Cheney's Buddy & founder of neocon movement.
Prominent Md. Publisher Missing From Boat
By BRIAN WITTE , 06.11.2006, 02:04 PM
Rescue crews searched the Chesapeake Bay on Sunday for a prominent publisher and former diplomat whose sailboat was found sitting on the water with its engine running.
Philip Merrill, 72, an experienced sailor, had been sailing alone in breezy weather Saturday, said Tom Marquardt, executive editor of The (Annapolis) Capital, one of seven periodicals Merrill publishes.
Merrill "has been an avid yachtsman since he first learned to sail at age 7. He has been actively cruising the Chesapeake since 1958," his wife, Eleanor, and children said in a statement issued by Marquardt.
"If there was anyone who could captain a boat competently alone, it was Phil. ... He just couldn't resist a sunny day with the wind at his back."
The wind blew at 15 to 20 mph Saturday near Annapolis, with gusts up to 30 mph, said David Manning, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va.
State and federal agencies joined the search. The Coast Guard sent both aircraft and boats, and was operating under the assumption that Merrill fell overboard, said Senior Chief Steve Carleton.
http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2006/06/11/ap2807689.html
Records for 150,000 Colo. voters missing
Sun Jun 11, 12:12 AM ET
DENVER - Records containing personal information on more than 150,000 voters are missing at city election offices, and officials are trying to determine if the files were lost, moved or stolen.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Denver Election Commission is also trying to figure out why officials didn't learn the records were missing until June 1, even though they are believed to have disappeared nearly four months earlier.
"We will get to the bottom of it," commission spokesman Alton Dillard told the Rocky Mountain News in Saturday's editions.
Police were notified about the missing records Saturday. The microfilmed voter registration files from 1989 to 1998 were in a 500-pound cabinet that disappeared when the commission moved to new offices in February. The files contain voters' Social Security numbers, addresses and other personal information.
Dillard said election staffers are scouring the commission's new and old offices and its warehouse. He said employees of the moving company, which was bonded, are also being questioned.
Also missing was a box with cards signed by voters who cast early ballots. The cards contain names, birth dates, addresses, signatures and partial Social Security numbers.
The missing files were first reported May 31 on a Web log run by Lisa Jones, a former temporary worker at the election commission. Officials said City Councilwoman Judy Montero saw the blog and told them about it the next day.
Jones said she believes commission officials knew of the lost files by April.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060611/ap_on_re_us/voter_records_missing_1
Mich. girl back after MySpace plane trip to Mideast !!!!!!!! MYSPACE OWNED BY NEWSCORP!!!!
FBI interrupts her plan to meet man in Jordan
By David N. Goodman
Associated Press
DETROIT - A 16-year-old Michigan girl who flew to the Middle East to be with a West Bank man she met on the popular Web site MySpace.com returned home from Jordan on Friday after U.S. officials persuaded her to board a return flight.
Television news footage showed Katherine Lester waving as she walked across the tarmac at Bishop International Airport in Flint late Friday.
She was taken to a private area to be reunited with her family.
The girl disappeared Monday from her home in Gilford, Tuscola County Undersheriff James Jashinske said.
Katherine, who turns 17 on June 21, apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, he said.
She tricked her family to get a passport and then left home without notice, the undersheriff said in an earlier written statement.
"The daughter had misled her mother about going to Canada after school was out for the summer with friends, so she could obtain a passport," he said.
MySpace.com, which is owned by News Corp., is a social networking hub with more 72 million members that lets users post photos, Web logs and journals. Its features and popularity with teenagers have raised concerns with authorities nationwide, and there have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.
"Everyone, not just children, need to be careful" when meeting people on the Internet, said Katherine's father, Terry.
"Anyone can disguise who they are out there until you meet them."
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060610/NEWS01/606100345/1001/news
FREEPER NEWS, RIGHT WING NUTTYNESS
It seems all eyes are on the 2006, 2008 elections lately. And it's small wonder why: Strong rhetoric has been swirling around the media painting Democrats and Republicans alike backed in a corner, with voters seeking alternative candidates.
Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that 55 percent of American voters plan to vote against incumbents this November – the highest anti-incumbent number since 1994. This startling revelation shows that Republicans may face a serious challenge this year.
But Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has faced such challenges before and is quietly assuring party insiders that superior organization and the Republicans' stealthy "voter vault" will carry the day.
Although widely admired within Republican Party circles for his effective, low-profile leadership, Mehlman's childhood did not exactly prepare him as a sho0-in candidate for his current position. The facts, however, reveal that he has been willing to challenge the status quo all his life.
A Jew, he grew up in Pikesville, Md., a liberal suburb of Baltimore. He attended a conservative synagogue called Chizuk Amuno Congregation. His grandfather, Joseph Mehlman, owned a tiny Baltimore grocery store and was a member of the NAACP. He eventually moved to Israel.
When Howard Dean, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, once famously portrayed the Republican Party as a party of Christians, Mehlman wisecracked, "That would be news to the people who went to my bar mitzvah."
Mehlman's father worked hard as a CPA. While Mehlman's mother, Judy, originally was a Democrat, his father, Arthur, was a Republican who supported Ronald Reagan. Mehlman remembers handing out literature for Reagan in the Baltimore suburbs at age 14.
"Reagan sounded optimistic about the future," Mehlman recently told me in his office on the fourth floor of RNC headquarters on Capitol Hill. "He was a guy with a bold vision. He gave me a focus on what I wanted to do professionally. I think it was the moral clarity with which he approached the Cold War, the optimism he had about America."
These days, Mehlman wields considerable power and has become an in-demand TV guest. Like James Carville, the Democratic attack dog now on the sidelines, he's a natural for the medium, although he seems not to crave the attention.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1647486/posts
bducted US student returned to Israel
(VIDEO) Palestinian gunmen send news agencies tape showing young religious man holding Hebrew University student certificate, saying 'if prisoners are not released, I will be executed'; at around 3 a.m., student transferred to PA Preventive Security Service, then released at Hawara checkpoint
Ynet reporters
VIDEO - What began as a kidnapping drama, apparently ended peacefully early Sunday when sources in Nablus reported that the American student kidnapped near the city was transferred to the Palestinian Authority Preventive Security Service, and then handed over to Israel at the Hawara checkpoint.
PA Anarchy
Wave of Kidnappings / Ali Waked
In March, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades kidnap Palestinian UN employee they accuse of giving information to Israel used to assassinate group's Nablus commander
Full story
Following a short interrogation by security forces, the student was released to his home in Jerusalem, where he is staying as part of a student exchange program.
The student spoke to his father on the phone at the checkpoint and assured him that he was okay.
The student, Benjamin Bright-Fishbein, who says he is very fond of the local culture, has already visited Jericho and Jordan in the past, and now decided to pay a visit to Nablus. This time he was almost forced to pay a heavy price: While sitting relaxed in a city café, he was kidnapped by gunmen who threatened to execute him.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3261195,00.html
Beach attack hits peace
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent
June 12, 2006
PALESTINIANS are likening images of the family of seven slain on a Gaza beach on Friday to infamous footage of a shot boy and his father that galvanised militant support in 2000 for the five-year intifada.
In a dangerous escalation that could drive outrage at Friday's killings towards open conflict, Hamas militants declared an end to their 15-month ceasefire with Israel and vowed to use their homemade rockets to turn the nearby Israeli town of Sderot into a ghost town.
An Israeli air strike last night killed two militants from the Hamas Islamic group in the northern Gaza Strip after they fired rockets at Israel, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military said it launched a strike at militants trying to fire rockets.
Hamas announced it had fired 14 rockets towards Israel and pledged to step up its attacks in the wake of the beach deaths, which have sparked widespread condemnation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret last night over the deaths of the seven family members who were killed by a large explosion as they picnicked together on Friday afternoon. He pledged the circumstances behind the deaths would be investigated.
The images of the sole survivor, orphaned eight-year-old Huda Ralia, screaming in the sand near her father's body, were being repeatedly shown on Arab television alongside footage from September 2000 of Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura, who cowered beside his father as they were caught in crossfire between Israeli troops and militants in Gaza.
Both were shot and Mohammed later died.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19441283-2703,00.html
Militants behead trio on video
12jun06
INSURGENTS have signalled that the fight is still on after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death, posting an internet video showing the beheading of three alleged Shiite death squad members in revenge for killing Sunnis.
The video -- as grisly as any the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq ever issued -- was clearly designed to quash hopes that the Sunni-dominated insurgency might end attacks on Shiite civilians and institutions, especially the police.
Fellow Sunni insurgent groups sent condolences for Zarqawi in internet messages yesterday and warned Sunnis not to co-operate with the Iraqi Government.
The condolences came from the al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sunnah -- the group that posted the beheading video on a militants' website -- and the head of the Mujahidin Shura Council, an umbrella organisation of five insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq, that Zarqawi helped found last year.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19437752%255E663,00.html
World Cup: Jews demonstrate against Iran regime
(VIDEO) Some 1500 Jews, supporters demonstrate in Nuremberg against Iranian regime ahead of country’s World Cup soccer match against Mexico. Bavarian Internal Minister: ‘Ahmadinejad a criminal’
Rotem Grossman
NUREMBERG – (VIDEO) Some 1,500 Jews from all over Germany protested against the Iranian regime just a few hours before the country’s national soccer team took the field for its World Cup soccer match against Mexico.
The demonstrators gathered at Nuremberg’s St. Jacob’s Square, where Adolph Hitler held a number of Nazi rallies in his time, and protested against recent comments made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who doubted the Holocaust’s existence and called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3261579,00.html
Cervical Cancer Vaccine Approved
The first vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV), known to cause most cervical cancers, has received official green light.
The first vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV), known to cause most cervical cancers, has received official green light.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Merck&Co.'s Gardasil for girls and women ages 9 to 26.
An FDA advisory panel had signed off on cervical cancer vaccine in May.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will now decide whether to include the cervical cancer vaccine in routine vaccination schedules.
"It's huge," said Dr. Michael A. Bookman, director of medical gynecologic oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Philadelphia.
"The thing that is incredible is the global possibilities. In the U.S., we have done a good job of implementing screening and testing. In the rest of the world, this is a much more serious problem."
http://toronto.fashion-monitor.com/news.php/health/2006061102Cervical-Cancer
Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Tool Draws Criticism, Changes Planned
In addition, the software maker has come under fire for failing to make it clear to people installing Windows Genuine Advantage that the application communicates with Microsoft on a daily basis to do things like ensure that the Windows copy being used isn't pirated.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb News
Jun 9, 2006 04:38 PM
Microsoft Corp. is being criticized for distributing its Windows XP anti-piracy tool in a way that may leave many PC users in the dark as to what they are actually downloading.
In addition, the software maker has come under fire for failing to make it clear to people installing Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) that the application communicates with Microsoft on a daily basis.
Microsoft on Friday acknowledged that it could have done a better job in explaining how the software behaves. The application is currently in beta.
"There have been some questions on this issue and Microsoft is working to more effectively communicate details of this feature to the public," a spokeswoman for the Redmond, Wash., company said in an email.
The company plans to change the settings of the application in its next release, so that it dials in to Microsoft every two weeks, the spokeswoman said. The call-in feature would be disabled permanently when the program is generally available worldwide later this year.
Microsoft's handling of the software's distribution has also raised eyebrows. People who have signed up to automatically receive updates for Windows XP have reported receiving notification of a "critical" security update that doesn't say it includes Windows Genuine Advantage until the download process begins. Once the program is installed, it can't be removed.
http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188703441
Scientists discover new kind of shark in northwest Atlantic
June 10, 2006
A new species of hammerhead shark has been found in the northwest Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.
According to scientists, the species, classified as genus Sphyrna, looks much like the scalloped hammerhead, but is "genetically distinct" from the scalloped hammerhead. University of South Carolina Biology Professor Joe Quattro, who discovered the shark, describes it as "cryptic"; it is described as a rare find. This is the ninth such species of the hammerhead shark to be discovered. Scientists have named the species a 'cryptic species' because no formal name has been selected for the shark.
According to Dr. Quattro, "if South Carolina's waters are the primary nursery grounds for the cryptic species and females gather here to reproduce, these areas should be conservation priorities." Scientists say the shark only breeds off the S. Carolina coast and that it is at a risk for extinction. "Management plans are needed to ensure that these sharks are not adversely impacted so that we can learn more," added Dr. Quattro.
So far, there are only 454 other named and classified species of shark in the wild. Two other scientists, Dr. Jim Grady at the University of New Orleans and Dr. Trey Driggers with the National Marine Fisheries Service, are also among the biologists to help with the discovery.
http://www.bloggernews.net/2006/06/scientists-discover-new-kind-of-shark.html
Prominent Md. Publisher Missing From Boat
By BRIAN WITTE , 06.11.2006, 02:04 PM
Rescue crews searched the Chesapeake Bay on Sunday for a prominent publisher and former diplomat whose sailboat was found sitting on the water with its engine running.
Philip Merrill, 72, an experienced sailor, had been sailing alone in breezy weather Saturday, said Tom Marquardt, executive editor of The (Annapolis) Capital, one of seven periodicals Merrill publishes.
Merrill "has been an avid yachtsman since he first learned to sail at age 7. He has been actively cruising the Chesapeake since 1958," his wife, Eleanor, and children said in a statement issued by Marquardt.
"If there was anyone who could captain a boat competently alone, it was Phil. ... He just couldn't resist a sunny day with the wind at his back."
The wind blew at 15 to 20 mph Saturday near Annapolis, with gusts up to 30 mph, said David Manning, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va.
State and federal agencies joined the search. The Coast Guard sent both aircraft and boats, and was operating under the assumption that Merrill fell overboard, said Senior Chief Steve Carleton.
http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2006/06/11/ap2807689.html
Records for 150,000 Colo. voters missing
Sun Jun 11, 12:12 AM ET
DENVER - Records containing personal information on more than 150,000 voters are missing at city election offices, and officials are trying to determine if the files were lost, moved or stolen.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Denver Election Commission is also trying to figure out why officials didn't learn the records were missing until June 1, even though they are believed to have disappeared nearly four months earlier.
"We will get to the bottom of it," commission spokesman Alton Dillard told the Rocky Mountain News in Saturday's editions.
Police were notified about the missing records Saturday. The microfilmed voter registration files from 1989 to 1998 were in a 500-pound cabinet that disappeared when the commission moved to new offices in February. The files contain voters' Social Security numbers, addresses and other personal information.
Dillard said election staffers are scouring the commission's new and old offices and its warehouse. He said employees of the moving company, which was bonded, are also being questioned.
Also missing was a box with cards signed by voters who cast early ballots. The cards contain names, birth dates, addresses, signatures and partial Social Security numbers.
The missing files were first reported May 31 on a Web log run by Lisa Jones, a former temporary worker at the election commission. Officials said City Councilwoman Judy Montero saw the blog and told them about it the next day.
Jones said she believes commission officials knew of the lost files by April.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060611/ap_on_re_us/voter_records_missing_1
Mich. girl back after MySpace plane trip to Mideast !!!!!!!! MYSPACE OWNED BY NEWSCORP!!!!
FBI interrupts her plan to meet man in Jordan
By David N. Goodman
Associated Press
DETROIT - A 16-year-old Michigan girl who flew to the Middle East to be with a West Bank man she met on the popular Web site MySpace.com returned home from Jordan on Friday after U.S. officials persuaded her to board a return flight.
Television news footage showed Katherine Lester waving as she walked across the tarmac at Bishop International Airport in Flint late Friday.
She was taken to a private area to be reunited with her family.
The girl disappeared Monday from her home in Gilford, Tuscola County Undersheriff James Jashinske said.
Katherine, who turns 17 on June 21, apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, he said.
She tricked her family to get a passport and then left home without notice, the undersheriff said in an earlier written statement.
"The daughter had misled her mother about going to Canada after school was out for the summer with friends, so she could obtain a passport," he said.
MySpace.com, which is owned by News Corp., is a social networking hub with more 72 million members that lets users post photos, Web logs and journals. Its features and popularity with teenagers have raised concerns with authorities nationwide, and there have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.
"Everyone, not just children, need to be careful" when meeting people on the Internet, said Katherine's father, Terry.
"Anyone can disguise who they are out there until you meet them."
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060610/NEWS01/606100345/1001/news
FREEPER NEWS, RIGHT WING NUTTYNESS
It seems all eyes are on the 2006, 2008 elections lately. And it's small wonder why: Strong rhetoric has been swirling around the media painting Democrats and Republicans alike backed in a corner, with voters seeking alternative candidates.
Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that 55 percent of American voters plan to vote against incumbents this November – the highest anti-incumbent number since 1994. This startling revelation shows that Republicans may face a serious challenge this year.
But Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has faced such challenges before and is quietly assuring party insiders that superior organization and the Republicans' stealthy "voter vault" will carry the day.
Although widely admired within Republican Party circles for his effective, low-profile leadership, Mehlman's childhood did not exactly prepare him as a sho0-in candidate for his current position. The facts, however, reveal that he has been willing to challenge the status quo all his life.
A Jew, he grew up in Pikesville, Md., a liberal suburb of Baltimore. He attended a conservative synagogue called Chizuk Amuno Congregation. His grandfather, Joseph Mehlman, owned a tiny Baltimore grocery store and was a member of the NAACP. He eventually moved to Israel.
When Howard Dean, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, once famously portrayed the Republican Party as a party of Christians, Mehlman wisecracked, "That would be news to the people who went to my bar mitzvah."
Mehlman's father worked hard as a CPA. While Mehlman's mother, Judy, originally was a Democrat, his father, Arthur, was a Republican who supported Ronald Reagan. Mehlman remembers handing out literature for Reagan in the Baltimore suburbs at age 14.
"Reagan sounded optimistic about the future," Mehlman recently told me in his office on the fourth floor of RNC headquarters on Capitol Hill. "He was a guy with a bold vision. He gave me a focus on what I wanted to do professionally. I think it was the moral clarity with which he approached the Cold War, the optimism he had about America."
These days, Mehlman wields considerable power and has become an in-demand TV guest. Like James Carville, the Democratic attack dog now on the sidelines, he's a natural for the medium, although he seems not to crave the attention.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1647486/posts
bducted US student returned to Israel
(VIDEO) Palestinian gunmen send news agencies tape showing young religious man holding Hebrew University student certificate, saying 'if prisoners are not released, I will be executed'; at around 3 a.m., student transferred to PA Preventive Security Service, then released at Hawara checkpoint
Ynet reporters
VIDEO - What began as a kidnapping drama, apparently ended peacefully early Sunday when sources in Nablus reported that the American student kidnapped near the city was transferred to the Palestinian Authority Preventive Security Service, and then handed over to Israel at the Hawara checkpoint.
PA Anarchy
Wave of Kidnappings / Ali Waked
In March, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades kidnap Palestinian UN employee they accuse of giving information to Israel used to assassinate group's Nablus commander
Full story
Following a short interrogation by security forces, the student was released to his home in Jerusalem, where he is staying as part of a student exchange program.
The student spoke to his father on the phone at the checkpoint and assured him that he was okay.
The student, Benjamin Bright-Fishbein, who says he is very fond of the local culture, has already visited Jericho and Jordan in the past, and now decided to pay a visit to Nablus. This time he was almost forced to pay a heavy price: While sitting relaxed in a city café, he was kidnapped by gunmen who threatened to execute him.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3261195,00.html
Beach attack hits peace
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent
June 12, 2006
PALESTINIANS are likening images of the family of seven slain on a Gaza beach on Friday to infamous footage of a shot boy and his father that galvanised militant support in 2000 for the five-year intifada.
In a dangerous escalation that could drive outrage at Friday's killings towards open conflict, Hamas militants declared an end to their 15-month ceasefire with Israel and vowed to use their homemade rockets to turn the nearby Israeli town of Sderot into a ghost town.
An Israeli air strike last night killed two militants from the Hamas Islamic group in the northern Gaza Strip after they fired rockets at Israel, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military said it launched a strike at militants trying to fire rockets.
Hamas announced it had fired 14 rockets towards Israel and pledged to step up its attacks in the wake of the beach deaths, which have sparked widespread condemnation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret last night over the deaths of the seven family members who were killed by a large explosion as they picnicked together on Friday afternoon. He pledged the circumstances behind the deaths would be investigated.
The images of the sole survivor, orphaned eight-year-old Huda Ralia, screaming in the sand near her father's body, were being repeatedly shown on Arab television alongside footage from September 2000 of Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura, who cowered beside his father as they were caught in crossfire between Israeli troops and militants in Gaza.
Both were shot and Mohammed later died.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19441283-2703,00.html
Militants behead trio on video
12jun06
INSURGENTS have signalled that the fight is still on after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death, posting an internet video showing the beheading of three alleged Shiite death squad members in revenge for killing Sunnis.
The video -- as grisly as any the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq ever issued -- was clearly designed to quash hopes that the Sunni-dominated insurgency might end attacks on Shiite civilians and institutions, especially the police.
Fellow Sunni insurgent groups sent condolences for Zarqawi in internet messages yesterday and warned Sunnis not to co-operate with the Iraqi Government.
The condolences came from the al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sunnah -- the group that posted the beheading video on a militants' website -- and the head of the Mujahidin Shura Council, an umbrella organisation of five insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq, that Zarqawi helped found last year.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19437752%255E663,00.html
World Cup: Jews demonstrate against Iran regime
(VIDEO) Some 1500 Jews, supporters demonstrate in Nuremberg against Iranian regime ahead of country’s World Cup soccer match against Mexico. Bavarian Internal Minister: ‘Ahmadinejad a criminal’
Rotem Grossman
NUREMBERG – (VIDEO) Some 1,500 Jews from all over Germany protested against the Iranian regime just a few hours before the country’s national soccer team took the field for its World Cup soccer match against Mexico.
The demonstrators gathered at Nuremberg’s St. Jacob’s Square, where Adolph Hitler held a number of Nazi rallies in his time, and protested against recent comments made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who doubted the Holocaust’s existence and called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3261579,00.html
Cervical Cancer Vaccine Approved
The first vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV), known to cause most cervical cancers, has received official green light.
The first vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV), known to cause most cervical cancers, has received official green light.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Merck&Co.'s Gardasil for girls and women ages 9 to 26.
An FDA advisory panel had signed off on cervical cancer vaccine in May.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will now decide whether to include the cervical cancer vaccine in routine vaccination schedules.
"It's huge," said Dr. Michael A. Bookman, director of medical gynecologic oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Philadelphia.
"The thing that is incredible is the global possibilities. In the U.S., we have done a good job of implementing screening and testing. In the rest of the world, this is a much more serious problem."
http://toronto.fashion-monitor.com/news.php/health/2006061102Cervical-Cancer
Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Tool Draws Criticism, Changes Planned
In addition, the software maker has come under fire for failing to make it clear to people installing Windows Genuine Advantage that the application communicates with Microsoft on a daily basis to do things like ensure that the Windows copy being used isn't pirated.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb News
Jun 9, 2006 04:38 PM
Microsoft Corp. is being criticized for distributing its Windows XP anti-piracy tool in a way that may leave many PC users in the dark as to what they are actually downloading.
In addition, the software maker has come under fire for failing to make it clear to people installing Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) that the application communicates with Microsoft on a daily basis.
Microsoft on Friday acknowledged that it could have done a better job in explaining how the software behaves. The application is currently in beta.
"There have been some questions on this issue and Microsoft is working to more effectively communicate details of this feature to the public," a spokeswoman for the Redmond, Wash., company said in an email.
The company plans to change the settings of the application in its next release, so that it dials in to Microsoft every two weeks, the spokeswoman said. The call-in feature would be disabled permanently when the program is generally available worldwide later this year.
Microsoft's handling of the software's distribution has also raised eyebrows. People who have signed up to automatically receive updates for Windows XP have reported receiving notification of a "critical" security update that doesn't say it includes Windows Genuine Advantage until the download process begins. Once the program is installed, it can't be removed.
http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188703441
Scientists discover new kind of shark in northwest Atlantic
June 10, 2006
A new species of hammerhead shark has been found in the northwest Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.
According to scientists, the species, classified as genus Sphyrna, looks much like the scalloped hammerhead, but is "genetically distinct" from the scalloped hammerhead. University of South Carolina Biology Professor Joe Quattro, who discovered the shark, describes it as "cryptic"; it is described as a rare find. This is the ninth such species of the hammerhead shark to be discovered. Scientists have named the species a 'cryptic species' because no formal name has been selected for the shark.
According to Dr. Quattro, "if South Carolina's waters are the primary nursery grounds for the cryptic species and females gather here to reproduce, these areas should be conservation priorities." Scientists say the shark only breeds off the S. Carolina coast and that it is at a risk for extinction. "Management plans are needed to ensure that these sharks are not adversely impacted so that we can learn more," added Dr. Quattro.
So far, there are only 454 other named and classified species of shark in the wild. Two other scientists, Dr. Jim Grady at the University of New Orleans and Dr. Trey Driggers with the National Marine Fisheries Service, are also among the biologists to help with the discovery.
http://www.bloggernews.net/2006/06/scientists-discover-new-kind-of-shark.html
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