Tamiflu-resistant swine flu cluster reported in NC

ATLANTA (AP) - Four North Carolina patients at a single hospital tested positive for a type of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, health officials said Friday.

The cases reported at Duke University Medical Center over six weeks make up the biggest cluster seen so far in the U.S.

Tamiflu - made by Switzerland's Roche Group - is one of two flu medicines that help against swine flu, and health officials have been closely watching for signs that the virus is mutating, making the drugs ineffective.

Man returns home to find underwear clad squatter

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) - Authorities in Colorado say a homeowner who was selling his house returned to the property to find a 24-year-old squatter wearing only underwear.

Police in Golden say the homeowner found someone's car in the garage of the home when he arrived Nov. 9. They say the unidentified homeowner then discovered Timothy P. Gonzales in the house, where he had been showering, doing laundry and putting food in the fridge.

Police say they also found materials used to make methamphetamine on a work bench in the garage.

Ice chunk crashes through roof of Colo. home

BRUSH, Colo. (AP) - A basketball-sized chunk of ice crashed through the roof of a family's Colorado home after apparently falling from an airplane passing overhead.

Danelle Hagan and her 9-year-old daughter were at home in Brush on Saturday when they heard the kitchen ceiling come crashing down. They were not injured.

"I hear a huge, what sounded like an explosion. And I look over and my kitchen is basically in shambles," Hagan told KMGH-TV in Denver. "It was very terrifying."

Lax behavior aboard sub caused collision

GROTON, Conn. (AP) - The crew of a U.S. submarine made dozens of errors before the vessel collided with an American warship in the Persian Gulf, an accident that exposed lax leaders who tolerated sleeping, slouching and a radio room rigged with music speakers, a Navy review found.

Navy investigators placed blame for the March collision on the submarine's "ineffective and negligent command leadership," including what they called a lack of standards and failure to adequately prepare for navigating the busy Strait of Hormuz.

Mich. dad accused of forcing son into field, killing him

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (AP) - A 37-year-old father irate over hearing his 15-year-old son had sexual contact with a 3-year-old girl made the teen strip at gunpoint, marched him to a vacant lot and shot him to death despite pleas from the boy and his mother, a relative said.

Michigan authorities filed a first-degree murder charge Wednesday against Jamar Pinkney Sr. in the shooting death Monday of Jamar Pinkney Jr. in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park.

AP Poll: Americans fret over health overhaul costs

WASHINGTON (AP) - It's the cost, Mr. President.

Americans are worried about hidden costs in the fine print of health care overhaul legislation, an Associated Press poll says. That's creating new challenges for President Barack Obama as he tries to close the deal with a handful of Democratic doubters in the Senate.

Although Americans share a conviction that major health care changes are needed, Democratic bills that extend coverage to the uninsured and try to hold down medical costs get no better than a lukewarm reception.

Sexually spread diseases up, better testing cited

ATLANTA (AP) - Sexually spread diseases continue to rise, with reported chlamydia cases setting yet another record in 2008, government health officials said Monday.

Last year there were 1.2 million new cases of chlamydia, a sometimes symptomless infection that can lead to infertility in women. It was the most ever reported, up from the old record of 1.1 million cases in 2007.

Better screening is the most likely reason, said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Secretive group flexes its muscle on health care in Maine

WASHINGTON (AP) - One operative tried to enlist trade groups in Maine to oppose government-run health coverage. Another helped a member of a Las Vegas conservative group appear on local talk radio to criticize the proposal. A third persuaded a Louisiana activist to post an opinion piece on a conservative blog.

These below-the-radar activities were the handiwork of a law firm in Charlotte, N.C., that operates a secretive group called Americans for Quality and Affordable Healthcare. The organization's sponsors remain a mystery - its Web site offers no clues, and the law firm won't say.

Mich. record stores hang on in downloadable world

 

 

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Walking into Encore Records is like stumbling into a corn maze, a disheveled college bedroom and a natural history museum all at once — just 20 times more overwhelming than any of those places. The walls are practically crawling with musical artifacts from the past century, teeming with an otherworldly sort of life that's completely missing when you're browsing for obscure records on allmusic.com.

Broadcast pioneer NBC prepares for cable takeover

NEW YORK (AP) — Eight decades after pioneering the concept of broadcasting, NBC is on the verge of a startling move that illustrates broadcast television's decline.

Cable TV operator Comcast Corp. is expected to buy a controlling stake in NBC Universal, perhaps as early as this week, bringing the network of Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Tom Brokaw under the corporate control of the company that owns the Golf Channel and E! Entertainment Television.

Chefs serve salmon with warning on fishes' future

 

 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Seattle diners who order the salmon will get their meal with a message next week.

Chefs at more than a dozen restaurants are cooking up fish dishes that come with a special side: a warning that the creature's future could be threatened by a giant gold and copper mine proposed for Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska, home to the world's largest sockeye salmon runs.

Deer meat a delicacy to N.C. refugees from Vietnam

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The deer are waiting, two of them, lying near a dirt path near the edge of McDowell Park. A buck and a doe, about 110 pounds and 80 pounds. "They sure are pretty," Rachel Humphries says.

Her Chevy pickup is backed up to the path, and two men begin to haul the deer to the truck bed. She tells them that the deer's lives are ending well. She asks: "Do you know the Montagnards?"

Hawaii's famed white sandy beaches are shrinking

KAILUA, Hawaii (AP) — Jenn Boneza remembers when the white sandy beach near the boat ramp in her hometown was wide enough for people to build sand castles.

"It really used to be a beautiful beach," said the 35-year-old mother of two. "And now when you look at it, it's gone."

What's happening to portions of the beach in Kailua — a sunny coastal suburb of Honolulu where President Barack Obama spent his last two family vacations in the islands — is being repeated around the Hawaiian Islands.

In Asia, Obama pushing arms control with Russians

SINGAPORE (AP) — A major pact within tantalizing reach, President Barack Obama aims to nudge forward an arms-control deal in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum brought Obama to Singapore, but he is focusing on individual meetings Sunday with Medvedev and with Indonesia's Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of the world's largest Muslim nation and Obama's home as a boy. The U.S.-Russia meeting takes place as the nations seek a successor to a Cold War-era agreement.

Mourners grieve for soldiers killed at Fort Hood

KIEL, Wis. (AP) — The hundreds of people who lined the main street of a small Indiana city Saturday fell solemnly silent as a white hearse passed by on its way to the church. Mourners streamed into a Wisconsin gymnasium to remember a soldier who once promised to take down Osama bin Laden.

Across the country, many stood before several flag-draped coffins during funeral services for several of the 13 victims of the Nov. 5 shootings in Fort Hood, Texas.

College students find support in campus 'posses'

BRYN MAWR, Pa. (AP) — When Sharhea Wade arrived at Bryn Mawr College from a big-city high school, it seemed as if every other student on the quiet, leafy campus had graduated from an exclusive private school.

"I felt intimidated by them," recalled Wade. "Bryn Mawr is a different world."

Palin's memoir triggers a boomlet of other books

NEW YORK (AP) — Sarah Palin may fashion herself as a go-it-alone maverick, but her book is producing a crowd.

By the time the former governor's memoir — "Going Rogue: An American Life" — officially hits book stores on Tuesday — there'll be a legion of titles waiting to cash in, from unauthorized biographies to critical essays to a tongue-in-cheek coloring book.

New Yorkers worry about trial for 9/11 mastermind

NEW YORK (AP) — The move to put the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind on trial just blocks from ground zero raises a host of legal, political and security questions, chief among them: Can a fair-minded jury be found in a city still nursing deep wounds from the attack on the World Trade Center?

Some also worry that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will make New York an even bigger terrorist target, and that he will use the proceedings to incite more violence against Americans.

Feds ignored Medicare scam warnings for years

MIAMI (AP) — For three years, the federal agency in charge of preventing Medicare fraud repeatedly ignored internal watchdog warnings about swindlers stealing millions of dollars by scamming several programs, documents show.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services received roughly 30 warnings from inspectors over three years during the Bush and Obama administrations but didn't respond to half of them, even after repeated letters, according to records provided to The Associated Press by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley's office.

Lawyer: Colo. balloon boy parents to plead guilty

 

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — The parents accused of pulling a spectacular hoax by reporting that their 6-year-old son had floated away aboard a helium balloon have agreed to plead guilty in a deal that could send them both to jail but protect the wife from deportation.

Buffett, Gates tell students worst is behind us

NEW YORK (AP) — Capitalism is still alive and well, say the world's two richest men, despite lingering shocks from the longest, deepest recession since the Great Depression.

"The financial panic is behind us," said famed investor Warren Buffett, who recently made what he called an "all-in wager" on the U.S. economy by acquiring railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe. "The bottom has come in stocks. Don't pass on something that's attractive today."

Creditors withdraw motion in FairPoint bankruptcy

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Bondholders who are owed more than $550 million by FairPoint Communications Inc. have withdrawn a motion asking a bankruptcy judge to appoint an examiner to investigate factors leading to FairPoint's Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month.

A creditor committee claimed on Oct. 30 that FairPoint misrepresented its recovery prospects and that top managers sought to profit from the bankruptcy reorganization. It also questioned FairPoint's $23 million dividend payouts and the hiring of a new CEO without telecommunications experience.

Hospital: Ft. Hood shooting suspect awake, talking

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - The man accused of killing 13 people and wounding 29 at Fort Hood is able to talk, a hospital spokesman said Monday, but it's unknown when investigators might take advantage of his improving health to press forward with their probe into the shooting spree.

Viruses can upload unsavory content to unsuspecting users computers

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses - the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Ida takes aim for Gulf Coast

BECKY BOHRER,Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Hurricane Ida, the first Atlantic hurricane to target the United States this year, plodded Sunday toward the Gulf Coast with 105 mph winds, bringing the threat of flooding and storm surges.