(CNN) — A special court ruled Friday that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that vaccines caused autism in three cases.

The cases, brought by the children’s parents, all alleged that vaccines containing thimerosol, a mercury preservative, caused or contributed to autism spectrum disorders in the children.

Thousands of parents of children with autism have filed petitions seeking compensation from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a federal program intended to compensate victims of injuries caused by vaccines, since 2001.

A panel of “special masters” began hearing three other test cases in 2007 brought by parents of children with autism who also said vaccines caused the disorder in their children. In February 2009, a special court ruled that no link between autism and certain early childhood vaccines could be proven based on evidence presented in those cases.

But in the separate prominent case of Hannah Poling, a child with autism, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program concluded in November 2007 that vaccinations she received as a toddler had “significantly aggravated” her underlying illness that had predisposed her to symptoms of autism.

Poling’s parents said in 2008 that their assertion that her illness was caused by childhood vaccines was vindicated by the federal government’s decision to compensate them.

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London, England (CNN) — They were 51 young men who met a grisly death far from home, their heads chopped off and their bodies thrown into a mass grave.

Their resting place was unknown until last year, when workmen excavating for a road near the London 2012 Olympic sailing venue in Weymouth, England, unearthed the grave. But questions remained about who the men were, how long they had been there and why they had been decapitated.

On Friday, officials revealed that analysis of the men’s teeth shows they were Vikings, executed with sharp blows to the head around a thousand years ago. They were killed during the Dark Ages, when Vikings frequently invaded the region.

“To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development,” said David Score, project manager for Oxford Archaeology, which excavated the remains. “Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual and presents an incredible opportunity to learn more about what is happening in Dorset at this time.”

Radiocarbon dating had already placed the remains between A.D. 890 and 1030, before the Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England.

Scientists from the British Geological Survey then went further and analyzed the men’s teeth to find out exactly where they were from. Isotope analysis of teeth can reveal clues about a person’s drinking water, and in turn the climate they came from, said Jane Evans, an isotope geochemist at the survey.

“What we found was all of these guys came from a climate that had to be colder than Britain … probably Sweden and Norway,” Evans said by phone Friday. “One guy had such a signature of such a cold climate that he probably came from above the Arctic Circle.”

The isotopes also show the men had eaten a high-protein diet, comparable to known sites in Sweden. It means the men were probably Scandinavian Vikings who were executed by Anglo-Saxons.

Evans and her colleagues at the British Geological Survey’s NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in Nottingham, England, analyzed 10 of the skeletons over the course of six weeks.

“These results are fantastic,” Evans said. “This is the best example we have ever seen of a group of individuals that clearly have their origins outside Britain.”

Many of the executed men suffered multiple wounds, inflicted by a sharp-bladed weapon, to the skull, jaw and upper spine, all thought to relate to the process of decapitation, the Dorset County Council said.

Some men show evidence of other wounds, including a cut to the pelvis, blows to the chest and stomach, and defensive injuries to the hands, the council said.

The bones still appear cleanly sliced, indicating the men suffered a “sword-based execution,” Evans said.

There are also two examples of healed fractures that are unlikely to have been medically treated. In one case, the skeleton’s right leg is 5 centimeters, or about 2 inches, shorter than the left, which would have given the person a pronounced limp, the council said.

The burial site was found during work for the Weymouth Relief Road, meant to ease traffic congestion on the highway to Weymouth, on England’s southern coast. Weymouth Bay and nearby Portland Harbor will host the Olympic and Paralympic sailing events during the 2012 London Olympics.

The leader of the Dorset County Council, Angus Campbell, said the construction of the road had already revealed prehistoric and Iron Age finds.

“But we never would have dreamed of finding a Viking war grave,” Campbell said in a statement. “The burial pit took us all by surprise and its story gets more fascinating as the analysis goes on.”

Researchers are hoping to find further evidence about the men’s lifestyles, activity, health and diet, the council said.

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Editor’s note: CNN will have complete coverage of the 2010 South by Southwest Interactive Conference at www.cnn.com/TECH and @cnntech on Twitter.

AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) — It’s billed as a showcase for the brightest minds in technology — a place to network with industry leaders and see the latest Internet innovations.

South by Southwest Interactive — a tech conference not to be confused with the related music and film festivals — kicks off today in Austin, Texas. But tech entrepreneur Dennis Crowley has another term for it.

“It’s spring break for nerds,” said Crowley, a co-founder of Foursquare, the mobile game and social-networking application that debuted at the event last year.

The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival was founded in 1987 to showcase a burgeoning music scene in Austin, Texas. A week for interactive and film showcases was added in 1994.

Last year, 11,000 people registered for the interactive festival alone — with organizers expecting maybe 15,000 this year.

Are you at SXSWi? Share your photos, videos

Since its inception, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) has been the launching pad for some of the online and technology world’s biggest new ideas.

Twitter, the micro-blogging site with more than 70 million users, debuted at SXSWi in 2007.

Last March, Foursquare went live the day before the festival began. Crowley said he expects the application to hit a half-million users before this year’s SXSW starts.

Blogging platforms that make the Web more social have launched in Austin, while video sites like YouTube have gained traction by exposure at the festival.

For developers, the concept is simple — put your product in front of the plugged-in tech crowd that flocks to South by Southwest. If they like it, they’ll spread it to everybody else.

“More and more, we see companies taking advantage of the key influencers and ‘digirati’ that are here,” said Shawn O’Keefe, producer of South by Southwest Interactive. “They realize that if they can make their product successful at South by Southwest, they can make it successful anywhere.”

But the spirit of the show remains focused on ideas, not products, O’Keefe said. he says sets the five-day conference apart from events like the gadget-driven Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

“Not that we don’t have a lot of companies involved as sponsors, but we tend to focus on the community and people doing creative things,” he said. “It’s about making things and doing new things with technology to make the world a better place.”

Among the anticipated highlights of this year’s conference are keynote speeches by Twitter CEO Evan Williams and Daniel Ek, CEO of free music service Spotify, and a wide range of panels with such intriguing titles as, “How I Lost My Job Through Twitter, Again” and “Duh! It’s, Like, Tech for Girls.”

And the exchange of ideas doesn’t just happen during the official events.

“It’s a completely different atmosphere,” said Foursquare’s Crowley, comparing SXSWi to other tech events. “There are a lot of parties. It’s almost more valuable to go to the events outside the convention center than the ones in the convention center.”

Not that the event hasn’t gained its detractors. Some in the tech community say that the power of South by Southwest was its outsider credibility, and that it’s gotten too big and mainstream to be a true force for innovation.

Paul Carr, of the technology blog TechCrunch, wrote this week that the festival has become too much of a march from industry party to industry party — with a little Internet celebrity gawking thrown in — to be of value.

“The idea that SXSWi is a conference — or even a festival — for people doing interesting and useful things in technology is a fallacy,” Carr wrote.

O’Keefe counters that the event continues to evolve. He said that while the festival received more proposals for panels than ever before, organizers were more selective about which were approved.

And he said this year’s layout will put events involving similar topics close to each other, in effect creating a series of mini-conferences that will let like-minded people move in smaller, more intimate circles.

“It’s about creating these micro-events within the larger event,” O’Keefe said. “You can still very much experience that.”

Even Carr’s criticisms seemed to come with a dose of mixed feelings. After all, as he writes after urging readers not to go to the festival, he’ll be moderating a panel on Saturday.

“See you in Austin,” he wrote.

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The Geneva History Center’s Boy Scout exhibit, which commemorates the organization’s 100th anniversary has been extended until June 26.

“Scouting: A Century of Values” had previously been scheduled to close May 22, but it will remain open through Geneva Swedish Days because of its popularity.

GHC Educator Margaret Selakovich has given more than 30 guided tours of the exhibition since it opened Jan. 30 to local and regional Cub and Boy Scouts.

Participants view the uniforms, manuals, badges, awards, pins and artifacts that have been part of the Boy Scout movement for the past 100 years. The exhibition also provides an opportunity for Scouts to participate in a History/Mystery Scavenger Hunt, a hands-on knot tying activity and will even be able to get their picture taken with Boy Scout founder Robert Baden-Powell.

The cost for the tour is $3 for residents and $4 for nonresidents. The museum is located at 113 S. Third St. For information, call (630) 232-4951 or visit www.genevahistorycenter.org.

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Sewer replacement will begin on Gilbert Avenue closing the road for about two weeks.

On March 17, the Downers Grove Sanitary District will start replacing 780 feet of sanitary sewer, installation of five new manholes, 16 sanitary service connections and rehabilitate 400 feet of sanitary sewer.

Gilbert Avenue will be closed between Carpenter Street and Jacqueline Drive. A detour route will be posted.

For more information, call the Downers Grove Sanitary District at (630) 969-0664.

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As if the death of a pet is not traumatizing in itself, the Goodwick family of Villa Park says they have to live with wondering if their puppy’s death might have been prevented.

Kobi, the 60-pound Great Dane, was adopted by Michael Goodwick in May 2008 for his three young children. Around Labor Day 2008, Kobi began to experience complications a few days after a surgery.

“I called our vet, but they were closed,” Goodwick said. “So I took her to the Lisle clinic, which was listed on the voicemail.”

Kobi’s symptoms included 106.5 fever, measured at the clinic, and a swollen abdomen where the incision had been made for the surgery.

This is when Dr. Jennifer Woll of Emergency Veterinary Services in Lisle examined Kobi to determine the extent of her illness.

“She touched Kobi’s incision and said the swelling was unrelated to the fever,” said Goodwick, who remembers Woll visually examining Kobi while the dog lay on the floor. Goodwick said he requested fluid samples and X-rays, but Woll refused and said the exams were unnecessary.

“I told her money is not a problem, and that I just want my dog to be healthy,” Goodwick said.

Woll sent Kobi home with advice to Goodwick to give her a bath and bring her in for a re-check at her regular vet the next day.

But after two days of treatment efforts and visits to various veterinary facilities, Kobi died.

“My oldest daughter was hysterical,” Goodwick said about his 8-year-old child. “She kind of understood Kobi was gone, but she couldn’t understand why a young puppy died.”

Goodwick filed a malpractice suit this fall.

Woll has denied providing substandard care to Kobi, but she does admit in court documents that she did not recommend hospitalization, pull fluid samples, perform X-rays, or give Kobi any intravenous fluids or intravenous antibiotics.

Woll has asked the judge to move the suit to small claims court and to transfer the case to mandatory arbitration, where a jury would not hear Goodwick’s case.

“This case is progressing in a manner that is fairly typical,” said Amy Breyer, the attorney representing Michael Goodwick.

The judge continued the pending motions until the next status hearing Thursday, March 25.
Woll’s lawyer, Terry Takash, said his client will continue to deny that she in any way committed malpractice related to the care she provided to Kobi. Takash said Woll is prepared to testify that she offered to hospitalized Kobi and perform surgery, and that Goodwick denied the service.

Takash also said his client provided an injection of antibiotics, cleaned Kobi’s surgical site and provided oral antibiotics, all of which is listed in the medical record given to Goodwick.

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Iowa based company Life Care Services LLC announced the acquisition of Wyndemere Senior Living Community in Wheaton this week.

“Our acquisition of Wyndemere Senior Living Community is perfectly aligned with our overall growth strategy,” said Joel Nelson, executive vice president of operations management at Life Care Services LLC  in a press release. “Wyndemere is an outstanding community with excellent resident satisfaction and wonderful, long-standing relationships in Wheaton, so we are excited to welcome them into our family of senior living communities.”

The Wheaton senior community opened 18 years ago under the direction and ownership of Central DuPage Hospital.

LCS, based in Des Moines, Iowa,  has nearly 40 years of experience in owning and managing senior living communities throughout the country and currently serves more than 23,000 residents in 28 states.  For more information about LCS, please visit www.LCSnet.com.

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The Villa Park Chamber of Commerce is accepting applications for this year’s scholarships to high school students from Villa Park.

Two of the scholarships will be awarded based on academic achievement, while the third one is for vocational achievement.

The deadline for applications is April 19.

Qualified seniors can pick up a scholarship packet by calling the Villa park Chamber of Commerce at (630) 941-9133 or download the application at www.villaparkchamber.org.

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NEW YORK — Thousands of ground zero workers who claim to have been sickened by dust and debris from the World Trade Center will have 90 days to decide whether to accept a settlement worth up to $657.5 million.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who must approve the deal, scheduled his first hearing Friday on a settlement that sought to resolve about 10,000 lawsuits by police, firefighters and construction workers over respiratory illnesses linked to trade center ash. The judge has previously said he favored a settlement, but planned to analyze it carefully to make sure it was fair.

The settlement, announced Thursday evening, is contingent on at least 95 percent of the workers agreeing to accept cash payments ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than $1 million.

Most of those workers will have to decide whether to say yes to the deal before they know for sure how much money they stand to receive, but officials and lawyers involved in crafting the settlement have already begun urging clients to take the deal.

“I think it’s a good settlement for everybody,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday on his weekly radio show. “This takes care of civilians and uniform service members, it takes care of the private contractors who were brought in. … So I think it’s fair and reasonable given the circumstances. We’ve been working on this for a long time.”

Marc Bern, a senior partner with the law firm Worby, Groner, Edelman & Napoli, Bern LLP, which negotiated the deal, said it was “a good settlement.” The legal partnership represents about 9,000 of the people potentially covered by the settlement, a factor likely to increase the odds of reaching the 95 percent acceptance threshold.

Funding for the settlement will come from the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special entity established with a $1 billion grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to indemnify the city against potential legal action related to the trade center cleanup.

The settlement would mean a postponement or cancellation of the trials tentatively scheduled to begin in May. Some of the cases scheduled to be heard first included that of a firefighter who died of throat cancer and another who needed a lung transplant, as well as workers with less serious ailments, including a Consolidated Edison utility company employee with limited exposure to the debris pile and no current serious illness.

The deal would make the city and other companies represented by the insurer liable for a minimum of $575 million, with more money available to the sick if certain conditions are met.

Workers who wish to participate in the settlement would need to prove they had been at the World Trade Center site or other facilities that handled debris. They also would have to turn over medical records and provide other information aimed at weeding out fraudulent or dubious claims.

Thousands of police officers, firefighters and construction workers who put in time at the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan had filed lawsuits against the city, claiming it sent them to ground zero without proper protective equipment.

Many now claim to have fallen ill. A majority complained of a respiratory problem similar to asthma, but the suits also sought damages for hundreds of other types of ailments, including cancer.

Lawyers for the city claimed it did its best to get respiratory equipment to everyone who needed it. They also had challenged some of the claims as based on the thinnest of medical evidence, noting that thousands of the people suing suffered from conditions common in the general population or from no illness at all.

It has yet to be seen how effective or potentially confrontational the process of evaluating claims will be.

The Associated Press reviewed dozens of the first cases headed for trial and found several instances where the court had received incorrect or misleading information about the workers illnesses or their time at ground zero.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs have spent years compiling a database based on the workers medical histories that the court used to rank illnesses by severity. The information was expected to play a role in determining the amount of any settlement payments. But lawyers for the city and some workers have complained about its accuracy. Some told the AP they were listed as having cancer, when they did not.

Under the settlement, the task of deciding what each worker will be paid will fall to a neutral third party, to be picked by the two sides.

Carpenter James Nolan, of Yonkers, said he helped recover bodies and build ramps for firehoses at the site and then developed lung and leg problems, for which he takes six medications. He said the city knew the air was dirty so he sued six years ago and now he’s happy the case is ending.

“We’ve had to fight for what we deserve,” said Nolan, 45. “I’m glad it’s coming to an end.”

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With a triple shooting Wednesday night on the border between Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates, and another gang-related police pursuit from Arlington Heights into Palatine the same evening, there’s no denying that gangs have come to the suburbs.

“It’s hard for these towns to adjust to the fact that gangs are everywhere,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. “It’s not a stigma against any town, because they’re everywhere.”

Although this may be hard for residents to accept, the typically placid nature of suburban communities is precisely what attracts gangs, Dart said. “They’re not dummies,” he said. “They’re not going to be looking for places with the highest police presence. They go in the other direction.”

Dart acknowledged that the Northwest suburbs are a hot zone of gang activity, but he quickly cautioned against hysteria. “There’s many hot points right now,” he said. “Is it more so than others? No. But is there definitely activity? Yes. More activity than we’ve seen in the past? Absolutely.”

Dart’s office says gang-intelligence officers have detected increased activity in pockets of Palatine, Rolling Meadows and Arlington Heights because of an influx of rival gang members.

“I feel for Schaumburg and Palatine, those communities, because last year we were overwhelmed. So I empathize,” said Hanover Park Mayor Rodney Craig, who suffered through a gang flare-up a year ago. “It breaks a mayor’s heart. You put a lot of effort into your community, and then you have these folks who come from who knows where. They come in and they start a problem, and sometimes you see it coming and sometimes you don’t.

“The nice weather comes, and away we go. Look out, spring.”

That can rattle residents when a crime like Wednesday’s drive-by shooting of three children ages 12, 14 and 16 suddenly occurs. At Helen Keller Junior High School not far from where the Schaumburg shooting took place, Grace Novak said she picks up her 12-year-old daughter after school every day, even though they live nearby.

“I know there’s been attempted assaults, attempted abductions in the area,” Novak said. “I’m sure that there’s activity that we don’t care to have here, but I’m surprised it was a shooting. How does something like that happen right by a school?”

“Our crime rate is the lowest it’s been since 1985,” said Schaumburg President Al Larson. “This is something that’s an anomaly as far as the village is concerned.”

He said Schaumburg police were still piecing together how it happened. The three shooting victims are residents of Salem Ridge apartments in Hoffman Estates, just across the border, and were returning home after playing soccer when “some kid came up on a bicycle from another part of town,” he said.

“There was some discussion about gangs,” he added, which was broken up by an older neighbor. The boy drove off on the bike, but he apparently was seen using a cell phone. When the three teens later crossed the street to a Schaumburg convenience store, they were shot at from a passing pickup truck, and all three were wounded.

Larson said it was a conflict as old as time, only different today. “Kids get together, and in the old days they just duked it out,” he said. “In this case, somebody had a gun, and some kids got hurt.” Police have talked to the boy on the bike, but say they don’t yet know if the argument and shootings are related.

Larson said what Schaumburg police were finding most frustrating was the code of silence. “Nobody says anything – everybody involved,” he said. “Nobody will admit to anything.”

“It’s very tricky,” Dart acknowledged. “We’ve been trying to change our activity to stay out in front of it, and we feel pretty confident we have.”

Dart regionalized the sheriff’s gang unit a couple of years ago into five different locales, so that now there are 14 to 20 officers specializing in gang activity in the Northwest suburbs. When gang activity pops up where it previously wasn’t, they work with local police to direct pressure on that area.

“We’ve been more aggressive in our patrols and in our gang-suppression activity and our presence,” Dart said.

The Arlington Heights incident was actually an example of that. Sheriff’s police got wind of a possible gang rumble in Arlington Heights, and officers on surveillance spotted a car carrying three men, one brandishing a shotgun. They pursued the car into Palatine, where the suspects attempted to flee into some woods, but they were tracked down and arrested with the help of a police helicopter and the sheriff’s bloodhound, Melanie.

“We’re going to keep being vigilant and try to stay on top of it,” Dart said.

“We don’t want that to happen in Schaumburg or Hoffman Estates or anywhere,” Larson said. “Our police department is working hard to eliminate the pockets of discontent in the community, and they’ve been very successful the last 10, 15 years.”

Craig pointed out that when a gang flare-up occurs, it must be acknowledged, not hidden or denied. “For me, that’s what you have to do, meet it and engage it,” he said.

Community policing and neighborhood watches were essential, along with redirecting resources to put more officers on the streets. “You want to have a strong relationship with your community,” he said, “and because of that you can turn things around. … We are seeing results.”

Violence: ‘It breaks a mayor’s heart’

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