Panel: Get kids flu shots

Panel: Get kids flu shots

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — All school-age children should get a flu vaccination yearly as a way to curb outbreaks across the country, a federal panel of health experts recommended Wednesday.

But at least the kids may not have to get a shot, like their grandparents do. A nasal spray vaccine works, too.

The advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged flu vaccine for 60 million children ages 5 to 18, starting by fall 2009. The government now recommends it for children ages 6 to 59 months, as well as adults over age 50 and those with chronic illnesses.

The recommendation would not force children to be vaccinated against influenza viruses but would more strongly urge physicians, parents and insurers to give them.

Did vet stage shooting?

APPLE VALLEY, Calif. — An Army solider on leave from Iraq walked into a California convenience store with a gunshot wound to his thigh and an account of a confrontation with a robber.

But Pfc. Matthew John Myers’ Sunday night story about a robber shooting him at point-blank range near an Apple Valley, Calif., golf course didn’t match the evidence, sheriff’s officials said.

After interviews, detectives said they suspected something different: The 20-year-old had asked a friend to shoot him so he wouldn’t have to return to Iraq.

Myers, a soldier in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., is suspected of conspiring in the shooting while home on temporary military leave because of a family emergency, said San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Trish Hill.

Prosecutors will review the conspiracy and assault-with-a-firearm case against Myers and Daniel Dotterer, the 20-year-old Apple Valley friend suspected of shooting Myers, before deciding whether to arrest them, Hill said.

Myers is expected to return to active duty but it wasn’t immediately clear when he is slated to return to Iraq. A spokeswoman at Fort Campbell confirmed his assignment there but could not provide further details.

Parents: Church shooter
had ADHD, felt rejected

DENVER — A young man who killed four people at a church and a missionary training center had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and harbored bitterness for being an outcast, his parents said in their first extended comments.

Matthew Murray however gave no indication he was about to explode in violence, they said in an interview to be broadcast today and Friday on James Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio program.

Although Ronald and Loretta Murray have issued statements to the press, the devoutly Christian couple gave Dobson their first public impressions of what led their 24-year-old son to go on his rampage in December.

Focus on the Family provided an advance copy of the broadcast to The Associated Press. On the program, the Murrays met David and Marie Works, the parents of two sisters who their son had killed. The Works forgave the Murrays.

Murray killed two people at a Youth With a Mission training center in suburban Denver, slept in his own bed at his parent’s house that night, then drove 60 miles to Colorado Springs, where he killed the two sisters.

An autopsy concluded that he shot and killed himself.

Python stalked, ate dog

BRISBANE, Australia — A 16-foot python stalked a family dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children in the Australian tropics, animal experts said Wednesday.

The boy and girl, ages 5 and 7, watched as the scrub python devoured their silky terrier-Chihuahua crossbreed Monday at their home near Kuranda in Queensland state.

Stuart Douglas, owner of the Australian Venom Zoo in Kuranda, said scrub pythons typically eat wild animals such as wallabies, a smaller relative of the kangaroo, but sometimes turn to pets in urban areas.

“It actively stalked the dog for a number of days,” Douglas said.

Was Spears drugged?

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles police say they are looking into allegations that someone drugged Britney Spears but have not decided whether to open a formal investigation.

Police Capt. Kyle Jackon said in a statement Wednesday that the allegations “are being considered” by the Robbery-Homicide unit to determine if laws have been violated.

Jackson says no suspect has been identified.

Spears’ mother claimed in recent court papers that the pop star’s sometime companion Sam Lutfi drugged Spears and tried to take control of her life. Those claims led to a restraining order against Lutfi.

Spears is under a court-ordered conservatorship.

Combined dispatches