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Va. flu activity listed as ‘widespread’

Flu activity in Virginia reached the “widespread” level last week, according to a state health official.

“This will be the first week we’ve gone to ‘widespread’ for this flu season. Clearly it’s a little later than usual but still within our expected range,” said C. Diane Woolard, director of the Virginia Department of Health’s surveillance and investigation division.

“Even though we are at ‘widespread,’ we are not hearing a lot about influenza,” Woolard said. “The reason we went to ‘widespread’ is that we met the definition for ‘widespread.’”

“Widespread” means flu outbreaks or reports of flu-like illness have increased beyond a baseline level and lab reports have confirmed flu in those regions reporting increased flu activity.

Flu-like illness reports are up in the northern, eastern and central health regions of the state.

Outbreaks of norovirus, a gastrointestinal illness that causes diarrhea and stomach cramps, also continue to make people sick. There were 120 outbreaks reported this January and February, compared with about 100 outbreaks during the same period in 2011.

“It’s still what we expect at this time of year,” Woolard said.

The Associated Press reported that a norovirus outbreak at a Fairfax County elementary school sickened more than 100 children.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Senate approves bill to require ultrasound for abortion

Women who want to have an abortion in Virginia will first be required to submit to an ultrasound under precedent-setting legislation that narrowly passed the Virginia Senate on Tuesday.

Conservative Republicans in the evenly divided chamber, with the help of two anti-abortion Democrats, dismissed warnings from women’s rights groups and national ridicule from late-night comedians to approve the bill on a 21-19 vote.

Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, was the lone Republican to vote against the bill, which would force virtually any woman seeking an abortion to submit to an ultrasound, even in cases where the pregnancy is too early to be detected by abdominal imaging. The woman would be given the option of viewing the image but would not be required to do so.

Senators on both sides of the debate agreed to an amendment under which a victim of rape or incest who reports the attack would not have to undergo an ultrasound to get an abortion. The amendment means the measure must go back to the House of Delegates to see if it agrees to the amendment.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Richmond police sergeant charged in assault

A Richmond police sergeant has been arrested and charged with simple assault, the Police Department said in a statement Tuesday.

The charge against Sgt. Anthony V. Papaleo stems from an incident that occurred while he was off-duty, the police said. Papaleo and another man, who was not identified by authorities, have taken out simple assault warrants against each other, authorities said.

Papaleo, who joined the Police Department in January 1995, was served with the assault warrant Feb. 22. He has been placed on “non-work status,” according to a police statement. Police officials said they would provide no further comment.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Interpol says suspected Anonymous hackers arrested

Interpol said Tuesday that 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.

The international police agency said in a statement that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol’s Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyberattacks against institutions including Colombia’s defense ministry and presidential websites, Chile’s Endesa electricity company and national library, as well as other targets.

The arrests followed an ongoing investigation begun in mid-February which also led to the seizure of 250 items of IT equipment and mobile phones in searches of 40 premises in 15 cities, Interpol said.

In Chile’s capital, Subprefect Jamie Jara said at a news conference that authorities arrested five Chileans and a Colombian. Two of the Chileans are 17-year-old minors.

The case was being handled by prosecutor Marcos Mercado, who specializes in computer crime. He said the suspects were charged with altering websites, including that of Chile’s National Library, and engaging in denial-of-service attacks on websites of the electricity companies Endesa and Hidroaysen. The charges carry a penalty of 541 days to five years in prison, he said.

Jara said the arrests resulted from a recently begun investigation and officials do not yet know if those arrested are tied to any “illicit group.”

Brief by the Associated Press

Dow closes above 13,000 for first time since 2008

The Dow Jones industrial average has closed above 13,000 for the first time since May 2008, four months before the financial crisis.

Preliminary figures show the Dow closed up five points Tuesday to finish at 13,005. The average is up more than 6 percent this year, mostly because of enthusiasm about the building U.S. economic recovery.

The Dow first broke 13,000 on April 25, 2007. The last time it ended the day above 13,000 was May 19, 2008. The Great Recession was six months old.

The close puts the Dow less than 1,200 points away from an all-time high.

Brief by the Associated Press

UNICEF: Millions of kids live in urban squalor

Millions of children are growing up in squalid urban areas and denied basic services despite living close to them, the United Nations Children’s Fund said Tuesday.

UNICEF said children living in slums and shantytowns often lack water, electricity and health care and it urged policy makers to ensure urban planning meets the needs of children.

The agency said it is common for statistics to show that, on average, children growing up in cities are better off than those in rural areas, which often leads to missing the plight of poor, urban children.

UNICEF said more than one-third of children in urban areas don’t ever get birth certificates, which means they are invisible to authorities and can’t get into social programs.

Nearly 8 million children died in 2010 before reaching the age of 5, about a third of them from hunger, the agency said. The rest died of pneumonia, diarrhea or birth complications.

Brief by the Associated Press

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