WASHINGTON - The toll from salmonella-tainted tomatoes jumped to 228 illnesses Thursday as the government learned of five dozen previously unknown cases and said it is possible the food poisoning contributed to a cancer patient’s death.

Six more states — Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Tennessee and Vermont — reported illnesses related to the outbreak, bringing the number of affected states to 23.

The Food and Drug Administration has not pinpointed the source of the outbreak. With the latest known illness striking on June 1, officials also are not sure if all the tainted tomatoes are off the market.

"As long as we are continuing to see new cases come on board, it is a concern that there are still contaminated tomatoes out there," said the agency’s food safety chief, Dr. David Acheson.

Government officials have said all week they were close to cracking the case, but "maybe we were being too optimistic," Acheson acknowledged.

How much longer? "That’s impossible to say."

On the do-not-eat list are raw red plum, red Roma or red round tomatoes, unless they were grown in specific states or countries that the FDA has cleared because they were not harvesting when the outbreak began or were not selling their tomatoes in places where people got sick.

The FDA is directing consumers to its Web site — http://www.fda.gov — for updated lists of the safe regions.

Also safe are grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached. That is not because there is anything biologically safer about those with a vine but because the sick have assured investigators that is not the kind of tomato they ate.

What if you did not go to the store armed with a list, or the store or restaurant manager cannot assure that any plum, Roma or round tomatoes came from safe regions?

"If you don’t know, don’t take the risk," Acheson said.

Read more on yahoo.com

written by Andrew

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Apollo-era launch pad used to shoot space shuttle Discovery into orbit two weeks ago may have been flawed from the day it was built, and will need weeks if not months of work to fix all the liftoff damage, NASA said Thursday.

About 5,300 bricks flew off the pad during Discovery’s launch on May 31, exposing a thick concrete wall underneath. The pad was built for the Apollo moon shots, and it looks as though the bricks did not adhere properly to the wall of the flame trench when they were installed in the 1960s, said LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team.

While the flyaway bricks posed no danger to Discovery at liftoff — engineers have verified that’s a physical impossibility — NASA wants to fix the flame trench so it does not get worse. Cain said he’s confident it will be repaired in time for the next shuttle flight in October.

In orbit, Discovery’s seven astronauts enjoyed a relaxed day off after their demanding construction work at the international space station. They left the orbiting complex bigger and more robust, with a new billion-dollar Japanese lab and a fully functional toilet, among other things.

Late Thursday afternoon, engineers finished scrutinizing all the wing and nose images collected by the shuttle crew Wednesday with a 100-foot laser-tipped inspection boom.

"Looks like you have a clean orbiter," Mission Control radioed. Touchdown is set for Saturday.

The thermal survey — an exhaustive search for damage — was conducted later than usual because the astronauts had to wait until they got to the space station to retrieve their inspection pole. There wasn’t enough room aboard Discovery for the pole at liftoff because of the giant Kibo lab.

As for the launch pad, NASA officials have talked with a few of the men who were on the original construction team, and are digging out as many documents as possible from the archives. Construction of the launch pad began in 1963 and ended in 1965.

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written by Andrew

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Europe could face an increase in outbreaks of diseases carried by insects and rodents as the climate on the continent becomes hotter and wetter, EU health experts said.

"These diseases are closely linked to climate change … We need to address this risk," Renaud Lancelot of the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) told reporters in Stockholm Thursday.

Lancelot was one of 23 health experts from across Europe attending a two-day European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) meeting on the heightened risk of so-called vector-borne diseases, or illnesses carried by mosquitoes, sand-flies, ticks and rodents.

"The climate and environmental changes being predicted by experts will alter the risk to Europe from vector-borne diseases," ECDC head Zsuzsanna Jakab said in a statement.

"We are likely to see the spread of diseases such as tick-borne encephalitis, or even chikungunya fever, to places where they have not been seen before," she added.

In addition to climate change, the European Union agency also said the risk of such vector-borne diseases, which affect millions of people worldwide each year, was growing due to "globalisation and the increased travel and trade that it brings."

An example of the increased threat was seen last year, when a traveller who had been infected in India with chikungunya fever was bitten in northern Italy by a type of mosquito that can carry the disease and that recently arrived in Europe.

Nearly 250 people subsequently came down with the illness in what some experts said could be the first such outbreak outside the tropics.

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written by Andrew

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc.’s efforts to revive takeover talks with Microsoft Corp. have reached a dead end, prompting the Internet pioneer to hire online search leader Google Inc. to handle some of its advertising sales.

The news disclosed Thursday caused Yahoo shares to plunge 10 percent as investors abandoned hope that Microsoft would renew a nearly five-month quest to buy the Sunnyvale-based company.

While a stock sell-off is never welcome news for any company, Wall Street’s disenchantment comes at a particularly bad time for Yahoo and its board of directors.

Yahoo is trying to fend off a shareholder mutiny led by activist investor Carl Icahn, who has vowed to replace the company’s board because of the way the directors handled the Microsoft negotiations.

But Icahn has been hoping to engineer a sale to Microsoft, so some shareholders may be reluctant to support his attempted coup unless he can demonstrate his slate of directors has a better turnaround plan than the current board.

Icahn did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.

The fate of Yahoo’s board is scheduled to be determined at the company’s Aug. 1 annual meeting.

"If you are a Yahoo shareholder, you just have to be scratching your head right now," said Standard and Poor’s equity analyst Scott Kessler.

With Microsoft apparently out of the picture, Yahoo is turning to Google to help its chief executive, Jerry Yang, prove he made the right decision last month when he turned down Microsoft’s takeover bid of $47.5 billion, or $33 per share. Yang asked for $37 per share, prompting Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to withdraw the oral offer.

Read more on Yahoo.com

written by Andrew

Daca niciuna din variante nu merge, consultati medicul….de preferat ginecolog, ca nu la ochi e problema.

written by Flory

Biserica Evanghelică din BistriÅ£a-Năsăud, monument istoric din secolul al XIV - lea, care avea cel mai înalt turn din Transilvania, a fost cuprinsă de flăcări, miercuri seară, în jurul orei 19.00. Incendiul a fost stins în jurul orei 22.40, aproximativ 60 de pompieri luptându-se peste trei ore cu flăcările.

Căpitanul Vasile Trifan, ofiÅ£er de RelaÅ£ii Publice al Inspectoratului pentru SituaÅ£ii de Urgenţă BistriÅ£a-Năsăud, a declarat corespondentului MEDIAFAX că aproximativ 60 de pompieri au intervenit cu 12 maÅŸini autospeciale, pompierii din BistriÅ£a fiind ajutaÅ£i de câte un echipaj din Cluj ÅŸi MureÅŸ, precum ÅŸi de pompieri voluntari din Prundu Bârgăului ÅŸi ÅžanÅ£.

Potrivit sursei citate, cauza incendiului nu a fost deocamdată stabilită, intervenÅ£ia pompierilor fiind îngreunată de faptul că focul s-a propagat cu repeziciune întrucât lemnul din care erau făcute schelele care înconjurau turnul bisericii era foarte uscat.

Trifan a precizat că, deocamdată, pompierii nu ÅŸtiu dacă cele două clopote ale bisericii s-au topit din cauza căldurii degajate sau au căzut prin tavan, în interiorul bisericii.

Sursa citată a mai spus că nu se ÅŸtie, deocamdată, cât s-a distrus în interiorul bisericii, întrucât pompierii nu au putut intra în condiÅ£iile în care clădirea a fost deconectată de la reÅ£eaua electrică.

Citeste tot articolul pe mediafax.ro

written by Andrew

Numai cand ii auzim cum bazaie ni se face pielea de gaina, iar daca apuca sa ne si intepe, nu mai contenim cu scarpinatul. Si toate ca toate, dar, pe deasupra, din cauza ‘injectiilor’ facute de tantari, ne putem imbolnavi chiar foarte grav. Pentru a va feri de probleme, va oferim cateva metode cu ajutorul carora puteti tine tantarii la distanta.

Chiar daca e vorba doar de niste amarate de insecte, exista strategii complexe care le pot impiedica sa se apropie de dumneavoastra. Una dintre ele e evitarea vecinatatii lacurilor de orice fel, considerate un adevarat rai al acestor zburatoare. De asemenea, daca aveti in casa recipiente cu apa, fie ele si vaze cu flori sau acvarii, e bine sa le schimbati des apa. Daca totusi veti dori sa faceti o iesire la picnic, alegeti un loc unde iarba e cosita, pentru ca ierburile inalte ascund multi tantari. Si hainele pe care le purtati sunt importante. De aceea, evitati culorile foarte inchise si nu folositi produse pentru ingrijire cu miros foarte puternic, pentru ca acestea ii atrag ca un magnet.

Nu amanati montarea plaselor la geam
Tot asa, nu e indicat sa amanati montarea plaselor la ferestre sau la usile dinspre balcon, iar daca reperati un astfel de inamic prin casa, folositi o pastila anti-tantari.
La fel de fatale pentru acest ‘adversar de vara’ sunt spray-urile cu insecticid, care se pulverizeaza in aer, dar si betisoarele parfumate.
Cea mai buna metoda de a trece neobservati de tantari sunt lotiunile, spray-urile sau cremele speciale pentru fata si corp, a caror compozitie ii tine la distanta. Acestea nu sunt insecticide, ci produse foarte apropiate cosmeticelor, care, pe langa faptul ca protejeaza pielea, au si un miros foarte placut.

Cat va costa spray-urile si  solutiile care va scapa de ei

Exista mai multe solutii la care puteti recurge atunci cand nu mai faceti fata atacurilor roiurilor de tantari. In ultimii ani s-au dovedit foarte eficiente alifiile si spray-urile de corp care o data aplicate tin departe insectele intepatoare (Autan, 12,5 lei). De asemenea, au devenit tot mai folosite si aparatele portabile cu ultrasunete (costa intre 40 si 70 de lei), care cu o simpla apasare pe buton alunga imediat tantarii. La fel de eficiente sunt si aparatele cu pastile (intre 9 si 25 de lei), spray-urile de camera (intre 14 si 15 lei), spiralele antitantari (4,4 lei) ori lampile antitantari (Vito-Electric, 11 lei sau Sensor Light, 47,12 lei). Toate acestea va vor da o mana de ajutor pentru a alunga neplacutele insecte.

Cand e cazul sa va alarmati

Daca v-ati pricopsit deja cu ceva intepaturi si, mai mult, aveti dureri de cap, febra, o stare gripala, sunteti agitati sau va e somn aproape tot timpul, este bine sa va adresati medicului de familie, pentru ca aceste simptome pot semnala o maladie transmisa de tantari. Printre bolile infectioase care pot fi transmise prin intepatura tantarului sunt: malaria, febra galbena, denga sau encefalita.

Sursa: libertatea.ro

written by Andrew

Elevii claselor a VIII-a, care au terminat scoala pe 6 iunie, vor completa azi fisele de inscriere la liceu,  care vor ajuta la repartizarea computerizata.

Potrivit metodologiei aprobate de Ministerul Educatiei, in acest an, elevii  vor fi admisi la liceu fara examen. Se va tine cont de media generala a notelor obtinute la tezele cu subiect unic, care are o pondere de 50% din nota finala, si de media generala de absolvire a claselor V-VIII, care are o pondere tot de 50%. Exceptie vor face liceele sau clasele unde se sustin si probe de verificare a cunostintelor de limba moderna, limba materna sau probe de aptitudini. Pana pe 27 iunie se va face repartizarea computerizata, in urma careia candidatii vor afla daca au fost admisi. Intre 30 iunie si 18 iulie, elevii admisi trebuie sa-si depuna dosarele de inscriere la liceele unde au intrat, altfel isi vor pierde locul.
De maine, elevii din clasele I-VII si IX-XII vor incheia anul scolar si vor intra in vacanta de vara. Cei din clasele a VIII-a au incheiat deja anul in urma cu o saptamana, pentru a se inscrie la liceu.
6.100 de locuri de cazare pentru tineri
Autoritatea Nationala pentru Tineret a pus la dispozitia tinerilor pentru aceasta vacanta de vara 6.100 de locuri in taberele de la mare, munte sau in strainatate. O zi de cazare costa intre 18 si 50 de lei, in functie de destinatia aleasa. Pentru o saptamana de vacanta la un hotel de doua stele din Grecia, tinerii vor plati 200 de euro.

written by Andrew

Nici măcar agentul 007 nu e scutit de durere. Dar e una să fie bătut, torturat ÅŸi „avariat” pe ecran, altceva să sufere tot felul de neplăceri de ordin fizic în viaÅ£a reală.

Daniel Craig, cel mai nou interpret al lui James Bond, a trecut printr-o mulÅ£ime de episoade dramatice în timpul filmărilor. Muncind la precedenta peliculă, Casino Royale, s-a ales, în urma unei scene de bătaie, cu doi dinÅ£i lipsă.
Pe altarul viitorului film, Quantum of Solace, a sacrificat deja propria figură ÅŸi un deget. După ce, săptămâna trecută, s-a tăiat la faţă, accident în urma căruia i s-au pus opt copci, Craig a recidivat marÅ£i. El a ajuns la spital, direct de pe platouri, după ce vârful unui deget i-a zburat în timpul unei scene de acÅ£iune. „A curs mult sânge, astfel că a fost nevoie de un drum la spital, pentru o intervenÅ£ie de urgenţă”, a declarat un membru al echipei de producÅ£ie. Chiar ÅŸi aÅŸa, în cursul după-amiezei s-a întors la muncă.

Aceste accidente completează o listă lungă de probleme pe care ÅŸi le-au trecut în cont cei care lucrează la Quantum of Solace. Recent, pe platouri a izbucnit un incendiu, care a provocat pagube serioase decorului de la Pinewood Studios. În aprilie, doi cascadori au suferit răni grave, în timpul filmărilor din Italia. Unul dintre ei s-a prăbuÅŸit cu un Aston Martin într-un râu ÅŸi a fost în pericol să-ÅŸi piardă viaÅ£a. Celălalt s-a lovit serios la cap, tot într-o coliziune.

Citeste tot articolul pe ciao.ro

written by Andrew

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — With Christmas 2005 approaching, the princes of al Qaeda’s western command were gathering. They’d been summoned for something special: to plot a three-month campaign of coordinated suicide, rocket and infantry attacks on American bases, checkpoints and Iraqi army positions.

In al Qaeda in Iraq’s hierarchy, prince designates a senior leader, and these princes had been gathered by the most senior among them, the prince of Anbar province itself.

This commander, his name not recorded in al Qaeda’s summaries of the meetings and referred to only by rank, spent that December fleshing out his vision for the wave of assaults with the gathered subordinates who would lead his combat brigades.

The gathering was a council of war, its meetings remarkably detailed in al Qaeda records. In minutes of their secretive meetings, a grim notation was made: Operation Desert Shield had been approved and would "hopefully commence in mid-January 2006."

With the operation approved, the prince of Anbar listened to the briefings of his assembled commanders: the chairmen of both his military and his security committees, plus the various princes from the sectors he controlled — Falluja, Ramadi, Anbar-West and Anbar-Central. All boundary demarcations strikingly similar to those used by the American soldiers they were fighting.

The overall plan, too, was similar to any that the U.S. army would devise. First, the military committee chairman outlined plans to seal off the U.S. targets as much as possible by harassing supply lines, damaging bridges and targeting helicopters and their landing zones, in a bid to restrict reinforcement or resupply.

Then the security chairman spoke of the need to maintain strict "operational security," ordaining that only the princes, or leaders, involved in the meetings be informed of the grand strategy, leaving cell leaders and battalion commanders to believe their individual attacks were being launched in isolation.

Read more on CNN.com

written by Andrew