Shorts (left)
At Least 5 Indian Schoolgirls Die in Stampede
At least five schoolgirls died in a stampede that started on a crowded stairway at a large government-run school in the Indian capital, Indian news media and police officials said Thursday.
Ten more were reported seriously injured, half critically. About 20 other students, mostly girls, suffered lesser injuries, hospital officials said. Indian news media reported that more of the girls had died, but that could not be verified.
Worried and angry parents hunted for their children amid great confusion at the Senior Secondary School in Khajuri Khas, a crowded neighborhood of Delhi. Some parents pelted public buses with stones. The school has 4,500 pupils between the ages of 8 and 16, teaching them in two shifts, The Associated Press reported.
What set off the stampede remained unclear, officials said, and an inquiry has been ordered. “We are not able to give any explanation,” said Sheila Dixit, the chief minister of Delhi, while visiting the injured students at the hospital. “We are extremely saddened by the loss of innocent lives.”
For Idaho Hunters, Wolf Permit Is Just Half the Battle
Hunting and killing are not the same thing. Even as Idaho has sold more than 14,000 wolf-hunting permits, the first 10 days of the first legal wolf hunt here in decades have yielded only three reported legal kills.
Such modest early results might seem surprising in a state that has tried for years to persuade the federal government to let it reduce the wolf population through hunting.
Idahoans, among the nation’s most passionate hunters, are learning that the wolf’s small numbers — about 850 were counted in the state at the end of last year — make it at once more vulnerable and more elusive.
“It’s clear it’s not going to be easy,” said Jon Rachael, the wildlife manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
Republicans believe such a tax can help tamp down long-term health care spending.
One Shot Seen as Protective for Swine Flu
Defying the expectations of experts, clinical trials are showing that the new H1N1 swine flu vaccine protects with only one dose instead of two, so the vaccine supplies being made will go twice as far as had been predicted.
That means it should be possible to vaccinate — well before the flu’s expected midwinter peak — all the 159 million people that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention estimate are in the high-risk groups: pregnant women, people under 24 years old or caring for infants, people with high-risk medical conditions and health-care workers. Barring production delays, the government hopes to have in hand 195 million doses by year’s end.
The first convincing trial results from a single 15-microgram dose in adults were published online Thursday by The New England Journal of Medicine. That trial was conducted in Australia, but the vaccine maker, CSL Limited, is under contract to supply millions of doses to the U.S. government, and the president of the company’s American subsidiary said he expected its trials here to have similar results.