WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration approved the new swine flu vaccine Tuesday, a long-anticipated step as the government works to get vaccinations under way next month.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the vaccine's approval to Congress and said she hopes to get the first limited supplies distributed early in October.
The bulk of vaccine will start arriving Oct. 15, and Sebelius said it should be available at 90,000 sites around the country.
"We will have enough vaccine available for everyone" eventually, Sebelius said everyone who wants it, that is.
The government has ordered 195 million doses for now but may order more if needed, she said. Typically 100 million Americans seek flu vaccine every year.
But the vaccine, which protects against what doctors prefer to call the 2009 H1N1 flu strain, won't arrive all at once. About 45 million doses are expected by mid-October. That's why the government wants the people most likely to catch swine flu, and to suffer complications from it, to be first in line including children and pregnant women.
FDA licensure means that the government has certified the vaccine is made properly and meets specific manufacturing and quality standards. Separately, the National Institutes of Health is studying the vaccine dosage and safety. Last week, the NIH announced that one dose appears to protect adults and that that protection kicks in eight to 10 days after the shot.
Studies in children and pregnant women are continuing.
The vaccine approved Tuesday is made by CSL Ltd. of Australia; Switzerland's Novartis; Sanofi-Pasteur of France; and Maryland-based Medimmune, which makes the only nasal-spray flu vaccine.
September 2009
Cap Cana is located in the Eastern region of the Dominican Republic known as Juanillo. The site was founded as a new and more ambitious touristic site with contributions from international investors and strategic partners such as Ritz-Carlton, Sotogrande, Donald Trump and many others. The site has a Marina, Large resorts, beaches, and many others. Primarily founded as a site to attract international visitors. The Cap Cana Championship, a Champions Tour golf tournament, is held at Punta Espada Golf Club in Cap Cana, a course designed by Jack Nicklaus.
Cap Cana's area includes more than one-hundred and twenty millon square meters of land, of which twenty-five million will be developed in its first phase. It also includes 8 kilometers of beach and coasts, 5 of which are considered to be among the most spectacular in the Caribbean, locally considered to be neck-in-neck to the beaches of Bahia de Las Aguilas (literally, Bay of the Eagles) located in the southwestern municipality of Perdernales- often referred by past visitors as some of the most beautiful in the world.
TEL AVIV, Israel – Quentin Tarantino says the most important part of his first-ever visit to Israel is to gauge the Jewish audience's reaction to his latest boundary-breaking film.
"Inglourious Basterds" tells the fictional story of a band of World War II-era Jewish-American soldiers turned vigilantes, who slaughter and scalp Nazi soldiers as retribution for the Holocaust.
Tarantino, who also wrote the screenplay for the unconventional "Basterds," defended his work of historical fiction and called the bloodbath of its Nazi characters a different brand of World War II film.
"To me, taboos are made to be broken. They're meant to be pushed over," Tarantino said Tuesday at a news conference ahead of the film's Israeli premiere. "One of the things that I think is a drag a little bit about movies dealing with World War II for the last 20 years is that ... all the movies have really focused in on the victimization of World War II."
The controversial filmmaker said he wanted to create a Western-inspired adventure story instead. The unorthodox film depicts an alternate universe in which all the top leadership of the Nazi Party are brutally killed in a single night.
"I'll be seeing it for the first time in an Israeli cinema. I'll be seeing it for the first time with an Israeli audience," Tarantino said. "I'm interested to see, 'OK, are there laughs here? Does the suspense work here as well as it works somewhere else?'"
Tarantino was joined in Israel by the film's producer Lawrence Bender and one of its lead actors, Christoph Waltz, who plays an offbeat SS colonel dubbed "The Jew Hunter."
The group also traveled together in Israel and visited Jerusalem's Holocaust museum.
Bender, who has collaborated with Tarantino on several other projects including "Pulp Fiction," "Reservoir Dogs" and the violent pair of "Kill Bill" movies, was the first Jewish person to read the script after Tarantino completed the final draft.
"I told him, as a fan, I thank you. As a producer, I thank you. As a member of the Jewish tribe, I thank you," Bender said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The United States will probably need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan despite almost doubling the size of its force there this year, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday.
"A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces," said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. He did not say how many more forces would be required.
The United States currently has 62,000 troops in Afghanistan and that figure is expected to rise to 68,000 by the end of the year. There were around 32,000 U.S. troops in the country at the start of the year.
Mullen also called for patience with U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, as the American public and members of Congress -- particularly in President Barack Obama's Democratic Party -- are becoming increasingly uneasy about the war.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans now oppose the war while 39 percent support it, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released on Monday.
"We can get there. We can accomplish the mission we've been assigned," Mullen said.
"But we will need resources matched to the strategy, civilian expertise matched to military capabilities, and the continued support of the American people."
(Reporting by Andrew Gray; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Cap Cana is located in the Eastern region of the Dominican Republic known as Juanillo. The site was founded as a new and more ambitious touristic site with contributions from international investors and strategic partners such as Ritz-Carlton, Sotogrande, Donald Trump and many others. The site has a Marina, Large resorts, beaches, and many others. Primarily founded as a site to attract international visitors. The Cap Cana Championship, a Champions Tour golf tournament, is held at Punta Espada Golf Club in Cap Cana, a course designed by Jack Nicklaus.
Cap Cana is a tourism development with an investment of upwards of two billion dollars in the eastern lands of the Dominican Republic. This area renown for its great hotels and beaches, lacks exclusivity to the high upper class which Cap Cana hopes, in part, to offer. The area was conceived with the backing both financially and publicly of "elites" such as Donald Trump, Jack Nicklaus, and other holders.
BANGALORE (Reuters) –
Top U.S. consumer electronics chain Best Buy Co (BBY.N) reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday as weakness in the entertainment software and appliance categories offset market share gains.
The retailer, which has steadily gained market share after main rival Circuit City closed its doors, said net profit fell to $158 million, or 37 cents a share, in the second quarter that ended on August 29, from $202 million, or 48 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding a tax impact, the profit was 40 cents a share, a penny below analysts' average forecast of 41 cents a share.
Best Buy, whose total revenue rose 12 percent to $11.0 billion in the quarter, raised its outlook for the fiscal year.
The retailer's stock was down 3.8 percent at $38.86 in trading before the opening bell.
(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan in Bangalore, editing by Dave Zimmerman)
BEIJING (AFP) –
Beijing lashed out at the US on Saturday after Washington slapped steep tariffs on imported Chinese tyres, calling the measure "protectionist" and threatening retaliation in China's first trade spat with the Obama administration.
"China is firmly opposed to this measure of serious commercial protectionism by the United States, which not only violates world trade rules but also the undertakings given by the US at the G20," commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian said in statements posted on the ministry's website.
"In the context of the global economic crisis this sets a very bad example. China reserves the right to retaliate," he said.
The comments come after the White House announced punitive duties of an additional 35 percent on Chinese-made tyres just weeks before Barack Obama is due to host his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao at the G20 summit in November.
"President (Obama) today signed a determination to apply an increased duty to all imports of passenger vehicle and light truck tyres from China for a period of three years," the White House said in a statement on Friday.
The decision was taken "in order to remedy a market disruption caused by a surge in tyre imports," the statement said.
Obama had been under pressure domestically to curb rocketing imports of Chinese goods that critics suggest have cost more than 5,000 jobs in the US.
The government-run US International Trade Commission (USITC) had urged duties of up to 55 percent after union leaders claimed cheap Chinese tyres had tripled over the last five years.
However, in a move aimed at minimising Chinese anger, Obama opted for a lower figure, whereby tariffs -- already at four percent -- will soar by an additional 35 percent in the first year, 30 percent in the second and 25 percent in the third.
Chinese ire was piqued earlier in the week when the US imposed tariffs on pipes used in the petroleum industry.
During a meeting Thursday with Wu Banguo, president of the Chinese parliament, Obama stressed the importance of relations between the two nations, according to a statement released by the White House.
And last month Beijing appealed to Washington to reject punitive tariff proposals to protect the developing relationship between the two capitals.
The United States has long grappled with a ballooning trade deficit with China amid allegations that Beijing has been manipulating its currency to make its exports more competitive.
Obama entered the White House in January after campaigning for a robust trade policy with China.
His administration has prodded Beijing, now the third-largest buyer of US exports, to act swiftly on market reforms, saying American producers needed enhanced market access now to save and create jobs at home.
The US ambassador to Beijing announced last month that Obama would make his first presidential visit to China in the middle of November.
NEW YORK – Puddles soaked the warning track and ponchos dotted the stands when Derek Jeter stepped to the plate in the third inning, hoping to give the soggy Yankee Stadium crowd a reason for showing up in all this rain.
With one of his classic, inside-out swings, Jeter sent a sharp grounder skimming through the infield. And there it was, the record-setting hit that pushed him past Lou Gehrig.
Jeter broke the New York Yankees' hit record held by Gehrig for more than seven decades on Friday night with an opposite-field single against Baltimore. It gave Jeter 2,722 hits, one more than Gehrig, whose Hall of Fame career was cut short by illness in 1939.
"The whole experience has been overwhelming," Jeter said. "This is more than I could've imagined."
The captain kept right on going, too, with an RBI single in the fourth that put New York up 4-1. He left the game after a 67-minute rain delay in the top of the seventh when manager Joe Girardi pulled most of his starters with the Yankees trailing 10-4.
"I didn't expect that many people to be out there after the rain delay considering how hard it was raining when we started the game," Jeter said. "But the fans were incredible. It says a lot about how they feel about their team and more importantly how they feel about the history of their team. I appreciate each and every one that was there."
Jeter's record-breaking hit was remarkably similar to the one that tied Gehrig on Wednesday night, a well-struck grounder inside the first-base line. After this one, Yankees players poured out of the dugout and engulfed Jeter at first base with hugs and pats on the back.
"I didn't know that they were going to do that, so that sort of caught me off-guard," Jeter said. "It's a special moment for me, it's a special moment for the organization. To get an opportunity to share it with my teammates was a lot of fun."
Jeter spread his arms wide after rounding first base on his record-breaking hit and gave an emphatic clap as he headed back to the bag.
Rain-drenched fans, many wearing bright ponchos, roared during an ovation that lasted about 3 minutes. Jeter twice waved his helmet to the crowd of 46,771 just as he did after tying the record. Fans chanted his name and the ball was taken out of play as a souvenir.
"For those who say today's game can't produce legendary players, I have two words: Derek Jeter. Game in and game out he just produces," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement. "As historic and significant as becoming the Yankees' all-time hit leader is, the accomplishment is all the more impressive because Derek is one of the finest young men playing the game today.
"That combination of character and athletic ability is something he shares with the previous record holder, Lou Gehrig," the statement said.
When his grounder got past diving first baseman Luke Scott, Jeter's parents raised their arms in excitement. Joining them in an upstairs box filled with family and friends were his sister and steady girlfriend, actress Minka Kelly.
Jeter tied Gehrig's mark Wednesday night, snapping an 0-for-12 slump with three hits against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees were off Thursday, and Jeter resumed his pursuit Friday at soggy Yankee Stadium.
"I'm happy I was able to do it quickly," he said.
The start was delayed 87 minutes by heavy rain that had tapered off by the third inning. Jeter struck out swinging against Tillman in his first at-bat, but came through his next time up.
Gehrig's final hit came on April 29, 1939, a single against the Washington Senators. The Iron Horse had held the club record since Sept. 6, 1937, when he passed Babe Ruth.
Gehrig's career ended suddenly in 1939. Two years later, he died at 37 from the disease that would later bear his name.
Jeter got his first hit on May 30, 1995, at Seattle and set the Yankees mark with 14 seasons of splendid consistency. His two singles Friday night gave him 1,363 hits at home and 1,360 on the road.
Now, No. 2 in Yankees pinstripes is number one in the record book for baseball's most storied franchise.
The 35-year-old Jeter also moved past Gehrig for 53rd place on the game's career hit list. Roberto Alomar is 52nd at 2,724.
It was Jeter's 268th hit against Baltimore, his most against any opponent.
Jeter finished 2 for 4 and grounded into an inning-ending double play in the sixth.
It was a special night at Yankee Stadium in several ways. Both teams and the umpires wore red caps with stars and stripes inside the logos to commemorate the eighth anniversary of 9-11. Pregame ceremonies included a moment of silence to remember those who died in the attacks.
Dorine Gordon, president and CEO of The ALS Association Greater New York Chapter, also congratulated Jeter in a statement that was passed out in the press box at Yankee Stadium.
ALS, of course, is the disease that afflicted Gehrig.
WILLISON, N.D. – Staff members of Williston's Mercy Medical Center are investigating how the mother of a newborn went home with the wrong baby. The hospital said it happened last weekend, the mistake was discovered within an hour and the woman was quickly reunited with her own child.
Mercy Chief Financial Officer Kerry Monson would not release details about how it happened or what families were involved.
She read a prepared statement indicating hospital employees are disheartened by the incident, are investigating the facts surrounding it, are reviewing policies and procedures and will take appropriate action.
___
Information from: Williston Herald, http://www.willistonherald.com
Paragraph 10 of FAS 113 makes clear that the 9a and 9b tests are based on comparing the present value of all costs to the PV of all income streams. FAS gives no guidance on the choice of a discount rate on which to base such a calculation, other than to say that all outcomes tested should use the same rate.
Achaemenian monarchs were the first to insure their people and made it official by registering the insuring process in governmental notary offices. The insurance tradition was performed each year in Norouz (beginning of the Iranian New Year); the heads of different ethnic groups as well as others willing to take part, presented gifts to the monarch. The most important gift was presented during a special ceremony. When a gift was worth more than 10,000 Derrik (Achaemenian gold coin) the issue was registered in a special office. This was advantageous to those who presented such special gifts. For others, the presents were fairly assessed by the confidants of the court. Then the assessment was registered in special offices.
