News & Updates

India and Pakistan traded heavy mortar and gun fire along the international border with Pakistani troops targeting 60 outposts and 90 villagers overnight in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts, leaving eight persons, including three BSF jawans, injured. Pakistan Rangers shelled almost the entire 192-km border during the night. Nearly 30,000 people have been displaced following one of the worst violations of the 2003 ceasefire by Pakistan which has left eight people dead and 80 others, including nine security men, injured since October 1. "Pakistani Rangers continued with unprovoked mortar shelling and heavy automatic weapon firing on BSF posts all along International Border (IB) since 2045 hours last night", a BSF spokesman said today. "Almost the whole stretch of International Border in Samba, Hiranagar, Ramgarh, Arnia, R S Pura, Kanachak and Pargwal (Sub-sectors) was affected in the firing," he said. "About 60 BSF border outposts were affected b...

While I was finishing   my morning post on brincidofovir’s preliminary efficacy   in  immune  compromised patients with  adenoidal  infections, the announcement came that Thomas Eric Duncan had succumbed to Ebola Virus Disease in Dallas earlier this morning. I’ve been asked for some feedback because Mr. Duncan was reported to have received the Chimerix antiviral drug on Saturday afternoon. Adam Feuerstein at TheStreet just   expressed his disgust at the response of stock traders   within minutes of the announcement of Mr. Duncan’s death, by driving the stock price of Chimerix down 9% and that of rival Tekmira up 4.7%. Adam closes his post with the single word, “Gross.” One of his  commentators , however, wrote, “The market is reacting to news that brincidofovir failed in its first high profile test against Ebola, not cheering the death of an individual treated with it. Suggesting otherwise indicates the authors mora...

It seems pretty safe to say that  Kathy Bates  probably never expected to play a bearded lady, let alone one with a broad Canadian accent. Or that  Sarah Paulson  aspired to play a woman with two heads – the one on the right puritanically grim and skeptical, the one on the left a bit dippy and worshipful of movie stars.  But anything goes on  American Horror Story , starting its fourth season,  Freak Show .  Everything  goes.  This new incarnation of the series stars  Jessica Lange , the anchor of every season so far, as Elsa Mars, a failed German actress who runs a barely surviving traveling sideshow in the early 1950s.  She and her entourage of human curiosities, including a young man with lobster-claw hands and a  woman no taller than a shoe box , have pitched their few tents outside Jupiter, Florida.  Drumming up business is a challenge. The local authorities aren't encouraging, and the townspeople...

With the Cardiff Kook, the local nickname for a bronze statue of a surfer, officially named "The Magic Carpet Ride", in the foreground, a full lunar eclipse of the moon could be seen in the western sky above Cardiff-by-the-Sea early Wednesday morning.  Hayne Palmour IV Many San Diegans were up early (or late, in some cases) to watch the night sky and see a total lunar eclipse that turned the moon blood red. Yes, they took photos. Yes, they were beautiful. Also lovely? This time-lapse video of the eclipse by San Diego photojournalist Greg Torkelson. It's mesmerizing and almost seems three-dimensional. BLOOD MOON TIMELAPSE The moon started to move into Earth’s shadow at  1:17 a.m.  The full eclipse began at 3:27 a.m. and lasted until 4:22 a.m. The eclipse ended at 6:32 a.m. It was the second time this year San Diego and night-sky watchers elsewhere were treated to a total lunar eclipse. Read More :

After what is about the biggest in-season break a team can have — 15 days — the Seattle Seahawks finally get back at it tonight with a 5:30 p.m. game at Washington. It’s the beginning of 13 games in 13 weeks, with three of the next four on the road — trips to St. Louis and Carolina follow a home game against Dallas next Sunday. For now, some links to get your gameday started. … 1.  Here’s my preview story noting that the game marks a return to a key step in this team’s development into a Super Bowl winner. 2.  Times columnist Larry Stone writes that the Seahawks thrive in prime time. 3.  One man’s rebuttal that the 12th Man lives in Seattle and not Texas. 4.  Seahawks.com offers five matchups to watch. 5.  Fifteen things to know about tonight’s game from CBSSports.com. 6.  The Seahawks remain favored by seven. The Sporting Newspoints out Washington often flops hosting on Mon...

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds attend The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating on Monday, May 5in New York. The couple are expecting their first child. Blake Lively’s secret is out! The 27-year-old former “Gossip Girl” actress took to her lifestyle website Preserve Monday to reveal she and actor husband Ryan Reynolds are expecting a baby. The pregnant starlet shared her first bump photo on the site in a post her team fittingly wrote about celebrating family. “Preserve at its core is about family. ‘Family’ is the single word our founder, Blake built this home on,” the entry read. “We have something for men, for women, for the old, but we realized, we don’t have anything for the new. With family on our mind, we looked to the origin of it all-to the women in our lives who are right there, at that special moment; at the creation of family.” “Today we celebrate them. With food to fill their tummies (as if that needs more fillin...

NEW YORK, N.Y. – The most congested pedestrian area by the World Trade Center has been expanded. World Trade Center construction chief Steven Plate on Monday cut the yellow tape that stretched the public space on Vesey Street in lower Manhattan to more than 10,000 square feet. The walkway flanks the north end of the 16-acre site along 1 World Trade Center, the nation’s tallest building. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns the site. Spokeswoman Erica Dumas (doo-MAH’) says up to 1,600 people an hour use the block between Church and West streets. The area is now 28 feet wide from the 18 feet that at rush hours produced a squeezed human demolition derby. Also Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (KWOH’-moh) said $1.6 billion in funding has been approved to ensure completion of 3 World Trade Center.