Tutu “the people’s archbishop.”

Tutu also campaigned internationally for human rights, especially LGBT rights and same-sex marriage.

“I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this,” he said in 2013, launching a campaign for LGBT rights in Cape Town. “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say, ‘Sorry, I would much rather go to the other place.’”

Tutu said he was “as passionate about this campaign (for LGBT rights) as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.” He was one of the most prominent religious leaders to advocate LGBT rights.

Tutu’s very public stance for LGBT rights put him at odds with many in South Africa and across the continent as well as within the Anglican church.

South Africa, Tutu said, was a “rainbow” nation of promise for racial reconciliation and equality, even though he grew disillusioned with the African National Congress, the anti-apartheid movement that became the ruling party in 1994 elections. His outspoken remarks long after apartheid sometimes angered partisans who accused him of being biased or out of touch.

Tutu was particularly incensed by the South African government’s refusal to grant a visa to the Dalai Lama, preventing the Tibetan spiritual leader from attending Tutu’s 80th birthday celebration as well as a planned gathering of Nobel laureates in Cape Town. South Africa rejected Tutu’s accusations that it was bowing to pressure from China, a major trading partner.

Early in 2016, Tutu defended the reconciliation policy that ended white minority rule amid increasing frustration among some South Africans who felt they had not seen the expected economic opportunities and other benefits since apartheid ended. Tutu had chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that investigated atrocities under apartheid and granted amnesty to some perpetrators, but some people believe more former white officials should have been prosecuted.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born Oct. 7, 1931, in Klerksdorp, west of Johannesburg, and became a teacher before entering St. Peter’s Theological College in Rosetenville in 1958 for training as a priest. He was ordained in 1961 and six years later became chaplain at the University of Fort Hare.

Moves to the tiny southern African kingdom of Lesotho and to Britain followed, with Tutu returning home in 1975. He became bishop of Lesotho, chairman of the South African Council of Churches and, in 1985 the first Black Anglican bishop of Johannesburg and then in 1986, the first Black archbishop of Cape Town. He ordained women priests and promoted gay priests.

Tutu was arrested in 1980 for taking part in a protest and later had his passport confiscated for the first time. He got it back for trips to the United States and Europe, where he held talks with the U.N. secretary-general, the pope and other church leaders.

Tutu called for international sanctions against South Africa and talks to end the conflict.

Tutu often conducted funeral services after the massacres that marked the negotiating period of 1990-1994. He railed against black-on-black political violence, asking crowds, “Why are we doing this to ourselves?” In one powerful moment, Tutu defused the rage of thousands of mourners in a township soccer stadium after the Boipatong massacre of 42 people in 1992, leading the crowd in chants proclaiming their love of God and themselves.

As head of the truth commission to promote racial reconciliation, Tutu and his panel listened to harrowing testimony about torture, killings and other atrocities during apartheid. At some hearings, Tutu wept openly.

“Without forgiveness, there is no future,” he said at the time.

The commission’s 1998 report lay most of the blame on the forces of apartheid, but also found the African National Congress guilty of human rights violations. The ANC sued to block the document’s release, earning a rebuke from Tutu. “I didn’t struggle in order to remove one set of those who thought they were tin gods to replace them with others who are tempted to think they are,” Tutu said.

In July 2015, Tutu renewed his 1955 wedding vows with wife Leah. The Tutus’ four children and other relatives surrounded the elderly couple in a church ceremony.

“You can see that we followed the biblical injunction: We multiplied and we’re fruitful,” Tutu told the congregation. “But all of us here want to say thank you ... We knew that without you, we are nothing.”

Tutu is survived by his wife of 66 years and their four children.

Asked once how he wanted to be remembered, he told The Associated Press: “He loved. He laughed. He cried. He was forgiven. He forgave. Greatly privileged.”

LONDON —

Britain became the latest country Saturday to report cases of the new potentially more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus as world governments sought to shore up their defenses by slapping restrictions on travel from nations in southern Africa.

U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed that two people have tested positive with the omicron variant in the southeastern English town of Chelmsford and in the central city of Nottingham. He said the cases were linked and related to travel from southern Africa.

Video above: Expert on emergence of new COVID variant

Javid said the two confirmed cases are self-isolating alongside their households while contact tracing and targeted testing take place. He also said arrivals from Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia will have to quarantine from Sunday and stressed the importance of booster jabs.

"This is a real reminder that this pandemic is far from over," he said. "If we need to take further action, we will."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, along with his top advisers, will be holding a media briefing later Saturday.

Many countries have slapped restrictions on various African countries over the past couple of days including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Thailand and the United States, in response to warnings over the transmissibility of the new variant — against the advice of the World Health Organization. Pharmaceutical companies expressed optimism that they could finesse their vaccines to deal with the new variant though that would clearly take some time.

Despite the banning of flights, there are mounting concerns that the variant has already been widely seeded around the world. In addition to the U.K., cases have been reported in travelers in Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong. Germany also said it suspected a positive case and Dutch authorities were testing whether 61 people who arrived on two flights from South Africa with COVID-19 have the omicron variant.

The planes arrived in the Netherlands from Johannesburg and Cape Town shortly after the Dutch government imposed a ban on flights from southern African nations. The 539 travelers who tested negative were allowed to return home or continue their journeys to other countries. Under government regulations, those who live in the Netherlands and are allowed to return home must self-isolate for at least five days.

Meanwhile, a German official said that there's a "very high probability" that the omicron variant has already arrived in the country.

Kai Klose, the health minister for Hesse state, which includes Frankfurt, said in a tweet that "several mutations typical of omicron" were found Friday night in a traveler returning from South Africa, who was isolated at home. Sequencing of the test had yet to be completed.

The global health body has named the new variant omicron, labeling it a variant of concern because of its high number of mutations and some early evidence that it carries a higher degree of infection than other variants. That means people who contracted COVID-19 and recovered could be subject to catching it again. It could take weeks to know if current vaccines are less effective against it.

With so much uncertainty about the omicron variant and scientists unlikely to flesh out their findings for a few weeks, countries around the world have been taking a safety-first approach, in the knowledge that previous outbreaks of the pandemic have been partly fueled by lax border policies.

Nearly two years on since the start of the pandemic that has claimed more than 5 million lives around the world, countries are on high alert.

The variant's swift spread among young people in South Africa has alarmed health professionals even though there was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease. In just two weeks, omicron has turned a period of low transmission in the country into one of rapid growth.

A number of pharmaceutical firms, including AstraZeneca, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer, said they have plans in place to adapt their vaccines in light of the emergence of omicron. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said they expect to be able to tweak their vaccine in around 100 days.

Professor Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group which developed the AstraZeneca vaccine, expressed cautious optimism that existing vaccines could be effective at preventing serious disease from the omicron variant.

He said most of the mutations appear to be in similar regions as those in other variants.

"That tells you that despite those mutations existing in other variants the vaccines have continued to prevent serious disease as we've moved through alpha, beta, gamma and delta," he told BBC radio. "At least from a speculative point of view we have some optimism that the vaccine should still work against a new variant for serious disease but really we need to wait several weeks to have that confirmed."

He added that it is "extremely unlikely that a reboot of a pandemic in a vaccinated population like we saw last year is going to happen."

Some experts said the variant's emergence illustrated how rich countries' hoarding of vaccines threatens to prolong the pandemic.

Fewer than 6% of people in Africa have been fully immunized against COVID-19, and millions of health workers and vulnerable populations have yet to receive a single dose. Those conditions can speed up spread of the virus, offering more opportunities for it to evolve into a dangerous variant.

"One of the key factors to emergence of variants may well be low vaccination rates in parts of the world, and the WHO warning that none of us is safe until all of us are safe and should be heeded," said Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London.

"Global vaccine rollout is vital," he added.

___

Pan Pylas contributed from London. Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

On Friday, the World Health Organization categorized a new strain of COVID-19 that was recently detected in southern Africa as a "variant of concern."

The WHO's Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution says the omicron variant is potentially more transmissible and could cause more severe disease than other COVID-19 variants.

While it's unclear where the new variant, originally named B.1.1.529, actually arose, it was first discovered in South African on Wednesday. It's since been seen in travelers to Hong Kong and Botswana.

Joe Phaahla, South Africa's health minister, said the variant was linked to an "exponential rise" of cases in the last few days, although experts are still trying to determine if the new variant is actually responsible.

Several countries, including the European Union, have already moved to suspend travel to southern Africa in the hopes of limiting the spread of the variant.

CNN reports that that genomic scientists say the new variant has an "unusually high" number of mutations that cause the virus to have more of the key spike proteins it uses to get into the healthy cells it attacks.

NPR says the new variant also has twice as many mutations as the delta variant, which caused a new surge in cases this summer.

South Africa's health minister announced Thursday the discovery of a new coronavirus variant that appears to be spreading rapidly in parts of the country.

"Initially it looked like some cluster outbreaks, but from yesterday, the indication came from our scientists from the Network of Genomic Surveillance that they were observing a new variant," Minister of Health Joe Phaahla said, stressing that it is currently unclear where the variant -- currently dubbed B.1.1.529 -- first emerged.

It has so far been detected in South Africa, Botswana and in a traveler to Hong Kong from South Africa, Phaahla added.

During a news briefing, genomic scientists said the variant has an unusually high number of mutations, with more than 30 in the key spike protein -- the structure the virus uses to get into the cells they attack.

Professor Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Center for Epidemic Response and Innovation, said the variant has "many more mutations than we have expected," adding it is "spreading very fast and we expect to see pressure in the health system in the next few days and weeks."

He advised the public to "try to avoid super spreading events."

Officials also expressed concern that the mutation could result in immune evasion and enhanced transmissibility of the virus, but added it is too early to tell what kind of impact the mutations will have on vaccine efficacy. More studies also need to be conducted to understand the clinical severity of the variant compared to previous variants, officials said.

"The full significance of this variant remains uncertain and the best tool we have is still the vaccines," De Oliveira said. He added that lab studies still need to be carried out to test vaccine and antibody evasion.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. —

Health officials identified a case of the South African COVID-19 B.1.351 variant in Maryland.

The case announced Saturday involves an adult living in the Baltimore metro area who has no recent international travel. Comprehensive contact tracing is underway, state officials said.

The new variant's presence in Maryland was confirmed by the Maryland Department of Health in consultation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

State officials said the B.1.351 variant has not been shown to cause more severe illness or increased risk of death when compared to other variants. The variant is believed to be more transmissible than other strains.

According to the governor's office, more research is needed to determine the effectiveness of available vaccines against the B.1.351 variant; however, initial evidence suggests that vaccines are still likely to be protective against the variant. It is also expected that currently available diagnostic tests will detect the B.1.351 variant.

"State health officials are closely monitoring the B.1.351 variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the state," Gov. Larry Hogan said in a statement. "We strongly encourage Marylanders to practice extra caution to limit the additional risk of transmission associated with this variant. Please continue to practice standard public health and safety measures, including mask-wearing, regular hand washing and physical distancing."

The B.1.351 variant was initially detected in South Africa. It was first identified in the United States on Thursday through two cases in South Carolina.

Viruses constantly change, or mutate, and new variants of viruses are expected to occur over time.

The B.1.351 variant is the second variant of COVID-19 identified in Maryland. The first variant identified in Maryland was B.1.1.7, commonly known as "the UK variant," which MDH announced that it identified on Jan. 12. Seven total cases of B.1.1.7 have been identified in Maryland since that time.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Scientists detected the first cases of the South Africa variant in California this week, a version of the coronavirus that appears to be more elusive to current vaccines and the natural immunity produced by previous infections.

The South Africa variant shares a mutation with the UK variant that scientists believe makes the virus stickier to cells and more transmissible. The South Africa variant, officially known as B.1.351, also has two other mutations in its spike proteins that scientists consider troubling.

Researchers pay close attention to the spike proteins on the virus because they allow the pathogen to latch onto cells. Spike is also the protein targeted by the current generation of COVID-19 vaccines.

All of the current vaccines train the immune system to build antibodies by introducing fake spike proteins. These harmless imposters are designed to look just like the spiky knobs on the surface of the actual coronavirus.

But the South Africa variant has tiny mutations in its spikes that make it more difficult for some antibodies to lock on, based on early research.

“The whole spike doesn't change shape. What happens is a little knob or piece -- we call it an epitope -- that specific antibodies bind to is changed so they no longer bind,” said UC San Diego virologist Dr. Doug Richman.

A study by Moderna using blood samples found antibodies produced by its vaccine were six times less effective against the South Africa variant.

There have also been several confirmed cases of COVID survivors getting reinfected with the variant. One vaccine study in South Africa found new infections in 2 percent of people who had been infected with an earlier version of the virus.

Generally, second infections tend to be more mild than the first, Richman noted.

He also stressed that the vaccines have shown promising results in their ability to prevent severe disease caused by the variant, even if they can’t prevent symptoms entirely.

“What's going to happen is someone who would have a life-threatening or hospitalization-required infection will have a milder infection,” he said.

The South Africa variant is distinct from the UK variant, which has been detected in about 1,000 people in the United States.

The UK variant, B.1.1.7, currently accounts for about 1 to 2 percent of infections in the United States but is spreading rapidly. A study from Scripps Research estimates it is doubling in cases every 10 days and will become the dominant strain in this country by the end of March.

The two variants share a mutation that makes the virus stickier, known as N501Y. That scientific shorthand means at the 501st amino acid position in the viral sequence, an “N” (the abbreviation for asparagine) was replaced by a “Y” (the abbreviation for tyrosine).

But the South Africa variant contains two other mutations, E484K and K417N, that seem to help it escape, said Scripps researcher Karthik Gangavarapu.

“These mutations put together, the end result is that it’s able to escape immunity,” he said.

Gangavarapu is part of the lab that detected the UK variant in San Diego. He said so far, they have not detected the South Africa variant in their samples.

This story was first reported by Derek Staahl at KGTV in San Diego, California.