Assistant principal is first NYC swine-flu death

Assistant principal is first NYC swine-flu death

NEW YORK — A school assistant principal who was sick for several days with swine flu on Sunday became the city’s first death linked to the virus.

Mitchell Wiener, who had worked at an intermediate school in Queens, died Sunday evening, Flushing Hospital Medical Center spokesman Andrew Rubin said.

Wiener had been sick for nearly a week before his school was closed Thursday. He had been hospitalized and on a ventilator.

The city’s first outbreak of swine flu occurred three weeks ago, when about 700 students and 300 other people associated with a Catholic high school in Queens began falling ill after the return of several students from vacations in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Five more city schools will close today because of concern for swine flu, bringing the total to 11.

City health officials announced Sunday that four Queens public schools and one Catholic school would close today for up to five school days. Three of the public schools are in the same building.

ID of boy buried in N.M. playground still a mystery

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two days after the body of a small boy was found buried in the sand at a city park playground, stymied investigators focused Sunday on trying to find the child’s relatives.

“We are looking for the person who was the primary caretaker of the child, whether it is a parent, a grandparent or guardian. That’s our primary responsibility now,” police spokesman John Walsh said.

There were no other developments, Walsh said.

A preliminary autopsy on Saturday provided no immediate clues about how the 3- to 5-year-old child died.

Darfur rebel to appear at war-crimes tribunal

AMSTERDAM — A Sudanese rebel leader has turned himself in to the International Criminal Court to face war-crimes charges Monday for an attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in September 2007, the court said.

Bahr Idriss Abu Garda is one of three suspects in the case — the only case prosecutors have launched against rebels in Sudan’s Darfur conflict.

The other two rebel suspects have not been publicly identified, and the court said Sunday it was trying to see if they also would turn themselves in or if it had to issue arrest warrants against them.

Islamic college planned

PLAINSBORO, N.J. — A group of American Muslims, led by two prominent scholars, is moving closer to fulfilling a vision of founding the first four-year accredited Islamic college in the United States, what some are calling a “Muslim Georgetown.”

Advisers to the project have scheduled a June vote to decide whether the proposed Zaytuna College can open in the fall of next year, a major step toward developing the faith in America.

Imam Zaid Shakir and Sheik Hamza Yusuf of California have spent years planning the school, which will offer a liberal arts education and training in Islamic scholarship.

European Union’s budget chief wins Lithuania vote

VILNIUS, Lithuania — The European Union’s budget chief was poised to become Lithuania’s first female president after a landslide victory Sunday in a vote overshadowed by the Baltic country’s ailing economy, preliminary official results showed.

Dalia Grybauskaite, the EU budget commissioner and a karate black-belt, had 69 percent of the vote with more than 95 percent of ballots counted. The election commission said the preliminary turnout was 51 percent, just enough to avoid a runoff.

The results were in line with an exit poll earlier Sunday that showed voters were turning to the 53-year-old political independent to help Lithuania rebound from a deep recession.

Election in India paves way for economic reform

MUMBAI, India — India Inc. breathed a huge sigh of relief Sunday, a day after the ruling Congress Party won one of the most definitive electoral victories in nearly two decades of fractious coalition politics.

Congress’ victory — and the near-collapse of India’s once-powerful communist parties — means key reforms in insurance, pension funds, banking and retail are now likely to get enacted.

But that doesn’t translate into a mandate for sweeping pro-market liberalization, analysts say.

The global financial crisis has tempered India’s appetite for deeper foreign investment and looser regulation.

Associated Press