Mind Soup

From the king of pop to the queen of reality TV, from swine flu to MPs' expenses, these are among the year's most-read stories. There are goodbyes and near-misses, extremes in the weather, and a few light-hearted moments alongside more serious tales. JANUARY Two near misses and a certain Time Lord grabbed the headlines in January. It was new year, new Doctor, as  Matt Smith was named  as the actor to take over from David Tennant in Doctor Who. At 27, he will be the youngest to take on the role when he appears on TV in 2010. A pilot ditched an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River after a double bird strike Attention turned to Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo, who  wrote off his Ferrari  in a crash near Manchester Airport but walked away unscathed. Another lucky escape attracted plenty of attention when  a pilot crash-landed an airliner  in New York's Hudson River after birds disabled its engines. All 155 passengers and crew were rescued....

H1N1 Flu Virus under an electron microscope The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved vaccines designed to protect against the H1N1 influenza virus, a key step before starting a vaccination campaign. The approval was announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a hearing that was held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. An FDA spokeswoman said the agency approved vaccines made by a unit of Sanofi-Aventis SA, Novartis AG, CSL Ltd. and AstraZeneca PLC's MedImmune unit. MedImmune makes a vaccine in the form of mist delivered through the nose rather than a shot. Ms. Sebelius said a large-scale vaccination program will begin in mid-October. The U.S. has spent more than $1 billion to purchase and administer a total of 195 million H1N1 vaccine doses being made by five companies, including GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Ms. Sebelius said that the agency's officials are still working on that application. About 40 million to 50 million vac...

CAIRO – Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said. The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order. "It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country's slaughterhouses," Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population. Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahm...