| New era dawns for rail building
MERIDIAN, MISS. — America is back to working on the railroads.
For decades, stretches of track west of this town, located just east of Jackson, Miss., were so rough that trains couldn't run faster than 25 miles an hour. Lanie Keith, a locomotive engineer for the Kansas City Southern, recalls waiting for hours when trains stalled on a steep curve on a stretch of single track between Meridian and Shreveport, La.
In the last two years, however, at a cost of $300 million, track crews have transformed the 320-mile route. Installing 960,000 crossties and 80 miles of new rail, they've turned a railroad backwater into a key link in a resurging national transport network.
Keith now skims parts of the improved track, called the Meridian Speedway, at nearly 60 mph.
Ilonen in share of lead
Finland's Mikko Ilonen and Australia's Tony Carolan shared the lead following the opening round of the Ballantine's Championship after five-under-par rounds of 67. The 28-year-old Ilonen, who won two European Tour titles last season, carded six birdies and a bogey, while the 39-year-old Carolan had a bogey-free but eventful round - sacking his local caddie after five holes - to share a one-shot lead at the Pinx Golf Club on Jeju Island. Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell, Ireland's Paul McGinley and England's Simon Griffiths were among a chasing pack of 10 players on four under par in this dual sanctioned Asian Tour and European Tour event. American Anthony Kim, whose parents hail from South Korea, and previously unknown Hwang Inn-Choon, who was invited to the event by the Korean PGA, also carded 68.
Report: Woman, Cat Shared Staph Bug
People struggling to get rid of recurrent staph infections might want to consider an often-overlooked source: the family pet. A German woman repeatedly battled the same strain of drug-resistant superbug MRSA until her cat was tested and treated. It's one of the few documented cases of transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus between a person and a cat.
The otherwise healthy woman had deep abscesses, or boils, all over her back, said Dr. Andreas Sing, a microbiologist at the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority in Oberschleissheim near Munich. Nasal and other swabs from her husband and two children showed they carried the MRSA germ on skin but had no signs of infection.
Antiseptic washes and antibiotic nasal ointment killed the germ in the other family members, but the woman was still infected.
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