Thai health officials confirmed that avian flu has probably begun to spread from person to person. Influenza experts were begging drug companies to begin manufacturing enough vaccine to prevent a pandemic but the companies were complaining that production is too expensive and that they will lose money if a pandemic does not occur. Patent issues were also cited.New York TimesEmory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, began notifying more than 500 patients that they might have been exposed to sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakobdisease because of inadequate sterilization procedures.Associated PressTony Blair underwent heart surgery, andNew York TimesMerck & Co. withdrew its arthritis drug Vioxx …

The Texas Defender Service issued a report on the death penalty; the report said that the Texas system was “a national embarrassment” due to racial bias, prosecutorial misconduct, and other problems.One psychologist, who was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for producing diagnoses without performing examinations, testified for the prosecution in 390 capital cases.According to a newspaper analysis of Texas governor George W. Bush’s time records, Bush spent an average of fifteen minutes reviewing each death-penalty case that crossed his desk; as governor, he worked about six hours a day.The town of Jarrell, Texas, hosted a “Running of the Bulls, …

The Motion Picture Association of America succeeded in convincing a federal judge in Manhattan that publishing or linking to a free computer program that allows people to play DVDs on their Linux computers will lead to widespread copying of DVDs; the judge rejected arguments that computer source code, or links pointing to such code, is expressive speech and is thus protected under the First Amendment. Ole Miss won the right to prevent spectators from waving the Confederate battle flag at sporting events. Bill Clinton signed the T-shirt of a woman who then stripped it off and waved it over her …