Canada Researchers Make Major Anti-Cancer Discovery. Many common cancers are destroyed by being injected with vesicular stomatitis virus, not infectious to humans. Tumors affected include melanomas, leukemia, lung, breast and prostate cancers. Human patients have not yet been exposed to the massive doses of VSV that therapeutic application of this discovery would involve.

The mortuaries in Lagos, Nigeria are filling up due to a strike of government workers, and Authorities Have Ordered a Mass Burial of over 600 unclaimed corpses.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Anti-Abortion Law. The Nebraska law banning “partial birth abortion” (a heinous propagandistic term for the medical procedure flogged by its opponents) is unconstitutional. You never know with this Court, but you do know where some of its justices sit. The usual Gang of Three — Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas — were joined in dissenting by Kennedy.

In a 6-3 vote, the Court also upheld the states’ rights to protect those going into or out of medical facilities from anti-abortion protesters. Kennedy wrote the opinion, and Kennedy and Scalia wrote dissents.

Regrettably, a 5-4 vote upheld the right of the Boy Scouts to exclude gays, overturning a decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the case of a Scout leader dismissed once known to be gay. Rehnquist wrote for the majority. Let’s see how the Boy Scouts fare now as an openly anti-gay institution.

Thank Goodness, It Appears Finally to be Over

Jon Carroll, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, ponders Mondegreens.