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A South Asian strain of cholera contaminated a river where Haitians drink, wash, bath and swim, causing an outbreak that killed over 4,000 people in the past year, a UN-appointed panel reported late on Wednesday.
But the four scientific experts refrained from blaming UN peacekeepers, particularly those from Nepal who had been accused of poor sanitation at their base near Mirebalais, the town where the epidemic first began. Instead their report said the outbreak was a result of a “confluence of circumstances.”
In one of its few readable sentences, the report stated:
At the same time, the panel said “genetic typing data on the Nepal strains of Vibrio cholerae” was recently made available to the independent panel from an institute in Korea but said the “genome sequences of the Nepal strains are still in the process of being completed.” However, it said the sanitation conditions at the Mirebalais UN peacekeeping camp “were not sufficient to prevent contamination of the Meye Tributary System with human fecal waste.”
So if UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who appointed the panel, expected a “yes” or “no” reply to whether the peacekeepers brought the debilitating disease to Haiti. He did not get

Documentarian Alex Gibney. Portrait by Leslie Hassler.
Can catching a ball for your favorite baseball team, in front of millions of fans, literally ruin your life? An occurrence that is essentially every young boy’s dream, turned into a nightmare of almost biblical proportions for one Chicago baseball fan. This very scenario is the subject of the former Emmy, Grammy, and Academy Award winner Alex Gibney’s brilliant new documentary, Catching Hell.
Gibney (Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Taxi to the Dark Side) has an uncanny ability to show us something that looks fairly wholesome and ordinary like a ballgame, and then, like Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” show us the dark undercurrent of societal evils that run beneath it.
Gibney’s wife keeps hoping Gibney will make a film about, say, puppies. But we already know what that would look

An expansive new voucher program, signed into Indiana law today, has been widely praised as a momentous victory for school choice and Gov. Mitch Daniels on the brink of his long-awaited presidential campaign announcement. In reality, the voucher program is a tactical victory for highly constrained choice won at the price of a broad strategic defeat for educational freedom.
To see why, consider the bill’s regulations. Most people would agree there are some topics about which every child in this country should

Don’t let the Osama Bin Laden stunt distract you! Even though Barack Obama released his long form birth certificate, critical thinking Americans are still suspicious of the president’s credentials as a U.S. citizen. Birther of birtherism and tireless dentist Orly Taitz, is poking around for other rotten cavities in Obama’s biography. Adobe expert Robert Stanley quickly produced what he claims is forensic evidence that the long-form is a forgery, rushing his data to presidential hopeful and late-date birther Donald Trump for his exacting

The announcement late Sunday evening by President Obama that Osama bin Laden had been killed created extraordinary traffic for MSNBC.com, pointing to the emerging role of online video viewing in cable-connected homes.
In this interview with Beet.TV, Charles Tillinghast, president of MSNBC.com, says there were some 300,000 simultaneous video views of the president’s announcement, a very high number during non-work hours.
While it is difficult to say how many of these online viewers also subscribe to cable, Tillinghast says the high numbers indicate how consumers multi-task around breaking news, watching television but using the Web to get briefed when they join a story, in what he calls “reading in” and “watching in.”
Viewership Sunday night on MSNBC, the cable channel, passed 1.1 million, according to TV Newser.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

Tarell Alvin McCraney has made an unusual journey in his thirty years of life — from the slums of Miami, where his crack-addicted mother died of AIDS and his brother ended up in jail, to writer-in-residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. But when he glides past a large marble bust of Shakespeare in the RSC offices to greet me — a six-foot shimmer of cheekbones and designer labels — he looks like something else again: a Gap model, perhaps, or the ballet dancer he once wanted to be. He holds himself with a perfectly straight posture, and speaks in a soft voice that forces you to lean forward a little to hear him.
Most people, when they look at his plays, gawp at the parade of identities that seem to march through McCraney’s mind. He’s a black gay intellectual from the hood whose plays are a mash-up of everything from Nigerian myth to English social comedy to macho Miami hip-hop to New York drag

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone, here’s my Top Cinco for Cinco de Mayo, 2011 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
* In the NBA Playoffs, the champion Lakers are now down 2-0 to Dallas. Chicago and Atlanta are tied one game apiece.
* Blake Griffin of the L.A. Clippers is the unanimous NBA rookie of the year.
* In the NHL Playoffs, Tampa Bay swept away Washington in four straight

Hey, the folks at the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve is a Department of Defense agency which provides USERRA Law education, mediation, and is a referral resource to help Guardsmen, Reservists and Veterans in their job searches.
They announced recently that 148 employers have been selected as semifinalists for the 2011 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award. The Freedom Award is the DoD’s highest recognition given to employers for exceptional support of their employees serving in the Guard and Reserve. This year 4,049 employers were nominated for the award.
“Our nation’s ability to rely on the Guard and Reserve through nearly 10 years of war and during historic natural disasters is made possible by the tremendous support of employers,” said ESGR National Chair James G.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that runs Gaza, is mourning the death of Osama bin Laden. He is a “martyr” to these jihadists. And Hamas has just concluded a pact with the so-called Palestinian Authority (PA), or Fatah, the group that the U.S. recognizes and to whom we give lavish foreign

Laurie David is a global warming crusader. She helped produce Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth, and is the author of several similarly themed books. Her latest is The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time.
She’s in my kitchen today, sharing her special secret childhood favorite comfort food and her current multimedia obsessions.
Why is living organic important to you?
Living as organic as possible is absolutely critical not just for my emotional well-being, but for the physical well-being of my whole family. The more you learn, the more you know, the more you have to do to try to guarantee some semblance of clean food, clean water, clean air for your

Thor is a comic-book movie made by a Shakespearean – Kenneth Branagh – in 3D.
And, intriguingly, he mostly makes it work.
The action is flashy but comprehensible, the script is often witty, the actors serve their roles (instead of vice versa). And the computer-generated imagery – which dominates roughly half of the film – is eye-popping, instead of being eye-glazing.
In other words, it’s hammer time. (Sorry, couldn’t resist that. I’ve been thinking about it for a month and finally gave in.)
A few weeks back, based only on a two-line synopsis I’d read and the teaser trailer for the film, I told my son I could probably thumbnail the entire Thor plot for

US President Barack Obama is to visit Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York, later on Thursday, four days after US forces killed al-Qaeda head Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.

Bin Laden was believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and many others.

Mr Obama will lay a wreath in memory of the victims and speak to relatives.

The visit comes a day after the US leader said graphic photographs of Bin Laden's body would not be made public.

The al-Qaeda leader was killed by US special forces in northern Pakistan on Monday. His body was then buried at sea from a US aircraft carrier.

The Pakistani military on Thursday admitted "shortcomings" for failing to locate Bin Laden and has said it will launch an investigation.

But it also warned it would review co-operation with the US if there were any more unilateral raids such as the one that killed Bin Laden.
Moment of reflection
In New York Mr Obama will meet the families of those who died when the World Trade Center collapsed and those who tried to save

We at BagNews are profoundly disappointed in the Administration’s decision to censor the photo of bin Laden’s body, just as we were disappointed when the Obama Administrationcensored the extended set of Abu Ghraib images it has in its possession. We believe simply and unequivocally that the core of a healthy democracy involves not just speaking the truth and hearing the truth, but also seeing the truth — as contentious and tenuous as that might be. Moreover, we feel the action by the Administration only reinforces a false assumption, taken for granted by the President and leaders in both parties, that the snuffing out of a critical photo is somehow a zero-sum game.
What is particularly sad is the superficial explanation the Administration so cursorily provided. As related by Obama and his Press Secretary, the photo was withheld because its release would equate to “a football spike” or the brandishing of a

Cue the music; the gauzy, soft-focus ads; and the focus-grouped fridge magnets: Coca-Cola turns 125 this week.
Coke has something of a 10-Year Plan, first floated in a chilly manifesto called “2020 Vision and Roadmap for Winning Together” — a doubling of Coca-Cola’s global revenue by 2020, which says, “We are creating new strategies that are winning over a massive new generation of teens to drive growth of Trademark Coca-Cola.”
I think what that means is: “We want to sell more Coke to more kids more often everywhere in the world.” And that would be a public health disaster.
Besides carbonated water, Coca-Cola’s main ingredient is high-fructose corn syrup. While no better or worse than regular sugar, that ingredient promotes weight gain and weight gain’s offspring: obesity, diabetes, and heart

It is telling that perhaps the most strident critic of a decision last week by some top Democrats to amass secret donations is a campaign finance crusader who is now out of power. Former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold refused secret campaign cash from “non-profit” outside groups this past fall. And last week, he told HuffPost that Democratic operatives who’ve now decided to follow the GOP’s lead by forming their own independent fundraising groups were “playing with the devil.”
Feingold’s outrage sounds like a shout from a bygone

Still long for the days of Jane Fonda, leg warmers and coordinating leotards/scrunchies? Look no further — these 10 workouts from the 1980s will have you wanting to blast “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” (on your modern-day iPod).
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Step classes are the dinosaurs of the aerobics world for one reason: the knee joint. Repetitive flexion with impact is killer on this hinge joint. The knee is not a ball joint like the ankle, shoulder and hip, so it takes a lot of abuse. We all used to do pivots, reverses — God, I loved these! — and this added

Recently the Obama administration announced that it is taking action to address the growing problem of prescription drug abuse. Of course this is good news, and more must be done to raise awareness of this issue and crack down on those who abuse the system. It reminded me of another problem related to prescription drug use: the inappropriate use of psychotropic drugs for children in foster care.
A recent study by the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute found that over that past decade the use of psychotropic medications — those used for the treatment of behavioral and mental health issues — for children between the ages of 2 and 21 has risen

When the heating pad is not enough and you’re fed up with swallowing the naproxen, aspirin or ibuprofen, and you can’t handle their side effects, you just might be ready for natural PMS herbal alternatives. Here is a different approach to menstrual cramps and PMS. Traditional Chinese Medicine hasn’t been the accepted answer. We’ve always been “plugged-into” the Western

Day Thirty One: Vdara ($109)
The last thing the world needs is another person writing about how terrible Criss Angel’s Believe show at the Luxor is. Instead, then, I’ve decided to do today’s diary entry as a video. In which I talk about how terrible Criss Angle’s Believe show at the Luxor is.
If you’re looking for a snappy rant, this isn’t for

The first time he was given a tour of the Chauvet Caves in the south of France, filmmaker Werner Herzog knew he wanted to make a documentary about them – and it would have to be in 3D.
“There was a moment when it became clear to me that it had to be in 3D,” Herzog says, sitting in the SoHo office of the publicist for his film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, currently in limited release. “I’d heard so much about the cave paintings, but I thought they would be on flat walls. But there was no element of flatness. They were on these bulbous pendants of rock and in concave

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to pay an official visit the US following their first overseas tour to Canada this summer.

Prince William and his new wife will extend the trip with a three-day visit to California from 8-10 July, said their spokesman.

Announcing the visit on its Twitter page, Clarence House said a full itinerary would be published later.

It will be the first official visit to the US for the

Europe and the US could be building a spaceship together later this decade.

It is one of the ideas being considered as Europe ponders the next evolution of its ATV orbital freighter.

The sophisticated robotic vessel is used to transport up to 7.5 tonnes of supplies to the space station, but only three more units are in production.

Europe is now looking to develop a derivative of the ship and a joint venture with the Americans on a future vessel is being discussed.

The European Space Agency's Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain, said the new concept must leverage the capabilities of the existing vehicle, such as its automatic rendezvous and docking technology, but that its precise role was up for debate.

He wants the broad concept laid out by the autumn so that he can present it to Esa member states for consideration.

"We shall work with the US space agency in a way that I can present in October a proposal on a new vehicle that in my view should be derived from the ATV, but which for the first time will be embedded into a common vision between Nasa and Esa," he told BBC

One of the reasons I wanted to return to journalism after a long career as an insurance company PR man was to keep an eye on the implementation of the new health reform law. Many journalists who covered the reform debate have moved on, and some consider the writing of regulations to implement the legislation boring and of little interest to the public.
But insurance company lobbyists know the media are not paying much attention. And so they are able to influence what the regulations actually look like–and how the law will be enforced–with little scrutiny, much less awareness.
At a January meeting of several hundred patient and consumer advocates in Washington, a top aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius all but pleaded with those in the audience to bombard the Obama Administration with messages insisting that the law be implemented as Congress intended. Rest assured, he told them, that the insurance industry’s lobbyists were relentless in their demands that the regulations be written to give them the maximum

This week marks the 50th anniversary of America's first manned mission to space. On 5 May 1961, a Mercury-Redstone rocket shot Alan Shepard to an altitude of 187km on a sub-orbital flight lasting under 16 minutes.

The US mission came just a few weeks after Yuri Gagarin had become the first human to fly in space – a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union.

Neal Thompson is the author of Light This Candle, a biography of the first American in space. He told BBC reporter Paul Rincon why he thinks Shepard, and his 1961 achievement, have been overlooked.
President Kennedy (L) with Shepard (R) on his return to Earth. Being second into space was a source of "lingering frustration" for Shepard
PR: Despite being America's first man in space, Alan Shepard's flight is perhaps less celebrated than other US space milestones such as John Glenn's first orbital flight. Why do you think that is?

NT: A couple of reasons: Yuri Gagarin flew first – I think that's the biggest one. I think Shepard was very frustrated by that too. Nasa had been hoping to launch his flight as early as late 1960.
THE FIRST AMERICAN IN SPACE

• Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr was born in 1923 in Derry, New Hampshire
• In 1950, he entered the Naval Test Pilot School in Maryland
• Was one of Nasa's original intake of astronauts – known as the Mercury 7
• Selected for the first American manned space mission – Freedom 7 – in 1961
• Freedom 7 flew about three weeks after the Soviet Union sent Yuri Gagarin into space
• Described by some colleagues as pushy or intimidating, but also enjoyed practical jokes
• The character of Alan Tracy in the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds is named after him
• Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour and appointed as a UN delegate
• Commanded the Apollo 14 mission; the fifth man to walk on the Moon and the first to play golf on it
• Golf stunt used by politicians hostile to the space programme as an example of financial wastage
• Died in 1998 of leukaemia

• Too old to fly to the Moon?

But they kept postponing it – and for good reason. The Redstone rockets weren't the most reliable rockets – they had a bad habit of blowing up. So they kept delaying the scheduled flight over and over and Shepard felt that opened the window for the Russians to get there first.

Technologically, Shepard felt [the US was] ahead of the Russians and felt that we could have gone sooner. In addition to the Russians going first, they also orbited the Earth first. Shepard's flight was a great accomplishment, it was huge achievement for him to have been selected to go first [for the US], and then to have pulled off the flight almost flawlessly was very satisfying to him.

But the fact that it was a sub-orbital flight compared to Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight, combined then with John Glenn's flight the following year which had made multiple orbits of Earth – those are some of the reasons that Shepard got overlooked.

People probably remember him more for his golf shot on the Moon than being the first American in space. At the time, when the first seven US astronauts were competing for that flight, everyone wanted to be on the first one, thinking that would be the most historically relevant.

John Glenn was very frustrated that Shepard was chosen first. It's interesting that Glenn got the bigger prize by achieving the first orbital flight.

PR: Why do you think Shepard was selected for that flight? Do you think Nasa knew the first flight was likely to be overlooked, or did they feel Shepard's qualities best embodied the way they wanted to portray themselves as an agency?

NT: I think the latter is a real good description of what was at play with their