Spiegel Online reports here: Black fever kills about 60,000 people a year, most of them poor. There is a cure, but the global pharmaceutical industry wasn’t interested in producing the drug, at least not until an American woman began her crusade.
The Associated Press reports here at the Washington Post website: Here’s another reason for men to avoid packing on extra pounds over the holidays: A new study has found that losing weight reduces the risk of an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
AP reports here at Yahoo News: MySpace, which News Corp. bought last year for some $580 million, has recognized the threat and is stepping up security efforts, said Hemanshu Nigam, its chief security officer.
AP reports here at Yahoo News: A powerful quake struck off southwestern Taiwan on Tuesday, triggering a potentially destructive tsunami that was headed toward the Philippines on the second anniversary of the deadly waves that killed thousands in south Asia.
The Washington Post reports here: Ten sessions of exercises to boost reasoning skills, memory and mental processing speed staved off mental decline in middle-aged and elderly people in the first definitive study to show that honing intellectual skills can bolster the mind in the same way that physical exercise protects and strengthens the body.
The Associated Press reports here at the Washington Post website: First lady Laura Bush says she first thought a sore on her right shin that turned out to be skin cancer was an insect bite.
AFP reports here at Yahoo News: Numbers of rockhopper penguins have plummeted in recent years, possibly due to climate change, a bird charity said in a warning over the creatures made into stars by the recent blockbuster "Happy Feet."
$5 Billion Award Ruled Excessive, The Associated Press reports here at the Washington Post website: A federal appeals court on Friday cut in half a $5 billion jury award for punitive damages against Exxon Mobil in the 1989 oil spill that smeared black goo across 1,500 miles of Alaskan coastline.
Spiegel Online reports here: Imported pythons are multiplying in Florida and eating their way through the state’s unique fauna. The main problem is pet owners who release their Asian jungle snakes into the wild. But biologists have a high-tech ploy to keep the plague in check.