Few Zika samples being shared by Brazil ADVERTISING Few Zika samples being shared by Brazil RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — U.N. and U.S. health officials tell The Associated Press that Brazil has yet to share enough samples and disease data
Few Zika samples being shared by Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — U.N. and U.S. health officials tell The Associated Press that Brazil has yet to share enough samples and disease data needed to answer the most worrying question about the Zika outbreak: whether the virus is actually responsible for the increase in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads in Brazil.
The lack of data is frustrating efforts to develop diagnostic tests, drugs and vaccines. Laboratories in the United States and Europe are relying on samples from previous outbreaks. Scientists say having so little to work with is hampering their ability to track the virus’ evolution.
One major problem appears to be Brazilian law. At the moment, it is technically illegal for Brazilian researchers and institutes to share genetic material, including blood samples containing Zika and other viruses.
“It’s a very delicate issue, this sharing of samples. Lawyers have to be involved,” said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases in the World Health Organization’s regional office in Washington.
Espinal said he hoped the issue might be resolved after discussions between the U.S. and Brazilian presidents. He said WHO’s role was mainly to be a broker to encourage countries to share but so far Brazil had probably provided fewer than 20 samples.
Judge refuses to throw out sex assault case against Cosby
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A judge refused to throw out the sexual assault case against Bill Cosby on Wednesday, sweeping aside claims that a previous district attorney had granted the comedian immunity from prosecution a decade ago.
Common Pleas Judge Steven O’Neill issued the ruling after a hard-fought two-day hearing.
The case now moves to a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to try the 78-year-old Cosby on charges he drugged and violated former Temple University athletic department employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. The TV star could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
In 2005, then-District Attorney Bruce Castor decided the case was too flawed to prosecute. But Castor’s successors reopened the investigation last year after Cosby’s lurid, decade-old testimony from Constand’s civil suit was unsealed at the request of The Associated Press and after dozens of other women came forward with similar accusations that destroyed Cosby’s nice-guy image as America’s Dad.
At the hearing this week, Cosby’s lawyers tried to get the case thrown out by putting Castor himself on the stand. Castor testified that in deciding not to charge Cosby, he intended to forever close the door on prosecuting the comedian. He said he considered his decision binding on his successors.
After 2 days, Syrian peace talks to take a ‘temporary pause’
GENEVA (AP) — The peace talks in the Syrian civil war are taking a break. The fighting is not.
U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura announced Wednesday there would be a “temporary pause” in the indirect peace talks between the government and opposition, saying the process will resume Feb. 25.
The delay reflects the rocky start of the talks Monday in which neither the government nor the opposition even acknowledged that the negotiations had officially begun.
“It is not the end, and it is not the failure of the talks,” de Mistura told reporters after a meeting with opposition leaders.
Both sides remain “interested in having the political process started,” he added.
Kik Messenger app scrutinized following 13-year-old’s death
ATLANTA (AP) — Kik Messenger, a smartphone app popular among younger teens, is on the defensive following the stabbing death of a 13-year-old girl in Virginia who told friends she was using Kik to connect with an 18-year-old man.
Like Instagram, Snapchat and other messaging rivals, Kik provides free, easy and instant connections to other users anywhere. Kik enables people to message each other one-on-one or in group chats, and to share photos, videos and other content. By enabling people to identify themselves only by an invented username, it provides more anonymity than services such as WhatsApp, which connect people through their phone numbers.
Law enforcement officials say the application is dangerous in part because parents cannot reliably prevent anonymous strangers from contacting their children if they use it.
Kik made an updated guide for parents available on its website following the arrests of two Virginia Tech students in the slaying of Nicole Lovell, a seventh-grader who lived two miles from their campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Kik also pushed out an update to the app, available on Google Play and Apple’s iTunes store, and had Apple raise Kik’s age-appropriate rating on Monday from 9+ to 12+, closer to its requirement that no one under 13 use the service, terms that are shared by Kik’s rivals.
Halftime at the big game is among the top culture moments
NEW YORK (AP) — Warren Duncan has something in common with Madonna, Beyonce, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and Prince — and doesn’t hesitate to let his grandchildren know about it every year about this time.
All performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, although it wasn’t quite the spectacle in Duncan’s time that it is now. He was at snare drum for the Florida A&M University marching band at Super Bowl III in 1969, when the New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts.
“I really hated to see it transition to what it is,” Duncan said. “I really wish it would be like the traditional band halftime show.”
Those days have gone the way of leather helmets. The halftime show has become one of the year’s top cultural moments, so anticipated that it is commonly seen by more people than the game itself. The British band Coldplay steps into the spotlight this weekend, with an expected cameo by Beyonce.
The Super Bowl show can easily be divided into two eras: Before Michael Jackson and after. His 1993 performance established halftime as something more than an afterthought. With the fireworks and extras, Jackson proved no gesture could be too big.
