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RALEIGH, N.C. | A cluster of four Tamiflu-resistant cases of H1N1 flu at Duke University Medical Center has raised concerns that changes in the virus may make severe infections more difficult to treat. Three of the Duke patients died. All were adults, including two women and one man, and they had other major diseases, said Cameron Wolfe, an infectious-disease specialist at Duke. He said a fourth patient remains hospitalized.
WASHINGTON | The Senate ethics committee on Friday admonished Democratic Sen. Roland Burris for misleading investigators about his maneuvering to get Barack Obama’s old Senate seat from the governor who was ousted for trying to sell it. Burris was appointed by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and driven from office after he was accused of trying to sell the seat.
WASHINGTON | The National Archives is bringing together investigators to search for scribbled secrets from the first days of the Watergate scandal, which destroyed Richard Nixon’s presidency. The goal is to find out what Nixon and an aide discussed during the infamous 18½-minute gap in a White House tape recording of a meeting held three days after burglars linked to the president’s re-election committee broke into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex.
After four hours of questions from senators about his decision to send the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes to New York for trial, Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday submitted to one more round of interrogation from people who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks.
CHICAGO | “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” an iconic broadcast that began as a local Chicago talk show and grew over two decades into the foundation of a media empire worth billions, will end its run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air, Winfrey’s production company said Thursday night. Winfrey, who from a seat on the couch of her set in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood became a billionaire and one of the most powerful women in entertainment, plans to announce the final date for her show during a live broadcast today, said Harpo Productions Inc.
WASHINGTON | The Pentagon said Thursday it will scour its procedures for identifying volatile soldiers in the ranks following the Fort Hood shooting rampage and lapses that might allow others to slip through bureaucratic cracks. “It is prudent to determine immediately whether there are internal weaknesses or procedural shortcomings in the department that could make us vulnerable,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered compensation for a Los Angeles couple whowere denied spousal benefits by the federal government because they are gay. Stephen Reinhardt, a judge with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, deemed the denial of health care and other benefits to the spouse of federal public defender Brad Levenson to be a violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of due process and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which is prohibited by California law.
WASHINGTON | Women should continue getting regular mammograms starting at age 40, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday, moving to douse confusion caused by a task-force recommendation two days earlier. Sebelius issued her statement following a government panel’s recommendation on Monday that said most women don’t need mammograms in their 40s and should get one every two years starting at 50.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. | A police officer in a small Arkansas town used a stun gun on an unruly 10-year-old girl after he said her mother gave him permission to do so. Now the town’s mayor is calling for an investigation into whether the Taser use was appropriate. According to a report by Officer Dustin Bradshaw, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, police were called to the Ozark home Nov. 11 because of a domestic disturbance. When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, the report said.
WASHINGTON | President Barack Obama saluted Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, for becoming history’s longest-serving member of Congress on Wednesday, saying the one-time segregationist had become a touchstone for constitutional values and a role model. “Countless colleagues — myself included — have looked to him for advice, guidance and leadership over the years,” Obama, who represented Illinois in the Senate, said in a prepared statement.
WASHINGTON | Army Lt. Col. Dominic “Rocky” Baragona was killed in Iraq on the very day he was going home. He was en route from Baghdad to Kuwait City when a tractor-trailer jackknifed across the highway and crushed his Humvee.
WASHINGTON | Senate health care legislation expected this week is likely to include a new long-term care insurance program to help the elderly and the disabled avoid going into nursing homes, Democratic officials say. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, is expected to incorporate the voluntary program in legislation to be unveiled as early as today, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a final decision has not been made.
WASHINGTON | More than 15 million taxpayers may owe the government $250 or more because of how the IRS last spring set up President Barack Obama’s tax break designed to help consumers spend the U.S. economy out of recession. Individuals with more than one job and married couples in which both spouses work may have to repay the government $400, either through a smaller tax refund or a larger tax bill, according to a report released Monday by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration. Social Security recipients who also earn taxable wages might have to repay $250.
The Colorado parents of three children could wind up in jail after admitting in court they fabricated a story about their son in a runaway balloon to gain publicity for a possible reality TV show.
KAILUA, Hawaii | Jenn Boneza remembers when the white sandy beach near the boat ramp in her hometown was wide enough for people to build sand castles. “It really used to be a beautiful beach,” said the 35-year-old mother of two.
The latest U.S. Defense Department identification of casualties: •Marine Lance Cpl. Justin J. Swanson, 21, of Anaheim, Calif., died Nov. 10 supporting combat in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
MILAN | In a decade-long journey, the Tunisian went from drug pusher on the streets of Milan, to Islamic militant trained in Afghanistan to kill Americans, to potential key witness against Guantanamo Bay detainees. Prosecutors said Lazhar Ben Mohamed Tlil may hold the key to prosecuting Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Italy and may be crucial to U.S. prosecutions, too.
John J. O’Connor III, the husband of retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, died in Phoenix of complications arising from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 79. John O’Connor, himself a lawyer, was diagnosed with the disease nearly two decades ago. His condition deteriorated markedly in mid-decade. When Justice O’Connor announced her retirement in 2005, she cited the need to care for her husband.
WOODLAND PARK, N.J. | A decades-long conflict among residents of this community over what their town should be called has been resolved — for now, at least. The borough of Woodland Park — formerly known as West Paterson — sealed its new name in a referendum on Nov. 3. A final count of provisional ballots last week found voters chose to keep the Woodland Park name by a 32-vote margin.
For the birds LA MARQUE, Texas | Police say a low-flying pelican distracted a driver, causing him to veer off a road and drive his million-dollar sports car into a salt marsh.
Guests on today’s TV news shows: •ABC’s “This Week,” 9:30 a.m. — Guests: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor.
news.mcclatchy.com headlines
Authorities say five male students have been arrested on suspicion of sexual battery after two ninth-grade girls were attacked at a Long Beach high school.
A Fort Benning spokesman says Army officials are investigating whether a suspicious note and package found at the west Georgia post is a viable threat.
A military judge in Texas has found a former Air Force nurse accused of killing three terminally ill patients not guilty of murder.
Every afternoon, seven days a week, Ed Epley has a 5 p.m. appointment with the war.
The number of Americans traveling away from home for Thanksgiving will be up only slightly this year from 2008, according to a report from the AAA auto club.
Peggy Pauly lives in a robin-egg blue, two-story house not far from acres of onion fields that make the northern Nevada air smell sweet at harvest time.
A man will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was found guilty in what prosecutors said was a case of scaring a 79-year-old North Carolina grandmother to death.
Police found him sitting on the floor of his old apartment near a bucket of urine, still dressed in his hospital gown.
When Liz Fitzgerald realized her son and daughter were forced to read books in math class while the other children caught up, she had them moved into gifted classes at their suburban Atlanta elementary school.
Newly arrived in Moscow on his first foreign assignment, Associated Press correspondent George Krimsky sensed he had a sensational Cold War scoop on his hands and he pounced.
The gunman who carried out Saipan's most violent attack in recent memory ended his life on the same rocky cliffs where numerous Japanese leapt to their deaths to avoid capture by U.S. troops during World War II.
Wide-eyed children around the world will be hearing from Santa's "elves" at the North Pole after all.
WASHINGTON - The government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between the alleged Fort Hood gunman and a radical Muslim cleric, and a key senator says there could be more communications that might have tipped off law enforcement or military officials.
Police say a woman has died after being struck along with nine children by a car outside an Alabama middle school.
Prosecutors say they will not appeal the dismissal of a woman's convictions in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide.
A Maui man accused of spying for China is difficult to work with and makes wild exaggerations but is legally able to stand trial, a federal prosecutor asserted Friday.
Dozens of demonstrators who barricaded themselves inside a campus building at the University of California, Berkeley in a protest over fee hikes and budget cuts were removed late Friday, bringing the daylong occupation to an end, university officials said.
The son of a late San Francisco pornography mogul will stand trial on accusations that he crushed his ex-girlfriend's skull with a baseball bat.
The parents of an 8-year-old Liberian girl who was allegedly raped by four boys have been arrested on felony child abuse charges.
A 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday. Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant. Authorities embarked on a nearly weeklong search that ended when the girl's body was found dumped off a rural road.
A woman lost control of her car and struck nine children and an adult who were standing outside a middle school Friday afternoon, police said.
The mother of the man former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol had planned to marry has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Two congressional Republicans say federal prosecutors rushed into a settlement with a nonprofit operated by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson that had been accused of misspending government grants.
Federal officials say they arrested a man who strapped 15 live lizards to his chest to get through customs at Los Angeles International Airport.
As of Friday, Nov. 18, 2009, at least 842 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EST.
