Woman continues treasure hunt after finding note

The Associated Press

QUINCY, Ill. — A western Illinois postal worker’s hunt for supposedly buried treasure continues in Springfield. Patty Henken launched the search recently when she was refinishing an antique chair and found a key in an envelope with a note promising $250 in U.S. gold coins buried in a chest in Springfield.

On the envelope were the typewritten words “Finders Keepers.” The typewritten note detailed a Springfield location where the gold coins were supposedly buried.

Henken was given permission to dig on the lot after agreeing with the property owner that anything found would be split between them.

Searches over the weekend with a backhoe didn’t turn up anything, but Henken isn’t giving up the chase.

newsobserver

LOS ANGELES – Software giant Microsoft Corp. is apologizing for altering a photo on its Web site to change the race of one of the people shown in the picture.

A photo on the Seattle-based company’s U.S. Web site shows two men, one Asian and one black, and a white woman seated at a conference room table. But on the Web site of Microsoft’s Polish business unit, the black man’s head has been replaced with that of a white man. The color of his hand remains unchanged.

The photo editing sparked criticism online. Some bloggers said Poland’s ethnic homogeneity may have played a role in changing the photo.

“We are looking into the details of this situation,” Microsoft spokesperson Lou Gellos said in a statement Tuesday. “We apologize and are in the process of pulling down the image.”

news.yahoo.com

Sock It To Me! Ariz. Man Finds 12 Pairs Of Socks Snatched From Clothesline In Back Yard

(AP)  Someone must have really needed some socks.

A southern Arizona man is out a dozen pairs of socks after someone sneaked into his back yard early Monday and stole socks off a clothesline.

He told the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office that at some point between late Sunday and early Monday, someone entered his fenced-in back yard and made off with 12 pairs of white athletic socks that were hanging on a clothesline. A motion sensor light was also damaged.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Carol Capas said the lost and damaged property totaled about $50.

cbsnews.com

Swine flu inspires new video game
By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
Monday, August 17, 2009

(08-17) 09:24 PDT LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) –
Since swine flu first emerged in April, it has sparked panic, vaccine production and now, a video game.

In an effort to raise awareness, Dutch researchers have created a game that challenges players to control a new pandemic.

“It is actually what is happening now, what is happening in the real world,” said Albert Osterhaus, head of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center, who designed “The Great Flu” game with colleagues.
The game can only be played online at thegreatflu.com and it is free. A World Health Organization spokesman said Monday the agency was not familiar with the game and had not had time to play it.
WHO has reported nearly 178,000 cases of swine flu including 1,462 deaths worldwide, though those numbers are believed to be a gross underestimate of the actual caseload, since hard-hit countries no longer test all cases with flu-like symptoms.

As the virus has spread worldwide, countries have tried different methods to slow it down and pharmaceutical companies are now racing to produce a swine flu vaccine.

The game begins with images of bedridden patients and graveyards from the 1918 Spanish flu. As the head of the fictitious “World Pandemic Control,” players pick a flu strain, and then monitor that strain’s spread around the world.
To fight the emerging outbreak, players use measures including setting up surveillance systems, stockpiling antivirals and vaccines, and closing schools and airports. Players also have a limited budget and are warned that “your actions to control the virus cost money, so keep an eye on it.”

A running tally of the numbers of people infected and those who have died sit above the budget. Newspaper stories about the deadly virus and the global response to it — like riots breaking out worldwide — pop up to help players monitor the outbreak.

Messages from governments mirror the difficulties faced by international agencies like WHO. For instance, when players set up costly surveillance systems, the game often relays a message from governments that “we will comply with your directions…but we must inform you that the political support for this action is low in this region. Therefore, the effectiveness of the system may differ from your expectations.”

Osterhaus said the video game’s approximation of combating a pandemic, choosing between various interventions yet still watching the outbreak spread, gives people a sense of how difficult it is to make decisions in the public health world.
___
On the Net:
www.thegreatflu.com
www.who.int
Read more: sfgate.com

Italian hotel mistakenly offers 1-cent weekend

ROME — You had to be quick, but what a deal.
A four-star hotel near Venice mistakenly offered the ultimate low-cost vacation – a romantic weekend in the Italian lagoon city for 1 euro cent.

Not surprisingly, the Crowne Plaza in Quarto D’Altino, 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) from Venice, received bookings for the equivalent of 1,400 room nights on the night the rate was posted on its Web site, the hotel chain acknowledged. And it seems those bookings may be valid.

The hotel first thought the offer was posted by a hacker, sales manager Fulvio Danesin said Friday. But it turned out to be human error at the Atlanta, Georgia, offices of Intercontinental Hotels Group, the hotel’s mother company, he said.

The offer was supposed to be for a two-night stay at half price. A night at the 151-room hotel normally costs between euro90 ($128) and euro150 ($214).

The 1-cent rate was up only Sunday night, but that was long enough for travelers to book dates running from October through 2010, Danesin said. The hotel stands to lose euro90,000 ($129,000), he said.

Monica Smith, media relations manager for the hotel group in the U.S. , said Friday that some 228 guests made reservations for the equivalent of 1,400 room nights while the error was on the Web site and that the reservations would be honored.

“Although a pricing error, IHG is committed to honoring the 1-cent rate for guests who have a valid confirmation,” Smith said. She added that rooms booked at the low rate “are nontransferable.’

newsobserver.com

Man spotted riding bicycle with gator on shoulders

BOUTTE, La. – The 3-foot-long alligator on a bicyclist’s shoulders was a real attention-getter. St. Charles Parish sheriff’s deputies stopped the cyclist. He allegedly ran, leaving both wheels and his toothy little rider. Capt. Pat Yoes, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said deputies booked 38-year-old Terron D. Ingram on Friday with resisting arrest, possessing drug paraphernalia, and cruelty to animals by abandonment.
Alligator Control Officer Kenny Schmill said he released the gator into the marsh near Bayou Gauche.
Ingram remained jailed in lieu of $15,000 bond Wednesday, five days after his arrest.
Yoes said he didn’t know where Ingram got the gator or what he had planned to do with it.

news.yahoo.com

Tenn. Wal-Mart Worker Bitten On The Arm After Confronting Customer About Shoplifting

(AP)  Police said a Wal-Mart employee was bitten while confronting a customer about shoplifting. Officers said a 44-year-old woman bit the employee on the arm while trying to leave the store’s garden center Tuesday afternoon without paying for items in her purse.

The woman was arrested on charges of theft and assault.

According to the Kingsport Times-News, items recovered from her purse were valued at about $32.

cbsnews.com

FRASER, Mich. (AP) — A game of Monopoly has landed a Michigan man in jail. WDIV-TV reported a 54-year-old man was playing the board game Saturday night with a female friend when he tried to buy Park Place and Boardwalk from her.

When she refused, Fraser police Lt. Dan Kolke told WWJ-AM he hit her in the head, breaking her glasses.

The man was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and battery.
content.usatoday.net

34 hospitalized after co-worker sprays perfume
Investigators don’t know what type was sprayed

FORT WORTH, Texas – At first, fire officials suspected that carbon monoxide or some other toxic fumes had sickened almost 150 people at a Texas bank call center.

It turned out that perfume was to blame.

MedStar ambulance spokeswoman Lara Kohl says 34 people were taken to hospitals, 12 by ambulance, after reporting dizziness and shortness of breath Wednesday at a Bank of America call center in Fort Worth. Medics treated 110 at the scene.

Fort Worth fire Lt. Kent Worley says the incident started with two people complaining about dizziness after a co-worker sprayed perfume. Others reported being sick when an announcement was made that anyone with similar symptoms should exit the building.

Investigators do not know what type of perfume was sprayed.

msnbc.msn.com