17 gunmen dead in Thai military base attack

 





BANGKOK, Thailand: Scores of heavily-armed gunmen stormed a military base in unrest-plagued southern Thailand, an army spokesman said on Wednesday, in a major assault that left at least 17 militants dead.

"Some 100 fully armed militants stormed the base, where there were 60 marines," Colonel Pramote Promin, southern army spokesman, told AFP.

He said the attack, one of the most ambitious in several years of violence in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, had left at least 17 assailants dead. No military casualties were reported.

- AFP/de




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'I have emerged stronger after blast'

PUNE: AmrapaliChavan, who suffered severe burns in the German Bakery blast, says the incident made her mentally and physically strong.

"I have become a strong woman now. It taught me some bitter lessons as well as some rewarding ones. The realisation that I am a fighter and have a strong will power dawned upon me after I fought back. I did so because I wanted to live. I have also realised that people whom we rely upon the most may also turn their backs on us when we need them. I harbour no grudges as I have understood the true meaning of life and how invaluable it is," said Amrapali.

Amarapali, 27, is currently giving final touches to her book 'Ek Cup Coffee at German Bakery' in which she talks about her exper ences. "A few publishers have approached me for publishing the book," she said.

Amrapali says her book will hit the stands within three months.

"It is the story of a city as well as a woman whose life changed drastically after the blast. It is a story that depicts how a woman had to struggle to tide over the fear that took hold of her after the blast - the fear to come out of a shell, the fear to tread roads she would otherwise walk on so confidently, the fear to come to terms with one's own self, the fear of becoming a liability, the fear of not getting societal acceptance... It is a story of how the woman faced and eventually overcame all these manifestations of fears," said Amrapali.

There is still a long way to go but I am ready to take life as it comes, said the confident woman.

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IBM puts supercomputer to work on cancer






WASHINGTON: IBM is putting its Watson supercomputer to work fighting cancer, in what is described as the first commercial program of its kind to use "big data" to help patients with the disease.

The US computing giant last week unveiled its initiative with health insurer WellPoint and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

The supercomputer, which gained fame by defeating two human champions in the "Jeopardy!" quiz show, has been sifting through some 600,000 pieces of medical evidence, two million pages of text from 42 medical journals and clinical trials in oncology research.

This can speed up the way data is analysed to make the best diagnosis and find the optimal treatment, says Craig Thompson, Sloan-Kettering's president.

"It can take years for the latest developments in oncology to reach all practice settings," Thompson said.

"The combination of transformational technologies found in Watson with our cancer analytics and decision-making process has the potential to revolutionise the accessibility of information for the treatment of cancer in communities across the country and around the world."

IBM first announced plans to work with WellPoint in 2011, and last year began receiving data from the New York research hospital which specialises in cancer.

The first application will work with 1,500 lung cancer cases, where clinicians and analysts are training Watson to extract and interpret physician notes, lab results and clinical research.

The Maine Center for Cancer Medicine and Westmed Medical Group will be two centres testing the service and providing feedback to WellPoint, IBM and Memorial Sloan-Kettering.

"IBM's work with WellPoint and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center represents a landmark collaboration in how technology and evidence based medicine can transform the way in which health care is practiced," said Manoj Saxena at IBM.

"These breakthrough capabilities bring forward the first in a series of Watson-based technologies, which exemplifies the value of applying big data and analytics and cognitive computing to tackle the industry's most pressing challenges."

The program is being commercialised under the name Interactive Care Insights for Oncology, powered by Watson.

Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas Watson, can ingest tens of million pages of data in just seconds.

- AFP/jc



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Punjab cop among 2 held for minor's rape

FARIDKOT: Police on Monday arrested two persons, including a Punjab Police constable, for allegedly abducting and gang raping a minor girl in a Faridkot village.

The accused have been identified as Kulwinder Singh, 25, a constable posted with the Faridkot police, and Kuldeep Singh, 24. Both the accused, who belong to the victim's village, were produced in the local court on Monday which remanded them in police custody of four days.

According to police complaint, the 14-year-old girl was abducted by the duo on Sunday evening and allegedly raped. The complaint was filed by the girl's grandfather after she did not return home till late Sunday evening.

Police have registered a case of abduction on Sunday night and arrested the accused and recovered the girl on Monday morning from near Hariwala village and added the charges of rape after medical examination confirmed the crime.

Sadar police station SHO Pratap Singh said the car used for abducting the minor girl has also been recovered. The car is registered in the name of Kulwinder's father, the SHO added.

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life


The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.


There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.


"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.


Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.


When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."


One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.


The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."


In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."


"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.


Experts on aging agreed.


"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."


Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.


But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.


"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.


"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.


Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.


In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.


Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.


The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.


Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.


Other leaders who are still working:


—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.


—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.


—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.


—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.


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Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.


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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Benedict's Legacy Marred by Sex Abuse Scandal












When Pope Benedict XVI resigns at the end of this month, he leaves behind a Church grappling with a global fallout from sex abuse and a personal legacy marred by allegations that he was instrumental in covering up that abuse.


As the sex abuse scandal spread from North America to Europe, Benedict became the first pope to meet personally with victims, and offered repeated public apologies for the Vatican's decades of inaction against priests who abused their congregants.


"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse," the pope said in a 2008 homily in Washington, D.C., before meeting with victims of abuse for the first time. "It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention." During the same trip to the U.S., he met with victims for the first time.


For some of the victims, however, Benedict's actions were "lip service and a public relations campaign," said Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents victims of sex abuse. For 25 years, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican office responsible for investigating claims of sex abuse, but he did not act until he received an explicit order from Pope John Paul II.


In 1980, as Archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger approved plans for a priest to move to a different German parish and return to pastoral work only days after the priest began therapy for pedophilia. The priest was later convicted of sexually abusing boys.






Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images







PHOTOS: Church Sex Scandals


In 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger became head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office once known as the Inquisition -- making him responsible for upholding church doctrine, and for investigating claims of sexual abuse against clergy. Thousands of letters detailing allegations of abuse were forwarded to Ratzinger's office.


A lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a victims' rights group, charges that as head of the church body Ratzinger participated in a cover-up of abuse. In an 84-page complaint, the suit alleges that investigators of sex abuse cases in several countries found "intentional cover-ups and affirmative steps taken that serve to perpetuate the violence and exacerbate the harm."


"Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, either knew and/or some cases consciously disregarded information that showed subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes," the complaint says.


Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the U.S., told the AP the complaint was a "ludicrous publicity stunt and a misuse of international judicial processes."


In the 1990s, former members of the Legion of Christ sent a letter to Ratzinger alleging that the founder and head of the Catholic order, Father Marcial Maciel, had molested them while they were teen seminarians. Maciel was allowed to continue as head of the order.


In 1996, Ratzinger didn't respond to letters from Milwaukee's archbishop about a priest accused of abusing students at a Wisconsin school for the deaf. An assistant to Ratzinger began a secret trial of the priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, but halted the process after Murphy wrote a personal appeal to Ratzinger complaining of ill health.


In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a letter urging the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to pursue allegations of child abuse in response to calls from bishops around the world.






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Gunbattle rocks Gao after rebels surprise French, Malians


GAO, Mali (Reuters) - Islamist insurgents launched a surprise raid in the heart of the Malian town of Gao on Sunday, battling French and local troops in a blow to efforts to secure Mali's recaptured north.


Local residents hid in their homes or crouched behind walls as the crackle of gunfire from running street battles resounded through the sandy streets and mud-brick houses of the ancient Niger River town, retaken from Islamist rebels last month by a French-led offensive.


French helicopters clattered overhead and fired on al Qaeda-allied rebels armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades who had infiltrated the central market area and holed up in a police station, Malian and French officers said.


The fighting inside Gao was certain to raise fears that pockets of determined Islamists who have escaped the lightning four-week-old French intervention in Mali will strike back with guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings.


After driving the bulk of the insurgents from major northern towns such as Timbuktu and Gao, French forces are trying to search out their bases in the remote and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, far up in the northeast.


But with Mali's weak army unable to secure recaptured zones, and the deployment of a larger African security force slowed by delays and kit shortages, vast areas to the rear of the French forward lines now look vulnerable to guerrilla activity.


"They infiltrated the town via the river. We think there were about 10 of them. They were identified by the population and they went into the police station," said General Bernard Barrera, commander of French ground operations in Mali.


He told reporters in Gao that French helicopters had intervened to help Malian troops pinned down by the rebels, who threw grenades from rooftops.


Malian gendarme Colonel Saliou Maiga told Reuters the insurgents intended to carry out suicide attacks in the town.


SUICIDE BOMBERS


No casualty toll was immediately available. But a Reuters reporter in Gao saw one body crumpled over a motorcycle. Malian soldiers said some of the raiders may have come on motorbikes.


The gunfire in Gao erupted hours after French and Malian forces reinforced a checkpoint on the northern outskirts that had been attacked for the second time in two days by a suicide bomber.


Abdoul Abdoulaye Sidibe, a Malian parliamentarian from Gao, said the rebel infiltrators were from the MUJWA group that had held the town until French forces liberated it late last month.


MUJWA is a splinter faction of al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM which, in loose alliance with the home-grown Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, held Mali's main northern urban areas for 10 months until the French offensive drove them out.


Late on Saturday, an army checkpoint in Gao's northern outskirts came under attack by a group of Islamist rebels who fired from a road and bridge that lead north through the desert scrub by the Niger River to Bourem, 80 km (50 miles) away.


"Our soldiers came under heavy gunfire from jihadists from the bridge ... At the same time, another one flanked round and jumped over the wall. He was able to set off his suicide belt," Malian Captain Sidiki Diarra told reporters.


The bomber died and one Malian soldier was lightly wounded, he added. In Friday's motorbike suicide bomber attack, a Malian soldier was also injured.


Diarra described Saturday's bomber as a bearded Arab.


Since Gao and the UNESCO World Heritage city of Timbuktu were retaken last month, several Malian soldiers have been killed in landmine explosions on a main road leading north.


French and Malian officers say pockets of rebels are still in the bush and desert between major towns and pose a threat of hit-and-run guerrilla raids and bombings.


"We are in a dangerous zone... we can't be everywhere," a French officer told reporters, asking not to be named.


One local resident reported seeing a group of 10 armed Islamist fighters at Batel, just 10 km (6 miles) from Gao.


OPERATIONS IN NORTHEAST


The French, who have around 4,000 troops in Mali, are now focusing their offensive operations several hundred kilometers (miles) north of Gao in a hunt for the Islamist insurgents.


On Friday, French special forces paratroopers seized the airstrip and town of Tessalit, near the Algerian border.


From here, the French, aided by around 1,000 Chadian troops in the northeast Kidal region, are expected to conduct combat patrols into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.


The remaining Islamists are believed to have hideouts and supply depots in a rugged, sun-blasted range of rocky gullies and caves, and are also thought to be holding at least seven French hostages previously seized in the Sahel.


The U.S. and European governments back the French-led operation as a defense against Islamist jihadists threatening wider attacks, but rule out sending their own combat troops.


To accompany the military offensive, France and its allies are urging Mali authorities to open a national reconciliation dialogue that addresses the pro-autonomy grievances of northern communities like the Tuaregs, and to hold democratic elections.


Interim President Dioncounda Traore, appointed after a military coup last year that plunged the West African state into chaos and led to the Islamist occupation of the north, has said he intends to hold elections by July 31.


But he faces splits within the divided Malian army, where rival units are still at loggerheads.


(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako; Writing by Joe Bavier and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Basketball: Balanced attack propels Clippers past Knicks






NEW YORK: The Los Angeles Clippers defeated the New York Knicks 102-88 with the help of a strong bench attack and Chris Paul's 25 points, seven assists and a half dozen rebounds.

Jamal Crawford had a team high 27 points and Blake Griffin finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds for the Clippers, who won despite 42 points from New York forward Carmelo Anthony at Madison Square Garden.

Los Angeles won for the second time in three National Basketball Association games as their reserves easily outscored New York's bench 48-15.

Anthony also had eight rebounds and Raymond Felton was the only other member of the Knicks to score in double figures, finishing with 20 points. The Knicks have lost two of their last three games.

The Clippers held a 71-70 edge heading into the fourth quarter.

Crawford and Eric Bledsoe combined for 13 points during a 19-5 run in the fourth to put the Clippers ahead 90-78 with five minutes to play.

The Knicks rebounded with an 8-2 push to get back within 92-86 but Los Angeles scored the next seven points to regain a 13-point lead with 1:11 left and cruised to the win.

It was Paul's second game back after missing nine straight with a bruised right kneecap.

The Pacific Division-leading Clippers are now 16-12 on the road and will close out their current road swing on Monday at Philadelphia.

- AFP/jc



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CRPF’s braveheart men and women foiled terrorists’ designs

NEW DELHI: Not many of them fell to fidayeen bullets but they were bravehearts no less. The men and women of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), who were guarding various gates of Parliament on the fateful day of December 13, 2001, were the reason why the five rampaging militants' designs were thwarted.

They killed with clinical precision all the terrorists one by one before the jihadis could enter Parliament to kill and take hostage members of India's political elite.

The suspicious movement of the beacon-fitted white Ambassador that the terrorists traveled in was first spotted by CRPF's woman constable Kamlesh Kumari and Watch and Ward staff J P Yadav when it entered from the main gate on Parliament Street side and started speeding. Both Yadav and Kumari ran from gate No.11 to stop it, only to fall to the bullets of the terrorists. Kumari was awarded Ashok Chakra by the President for her valiant effort.

After abandoning the car at gate No.11, the terrorists ran towards gate No.1 where head constable Y B Thapa and constable Sukhvinder Singh, taking guard behind a pillar and a wall, fired at one of the terrorists, a suicide bomber, who blew himself up.

"I can never forget that day. I had come to Delhi from Assam only two months ago and was still getting a hang of Parliament security," Thapa said. He was posted at gate No.1 as guard commander with Sukhvinder assisting him. The duo mistook the first grenade blast for cracker fire but soon saw five men running, spraying bullets.

"I ran and took position behind a pillar while Sukhvinder took guard behind a wall near gate No.3. We both started firing at one of the terrorists running towards gate No.1. Soon there was an explosion and I saw the terrorist had died. When I tried to move, I just couldn't. I looked and there was blood all over. I had been hit," said Thapa who then limped to the CRPF tent even as bullets kept flying behind him.

Thapa took one bullet in his thigh while other was lodged in his knee and has remained there ever since. "It could not be taken out as it was lodged in my bone. It keeps reminding of that day," Thapa said. His subordinate Sukhvinder too sustained bullet injury in the abdomen but survived.

However, the most effective of all was D Santosh Kumar, then a young sepoy with CRPF, who positioned himself strategically and shot dead three terrorists at gate No.9. "I was at gate No.6. As soon as I heard the burst of fire, I knew it was an attack. I took position behind a tree and soon saw three terrorists running towards gate No.9. They wanted to enter Parliament but as they were being fired at from the other side, they were forced to take position near the gate," recalled Kumar.

This worked in Kumar's favour as the AK 47-toting terrorists were in his direct line of fire. "I took aim with my SLR and one by one shot all three of them," said Kumar who did not sustain any injury. A proud Kumar is still guarding the edifices of democracy with his current posting being at Vidhan Bhawan in Delhi.

The fifth terrorist who had run towards gate No.5 was shot dead by CRPF constable Shyambir Singh. Amidst all this chaos was "ready-to-retire" inspector Mohan Prasad who commanded the men through deft strategy. "He was an old man on the verge of retirement. But he had great energy. He guided us throughout the attack, running from one gate to another shouting, 'Idhar se gher, udhar mar'," reminisced Kumar.

All four CRPF men who shot dead terrorists were awarded Shaurya Chakra with an out-of-turn promotion. Kumar, however, said while the central government rewarded him, state government in UP, from where he belongs, did not consider his effort worthy of any reward. "Other people were rewarded by their respective state governments. I feel sad, but it's ok," said Kumar.

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over


NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.


The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.


The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.


"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.


But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.


For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.


Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.


"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.


In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.


Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications


But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.


So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.


Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.


The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says


On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.


According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.


Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.


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Online:


CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/


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