Friday, January 29, 2010
The Gate-Keepers
Bill and Melinda Gates announced plans Friday to invest $10 billion in the fight against a number of illnesses including AIDS and said the record donation could save nearly nine million lives.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, they said the 10-year program will focus on vaccines for AIDS, tuberculosis, rota virus and pneumonia.
"We must make this the decade of vaccines," said Bill Gates.
"Vaccines are a miracle," added Melinda Gates. "With just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime. We've made vaccines our priority at the Gates Foundation because we've seen firsthand their incredible impact on children's lives."
Since stepping down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in mid-2008, Bill Gates has devoted most of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic organization he set up with his wife Melinda. He remains part-time chairman of the software giant.
The foundation directs most of its attention to global health, education and agriculture in the third world and has committed more than $21 billion since it was established in 1994.
The $10 billion commitment is the largest pledge ever made by a charitable foundation to a single cause, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper covering nonprofit organizations.
The couple told delegates at Davos that they used a model developed by a consortium at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States to project the potential impact of vaccines on childhood deaths over the next decade.
The foundation also estimates that an additional 1.1 million children could be saved with the rapid introduction of a malaria vaccine beginning in 2014, bringing the total number of potential lives saved to 8.7 million.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Calling
As a top prospect for the Oakland Athletics, outfielder Grant Desme might've gotten the call every minor leaguer wants this spring.Instead, he believed he had another, higher calling. Desme announced Friday that he was leaving baseball to enter the priesthood, walking away after a breakout season in which he became MVP of the Arizona Fall League.
"I was doing well at ball. But I really had to get down to the bottom of things," the 23-year-old Desme said. "I wasn't at peace with where I was at."
A lifelong Catholic, Desme thought about becoming a priest for about a year and a half. He kept his path quiet within the sports world, and his plan to enter a seminary this summer startled the A's when he told them Thursday night.
General manager Billy Beane "was understanding and supportive," Desme said, but the decision "sort of knocked him off his horse." After the talk, Desme felt "a great amount of peace."
"I love the game, but I aspire to higher things," he said. "I know I have no regrets."
Desme spoke on a conference call for about 10 minutes in a quiet, even tone, hardly sounding like many gung-ho, on-the-rise ballplayers. As for his success in the minors, he said "all of it is very undeserving."
The Athletics picked Desme in the second round of the 2007 amateur draft and he was starting to blossom. He was the only player in the entire minors with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases last season.
Desme batted .288 with 31 homers, 89 RBIs and 40 steals in 131 games at Class-A Kane County and high Class-A Stockton last year. He hit .315 with a league-leading 11 home runs and 27 RBIs in 27 games this fall in Arizona, a league filled with young talent.
Desme went into the AFL championship game well aware it might be the last time he ever played. "There was no sad feeling," he said. He homered and struck out twice, which "defines my career a bit."
The Big West Player of the Year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Desme was ranked as Oakland's No. 8 prospect by Baseball America. There was speculation the Athletics might invite Desme to big league spring training next month.
Just A Little Bit
A lawsuit claims a dentist's drill bit was left in a Tampa woman's head for nearly a year.The lawsuit says Donna Delgao's surgeon left an inch-long piece of steel in a wound after dental surgery in 2008. The tool piece lodged in her right maxillary sinus was removed 11 months later by another surgeon.
The lawsuit says Delgao suffered nosebleeds and sinus infections after her original dental surgery. Her attorney says she also may suffer side effects, including nickel poisoning.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial.
There was no phone number listed for the oral surgeon. Ralph Eichstaedt told the St. Petersburg Times he wouldn't comment on the lawsuit.
Cash Explosion
Authorities say a woman who had been out celebrating her lottery winnings at a north-central Ohio bar was killed when she was struck by a car.The Ohio Highway Patrol says 47-year-old Deborah McDonald of Crystal Rock had just left the bar near Sandusky on Tuesday night and was hit as she was walking along a road.
An Ohio Lottery spokeswoman says McDonald won $8,000 in the lottery's TV game show "Cash Explosion Double Play."
The show was taped Jan. 12 and is set to air at the end of the month.
Bar patrons say McDonald was with a group that had been celebrating her winnings and playing pool.
Patrol Sgt. Joe Wentworth says police are looking into whether alcohol was a factor, but they don't think the driver of the car was drinking.
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