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Some Muslims have refused to use alcohol-based hand gels to combat the spread of swine flu because they claim it is against their religion. Some of those employed by St Albans Council in Hertfordshire have complained about the antibacterial lotion, which is considered a key strategy in containing the virus.

Alexandria Police Chief David P. Baker is on administrative leave after a car crash in Arlington County late Saturday led to his arrest on charges of drunken driving. Baker, who was driving an unmarked city vehicle, had a blood alcohol level of 0.19, more than twice Virginia's legal limit, authorities said. City Manager James K. Hartmann ordered an internal investigation into the incident, which will be conducted by Alexandria's human resources department and the city attorney's office. Deputy Police Chief Earl Cook, a 30-year veteran of the department, was named acting chief. "It is very disappointing when any of our...

Some Muslims have refused to use alcohol-based hand gels to combat the spread of swine flu because they claim it is against their religion. Some of those employed by St Albans Council in Hertfordshire have complained about the antibacterial lotion, which is considered a key strategy in containing the virus. Officials were concerned because the Koran bans Muslims from consuming alcohol, so council chiefs issued them with non-alcohol hand gels, which studies have shown to be less effective Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202192/Muslims-refuse-use-alcohol-based-hand-gels-religious-beliefs.html#ixzz0MNMBGcS7

Muslims refuse to use alcohol-based hand gels over religious beliefs 25th July 2009 Some Muslims have refused to use alcohol-based hand gels to combat the spread of swine flu because they claim it is against their religion. Some of those employed by St Albans Council in Hertfordshire have complained about the antibacterial lotion, which is considered a key strategy in containing the virus. Officials were concerned because the Koran bans Muslims from consuming alcohol, so council chiefs issued them with non-alcohol hand gels, which studies have shown to be less effective in killing bugs. But Muslim leaders criticised the council’s...

A 22-year-old alcoholic died today after being denied a life-saving liver transplant because he was not able to leave hospital to prove he could stay sober. Gary Reinbach was given just weeks to live after developing one of the worst cases of cirrhosis his doctors have seen. He admits being a binge drinker since the age of 13, but was only admitted to hospital with alcohol damage for Mr Reinhach was refused a liver transplant unless he could prove he not drunk alcohol for at least six months His doctors had argued that he should be an exception to the...

Authorities say former NFL star Steve McNair had a blood-alcohol level twice Tennessee's legal limit for driving when his girlfriend shot him to death. Tennessee Assistant Medical Examiner Feng Li said Monday that a toxicology report showed a trace amount of marijuana in the body of Sahel Kazemi. Police say the 20-year-old Kazemi shot McNair July 4 in a Nashville condo before killing herself. Police say McNair was likely asleep when he was shot twice in the head and twice in the chest.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Authorities say former NFL star Steve McNair had a blood-alcohol level twice Tennessee's legal limit for driving when his girlfriend shot him to death. Tennessee Assistant Medical Examiner Feng Li said Monday that a toxicology report showed a trace amount of marijuana in the body of Sahel Kazemi. Police say the 20-year-old Kazemi shot McNair July 4 in a Nashville condo before killing herself. Police say McNair was likely asleep when he was shot twice in the head and twice in the chest. Li said there was no way to tell from the report how long before...

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TMZ has learned "Three's Company" star Joyce DeWitt was arrested for DUI on July 4th in El Segundo, California. Law enforcement sources tell us DeWitt drove past a barricade Saturday afternoon -- and when an officer approached her, she smelled like booze. She was given field sobriety tests and then arrested for suspicion of DUI. The 60-year-old actress, who played Janet Wood on the 80's sitcom, posted bail for $5,000.

FORT WORTH — Two legislators called Wednesday for an outside agency to investigate how a Euless man was injured early Sunday in the custody of Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents at a gay bar south of downtown. State Rep. Lon Burnam and state Sen. Wendy Davis, both Fort Worth Democrats, said they met with commission officials Wednesday about what happened at the Rainbow Lounge, 651 S. Jennings Ave. "We had more questions than they had answers," Burnam said. "But that’s understandable at this point." (snip) On Wednesday, the commission issued its first statement about the disturbance, which occurred about 1...

A local corruption reporter in Russia died of head injuries on Monday in what police said Tuesday was a drunken fall. Colleagues, on the other hand, are sure it was a revenge attack for muckraking journalism. Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, 63, the editor of a Rostov-on-Don newspaper whose name translates as Corruption and Crime died Monday of a severe head injury sustained April 30. Police say Yaroshenko was drunk and hit his head on the stairs, but colleagues claim Yaroshenko was attacked. "I have no doubt that the attack was directly connected to Yaroshenko's writing and is payback for his journalistic work,"...

Rio Rancho police arrested the head of the Santa Fe Police Department's Internal Affairs Division early Sunday morning and charged him with aggravated drunken driving, according to a police report. Lt. Stephen Ryan, 44, was pulled over about 1:40 a.m. at the intersection of Golf Course Road and Southern Boulevard in Rio Rancho after an officer saw his 2002 Toyota Tundra pickup weaving, the report says. He was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated and failure to maintain a traffic lane after Ryan refused to take a breath test, according to the report. Ryan was placed on administrative leave Monday...

One minute they were a bunch of carefree teenagers headed to somebody's house to “hang out.” The next minute four of them were dead, one critically injured and others on their cell phones describing for dispatchers the horrific crash scene east of Santa Fe. “Tell someone to get out here. It's really bad. I mean, half the (expletive) car is gone,” pleads Mikhail McReynolds, the first caller to reach dispatchers. “I think people might be dead.” Kate Klein, Alyssa Trouw, an Julian Martinez, all 16, and Rose Simmons 15 were killed shortly after midnight Sunday when the Subaru in which...

MOSCOW, June 26 (Reuters) - Cheap and illicit alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years and the government must act urgently to reverse the trend, a study to be published in The Lancet at the weekend said. "Excessive alcohol consumption in Russia, particularly by men, has in several recent years caused more than half of all the deaths at ages of 15-54 years," the Lancet article said. The research conducted in three industrial cities -- Tomsk, Barnaul and Biysk -- said "excess mortality from liver cancer, throat cancer, liver disease, and pancreatic disease...

Alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years, according to new research. The international study found three quarters of deaths among men and half of deaths among women aged 15-54 could be attributed to alcohol abuse. Such a mortality rate for this age range is five times higher for men and three times higher for women when compared to Western Europe. Professor David Zaridze, who led the research, worked out that alcohol had killed three million in the country since the failed attempt to restrict sales in 1987. Some 30,000 people - twice the...

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Friday, June 26, 2009 A former mayor found sitting naked and holding a beer at a Rabun County campsite told police he wasn’t the same naked man seen walking around earlier. Mark Musselwhite, 43, said he was hot and had been in the creek, according to a Georgia Department of Natural Resources incident report. He apparently didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. Musselwhite, of Gainesville, was arrested last weekend after being confronted by state DNR authorities. He was charged with public indecency. “He told me he was the ex-mayor of the city Gainesville and he was...

The hits just keep on coming from our southside neighbors to the north; the fun-loving folks across the river in Jeffersonville. Wednesday morning, a resident of Elk Point Boulevard looked out and saw his trash can overturned, laying on its side. Garbage was strewn about his yard, and he was about to think some unkind thoughts about the neighborhood youth, when he observed a pair of legs—clothed and shod—sticking out from the can. Elk Point Blvd. Resident Roberta Embry told WDRB-FOX-41 (see video): "My husband got up early this morning about five and he heard a lot of people drinking....

Jeffersonville attorney Larry Wilder was found asleep by police in his neighbor’s overturned city garbage can Wednesday morning, after neighbors called police when they woke to find their trash strewn on the ground and a man inside the receptacle. Jeffersonville Police Chief Tim Deeringer said Wilder was cooperative when police arrived at the home on Elk Pointe Boulevard and was able to walk back to his home — next door. Wilder’s son and daughter, both adults, were home and able to take care of him from there, Deeringer said. No arrest was made as a result of the incident. “There...

CHESAPEAKE – A Chesapeake man is among four people charged in an eight-month moonshine investigation in North Carolina and Virginia. Larry Donnell Parker, 57, of Tournament Drive, faces 12 charges of sale of alcoholic beverages without a license, possessing and transporting untaxed whiskey and maintaining a common nuisance. Virginia ABC agents say they seized one vehicle and 72 containers of untaxed whiskey when they arrested Parker last Thursday. They say he would sell the containers for $45 each. At the same time in Northampton County, NC, three people were arrested on 11 charges total, including the manufacture and distribution of...

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. -- A southern Indiana lawyer said he's embarrassed and has apologized for being found asleep headfirst in neighbor's trash can after a night of drinking. No charges have been filed against Larry Wilder, who is the Jeffersonville City Council's attorney. The council president said she'll call a special meeting next week to discuss Wilder's status with the city. Wilder said he was with friends for dinner and drinks in nearby Louisville, Ky., on Tuesday night but was driven home in a client's limousine and remembers little of what happened after that. A neighbor found Wilder...

Passers-by were shocked to see rowdy bikini-clad students struggling to stand up and vomiting at midday on a Sunday afternoon. This year for the first time in 80 years the garden party, organised by the Wyverns, an all-male Magdalene College drinking society, had to be held in a new location after officials banned students from holding the event on university land.

The trucks idled in the long line on the dirt road leading to this place called the Redneck Yacht Club. The Turbo Diesels and the Power Strokes rumbled while waiting. Big trucks pulled trailers with even bigger trucks. This started on Friday morning of Memorial Day weekend, and continued into Friday night, and on into Saturday morning, and still on Saturday night. They had come to put their four-wheelers, their swamp buggies and their jacked-up trucks into 800 out-of-the-way acres of muddy, goopy, chocolatey slop. The signs on the roadside were rules. No littering. No underage drinking. No burning tires....

WASHINGTON—Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who has struggled with depression, alcoholism and addiction for much of his life, said Friday that he has checked into a medical facility for treatment. Discuss COMMENTS (17) The Rhode Island Democrat said in a statement that his recovery is a "lifelong process" and that he will do whatever it takes to preserve his health. "I have decided to temporarily step away from my normal routine to ensure that I am being as vigilant as possible in my recovery," Kennedy said. He did not disclose where he was being treated. Kennedy, who has wrestled with alcoholism, bipolar...

Enters rehab again.

MANAMA, Bahrain -- Every weekend, bumper-to-bumper traffic blocks the causeway into this small island nation as visitors from nearby Saudi Arabia flock to delights unavailable at home: movie theaters, bars and, for some, commercial sex. With few other attractions, Bahrain's booming tourism industry thrives on the island's reputation as a freewheeling oasis just a short drive from major Saudi cities. Bahrain has little oil of its own; tourism, mostly by the four million Saudis who cross the causeway each year, accounts for a tenth of its economy. All of this is endangered, as Bahraini legislators press to scrap the country's...

The District ranks highest in the country for cocaine use and alcohol dependence, and has the third-highest percentage of marijuana usage, according to a new study. The study by the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is the result of national drug survey results from 2006 and 2007 of residents of the District and 50 states, compiled through interviews and calculated estimations.

Thirty-nine states have provisions for legal armed defense in restaurantsYesterday, the bill to remove Ohio's ban on self-defense while dining was introduced. If passed, this bill would allow a lawful citizen with a concealed handgun license (CHL) to remain armed while eating in a restaurant that serves alcohol as long as that person was not drinking. Soon, we'll see the typical responses from the anti-gun, anti-freedom crowd. Usually the first attack on legislation like this is that they claim this will result in people getting drunk, getting into fights, and that will lead to shootings. Of course, they neglect to...

NASHVILLE -- After setting a veto-override vote for Wednesday, state Rep. Curry Todd lashed out at Gov. Phil Bredesen Monday night for vetoing his bill allowing gun-carry licensees to take pistols into places serving alcohol. "I won't tell you what the governor can do with that piece of paper he just sent," Todd, R-Collierville, said at the House lectern after the governor's veto message -- which said the the bill is "reckless and lacking basic safeguards to ensure public safety" -- was read aloud. The House veto-override vote is Wednesday sometime after it convenes at 9 a.m. The Senate sponsor...

Two Britons die on Bali after drinking wine laced with methanol The artist Rose Johnson, who died after drinking the arak wine on Bali Anne Barrowclough in Sydney, Sian Powell in Bangkok Two Britons have died in agony after drinking rice wine laced with methanol in a mass poisoning on the Indonesian island of Bali. Alan Colen, 59, suffered a painful, drawn-out death on Saturday after buying an adulterated bottle of local wine, known as arak. Mr Colen, who had lived on the holiday island for 13 years, bought the wine from a roadside stall hear his home in Canggu,...

Here's another reason to quit fags - people who smoke and down more than seven drinks every week are vulnerable to bowel cancer, says a new study. An international team, led by the George Institute for International Health in Australia, has found that smokers who consume over seven drinks a week have nearly 60 per cent more risk of developing bowel cancer, compared with non-drinkers. Obesity and diabetes are also associated with a 20 per cent greater risk of developing bowel cancer which kills more than half a million people worldwide, the study has revealed. Lead researcher Rachel Huxley said:...

Passengers complained about the pilot of a Russian Boeing 737-500 being drunk before it crashed in the Urals killing 88 people, air investigators confirmed yesterday. One woman even sent a text message to a friend in Britain shortly before take-off of the Aeroflot-Nord service from Moscow to Perm, saying: 'The voice of our captain - he sounds like a completely drunk man.' As alarming, it was revealed in the official crash report that the pilots lacked the adequate training on the Boeing aircraft, with the co-pilot Rustam Allaberdin not speaking any English and being unable to read the plane's manual....

So says the Ford Motor Company, which on 19 May revealed test results on a novel ethanol-assisted engine. Called a direct-injection ethanol engine, the unit runs primarily on petrol. When it needs to deliver maximum power -- to climb a hill or overtake, for example -- the engine management computer adds a little ethanol to the fuel injected into the combustion chambers. This arrangement allows the engine to operate at a much higher compression ratio -- a measure of the amount by which the fuel-air mixture is compressed before being ignited -- than normal. As a result, an average car...

TAIPEI (Reuters) – A Taiwanese groom died on his wedding day after having too much wine and beer to drink, police and local media said Monday. The man, 35, an insurance company worker surnamed Wu passed out at home after drinking too much Saturday at a high-end restaurant in Taipei among more than 100 wedding guests, the Liberty Times reported.

Al Bundy Fires up the Mob over the new Beer Tax http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utCKTFBcMSE&NR=1

PARIS (AP) - French customs officers are inspecting a North Korean ship at an Indian Ocean island off the coast of Africa as part of U.N. sanctions prompted by the communist nation's nuclear test, but they found nothing illegal so far, officials said Thursday. It was the first time a country was known to have stopped a North Korean vessel under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718 authorizing searches as part of the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang for its nuclear test. Since the resolution was passed Oct. 14, at least four other North Korean vessels have been stopped, but the countries...

The Senate Finance Committee considers the option of taxing vices to pay for health care reform. Photo: Reuters If you make big bucks — or enjoy alcohol, cigarettes and Coke — the government might hit you up to pay for fixing the nation’s health care system. On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee peeked into vending machines and liquor stores, company payrolls and health savings accounts, looking for a mix of tax increases and spending cuts as a way to pay for a health overhaul — which could cost more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Experts thought the big...

A Wyoming county woman was charged Tuesday with causing the death of her baby by alcohol poisoning. Jessica Ann Miner, 26, of 127 Church Road, Tunkhannock, faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, recklessly endangering the life of another person and endangering the welfare of a child. Mrs. Miner is accused of giving alcohol to her 6-month-old son, Mason D. Miner, on Dec. 10, 2007. A coroner's inquest in March determined the baby had a blood-alcohol level of .205 percent when he died. Magisterial District Judge John Hovan released Mrs. Miner on $25,000 unsecured bail. Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr....

(CNSNews.com) -- The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job. Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers." "Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social...

A U.S. review of studies found that nearly 1 in 12 people exposed to terrorism report increased use and misuse of alcohol, researchers said. Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor combined data from 31 studies conducted in the aftermath of such incidents as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 and the Intifada uprisings in Israel. Preliminary findings, scheduled to be published in the June issue of the journal Addiction, indicated that nearly 10 percent of the general population surveyed...

PHOENIX -There are laws on the books that prevent the mixing of booze and guns in public places where alcohol is served. The people running the Phoenix Convention Center want to temporarily suspend part of the center's liquor license that bans carrying weapons where booze is served. Convention officials say gun owners attending next week's National Rifle Association convention would not be able to bring weapons into the convention center complex. Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control spokeswoman Lee Hill calls it an unusual request to suspend a liquor license and even more unusual to do it for a...

PHOENIX -There are laws on the books that prevent the mixing of booze and guns in public places where alcohol is served. The people running the Phoenix Convention Center want to temporarily suspend part of the center's liquor license that bans carrying weapons where booze is served. Convention officials say gun owners attending next week's National Rifle Association convention would not be able to bring weapons into the convention center complex. Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control spokeswoman Lee Hill calls it an unusual request to suspend a liquor license and even more unusual to do it for a...

NOT a brick has been laid to build the first distillery on the island where Whisky Galore! was filmed – but connoisseurs have already signed up to reserve the entire batch of its first-year casks. Peter Brown will begin building the distillery on Barra in the autumn. The distillery, costing more than £1 million, will make about 5,000 gallons of Isle of Barra Single Malt Whisky a year using water from Loch Uisge, the island's highest loch.

President Obama's troubling nominee to head the National Highway Traffic Safety AdministrationEarlier this month, President Barack Obama nominated Mothers Against Drunk Driving CEO Chuck Hurley to head up the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).Hurley's pending appointment is bad news for social drinkers, motorists, and anyone interested in freedom of movement and less hassle on the roadways. Hurley is an anti-alcohol zealot, and a longtime proponent of just about any highway regulation that's sold under the guise of public safety. He's a supporter of primary seat belt laws, which allow police to pull motorists over solely for seat belt infractions....

In the latest chapter in the agonizing chronicle of David Hasselhoff's multiple falls off the wagon, a new report surfaced today that the former Baywatch hunk was hauled off to the hospital after his youngest daughter found him passed out at home. Vodka-swilling Hasselhoff registered a mind-numbing 0.39 blood alcohol level when he was taken to Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Saturday, radaronline.com reported.

LINTHICUM, Md. - There were some tense moments at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport Tuesday night as two passengers had to be evaluated for swine flu. AirTran Airways Flight 85 from Cancun, Mexico radioed ahead to the airport about the two men, said airport spokesman Jonathan Dean. They had fevers and were sick to their stomachs. "The airport's fire and rescue department responded," Dean tells WTOP. "They evaluated the passengers and determined that there was no public health threat. They were actually ill before boarding." According to David Paulson, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the...

Londoners Advised to 'Breathe Responsibly' as They Enjoy Their Regular Tipple ... in Vapor Form

A bar owner and two employees who were detained, handcuffed and thrown in jail for filming state alcohol enforcement agents outside the Distillery in Downtown Albuquerque have filed a federal lawsuit against the officers. Jacob Traub, David Garcia and Lance Gomez were charged with a felony count of obstructing the administration of the Liquor Control Act, but the Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office never pursued charges stemming from the May 2006 incident.~~ snip ~~ According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court earlier this month Traub had hired Garcia, a professional videographer, to tape police near his establishment —...

7-Eleven Inc. CEO Joe DePinto says that customers are buying fewer six- and 12-packs of beer, choosing instead the better value 18-packs. Stores are making room in cold cases for the bigger packs. The Dallas-based convenience store chain has a bird's-eye view on how everyman (or woman) is adjusting. Some more economic indicators from 7-Eleven: • Customers are moving to $10 prepaid phone cards from $20 ones. • In the beverage aisles, people are buying cheaper beer during the week. Premium picks up on the weekends. And they're using refill mugs more to save on that daily cup of coffee....

For the past 20 years, the U.S. has maintained a Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21 (MLDA21), with little public debate about the wisdom of this policy. Recently, however, more than 100 college and university presidents signed the Amethyst Initiative, a public statement calling for "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age." SNIP Our research compares traffic fatality rates in states before and after they changed their MLDA from 18 to 21. In contrast to all earlier work, however, we examined separately the impact in states that adopted an MLDA21 on their own...

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has opened the way for a possible snap election by promising to reintroduce laws for a tax on alcoholic soft drinks already rejected by parliament. The centre-left government can call a double dissolution election in both houses of parliament if identical legislation is twice rejected by lawmakers, with a three-month gap between attempts. Political analysts have speculated that Rudd, whose popularity is at near record levels ahead of scheduled elections in late 2010, could call an early poll to skirt the worst of an expected recession, peaking in the middle of next year. Conservative rivals...