A year after her body was overtaken by rabies and her future looked grim, 16-year-old Jeanna Giese celebrated Christmas 2005 at her Milwaukee home with her family.

The teenager is the world’s only known unvaccinated human rabies survivor and has been slowly regaining her ability to walk and talk.

Last year, a very ill Jeanna spent Dec. 25 in a hospital bed. Since then, she has been back to school, is making plans to play on her volleyball team again next year and hopes to eventually go to college.

"Every time that I look at Jeanna, I feel how fortunate we are. She's the only one in the world, so you kind of look at things a little bit different," said her father, John Giese...

Happy Thursday!!!

It was refreshing to read in a Star story on Sunday that military recruiters have been playing by the rules when they visit local high schools.

Recent allegations had accused recruiters — mistakenly, it turns out — of targeting minority students in low-income high schools. The stories implied recruiters were preying on the most vulnerable.

Sunday's story was based on a thorough analysis, which showed that recruiters target all schools and are most likely to spend more time in the schools at which they get the warmest welcome.

And that turns out to be in some of the more affluent suburban schools rather than South Side schools.

...From end to end, sunspot 822 measures 140,000 km, about the size of Jupiter...

Happy Thursday!!

WASHINGTON - Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., plans to introduce today a sweeping immigration enforcement bill that would create a new national Social Security card, crack down on employers who hired undocumented workers and bring a moratorium on immigrant visas for Mexican citizens.

Although the provisions of the bill were well-received by some proponents of greater immigration control, they were widely assailed by immigration attorneys, advocates for undocumented immigrants and privacy watchdogs.

[...]

Some provisions echoed a bill by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that calls for 10,000 more Border Patrol agents, adds Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry and expands detention space for undocumented immigrants.

But Hayworth's bill, unlike other immigration legislation introduced this session, would reduce the number of visas available, particularly for Mexican citizens.

It includes provisions that historically have proved controversial, such as putting the military on the border, ending automatic citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil and authorizing an estimated 700,000 state and local law enforcement officers to enforce immigration law...