Split on H1N1-flu vaccine

Split on H1N1-flu vaccine

WASHINGTON — About 40 percent of American parents have tried to get their children vaccinated against the H1N1-flu virus, but only one in three have been successful, according to a survey released Friday. High-risk adults seeking the vaccine for themselves were just as unlucky finding it.

At the same time, about half of adults continue to express little interest in the vaccine now or later.

The survey by the Harvard School of Public Heath sketches an American population split between people who are frustrated because they can’t find the vaccine and those who say they don’t want it even when it arrives.

ACORN offices raided

NEW ORLEANS — State investigators raided ACORN offices Friday, taking away computer hard drives and documents as part of a probe into allegations of embezzlement and tax fraud when the organization’s national headquarters was based in New Orleans.

ACORN staff on the scene declined to comment, but an attorney for the group said in a statement the raid was prompted by allegations that former ACORN employees had removed or altered electronic documents and may do so in the future.

Berlin Wall restoration

BERLIN — The Berlin Wall’s longest remaining stretch has been restored to its state of nearly two decades ago after artists repainted the colorful murals they created in the aftermath of the notorious barrier’s opening.

Berlin on Friday inaugurated the restored section of the concrete wall, which is known as the East Side Gallery and snakes along the bank of the Spree river for three-quarters of a mile.

A popular tourist attraction, it boasts famous images such as a boxy East German Trabant car that appears to burst through the wall; and a fraternal communist kiss between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and his East German counterpart, Erich Honecker.

The section was transformed into an open-air gallery months after communist East Germany opened its borders Nov. 9, 1989. Much of the rest of the wall was quickly ripped down.

Charged in nun’s death

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A teenager was charged Friday with killing a nun after purportedly breaking into her trailer home on the Navajo Indian reservation in search of cash or valuable items.

Federal authorities accused Reehahlio Carroll, 18, of Navajo of “unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought” in the death of 64-year-old Sister Marguerite Bartz, who served at St. Berard Catholic Church in Navajo.

Carroll was expected to appear in federal court Monday, said Norm Cairns, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. Cairns said the charge against Carroll might make him eligible for the death penalty, but the Navajo Nation would first have to allow the U.S. government to pursue it.

Stepfather convicted of toddler’s beating death

GALVESTON, Texas — A Texas jury has convicted a man for the 2007 beating death of his 2-year-old stepdaughter, whose battered body was found in a container floating in Galveston Bay.

Jurors deliberated for 41‚Ñ2 hours Friday before convicting Royce Clyde Zeigler II of capital murder. He receives an automatic life sentence since prosecutors didn’t seek the death penalty.

Zeigler and his wife, Kimberly Trenor, were accused of killing Riley Ann Sawyers during a discipline session that spun out of control. Trenor was the child’s mother. She was convicted of capital murder in February and also received an automatic life sentence.

The child was known as “Baby Grace” until relatives in Mentor, Ohio, identified her as Riley Ann Sawyers.

Creative protest

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A sculpture of a New Zealand government minister crafted from cow manure sold for $2,220 on an auction Web site.

The bust of New Zealand Environment Minister Nick Smith, sculpted as a protest by artist Sam Mahon, attracted 112 bids before being picked up by an anonymous buyer Friday.

Mahon said he created the sculpture, and chose the medium, to protest what he considers Smith’s too-soft stance on pollution created by dairy farms. He said the bust did not stink and would last forever.

Mahon gathered cow dung from an organic dairy farm, ground it in a coffee grinder, mixed it with a polymer resin and pressed it into a mold. He polished the sculpture with beeswax to create a finish that resembles bronze.

Mahon’s said he will use the proceeds from the auction to help clean up waterways polluted by effluent from dairy farms near his home.

Combined dispatches