'Top Guns' Stars Kelly McGillis Confirm Lesbians Rumor

Kelly McGillis told the Internet show Girl Rock! that she was single, and in the market for a female partner.

"Definitely a woman," she said when asked if she's looking for a man or a woman. "I'm done with the man thing. You need to move on in life."

McGillis, 51, has been married and divorced twice, and has two daughters with her second husband, Fred Tillman.

The actress said coming out as a lesbian was "an ongoing process from the time I was probably 12."

She added that "I had a lot of things happen that convinced me that God was punishing me because I was gay." McGillis was attacked and raped in her apartment in 1982 when she was a young actress working in New York.

The actress also told Girl Rock! that now that her daughters are grown, she's looking to get back into acting, but is having a hard time - because she won't dye her hair!

"Whenever I get an offer, they ask me to dye my hair," the graying star said. "And I just won't."

Mexico Swine Flu Death Toll Jumps To 19

MEXICO CITY -Mexico reported three new deaths from the swine flu epidemic Saturday and urged citizens not to let their guard down against a virus that has killed 19 in people in Mexico and is spreading across Asia and Europe.

Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said Mexico's confirmed swine flu cases jumped to 473, including the 19 deaths. The previous death toll in Mexico was 16. A Mexican toddler also died in Texas days ago, for a worldwide total of 20.

Mexico's last confirmed swine flu death occurred Wednesday, Cordova said. However, he said there were 11 cases of people suspected to have died from the virus in the last 24 hours. The alarming news came after the epidemic's toll in Mexico appeared to be leveling off.

Cases outside Mexico suggested the new swine flu strain is weaker than feared, but governments moved quickly anyway to ban flights and prepare quarantine plans. Experts warned the virus could mutate and come back with a vengeance.

In the first known reported case of the new, mutated virus infecting another species, pigs in the province of Alberta have become infected and are under quarantine. They apparently got the virus from a Canadian farm worker who recently visited Mexico and got sick with swine flu, Canadian officials said Saturday.

They told a press conference in Ottawa that the pigs do not pose a food safety risk, adding that the traveler recovered from the swine flu and the pigs are "well on their way to recovery." The outbreak occurred on a single farm, where about 10 percent of 2,200 pigs showed a fever and loss of appetite. No pigs have died from the virus, officials said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it's too early to declare victory.

The World Health Organization also decided against a full pandemic alert, but that doesn't mean people can relax, said Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO's global alert and response director.

"These viruses mutate, these viruses change, these viruses can further reassort with other genetic material, with other viruses," he said. "So it would be imprudent at this point to take too much reassurance" from the small number of deaths.

"We have seen times where things appear to be getting better and then get worse again," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the U.S. agency's interim science and public health deputy director. "I think in Mexico we may be holding our breath for some time."

The global caseload was nearing 800 and growing — the vast majority in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. Costa Rica reported its first confirmed swine flu case — the first in Latin America outside Mexico.

Swine flu cases have been confirmed in 18 countries so far — including Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region — and experts believe the actual spread is much wider than the numbers suggest.

U.S. President Barack Obama urged caution Saturday.

"This is a new strain of the flu virus, and because we haven't developed an immunity to it, it has more potential to cause us harm," Obama said. Later, he spoke with Mexican President Felipe Calderon for about 20 minutes to share information.

What started as a swine flu outbreak more than a week ago in Mexico quickly ballooned to a global health threat, with the WHO declaring a pandemic was imminent. Now public health officials are having to carefully calibrate their statements. Push the message too far, and they could lose credibility if the virus fizzles out. But if they back off and it suddenly surges, the consequences could be much more dire.

Some Mexicans have criticized their government for reacting too slowly to the outbreak at first, and now for overreacting in ordering a five-day, nationwide shutdown of all nonessential government and private business. Responding to the attacks, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said: "It's absurd to think that Mexico was putting on a show. I think it's preferable, at a certain moment, to take advanced measures and succeed in containing the problem than to not take them and ask, 'Why didn't we take them?'"

However, Cordova said hospitals are now handling fewer patients with swine flu symptoms, a sign that the disease is presently not very contagious. Mexican investigators who visited 280 relatives of victims found only four had the virus.

But experts said there is much they don't know about the outbreak in Mexico. A multinational team of virus sleuths are trying to piece together the epidemiological puzzle.

Cordova said 12 of the dead were between 21 and 40 — unusual ages for people to die of the flu because they tend to have stronger immune systems.

Three of the dead were children: a 9-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy, said Pablo Kuri, an epidemiologist and adviser to Cordova. Four were older than 60.

Although most of the dead were from Mexico City, they came from different neighborhoods in the metropolis of 20 million people, Kuri said. One common factor may be that they sought treatment too late — an average of seven days before seeing a doctor. For those who recovered, the average wait was three days, said Hugo Lopez-Gatell Ramirez, deputy director of Mexico's Intelligence Unit for Health Emergencies.

Many of the sick around the world were people who had visited Mexico, including 13 of Britain's 15 cases.

South Korea reported Asia's second confirmed case — a woman just back from Mexico — and other governments prepared to quarantine airline passengers, eager to show how they have learned from the deadly SARS epidemic in 2003, when Hong Kong was criticized for imposing quarantines too slowly.

China suspended all direct flights from Mexico and sealed 305 people inside a Hong Kong hotel where an infected Mexican tourist stayed. Health workers in white bodysuits patrolled the lobby where the 25-year-old Mexican stayed before he became Asia's first confirmed case late Friday.

Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa complained that China had isolated several Mexicans without reason — and urged Mexicans not to travel to China until the situation was resolved.

"These are discriminatory measures," she said.

—

Associated Press writers David B. Caruso in New York and Juan Carlos Llorca in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Swine Flu Shuts Score More SChools

WASHINGTON (May 2) - Scores more schools shut down around the country because of the swine flu virus at week's end and Education Secretary Arne Duncan offered tips to teachers and students on how to deal with classroom interruptions.
Federal officials closely watched developments as at least two dozen new cases of swine flu were reported.
President Barack Obama, whose administration has taken a high profile to offer reassurances and advice about the threat, expressed hopes the swine flu will run its course "like ordinary flus." Health officials suggested the virus now appears less ominous than it did at first.
"I'm optimistic that we're going to be able to manage this effectively," Obama said Friday. But he said the federal government is preparing as if the worst is still to come so that it won't be caught flat-footed.
"This is a new strain of the flu virus, and because we haven't developed an immunity to it, it has more potential to cause us harm," the president said in his radio and Internet address Saturday. "Unlike the various strains of animal flu that have emerged in the past, it's a flu that is spreading from human to human. This creates the potential for a pandemic, which is why we are acting quickly and aggressively."
The government issued new guidance for schools with confirmed cases, saying they should close for at least 14 days because children can be contagious for seven to 10 days from when they get sick. That means parents can expect to have children at home for longer than previously thought.
The Education Department said that more than 430 schools had closed, affecting about 245,000 children in 18 states. That was about 100 more schools reported closed than reported on Thursday.
The latest developments in the flu scare — more intense in neighboring Mexico than in the United States — came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the virus had been confirmed in more U.S. states.
Confirmed cases had risen from 109 on Thursday to 161 Friday, the CDC said, with the flu reported in about double the number of states as the 11 reported Thursday. The U.S. death toll remained at one — the Mexican toddler who visited Texas with his family and died there.
Mexico has confirmed more than 450 swine flu cases and has 19 confirmed deaths, although reports have indicated that roughly 120 may have died from it.
Worldwide, the total confirmed cases numbered more than 750, although officials believe there are many more.
The CDC said that the virus was continuing to spread, though no faster than the rate of the regular winter flu.
"We think the cases do continue to occur," said CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat. But CDC also said the new swine flu virus lacks genes that made the 1918 pandemic strain so deadly.
While emphasizing at a news conference that the closures to date represent a tiny fraction of the almost 100,000 schools in the country, Duncan instructed teachers, parents and students to be prepared if their school does close.
To teachers, Duncan said: "Think about reworking upcoming lesson plans so students can do their schoolwork at home if necessary."
To parents: "Learn about what they're learning at school. Keep them on task."
And to students: "Don't fall behind your peers at other schools that are still in session. Keep working hard."
Major U.S. airlines announced plans to curtail flights into Mexico.
Many travelers have become increasingly concerned about going to Mexico, though authorities there said new cases were leveling off.
U.S. travelers have been advised to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico. Continental Airlines Inc., the biggest U.S. carrier to Mexico, said Friday it would halve the number of seats it sells to fly there. Delta Air Lines Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines also announced plans for reduced flights to Mexico, while smaller carriers were following suit.
Though most U.S. cases have been relatively mild and have not required a doctor's visit, U.S. precautions include shipping millions of doses of anti-flu drugs to states in case they're needed, replenishing the U.S. strategic stockpile with millions more treatment courses, and shipping 400,000 treatment courses to Mexico.

Source From Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard, Eileen Sullivan and Joan Lowy in Washington and Ben Nuckols in Baltimore contributed to this report.

Web Hosting Geeks to cater you with best web hosts

Business owners, organizations, and individuals including you and me always compete to perform our best in providing a website for any purposes, both business and personal purposes. We all understand why they and we do that because we always want to get a better performance and better life in the current and in the future. Now what can you do to make your website have a best performance, many visitors, and finally, generate a big profit? One thing that you can do is to host your website on a best web host. Isn?t it very hard to find such web host?

I know that this is not an easy work to find a web host as good as you want because you will find many web hosting providers offering web hosting servers to host your website. Yes, it will never end if you do browsing everyday, every minute, or even every second. In the mean time, you want to value your valuable time, or you will never expect to waste it at all. Now it is time to do it in one time to find a selection of web hosting providers that offer you the dedicated server, and more. It is only at Web Hosting Geeks.

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Credit Card Processing Services

John tried his fortune to build a store selling daily needs. One month, two months, and so on, has passed. His business then started growing up. One day I visited his store to buy my daily needs such as soap, toothpaste, and some snacks. At that time, I did not bring cash money, and then I asked him whether his shop accepted credit cards as means of payment. He said, “I am sorry, Chez, I have not yet accepted any credit card”. I was very disappointed then I went home without goods that wanted to buy.

That is only an illustration. I think you can read the illustration deeply. If there are many customers coming to John’s and they want to buy something by using credit card as means of payment, what will happen to John’s Store in the next months? Can he keep it running? You can guess it yourself.

One more thing that I can draw as a summary, that credit card processing services can increase sales for John’s business, and for your business, of course. Therefore, when want to start running any business, it will be very important to consider the credit card processing tool.

Now I would like to inform you about a website that can help you build your business and boost your sales. This site provides you superior credit card processing services. Check out now their website at Merchantacceptance.com and then you can browse the site and observe what best services that you can get there. After that, you should create only one account for credit card processing, Paypal, and Google checkout.

I hope, by taking the advantages of the site, your business will improve and you can make more money. You do not need to do as John has done, but you should take it as your mirror in doing the best business.

Swine Flu

Not only spammers who are busy to follow the phenomenon of swine flu in the world, the cybersquatter, sneakthief of domain name, also move quickly to buy a domain name to get the advantages and profits.

Surefire, when the issue of swine flu is booming, the sites that have relevance to domain names with the word ‘swine flu‘ as it were simultaneously fill the virtual world.

The amount is thorough, in a few days the amount has been hundreds. Some of them are 360swineflu.com, avoidswineflu.net, beatswineflu.com, bestswinefluprotection.com, fightswineflu.info and many more. Ironically, the sites still have no contents, or if any, the contents are with no relevant to the topics.

Do you want to join with them?

Source: detikcom