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Salad lovers, take note... So far SG no advisory but just becareful. If kiasu n kiasi, avoid romaine lettuce for time being. This includes mixed salad cuz got romaine inside. Canada has also issued advisory to abstain from it according to CNA.. https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/us-issues-health-alert-on-romaine-lettuce https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/health/abstain-from-romaine-us-canada-warn-on-e-coli-in-lettuce-10952288 WASHINGTON (AFP) - US health officials warned consumers on Tuesday (Nov 20) not to eat any romaine lettuce and to throw away any they might have in their homes, citing an outbreak of E. coli poisoning. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the warning against all romaine lettuce just two days before the Thanksgiving holiday, when American families gather and feast together. "Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick," the CDC said, after 32 people were reported sick from E. coli poisoning in 11 states, with 13 of them hospitalised. One of those had suffered kidney failure. Health officials in Canada said they had also identified 18 people stricken with the same strain of food poisoning in two provinces, Ontario and Quebec. "This advice includes all types or uses of romaine lettuce, such as whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of pre-cut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad," the CDC said, noting that it had not been able to pinpoint precisely where the suspect leaves had originated. "If you do not know if the lettuce is romaine or whether a salad mix contains romaine, do not eat it and throw it away," the CDC said. It advised anyone who had stored romaine lettuce in their refrigerator to wash down the shelves where the leaves had been kept. No deaths have so far been reported.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-30/indonesian-military-plane-crashes-in-residential-area-30-dead/6584602 An Indonesian military plane has crashed in a residential area in the capital of North Sumatra with 113 people on board, according to Indonesian Air Force officials. Indonesian Air Force chief of staff Agus Supriatna said 49 bodies had so far been pulled from the rubble, and 23 of those bodies had been identified. Mr Supriatna said there was no way anybody could have survived the crash. He said the C130 Hercules had 12 crew and another 101 passengers on board when it took off from Soewondo Air Base in Medan shortly before midday (local time). Minutes into the flight, the pilot requested permission to return to the base. The plane then banked to the right and plummeted into the ground, bursting into flames and wiping out buildings, including part of a hotel. When a commercial jet crashed in the same street nearly ten years ago, dozens of people on the ground were also killed.

http://site.dragtag.com.au/index.php Drag Tag - virtual drag racing with your own car Posted Jul 28th 2006 12:55PM by John Neff Filed under: Motorsports, Tuner Tuesdays, Etc. Drag Tag is an indoor facility in Australia where you can virtually drag race your own car using a patented dyno, hold-down, steering and visualization simulator. Design, developed and operated in Australia, Drag Tag uses its own specially-designed hold-down system to keep your car strapped on the dyno during WOT. Laser sensors are used to monitor the angle of the front wheels and gather steering data, while three massive 4.5-meter screens provide over a 200-degree of various simulated race environments. The Drag Tag website points out the obvious benefits it has to offer over actual racing, which include a complete disregard for the weather outside, shorter lines, no helmets or race suits required and really fast cars don't need any expensive safety equipment like a roll cage. In order to join the fun, one must first purchase a membership to Drag Tag that include installation of the special hold-down brackets, after which nightly racing can cost anywhere from AUS $10 to $50 for an evening of digital automotive mayhem. While there's no replacement for the experience of a real Christmas Tree going green and dropping the hammer, the idea of driving your own car in a video game is strangely appealing. ----------- they should bring this to singapore!

As Las Vegas Sands and RWS continue to rake in hundreds of million of dollars in profits and the govt get their gaming tax cuts and revenue, many have paid the price. The 2 casinos and the govt must be earning at least S$1B a year. Guess who pays the price? It is not just the gamblers who suffer. Their families who get less to spend on other stuff. The biggest sufferer is actually the rest of the retailers all over Singapore who does not get a pie of these integrated resorts. Retail sales are badly affected from Marina to Orchard and the regional shopping centres. It is a zero sum game for the local retailers. Even if we assume half of the money lost are from the foreigners/tourist, we are talking about taking 500M from the local economy and this goes straight to the two casinos as profits. If you are in retail, I believe you would have felt the impact in the last year. Hundreds of millions of dollars are also being lost by all the private clubs in Singapore that depended on the jackport machines. I have not factored in the cost of lives and broken families cos I dunnoe how to calculate these................... If you have not started to get addicted to gambling, dun start. The house ALWAYS wins.

Mon, Apr 05, 2010 AFP by Prashant Rao BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Iraq's security forces were on high alert Monday after three suicide car bombs targeting regional and European embassies rocked Baghdad, killing 30 people. The attacks came as Iraq's political parties struggled to form a government. Incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose coalition finished second in the March 7 general election, held a meeting with Iraq's national security council over Sunday's blasts, a statement from his office said. Officials said the near-simultaneous attacks, which a minister said bore the signature of Al-Qaeda, had also wounded 224 people. Two were suicide attacks against the Egyptian and Iranian embassies, while a third struck an intersection near the German, Spanish and Syrian missions. Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said a bomb-laden car had also been intercepted in Masbah, central Baghdad, apparently heading towards the headquarters of police tasked with diplomatic protection. Its driver was arrested and the device was defused, he said. "It looks like (Al-Qaeda)," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP. "I really feel it's early, however, unless we ensure the investigation is complete" to say who was behind the blasts, he added. "They bear the same marks of previous attacks, in the timing, the targeting, the simultaneous attacks on different targets in different places to have maximum impact," Zebari said. He was referring to co-ordinated bombings in August, October, December and January that killed more than 400 people. The two bombs that battered the diplomatic western neighbourhood of Mansur were followed soon afterwards by a third huge explosion outside the Iranian embassy in central Baghdad. Said Mohammed, who was close to the blast at the Egyptian embassy, said guards had tried to prevent the attack. "Three security guards shouted at the truck to stop moving, and opened fire on the driver," said Mohammed, before turning angrily to nearby Iraqi army officers and shouting: "How did the truck get here?" "The explosion was really strong," said taxi driver Abu Ahmed of the blast at the Iranian embassy, which caused no casualties among its staff. "They never kill ministers, officials or heads of state. They kill taxi drivers, public employees and shopkeepers," he added. "How much longer will this last?" German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin she was "profoundly affected" by the blasts, while the Arab League said that they sought to destabilise Iraq at a "delicate moment." French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner condemned the bombings as "barbaric". The attacks came as Iraqi political parties negotiate to form a government, nearly a month after an election that left none of the four main blocs with enough seats to form a 163-seat parliamentary majority on its own. Former premier Iyad Allawi, whose bloc finished first in the election, has accused Iran of seeking to prevent him becoming prime minister again by inviting all major parties except his secular bloc to Tehran. Security officials had warned that protracted coalition building could give insurgents an opportunity to further destabilise the country. Although the frequency of attacks has dropped significantly since peaking in 2006 and 2007, figures released on Thursday showed 367 Iraqis were killed inviolence last month - the highest number this year. --AFP

it seems that the inevitable is happening, as scientists had always warned of such strain of flu being formed and it will be especially lethal. maybe it sound KS, but better we take note of this from ST: Mexico City - A new strain of flu that has killed as many as 68 people in Mexico has had health officials scrambling to avert a possible global outbreak. As the Mexican government axed public events and shut schools, libraries and cinemas, World Health Organisation (WHO) experts were dispatched to Mexico. More than 1,000 people there, and eight in the United States, are suspected to be down with that strain of flu. WHO director-general Margaret Chan warned yesterday that the new multi-strain swine flu virus had 'pandemic potential'. 'A new virus is responsible,' she said after an emergency meeting of flu experts in Geneva. 'It is a serious situation which needs to be closely followed.' Separately a US health official warned that it may be too late to contain the new virus. 'It is clear that this is widespread. And that is why we have let you know that we cannot contain the spread of this virus,' Dr Anne Schuchat of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters. Dr Chan said it was too early to say whether a pandemic - defined as a global infectious disease outbreak for which there is no immunity - will actually occur. But the UN agency has advised countries worldwide to look out for similar outbreaks following the discovery of related strains on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Scores have died in Mexico from severe pneumonia after infection. At least 24 new suspected cases reported yesterday in Mexico City, a city of 20 million people. Tests on some of the victims found that they had contracted a new version of the A/H1N1 flu virus, which is a combination of bird, pig and human viruses. 'It has pandemic potential because it is infecting people,' said Dr Chan. 'However, we cannot say on the basis of currently available laboratory, epidemiological, and clinical evidence whether or not it will indeed cause a pandemic.' As the new strain was still poorly understood and the situation evolving quickly, it was too soon to announce any travel advisories or to advise drugmakers to switch to producing a new vaccine, she told a teleconference. The CDC said some of the samples from Mexican patients were a genetic match of the strain seen in eight people in California and Texas, who later recovered. In New York City, health officials were looking into what had sickened scores of students who fell ill with flu-like symptoms. The French government said suspected cases are likely to occur in the coming days because of global air travel. Most of the dead were young healthy adults. That alarms health officials because seasonal flus cause most of their deaths among infants and elderly people, but pandemic influenza - like the 1918 Spanish flu which killed millions - often strikes young, healthy people the hardest. Influenza can spread quickly when a new strain emerges because no one has natural immunity. Yesterday was the first time Dr Chan has convened such a crisis panel since the procedure was created almost two years ago. An official source said yesterday the panel is expected to declare the outbreak 'a public health emergency of international concern'. With that, the WHO would have to decide next on measures such as travel advisories, trade restrictions and border closures. The panel is also likely to ratchet up the WHO's six-phase flu pandemic alert level. It is now set at Phase 3 - meaning there is no or very limited risk of a new virus spreading from human to human. US health officials are urging anyone with a fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath or muscle and joint pain to seek medical attention. The WHO stands ready with antivirals to combat the outbreaks in Mexico. But the authorities have a sizeable supply of Tamiflu, which has proved effective against the new virus, the UN agency said. Mr William Schaffner, a US flu expert, said the new strain is the biggest threat of a pandemic since the emergence of the H5N1 strain, which has killed millions of birds and hundreds of people.

DORMITORY: When you rearrange the letters: DIRTY ROOM PRESBYTERIAN: When you rearrange the letters: BEST IN PRAYER ASTRONOMER: When you rearrange the letters: MOON STARER DESPERATION: When you rearrange the letters: A ROPE ENDS IT THE EYES: When you rearrange the letters: THEY SEE GEORGE BUSH: When you rearrange the letters: HE BUGS GORE THE MORSE CODE: When you rearrange the letters: HERE COME DOTS SLOT MACHINES: When you rearrange the letters: CASH LOST IN ME ANIMOSITY: When you rearrange the letters: IS NO AMITY ELECTION RESULTS: When you rearrange the letters: LIES - LET'S RECOUNT SNOOZE ALARMS: When you rearrange the letters: ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S A DECIMAL POINT: When you rearrange the letters: IM A DOT IN PLACE THE EARTHQUAKES: When you rearrange the letters: THAT QUEER SHAKE ELEVEN PLUS TWO: When you rearrange the letters: TWELVE PLUS ONE AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE: MOTHER-IN-LAW: When you rearrange the letters: WOMAN HITLER

ASIAONE / HEALTH / NEWS / STORY Ben Hirschler Tue, Sep 25, 2007 Reuters Lack of sleep may be deadly LONDON (Reuters) - People who do not get enough sleep are more than twice as likely to die of heart disease, according to a large British study released on Monday. Although the reasons are unclear, researchers said lack of sleep appeared to be linked to increased blood pressure, which is known to raise the risk of heart attacks and stroke. A 17-year analysis of 10,000 government workers showed those who cut their sleeping from seven hours a night to five or less faced a 1.7-fold increased risk in mortality from all causes and more than double the risk of cardiovascular death. The findings highlight a danger in busy modern lifestyles, Francesco Cappuccio, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Warwick's medical school, told the annual conference of the British Sleep Society in Cambridge. "A third of the population of the UK and over 40 percent in the U.S. regularly sleep less than five hours a night, so it is not a trivial problem," he said in a telephone interview. "The current pressures in society to cut out sleep, in order to squeeze in more, may not be a good idea -- particularly if you go below five hours." Previous research has highlighted the potential health risks of shift work and disrupted sleep. But the study by Cappuccio and colleagues, which was supported by British government and U.S. funding, is the first to link duration of sleep and mortality rates. The study looked at sleep patterns of participants aged 35-55 years at two points in their lives -- 1985-88 and 1992-93 -- and then tracked their mortality rates until 2004. The results were adjusted to take account of other possible risk factors such as initial age, sex, smoking and alcohol consumption, body mass index, blood pressure and cholesterol. The correlation with cardiovascular risk in those who slept less in the 1990s than in the 1980s was clear but, curiously, there was also a higher mortality rate in people who increased their sleeping to more than nine hours. In this case, however, there was no cardiovascular link and Cappuccio said it was possible that longer sleeping could be related to other health problems such as depression or cancer-related fatigue. "In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around seven hours per night is optimal for health," he said.