CNN Breaking News

Senator Ted Kennedy has died of brain cancer at age 77.
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Third H1N1 Death in Florida

A Davie man with a chronic heart problem has died of swine flu, becoming the first in Broward County and the third in Florida to succumb to the newly emerged H1N1 virus, medical officials said today.

Michael Waldfogel, 58, had gone to his doctor in mid-June complaining of typical flu symptoms and was sent home with flu medicine as is the normal procedure in such cases, said Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward's medical examiner.

Waldfogel was last seen on June 20 and was found dead in his home four days later, Perper said.

 

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-swine-flu-death-broward-070109,0,235791.story

 

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Indian Ocean Jet Crash

Date: June 30, 2009

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529499,00.html

Source: FOX News

Main Points:

1. A passenger jet from Yemen with 153 people on board crashed in the Indian Ocean early Tuesday as it tried to land during heavy wind on the island nation of Comoros, a Yemeni aviation official said.
2. A Comoros police official said one toddler has been rescued alive from the sea. Bodies were spotted floating in the ocean and the police official said three had been recovered so far.
3. Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader said there were 142 passengers and a crew of 11 Yemenis on board when the plane, which had set off from the Yemeni capital of San'a, went down before landing in Moroni, on the main island of Grand Comore.
4. "They spotted an oil spill 16 or 17 miles in the Ocean off the (Moroni) airport," Abdul Qader said, adding that three Comoron boats are searching for the debris and bodies. "The wind speed was 61 kilometers per hour as the plane was landing."
5. Rachida Abdullah, a police immigration officer who works at the operations center in the Comoros, told The Associated Press that the bodies of three Comoros nationals were recovered along with debris from the plane. She said the search was ongoing since 4 a.m. Tuesday.
6. The Comoros is an archipelago of three main islands situated about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometer) south of Yemen, between Africa's southeastern coast and Madagascar. In France, Christophe Prazuck, French military spokesman, says that patrol boat, the Rieuse and fregate Nivose, a reconnaissance ship, were being sent to crash site as well as Transall, a military transport plane.

 

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Breaking News

Michael Jackson's mother files petition seeking legal guardianship of her son's three children, CNN has confirmed.

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Military Coup in Honduras

This could end badly because Chavez is livid that his close leftist ally has been removed. Vows to do what ever it takes to get him back in office.

Army overthrows Honduras president in vote dispute 

Honduran President Removed in 'Coup' 

Honduras tense as Zelaya readies re-election vote 

Billy Mays dies at 50

Unbelievable !! People are dropping like fly's. What a shame !! Billy Mays was the guy who advertised OxiClean and OxiGlow on TV.

Billy Mays dies at 50 

Farrah Fawcett Dead at 62

Former "Charlie's Angels" actress Farrah Fawcett dies age 62 after losing battle with cancer, representative confirms.

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BREAKING NEWS

A second laboratory confirmed H1N1 Swine Flu death has been confirmed in that of a 30-year-old female in Seminole County.

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BREAKING NEWS

Ed McMahon, who gained fame as Johnny Carson's sidekick on "The Tonight Show" and Star Search, has died, his representative says.

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Miami-Dade Reports First H1N1 Swine Flu Death

Date: 6/15/2009

 

Source: CBS4

 

Link: http://cbs4.com/local/h1n1.flu.death.2.1046455.html

 

Main Points:

 

1. The Miami-Dade County Health Department has reported the first local death due to the H1N1 virus. A 9-year-old boy living in Miami-Dade County died from the H1N1 flu. The child's case was one of the 143 confirmed cases of swine flu in Miami-Dade County alone as of June 16, 2009.
2. "Our hearts go out to the family and friends for their loss," said Dr. Lillian Rivera, administrator of the Miami-Dade County Health Department.
3. The boy's death was also the first H1N1 swine flu death in the state of Florida. Across the state, there have been 417 confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu reported.

 Comments: The virus continues to spread at a fast pace, but it is not that bad yet.

Retired U.S. State Official, Wife Indicted on Charges of Spying for Cuba

Date: June 5, 2009

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/05/retired-state-official-wife-indicted-charges-spying-cuba/

Source: FOX News

Main Points:

1.       The indictment handed down by the attorney general's office in Washington says Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, have been clandestine agents for Cuba for 30 years.

2.       A retired State Department worker with top secret security clearance and his wife have been indicted on charges of spying for Cuba.

3.       The indictment says the pair met with Cuban President Fidel Castro in Cuba in 1995, traveling through Mexico under false names. They allegedly made several other trips to Latin America and the Caribbean to meet with Cuban agents.

4.       Kendall Myers worked at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute, where he specialized in European matters, before retiring in 2007. The indictment says in his last year of employment, Kendall Myers viewed more than 200 intelligence reports related to Cuba.

 

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Missing French jet hits turbulence over Atlantic

Date: 6/1/2009

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090601/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_plane

Source: Associated Press

Main Points:

 

1. A missing Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday. Brazil began a search mission off its northeastern coast. Chief Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said it is possible the plane was hit by lightning.

 

2. Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, left Rio on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time (2200 GMT, 6 p.m. EDT) with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board, company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand. About four hours later, the plane sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence, Air France said.

 

3. The plane "crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence" at 0200 GMT Monday (10 p.m. EDT Sunday). An automatic message was received fourteen minutes later "signaling electrical circuit malfunction."

 

4. Brazil's air force did not know where the aircraft disappeared, but a spokesman said it was searching near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha because if an accident had happened in Brazilian waters, it would be in that area. The spokesman said there was no immediate indication of what might have happened to the plane. He spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy.

 

5. Two Brazilian Air Force planes were searching the waters about 300 kilometers northeast of the coastal city of Natal near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, a Brazilian air force spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with air force policy. A police official on Fernando de Noronha said the weather was clear last night into this morning.

 

6. "It's going to take a long time to carry out this search," Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil's Civil Aeronautics Agency, or ANAC, told Globo news. "It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea."

 

7. Air France-KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, at a news conference in Paris, said the pilot had 11,000 hours of flying experience, including 1,700 hours flying this aircraft. No name was released.

 

8. Aviation experts said it was clear the plane was not in the air any longer, due to the amount of fuel it would have been carrying.

 

9. "The conclusion to be drawn is that something catastrophic happened on board that has caused this airplane to ditch in a controlled or an uncontrolled fashion," Jane's Aviation analyst Chris Yates told The Associated Press.

 

10. "I would suggest that potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilot on board didn't have a chance to make that emergency call," Yates said, adding that the possibilities ranged from mechanical failure to terrorism.

 

11. Barrand said the airline set up an information center at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport for the families of those on board. That center said 60 French citizens were on the plane. Italy said at least three passengers were Italian.

 

12. "Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned," she said. The flight was supposed to arrive in Paris at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT), according to the airport.

 

13. The Airbus A330-200 is a twin-engine, long-haul, medium-capacity passenger jet, and is 58.8 meters (190 feet) long, according to Airbus. It is a shortened version of the standard A330, and can hold up to 253 passengers. It first went into service in 1998, there are 341 in use worldwide today. It can fly up to 7,760 miles (12,500 kilometers).

 

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Florida has 8 possible swine flu cases

Date: 5/1/2009

Link: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1027565.html

Source: Miami Herald

Main Points:

1. Five additional cases of possible swine flu from Florida have been referred to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for analysis, bringing to eight the total number of Florida cases pending at CDC, according to state officials.
2. Florida Surgeon General Dr. Ana Viamonte Ros said Friday morning that two cases are from Palm Beach and Lee counties, and one each is from Pinellas, Orange, Broward and Alachua. The state has been told a review of each case takes about 48 hours.
3. No case from Miami-Dade were referred from the Florida Department of Health to the CDC for final analysis, although Miami-Dade has submitted 20 suspected cases to the state. The state lab sends samples on to the CDC only when it cannot identify them as regular, seasonal flu.
4. In a late-morning briefing the CDC increased the number of confirmed U.S. cases of swine flu from 109 to 141. The only death is that of a 23-month-old boy in Texas who contracted the disease in Mexico.
5. Health officials point out that the regular, seasonal flu kills an average of 36,000 Americans each year and infects millions.
6. Also on Friday the CDC issued new guidelines recommending that communities with lab-confirmed cases of swine flu consider closing schools and child-care centers -- taking into consideration the number of cases, the severity of illness and other factors.
7. It said supplies from the CDC's Strategic National Stockpile are being sent to all 50 states, and that federal health researchers have begun developing a vaccine against the virus. But it said no vaccine is expected before the fall.
8. Ros, the state's chief health officer, urged Floridians to take the usual precautions: Wash your hands regularly, don't sneeze or cough into open areas, and stay home if you are sick.
9. ''We have no protocols at this time that we are suggesting folks to change or alter,'' Viamonte Ros said. ``Other than, again, if you're sick, don't go into the public, if you have children that are sick, don't send them to school. Take your regular, common-sense precautions to be healthy. But no, we are not suggesting t this point to divert activities.''
10. Masks and antiviral medications have been distributed throughout the state, and CDC guidelines are on the Department of Health's website, www.doh.state.fl.us.
11. Influenzas run in three-month cycles in most cases, she said, and a case of the flu generally lasts from five to seven days.
12. Viamonte Ros said there have been instances in Florida in which people with only upper respiratory distress but no swine flu symptoms are overrunning emergency rooms. ''Many of these folks are the worried well. That's who we definitely don't want going to the emergency rooms,'' she said. ``So far, thank goodness, we've had a very low level of severity for this illness.''

Comments:

 

Swine Flu Continues to Blaze Across the Map

Date: 5/1/2009

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518578,00.html

Source: FOX News

Main Points:

1. U.S. authorities are pledging to eventually produce enough swine flu vaccine for everyone but the shots couldn't begin until fall at the earliest.

 

2. On Friday, the World Health Organization raised its tally of confirmed human cases to 331 from 257.

 

3. The global body says 11 countries have now reported confirmed cases, including Germany, which confirmed Friday the first case of swine flu transmission within the country.

 

4. Clinics and hospital emergency rooms in New York, California and some other states are seeing a surge in patients with coughs and sneezes that might have been ignored before the outbreak.

 

5. Scientists were racing to prepare the key ingredient to make a vaccine against the never-before-seen flu strain — if it's ultimately needed. But it will take several months before the first pilot lots begin required human testing to ensure the vaccine is safe and effective. If all goes well, broader production could start in the fall.

 

6. "We think 600 million doses is achievable in a six-month time frame" from that fall start, Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Craig Vanderwagen told lawmakers.

 

7. "I don't want anybody to have false expectations. The science is challenging here," Vanderwagen told reporters. "Production can be done, robust production capacity is there. It's a question of can we get the science worked on the specifics of this vaccine."

 

8. Until a vaccine is ready, the government has stockpiled anti-viral medications that can ease flu symptoms or help prevent infection. The medicines are proving effective.

 

9. In the U.S., 130 cases have been confirmed in 20 states, although state health experts say the count is likely much higher. Among the U.S. cases confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are 51 in New York, 16 in Texas and 14 in California, as well as scattered cases in Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, Maine and South Carolina.

 

10. State officials also confirmed cases in Minnesota, Georgia, New Jersey, Delaware, Utah, New Jersey, Virginia and Colorado. On Thursday night, Illinois health officials announced the number of probable swine flu cases in the state had more than doubled to 41.

 

11. About 300 of the nation's 132,000 schools have closed, including schools on both coasts and in the nation's heartland. More are likely to shut their doors in coming days. Additionally, high school, college and professional sporting events have been called off nationwide due to increasing fears.

 

12. Nebraska's chief medical officer says federal tests have confirmed the first case of swine flu in the state. It involves a California man in his 40s who's vacationing in the Omaha area. Health officials have said the infection ultimately will be reported as a California case because the CDC counts cases of infectious disease by residence.

 

13. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle declared a public health emergency after two more probable cases of swine flu were identified in Wisconsin Thursday.

 

14. And a pediatrician in Washington state saw 22 patients with flu-like symptoms before she developed serious symptoms and went to the emergency room.

 

15. The Pennsylvania Department of Health says it continues to find people who it considers to be probable swine flu cases. It is investigating three new possible cases.

 

16. Virginia officials say they have turned up two confirmed cases of swine flu in the state. In both cases, the patients - who have since recovered - had traveled to Mexico.

 

Comments: I have read that the total number of states with the H1N1 virus is up to 20. Why does the CDC not recognize it? Well, some of these states have "probable" or "suspected" because they tested the samples, but only CDC would officially confirm the cases. I also heard that very soon they will stop giving out totals for cases of people who have the H1N1 virus because the CDC is very back-logged and in reality the number of people doesn't really matter. What really matters is if people are dying and if the virus appears in another region of the world. The latter would constitute an update to Phase 6 – full pandemic. Stay tuned….

 

UPDATE

Date: 4/30/2009

Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/30/swine.flu.cases/index.html

Source: CNN

Main Points:

1.       The number of confirmed swine flu cases worldwide rose to 154, with six additional cases reported in Spain, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

2.       Until now, the country had four confirmed cases.

3.       Of the 10 cases of the H1N1 virus in Spain, nine were found in people who had returned from Mexico.

4.       But authorities are troubled about the 10th case which they say is a case of community transmission, spread from one person in the community to another, said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson.

5.       If Spain now sees more such cases of community transmission, the world body may have to elevate its pandemic alert another notch to its highest level.

6.       Phase 6 is the pandemic phase and is characterized by a community-level outbreak in another country in a different WHO region.

7.       Spain falls in another region than the United States and Mexico -- the two countries that have until now shown human-to-human spread.

8.       "The significance is that it's another phase," Thompson said. "The virus is becoming established in another area, another country."

9.       But, Thompson added, the virus would have to show a sustained pattern of transmission in order for the level to be raised.

10.    "We're looking for intergenerational spread. So, that means from a traveler to a spouse to the butcher to the kindergarten, something like that -- through generations of spread in one community."

11.    An estimated 2,700 people are suspected of suffering from the virus worldwide. The first cases were detected in Mexico, where health officials suspect swine flu in more than 150 other deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses.

12.    As of late Wednesday, 99 cases had been confirmed -- up from 26, Mexico's health secretary reported. An eighth fatality was also confirmed. However, the additional cases and fatality were not confirmed by the WHO.

13.    For now, the WHO's breakdown of confirmed cases is:

-- United States: 91, including one death
-- Mexico: 26, with seven deaths
-- Canada: 13
-- Spain: 10, including one suspected case of community transmission
-- United Kingdom: 5
-- Germany: 3
-- New Zealand: 3
-- Israel: 2
-- Austria: 1

14.    Elsewhere, Peru, Switzerland and The Netherlands reported their first cases late Wednesday and early Thursday respectively -- but they were not among the WHO's official tally.

15.    The WHO is also investigating possible swine flu cases in the following countries:

-- New Zealand: 11
-- France: 2
-- South Korea: 1
-- Switzerland: 1

16.    The world body defines "possible" as cases where the patient tested positive for Influenza A -- the general category of strains that includes the H1N1 swine.

17.    Further tests are needed to verify whether they are positive for the virus itself.

Comments: The case in Spain is extremely important because if another person gets infected without any connection to Mexico, that would cause the WHO to raise the level to phase 6. Phase 6 means the H1N1 virus is being transmitted from human-to-human in two regions of the world. Yes, the H1N1 virus is in 9 countries, but it has not been passed from human-to-human yet. These people were in Mexico or know some one who went to Mexico. In the U.S. and Mexico, it is being passed from human-to-human.

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Four Dead After Car Careens Into Crowd

Date: 4/30/2009

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518450,00.html

Source: FOX News

 

 

Main Points:

1. A photographer said the car appeared to be deliberately driving at high speed toward an open bus carrying Queen Beatrixand her family in the western Dutch city of Apeldoorn.
2. Prosecutors said they believe the incident was deliberate, but not an act of terrorism. They did not indicate a motive or say why the popular queen might have been a target. The driver was a 38-year-old white Dutch male with no police record or history of mental illness, police said. They would not give his name. Cynthia Boll said she saw about 20 people "flying through the air" after the black car swerved across police railings, where crowds of people were waiting to see the queen pass.
3. The car slammed into a monument. Video footage showed police removing a man from the vehicle and putting him into an ambulance. The royal bus was not hit and no one in the queen's entourage was injured.
4. "From initial contact with police before the suspect was removed from the car ... we have reason to believe it was a deliberate action," prosecutor Ludo Goossens told reporters. Apeldoorn Mayor Fred de Graaf said eight of the injured were in serious condition.
5. "What began as a great day has ended in a terrible tragedy that has shocked us all deeply," a visibly upset Queen Beatrix said in a brief statement broadcast on national television channels. "We are speechless that something so terrible could have happened. My family, and I think everybody in the country, sympathize with the victims, their families and friends and all who have been hit so hard by this accident," she said.
6. People have been tweeting about the crash, saying the royals saw what happened and were shocked. People were lining railings five or six deep to see the royal family pass on its way to a palace. The motorcade was part of celebrations for the annual national holiday of Queen's Day.
7. Journalist Peter von de Vorst said the incident was like watching a horror movie. "It was a really nice day. Then you hear a bang. Everyone looks up and you see people flying through the air. This must be a joke or a strange prank. Then suddenly panic, and you realise that something really terrible has happened," he said.
8. Dutch television said four people were killed and about a dozen injured, including children. Shortly after the incident, investigators and a sniffer dog examined the car for explosives, then sawed off the roof for a closer inspection.

Comments:

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Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild

Date: April 30, 2009

Link: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30,0,119808,full.story

Source: Los Angeles Times

Main Points:

1. As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.
2. In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.
3. "Let's not lose track of the fact that the normal seasonal influenza is a huge public health problem that kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands around the world," said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison.
4. Flu viruses are known to be notoriously unpredictable, and this strain could mutate at any point -- becoming either more benign or dangerously severe. But mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak.
5. "This virus doesn't have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus," which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
6. When the current virus was first identified, the similarities between it and the 1918 flu seemed ominous. Both arose in the spring at the tail end of the flu season. Both seemed to strike people who were young and healthy instead of the elderly and infants. Both were H1N1 strains, so called because they had the same types of two key proteins that are largely responsible for a virus' ability to infect and spread.
7. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health published genetic sequence data Monday morning of flu samples isolated from patients in California and Texas, and thousands of scientists immediately began downloading the information. Comparisons to known killers -- such as the 1918 strain and the highly lethal H5N1 avian virus -- have since provided welcome news.
   "There are certain characteristics, molecular signatures, which this virus lacks," said Peter Palese, a microbiologist and influenza expert at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. In particular, the swine flu lacks an amino acid that appears to increase the number of virus particles in the lungs and make the disease more deadly.
8. Scientists have identified several other differences between the current virus and its 1918 predecessor, but the significance of those differences is still unclear, said Dr. Scott Layne, an epidemiologist at the UCLA School of Public Health.
9. Ralph Tripp, an influenza expert at the University of Georgia, said that his early analysis of the virus' protein-making instructions suggested that people exposed to the 1957 flu pandemic -- which killed up to 2 million people worldwide -- may have some immunity to the new strain. That could explain why older people have been spared in Mexico, where the swine flu has been most deadly.
10. But certainly nothing that would dwarf a typical flu season. In the U.S., between 5% and 20% of the population becomes ill and 36,000 people die -- a mortality rate of between 0.24% and 0.96%.
11. Dirk Brockmann, a professor of engineering and applied mathematics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., used a computer model of human travel patterns to predict how this swine flu virus would spread in the worst-case scenario, in which nothing is done to contain the disease. After four weeks, almost 1,700 people in the U.S. would have symptoms, including 198 in Los Angeles, according to his model. That's just a fraction of the county's thousands of yearly flu victims.
12. Just because the virus is being identified in a growing number of places -- including Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Spain and Britain -- doesn't mean it's spreading particularly quickly, Olsen said.
13. As the virus adapts to its human hosts, it is likely to find ways of spreading more efficiently. But evolution also suggests it might become less dangerous, Olsen said. "If it kills off all its potential hosts, you reach a point where the virus can't survive," he said. Working to calm public fears, U.S. officials on Wednesday repeatedly stressed the statistic of yearly flu deaths -- 36,000. Sebelius and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also rejected calls to close the borders, which several lawmakers reiterated Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
14. Though scientists have begun to relax about the initial toll, they're considerably less comfortable when taking into account the fall flu season. They remain haunted by the experience of 1918, when the relatively mild first wave of flu was followed several months later by a more aggressive wave. The longer the virus survives the more chances it has to mutate into a deadlier form. "If this virus keeps going through our summer," Palese said, "I would be very concerned."

Comments: There is good news and bad news in the article. I guess time will tell.

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