CDC: Swine Flu Outbreak Shouldn’t Close Schools

As the nation’s 55 million children prepare for a new school year, the foremost question on many parents’ and school administrators’ minds is, How will we protect our students from swine flu? Some education officials anticipate that each of the country’s 100,000 public schools and thousands of private schools may have to close at some point between now and next summer to stem the tide of the H1N1 pandemic.

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Hong Kong youth caught in wave of ketamine addiction

A 16-year-old Hong Kong boy makes two phone calls for delivery: one for pizza, the other for the drug ketamine. Two teenage girls are found semi-conscious in a car park in the southern Chinese enclave after overdosing on ketamine. A 13-year-old boy joins a gang and is given free ketamine

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Federal agents apprehend fugitive after 15 years

Federal agents have apprehended accused child molester Edward Eugene Harper, who was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, an FBI official said Thursday. Harper, 63, is accused of molesting two girls, ages 3 and 8, in his neighborhood in Hernando, Mississippi, more than a decade ago, the FBI said. The FBI said it received a telephone tip in June at the Denver office regarding Harper, and brought a SWAT team and a hostage negotiation team to apprehend him in rural Wyoming on Thursday

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5,000-pound shark washes ashore on Long Island

A 26-foot-long dying shark washed ashore Tuesday on a Long Island beach, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation said. The male basking shark, which weighed an estimated 5,000 pounds and was measured at 26 feet, 6 inches, died shortly after authorities arrived on the scene, according to marine educator Tracy Marcus of the Cornell Cooperative Extension. Marcus, who was at the beach at the time, said there were no outer abrasions on the shark, ruling out of the possibility of a boat strike, and the cause of the shark’s death was unknown to investigators.

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Zimbabwe in Transition: A 100-Day Report Card

It’s been 100 days since Zimbabwe passed from crisis into the hands of the strange and strained partnership of the President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled autocratically since 1987, and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who defeated Mugabe in a controversial election last year but, despite intense international pressure, was not able to oust him from power.

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