AIDS, malaria eclipse the biggest child-killers
Nov/09BC
Source: Yahoo!
Yahoo! - HANOI, Vietnam – Diarrhea doesn’t make headlines. Nor does pneumonia. AIDS and malaria tend to get most of the attention.
Yet even though cheap tools could prevent and cure both diseases, they kill an estimated 3.5 million kids under 5 each a year globally — more than HIV and malaria combined.
“They have been neglected, because donor or partnership mechanisms shifted their emphasis to HIV and AIDS and other issues,” said Dr. Tesfaye Shiferaw, a UNICEF official in Africa. “These age-old traditional killers remain with us. The ones dying are the children of the poor.”
Global spending on maternal, newborn and child health was about $3.5 billion in 2006, according to a report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That same year, nearly $9 billion was devoted to HIV and AIDS, according to UNAIDS.
Pneumonia is the biggest killer of children under 5, claiming more then 2 million lives annually or about 20 percent of all child deaths. AIDS, in contrast, accounts for about 2 percent.
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‘Christmas Carol’ leads North American box office
Nov/09BC
Source: Yahoo!
Yahoo! - LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If it’s the second weekend in November, it must be Christmas in Hollywood.
Walt Disney Co’s high-tech adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” topped the North American box office on Sunday with lower-than-expected ticket sales of $31 million.
For moviegoers in the mood for darker material, “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” opened at No. 13 after earning a hefty $1.8 million in just four cities. Lionsgate’s acclaimed tale of a young, black, overweight, illiterate incest survivor will expand nationally on November 20.
Both movies overshadowed new releases featuring such big names as George Clooney and Cameron Diaz. Clooney’s military comedy “The Men Who Stare At Goats” opened at No. 3 with a solid $13.3 million. “The Box,” a thriller starring Diaz, opened at No. 6 with just $7.9 million. Also new was the alien-abduction thriller “The Fourth Kind” at No. 4 with $12.5 million.
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Middle-school WR checks in at 7-4
Nov/09BC
Source: Rivals
Rivals: The Morgan Middle School football team in Ellensburg, Wash., doesn’t need a sheet to know when to go for the two-point conversion. It may have a sure-fire play: Just throw it to Brenden Adams.
Adams, you see, is 7-foot-4.
That’s right; the tallest teen-age boy in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records is playing football this year. In middle school.
“This is the first year my mom’s let me play,” Adams told Melissa Luck, an executive producer for KXLY4 in Spokane. “She thought I was gonna get hurt or something. It’s my favorite sport and she said this is an opportunity she didn’t want me to miss.”
Luck’s story details Adams’ growth and his love of the game.
First, his height.
He was an average newborn, measuring just over 19 inches. But by five months old, he had gained 14 pounds and had all of his teeth. At 2, he was 3-foot-5; by 5 he was 4-for-5. At ll, he was 6-foot-8. He’s now 14.
Adams gave Luck the medical explanation for his growth: “It was my 12th chromosome that broke in half and flipped over and reattached,” he said.
While his height makes strangers wonder if he’s an athlete, the truth is, his height actually holds him back as it comes with serious health problems, including enlarged joints and unusual blood counts. He already has arthritis.
“I can’t run anymore,” Adams said in the story. “I can’t be active like I used to.”
Height, actually, is a detriment in football. While NFL players keep getting bigger, the truth is, it’s usually bigger, not taller.
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