H7N9 Flu Virus May Have Adapted To Mammals
The new flu virus that has exploded onto the global radar is already showing signs that it is adapting to mammals, suggesting what was once a bird virus is now probably spreading in a mammalian host, an influenza expert said Tuesday.
And while it’s not clear what that mammalian host is, the two most obvious choices are pigs or humans, said Dr. Richard Webby, head of the World Health Organization’s influenza collaborating centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
“I think that’s what’s concerning about this …This thing doesn’t any longer look like a poultry virus,” Webby, a swine flu expert, said in an interview.
“It really looks to me like it’s adapted in a mammalian host somewhere.”
Mideast Conflict: Israeli Warplanes Strike Gaza Targets In Response To Rocket Fire
Israeli warplanes struck targets early Wednesday in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire toward southern Israel, the first air strikes launched by Israel since an informal cease-fire ended eight days of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza.
An Israeli military statement issued Wednesday said its planes targeted “two extensive terror sites” with “accurate hits.” Palestinian officials said no one was hurt in the air strikes and no damage was reported in northern Gaza.
The air raids followed the third successful rocket attack on Israel since the November cease-fire. The military reported that Gaza militants on Tuesday fired at least one rocket toward southern Israel. No one was hurt and no damage was caused. The attack was the first since rockets were fired during President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel two weeks ago.
via Mideast Conflict: Israeli Warplanes Strike Gaza Targets In Response To Rocket Fire.
Police Announce Manhunt for Giant Man and Face-Tattooed Woman; Find Them Almost Immediately
Just one day after police in Cambridgeshire, England announced a manhunt for a 7 foot, 3 inch man and a woman with a “distinctive” face tattoo (both wanted for questioning in a murder case), authorities reported they have managed to find them. Imagine that. How did they do it so quickly? Just great detective work, I guess.
Detective Chief Inspector Martin Brunning said in his initial statement Monday that the suspects, 47-year-old Gary Stretch, whose last name is perfect, and 30-year-old Joanna Dennehy, whose last name should, according to the constraints of this story, be “Facetattoo,” were “very recognizable – even more so if they are together.”
This kicked off what were likely a tense few hours for every platonic best friend duo consisting of one (1) giant man and one (1) woman with “a distinctive green tattoo on her right cheek,” who hadn’t stabbed a man and dumped him in a ditch by a major road over Easter weekend.
via Police Announce Manhunt for Giant Man and Face-Tattooed Woman; Find Them Almost Immediately.
James Holmes death penalty decision: ‘I want to watch him die’ say victims of Colorado theater shooting | Mail Online
The prosecutor’s decision today to seek the death penalty for Dark Knight ‘killer’ James Holmes has been applauded by victims and friends of victims who say they want to watch him die.
One friend of Holmes’ 12 victims even said he wants to watch the alleged killer die.
‘I don’t know if it’s painful. I want him dead. I just want to be there in the room when he dies,’ Bryan Beard told ABC outside the Colorado courthouse. ‘He took one of my friends from this Earth. Death equals death.’
Beard’s close friend Alex Sullivan was one of the 12 people killed in the shooting on July 20 last year. It was his 27th birthday.
Ain’t It Cool’s Harry Knowles: The Cash-Strapped King of the Nerds Plots a Comeback
The founder of the once-renegade movie site, who earned the admiration of Peter Jackson and Steve Jobs, is struggling for money and relevance in the wild media landscape he helped to create.
This story first appeared in the April 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter [3] magazine.
It was July 2012, and Harry Knowles was working up a sweat. Eighteen months earlier, the creator-owner-figurehead of Ain’t It Cool News collapsed and had back surgery to treat the effects of spinal stenosis, a chronic condition stemming in part from a 1996 fall that left him intermittently reliant on a wheelchair. So now he was walking on a treadmill at a clinic near his Austin home as part of his physical therapy.
His phone rang. Still trudging, Knowles answered. It was Roland De Noie, his business manager.
“I really f—ed up,” said De Noie in a panic. “It’s all my fault.” He had discovered that Ain’t It Cool News — the website Knowles started in his Texas bedroom that grew to be the scourge of Hollywood, redefined the nature and pace of entertainment journalism and turned an overweight, ginger-haired self-diagnosed movie nerd into the face of a geek nation on the rise — owed about $300,000 in unpaid taxes. While Ain’t It Cool News had been making $700,000 a year in gross advertising revenue at its height in the early- to mid-2000s, that had dipped to the low-six figures by 2012. The business had no cash reserves and no way to pay the bills. Its bank account had been seized. “We’re not going to be able to get out of this one,” said De Noie.
Knowles tried to get his childhood friend to explain, but there was no simple answer. It was the advertising slowdown or bad business practices or horrible decisions or a combination of all three. But the fact remained that Ain’t It Cool News was bleeding out.
via Ain’t It Cool’s Harry Knowles: The Cash-Strapped King of the Nerds Plots a Comeback.
