ShareThisThe H1NI virus formerly known as swine flu has now effectively struck all corners of the globe, infecting tens of thousands of people in at least 64 nations, and continuing to spread readily across borders and within communities.
All that adds up to a pandemic soon to be declared by the World Health Organization. But it will likely come with a twist -- a new sliding scale of severity added to WHO's six-stage alert codes for infectious disease. Object? Limit the panic, stave off draconian new public health steps, and forestall economic damage that might come from such an announcement.
As far as U.S. officials are concerned, a declaration "really would have less of an implication in this country, where we've already been having an active, intensive response,'' said CDC official Dr. Anne Schuchat.
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A new double-hulled robotic submarine funded by the National Science Foundation and the Navy last month became the first vessel in more than two decades to explore the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.
Called Nereus, after a minor Greek god with a fish tail and man's torso, the vehicle dove 6.8 miles beneath the surface, surviving pressures 1,000 times greater than the atmosphere at sea level.
The craft can run tethered to a surface ship by a special fiber-optic cable the width of a human hair, or in a free-swimming mode. Most deep diving craft, robotic or manned, are limited to depths no greater than 4 miles.
Given its prototype status and distant location, the Nereus is unlikely to be enlisted in the search for the black box from the Air France Airbus that disappeared over the Atlantic this week.
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It won't be long before you'll be able to use the Web to find out how much taxpayer money your congressman is spending on parties, cars, laptops, travel, stamps and other goodies.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this past week that, by August 31, the quarterly expense reports of all 435 House members will be posted, the latest move in a Democratic push to make government more "transparent." She was spurred to action by Wall Street Journal reporters who painstakingly examined thousands of individual pages of records -- the only way the spending info can be accessed now.
They found representatives who used part of their annual $1 million-plus allotment on, among other things, a $24,700 lease on a 2008 Lexus hybrid, two 46-inch Sony TVs for nearly $1,500 each, and a $2,800 laptop. All such spending is legal.
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The long tradition of presidents rewarding their big campaign donors with plum ambassadorships is alive and well in Obama-dom.
The latest came this past week, when President Obama chose California music mogul Nicole Avant to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas. Avant raised at least $500,000 for Obama's presidential race, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog Center for Responsive Politics.
Other big money movers, and the posts they're in line for:
-- Lawyer and investment banker Louis Sussman, who raised $100,000 for Obama's campaign and another $300,000 for his inauguration -- United Kingdom.
-- Entertainment entrepreneur Charles Rivkin, who racked up at least $500,000 for the campaign and $300,000 for the inauguration -- France.
-- Lawyer John Roos, who generated $500,000 for the campaign -- Japan.
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The parade of czars continues. In the past week, the Obama administration named a Great Lakes clean-up czar, and announced plans to crown a cyber czar, to oversee computer security, and a pay czar to make sure companies getting federal bailout money don't dole out too much to their executives. Counting them, the czar count now stands at 15.
E-mail Lee Bowman at bowmanl(at)shns.com and Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Washington Calling
It won't be long before
It won't be long before you'll be able to use the Web to find out how much taxpayer money your congressman is spending on parties, cars, laptops , travel, stamps and other goodies.