Mercyvill

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- A 2-pound Michigan newborn dubbed "Mighty Girl" by her parents is one of the smallest babies in the world to undergo a heart procedure to open up a blocked artery caused by a congenital defect. A week later, Alexandra Mae Van Kirk is showing signs that her heart is working as it should, and she's growing. "She's doing fantastic," her father, Matt Van Kirk, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Friday. Dr. Joseph Vettukattil, who performed the pulmonary balloon valvuloplasty at DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, has done 300 such procedures over 20 years, but the smallest patient on which he performed it was 4 pounds. "It was very tricky," said Vettukattil, who added he has heard of only one or two other babies smaller than Alexandra who have undergone the procedure. When Heidi Van Kirk was 22 weeks pregnant, an ultrasound showed Alexandra was small for her stage of gestation. In foll...

A mountain biker from Sierra Leone was reported to have gone missing at the Commonwealth Games in A mountain biker from Sierra Leone was reported to have gone missing at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow after his team mate was tested for the Ebola virus. Mohamed Tholley was due to compete in a time trial yesterday but allegedly failed to turn up, raising fears that he has absconded. According to the Telegraph Unisa Deen Kargbo, chef de mission of the Sierra Leone team, said Mr Tholley may have gone missing to avoid having to fly home and face the disease. He said: "Unfortunately one of our athletes has not turned up for his event and we do not know where he is. It is possible he is not coming back. The situation is very serious at home, and it is possible this is why he does not want to return. It is very bad there." The athlete is thought to have been rattled by the plight of cyclists Moses Sesay, also from Sie...

Briefing journalists in Osogbo on the preparations for the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission on Friday warned residents of Osun State against criminal activities during and after the August 9 governorship poll., Mr Olusegun Agbaje, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, warned that a contravention of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) would be punished. He said, “Any person who is in possession of more than one valid voter card is liable on conviction to a fine of N1m or 12 months imprisonment or both. “Any person found to have registered in more than one registration or revision centre (multiple registrations) will be fined N1million or 12 months imprisonment or both. “A person who impersonates a living or dead person is also liable on conviction to a fine of N1million or 12 months imprisonment or both.” Agbaje said violators of the law would be sanctioned in accordance with the relevant sections of the law. He also warned officials of the comm...

An enterprising blogger's diligent spadework has revealed the truth behind an Israeli 'massacre' that never was. (H/T Jonathan Foreman) According to the Hamas version of events - widely promulgated in the media by ITN, the Telegraph and the Belfast Telegraph - an Israeli airstrike on a crowded market place during a partial ceasefire in the Shijaiyah neighbourhood of Gaza City on July 30th, 2014 was responsible for the deaths of 17  people, including blue-helmeted photojournalist Rani Rayan. However as Thomas Wictor has incontrovertibly demonstrated using close analysis of film footage of the incident, the deaths were not caused by Israeli shrapnel but by secondary explosions from a vast cache of Hamas rockets. Oh, and the market wasn't 'crowded' either: it had been closed for the day. And this particular area wasn't included in the ceasefire zone, either, because Hamas was continuing to fire rockets from it. Here is how it continue...

Arthritis is a disease of the joints that strikes adults particularly those in their golden years . This condition, however, has been observed to strike the younger ones in recent years. Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis affecting millions of people worldwide. It affects the protective cartilage located on the ends of bones particularly in the hands, neck, lower back, knees and hips. A study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that in 2005, 13.9 percent of adults aged more than 25 years and 33.6 percent of people more than 65 years old suffered from  osteoarthritis . While there’s no cure for this condition, there are treatments available that help slow the progression of the disease and relieve pain. Thanks to various supplements available on the market today, people suffering from arthritis are given hope and relief of their joint pain. One of them is  Finitro Forte Plus , a nutritional supplement especially devel...

In Nigeria,a legal practitioner and former Senate President, Ameh Ebute, has faulted the argument by Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), that the procedure adopted by members of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly in serving Governor Tanko Al-Makura impeachment notice was wrong. While insisting that service of a process has to do with procedural matter, he said Awomolo was only trying to express his views on the legal position of service. Awomolo had cited the judgments of the Supreme Court on the powers of lawmakers to impeach governors, saying that the service of impeachment notice on the governor must be personal. He had argued that having failed to serve the impeachment notice on the governor personally, the whole impeachment process would result in a nullity. But speaking with journalists on Friday in Abuja, Ebute said service only meant getting the requirements of bringing impeachment notice to the notice of the person for whom the impeachment was meant. He said, “That...

A show by an Israeli theatre group has been cancelled by the venue after protesters disrupted other nearby events. The show was due to take place as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, an annual cultural festival in the Scottish capital that celebrates theatre, music and comedy. However, the Underbelly theatre was forced to cancel all performances of ‘The City’ by the Incubator Theatre group after anti-Israel demonstrators gathered outside, disrupting nearby events. Described as “Humphrey Bogart meets Jay-Z in a gritty and darkly comic whodunit hip-hop opera”, ‘The City’ did not have political content yet various Scottish cultural figures called for a boycott as the Incubator Theatre group receives part of its funding from the Israeli Ministry of Culture. The protests came despite the theatre group also receiving funding from the Beracha Foundation, which promotes Arab-Israeli co-operation, and company’...

Meriam Ibrahim Arrives on US Soil.        Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, the Sudanese mother who was condemned to die for marrying a Christian,  arrived in the United States Thursday evening with her American husband and two babies. Welcoming her on a brief stopover in Philadelphia, the city's mayor, Michael Nutter described her as a "world freedom fighter". I describe her as a modern day saint.  I'm not even joking. Meriam was tried and ordered to disavow her faith, but she refused, knowing that she would be condemned to death if she didn't. She was sentenced to hang for apostasy by a Sudanese court - first to be whipped with 100 lashes, because the court also found her guilty of adultery for having sexual relations with her Christian husband. The pregnant mother sat in her squalid prison cell for mon...

Mourning the dead in the Middle East Hamas, the Islamic militant group that won an election to govern Gaza and has since joined the other major Palestinian faction in the West Bank to form a unity government, called it simply, a massacre. Even for Chris Gunness, a U.N. spokesmen who has seen the worst of the decades-old Middle East conflict at close range, the school attack was just too much to bear. He broke down in sobs as he tried to finish an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday. And after the school attack, there was another killing field; a market where people flocked Wednesday afternoon, thinking they were safe during a four-hour cease-fire Israel had declared. Relatives of Palestinian girl Layan al-Silk, whom medics said was killed with other family members by Israeli shelling at a market in Gaza City's Shijaiyah district, mourn during her funeral, July 31, 2014. REUTERS They were wrong, and many...