Tuesday, January 31, 2012

White House pressure on Gulf oil leak figures alleged

Official estimates of how much oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster turned out to be well below the mark. Now an advocacy group has filed a complaint of misconduct to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) against the scientist who compiled the estimates, alleging he "lowballed" the numbers after political pressure from the White House, among others.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) alleges that Bill Lehr of NOAA edited his report to stress estimates from a technique called particle image velocimetry, even though three scientists on the team had already concluded that the technique was seriously underestimating the flow.

Their much higher estimates were later confirmed to be roughly correct.

Lehr denies the allegation. "Absolutely nothing was done in any way to change these numbers or fudge any data," he told New Scientist.

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2 Libyans suing MI6 ex-director over rendition (AP)

LONDON ? Two Libyans who claim that British spies were involved in their torture and rendition are launching legal action against the former director of counterterrorism at the U.K.'s foreign spy agency, lawyers representing them said Tuesday.

Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, both opponents of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, claim that MI6 ex-director Mark Allen was complicit in torture and want to examine his role in their renditions to Libya. They have sent a letter of claim to Allen to seek his response to the allegations, and to claim damages from him personally for the trauma they said they suffered.

"We are taking this unusual step of preparing a legal action against an individual as the documents we have in our possession suggest Sir Mark was directly involved in the unlawful rendition of our clients and their families," said Sapna Malik of Leigh Day & Co., who is representing the Libyans.

The men are also launching legal challenges against Britain's spy agencies, the Foreign Office, and the Home Office, the law firm said.

Belhaj, Tripoli's military council commander and a former fighter in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group which had opposed Gadhafi, claims both British and U.S. intelligence may have played a role in his 2004 detention in Thailand's capital Bangkok and transfer to Tripoli.

His accusations are based on a document uncovered during the fall of Tripoli that allegedly contained a message from Allen referring to his rendition. The message, dated March 2004, was purportedly addressed to Gadhafi's former intelligence chief, Moussa Koussa.

"I congratulate you on the safe arrival of Abu 'Abd Allah Sadiq," the message said. "This was the least we could do for you and Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over recent years."

Belhaj is also known as Abu 'Abd Allah Sadiq.

Sami al-Saadi, another Libyan who had been opposed to Gadhafi, also claims MI6 played a role in his rendition.

Last month, British police launched a criminal inquiry into the men's allegations.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_torture_charges

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In lab, Pannexin1 restores tight binding of cells that is lost in cancer

Monday, January 30, 2012

First there is the tumor and then there's the horrible question of whether the cancerous cells will spread. Scientists increasingly believe that the structural properties of the tumor itself, such as how tightly the tumor cells are packed together, play a decisive role in the progression of the disease. In a new study, researchers show that the protein Pannexin1, known to have tumor-suppressive properties, plays an important role in keeping the cells within a tissue closely packed together, an effect that may be lost with cancer.

"In healthy tissues, the recently discovered protein Pannexin1 may be playing an important role in upholding the mechanical integrity of the tissue," said first author and Brown University M.D./Ph.D. student Brian Bao. "When we develop cancer, we lose Pannexin1 and we lose this integrity."

The results appeared in advance online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on Jan. 20.

To conduct their research, the group at Brown University and the University of British Columbia employed a "3-D Petri dish" technology that allows investigators to watch closely how cells interact with each other, without scientists having to worry about additional interactions with surrounding scaffolding or the culture plate itself. How readily the cells form large multicellular structures therefore reflects their interactions with each other, not their in vitro surroundings.

Bao's advisor, Jeffrey Morgan, associate professor of medical science, developed the 3-D Petri dish technology. Morgan is the paper's senior author.

Cancer cells converge

Starting with rat "C6" glioma (brain tumor) cells that do not express Pannexin1, the researchers left some unaltered and engineered others to express Pannexin1. After putting the different cells into the 3-D Petri dishes and watching them interact for 24 hours, they saw that the Pannexin1 cells were able to form large multicellular tissues much faster and more tightly than the unaltered cancer cells.

To confirm that Pannexin1 was indeed causing these changes, Bao and his colleagues treated their samples with the drugs Probenecid and Carbenoxolone, which are well known inhibitors of Pannexin1. They saw that sure enough, the drugs negated Pannexin1's accelerating effect.

Then the team was ready to achieve the the study's main aim, Bao said, namely to determine how Pannexin1 was able to drive these cells to clump together faster and tighter. They found that Pannexin1 sets off a chain reaction involving the energy-carrying molecule ATP and specific receptors for it.

When all experiments were done, Bao, Morgan, and their collaborators had found that as soon as the cells touched each other, Pannexin1 channels were stimulated to open and release ATP. The ATP then bound to cell surface receptors, kicking off intracellular calcium waves that ultimately remodeled the network of a structural protein called actin. This remodeling increases the forces between the cells, driving them to bind together more tightly.

Figuring out that sequence, and Pannexin1's role in it, is perhaps the study's biggest contribution to cancer research, Bao said.

"Using their single-cell systems, others have been able to carefully study individual pieces of this cascade," he said. "We came from a different perspective. Because the strength of our assay is that we can look at gross multicellular behavior in 3-D, we could ask, 'Does this actually manifest into something tangible on the multicellular level?'"

Having gained this understanding of Pannexin1's role in the mechanics of tumors, Bao is now engaged in research to answer the obvious next questions: Does Pannexin1 affect the tumor's ability to spread and invade? When cancerous cells regain Pannexin1 expression, are they less likely to spread and leave the tumor?

###

Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau

Thanks to Brown University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117181/In_lab__Pannexin__restores_tight_binding_of_cells_that_is_lost_in_cancer

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Del Rio ignored advice to sit out 2012 season

John Fox, Jack Del Rio

By ARNIE STAPLETON

updated 5:38 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2012

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - Jack Del Rio considered sitting out the 2012 season, relaxing while still drawing a paycheck from the Jacksonville Jaguars, who fired him as head coach in November.

Instead, Del Rio jumped right back into the NFL fray, replacing Dennis Allen as Denver's defensive coordinator.

Del Rio's hiring reunites Broncos coach John Fox with his first defensive coordinator from Carolina.

Del Rio said Monday he's energized after spending the last couple of months away from football. He went 69-73 in eight and a-half seasons with the Jaguars, including 1-2 in the playoffs.

The Jaguars owed Del Rio $5 million and will pay him the difference between that total and his new salary in Denver.

Allen left after one year in Denver to serve as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46195659/ns/sports-nfl/

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Monday, January 30, 2012

The Black Keys Blast Berlin

Band shakes up Germany's capital on Saturday night with blistering sold-out show.
By James Montgomery


The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach performs in Berlin on Saturday
Photo: Jakubaszek/ Getty Images

BERLINThe Black Keys are not a particularly verbose band; they are, however, an incredibly voluminous one.

That lesson was learned during their blistering sold-out show Saturday in Germany's capital city, which was short on between-song banter — frontman Dan Auerbach offered just a few "All right, thank you so much"s and drummer Patrick Carney was basically mute (though he is pretty funny on Twitter) — and long on the kind of smash-n-bash blues/garage/soul that has become the Keys' near-patented racket.

Drawing heavily from their breakout Brothers album and the equally successful El Camino, the duo, aided by backing band for extra oomph, tore through 90-plus minutes of sweaty, snarling stuff, a full-bore workout for their triumphant run of U.S. arena shows, which kicks off in March.

(MTV News was in Berlin to catch up with the Black Keys for a special event we can't quite talk about just yet ...)

But on this night, they also seemed to take additional inspiration from the venue they were playing: the crumbling, cavernous Treptow Arena, whose brick-and-mortar shell doesn't disguise the fact that it once was a bus depot, an industrial bent that suited the Keys' Akron, Ohio, roots just fine (check their 2004 Rubber Factory album for proof). Auerbach's drawl on "Howlin' For You" seemed just a little more raw, the guitars on "Next Girl" and "Your Touch" roared with diesel-powered authority, and Carney's pounding on "Girl is on My Mind" recalled a chortling 8-cylinder engine.

In other words, the Black Keys seemed perfectly at home, even though they were anything but. New songs like "Gold on the Ceiling" and "Little Black Submarines" crackled with energy and attitude (Auerbach's solos in the latter did both), and older tunes like "Hold Me in Your Arms" — which made an appearance during their extended, mid-set session as just a two-piece — was streaked with soul (and some serious riffs, too). "Lonely Boy" careened along on a surf-tinged backbeat and fuzzy, gut-box guitars; "Tighten Up" was the rare moment of pure-pop sheen; and "Ten Cent Pistol" simmered with a smoky, sexy tension.

All of those moments were positively devoured by the German crowd, 9,000 hearty souls who queued up around the block hours before doors opened, and fended off some seriously frigid temperatures — and snow — with beery cheer. (Germany has some rather lax open-container laws, to say the very least.) But they took that frenzy to an even higher level during the Keys' encore, helping Auerbach hit the high notes on the swoony "Everlasting Light" (which was powered not only by the band, but a truly epic disco ball dangling overhead) and leaping for joy during "I Got Mine," which extended into a ringing, reverbed jam before winding to a close.

Of course, at the end, Auerbach simply thanked the crowd, Carney chucked his drumsticks into the audience, and the band exited stage right. The Black Keys may not be big on making speeches, but they don't have to be. On most nights — this one included, far from home but still swaggering — they get by on raw power alone.

Are you planning on seeing the Black Keys live? Let us know in the comments!

Related Photos Related Artists

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678112/black-keys-berlin-concert.jhtml

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The Hidden Advantages Of Commercial Real Estate Investing

commercial real estate investingCommercial real estate investing is a business. This means investors receive the same tax deductions and advantages other businesses and corporations are allowed. Many new investors overlook two of these benefits, travel and depreciation. These alone are enticing reasons to join this prestigious group of forward thinking go-getters.

Travel

Businesses deduct travel expense for necessary travel. For investors, this means travel to and from properties. These can be real estate already owned or real estate under consideration. This expense can be actual cost or a mileage allowance. If investors take public transportation or a taxi from their house or office to the investment property, they deduct the cash paid out. If they use their automobiles, this expense is computed on actual operating cost or a per mile fee. When property is located a certain distance from the owner?s home, that person can claim lodging and meals. Many people buy property in other states or countries so they can write off travel, lodging and meals costs on these trips.

Depreciation

Because buildings and their components wear out, investors get credit for a certain percent of their investment every year. Either the building and everything in it is depreciated over a set number of years or the individual components are calculated separately. According to the IRS schedule, property is separated into different categories with depreciation periods of 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 25, 27.5 and 50 years. Anyway this lucrative tax deduction is calculated, property owners benefit. Not only do these lucky people collect rental income, they get a valuable depreciation deduction which reduces income and income taxes.

Businesses are given many beneficial tax breaks. These include the cost of going from one place to another and depreciating expensive real estate. People who take advantage of commercial real estate investing get these benefits.

Source: http://robertstewart.com/the-hidden-advantages-of-commercial-real-estate-investing/

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Screen actors get their say in Oscar race (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? After months of talking and weeks of voting, Hollywood's actors finally name their picks for the best performances in the films and TV shows of 2011 at the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday.

The SAG honors, which are closely watched in the race for Oscars, follow the Golden Globe, Critics' Choice and other awards given by media watchers, as well as acknowledgements from the U.S. Producers Guild and Directors Guild, which represent their respective professional groups in industry matters.

"The Artist," a romantic tale of a fading actor whose career is eclipsed by the woman he loves just as talkies are putting an end to silent pictures, has won top awards from many of those groups including the Directors Guild on Saturday night and will look to do as well with SAG voters on Sunday.

But "Artist" faces stiff competition from civil rights-era drama "The Help," which comes into Sunday night's awards with more nominations, four, more than any other movie, as well as from George Clooney-starring "The Descendants".

The actors in all three of those movies, along with the performers in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" and the ladies of comedy "Bridesmaids," will compete for the night's top honor, best ensemble cast in a film.

The SAG Awards are a key barometer of which films and actors have a good chance at winning Oscars, the world's top film honors given on February 26 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, because performers make up the largest voting branch of the academy.

In other SAG races, Clooney, playing a father struggling to keep his family together, squares off against Jean Dujardin of "Artist" fame and Brad Pitt for his role as a numbers-crunching baseball executive in "Moneyball." The other two nominees in that category are Demian Bichir in the little seen "A Better Life" and Leonardo DiCaprio for "J. Edgar."

The SAG race for best actress is seen as a tight one among Meryl Streep playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady," Viola Davis as a maid in "The Help" and Michelle Williams for her turn as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn."

Rounding out that category are Glenn Close in a gender-bending role as a butler in "Albert Nobbs" and Tilda Swinton as a troubled mother in dark drama, "We Need to Talk about Kevin."

SAG also hands out awards for best supporting roles in movies, and it honors performances in TV dramas, comedies and mini-series. But because of SAG's importance in the Oscar race, the film categories are most closely followed.

The SAG Awards air on U.S. TV on Sunday night from Los Angeles on cable networks TNT and TBS.

(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte and Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/film_nm/us_sagawards

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Ahead in Florida, Romney turns focus back to Obama

Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during the Orange County Lincoln Day Dinner at Rosen Shingle Creek, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during the Orange County Lincoln Day Dinner at Rosen Shingle Creek, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, leaves his campaign bus and boards his campaign plane in Panama City, Fla., as he travels to Fort Myers, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

(AP) ? Mitt Romney strode into the final 48 hours of the pivotal Florida Republican primary campaign with the confidence of a resurgent front-runner, predicting he'll win in Tuesday's voting while looking ahead to future contests.

His main rival Newt Gingrich hustled around the state, trying to rekindle the energy that lifted him to victory in the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21. He acknowledged the possibility he could lose here but vowed to fight Romney to the party's national convention this summer.

Outspent 3-1 on television advertising in Florida during the campaign's closing week, Gingrich was working the free media by chatting up reporters on Saturday and scheduling appearances on two nationally televised Sunday talk shows.

Gingrich has been under heavy attack from Romney and allies of the former Massachusetts governor. Romney had spent the past several days, including during two Florida debates, sharply criticizing Gingrich's discipline, temperament and ethics during and after his time as the House speaker in the 1990s.

Romney changed his line of attack on Saturday to refocus his criticism on President Barack Obama.

"He's detached from reality," Romney said. He criticized Obama's plan to cut the size of the military and what he described as the administration's weak foreign policy.

Gingrich's South Carolina momentum has largely evaporated amid the pounding he has sustained from Romney's campaign and the pro-Romney group called Restore Our Future. They have spent some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week. Polls show Romney solidly ahead.

Gingrich planned to campaign Sunday in central Florida.

Romney had a series of rallies planned for south Florida. He was also looking ahead to the next-up Nevada caucuses and was airing ads in that state ahead of the Feb. 4 contest.

Gingrich sought to regain momentum with the endorsement of Herman Cain, a tea party favorite and former presidential hopeful whose White House effort foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.

Gingrich has been put on the defensive under Romney's withering attack. Gingrich responded by describing the former Massachusetts governor as "dishonest" and questioning his GOP bona fides.

His pledge to stay in the race suggests Republicans could be in for a long winter and spring if money continues to flow into Gingrich's campaign.

A third GOP contestant, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, has made an effort to campaign in the Sunshine State but trails Romney and Gingrich by a wide margin. He cancelled his Sunday events after his 3-year-old daughter Bella was hospitalized. She suffers from a serious genetic condition.

Texas congressman Ron Paul has invested little in the Florida race and is looking ahead to Nevada.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-29-GOP-Campaign/id-dcf3107b25604c5ca9197870922b6cc9

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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Tony Hawk Interviews Odd Future Crew At Big Day Out Festival (VIDEO)

Tony Hawk should probably never be in the interviewer seat, but here he is, tempting fate, with probably one of the most unruly groups out there. At the Big Day Out music festival in Australia, the salt-and-peppery-haired skater stayed standing (technically not in the interviewer seat, but equally if not more awkward) to ask questions of a half-seated Tyler the Creator and the rest of his Odd Future crew on a stairwell. The hip hop collective is into skating, so there's your tenuous link -- aside from that, we're just as lost as you are as to why this is happening. The Odd Future boys put up a shop for the week of the festival to sell merchandise, and Hawk begins his line of questioning where they can find common ground -- t-shirts. The camera zooms in on a t-shirt of two gay cats, and Hawk vaguely asks where they get their inspiration from.

"Really I get inspiration from meth, and I like cats a lot, and I'm not playin'," Tyler said.

We're glad this interview happened.

WATCH:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/tony-hawk-odd-future-interview_n_1239176.html

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Chris Weidman takes UFC on Fox 2 decision

CHICAGO -- On 11 days notice, Chris Weidman took a less-than-stellar split decision over Demian Maia. The judges saw it 29-28, 29-28, 29-28 for Weidman at the United Center on Saturday night.

Though both men are accomplished grapplers, the first round started with nothing but stand-up. Neither fighter truly got an edge in striking, though it was Maia who got the first takedown. The two got back to their feet quickly, and Maia followed up with aggressive strikes.

Weidman got the takedown to start the second round, but again, they did not stay there for long. Maia's face started to show damage from the repeated hits Weidman delivered, but Weidman's movement around the cage slowed as the round went on. As Weidman slowed, Maia delivered more kicks and punches. Weidman tried for a takedown with a minute left, but Maia easily avoided it. In the final 20 seconds, Weidman was able to get the takedown, and turned over for a choke, but the round ended before he could secure it.

Weidman returned to the clinch in the third round, moving towards Maia and landing knees and punches. They continued their evenly matched striking fest, though both fighters were clearly exhausted.

The crowd in Chicago wasn't enthused about the action, but that's what happens when two grappling aficionados decided to engage in a fist fight.

UPDATE: After the bout, UFC president Dana White tweeted that the scores were read wrong. Weidman actually won by a unanimous decision.

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/chris-weidman-takes-ufc-fox-2-split-decision-014653119.html

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Need for courtroom artists fade as cameras move in (AP)

CHICAGO ? One marker in hand and one in his mouth, Lou Chukman glances up and down from a sketchpad to a reputed Chicago mobster across the courtroom ? drawing feverishly to capture the drama of the judge's verdict before the moment passes.

Sketch artists have been the public's eyes at high-profile trials for decades ? a remnant of an age when drawings in broadsheet papers, school books or travel chronicles were how people glimpsed the world beyond their own.

Today, their ranks are thinning swiftly as states move to lift longstanding bans on cameras in courtrooms. As of a year ago, 14 states still had them ? but at least three, including Illinois this month, have taken steps since then to end the prohibitions.

"When people say to me, `Wow, you are a courtroom artist' ? I always say, `One day, you can tell your grandchildren you met a Stegosaurus," Chukman, 56, explained outside court. "We're an anachronism now, like blacksmiths."

Cutbacks in news budgets and shifts in aesthetic sensibilities toward digitized graphics have all contributed to the form's decline, said Maryland-based sketch artist Art Lien.

While the erosion of the job may not be much noticed by people reading and watching the news, Lien says something significant is being lost. Video or photos can't do what sketch artists can, he said, such as compressing hours of court action onto a single drawing that crystallizes the events.

The best courtroom drawings hang in museums or sell to collectors for thousands of dollars.

"I think people should lament the passing of this art form," Lien said.

But while courtroom drawing has a long history ? artists did illustrations of the Salem witch trials in 1692 ? the artistry can sometimes be sketchy. A bald lawyer ends up with a full head of hair. A defendant has two left hands. A portly judge is drawn rail-thin.

Subjects often complain as they see the drawings during court recesses, said Chicago artist Carol Renaud.

"They'll say, `Hey! My nose is too big.' And sometimes they're right," she conceded. "We do the drawings so fast."

Courtroom drawing doesn't attract most aspiring artists because it doesn't afford the luxury of laboring over a work for days until it's just right, said Andy Austin, who has drawn Chicago's biggest trials over 40 years, including that of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

"You have to put your work on the air or in a newspaper whether you like it or not," she said.

The job also involves long stretches of tedium punctuated by bursts of action as a witness sobs or defendant faint. It can also get downright creepy.

At Gacy's trial, a client asked Austin for an image of him smiling. So, she sought to catch the eye of the man accused of killing 33 people. When she finally did, she beamed. He beamed back.

"The two of us smiled at each other like the two happiest people in the world until the sketch was finished," Austin recalled in her memoirs, titled "Rule 53," after the directive that bars cameras in U.S. courts.

There's no school specifically for courtroom artists. Many slipped or were nudged into it by circumstance.

Renaud drew fashion illustrations for Marshall Field's commercials into the `90s but lost that job when the department store starting relying on photographers. That led her to courtroom drawing.

Artists sometime get to court early and sketch the empty room. But coming in with a drawing fully finished in advance is seen as unethical.

Some artists use charcoal, water colors or pungent markers, which can leave those sitting nearby queasy. Most start with a quick pencil sketch, then fill it in. Austin draws right off the bat with her color pencils.

"If I overthink it, I get lost," she said. "I have a visceral reaction. I just hope what I feel is conveyed to my pen."

These days, Chukman and Renaud fear for their livelihoods. They make the bulk of their annual income off their court work. Working for a TV station or a newspaper can bring in about $300 a day. A trial lasting a month can mean a $6,000 paycheck. Chukman does other work on the side, including drawing caricatures as gifts.

Austin is semiretired and so she says she worries less. She also notes that federal courts ? where some of the most notorious trials take place, like the two corruption trials of impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich ? seem more adamant about not allowing cameras.

Still, though Rule 53 remains in place, federal courts are experimenting with cameras in very limited cases.

"If federal courts do follow, that will be the end of us," Austin said.

Renaud holds out hope that, even if the worst happens, there will still be demand from lawyers for courtroom drawings they can hang in their offices. Lien plans to bolster his income by launching a website selling work from historic trials he covered, including of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Chukman, a courtroom artist for around 30 years, jokes that if asked for his opinion, he'd have told state-court authorities to keep the ban in place a few more years until he retires.

"I recognize my profession exists simply because of gaps in the law ? and I've been grateful for them," he said wistfully. "This line of work has been good to me."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_us/us_camera_in_courts_sketch_artist

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David Otunga wins pro bono legal case

David Otunga, who serves as the legal counsel to EVP of Talent Relations and Interim Raw GM John Laurinaitis, took to the courts on Thursday in a pro bono case against the New York State Department of Labor.?Otunga had been hired to represent a man who claimed he had been wrongfully terminated from his job and, as a result, was receiving no unemployment benefits.?After hearing arguments from both sides, the judge sided with the legal eagle WWE Superstar.?

"I smoked the witness during cross examination," Otunga told TMZ after the case had concluded.?His client subsequently won the appeal, and will now receive the appropriate benefits.?

While it may seem surprising for a WWE Superstar to accomplish such a feat, it's just business as usual for Otunga. The dapper Superstar is no stranger to balancing two workloads -- not to mention winning cases. "I actually worked as a full time trial lawyer in Boston while in my third year at Harvard Law School," Otunga told WWE.com. "Most people couldn?t have handled trying to graduate from the most prestigious law school in the world while trying cases full time, but I?m obviously not most people."

Otunga says he takes the pro bono cases simply to keep his skills up, and not necessarily because he needs the payday. "I don?t have time for a full caseload because I?m a globally recognizable WWE Superstar and Official Legal Counsel to Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim Raw General Manager, Mr. John Laurinaitis," Otunga tells us, "But I like to stay sharp."

Adding to the accomplishment is that Otunga is undefeated in court cases, proving that if nothing else, Mr. Laurinaitis chose well in appointing his counsel and will be well-equipped when Chief Operating Officer Triple H evaluates Laurinaitis' job performance next Monday on Raw SuperShow.

"I?ve tried twenty cases and I?ve won them all," Otunga told WWE.com. "I have a perfect record. What else would you expect from someone like me?"

So if Otunga gives an especially emphatic slurp of his coffee at the Royal Rumble this Sunday, know he's got a pretty good reason.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/inside/overtheropes/david-otunga-wins-pro-bono-legal-case

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Jesse Jackson adds voice to Grammy protest (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Friday urged Grammy organizers to reinstate 31 ethnic and minority musical categories that have been cut from the music industry's top awards.

In a letter to Recording Academy president Neil Portnow, sent three weeks before the February 12 Grammy Awards show, Jackson said the elimination of awards for Native American and Hawaiian musicians, and cuts in Latin Jazz, R&B and other categories were ill-considered and unfair.

Jackson said some of the categories dropped by the Recording Academy in a major overhaul last year "constitute the very heart of the music that nourishes and inspires minority communities."

Writing on behalf of the Rainbow Push Coalition of U.S. civil rights groups, Jackson called for an urgent meeting with Portnow to try and resolve the conflict that has spurred months of protests and a lawsuit by leading musicians.

Portnow said on Friday he was "receptive to meeting with the Rev. Jackson to explain how our nomination process works and to show the resulting diverse group of nominees it produced" for this year's Grammy Awards.

Paul Simon, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Bobby Sanabria are among dozens of musicians who have protested the decision, announced last April, to slash the number of Grammy categories to 78 from 109 for the 2012 Grammy Awards.

Some categories, such as Hawaiian and Native American albums were dropped completely, while others including Latin music and R&B saw the number of award categories halved.

Portnow said at the time the changes were necessary to maintain "the prestige of the highest and only peer-recognized award in music."

Sanabria and three other Latin Jazz musicians filed a lawsuit in New York in August saying the cuts would harm their careers financially. They have also called for a boycott of the CBS network, which broadcasts the annual Grammy Awards show in Los Angeles.

The 2012 Grammy Awards take place on February12. Rapper Kanye West leads the field of contenders with seven nominations followed by British singer Adele, Bruno Mars and alternative rock band Foo Fighters.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Corrects Jackson name in paragraph 1.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/music_nm/us_grammys_protest

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Costume designer Eiko Ishioka has died at 73 (AP)

NEW YORK ? Eiko Ishioka, an Oscar-winning designer recently recognized for creating the costumes for Broadway's "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" has died.

Her studio manager, Tracy Roberts, said Thursday that the 73-year-old designer died on Saturday in Tokyo. The cause was pancreatic cancer.

Ishioka, who also worked in advertising and other graphic arts, won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Costume Design for the film "Bram Stoker's `Dracula.'"

She won a Grammy Award in 1986 for her cover design of Miles Davis' album "Tutu." She was also the director of costume design for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Other Broadway stage work included the sets and costumes for David Henry Hwang's 1988 Tony Award-winning drama "M. Butterfly."

On Thursday, the producers of "Spider-Man" called Ishioka "a great woman and a great artist."

"Her work will continue to touch audiences for years to come," said Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris in a joint statement, adding that Thursday's performance would be dedicated to her memory.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obits/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_en_ot/us_obit_ishioka

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Goldman, Berkshire names surface in Gupta case (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? The names of a Goldman Sachs board member and a top executive of Berkshire Hathaway surfaced on Friday as potential witnesses in the insider trading trial of Rajat Gupta, a former director of Goldman, Procter & Gamble and other companies.

Gupta, a one-time global head of the McKinsey & Co consultancy firm, is the most prominent corporate executive charged in the U.S. government's broad investigation of Wall Street insider trading, a probe that used secretly recorded phone conversations as evidence.

His trial is scheduled to start on April 9 in U.S. District Court in New York. Gupta, 63, has denied the charges of securities fraud and conspiracy in providing inside tips about Goldman and Procter & Gamble board meetings to hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.

At a hearing in federal court in New York to discuss potential evidence and potential witnesses, U.S. prosecutor Reed Brodsky identified Ajit Jain, the top Berkshire Hathaway insurance executive, as a "close friend" of Gupta who has already been interviewed by the prosecution and defense.

Jain is not accused of any wrongdoing.

A spokeswoman for renowned investor Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jain, who heads the company's insurance business, has been identified as a possible successor of Buffett's as chief executive.

Dozens of hedge fund managers, lawyers and executives have been convicted since 2009 in the sweeping prosecution, including Gupta's onetime friend and business associate Rajaratnam. He is serving an 11-year prison sentence.

Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein testified at Rajaratnam's two month-long trial last year and could be called to the witness stand in Gupta's case along with other Goldman executives, according to court records.

On Friday, the name of Goldman board member Claes Dahlback also came up in court and he could be asked to testify.

"After Rajaratnam was arrested in October 2009, Dahlback asked Gupta if he knew Rajaratnam," U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said, reading from a government report on the case. "Gupta responded that Rajaratnam was a 'bad man' and further stated that Gupta lost money with Rajaratnam."

A Goldman Sachs spokesman, David Wells, declined to comment.

Government investigators recorded at least two discussions between Rajaratnam and Gupta.

Gupta's lawyer Gary Naftalis indicated that part of the defense would be to emphasize that in 2008 and 2009 - the time the alleged illegal tips took place - relations between Gupta and Rajaratnam had deteriorated. He said Gupta lost all of a $10 million investment he made with the Galleon hedge fund manager.

"We were very unhappy with how he handled our investment and the information he gave us and this is obviously inconsistent with going out and tipping him," Naftalis told the judge.

The government contends that Gupta provided Rajaratnam with advance knowledge of Warren Buffett's $5 billion investment in Goldman at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, as well as information about Goldman's surprise fourth-quarter loss in 2008 and P&G's quarterly earnings in late January 2009.

The case is USA v Gupta, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 11-907.

(Reporting By Grant McCool; Editing by Gary Hill)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/bs_nm/us_galleon_gupta

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Ala. attorney questions death penalty in new book (AP)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ? After defending more than 60 people charged with capital murder and getting three men off Alabama's death row, attorney Richard Jaffe wants to get people talking about the death penalty and what he believes are its flaws.

The longtime Alabama defense lawyer, who once represented Olympic park bomber Eric Rudolph, has written a book detailing many of the cases in his long career and explaining problems he has experienced with the capital justice system.

In "Quest for Justice: Defending the Damned," Jaffe details what he sees as recurring problems with death penalty litigation: Unqualified lawyers handling complex capital issues; a system that doesn't provide enough money for the defense to investigate cases and hire experts; and the arbitrary nature of death sentences.

"I'm not trying to change anyone's mind," Jaffe said during an interview in his office. "I wrote the book to invite people to question the death penalty system."

Jaffe spent years on the book partly because of his heavy case load. He tried a murder case just last week in Birmingham, winning an acquittal of his client after jurors deliberated only about 20 minutes.

Randal Padgett hasn't yet read "Quest for Justice," but he plans to soon: He's among the three Alabama people Jaffe helped free from death row. The three are among almost 140 people who have been freed from death sentences nationwide after initially being convicted and condemned to die.

Once confined to a 40-square-foot cell near the electric chair, Padgett, 51, now runs a small store in the north Alabama city of Guntersville. Of his one-time attorney he said simply: "I love Richard."

Padgett spent more than three years on death row after being convicted of capital murder in the slaying of wife Cathy Padgett, found dead in their north Alabama home in 1990 with dozens of stab wounds. A court ruled that prosecutors didn't give the defense an adequate opportunity to review forensic evidence and ordered a retrial, resulting in Padgett's acquittal and release from death row with Jaffe serving as his lawyer.

"If that hadn't happened, I'd probably be dead by now," Padgett said. "I used to think that in the United States of America you didn't go to prison if you were innocent, but I found out that's not the way it works."

Clay Crenshaw, an assistant attorney general who specializes in handling death penalty cases for the state, said only two of three people Jaffe helped free from death row were acquitted at retrials; the third, James "Bo" Cochran, was convicted on a lesser charge and freed from prison on time served. And, he said, police never charged anyone else in the slayings first blamed on Padgett and Jaffe's other exonerated death row client, Gary Drinkard.

"I am not aware of the district attorney in those counties conducting any investigation to search for the `real murderer,'" Crenshaw said. "While Jaffe might celebrate these three cases, they all involved individuals who were convicted of capital murder and are now walking the streets."

Jaffe, who almost accidentally became a capital defense specialist after being appointed to a death penalty case three decades ago, uses Padgett's case and others to write that the system is badly flawed. The book will be released Feb. 1 by New Horizon Press of Far Hills, N.J.

While Alabama's system is particularly troubled, he writes, dozens of people have been wrongly convicted and executed nationwide.

"I always keep in mind the maxim that history will judge a society by the way it treats its weakest and most vulnerable," he writes. "Although most would assume that applies to the poor and the elderly, all one has to do is look at those who end up on death row: an overwhelming number are poor, disenfranchised and suffer from some mental defect or even brain damage."

Rudolph is the most famous of Jaffe's clients. Jaffe represented him for more than a year after his capture, withdrawing from the case before the loner pleaded guilty to bombing a Birmingham abortion clinic in 1998 and setting off bombs at the Olympics and elsewhere in Atlanta earlier. The deal allowed Rudolph to avoid a possible death sentence.

Jaffe got along with Rudolph, who admitted to planting the abortion clinic bomb in what he said was a bid to save the lives of unborn children. But Rudolph didn't express remorse for the death of a Birmingham police officer killed by the blast, and Jaffe said Rudolph's actions highlighted a big difference between them.

"In every case, my fervent stance against the death penalty precludes a person or the government from taking any life, for any reason," he writes. "Only the God I believe in should do that, without human intervention."

___

Online:

Jaffe's book site: http://www.questforjusticethebook.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_en_ot/us_books_death_penalty

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Bill Gates Donates $750 Million to Global Fund

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The donation to the struggling Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was made as a promissory note intended to tide it over regular cash shortages.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=563e0c47a0090b9deb7da512b0b4d7e6

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England looks to US sports to add glitz to FA Cup

By ROB HARRIS

updated 7:56 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2012

LONDON - Seeking to restore the allure of the FA Cup, English soccer is looking to American sports to see how some glitz can be added to the final of world soccer's oldest domestic cup competition.

Once the main event in the English soccer calendar and a must-see TV event globally, some of the cup's appeal has been lost as the more lucrative Premier League and Champions League appear to be outshining the 140-year competition.

Wembley Stadium has staged NFL regular-season games for five years, giving a glimpse of how the FA Cup final could be spiced up with more entertainment and glamor there.

"We are always learning, we are investing more internal marketing resources alongside that (broadcaster) ITV and Budweiser put in," FA General Secretary Alex Horne said while overlooking the Wembley field.

"As a collective we all think we can make something more of the day of the final and the event ? whether it's on the pitch or the buildup to the event.

"Of course we can learn from the NBA events or the NFL events ... there are many people who do this well."

While looking west across the Atlantic for inspiration on event management, Horne is not losing sight of the competition's big fan base in the East.

"The FA Cup continues to attract huge audiences throughout the world, especially in Asia," Horne said. "China and Thailand are huge markets for English football and the FA Cup in particular. We had a global audience of half a billion for the FA Cup final last year, so we know it's a very relevant product."

But the FA Cup final could be moved from its traditional kickoff time this season in a bid to boost British TV audiences, potentially hitting Asian viewing figures.

The final is set to be at 5:15 p.m. instead of 3 p.m, while talks are under way with the Premier League about preventing a repeat of last season when the match had to be played on the same day as a topflight league program for the first time in 50 years.

That led to Manchester United clinching a record 19th league title just before local rival City ended a 35-year trophy drought by lifting the FA Cup at Wembley.

"The important thing for us is giving (the final) an identity, even if it is not on the last day of the season," Horne said.

The problem of the FA Cup final sharing the day with other big matches in England could be exacerbated by the Champions League final returning to Wembley in 2013 after being staged there last May. UEFA needs the stadium for two weeks before the match.

But ahead of the fourth round this weekend, the FA has sought to highlight the enduring value of the cup, with a study showing that clubs have collectively earned around $1 billion over the past 10 years in prize money, TV payments and ticket revenue.

Such rewards can have a transformational effect on teams ? particularly those lower down the pecking order.

"When Burton secured a replay at Old Trafford (against Manchester United in 2006) they earned $1.1 million in that year," Horne said. "That enabled them to pay off the debt on their stadium, invest in playing talent and ultimately progress into the Football League.

"Crawley last year earned $2.4 million from the competition, including a 1-million pound ($1.6 million) payday at Old Trafford."

The FA Cup is in the first year of a $38 million, three-year title sponsorship deal with American beer brand Budweiser.

___

Rob Harris can be reached at http://twitter.com/RobHarrisUK

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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U.S. defender Tim Ream cancels his honeymoon in Tahiti and heads east after being contated by English Premier League club Bolton.

Hope for Solo

U.S. women's goalie Hope Solo was back on the practice field Thursday, one day before the game that will determine whether the Americans go to the Olympics.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46156468/ns/sports-soccer/

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Japan posts first annual trade deficit since 1980 (AP)

TOKYO ? The devastating March tsunami and shift of manufacturing overseas plunged Japan's trade account into the red for the first time since 1980. Experts said the years of Japan running massive trade surpluses are likely over.

The 2.49 trillion yen ($32 billion) deficit for 2011 reflected a surge in energy imports to cover shortfalls caused by the disaster and a 2.7 percent decline in the value of Japan's exports to 65.55 trillion yen ($843 billion), according to the Ministry of Finance figures released Wednesday.

Manufacturers have moved some production overseas to avoid the damage inflicted by the strong yen, a trend that has accelerated in recent years. Some economists say the trade balance will be in the black again within two years, but the era of very large surpluses that allowed Japan to build a huge pile of foreign reserves has ended.

"It reflects fundamental changes in Japan's economy, particularly among manufacturers," said Hideki Matsumura, senior economist at Japan Research Institute. "Japan is losing its competitiveness to produce domestically."

"It's gotten difficult for manufacturers to export, so they're they've moved production abroad so that products sold outside the country are made outside the country," he said.

The yen's surge to record levels against the dollar and euro has made Japanese exports more expensive and also erodes the value of foreign earned income when brought home. Recently, manufacturers such as Nissan Motor Co. and Panasonic Corp. have shifted some of their output to factories abroad. At the same time, Japan is facing intense competition from South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, where labor and production costs are cheaper.

Japanese manufacturers have been battered by a host of negatives in the past year. The tsunami temporarily disrupted the production of automobile makers and other manufacturers. Weakness in the U.S. economy and Europe's debt problems and recent flooding in Thailand, where many Japanese automakers have assembly lines, also contributed to export declines.

"The impact of the supply chain problem and the temporary effect of the earthquake will fade. We may see Japan's trade balance recover to a small trade surplus, but it won't return to the pre-crisis level," said Masayuki Kichikawa, chief Japan economist at B of A Merrill Lynch in Tokyo.

"The big surpluses are gone. Japan's trade balance should be almost balanced or at best a small surplus."

Another major factor behind the deficit was the impact of the expensive energy imports Japan turned to after the March disaster touched off a nuclear crisis and led the country to shut down, or not restart, a large portion of its reactors, said Martin Schulz, senior economist with the Fujitsu Research Institute.

He said pressure to import energy will continue to weigh heavily on Japan for the next year, but will subside as the country pursues greater efficiency measures.

Much of Japan's oil and natural gas is imported from the Middle East, with which Japan had a 10.88 trillion yen trade deficit last year, up 33 percent, figures showed.

Japan still has a trade surplus with the U.S., although that is shrinking. For 2011, exports exceeded imports by 4.10 trillion yen ($52.6 billion), down 8.2 percent from a year earlier. Exports to the U.S. declined 2.8 percent to 10.02 trillion yen during the year, while imports inched up 0.2 percent to 5.9 trillion.

Japan had a 1.57 trillion yen trade surplus with China for the year. A breakdown of figures showed a trade deficit with mainland China, but a big surplus with Hong Kong.

Trade with Germany was fairly balanced last year as imports grew nearly 10 percent to 1.86 trillion yen. Exports came to 1.87 trillion yen, giving Japan a relatively small trade surplus of 16 billion yen.

The turmoil in Europe and the U.S. has driven up the yen as global investors flock to the currency as a relative safe haven. The yen hit multiple historic highs against the dollar, and touched a record against the euro earlier this month as well.

The yen is trading at around 78 to the dollar recently, a level that is extremely painful for exporters. Five years ago, the dollar was trading above 120 yen.

Matsumura believes that Japan will likely log another trade deficit this year amid prospects for high energy prices and a persistently strong yen, but that renewed strength in the global and Asian regional economies could put Japan back into the black in 2013.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_trade

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Bill Gates pledges $750 million to troubled AIDS fund (Reuters)

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) ? Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates pledged a further $750 million to the troubled global AIDS fund on Thursday and urged governments to continue their support to save lives.

"These are tough economic times, but that is no excuse for cutting aid to the world's poorest," he said in Davos at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced two days ago that its executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, was stepping down early following criticism over misuse of funds and cuts in funding.

The public-private organization, based in Geneva, accounts for around a quarter of international financing to fight HIV and AIDS, as well as the majority of funds to fight TB and malaria.

But it has been forced to cut back and said last year it would make no new grants or funding until 2014.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $750 million through a promissory note -- a fresh injection in addition to the $650 million that the Gates charity has contributed since the fund was launched 10 years ago.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Jon Boyle; For full Reuters coverage from Davos go to www.reuters.com/davos)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/aids/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/hl_nm/us_davos_aids

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Bloomberg blasts use of movie during NYPD training (AP)

NEW YORK ? Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that New York police used "terrible judgment" in showing officers undergoing counterterrorism training a graphic, hard-hitting film that says Muslim extremists are bent on establishing a worldwide Islamic regime.

Bloomberg said police have stopped showing "The Third Jihad," a 72-minute documentary-style movie that has been branded inflammatory by some Muslim groups and was bankrolled, according to The New York Times, by a conservative group called the Clarion Fund.

"Somebody exercised some terrible judgment," Bloomberg said in Albany. "As soon as they found out about it, they stopped it."

The criticism was unusual for Bloomberg, who in recent months has vigorously defended the police department's counterterrorism efforts after an Associated Press investigation exposed a secret program to gather intelligence on Muslim neighborhoods.

Bloomberg said neither he nor Police Commissioner Ray Kelly knew about the film being shown.

"The Third Jihad" shows TV images of Hezbollah rocket attacks, children being held hostage by Muslim militants and a woman it says was arrested in Iran for wearing immodest clothing. It shows images it says were taken from Islamic videos and websites, including a doctored picture of an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

It accuses Muslim extremists of posing as moderates and charges several Muslim organizations with being soft on terrorism. It accuses Middle Eastern studies departments at some American universities of supporting hard-line religious governments.

The film is narrated by M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy, based in Phoenix. Jasser rejected Bloomberg's criticism.

"I could not disagree more," Jasser said. "For him to say that without contradicting any of the facts that are presented in the movie is, I think, careless."

The movie was shown on a continuous loop while officers were signing in for counterterrorism training sessions from October to December 2010, according to police documents obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank at New York University. As many as 1,489 officers who underwent training, including 68 lieutenants, may have seen it, the documents say.

Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said that the police brass did not approve the use of the movie for training and that the decision to play it was made by a sergeant, who has since been reprimanded.

"This was never used in training, period. It was never authorized for use in training, period," Browne said.

The screening of the film inside the 36,000-member police department has been known for months, but police previously said only a few officers had seen it. They stopped showing the film after a trainee complained.

The film was used as "intermission filler" and to "provide information for students during breaks to keep their attention focused on counterterrorism issues," Assistant Chief George W. Anderson wrote in one of the documents obtained by the Brennan Center.

Anderson said he believed the video was given to police by someone in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. But the department said it did not authorize distribution of the movie.

___

Associated Press Writers Michael Gormley, Eileen Sullivan, Tom Hays and Deepti Hajela contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_us/us_nypd_intelligence

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GOP debate casts light on US sugar policy (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/191029947?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Availability and use of sanitation reduces by half the likelihood of parasitic worm infections

Availability and use of sanitation reduces by half the likelihood of parasitic worm infections

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Availability and use of sanitation reduces by half the likelihood of parasitic worm infections

Access to sanitation facilities, such as latrines, reduces by half the risk of becoming infected by parasitic worms that are transmitted via soil (soil-transmitted helminths) according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine. These findings are important as infection with parasitic worms can cause diarrhea, weakness, and malnutrition, which in turn can impair physical and mental development in children; they reinforce the importance of increased access to sanitation (a Millennium Development Goal target) to improve health outcomes.

In an analysis of 36 relevant studies led by Kathrin Ziegelbauer and Benjamin Speich from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, in Basel, Switzerland, the authors found that compared to people without access to latrines, the chance (odds ratio) of infection with roundworm, whipworm, and hookworm among people who had access to latrines was 0.49. Furthermore, people who actually used a latrine were also half as likely (odds ratio 0.51) to be infected with these parasitic worms.

These findings confirm that sanitation is an effective control measure for parasitic worm infections and therefore, according to the authors, there should be more emphasis on improved access to adequate sanitation in control strategies, in addition to reinforcing the current control measures, such as regularly giving drugs that kill the worms (but do not prevent rapid reinfection) and health education.

The authors say: "Our findings, therefore, underscore what the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission stated more than 70 years ago?''Cure alone is almost useless in stamping out hookworm disease, because the patient can go out and immediately pick up more hookworms. The cure should be accompanied by a sanitation campaign for the prevention of soil pollution.''"

Importantly, increased access to sanitation would also improve the control of other neglected tropical diseases (such as schistosomiasis and trachoma) and would reduce the incidence of diarrhea and consequently child mortality in low-income countries.

The authors conclude that with the elimination of neglected tropical diseases coming to the forefront of global attention, integrated control approaches?using a combination of regular deworming; information, education, and communication campaigns; and improvements to basic sanitation and access to safe, clean water?cannot be overemphasized.

###

Ziegelbauer K, Speich B, M?usezahl D, Bos R, Keiser J, et al. (2012) Effect of Sanitation on Soil-Transmitted Helminth Infection: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. PLoS Med 9(1): e1001162. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001162

Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117039/Availability_and_use_of_sanitation_reduces_by_half_the_likelihood_of_parasitic_worm_infections

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Women Can Take Steps to Prevent Cervical Cancer (HealthDay)

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Women need to get recommended Pap tests, while girls and young women should be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) to protect them from cervical cancer, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advises during Cervical Health Awareness Month.

Cervical cancer kills more than 4,000 women in the United States each year. Many of them could have been saved by routine Pap tests, which look for abnormal cells in the cervix that can turn into cancer. When caught early, those abnormal cells are highly treatable, according to the college.

More than 12,000 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year, according to the American Cancer Society.

The good news is that the rate of cervical cancer in the United States has fallen more than 50 percent in the past three decades due to the widespread use of the Pap test, the college says.

Cervical cancer is caused by certain strains of HPV, a common sexually transmitted disease. HPV can also cause genital and anal warts and cancer of the mouth, head and neck, penis and anus.

Women can help protect themselves against cervical cancer by being monogamous, practicing safe sex and getting periodic Pap tests. In addition, girls and young women aged 9 to 26 should receive the HPV vaccine, the college recommends.

A young women should get her first Pap test when she turns 21 and continue having a Pap test every two years until age 30. Women age 30 and beyond who have three consecutive negative Pap test results can be screened once every three years, the college says.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about cervical cancer prevention.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120125/hl_hsn/womencantakestepstopreventcervicalcancer

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Obama State Of The Union Speech: Labor Leaders And Economists Unimpressed With Jobs Proposals

President Obama's emphasis on creating manufacturing jobs in his State of the Union address on Tuesday sounded just right to union leaders.

But even these most ardent supporters expressed doubts that his proposals would do much to alleviate unemployment, agreeing with economists and business leaders contacted by The Huffington Post Tuesday night that the speech offered little that would move the needle in the jobs market.

"If you do exactly what he's asking for, it would make almost no difference," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

In December the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent and many economists expressed hope that the nation was beginning to emerge from its jobs crisis. Economists and business and labor leaders said after the speech, however, that the president's proposals would not have a real impact on the jobless rate. For some, his proposals were just a reminder of how ineffectual the president's jobs plans have been through the Great Recession and nascent recovery.

In contrast to what Obama said in his speech, Baker said, lower taxes abroad are not the reason why jobs are going overseas. China's cheap currency has played a much more important role in bringing manufacturing jobs to East Asia. Commenting on Obama's suggestion that cracking down on piracy in China would play a major role in creating jobs in the United States, Baker said, "It's kind of a joke."

Baker was skeptical of Obama's claim that higher-paying, high-skill manufacturing jobs are bountiful in the United States and just waiting for Americans to be trained for them, he added. The fact that new manufacturing jobs generally do not pay better than the old ones is proof that not many such jobs are available, he said.

"I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the United States but can't find workers with the right skills," Obama had stated in his speech. The president stressed the importance of a rebound in manufacturing jobs to the future of the U.S. economy and asserted that the manufacturing industry is on the upswing.

Yet, many of the new jobs don't pay the old middle-class wages: While auto workers once earned a basic wage starting at about $28 an hour, new hires now start at wages at about half that amount.

"The lines on manufacturing are silly," Baker wrote in an email critiquing Obama's speech. "Jobs in the sector are barely increasing (125,000 over the last year)." Added Baker: "This is not much to boast about, we are down by 2 million manufacturing jobs since the recession began."

Kevin L. Kearns, president of the Business and Industry Council, agreed that Obama's specific proposals would have too small of an impact. He also pointed to a need for reform of China's currency policy. If the president pushed for that, it would be a far stronger move, Kearns said, than "saying, 'I saved 1,000 jobs in the tire industry by imposing the tariffs on pirated Chinese tires.'"

And as far as Obama's proposals for re-educating the workforce, Kearns said, "The best retraining program is called a job."

Union leaders were the most upbeat about Tuesday night's speech. Damon Silvers, policy director at the AFL-CIO, said the speech exceeded his expectations. "His rhetoric was spot-on, and it described the real scale of the country's needs," he said.

But Silvers acknowledged that Obama's specific policy proposals amounted to either policies that Obama could pursue without Congress' cooperation or ones that would make obstructionist Republican lawmakers look "really extreme, because they are."

"We would like to see the rhetoric more fully fleshed out," Silvers said. "But it's understandable given that it's clear that this Congress this year will not act in the national interest."

Ultimately, Silvers said, the economy needs a $4 trillion public investment program over 10 years -- with investments focused on education and infrastructure -- to make the economy competitive enough to support a strong middle class in the long run. While Obama's speech did not outline such a large-scale project, it did highlight the scale of the country's problems, he said.

"It's about a choice as to whether we're going to invest in people or are going to continue to grow the 1 percent in this country," said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union. "We have to insist on responsibility from everyone."

Congressional Republicans are currently blocking Obama's $450 billion jobs bill, the American Jobs Act, which economists estimate would create from 1 million to 2 million new jobs. The bill includes more than $250 billion in tax incentives for small businesses and employers, along with a plan for infrastructure spending, state spending, unemployment insurance and neighborhood rehabilitation.

"Getting the American Jobs Act is really the most critical thing right now," said John Arensmeyer, chief executive of Small Business Majority, a small business advocacy organization.

Though U.S. economic growth has started to gain momentum, even at this pace it would take until 2019 for the economy to get back to full, pre-recession employment, economists say.

In his speech, Obama stressed that the United States has created 3.2 million jobs in the last two years. But over that same period of time, the public sector lost half a million jobs and appears poised to continue shedding positions. When population growth is accounted for, the jobs deficit left over from 2008 and 2009 is still well over 10 million jobs.

Lila Shapiro contributed research.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/sotu-2012-jobs-government_n_1229238.html

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