N.Y.C. Outbreak Throws Wrench Into Parents' Days

New York

Flowers and candles piled up Monday outside a school whose assistant principal died of swine flu as thousands of New York City parents scrambled to make arrangements for children at 12 schools closed because of the outbreak.

Mitchell Wiener, 55, died Sunday evening after being sick with the virus for nearly a week. A makeshift memorial sprang up in his memory outside the school — closed since Thursday — with one handwritten sign reading, "R.I.P. Mr. Wiener."

Japan has closed 2,000 schools and canceled public events after more than 130 people — most of them teenagers — tested positive for the virus. And swine flu dominated the World Health Organization's five-day annual meeting, which began Monday in Geneva with the agency's chief saying she is not yet raising the pandemic alert...