U.S. swine flu victim from Mexico
ATLANTA, April 29 (UPI) -- The child who died of swine flu in Texas was from Mexico and was in the Lone Star state seeking treatment, health officials said Wednesday.
The 23-month-old child was the first confirmed swine flu death in the United States.
The child, who died Monday, traveled to Houston from Mexico to seek treatment and was not a U.S. citizen, a Houston Health Department spokeswoman told CNN Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta listed 64 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States.
President Barack Obama told reporters in Washington he learned of the child's passing overnight.
"And my thoughts and prayers and deepest condolences go out to the family, as well as those who are ill and recovering from this flu," during a media availability with Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania politician who left the Republican Party to become a Democrat.
"We are closely continuously monitoring emerging cases of this virus," Obama said. "This is obviously a serious situation -- serious enough to take the utmost precautions."
Federal officials are in contact with state and local health officials, he said, adding, "I would also urge health agencies and local communities to be vigilant about identifying suspected cases of this virus in your areas and reporting them to the appropriate state and federal authorities in a timely way. We need your assistance."
He said public health officials have recommended that schools with confirmed or suspected cases of swine flu -- or H1N1 -- consider temporarily closing their facilities "to be as safe as possible."
Obama said he requested $1.5 billion from Congress in emergency funding Tuesday for vaccines and other needed responses.
"Every American should know that the federal government is prepared to do whatever is necessary to control the impact of this virus," he said.
Officials say boy, 5, may be patient zero
MEXICO CITY, April 29 (UPI) -- A 5-year-old boy living in a mountain village may be patient zero in the global swine flu outbreak, Mexican health officials said.
Edgar Hernandez survived the earliest documented case of swine flu in an outbreak that spans four continents, CNN reported. He lives in La Gloria, a 3,000-resident village surrounded by pig farms in Mexico's Veracruz state.
When a flu outbreak was reported in Veracruz April 2, officials took samples from dozens of people, including Hernandez. Lab tests confirmed he was the only patient to test positive for the swine flu virus. The other patients had contracted a common flu bug, CNN said.
Health officials re-examined Hernandez's sample after cases of the new strain popped up elsewhere in Mexico.
"In this case, there's a patient who turned out to be positive for the swine flu virus, with the exception that at that time in no region of the world had it been established as an etiological, epidemic cause," Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said.
How Hernandez became infected is not known, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"We have more questions than answers," Dr. Miguel Angel Lezana, head of the Mexico's Epidemiological Vigilance and Disease Control Center, told reporters in Mexico City.
Investigators have two hypotheses, Lezana said. La Gloria is near a huge pig farm and residents have complained about the farm contaminating the environment. However, state inspectors tested pigs throughout Veracruz and found no sick animals, the Times said.
The second theory is that the La Gloria area is home to migrant workers who travel between Mexico and the United States. Officials said one outbreak of flu began when a migrant returned from the United States and infected his wife, who then infected others.
Gross domestic product falls sharply
WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. gross domestic product fell sharply in the first quarter, the Department of Commerce said Wednesday.
GDP figures -- subject to revision later -- came in with a 6.1 percent drop following a 6.3 percent decline in the fourth quarter last year.
The figure includes negative input from exports, private inventory investment, equipment and software and commercial structures. Gains were reported in consumer spending and imports, which later fell.
Declines in automobile production pulled the GDP down 1.36 percentage points after subtracting 2.01 points in the fourth quarter, the department said.
The price index for gross domestic purchases fell 1 percent, which was a slower decline than the fourth quarter, when consumer prices dropped 3.9 percent. Core prices increased 1.4 percent in the first quarter, following a 1.2 percent increase in the fourth quarter.
The price index indicated that consumer prices have turned around, heading away from an economy-stalling dynamic of deflation.
Court broadens jailhouse informant use
WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Wednesday to broaden the use of jailhouse informants, saying their evidence can be used to undermine a suspect's testimony.
The case has major constitutional implications, even though it appears to reinforce a 1990 precedent. A suspect has a Sixth Amendment right to an attorney, but jailhouse conversation occurs without a lawyer present.
In the Kansas case, Donnie Ray Ventris and Rhonda Theel were accused of murder and other charges in the killing of a man in his home in Montgomery County in 2004. When captured, each accused the other of firing the fatal shot.
Theel was allowed to plead guilty to a robbery charge and the state dropped the murder charge against her in exchange for her testimony against Ventris. At his trial, Ventris testified that Theel pulled the trigger.
But the prosecution had placed an informant in his jail cell, who allegedly heard Ventris confess to the killing, court documents say. The trial judge allowed the informant's testimony, and Ventris was convicted of aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery.
The Kansas Supreme Court eventually ruled that the informant testimony was not admissible for any reason, even to impeach Ventris's testimony.
But the U.S. Supreme Court majority reversed. An opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia said even if the informant's testimony wasn't admissible as to guilt, it's admission into evidence didn't violate the Sixth Amendment when used to impeach a suspect's sworn testimony.
Former Turkish minister unhurt in bombing
ANKARA, Turkey, April 29 (UPI) -- Former Turkish Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk escaped injury in Ankara Wednesday when a woman carrying a bomb detonated the device, officials said.
Turk told the Anatolia News Agency he was approached by the woman at Bilkent University as he was about to enter a lecture hall. The bomb detonated, injuring her.
"She was laying on the floor one meter away from me. I think she was injured," Turk told the news agency.
Bilkent University was evacuated after the incident, officials said.
The news agency reported Turk has been receiving death threats since 2000 when a prison uprising resulted in the deaths of several inmates and prison guards. The former justice minister said he had escaped several earlier assassination attempts.
