various News

Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar

Label: Health

LONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.

The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.

On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.

“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.

The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.

Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.

Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.

Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.

It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.

Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.

The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.

The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.

“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Egypt's top judges slam president's new powers

Label: Business

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's highest body of judges slammed on Saturday a recent decision by the president to grant himself near-absolute power, calling the move an "unprecedented assault" on the judiciary.

The statement from the Supreme Judicial Council came as hundreds protested outside a downtown courthouse against Thursday's declaration by President Mohammed Morsi. The president's decision means that courts cannot overrule his decrees until a new constitution and parliament is in place, several months if not more in the future.

The judges' condemnation of the president's edicts are the latest blow to Morsi, whose decision set off a firestorm of controversy and prompted tens of thousands of people to take to the streets in nationwide protests on Friday.

Through their statement, carried by the official MENA agency, the judges join a widening list of leaders and activists from Egypt's political factions, including some Islamists, who have denounced the decree.

The Supreme Judicial Council is packed with judges appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak. It regulates judicial promotions and is chaired by the head of the Court of Cassation.

Their move reflects a broader sense of anger within the judiciary against the president. Some judges' groups and prosecutors have already announced partial strikes to protest Morsi's decree.

Morsi has accused pro-Mubarak elements in the judiciary of blocking political progress. In the last year, courts have dissolved the lower house of parliament as well as the first panel drafting the constitution, both led by his Muslim Brotherhood group.

The edicts Morsi issued mean that no judicial body can dissolve the upper house of parliament or the current assembly writing the new constitution, which are also both led by the Brotherhood. Supporters of Morsi feared that courts reviewing cases against these bodies might have dissolved them, further postponing Egypt's transition under the aegis of a new constitution.

They say Morsi has a mandate to guide this process as Egypt's first freely elected president, having defeated one of Mubarak's former prime ministers this summer in a closely contested election.

The judges' council's stand against the president sets the ground for an uneasy alliance between former regime officials and activist groups that helped topple Mubarak's regime and have in the past derided those officials as "felool," or remnants.

The presidents' opponents nonetheless see the judiciary as the only remaining civilian branch of government with a degree of independence, since Morsi already holds executive power and as well as legislative authority due to the dissolution of parliament.

The judges released their statement following an emergency meeting Saturday. They said Morsi's decision is an "unprecedented assault on the judiciary and it rulings" and called on the president to "distance himself from the declaration and all things that touch judicial authority, its specifications or interference in its members or its rulings."

The primary court in Alexandria and the judges' club there announced Saturday they and public prosecutors have suspended all work until the declaration is withdrawn, according to the state news agency MENA.

One of the most controversial edicts states that the president has the right to take any steps to prevent "threats to the revolution," wording that activists say is vague and harkens back to the type of language employed by Mubarak to clamp down on dissent.

Morsi said Friday, before thousands of Brotherhood supports outside his presidential palace in Cairo, that he decision was aimed at protecting the nation from old regime loyalists using the judiciary to "harm the country."

He removed on Thursday the country's longtime attorney general, widely seen as a Mubarak holdover who did not effectively pursue the many cases against former regime officials accused of corruption, and ordered the retrial of former officials if new evidence against them is brought forth.

The ousted attorney general, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, appeared before a gathering of Egyptian judges on Saturday — his first public appearance since Morsi's decree. He was greeted by raucous applause and cries of "Illegitimate! Illegitimate!" in reference to the president's decision. He read out a statement saying judicial authorities are looking into the legality of the president's decision to remove him.

"I thank you for your support of judicial independence," he told the judges, gathered in a downtown courthouse. The head of Egypt's judges' club, Ahmed el-Zind, declared Morsi's move as "unconstitutional." He was a vocal critic of Morsi during the presidential campaign and warned of a Brotherhood-dominate state if he won.

Morsi had tried once before to fire Mahmoud, in October, but rescinded his decision when judges and the attorney general stood against him, saying that he did not have the authority to do so.

Others gathered outside the courthouse, denouncing the president and chanting "Leave, leave." Police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of young men who were shooting flares.

"Morsi will have to reverse his decision to avoid the anger of the people," said Ahmed Badrawy, a labor ministry employee protesting at the courthouse. "We do not want to have an Iranian system here," he added, referring to fears that hardcore Islamists may try to turn Egypt into a theocracy.

Several hundred protesters remained in Cairo's Tahrir Square Saturday, where a number of tents have been erected in a sit-in following nearly a week of clashes with riot police. The country's most prominent opposition groups called for another mass rally on Tuesday, saying that the edicts make Morsi a "new pharaoh."

Health ministry officials quoted in state media said more than 200 people were wounded nationwide in the clashes Friday. Security officials said more than 100 police were also wounded in clashes in Cairo near Tahrir Square where protesters have been battling security forces for days to demand retribution for the killing of 42 protesters in November of last year.

____

Brian Rohan contributed to this report from Cairo.

6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job

Label: Technology

Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired, says Rob Lammie at Mental Floss

13f4a MentalFloss Best FINAL 6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job

Step 1: Drunk tweet
As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April 2010. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted:

SEE MORE: Why popular kids make more money as adults

@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”

After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing… I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”

Step 2: Break the law (or just anger your governor)
Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:

@HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”

Jennifer Carter, one of his Twitter followers who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:

“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.”

This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees.

SEE MORE: Does a shaved head give you an advantage in corporate America?

The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation.

Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.

SEE MORE: Facebook’s new jobs board: Is LinkedIn toast?

Step 3: Have an NSFW lifestyle
St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board — you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it.

Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked was told by upper management to do a Google search of all employees, TBK’s Twitter account information — with her real name still associated — came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.

The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.

Step 4: Question company policy
When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:

@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”

He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.”

Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos at the time. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has been viewed well more than 100,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.

Step 5: Make a celebrity look bad
During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $ 13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:

@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $ 13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!”

Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat — mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $ 3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.

Step 6: Don’t get hired in the first place
If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.

When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:

@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:

@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context — that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down — but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.

— Rob Lammie

Massachusetts gas explosion under investigation

Label: Business

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — Dozens of building inspectors began assessing homes and businesses in one of New England's biggest cities on Saturday, a day after a natural gas explosion leveled a strip club located next to a day care and heavily damaged a dozen other structures. The blast injured 18 people, many of them first responders.

Investigators were trying to figure out what caused the Friday night blast in Springfield that could be heard for miles, left a large hole in the ground where the multistory brick building housing Scores Gentleman's Club once stood and scattered debris over several blocks.

Officials had already evacuated part of the entertainment district after responding to a gas leak and odor reported about an hour before the explosion while firefighters, police officers and gas company workers were in the area filled with commercial properties and residences.

"It really is a miracle and it's an example of our public safety officials, each and every day, putting themselves in harm's way, taking what could have been considered a very routine call of an odor of gas, but they took the proper precautions," State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said. "And thanks to God that they did."

Officials also marveled how the 5:30 p.m. blast occurred when a day care center next door was closed. The center's building was heavily damaged.

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray and Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno were attending a tree-lighting ceremony when the explosion occurred. Sarno said some people mistakenly thought the boom was part of the holiday event.

The explosion blew out windows in a three-block radius, leaving at least three buildings irreparably damaged and causing emergency workers to evacuate a six-story apartment building that was buckling, police said. Pieces of broken glass littered streets and sidewalks. It was unclear how many residents had been evacuated. A shelter was set up at a school.

Omar Fermin, manager of the Punta Cana Restaurant two blocks from the explosion site, found the floor-to-ceiling windows blasted out when he came to check on the property Saturday morning.

"It looks like an earthquake hit," said Fermin, a native of the Dominican Republic. "I've never seen anything like it."

He said he was waiting for somebody to come and assess the damage. He worried the restaurant would remain closed for weeks while the owner seeks to replace the massive custom-made windows.

Authorities cordoned off the center of the explosion Saturday morning as building inspectors worked to identify unsafe structures. Anxious residents gathered at the perimeter, waiting for permission to visit their buildings.

Dogs trapped in abandoned buildings barked out loudly Saturday as building inspectors fanned out across the area. One inspector said he wished he could get a ladder and permission to retrieve a dog that was barking in the upper floor of one building sealed off from residents.

Coan, the fire marshal, said his office was investigating a cause of the blast and its possible origin. The state's Department of Public Utilities was also investigating.

Sheila Doiron, a spokeswoman for Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, said the company will continue to monitor for any potential leaks within several blocks of the blast site. So far, she said, the company hadn't yet found any measurable readings.

Doiron said the company also didn't find in its records any gas odor calls to the area where the strip club was located.

The victims were taken to two hospitals in the city. None of their injuries was considered life-threatening, officials said. Those injured were nine firefighters, two police officers, four Columbia Gas workers, two civilians and another city employee.

Springfield, which is 90 miles west of Boston and has about 150,000 residents, is the largest city in western Massachusetts. It's known as the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is not in the vicinity of the blast.

The city has been rebuilding from damage it sustained in a June 2011 tornado.

On Friday night, residents milled around the neighborhood where the explosion occurred, stunned by the destruction and confused by the cordoned-off area, which grew as crews continued to search for gas leaks. The mayor warned against looting, saying police would be out in force.

Wayne Davis, who lives about a block away from the destroyed building, said he felt his apartment shake.

"I was laying down in bed, and I started feeling the building shaking and creaking," he said.

The Navy veteran said the boom from the explosion was louder than anything he'd ever heard, including the sound of a jet landing on an aircraft carrier.

The blast was so loud it was heard in several neighboring communities. Video from WWLP-TV showed the moment of the explosion, with smoke billowing into the air above the neighborhood.

___

Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi, Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston and Jessica Hill in Springfield contributed to this report.