During CNN Larry King Interview with Jermaine Jackson inside Neverland Ranch suddenly something dark appeared to move across the floor. An apparition? Just a shadow?

Swine influenza
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Swine influenza is endemic in pigsSwine influenza (also called swine flu, hog flu, and pig flu) refers to influenza caused by those strains of influenza virus that usually infect pigs and are called swine influenza virus (SIV). Swine influenza is common in pigs in the midwestern United States (and occasionally in other states), Mexico, Canada, South America, Europe (including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Italy), Kenya, Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and other parts of eastern Asia.

Transmission of swine influenza virus from pigs to humans is not common. When it is transmitted, it does not always cause human influenza; often, the only sign of infection is the presence of antibodies, detectable only by laboratory tests. When transmission results in influenza in a human, it is called zoonotic swine flu. People who work with pigs, especially people with intense exposures, are at risk of catching swine flu. However, only about fifty such transmissions have been recorded since the mid-20th Century, when identification of influenza subtypes became possible. (Importantly, eating pork does not pose a risk of infection.) Rarely, these strains of swine flu can pass from human to human. In humans, the symptoms of swine flu are similar to those of influenza and of influenza-like illness in general, namely chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort.

The 2009 flu outbreak in humans that is widely known as "swine flu" is due to an apparently virulent new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 that was produced by reassortment from one strain of human influenza virus, one strain of avian influenza virus, and two separate strains of swine influenza. The origin of this new strain is unknown, and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reports that this strain has not been isolated in pigs. It passes with apparent ease from human to human, an ability attributed to an as-yet unidentified mutation.This 2009 H1N1 strain causes the normal symptoms of influenza, such as fever, coughing and headache.

Disaster at sea: Herald of free Enterprise

source wikipedia.org

MS Herald of Free Enterprise was a roll-on roll-off (RORO) car and passenger ferry owned by Townsend Thoresen. She was one of three ships commissioned by the company to operate on the Dover–Calais route across the English Channel. The ferry capsized on the night of 6 March 1987 killing 193 passengers and crew. This was the worst maritime disaster involving a British registered ship in peacetime since the sinking of the Iolaire in 1919.

On the day the ferry capsized, the Herald of Free Enterprise was working the route between Dover and the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. This was not her normal route and the linkspan at Zeebrugge had not been designed specifically for the Spirit class of vessels. The linkspan used comprised a single deck and so could not be used to load decks E and G simultaneously. The ramp could also not be raised high enough to meet the level of deck E due to the high spring tides being encountered at that time.

This was commonly known and was overcome by trimming the ship bow heavy by filling forward ballast tanks. The Herald was due to be modified during its refit in 1987 to overcome this problem. Before dropping moorings, it was normal practice for a member of the crew, the Assistant Bosun, to close the doors; the First Officer also remained on deck to ensure they were closed before returning to the wheel house.

To keep on schedule, the First Officer returned to the wheelhouse before the ship dropped its moorings leaving closing of the doors the responsibility of the Assistant Bosun, Mark Stanley. Mark Stanley had taken a short break after cleaning the car deck upon arrival at Zeebrugge. He had returned to his cabin and was still asleep when the ship dropped its moorings. The captain could only assume that the doors had been closed since he could not see them from the wheel house due to their construction and had no indicator lights in the wheelhouse. There was confusion as to why no one else closed the doors.

The Poltergeist curse

Poltergeist is an American horror film, directed by Tobe Hooper and released on June 4, 1982. It is the first and most successful of the Poltergeist film trilogy and was nominated for three Academy Awards. The film was co-produced, and co-written, by Steven Spielberg along with Michael Grais and Mark Victor—his first major success as a producer. The plot revolves around the haunting of a suburban family home that is suspected to be the work of poltergeists.

The franchise is often said to be cursed.

The rumor is superstition largely derived from the fact that four cast members died in a relatively short span of time (six years) between the release of the first film and the release of the third, with one dying during production of the second film. Two of them died at young ages, 12 and 22. It is not clear that these particular films are atypical in the number or nature of the deaths of their actors, and at least two of the supposed victims had serious health problems before becoming attached to the film series.

The actors who are supposed victims of the curse include:

Dominique Dunne, 22-year-old actress who played the oldest sibling Dana in the first movie, died after being choked by a jealous boyfriend in 1982. The boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, was later convicted and sentenced to six years in prison, though he only served three and a half years.

Julian Beck, 60-year-old actor who played Kane in Poltergeist II: The Other Side, died in 1985 of stomach cancer, with which he was diagnosed before he had accepted the role.

Will Sampson, 53 years old, who played Taylor the Medicine Man in Poltergeist II, died of post-operative kidney failure and pre-operative malnutrition problems in 1987.

Heather O'Rourke, actress who played Carol Anne in all three Poltergeist movies, died in 1988 at the age of 12 after what doctors initially described as an acute form of influenza but later changed to septic shock after bacterial toxins invaded her bloodstream. At the time, she had suffered acute bowel obstruction, initially diagnosed as Crohn's disease, which may have been the cause of death.

Other occurrences that have been attributed to the curse include:

The house in Simi Valley, California used for exterior shots of the Freeling home was damaged by the Northridge earthquake of 1994.

update March 2009: ST. POELTEN, Austria (CNN) -- A jury in Austria has found Josef Fritzl guilty of raping and imprisoning his daughter for more than two decades and sentenced him to life in prison.

Josef Fritzl arrives for sentencing at the courthouse in St. Poelten on Thursday. more photos » It was the maximum sentence for the most serious charge Fritzl faced: one count of murder, for allowing one of the babies he fathered with his daughter to die shortly after birth.

The eight-member jury returned a unanimous verdict on all counts. Fritzl, dressed in a gray suit, blue shirt and dark tie, stared blankly ahead and showed no emotion as the jury delivered its verdict. The 73-year-old had pleaded guilty to all charges on Wednesday, but Austrian law requires a jury to return a verdict as well.

Fritzl will soon be moved to a detention facility for mentally abnormal offenders, where psychiatrists will evaluate him and decide on therapy. Until then, he will remain in a two-person cell in St. Poelten.

The Fritzl case
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Fritzl case emerged in late April 2008 when a 42-year-old Austrian woman, Elisabeth Fritzl, stated to police that she had been sexually abused, raped, and physically assaulted by her father, Josef Fritzl, since 1977 and had been imprisoned by him for 24 years, since 1984.

Her father had held her captive in a small, soundproof and windowless cellar in the basement of the family home in the town of Amstetten in Lower Austria, claiming she had run away and joined a cult. During her captivity, she had given birth to a total of seven children, all of whom had been fathered by Josef. Three of them had been imprisoned along with their mother for the whole of their lives: daughter Kerstin, aged 19; and sons Stefan, 18; and Felix, 5. Of the other children, three had been raised by Josef and his wife Rosemarie in the upstairs home.

He engineered the appearance of these children as foundlings discovered outside their house, giving the impression that their mother, Elisabeth, had abandoned them: Lisa at nine months in 1993, Monika at ten months in 1994, and Alexander at fifteen months in 1997. Alexander's twin, Michael, died three days after birth. When the eldest daughter, Kerstin, became seriously ill in spring 2008, her father allowed her to be taken to a hospital, which triggered a series of events that eventually led to discovery. The case has not yet gone to trial.

Naked Sex actor flooded with offers

Flooded with offers... Gilles Marini at the premiere of "Sex and the City: The Movie" at Radio City Music Hall, NYC.

French model-actor Gilles Marini has built his career by dressing up, so he is stunned that his major break has come from stripping down and appearing naked, completely naked, in the hit movie Sex and the City.

Marini bares all, ever so fleetingly for a full frontal shot, as a Casanova living next door to actress Kim Cattrall's Samantha in the big screen version of the HBO TV series about the careers, love lives, and wardrobes of four New York women.

Marini, 32, who relocated to the United States about a decade ago from France to pursue modelling and acting, said he has been inundated with emails and job offers since the movie opened in May and he was branded Hollywood's newest eye candy.

"This is the part that has put me on the map. For me, this is like winning the jackpot," Marini told Reuters in a phone interview from New York where he was receiving Bravo cable TV's "Best Rear Award."

"I just was not expecting this at all. I have never done so much press in my life or received so many emails. It's just gone wild and I am very happy about it."

Marini's good looks and toned physique caught the eye of millions of women who flocked to see the romantic comedy that defied mixed reviews and beat box office expectations with nearly $200 million in global ticket sales.