Being Human

Special forces on a Portuguese warship seized explosives from suspected Somali pirates after thwarting an attack on an oil tanker, but later freed the 19 assailants.

A third-grader was expelled from a local private school after a "hit list" of students and a teacher was found in his desk.

It's been interesting to watch the media ramp-up to hysteria over the new influenza strain and now drop it like spoiled news because it's not deadly enough for the headlines. Too bad that's wrong twice.

When a container holding swine flu exploded on a Swiss train on Monday, it could have led to a nightmare scenario. Luckily the virus was not the mutated swine flu that has killed around 150 people in Mexico and that has already spread to parts of Europe.

"The claim of the conspiracy theorists is that this new combination could not have occurred naturally, but this is not true," the New Scientist's biology editor Michael Le Page wrote. "Flu viruses consisting of a mixture of human, swine and bird strains have been found before." Sound science, however, is no match for the Internet and unsubstantiated media reports when it comes to providing a forum for ideas that have forced responses from governments and companies alike.

The World Health Organization said on Wednesday the world is at the brink of a pandemic, raising its threat level as the swine flu virus spread and killed the first person outside of Mexico, a toddler in Texas.

Alarmed by the spread of a new swine flu virus, airports around the world have rushed to install temperature scanners to pick out the sick, but the microbe is proving too clever for modern technology.

Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet ... The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order....

The swine flu epidemic crossed new borders Tuesday with the first cases confirmed in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, as world health officials said they suspect American patients may have transmitted the virus to others in the U.S.

A deadly swine flu virus strain could unleash a new global pandemic, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned Monday, after the probable death toll from the disease rose to 149 in Mexico. "We are concerned that this virus could cause a new influenza pandemic. It could be mild in its effect or potentially be severe," Ban told reporters. "We don't know yet which way it will go but we are concerned that in Mexico most of those who died were young and healthy adults."

Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.

Churches stood empty Sunday in predominantly Roman Catholic Mexico City after services were canceled, and health workers screened airports and bus stations for people sickened by a new strain of swine flu that experts fear could become a global epidemic.

has spread to Kansas and likely to New York City.... Wichita... a mix of human, pig and bird strains ... The Spanish flu pandemic, which killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19, also first struck otherwise healthy young adults.... Health officials are puzzled at why all U.S. victims have recovered while dozens stricken in Mexico died...

Although the state faces a $900 million budget hole, the House approved a measure Tuesday that would drop the state's income tax rate from 5.5 percent to 4 percent.