clipped from afp.google.com

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AFP) — Two Roman Catholic nuns whose non-violent action against nuclear weapons landed them with prison sentences returned home to Baltimore to learn they had been listed as terrorists, they said Friday.

Sister Ardeth Platte, 72, and Sister Carol Gilbert, 60, came back from two weeks out of town to find letters from the Maryland State Police saying they had been wrongfully listed as suspected terrorists in a federal database in 2005-2006.

clipped from www.splcenter.org

Thousands of Cheated Guestworkers to Recover Lost Wages in SPLC Forestry Case
  

A federal judge's ruling this week means that thousands of foreign guestworkers represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center will recover wages owed to them by one of the nation's largest forestry contractors.

U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper found that SPLC lawyers can seek unreimbursed expenses incurred by guestworkers employed by Eller and Sons Trees Inc. of Franklin, Ga. The summary judgment also found that actual damages sought by these workers can exceed $500,000. The employer had sought to cap the damages.

clipped from www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antibodies from survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic, the worst in human memory, still protect against the highly deadly virus, researchers reported on Sunday.

The findings by a team of influenza and immune system experts suggest new and better ways to fight viruses -- especially new pandemic strains that emerge and spread before a vaccine can be formulated.

These survivors, now aged 91 to 101, all lived through the pandemic as children.

Their immune systems still carry a memory of that virus and can produce proteins called antibodies that kill the 1918 flu strain with surprising efficiency, the researchers report in the journal Nature.

clipped from www.sciencenews.org

Mexico City’s air pollution may be undermining neural and mental functioning in some children

Mexico City wears a thick coat of air pollution that clogs lungs and takes a toll on hearts and blood vessels. But that’s just the beginning — the metropolis’s dirty air may have contributed to brain inflammation and intellectual deficits in at least some school-age children, a new study suggests.

Among healthy children aged 7 to 18, lifelong Mexico City residents scored lower than their peers from Polotitlán — a Mexican city with low levels of air pollution — on tests of memory, flexible thinking, novel problem-solving skill and the ability to monitor and change one’s behavior during challenging tasks, scientists report in an upcoming Brain and Cognition. These tests make up part of standard IQ measures for school children.

clipped from www.sciencenews.org

Mexico City’s air pollution may be undermining neural and mental functioning in some children

Mexico City wears a thick coat of air pollution that clogs lungs and takes a toll on hearts and blood vessels. But that’s just the beginning — the metropolis’s dirty air may have contributed to brain inflammation and intellectual deficits in at least some school-age children, a new study suggests.

Among healthy children aged 7 to 18, lifelong Mexico City residents scored lower than their peers from Polotitlán — a Mexican city with low levels of air pollution — on tests of memory, flexible thinking, novel problem-solving skill and the ability to monitor and change one’s behavior during challenging tasks, scientists report in an upcoming Brain and Cognition. These tests make up part of standard IQ measures for school children.

clipped from www.sciencenews.org

Mexico City’s air pollution may be undermining neural and mental functioning in some children

Mexico City wears a thick coat of air pollution that clogs lungs and takes a toll on hearts and blood vessels. But that’s just the beginning — the metropolis’s dirty air may have contributed to brain inflammation and intellectual deficits in at least some school-age children, a new study suggests.

Among healthy children aged 7 to 18, lifelong Mexico City residents scored lower than their peers from Polotitlán — a Mexican city with low levels of air pollution — on tests of memory, flexible thinking, novel problem-solving skill and the ability to monitor and change one’s behavior during challenging tasks, scientists report in an upcoming Brain and Cognition. These tests make up part of standard IQ measures for school children.

clipped from www.iht.com

DRESDEN, Germany: A health official says 1,400 birds have been slaughtered at a poultry farm in eastern Germany after a duck tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

Saxony state health ministry spokesman Ralph Schreiber said Friday that the farm's entire stock of ducks, geese, turkeys and chickens was slaughtered overnight.

The farm near Goerlitz on the Polish border has been sealed off to prevent the spread of the virus. Birds at other poultry farms in the region are being checked.

clipped from www.iht.com

DRESDEN, Germany: A health official says 1,400 birds have been slaughtered at a poultry farm in eastern Germany after a duck tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

Saxony state health ministry spokesman Ralph Schreiber said Friday that the farm's entire stock of ducks, geese, turkeys and chickens was slaughtered overnight.

The farm near Goerlitz on the Polish border has been sealed off to prevent the spread of the virus. Birds at other poultry farms in the region are being checked.

clipped from www.iht.com

DRESDEN, Germany: A health official says 1,400 birds have been slaughtered at a poultry farm in eastern Germany after a duck tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

Saxony state health ministry spokesman Ralph Schreiber said Friday that the farm's entire stock of ducks, geese, turkeys and chickens was slaughtered overnight.

The farm near Goerlitz on the Polish border has been sealed off to prevent the spread of the virus. Birds at other poultry farms in the region are being checked.

clipped from www.reuters.com

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage on Friday in a victory for gay-rights advocates that will allow couples to marry in the New England state.

The court found that the state's law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Connecticut is now the third state in the country to allow gay marriage, following neighboring Massachusetts, the first state to allow it, and California.