Friday,  July 27, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 013 • 15 of 31 •  Other Editions

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Walsh's performance, and donations from concertgoers help keep the annual festival free, said Robert Joyce, executive director of Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues.
• The annual event known locally as JazzFest stretches far beyond that genre, mixing in smooth jazz, hard blues, traditional blues, zydeco, country and rock. Joyce said the goal is to introduce crowds to music, and bringing in headliners like Walsh helps expose more people to a variety of styles.
• "It's sort of the argument that Picasso really isn't painting people," Joyce said. "It's art, and everybody has an opinion about art and that's what makes it personal."
• Walsh said his goal Saturday night will be to make sure everybody goes home happy.

• "You've got to keep it fun, because if it's not fun, the audience can tell," Walsh said.
•

Hot, dry weather heightens West Nile virus risk
CARLA K. JOHNSON,AP Medical Writer

• CHICAGO (AP) -- Life's a picnic this year for the small, sneaky mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus and pose a deadly risk to humans. Hot, dry weather in the Midwest has created the perfect conditions in still-damp ditches and underground storm water basins where the Culex mosquito breeds.
• Where there's water in the drought-plagued Midwest, it's stagnant water -- the Culex mosquito's favorite breeding habitat. The heat also speeds up the mosquito's life cycle, which means more breeding and more mosquitoes, and accelerates the West Nile virus replication process.
• Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Texas are reporting higher rates of infected mosquitoes compared with past years. More infected mosquitoes mean a higher risk for humans. Minnesota, Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas are reporting earlier-than-usual cases of human infection.
• "I am quite concerned we may be facing one of our most severe seasons for West Nile virus since it arrived in our state in 2002," said Kristy Bradley, state epidemiologist in Oklahoma, which has had eight confirmed human cases of West Nile infection, with seven of those being the serious, neuroinvasive form of the disease. "I'm somewhat bracing myself for a rocky road ahead."
• West Nile virus is a cyclical disease in humans, appearing in the summer and disappearing in the winter as carrier mosquitoes die off and hibernate.
• Illinois, which usually sees its first human cases in August, already has two con

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