Bird flu could threaten human worldwide, research suggests
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A strain of bird flu that scientists fear could lead to a worldwide pandemic in humans is becoming more infectious to mammals.
Millions of chickens and other fowl have had to be slaughtered in Asia -- and thousands more have been killed in the United States and elsewhere -- to stem outbreaks of avian flu in recent years. Scientists say it is only a matter of time before the virus adapts to spread among humans.
The flu already passed from birds to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six of 18 infected people. Since then human cases also have been reported in Vietnam and Thailand.
Now China-based researchers studying the H5N1 flu strain report that over the years it is changing to become more dangerous to mammals. Their research, based on tests in mice, is reported in Monday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Our results demonstrate that while circulating in domestic ducks, H5N1 viruses gradually acquired the characteristics that make them lethal in mice," reported the team led by Hualan Chen of the Animal Influenza Laboratory of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.
While human infections from bird flu remain rare, the World Health Organization considers it a potential major threat to people.
There are two possibilities for the bird virus becoming a serious danger to people.
Viruses constantly mutate and this one could accumulate enough genetic changes to become good at passing between humans. So far the human cases have derived from birds and there is no evidence of the bird flu being passed from person to person.
More scary, the experts say, would be a sudden change caused by combining with a human flu in someone's body. The two viruses could swap genes and create a potent hybrid with the deadliness of the bird strain and the contagiousness of a regular human strain.
Klaus Stohr, head of the WHO global influenza program, noted that the new study confirms that the virus is evolving fairly rapidly, and viruses which are pathogenic for chickens are more likely to be transmitted to humans because humans are in contact with chickens.
The tests in mice are a type of magnifying glass to help understand how dangerous the virus might be for humans, Stohr said in a telephone interview.
While saying there is "no cause for panic," Stohr observed that the virus' ability to infect humans raises the possibility of a new worldwide epidemic, or pandemic, of dangerous flu.
Dr. Linda Lambert, an influenza program officer at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said the flu virus has an error-prone replication system.
It plays Russian roulette with its genome, she said, and could get a change that allows it to spread from person to person.
The new Chinese analysis looked at samples of the H5N1 virus collected from ducks in China in 1991-2002. Ducks can carry this flu without appearing ill.
The researchers tested the effect of the viruses in mice and found that the samples collected in 1999-2000 were less dangerous than those from 2001-2002.
They rated the viruses as low, middle or high pathogens for mice.
Those rated low infected the lungs in modest amounts. In the middle group the viruses infected the lungs and in some cases the spleen and brain. The group rated high invaded the lungs, spleen, kidney and brains of the mice.
"While circulating in ducks, the natural host, H5N1 viruses gradually acquired the ability to infect and kill mammals," said researcher Hualan Chen.
How the viruses evolved increasing lethality is not clear, but the researchers say it may have occurred in farms where pigs and ducks live in close proximity, allowing the virus to move back and forth between mammals and fowl.
They say there have been no reports of the H5N1 virus being isolated from pigs, but pigs have been infected with the virus in experiments.
An alternative possibility is that the virus was passed from ducks to humans and then back again. But, they add, "the transmission of the virus from humans back to ducks is difficult to envision."
The research was funded by grants from the Chinese National Key Basic Research Program, Chinese National S&T Plan, U.S. National Institutes of Health and the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities.
After 12 years of dancing, Bulgarian bear freed of his chains
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -- For the first time in 12 years, Charlie the dancing bear spent a full day Monday on all four paws.
Thanks to a campaign by animal rights activists, the 617-pound brown bear had his nose ring and chains removed. Instead of being shackled to a log at night, Charlie's new home is a 30-acre mountainous park 110 miles south of Sofia.
The park -- the largest of its kind in Europe -- was set up by the Four Paws Foundation with the financial help of the animal protection fund run by French actress Brigitte Bardot.
Charlie joined 13 other former dancing bears earlier freed from their chains and shipped to the sanctuary in the Rila Mountain in southern Bulgaria.
Animal rights activists, moved by the plight of the brown bears forced by their Gypsy owners to dance on the streets for paying tourists, launched a campaign to free the furry giants.
Because the practice is illegal, the bears could have simply been taken from their owners. Instead, the Four Paws Foundation decided to pay for the animals' freedom through small grants to help the Gypsy families set up new businesses.
Charlie's owner, Georgi Georgiev, said he sold him for about $3,500, handing the bear's chain to Dr. Amir Khalil, president of the Bulgarian chapter of the Austria-based foundation.
Georgiev, who inherited his first animal from his father, signed a pledge never to force a bear to dance again.
The deal done, the mighty animal was sedated and its nose ring and chains were removed. Charlie -- accustomed to a daily "treat" of a beer or two, in his former owner's words -- went to sleep only after a third dose of the special drug.
"Charlie ... will no longer be a slave," project spokesman Krasimir Nikolov said.
The animals' dancing was the result of a cruel technique -- the bear owner pulled a ring attached to its nose, causing it such pain that it shuffled around in a dance-like manner.
Leashed on a 6-foot chain all the time, Charlie "was fed only a loaf of bread or two a day," Nikolov said.
The foundation is collecting donations so that 10 other dancing bears can be moved to the park soon. For now, those animals are living with their owners, although they are no longer dancing.
Clinton sells nearly 1 million books in six days
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former President Clinton's memoirs have sold nearly 1 million copies in less than a week, his publisher said Monday.
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf said 935,000 copies of "My Life" had been sold by the end of Sunday, and the million mark should be reached soon.
"It's a certainty, we just don't know what day it will be," said Knopf executive director of publicity Paul Bogaards. "It could be today, it could be tomorrow."
The book went on sale last Tuesday, and sold more than 400,000 copies in the United States in the first day, the biggest debut ever for a nonfiction book, and double the believed previous record holder, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's "Living History."
Figures for international sales were not yet available.
The book is already in its third printing, with an expanded print run of about 2.6 million copies.
Protesters allege bias in dress code for Louisville, Ky., nightclub district
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- The ACLU is objecting to a ban on sports jerseys, sleeveless shirts and backward baseball caps in Louisville's new nightclub district, saying the dress code is biased against blacks and poor people.
The city has given the developer of the month-old Fourth Street Live power to enforce its dress code three nights a week during special events along the block-long stretch restaurants, bars and shops. During those nights, the city street is blocked off, and bouncers decide who does or doesn't meet the dress code.
"If the city is going to turn over a public street to a private entity, they need to make sure it remains open to the public," said American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky executive director Beth Wilson, who wore a cap backwards during a protest Monday in the district.
The Rev. Louis Coleman led about a dozen protesters in the demonstration.
"When you look at the team shirts, the names on those shirts, it's an urban thing, it's an inner-city thing being restricted," said Coleman, who is black.
Coleman and his protesters met with representatives of developer Cordish Co. on Monday and offered a compromise that would reverse the ban on many items, except sagging pants, bare midriffs and "gang-related clothing."
Unless a settlement is reached, Coleman said, anyone offended by the dress code should take their money elsewhere. For its part, the ACLU said it hopes to work out a compromise but did not rule out a legal challenge.
Zed Smith, who manages properties for Cordish, said the dress code has nothing to do with race. "It's not just the jerseys we're singling out," Smith said. "It's a range of dress that's acceptable."
Also, Smith said, the company is within its rights to enforce a minimum standard of dress on nights when the street is blocked off.
Fourth Street Live, a $75 million project, replaces a former indoor mall that blocked off the street. The area used to be Louisville's central downtown shopping district before the advent of suburban malls, and has been the target of a number of revitalization efforts.
Jay Blanton, a spokesman for Mayor Jerry Abramson, said the permit granted to the Fourth Street Live developer is no different from those given to other groups that use public property for special events. He added that there has been no evidence so far of discrimination.
Tim West, who is black, said he was asked to leave Fourth Street Live when it opened last month because his shorts were too long and he was wearing a baseball-style jersey. He said he has no intention of returning for special events.
"I'm done until they figure out what they want to do," West said. "If you look presentable, there shouldn't be a problem."
FDA approves firm to sell leeches as medical devices
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government has lent its seal of approval to a marketing an age-old medical device -- leeches.
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that Ricarimpex SAS, a French firm, is the first company to request and receive FDA clearance to market the bloodsucking aquatic animals as medical devices.
Leeches are already widely used in American hospitals, and companies that raised and sold them here before 1976 were allowed to continue doing so. However, the medical device law passed that year required newcomers to the field to seek approval.
For many people, leaches conjure up the image of Humphrey Bogart removing the bloodsuckers from his legs in African Queen, but FDA reports that leeches can help heal skin grafts by removing blood pooled under the graft and restore blood circulation in blocked veins by removing pooled blood.
Indeed the use of leeches to draw blood goes back thousands of years. They were widely used as an alternative treatment to bloodletting and amputation for several thousand years. Leeches reached their height of medicinal use in the mid-1800s.
FDA noted that today they are used in medicine throughout the world as tools in skin grafts and reattachment surgery.
Medicinal leeches -- Hirudo medicinalis -- normally make their home in fresh water.
In considering the Ricarimpex application, FDA said it analyzed the use of leeches in medicine, evaluated safety data provided by the firm and studied how the leeches are fed, their environment and the personnel who handle them.
Mistrial declared in Orange County gang-rape trial
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- The judge declared a mistrial Monday in the gang-rape trial of an assistant sheriff's son and two other teenagers accused in the videotaped assault of a 16-year-old girl after jurors said they couldn't reach a verdict.
Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno made the ruling after jurors said they were deadlocked on every count. Jurors sent a note to the judge saying they were "hopelessly deadlocked with strong convictions" on all 24 counts in the case.
The judge then asked each juror in court whether further deliberations would be helpful, and all said no.
Briseno said the defendants could be charged again and that double jeopardy would not apply.
The three teens are charged with drugging and raping the 16-year-old girl in July 2002, during an encounter they recorded on a videotape that was the central evidence in the trial. Defense attorneys argued that the girl was pretending to be unconscious during the videotaping and had consented to the sex acts.
Gregory Haidl, 18, and Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, both 19, are charged with 24 felony counts, including rape by intoxication or force and assault with a deadly weapon, a pool cue. They face up to 55 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
"I think it would be very difficult to get 12 honest people to agree on a verdict in this case. It's just too emotional," said Nachreiner's attorney John Barnett, who also represented one of the police officers acquitted in the 1992 in the Rodney King case.
Jurors began deliberations Thursday morning by asking the judge to allow them to again view the videotape. They later asked whether they should continue if they were unable to reach a verdict on the first count, rape by intoxication. Briseno directed them to continue.
Later, jurors asked to hear the testimony of medical experts, one for the defense and one for the prosecution, who gave conflicting accounts of whether the alleged victim was conscious in the video.
The July 2002 incident occurred inside the coastal home of Haidl's father, Don, a wealthy businessman and assistant sheriff, who was not home at the time.
In the video, the defendants can be seen assaulting the girl with objects that included a pool cue, drink bottle and lighted cigarette.
The woman testified in the case that a day before the alleged assault she willingly had sex with two of the accused, Haidl and Spann, and kissed Nachreiner. She said she returned the next night to see Spann, but quickly became dizzy and collapsed after drinking a blue-green drink that Nachreiner gave her.
Gay pride parade goes on in Arkansas town despite protests, dumping of manure on route
CONWAY, Ark. (AP) -- Organizers of a gay pride parade awoke to find the parade route covered in cow manure, but it was cleaned up in time for the event.
Police said the dump-truck load was spread at about 6:30 a.m. Sunday. Authorities are investigating, they said, and criminal mischief and littering charges could be filed.
City workers scooped and rinsed the manure from the route.
The parade attracted about 275 marchers in the town of 26,000 north of Little Rock. It also attracted protesters, many from local churches. Police said there were no injuries or arrests.
"We want to let people know that gay people don't just live in cities," parade organizer John Schenck said. "They live in little towns like Conway and Greenbrier." The street in front of the home of Schenck and his partner, Robert Loyd, also was vandalized with the manure.
Protesters along the route heckled the marchers and held signs such as "Sodomy is a Sin that God forgives If We Repent." Other protesters turned their backs to the marchers and prayed.
"What they're doing is an abomination to God," said John Lauritzon, 31, of Conway.
Last week, about 200 people attended a Conway City Council meeting to support a proposal that called the parade "a potentially divisive and disruptive activity" that the city would "neither encourage nor condone." But no one on the council seconded the motion.
Health officials say girl adopted from China had measles, fellow air passengers warned
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A 14-month-old girl adopted from China who arrived on a flight earlier this month had the measles, and state health officials are warning fellow air passengers that they may have been exposed to the illness.
Health officials are notifying passengers who were on Southwest Airlines Flight 1979 from Los Angeles on June 9 that they may have been exposed.
The girl, now in good condition, had been adopted from China and was going to her new home.
The child was among 35 families from 16 states and the United Kingdom traveling from China to the United States with their newly adopted children, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a news release. A China Southern Airlines flight brought the infant from Guangzhou, China, to Los Angeles. The family then traveled on Southwest to Kansas City.
"Measles is highly contagious," Missouri Health Department spokeswoman Sue Denny said. "If someone has any suspicion they have symptoms and were on the flight, this is something to be concerned about, especially if they've never had the disease."
Measles can cause pneumonia, diarrhea, encephalitis and death in people who are not immunized.
Earlier this year, the federal government reported that at least six adopted Chinese toddlers who were flown to new homes in the United States had measles.
In April, the CDC imposed a temporary ban on adoptions from one agency, the Zhuzhou Child Welfare Institute in China's Hunan province, after a measles outbreak was reported. That ban was lifted in early June.
Children adopted from other countries are not required to be vaccinated against measles in advance, but health officials say they should be immunized within 30 days after arriving in the United States.
Mountain lion that attacked Calif. hiker was undernourished
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A mountain lion that attacked a hiker on a clifftop trail in Central California over the weekend did not have rabies and was well below its average weight, wildlife officials said Monday.
The 2-year-old male lion weighed 58 pounds, while most cougars its age weigh 80 to 100 pounds, said Lorna Bernard, spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game. The emaciated lion injured a Santa Monica woman Saturday before it was fought off by her boyfriend and later killed by wildlife officers.
A necropsy on Monday determined that the animal didn't have rabies and that its stomach was empty except for the bone of a rodent, Bernard said. Other examinations to determine whether the animal was sick could take another week, but state officials said they may never learn why the lion attacked.
"Even if they explain the mystery why it was thin, it won't explain the mystery of why the lion wanted to attack a human," Bernard said.
The animal should have been able to feast on deer and vegetation that had returned to the area as it recovers from a 2002 wildfire, she said. Mountain lions will also eat coyotes, plants and berries if there aren't enough deer in the wild.
Shannon Parker, 27, lost her right eye in Saturday's attack and had deep wounds to her right thigh, authorities said. She has undergone hours of reconstructive surgery while recuperating at UCLA Medical Center.
Her family asked the hospital not to release any additional information. The family's neighbors and one friend who was on the hike said they had been asked by Parker's family not to talk about her or the incident.
Parker had been hiking with her boyfriend Mathias Maciejewski and two other friends in the Giant Sequoia National Monument area about 15 miles north of Kernville.
The lion pounced on her on a narrow part of the trail as she walked alone to her car to retrieve a pair of sunglasses. Her hiking companions heard her screams and ran to her rescue.
Maciejewski, 28, stabbed the lion twice with a knife and Jason Quirino, 30, of Los Angeles, and Ben Aaron Marsh, 15, of Los Angeles, threw rocks at the animal until it ran off, state officials said.
Fish and Game Lt. Brian Naslund said the mountain lion "was right on top of her face to face" and could have caused further injury because the trail ran along a cliff. "There was a potential to fall 100 feet down into a river," he said.
The animal left a bloody trail and was later shot and killed by U.S. Forest Service officers and Fish and Game wardens. Authorities initially believed the lion was female but said Monday it was male.
Parker lives alone in at an apartment in Santa Monica and works for a medical company based in Bakersfield, where her family lives.
"We wish for a speedy and full recovery and look forward to her return," said Marc Haverstock, vice president of Kern Surgical Supply.
Marisol Metcalfe, who lives in Parker's apartment complex in Santa Monica, described her as athletic and outgoing.
"I'm just shocked," Metcalfe said. "I can't believe it."
It was the 15th mountain lion attack on a human in California since 1890.
In January, a mountain lion mauled two bicyclists in separate attacks at an Orange County wilderness park. Mark Reynolds, 35, was killed and Anne Hjelle, 31, was rescued by her cycling partner, who held onto her legs, and other mountain bikers who threw rocks at it. Hjelle was hospitalized for weeks and likely will require several surgeries in the years ahead.
S.C. governor signs bill to add daughter's name to Thurmond monument
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Gov. Mark Sanford has signed a bill to add the name of Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter to the list of his children engraved on a monument to the late U.S. senator.
Essie Mae Washington-Williams came forward last year and announced she is the daughter of Thurmond and a black 16-year-old housekeeper who worked in the Thurmond family home.
Thurmond was 22 years old when Washington-Williams was born. He died last year at age 100.
The governor signed the bill June 18.
The Statehouse monument was built in the late 1990s with $850,000 in private donations. The statue depicts Thurmond as he was in the 1960s -- in the midst of a political career that spanned most of the past century.
He was once an avowed segregationist and ran for president in 1948 as a Dixiecrat on the platform of maintaining separate schools for blacks and whites.
Thurmond also had four children with his second wife, Nancy.
Former President Carter, mourners bury beloved young poet
WHEATON, Md. (AP) -- Former President Carter joined more than a thousand mourners Monday at a funeral for a beloved child poet, remembering little Mattie Stepanek as "the most extraordinary person I have ever known."
Stepanek, whose inspirational verse made him a best-selling writer and a prominent voice for muscular dystrophy, died last week of a rare form of muscular dystrophy that had plagued him throughout his 13 years. He was buried next to his three siblings, who died of the same disease, all at young ages.
Carter, who corresponded with Stepanek for three years, gave the eulogy.
"I have known kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers," Carter said. "But the most extraordinary person I have ever known in my life was Mattie Stepanek."
Four firefighters gingerly lifted a small wooden coffin covered with the United Nations flag from the back of a fire truck outside St. Catherine Laboure Catholic Church.
On the casket was a bumper sticker: "Be a peacemaker."
Stepanek tried to convey that message in his best-selling books and thorough his work as an advocate for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. His five volumes of poetry sold more than a million copies.
Carter and Stepanek met in 2001 when it appeared Stepanek was near death. Carter made a surprise visit to his hospital room as a last wish for the boy.
Stepanek eventually recovered. He later sent Carter a series of letters in which he discussed becoming a peacemaker and proposed that he and Carter write a book together called "Just Peace."
Carter said he was impressed with Stepanek's knowledge of international affairs, recalling how the boy was moved to tears by the war in Iraq because he thought world leaders had not tried hard enough for peace.
Also speaking briefly at the funeral was Oprah Winfrey, who featured Stepanek several times on her talk show.
Many of the 1,300 people who filled the church had met Stepanek through his charity work.
In the church, men with pony tails and beards filled several pews, wearing leather vests with Harley Davidson logos. The motorcycle company and Harley owners groups work with the MDA. Firefighters who had also contributed to the charity filled the funeral procession, marching in dress uniforms.
Some mourners never knew Stepanek but came anyway.
Roseanne Mangarella, a preschool teacher in Philadelphia, was given a copy of one of Stepanek's books and later used it in class.
"My heart was telling me I had to help come celebrate this," she said as she stood in line to enter the church. "This is my way of meeting him."