Retire from Supreme Court:Justice David Souter

After more than 18 years on the nation's highest court, Supreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring, a source close to Souter told Thursday.

Souter will leave after the current court term recesses in June, the source said.
Filling Souter's seat would be President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court appointment -- and the first since George W. Bush's picks of Samuel Alito in 2006 and Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005.

David Souter has served more than 18 years on the Supreme Court.
Souter, 69, was tapped for the court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, but disappointed many conservatives when he turned out to be a typical old-fashioned Yankee Republican -- a moderate, with an independent, even quirky streak.
Souter's departure will leave the two oldest justices -- and the most liberal -- still on the bench. Retirements for John Paul Stevens, 89, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 76, have been rumored for years, with many expecting that one or the other would be the first to give a new Democratic president a Supreme Court vacancy.
Souter's decision came as something of a surprise, although he has long been known to prefer the quiet of his New Hampshire farmhouse to the bustle of the nation's capital.

Swine flu outbreak shut down economy in mexico

Mexican President Felipe Calderon told his people to stay home from Friday for a five-day partial shutdown of the economy, after the World Health Organization said a swine flu pandemic was imminent. Calderon ordered government offices and private businesses not crucial to the economy to stop work to avoid further infections from the new virus, which has killed up to 176 people in Mexico and is now spreading around the world.
"There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus," Calderon said in his first televised address since the crisis erupted last week.
Twelve countries have reported cases of the H1N1 strain, with the Netherlands the latest to join the list. It said a three year-old child had contracted the virus.
Switzerland also confirmed its first case on Thursday, saying a man returning from Mexico had tested positive for the flu. Peru reported the first case in Latin America outside Mexico.
Texas officials on Wednesday reported the first swine flu death outside Mexico, a 22-month-old Mexican boy on a visit.
The WHO raised the official alert level to phase 5, the last step before a pandemic.
"Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world," WHO Director General Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday. "The biggest question is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start," Chan said.
The world "is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history," she said. WHO has stopped short of recommending travel restrictions, border closures or any limitation on the movement of people, goods or services. WORLD STOCK MARKETS RALLY
Mexico's peso currency weakened sharply early on Thursday after the government called for chunks of the economy to close. The peso fell 1.6 percent to 13.83 per dollar.
But world stocks struck a four-month peak, powered by gains in Asia on Thursday, as investors took heart from signs of improvement in the U.S. economy. arlier in the week markets fell on worries that a major flu outbreak could hit the struggling global economy. Almost all those infected outside Mexico have had mild symptoms, and only a handful of people have been hospitalized.
In Mexico City, a metropolis of 20 million, all schools, restaurants, nightclubs and public events have been shut down to try to stop the disease from spreading, bringing normal life to a virtual standstill.

Spain reported the first case in Europe of swine flu in a person who had not been to Mexico, illustrating the danger of person-to-person transmission. Several countries have banned pork imports though the World Health Organization says swine flu is not spread by eating pork.
President Barack Obama said told an evening news conference at the White House on Wednesday there was no need for panic and rejected the possibility of closing the border with Mexico.
"At this point, (health officials) have not recommended a border closing," he said. "From their perspective, it would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States." Obama also praised his predecessor for stockpiling anti-viral medication in anticipation of such an outbreak.
"I think the Bush administration did a good job of creating the infrastructure so that we can respond," Obama said. "For example, we've got 50 million courses of anti-viral drugs in the event that they're needed."
EXPERT SAYS VIRUS RELATIVELY WEAK
Masato Tashiro, head of the influenza virus research center at Japan's National Institute of Infectious Disease and a member of the WHO emergency committee, told Japan's Nikkei newspaper it appeared the H1N1 strain was far less dangerous than avian flu.
"I am very worried that we will use up the stockpile of anti-flu medicine and be unarmed before we need to fight against the avian influenza. The greatest threat to mankind remains the H5N1 avian influenza." Guan Yi, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the swine flu virus could mix with avian flu, or H5N1. "If it goes to Egypt, Indonesia, these H5N1 endemic regions, it could turn into a very powerful H5N1 that is very transmissible among people. Then we will be in trouble, it will be a tragedy." The WHO's Chan urged companies who make the drugs to ramp up production. Two antiviral drugs -- Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Tamiflu, made by Roche AG and Gilead Sciences Inc -- have been shown to work against the H1N1 strain. Mexico's central bank warned the outbreak could deepen the nation's recession, hurting an economy that has shrunk by as much as 8 percent from the previous year in the first quarter. The United States and Canada have advised against non-essential travel to Mexico, and the European Union's health commissioner advised against non-essential travel to areas badly hit by swine flu. Many tourists were hurrying to leave Mexico, crowding airports.
Japan's Masato Tashiro said the possibility of an overreaction to the outbreak was a concern. "Excessive curbing of corporate activity will be a problem. The best course of action is to adopt rational measures." (Reporting by Maggie Fox and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington;
Jason Lange, Catherine Bremer, Alistair Bell and Helen Popper in Mexico City; Laura MacInnis and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Yoko Nishikawa in Tokyo; writing by Andrew Marshall and Dean Yates; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Obama says he doesn't have 'rubber-stamp Senate'

President Obama said Wednesday that he's under no illusions that he'll have a "rubber-stamp Senate" now that Sen. Arlen Specter has switched parties to join the Democrats."To my Republican friends, I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine," Obama said at a prime time news conference capping his 100th day in office.
"I can't sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs that we tried for eight years and didn't work and the American people voted to change."
Specter on Tuesday announced he was changing parties, saying he's found himself increasingly "at odds with the Republican philosophy." He also admitted Wednesday he was worried about the prospects of facing a Republican primary in order to keep his seat next year.
Specter's move puts the Democrats one shy of a filibuster-proof Senate majority of 60 seats.
President Obama speaks on the 100th day of his administration.
Senate Democrats can reach the 60-seat mark if courts uphold Al Franken's disputed recount victory in Minnesota.As if to prove the president's point, Specter voted against Obama's budget plan shortly before the news conference.Asked if the GOP is in desperate straits, Obama said, "Politics in America changes very quick. And I'm a big believer that things are never as good as they seem and never as bad as they seem."
Obama has faced criticism from Republicans that he hasn't been reaching across the aisle. His budget moved through both chambers of Congress on Wednesday with no GOP support, and his economic stimulus plan passed with just three Republican votes from the Senate.
The president said he thinks the administration has taken steps to restore confidence in the American people, noting that "simply opposing our approach on every front is probably not a good political strategy." In his first 100 days, he's been "sobered by the fact that change in Washington comes slow," said Obama. "That there is still a certain quotient of political posturing and bickering that takes place even when we're in the middle of really big crises," he said, adding that he'd like for everyone to say "let's take a time-out on some of the political games."
In a shift from his previous news conferences which were dominated by questions about the economy, Obama fielded multiple queries on the foreign policy front. The president said a recent uptick in violence in Iraq won't affect his plan for a phased military withdrawal.
"Civilian deaths, incidents of bombings ... remain very low relative to what was going on last year," Obama said. "You haven't seen the kinds of huge spikes that you were seeing for a time. The political system is holding and functioning in Iraq." Obama said more details need to be nailed down before U.S. troops leave Iraq -- including how oil revenues will be divided, what the powers of provincial governments there will be and the political relationships between minority Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites -- including the armed Sons of Iraq groups.
On Pakistan, the president said the United States has "huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable" and doesn't end up a "nuclear-armed militant state."
"I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan, not because I think that they're immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan. I'm more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile and don't seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services," he said. Obama also said Wednesday he is "very comfortable" with his decision to ban interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which he called torture.
The president called the practice a recruiting tool for terrorist groups like al Qaeda, citing World War II-era British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who also rejected such "enhanced interrogation" techniques. "Churchill understood that if you start taking shortcuts, over time that corrodes what's best in a people," Obama said. "It corrodes the character of a country."
Asked about the previous administration, he said, "I think that whatever legal rationale were used, it was a mistake."
On the recent outbreaks of swine flu, Obama insisted his administration is "prepared to do whatever it takes to control the impact of the virus." "I've asked every American to take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flu: Keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough; stay home from work if you're sick; and keep your children home from school if they're sick," he said. Obama downplayed the possibility of closing the border with Mexico as a way to control the virus, also known by its clinical name of H1N1.
"It would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out," Obama said
The first cases of the virus were detected in Mexico, where health officials suspect swine flu in more than 150 other deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses. Only 26 cases have so far been confirmed, including the seven fatal cases. So far, the World Health Organization has reported 148 cases in nine countries. Obama said the $1.5 billion he asked from Congress to help fight the outbreaks will help government health officials monitor and track the virus and replenish the supply of antiviral drugs.
On immigration, Obama said he wants to work with members of Congress, including former Republican presidential rival Sen. John McCain, to revive efforts to reform the system.
Obama said he hopes lawmakers will begin working on such reform legislation and expects the process to be under way within the year. Both Obama and McCain supported an ultimately failed plan backed by then-President Bush that would have fined illegal immigrants living in the United States but provided a pathway to citizenship for some. Obama's news conference came just hours after both chambers of Congress passed his $3.4 trillion budget resolution for fiscal year 2010.
The measure approves most of Obama's key spending priorities and sets the federal government in a new direction with major increases for energy, education and health care programs. Obama said his budget begins to lay a "new foundation" that will strengthen the U.S. economy. "But even as we clear away the wreckage of this recession, I've also said that we can't go back to an economy that is built on a pile of sand -- on inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards; on overleveraged banks and outdated regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the prosperity of all," he said.The United States "will see a better day," but there's still a lot of work to do, he said.
"I want to thank the American people for their support and their patience during these trying times, and I look forward to working with you in the next hundred days, in the hundred days after that, all of the hundreds of days to follow, to make sure that this country is what it can be."

100 U.S. schools closed due to swine flu

At least 74 schools have closed across the country because of confirmed or probable cases of swine flu and 30 more have closed as a precautionary measure, the Department of Education said Wednesday.

The elementary, junior high and high schools have closed because of the H1N1 virus, Department of Education spokesman Massie Ritsch said.
The closures of public and private schools across eight states affect about 56,000 students out of an estimated 55 million students attending the nation's 100,000 kindergarten through 12th grade schools, Ritsch said.
Some of the schools that were closed had already reopened, he said.
In addition to closures announced earlier Wednesday, the Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas said it will temporarily close all of its schools until further notice, affecting roughly 80,000 students, according to its Web site.
Schools will likely not reopen any sooner than Monday, May 11, the district said.
School officials said they made the decision after receiving official confirmation of one case of swine flu at one campus and news of three other probable cases at three more schools.
"We have been diligently following the recommendations of our local public health authorities since this crisis first began," Superintendent Melody Johnson said. "We will continue to work with the senior-most staff of the local health department."

On Wednesday, President Obama called on schools with confirmed or possible swine flu cases to "strongly consider temporarily closing so that we can be as safe as possible."
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday that everyone involved in schools needs to "pitch in and do our part to prevent the spread of this flu virus."
"Use the same common sense and courtesy that you would use during winter flu season: Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough and stay home if you are sick," Duncan said.
The secretary said the department is closely monitoring the flu outbreak and urged schools to follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Do what is appropriate for the health of your communities, your schools and your students," Duncan said.
Department of Education officials and experts from the CDC held a conference call Monday with more than 1,700 people from national education associations, state school offices, individual schools and school districts.
The Department of Education emphasized the need for "common sense" preventative measures among students and faculty in school facilities, an official said.Education officials also stressed the need for people showing any flu-like symptoms to stay away from school and called on administrators to report any suspected or confirmed cases to local public health authorities as well as the Department of Education.
If a school has a confirmed case of swine flu, the CDC recommends closing the facility for about seven days

U.S. confirmed First swine flu death as cases increase

A 22-month-old child became the first swine flu fatality in the United States Wednesday, as the number of confirmed cases of the virus increased.

An official at the World Health Organization said Wednesday evening that his agency had confirmed 114 cases of swine flu worldwide. However, that number did not include additional cases announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), now at 91.
The WHO was still listing 64 swine flu cases for the United States. "It's clear that the virus is spreading, and we don't see it slowing down at this point," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of WHO, at a news conference.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Houston's Health Department told CNN that the dead child had traveled from Mexico to Houston, for treatment.
Kathy Barton said the child, who died Monday, was not an American citizen. She did not know where the child was from in Mexico.
President Barack Obama expressed his condolences to the family and called on schools in the U.S. with confirmed or possible swine flu cases to "strongly consider temporarily closing so that we can be as safe as possible."
The apparent spread of swine flu was not unexpected, CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser told CNN.
"Flu is a very serious infection and each virus is unique, and so it's hard to know what we're going to be seeing," Besser said. "But given what we've seen in Mexico we have expected that we would see more severe infections and we would see deaths."
Six of the 91 confirmed swine flu cases in the United States have been reported in Texas, according to the CDC.

A preliminary image of the swine flu virus from the Centers for Disease Control.
The United States is taking precautionary measures to stem the spread of the disease, of which most cases are not severe.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that the federal government would be releasing nearly 13 million doses of antiviral medications to try to stem the spread of the virus.
Besser added that the CDC is "taking aggressive action to try and limit the impact of this on our communities," but is not changing its recommendations as a result of the confirmed swine flu death.
"I expect we'll see more cases," Besser said. "And as we do, we'll learn more about this, and if there needs to be more stringent or less stringent recommendations, we'll be making those."
He stressed that people should maintain their perspective on the swine flu outbreak.

"Seasonal flu each year causes tens of thousands of deaths in this country, on average, about 36,000 deaths," Besser said. "And so this flu virus in the United States, as we're looking at it, is not acting very differently from what we saw during the flu season."
Germany and Austria became the latest European countries to report swine flu, while the number of cases increased in Britain and Spain.
Mexico is where the global outbreak originated. While only 26 cases have been confirmed in Mexico -- including the seven deaths -- health officials there suspect the swine flu outbreak has caused more than 159 deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses.
They also believe they may have found "patient zero" in the global outbreak in the small village of La Gloria in the mountains of Mexico.
Five-year-old Edgar Hernandez -- known as "patient zero" by his doctors -- survived the earliest documented case of swine flu in the current outbreak. He lives near a pig farm, though experts have not established a connection between that and his illness.

Edgar has managed to bounce back from his symptoms and playfully credits ice cream for helping him feel better.
Researchers do not know how the virus is jumping relatively easily from person to person, or why it's affecting what should be society's healthiest demographic. Many of the victims who have died in Mexico have been young and otherwise healthy.
The deadly outbreak in Mexico has prompted authorities to order about 35,000 public venues in Mexico City to shut down or serve only take-out meals as health officials tried to contain spreading of the virus.
Governments around the world are scrambling to prevent further outbreak.

Some, such as China and Russia, have banned pork imports from the United States and Mexico, though the World Health Organization says the disease is not transmitted through eating or preparing pig meat. Several others countries, such as Japan and Indonesia, are using thermographic devices to test the temperature of passengers arriving from Mexico.

Obama said the outbreak is a cause for concern, not for alarm. The U.S. government has urged travelers to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued emergency authorization for the use of two of the most common anti-viral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza. The authorization allows the distribution of the drugs by a broader range of health-care workers and loosens age limits for their use.
In Mexico City, however, there is a shortage of such medication. And it became impossible to find protective surgical masks, which the government had handed out to one out of every five residents.

Swine influenza, or flu, is a contagious respiratory disease that affects pigs.
When the flu spreads person-to-person, instead of from animals to humans, it can continue to mutate, making it harder to treat or fight, because people have no natural immunity.

Symptoms include fever, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Common seasonal flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people every year worldwide, far more than the current outbreak of swine flu.