Virus tied to four nursing home deaths

Four recent deaths at a Nantucket nursing home are being blamed on a respiratory virus typically found at day-care centers. The patients, ranging in age from 71 to 96, died over the span of a week, with the last death on Feb. 10, according to the Cape Cod Times. Officials at Our Island Home nursing home say the virus is the most common cause of pneumonia among infants. The nursing home's administrator said the virus has been contained and no more patients have been infected. (AP)

Speed appeared to be a factor in a crash that killed three people Saturday night just before 7 on Route 2, near the Maine border, police say. Authorities say a car crossed the center line, struck a snow bank, and flipped over before landing in a yard. No one in the car was wearing a seat belt. Police say the snow banks have frozen until they are almost as hard as concrete. (AP)

Police are looking for a man who forced two young women into the trunk of a car. Police got a call late Saturday reporting that a man with a gun had locked two women in the trunk of a Volkswagen Passat. Officers tracked the signal from the victim's cellphone and found the car behind an auto parts store. The women, who were not injured, told police the man had demanded money and then forced them into the trunk. (AP)

Keene State College has become the latest New Hampshire school to upgrade its emergency notification system to keep students safe. Unveiled last month, the new system goes beyond the e-mail and Internet postings used in the past to alert students about potential dangers. Now students can sign up for alerts by e-mail, phone, or text message. "No system is going to be 100 percent, but the idea is to approach emergency communications from as many angles as possible," said Amanda Warman, director of campus safety. That sentiment was echoed by Christopher Williams, a spokesman for Plymouth State University, which adopted a similar alert system late last summer. The University of New Hampshire also has instituted e-mail and text message alerts, and urged students who hadn't registered for the alerts to do so. (AP)

Recent toxicology test results confirm three accidental deaths, including a Massachusetts man, were linked to heroin late last year. Police say they are experiencing a rise in heroin use in the Naugatuck Valley, and are trying to determine whether the deaths are related, or if a more potent batch of the drug made its way into the valley. Police say David Myers, 47, died after taking heroin and oxycodone on Nov. 23. Jason Whitcavitch, 33, of Newton, Mass., had cocaine, heroin, and other opiates in his system when he died Dec. 8. David Onze of Beacon Falls died Dec. 11th. The chief state medical examiner recorded 95 heroin-related deaths in 2005 in Connecticut, 104 in 2006, and 113 in 2007. (AP)

The Woodstock Water Buffalo Co. dairy has closed its doors and is liquidating its assets. The Vermont Agency of Agriculture says Woodstock Water Buffalo employed about 20 people. The company opened five years ago with $1.2 million in loans from Vermont Economic Development Authority. The firm manufactured mozzarella cheese and yogurt marketed under the name Spoon Dance Yogurt. (AP)

A Maine man who has served 14 years of a 20-year prison sentence for selling cocaine and heroin to a friend who was found dead the next day of a drug overdose has asked President Bush for clemency. Supporters of Lance Persson say he is the victim of inflexible federal sentencing guidelines adopted in early in the war on drugs. The mother of Michael Corey, who died in 1994 at the age of 27, opposes a pardon or a shortened sentence for Persson. If his petition is denied, Persson stands to be released a little less than three years from now because of good-time credits that would reduce his term to 17 years. (AP)