After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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Pink Reveals Her Secret to a Happy Marriage: Listening ... in Moderation

By Marisa Laudadio

02/10/2013 at 05:00 PM EST

Three-time Grammy winner Pink, 33, who is up for best pop vocal album at this month's Grammy Awards – and kicks off her U.S. tour on Feb. 13 – shares the secrets behind her music.

You're nominated for The Truth About Love. So how does the magic happen?
When I start a record, I'm like, 'God, I wonder if I can even sing.' But I write poetry and keep a journal, then the first day I go into the studio, I'm like, 'Here we go, I'm turning the faucet on!' I bottle it up for so long that the inspiration is always there.

How'd you get Eminem to be on 'Here Comes the Weekend'?
He wanted me to be on his last record (2010's Recovery), so I said, 'Yeah, let's swap.' I'm a die-hard Eminem fan. I think he's awesome.

You vent about your husband, Carey Hart, in many songs. How does he feel about that?
He's like, 'Look, I know you, we have a good sense of humor, and I know what I signed up for. I only listen to half of what you say anyway!' When he starts listening to me too much, we have problems!

What does your 20-month-old daughter Willow think of mommy’s music?
The first time she heard my music, she kind of looked at me and got the weirdest expression on her face. I wondered, 'God, what's going on in there for her?'

Many people will be partying hard Grammy night, so what's your best hangover cure?
Drink a beer as soon as possible! I used to be able to drink a bottle of wine and not get a hangover. Now, after two glasses I have a headache.

The 55th annual Grammys will air Sunday, Feb. 10, on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT (7 p.m. CT) from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

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3 North Korean Doctors Are Killed in Nigeria

POTISKUM, Nigeria (AP) — Assailants in northeastern Nigeria have killed three North Korean doctors, beheading one of them, officials said Sunday.

The attack on Saturday night in Potiskum, a town in Yobe State, comes after gunmen killed at least nine women who were administering polio vaccines in Kano, the major city in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north.

The assailants apparently killed the North Korean doctors inside their home, said Dr. Mohammed Mamman, chairman of the Hospital Managing Board of Yobe State.

The North Korean doctors had no security guards at their residence and typically traveled around the city without a police escort, officials said.

All three bodies had what appeared to be machete wounds.

Two of the men had their throats slit. The assailants beheaded the other doctor.

The doctors lived in a quiet neighborhood in the town. There was no room to house them at the hospital, where they would have had some protection, Dr. Mamman said.

Initially, doctors at the hospital who worked with the three men identified them as being from South Korea, while the police said they were from China.

But Dr. Mamman said that the three men were from North Korea and had lived in the state since 2005 as part of a medical program between Yobe State and the North Korean government.

More than a dozen other North Korean doctors work in the state under the program, which also includes engineers, Dr. Mamman said.

He said all the North Koreans would receive immediate protection from the security forces.

“It is very unfortunate,” he said of the killings.

The Yobe State police commissioner, Sanusi Rufai, confirmed that the attack took place and said that officers had begun an investigation.

Mr. Rufai said the police had already arrested 10 people, though the police in Nigeria routinely round up those living around the site of a crime, whether or not there is any evidence suggesting their complicity.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency did not immediately report the three doctors’ deaths on Sunday.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, though suspicion fell on the Islamist sect Boko Haram. Members of the sect, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege,” have been attacking government buildings and security forces over the past year and a half.

In 2012 alone, the group was blamed for killing at least 792 people.

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State fires contractor on tech project

SACRAMENTO – The state has fired the contractor on one of its biggest and most troubled technology projects after deep problems with the system were revealed.

The decision to terminate the contract Friday stalls the costly effort to overhaul an outdated and unstable computer network that issues paychecks and handles medical benefits for 240,000 state employees. The $371-million upgrade, known as the 21st Century Project, has fallen years behind schedule and tripled in cost.

The state has already spent at least $254 million on the project, paying more than $50 million of that to the contractor, SAP Public Services. The company was hired three years ago after the job sputtered in the hands of a previous contractor, BearingPoint.

But when SAP's program was tested last summer, it made errors at more than 100 times the rate of the aging system the state has been struggling to replace, according to state officials.

"It would be totally irresponsible to move forward," said Jacob Roper, a spokesman for the California controller.

The Times highlighted problems with the state's 21st Century Project in December, soon after officials sent a letter to SAP saying the overhaul was "in danger of collapsing."

During a trial run involving 1,300 employees, Roper said, some paychecks went to the wrong person for the wrong amount. The system canceled some medical coverage and sent child-support payments to the wrong beneficiaries.

Roper said the state also had to pay $50,000 in penalties because money was sent to retirement accounts incorrectly.

"State employees and their families were in harm's way," he said. "Taxpayers were in harm's way."

The controller's office, which oversees the upgrade, will try to recoup the money paid to SAP, Roper said. Meanwhile, officials will conduct an autopsy on the system to determine what can be salvaged.

And Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) called for a hearing to examine how so much money could be spent on the project with "apparently little to show for it."

A spokesman for SAP, Andy Kendzie, said the company was "extremely disappointed" that the controller terminated the contract.

"SAP stands behind our software and actions," Kendzie said in a statement. "SAP also believes we have satisfied all contractual obligations in this project."

Kendzie did not directly address the controller's concerns about errors during testing, nor did he say whether the company would fight any state effort to recover the $50 million.

Other California entities have struggled with SAP's work.

A $95-million plan to upgrade the Los Angeles Unified School District's payroll system with SAP software became a disaster in 2007, when some teachers were paid too much and others weren't paid at all.

More recently, Marin County officials decided to scrap their SAP-developed computer system, saying it never worked right and cost too much to maintain.

Both of those projects were managed by Deloitte Consulting.

chris.megerian@latimes.com

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Read More..

Anne Hathaway's Channeling Audrey Hepburn In Your Favorite Dress This Week

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/09/2013 at 12:00 PM ET

Kevin Winter/Getty

We’ve always said that StyleWatch readers appreciate the power of the perfect little black dress. The two most loved star looks this week weren’t jaw-dropping gowns, but instead perfectly executed versions of the wardrobe staple.

Anne Hathaway nabbed the No. 1 spot, with more than 15,000 votes, thanks to the simple black sleeveless number she wore to the Academy Awards Nominations Luncheon in Beverly Hills. She gave the pretty piece even more polish with black ankle-strap sandals, Jamie Wolf earrings and Jennifer Meyer bracelets and rings.

PHOTOS: SEE THE TOP 10 BEST DRESSED STARS ON PEOPLE.COM THIS WEEK!

The runner-up LBD was spotted on Jessica Chastain, who paired her peplum sheath with nude pumps and a pretty pink lip at the The Hollywood Reporter‘s Oscar Nominees Night in L.A.

Click here to see which other stars earned a spot in the top 10 and vote for your favorite looks here. Tell us: Is Hathaway your best dressed celeb of the week? If not, who is?

–Jennifer Cress

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Email hacker reveals Bush family photos, addresses

(Reuters) – The Secret Service is investigating the hacking of email accounts belonging to members of the Bush family that divulged correspondence, addresses, phone numbers and a picture of a self-portrait painted by former President George W. Bush standing in a shower.

A report on the Smoking Gun website, said the pilfered emails provided a rare glimpse into the private lives of one of America’s most powerful political dynasties. The Bushes are only the second family in U.S. history to send a father and son to the White House.

The website said a hacker known as Guccifer raided the email accounts and posted the photos online. The pictures include an image of former President George H.W. Bush, who was released from a Houston hospital last month after seven weeks of treatment for bronchitis and related ailments, in a hospital bed.

Another photo showed the elder Bush, 88, posing outside a home with Bill Clinton, who was president between the two Bushes.

The intercepted photos also featured a portrait painted by George W. Bush of himself showering. It shows a gray-headed man, nude from the waist up, regarding the viewer with Bush-like features from the reflection in a shaving mirror. Another painting in the same style shows a pair of legs in a bathtub.

“I really like the paintings of George W. Bush,” New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz wrote Friday.

Saltz, who normally reserves his criticism for the likes of French painter Henri Matisse, found the president’s portraiture “wonderful, unself-conscious, intense.”

Other photos showed Bush painting a picture of a house and posing with a cut-out of himself in an artist’s smock, beret and mustache.

SIX EMAIL ACCOUNTS HIT

The Smoking Gun site, known for posting legal documents and arrest records related to celebrities, said the hacker invaded six email accounts, including one belonging to Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush, as well as other Bush family members and friends.

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating whether former President George H.W. Bush‘s email was hacked as well, the agency said on Friday. A Bush family spokesman declined to comment.

Among the material that was lifted were an October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers and email addresses for the former presidents and other relatives, according to the Smoking Gun.

The site said the emails revealed that when the elder Bush was in poor health, George W. Bush wrote his siblings the day after Christmas to say he was “thinking about eulogy.”

“Hopefully I’m jumping the gun,” he said, “but since the feeling is that you all would rather me speak than bubba, please help.”

“Bubba” is a well-known sobriquet for Clinton.

Since leaving office in 2009, Bush has taken up painting portraits of Texas landscapes and dogs. He has live a reserved life, largely hidden from view, with his wife, Laura, in Dallas.

Bush is likely to make a more sustained return to the spotlight when his presidential library, located at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is completed and dedicated in April.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Samuel P. Jacobs; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Doina Chiacu and Bill Trott)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Venezuela, Despite Myriad Problems, Seizes On a Hat

Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

Vice President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela wore a patriotic cap to a parade Monday in Caracas.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela seems to lurch from one crisis to another. President Hugo Chávez has virtually disappeared since going to Cuba for cancer surgery more than eight weeks ago. Last month, 58 people were killed in a prison when inmates clashed with soldiers. Inflation is spiking, the government just announced a currency devaluation and lurid murders are the stuff of daily headlines.

But high on the list of government priorities last week was an unexpected item: baseball caps.

Even in a country where political theater of the absurd is commonplace, the great cap kerfuffle took many Venezuelans by surprise.

It all started over the summer, when a young state governor, Henrique Capriles, ran for president against Mr. Chávez. Mr. Capriles started wearing a baseball cap decorated with the national colors — yellow, blue and red — and the stars of the Venezuelan flag.

In response, the electoral council, dominated by Chávez loyalists, threatened to sanction Mr. Capriles for violating a rule against using national symbols in the campaign. The move struck many people as patently partisan because Mr. Chávez regularly wore clothes made up of the national colors and patterned on the flag and used vast amounts of government resources to promote his re-election.

Suddenly, the tricolor cap became a symbol of Mr. Capriles’s underdog campaign, and soon it could be seen everywhere, on the noggins of his supporters.

But Mr. Capriles lost the election in October, and the cap was mostly forgotten. Until now.

At a rally on Monday to celebrate the anniversary of a failed 1992 coup led by Mr. Chávez, a host of government officials unexpectedly pulled out caps like the one Mr. Capriles had made famous and put them on.

Had Mr. Chávez’s top cadre switched sides? Nothing of the sort.

“It is the cap of the revolution,” Vice President Nicolás Maduro said from the stage. “They can’t steal it like they’re accustomed to stealing it.”

He held up the hat, which had a small emblem commemorating the coup’s anniversary, and shouted, “Cap in hand! Tricolor in hand, everyone!”

A day later, at a session of the National Assembly, legislators on both sides of the aisle showed up wearing caps. The chamber looked like the stands at a baseball game.

All of this has given rise to plenty of jokes.

“The cap — expropriate it!” said one wag on Twitter, referring to a famous episode when Mr. Chávez, a socialist, in what seemed like a spontaneous act, ordered the nationalization of several buildings in the center of Caracas.

Then came a new twist on Thursday night, when the government interrupted regular television and radio programming with a special broadcast. Anxious Venezuelans worried about Mr. Chávez’s long absence might have wondered if they were about to get an update on the president’s health.

Nope. The two-minute broadcast consisted of images of Mr. Chávez, at various points of his 14-year presidency, wearing the tricolor cap.

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Bar trivia is more than just fun and games

The door to the bar in Palms swung open, and strains of the theme from "Rocky III" burst into the street: "It's the eye of the tiger / It's the thrill of the fight!"

It was the call to arms for the Tuesday trivia night at the Irish Times pub.

A tall man stood among the Irish flags and faux-antique Guinness etchings and shot off the first question: "An NFL broadcaster who earned a law degree." Regulars nursing craft brews and munching on mozzarella sticks at the bar ignored him. But in the corner, John Verran and his trivia team worked intently on the correct answer.

"It's very competitive," said Verran, 27, a geographical information systems graduate student.

Bar trivia in Los Angeles is no trifling matter. Building on the runaway popularity of the game Trivial Pursuit in the 1980s, the pub quiz phenomenon exploded in British and Irish watering holes, spread to the East Coast and arrived in Southern California in earnest five years ago. As many as 70 local bars put on trivia nights, with more joining every day, said Andy Roth, owner of Action Trivia, one of the larger promoters.

"It's Manifest Destiny, man," said Roth, talking of the trend's momentum after hosting a pub quiz Wednesday at Michael's Bar & Grill in Burbank. "The hipsters love this."

The Irish Times game is highly organized — printed answer forms, weighted categories, intricate scoring. Some promoters hire staff members to research questions; others rely on hosts and players for suggestions. Prizes are usually nominal: a free dinner, or cash off the bar tab.

It's a know-it-all's paradise, and I should know. My childhood nickname was "Mrs. Dictionary." Does anyone else remember the Knowledge Bowl at the Balboa Fun Zone?

The players are Type-Aers whose idea of relaxation is a savage intellectual dogfight. All in good fun, of course. The top teams skew young, 20-somethings who spend all day online and are hungry for human contact. Structured play is safe ground for a generation raised in day care with their off-hours strictly regimented, and who suffer from early-onset nostalgia — Teletubbies, '90s pop.

Verran's team, Deliveries in the Rear ("It seemed amusing at the time," he said), formed around a nucleus of classmates from USC law school. They've been playing trivia at Irish Times for four years, returning week after week to face familiar rivals.

Verran was captain of his high school's championship Quizbowl team in Huntington Beach and is a lifelong trivia buff. "My mind just works that way," he said. Avi Schwartz, a patent lawyer with a chemistry degree, is the science nerd. Kristen Sales, who writes about movies for a film website, just likes games. "I grew up playing games," Sales said. "Me at 25 and me at 12 are basically the same person."

Some teams study on their own time, or enlist ringers to shore up their weak areas. Players size each other up in competition, then come together to form superteams.

"There are even headhunters out there recruiting," said entertainment attorney and Deliveries member Vanessa Flanders.

Greg Beron of Dreambuilders Multi-Media was the evening's host. A former lawyer, he runs a home brewing supply store in Culver City and does trivia on the side.

The Irish Times game is tough, he conceded. His musical interludes are sometimes clues to the answers, but not always. Beron doesn't want me to say which were which, and was touchy about my printing answers to any of his questions; he's saving the game for another pub quiz.

"We're not there to make it easy for people," Beron said.

Early in the first round, Deliveries faced their first big challenge, a four-part bonus question: Name double-word song titles performed by musicians David Bowie, Billy Idol, Paula Abdul and Run DMC.

A thrill of excitement ran through me when I heard it: "Rebel Rebel!" I cried. Bowie, my era!

Deliveries also got the Bowie tune and Idol's "Mony Mony" ("Spelling counts on this one," Beron said.) But Run DMC's "Mary, Mary" and Abdul's "Rush Rush" eluded the team.

"We almost had it — we put 'Hush Hush,' " Verran said of fluffing the Abdul answer.

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Nigella Lawson: Inside Her Kitchen

By Liza Hamm

02/08/2013 at 05:15 PM EST

One day British cook Nigella Lawson found herself inspired while watching an episode of MTV Cribs.

"I saw Missy Elliott had the world's biggest fridge, and I thought, 'One day I've got to have that fridge!' " says Lawson, as she gestures toward the 7-ft.-tall Sub-Zero appliance at one end of her expansive London kitchen.

"So it's called the Missy Elliott Memorial Fridge. It is so huge, but I love it."

In recent weeks, however, Lawson, 53, has barely been around to cook from the vast quantities of food stored inside. Along with promoting her new Italian cookbook Nigellissima in the U.K. and preparing for a U.S. book tour, Lawson has been starring as a judge and mentor on ABC's new reality cooking competition The Taste, providing the compassionate counterpoint to Anthony Bourdain's acerbic wit.

"When I'm doing my own shows, I have total control," she says, "but I felt drawn to do reality TV – and a little frightened." And a little exhausted. Given her whirlwind start to the new year, "I'd like to take a little time off and be a normal person at home and cook."

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