swine flu

Swine Flu Case Confirmed

Eyewitness News has learned of Orlando’s first confirmed case of swine flu. According to the chief medical officer for Adventist Health System, Loran Hauck, the case was diagnosed Tuesday morning.”A case was diagnosed here in Orlando today on a tourist from Mexico who came to Disney attractions two days ago to visit,” Hauck wrote in an email obtained by Eyewitness News.No further details have been released, but Eyewitness News is working to learn specifically what days the tourist was at the parks and which park the tourist went to.Details about the tourist, beyond being from Mexico, have not been released.Eyewitness News contacted the Orange County Health Department who was unable to confirm the report.

you might be rich

“You Might Be Rich” is a Dateline NBC segment where that first aired last August, helping return almost $2 million lost dollars to average Americans. In the new rendition of the segment NBC News reporter Tiki Barber and his team, which includes NBC News’ Peter Alexander, and MSNBC’s Tamron Hall, find unclaimed property that is waiting in the state treasuries to be returned to the rightful owners.

Almost $5 million was returned to over a dozen individuals by Barber and his team. In one particular case a former Pennsylvanian, who moved to Germany, was tracked down by the NBC news team, and given over a half a million dollars from an inheritance he was unaware he ever had. The story gets even better; when Dateline finally tracked him down they discovered he was homeless.

Another man had a million dollars that was waiting to be collected in the Illinois State Treasury, according to dateline.msnbc.com. You Might Be Rich, will air in two, hour specials Sunday, April 26 at 7:00 p.m. ET, and Sunday, May 3 at 7:00 p.m. ET.

The May 3 show will take place live from outside Rockefeller Center, surprising one family that is completely unaware that they are entitled to unclaimed money.

myrtle beach fires

No injuries have been reported in the
wildfire

Updated: Thursday, 23 Apr 2009, 8:25 AM EDT
Published : Thursday, 23 Apr 2009, 7:14 AM EDT

• BRUCE SMITH, Associated Press Writer

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) - A coastal wildfire spread early Thursday toward one of the busiest tourist stretches in South Carolina, burning dozens of homes and forcing hundreds to flee in the middle of the night. No injuries were reported.

Police banged on doors to awaken residents as strong winds pushed the blaze through a wooded swath toward the Barefoot Landing development, a sprawling complex of houses, condominiums and golf courses separated from the main route through Myrtle Beach by the Intracoastal Waterway.

"It was like something out of a movie," said Danielle Prater, 25, of Charlotte, N.C., who woke her aunt and uncle at 1:30 a.m. after seeing flames several feet high racing through a neighbor's back yard. "I ran and got them and we got out of there as fast as we could."

Officials hoped the waterway would act as a natural firebreak to protect more populated areas closer to the beach. State fire officials said as many as 40 homes had been damaged or destroyed. North Myrtle Beach spokeswoman Nicole Aiello said only that 40 homes were damaged and the extent of that would not be known until later in the day.

About 2,500 people in a four-mile stretch on the western side of the waterway were told to leave their homes overnight, Aiello said. Shelters were set up at North Myrtle Beach City Hall and the House of Blues, where about 50 people watched a television over the bar looking for news updates. Outside, a white haze settled and the acrid smell of smoke was pervasive.

"What we have on is what we got away with," said Sherlene Pinnix, 63.

A cause of the fire, which started a day earlier in a wooded area west of the beach, had not been determined. Officials said more than 8,000 acres had been scorched by early Thursday morning, with the flames jumping highways and sending walls of smoke over tourist attractions as 30 mph gusts pushed it toward the ocean. Winds were expected to be weaker Thursday.

Adding to the problem were heavily vegetated patches called Carolina Bays that caught fire and fueled the blaze. Tropical downpours are often needed to extinguish such fires, said state Forestry Commission spokesman Scott Hawkins.

"Once you get a fire in a bay, it's very, very hard to put out," he said.

The area is the anchor of the state's $16 billion tourist industry, drawing college students for its low-cost spring break and families who fill miles of budget beachfront hotels along the coast from Memorial through Labor Day. Tens of thousands of golfers visit each year, and some of the region's courses are among the most highly regarded in the nation.

Just off the coast, subdivisons and golf courses have been carved from forest and swamps over decades and the area remain prone to wildfires that spring up in the woods and scrub. Some 30,000 acres burned in 1976.

On Wednesday, gray-white smoke engulfed the restaurant row between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach. It looked like a winter fog, with car headlights and neon signs peeking through the haze. Several miles west of the tourist strip, 15 people gathered in a church shelter set up when their subdivision was threatened.

At a shelter set up Wednesday when the fire threatened a subdivision, Jo Hillman, 52, joined her husband, Chuck, and 13 other people at a shelter set up at the Tilly Swamp Baptist Church about midway between Conway and North Myrtle Beach.

As a prayer meeting went on inside, Jo Hillman and her husband recalled the tense moments as the fire started spreading.

"First they said 'You've got 15 minutes.' Then they said 'Get out now,'" said Jo Hillman, 52.

___

Associated Press Writers Jeffrey Collins and Jack Jones in Columbia contributed to this report.

Copyright Associated Press, Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

hunter mill estates

“The acting chief financial officer of troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac was found dead in his Fairfax County home early this morning after apparently committing suicide, Fairfax police said.

David Kellermann, 41, was a longtime Freddie Mac executive who joined the firm as an analyst in 1992. Police were called to his stately red brick home in the upscale Hunter Mill Estates subdivision shortly before 5 a.m., police spokesman Eddy Azcarate said….Azcarate said Kellermann’s body was found in the basement…..

Kellermann was named acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac last September, when the federal government seized Freddie Mac and ousted its top executives….

As acting chief financial officer, Kellermann reported directly to the company’s chief executive, according to a biographical profile posted on the company’s Web site. He was responsible for the company’s financial controls, financial reporting, tax, capital oversight, and compliance with federal oversight requirements. He also oversaw the company’s annual budgeting and financial planning processes.

Kellermann previously served as senior vice president, corporate controller and principal accounting officer for Freddie Mac, the profile said.

Of course, merely by reporting the story we’re all jumping to some conclusions about why this happened. It is Kellerman’s link to Freddie Mac that makes this something more than the usual if tragic suicide, most of which go unreported in the media.

It’s also true that for every suicide of a high-profile executive struggling to deal with the consequences of this meltdown, there are probably hundreds of suicides and thousands of divorces also attributable in some fashion to the crisis. Futures are being destroyed, as are decades of past work building careers and retirements.

Such losses far outweigh the losses we might see in our 401-Ks, or the losses on Wall Street. They just can’t be measured as easily.

From The Washington Post:

Freddie Mac Acting CFO Kellermann Found Dead

NEW YORK(Dow Jones)--The acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac (FRE), David Kellermann, was found dead at his home early Wednesday, according to Fairfax County police.

There were "no signs of foul play," said Officer Shelley Broderick of the Fairfax County Police Department. She said police found Kellermann's body after responding to a call made at 4:48 a.m.

Kellermann's wife told local police he committed suicide, Washington, D.C., television station WUSA reported, citing sheriff's deputies in Fairfax County, Va.

Broderick would only say the case is under "active investigation."

Kellermann, who was 41, became acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac in September, replacing Anthony S. Piszel amid a broader overhaul of top management. He had previously been the company's controller and principal accounting officer.

Kellermann's job made him responsible for financial controls and reporting at Freddie Mac, a housing finance company backed by the federal government. He had been with the company for more than 16 years, starting as a financial analyst and auditor in 1992, according to the company's Web site.

Investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department have been questioning officials of Freddie Mac about possible accounting violations and other matters in recent months, the company disclosed in March.

Freddie disclosed in the recent SEC filing that in September it received a federal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York seeking documents related to accounting, disclosure and corporate governance matters. That subpoena was later withdrawn, Freddie has disclosed, and the investigation was taken over by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Freddie said the SEC also is investigating and has told the company to preserve documents. Freddie has said it is "cooperating fully in these matters."

Freddie Mac Interim CEO John Koskinen released a statement expressing condolences to Kellermann's family and praising his work ethic and integrity.

"But he will be most remembered for his affability, his personal warmth, his sense of humor and his quick wit," Koskinen said.

Freddie Mac, along with its sibling Fannie Mae, were taken over by the government in September in what would become a string of state interventions in financial services firms. The housing finance giants have been hobbled by falling home prices and the subsequent deterioration in their investment portfolios. Freddie has received $30.8 billion in support from the government while Fannie has taken $15.2 billion.

Freddie Mac's shares were recently down about 4%.

 -By Anusha Shrivastava and James R. Hagerty, Dow Jones

Best Web browser ? - Google Chrome Review

Best Web browser ? - Google Chrome Review

My first impression of Google Chrome was not so good.The first time when I downloaded and started using it, felt very uncomfortable without the Google Toolbar. I got so used to using Google toolbar and my first thought was this browser is not for me at least for time being. So after a few hours I was back to Firefox and IE 7.

Few days went on and heard somewhere Chrome works better with google’s products like GMail and Youtube. So again I went back to Chrome and started using with Gmail and to my surprise, Gmail was very fast in Chrome and I decided to try it for a few more days.The other main factor which was refreshingly good was how fast the browser itself opens and in this Google Chrome seemed to beat Firefox and IE by a quite a margin. But this could be because the current version

of Chrome doesnt allow support addons or extensions and does not have a separate toolbar like Firefox or IE. Maybe this might or might not change in future versions.

Now coming back to Missing toolbar issue, after a few hours with Chrome, I started using the address bar of Chrome to search, jus like the way we type site addresses. Type any word and enter and your search results are there for you. Still Im missing the suggest(and Autofill) feature which is present in google toolbar, which will bring related
keywords and help you in searching.

One more notable feature is the ‘ Browsing history view ‘ when you open Chrome, It brings up to nine most visited website thumbnails, and most of the time I use these thumbnails to navigate these websites. This is definitely a very useful addition. The incognito tab option, which is basically private browsing which would allow any tracking files(cookies) to be stored in your computer or wouldnt leave any browsing history / Search history in your computer. Chrome also maintains browsing history in a calendar fashion with thumbnails and allows to search the browsing history. The browsing history can be deleted by day or completely.

Though Chrome doesnt have many new features now it has replaced Firefox in my laptop as the primary browser, I still use IE for what I used it for even before I got Google chrome. Nowadays I mostly dont use Firefox, this could be because firefox isnt faster or lighter anyomore and Chrome offers what I need. I believe Chrome will definitely eat into Firefox’s market.

On the negative side FTP downloads doesnt work in Chrome and even some other sites which use Flash also work differently in Chrome. Hopefully this will change with the newer versions of Chrome, afterall Chrome is a newbie in Browser market. If you go sheer speed of Browsing and JavaScript rendering Google Chrome seems to be the best browser in market.

Review By: Dexternights.com

2009 New York Auto Show

The 2009 New York Auto Show press days start tomorrow and we’re all here in NYC, ready to bring you live coverage from the show floor tomorrow morning.

Coverage will kick of later tonight with the 2010 Nissan 370Z Roadster and the new 2009 Nissan Nismo 370Z. We’ll bring you all the details and live images from the event later tonight after 7:00 p.m. (EDT).

To stay up-to-date with all the auto show news, just follow the 2009 New York Auto Show tag or follow us on Twitter. Of course you can simply just come to eGMCarTech.com every couple of minutes for the next couple of days.

- By: Omar Rana