CDC: 158 cases of new swine flu
CDC: 158 cases of new swine flu
ATLANTA (AP) — Don’t pet the pigs.
That’s the message state and county fair visitors got Thursday from health officials who reported a five-fold increase of cases of a new strain of swine flu that spreads from pigs to people.
Most of the cases are linked to the fairs, where visitors are in close contact with infected pigs.
This flu has mild symptoms and it’s not really spreading from person to person.
“This is not a pandemic situation,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But any flu can be a risk for some people, and people should be cautious when they can, he added.
The case count jumped from 29 a week ago to 158 this week, thanks to a wave of new cases in Indiana and Ohio, said Bresee, the agency’s chief of influenza epidemiology.
Most of the infected patients are children — probably because many were working closely with raising, displaying and visiting pigs at the agricultural fairs, Bresee said.
The recent cases include at least 113 in Indiana, 30 in Ohio, one in Hawaii and one in Illinois, Bresee said in a conference call with reporters.
Shooting suspect is ill, lawyers say
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — Attorneys for the suspect in the Colorado movie theater shootings said Thursday their client is mentally ill and that they need more time to assess the nature of his illness.
James Holmes’ lawyers made the disclosure at a court hearing in suburban Denver where news media organizations asked a judge to unseal court documents in the case.
Holmes, a 24-year-old former Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado, Denver, had the familiar, dazed demeanor that he had in previous court appearances.
Holmes is accused of going on a July 20 shooting rampage at a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie in Aurora, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.
Zimmerman aims for dismissal
MIAMI (AP) — George Zimmerman will seek to have second-degree murder charges dismissed under Florida’s “stand your ground” law in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, his attorney said Thursday.
The hearing, which likely won’t take place for several months, will amount to a mini-trial involving much of the evidence collected by prosecutors as well as expert testimony from both sides.
“Most of the arguments, witnesses, experts and evidence that the defense would muster in a criminal trial will be presented in the ‘stand your ground’ hearing,” said the statement posted by Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara on Zimmerman’s official defense website.
NASA planetary lander crashes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Earlier this week NASA safely landed a robotic rover on Mars about 150 million miles away. But on Thursday here on Earth, a test model planetary lander crashed and burned at Kennedy Space Center in Florida just seconds after liftoff.
The spider-like spacecraft called Morpheus was on a test flight at Cape Canaveral when it tilted, crashed to the ground and erupted in flames. It got only a few feet up in the air, NASA said.
NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone said it appears that the methane-and-liquid oxygen powered lander is a total loss. Nobody was hurt in the unmanned experiment and the flames were put out, she said.
NASA suspects a mechanical device that is part of its GPS navigation system, spokeswoman Brandi Dean said.
So far NASA has spent $7 million on the Morpheus program, but that includes parts for a still-to-be-built second lander.
Morpheus is a prototype for a cheap, environmentally friendly planetary lander.
New charges in
nuke plant breach
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal grand jury toughened the charges against three anti-war protesters who authorities say cut their way through three security fences and spray-painted slogans on the walls of a nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee.
An indictment released Thursday in Knoxville charges an 82-year-old Roman Catholic nun with Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, a gardener and a housepainter with “depredation” of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The indictment against Megan Rice of Las Vegas, Michael Walli of Washington and Greg Boertje-Obed of Duluth, Minn., includes two charges announced previously: trespassing, a misdemeanor, and malicious destruction of property, a felony.
The sprawling Y-12 complex of 800 acres and 500 buildings stores the nation’s supply of weapons-grade uranium, makes nuclear warhead parts and provides nuclear fuel for the Navy and research reactors worldwide.
According to an affidavit filed with the court, the protesters walked nearly a half-mile into the high-security property before dawn on July 28, past signs warning that deadly force could be used on intruders. They made it to a building called the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, where the uranium is stored.
On the way, federal court documents say, the three used bolt cutters to clear three security fences and set off many alarms.
They painted the exterior of the building with the phrases “woe to the empire of blood” and “the fruit of justice is peace” and sprayed it with blood, according to an investigator’s affidavit.
“We come to the Y-12 facility because our very humanity rejects the designs of nuclearism, empire and war,” a letter found at the site and signed by the three defendants read. “Our faith in love and nonviolence encourages us to believe that our activity here is necessary.”
The Department of Energy, which oversees the site, has not responded to messages seeking comment on the new charge or about security procedures at Y-12.
The Y-12 website says the facility’s main mission is “to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal is safe, secure, and reliable.”
“Portions of every weapon in the U.S. nuclear stockpile were manufactured at Y-12, and we employ only the most advanced and failsafe technologies to protect the stockpile,” according to the site.
Since the intrusion, the contractors that operate Y-12 for the government have added security training and replaced the top security managers.
Oak Ridge was created as a secret city in World War II to house Y-12 and other plants that enriched uranium for the first nuclear bomb used in war. The Y-12 complex has been the annual target of peace protests tied to the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Every year since 1998, a few protesters have provoked arrest by blocking the road leading into the site or by stepping across a blue line that marks the property boundary.
Walli was arrested two years ago for trespassing at Y-12 and sentenced to eight months in federal prison, according to news reports.
Because of the new indictment, a court hearing scheduled for Thursday was canceled.
The three defendants have pleaded not guilty, and Rice and Walli have been released pending the Oct. 10 trial. Boertje-Obed, who is representing himself, was still in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment.
An attorney for Rice didn’t return calls seeking comment and Walli’s defense lawyer declined to comment, citing court rules.