Bird flu vaccine sought

Bird flu vaccine sought
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A 92-year-old woman who survived the Spanish flu in 1918 has given 10 vials of her blood to medical researchers who are trying to develop more effective vaccines against bird flu. Dorothy Horsch was in kindergarten when she contracted the illness, which killed 20 million to 40 million people worldwide. Horsch's blood will be part of a catalog of blood and bone marrow samples being compiled by Sea Lane Biotechnologies, a Menlo Park, Calif., company that hopes to track changes in the virus that might help develop better vaccines.
4 indicted in firebombing
VAIL, Colo. -- Four alleged environmental extremists have been indicted in a 1998 firebombing at the Vail ski resort that caused $12 million in damage -- one of the most devastating ecoterrorism attacks in U.S. history. Two are in custody in Oregon, and the other two were still at large. The blaze left a mountain lodge, two restaurants and a few other buildings and ski lifts in smoldering ruins. Named in the indictment are Chelsea Gerlach, 29, of Portland, Ore; Stanislas Meyerhoff, 28, of Charlottesville, Va.; Josephine Sunshine Overaker, 31; and Rebecca J. Rubin, 33. A shadowy underground group said it had targeted Vail because it was expanding into potential habitat of the lynx, an endangered cat.
Remicade OK'd for kids
WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators approved Remicade as a treatment for Crohn's disease in children on Friday, just days after publication of a study linking the Johnson & amp; Johnson drug to an increased risk of some cancers in rheumatoid arthritis patients. The Food and Drug Administration said that expanding availability of the injectable drug would provide a much-needed option for children who suffer from Crohn's, in which chronic inflammation of the walls of the intestines can cause diarrhea, cramping, abdominal pain and bleeding. In 1998, Remicade became the first approved treatment for Crohn's disease in adults. Both Crohn's and rheumatoid arthritis are autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system attacks the body's soft tissues, including those that line the intestines and joints.
Jackson accuser charged
LOS ANGELES -- The woman whose son claimed Michael Jackson molested him at Neverland ranch was ordered Friday to stand trial on felony charges of welfare fraud. The 37-year-old woman is charged with one count of welfare fraud and four counts of perjury by falsely applying for welfare. She is accused of stealing $8,000 in government aid. The Associated Press has withheld her name to protect the identity of her son because he has claimed to be a molestation victim. Jackson was acquitted of the child molestation charges last year. Prosecutors claim the woman fraudulently collected $18,782 in welfare payments between November 2001 and March 2003, but the amount was dropped to $8,000 because the government received child welfare payments from the father of her son. She also failed to disclose she had received a $150,000 settlement of a lawsuit against a department store chain, prosecutors said.
4 Md. schools searched
LEONARDTOWN, Md. -- Officers in riot gear searched four locked-down schools Friday after a student and his grandmother reported seeing someone put a handgun in a backpack and approach the building. No weapons were found, but some students at the school complex said they feared for their lives during the seven-hour lockdown and kept thinking of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Leonardtown High School was locked down along with an adjoining middle school, a technical school and an alternative learning school. Leonardtown is about 50 miles southeast of Washington.
Fossil dubbed dino-bird
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- A dinosaur claw fossil found in Brazil reinforces the theory of an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds, a new study says. Brazilian scientists dubbed the dinosaur the dino-bird, which they said was found in Minas Gerais state, about 370 miles northwest of Rio. Ismar de Souza Carvalho, who co-authored the study, said Thursday that it likely belonged to an unidentified group of dinosaurs who walked the Earth some 70 million years ago.
Where's Columbus buried?
MADRID, Spain -- Scientists said Friday they have confirmed that at least some of Christopher Columbus' remains were buried inside a Spanish cathedral, a discovery that could help end a century-old debate over the explorer's final resting place. DNA samples from 500-year-old bone slivers could contradict the Dominican Republic's competing claim that the explorer was laid to rest in the New World, said Marcial Castro, a Seville-area historian and high school teacher who devised the study that began in 2002.
Associated Press