ATLANTA (AP) – Let us give thanks — and pass the Purell. Your family might be sharing more than turkey and pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving. Swine flu may also be on the table — and at crowded airports and shopping malls. Just as the pandemic seems to be waning around the country, some health officials are worried that holiday gatherings could lead to more infections. So the government has launched a new travel-health campaign. "It's important to remember the things that everybody can do to stay healthy," said Dr. Beth Bell of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Thanksgiving is typically followed by at least a modest bump in early seasonal flu cases, according to reports from the past few years. But this, of course, is not a typical year. Swine flu is a new virus that accounts for nearly all flu cases right now. The CDC urges people to travel only if they are well, get vaccinated against swine and seasonal flu, wash their hands often, and cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or sleeve. Some 33-million Americans are expected to hit the nation's highways over the Thanksgiving holiday, a slight increase from last year. About 2.3 million more will travel by airplane.

3 airlines fined for stranding passengers

WASHINGTON (AP) – The government is imposing fines for the first time against airlines for stranding passengers on an airport tarmac, the Transportation Department said Tuesday. The department said it has levied a precedent- setting $175,000 in fines against three airlines for their roles in the stranding of passengers overnight in a plane at Rochester, Minnesota, on Aug. 8. Continental Express Flight 2816 was en route from Houston to Minneapolis carrying 47 passengers when thunderstorms forced it to divert to Rochester, where it landed about 12:30 a.m.

The airport was closed and Mesaba Airlines employees — the only airline employees at the airport at the time — refused to open the terminal for the stranded passengers. Continental Airlines and its regional airline partner ExpressJet, which operated the flight for Continental, were each fined $50,000. The department imposed the largest penalty — $75,000 — on Mesaba Airlines, a subsidiary of Northwest Airlines, which was acquired by Delta Air Lines last year.

Four US teens wanted for slay tries in Japan

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese police plan to arrest on suspicion of attempted murder four children of US military personnel after a motorcyclist was badly injured by a rope stretched across a road, it was reported Wednesday. The 23-year-old woman suffered a fractured skull after she was caught by the rope and thrown off her moped near western Tokyo's US Yokota Air Base on August 13, said the Yomiuri Shimbun daily and other media.

The woman later told police she saw four foreigners shortly before the incident, according to the reports citing unnamed sources. A surveillance camera recorded images of three boys and one girl in the area at the time, and the four allegedly acted 'suspiciously' when later questioned by police. The police have obtained arrest warrants and planned to take the four teenagers, reportedly aged between 15 and 18, into custody as early as this week, the reports said.

Dad leaves boy in trailer, goes into strip club

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A man was arrested after police said he left his 5-year-old son in a tractor-trailer while he ducked into an Indianapolis strip club to drink. The 39-year-old was arrested at 1:15 a.m. Tuesday on child neglect and public intoxication charges after calling police to report his truck stolen and his child missing. Police said the man was too drunk to remember where he had parked.

They found the boy inside watching cartoons on a television inside the cab. The keys were in the ignition, and the doors were unlocked. Police said the suspect put his son in jeopardy by leaving him exposed in a high crime area. The man was taken to the Marion County jail, where his wife picked up him and the child.