Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Kirk Thompson leaves a a Shawnee County courtroom after a judge ruled in favor of the KBI in a dispute over records retained by a deceased agent from the 1959 multiple murder case that inspired Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood," Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Topeka, Kan. The judge ruled that a memorabilia dealer and the family of the deceased agent, who had wanted to auction off the materials, cannot use or speak about the files? contents publicly. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Kirk Thompson leaves a a Shawnee County courtroom after a judge ruled in favor of the KBI in a dispute over records retained by a deceased agent from the 1959 multiple murder case that inspired Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood," Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Topeka, Kan. The judge ruled that a memorabilia dealer and the family of the deceased agent, who had wanted to auction off the materials, cannot use or speak about the files? contents publicly. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) ? A judge ruled Tuesday that investigation materials pertaining to the 1959 "In Cold Blood" murders that a Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent kept at home may not be auctioned off or publicly revealed until he's had a chance to review them.
Shawnee County District Judge Larry Hendricks said the state could face "irreparable harm" if the materials found in Harold Nye's home became public. The materials include Nye's personal journals, copies of records and other materials about the investigation that inspired the Truman Capote classic. Crime scene photos in his possession were returned to the state last year by his son, according to lawyers.
Ronald Nye, of Oklahoma City, kept the materials after his father's 2003 death and gave them to Seattle memorabilia dealer Gary McAvoy to auction off. But the Kansas attorney general's office contends the materials belong to the state, and it is suing to get them back. The case is scheduled to go to trial in November.
Hendricks said his order will remain in place until the case is settled, but he left open the possibility that he could rescind it after reviewing the documents to determine how much private material they contain.
"Folks, I think I need to see them," he said from the bench. "I need to look at them."
McAvoy and Ronald Nye now say they don't plan to auction off the materials, and that instead they plan to write their own book about the killing of Herb and Bonnie Clutter and two of their children at their remote farmhouse in Holcomb. Hendricks' order bars them from even speaking about the files' contents publicly.
The hunt for the killers mesmerized the nation and drew journalists from across the U.S. to the small western Kansas town. The state executed two parolees, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, for the killings in 1965. Four years later, Harold Nye began a two-year stint as the KBI's director.
Capote's book about the murders, Hickock and Smith's trial and their executions is celebrated because it reads like a novel. However, scholars have debated its accuracy since it was published.
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Follow John Hanna on Twitter at http://twitter.com/apjdhanna
Apr. 9, 2013 ? A new paper suggests a strong association between population-wide weight change and risk of death from type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Variation in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes across populations can be largely explained by obesity. However, it is unclear as to what extent weight loss would lower cardiovascular disease prevalence.
Whole population trends in food consumption and transportation policies linked to physical activity could reduce the burden of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease at the population level.
Following the Cuban economic crisis of the early 1990s, food and fuel shortages resulted in a decline in dietary energy intake and large increases in physical activity. This resulted in an average population-wide weight loss of 4-5kg (8-11lbs). Rapid declines in death rates from diabetes and coronary heart disease were subsequently observed.
Comparing disease rates over time can demonstrate the power of prevention and help identify key risk factors.
An international team of researchers from Spain, Cuba and the US (led by Dr Franco, associate professor at University of Alcal?) therefore examined the association between population-wide body changes and diabetes incidence (the number of new individuals who contract a disease), prevalence (the total number of cases in a particular period of time) and death rates from type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, cancer and all-causes in Cuba between 1980 and 2010. Cuba is a country with a long tradition of public health and cardiovascular research which provided the necessary data from national health surveys, cardiovascular studies, primary care chronic disease registries and vital statistics over three decades. The Cuban population is relatively homogeneous and has undergone large social and economic changes directly related to food consumption and physical activity from 1980 through 2010.
Four population-based cross-sectional surveys were used and data were available on height, weight, energy intake, smoking and physical activity. All participants were aged between 15 and 74.
Population-wide changes in energy intake and physical activity were accompanied by large changes in body weight: between 1991 and 1995 there was an average 5kg reduction, whereas between 1995 and 2010 a population-wide weight rebound of 9kg was observed.
Smoking prevalence slowly decreased during the 1980s and 1990s and declined more rapidly in the 2000s. The number of cigarettes consumed per capita decreased during and shortly after the crisis.
Diabetes prevalence surged from 1997 onwards as the population began to gain weight. Diabetes incidence (new cases) decreased during the weight loss period but then increased until it peaked in the weight regain years.
In 1996, five years after the start of the weight loss period, there was an abrupt downward trend in death from diabetes. This lasted six years during which energy intake status gradually recovered and physical activity levels were reduced. In 2002, death rates returned to pre-crisis trends and a dramatic increase in diabetes death was observed.
Regarding CHD and stroke death trends we can see a slow decline from 1980 to 1996 followed by a dramatic decline after the weight loss phase. These descending trends have halted during the weight regain phase.
The researchers conclude that the "Cuban experience in 1980-2010" demonstrates that within a relatively short period, modest weight loss in the whole population can have a profound effect on the overall burden of diabetes and deaths from cardiovascular disease. They say that although findings show that a 5kg population-wide weight loss "would reduce diabetes mortality by half and CHD mortality by a third," these findings are an extrapolation from this one experience -- nonetheless they provide a "notable illustration of the potential health benefits of reversing the global obesity epidemic."
In an accompanying editorial, Professor Willett from the Harvard School of Public Health says that Franco and colleagues "add powerful evidence that a reduction in overweight and obesity would have major population-wide benefits." He also says that authors are appropriately cautious in their conclusions and avoid "attributing all the changes in disease rates to changes in weight." He adds that physicians can help promote healthy behaviour by "visibly engaging in healthy behaviour."
Dr Franco summarises the findings in a video. Dr Franco explains how population science can give us the tools to combat diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes and how tackling unhealthy diet and physical inactivity can reduce the disease burden. He also stresses the importance of promoting physical activity, including cycling and walking, as a means of transportation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BMJ-British Medical Journal.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
M. Franco, U. Bilal, P. Ordunez, M. Benet, A. Morejon, B. Caballero, J. F. Kennelly, R. S. Cooper. Population-wide weight loss and regain in relation to diabetes burden and cardiovascular mortality in Cuba 1980-2010: repeated cross sectional surveys and ecological comparison of secular trends. BMJ, 2013; 346 (apr09 2): f1515 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.f1515
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Doctors who provide abortions will face stricter standards in Alabama starting in July under a law signed on Tuesday that requires them to have admitting privileges at hospitals in the state.
Proponents say the legislation, the latest salvo in the national debate over abortion, will make pregnancy terminations safer, while critics say it will unnecessarily restrict a woman's right under the U.S. Constitution to choose an abortion.
The Alabama bill was passed last week by state lawmakers and signed by Republican Governor Robert Bentley, a former dermatologist.
"As a physician, and as a governor, I am proud to sign this legislation," Bentley said in a statement. "This bill provides appropriate standards of care. It has been endorsed by pro-life groups across Alabama."
Most Alabama clinics hire out-of-town physicians to provide abortions and partner with local doctors who have hospital admitting privileges to provide follow-up care.
Alabama is the seventh state to require hospital admitting privileges for abortion providers, according to Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health.
A similar law in Mississippi is threatening to shutter that state's sole abortion clinic, which has been unable to obtain hospital privileges for its physicians.
Nash said the increased stigma and fear of reprisals associated with abortion has over time resulted in fewer providers entering the field. A lack of providers often forces clinics to look beyond their immediate cities to find doctors willing to perform abortions.
In Alabama, the state's four licensed abortion clinics will have 180 days to meet the new standards after the law takes effect on July 1. The measure also mandates the clinics to meet the same facility standards as ambulatory care centers.
As with the law in Mississippi, legal challenges are expected from advocacy groups such as Planned Parenthood.
Nikema Williams, vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood Southeast, said it "stands ready to do whatever it takes to protect Alabamians' health and rights in the face of this dangerous law and blatant attack on women's health and rights."
Lawmakers across the country have passed new restrictions on abortion rights in recent years, including laws approved in the last month in North Dakota and Arkansas that are seen as direct challenges to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in 1973.
North Dakota in late March became the first state to approve a ban on most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, about six weeks into pregnancy, and the first to ban abortions solely because of fetal genetic anomalies.
(Additional reporting and writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Grant McCool)
Fifty years ago, a young Soviet Cosmonaut called Yuri Gagarin was blasted into space and into the history books. His may be a well-known story but ITV's Lawrence McGinty, has some fascinating facts that have stayed secret for all those years.
By Miriam Kramer Space.com
This week, space geeks around the world will celebrate the historic flight that made Yuri Gagarin the first person to leave the confines of Earth 52 years ago.
"Yuri's Night" (celebrated annually the week of April 12) commemorates Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's first flight with parties and special events honoring more than five decades of human spaceflight. This year, festivities will take place on Friday, with some lasting into the weekend and next week.
Gagarin launched into space on April 12, 1961 aboard his Vostok space capsule, ushering in the age of human spaceflight. Exactly 20 years after Gagarin's historic flight, NASA launched the first space shuttle mission on April 12, 1981 to kick of reusable spacecraft program that would last three decades. Yuri's Night celebrations are aimed at marking both space anniversaries, as well as toasting the spirit of space exploration. [Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space (Photos)]
"Yuri's Night is the world space party," the project's spokesman Brice Russ told Space.com. "(It's a) global celebration of space."
So far, 255 parties in 42 countries have been registered through Yuri's Night's official website, Russ said. Groups of space fans on six continents are planning celebrations, and Russ is in negotiations with a possible party host in Antarctica to get the last continent added to the list.?
ESA
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel into space.
"We have 75 events officially registered on our website for the United States, with more coming in each day," Russ wrote Space.com in an email. "If people are interested in participating in Yuri's Night but don't have an event nearby (and don't want to start one up themselves), they can join Yuri's Night online via webcasts or virtual events."
Launched in 2001, Yuri's Night began with 64 events around the world. Ten years later ? on the 50-year anniversary of human spaceflight in 2011 ? people in 74 different countries hosted 550 events making it the largest Yuri's Night in the event's history. This year is shaping up to be the second-largest, Russ added.
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"Everyone is welcome to come to celebrate Yuri's night with us," Russ added. "There is something at Yuri's night for everyone."
It is not too late to register and host your own Yuri's Night party. Simply sign up online through YurisNight.netto make your party searchable in the "party list." There is no party too big or too small to be a part of the celebration, Russ said.
If you'd like to find a party near you, visit the "Find a Party" page and use the Google Map to search for a convenient location.
Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramerand Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Phil Mickelson walks past a scoreboard while walking up the ninth hole during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Phil Mickelson walks past a scoreboard while walking up the ninth hole during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Phil Mickelson walks down the sixth fairway past blooming azaleas during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Phil Mickelson walks across the first fairway with his caddie Jim MacKay during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) ? One of the last golfers you'd expect to feel anxious heading into the Masters is three-time champion Phil Mickelson.
Yet, the creature of habit is slightly out of sorts after a change to his usual routine at the year's first major, and it's left Lefty a bit apprehensive about his first tee shot Thursday when the Masters starts.
"I'm nervous because I haven't been in competition since the Sunday of the Houston Open," Mickelson said Tuesday. "It will be 10, 11 days, I guess, and that's what I'm nervous about."
Mickelson's pre-game prep for the Masters has been rock-solid in recent years: Play in Houston and leave in a good, competitive frame of mind coming into Augusta National. In this year's PGA Tour schedule, though, the last Masters tuneup came in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open on a layout Mickelson said was too narrow and too windy to help him at wide-open Augusta National so he arrived here this past weekend to finish off his prep work.
Mickelson worked on his putting and short-game "because that's so important," he said.
He even found time to squeeze in a round with one of Augusta National's newest members, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore became the club's first two female members.
Mickelson didn't want to re-open Augusta National's former males-only heritage, saying he doesn't enjoy the politics that sometimes come with golf.
"I tried that earlier in the year," he said. "It didn't go so well, so I'm good."
In January, Mickelson created a stir by saying new federal and state tax rates kept him from being part of the San Diego Padres' new ownership group and might cause him to move away from his native California as part of "drastic changes" brought on by the political climate. He later called it a "big mistake" to take his views public.
What's there for all to see is Mickelson's love of the Masters. He earned his first of his four career major title here in 2004. He also won green jackets in 2006 and 2010 and cherishes the layout like few others on tour.
Mickelson says he's got a comfort with the layout that gives him confidence he can make a mistake and remain in contention, unlike the punishing course setups he's seen at U.S. Opens.
"I think that's what's exciting about Augusta National is the recovery shot," he said. "That's the most exciting shots in golf. One of the most exciting shots I've ever hit in my career is a recovery shot on (No.) 13 a few years ago."
Back in 2010, Mickelson seemed on the verge of major problems after his tee shot rolled into pine needles and trees on the par-5 13th hole. Instead of playing out, Mickelson hit his ball between two trees and cleared Rae's Creek to land on the green. His birdie kept momentum on his side on the way to the championship.
Mickelson says by playing the week before, he's generally more ready to attack the early holes at Augusta National.
If Mickelson can come out ready, he believes he's got the game and the tools to make another winning run. He says his redesigned driver has added distance and put him in spots on the course the 42-year-old hasn't seen in several years.
The added length has left him less clubs to use on his approach shots, an advantage the short-game wizard can't wait to bring to the course in competition.
He said his tee shots on the par-4 ninth hole have gotten to the bottom of the hill "and I haven't been able to do that in years."
Mickelson has had two top-10 finishes this year, including a victory in Phoenix. He thinks acknowledging his concerns will help him get past them over the next couple of days. Still, he's not sure and knows he won't have the answer to that until Thursday's start.
"It's always a challenge those first five or six holes," he said, "when you haven't been in competition to be really mentally focused and sharp."
NEW YORK (AP) ? There won't be an easy fix for J.C. Penney ? if it can be fixed at all.
As Mike Ullman takes the reins again less than two years after his departure, he faces a Herculean task to undo the mess left by CEO Ron Johnson, who was ousted Monday. With the department store retailer in the middle of a disastrous overhaul that has driven away shoppers, the 66-year-old Ullman has to quickly figure out what parts of Johnson's legacy to keep and what to trash.
The overarching question is whether the century-old company can be saved at all. Very few retailers have recovered from a 25 percent sales drop in a single year, like that suffered by Penney under Johnson's watch. On Tuesday, the retailer's stock price dropped more than 12 percent to a 12-year-low of $13.93 as investors' worries escalated about Penney's future.
"Ullman can't go back to the old ways, but he can't do what Ron Johnson did," said Ron Friedman, head of the retail and consumer products group at Marcum LLP, a national accounting and consulting firm. "I think there will be a combination of the two. But he has to make some quick moves."
Apparently, the company's board of directors felt Ullman, who served as Penney's CEO for seven years and is known for strong relationships with suppliers and calm, steady execution, would be the best choice right now to secure the company's future. But it could take Ullman 18 months to stabilize the business, says Burt Flickinger III, president of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group. He gives the chain a 50-50 chance to survive.
"The odds are declining every day," said Flickinger, noting that rivals like Macy's are taking away market share. "Competitors see blood in the water."
Johnson, the mastermind behind Apple Inc.'s successful retail stores, lasted just 17 months. He faced an ever-growing chorus of critics calling for his resignation as they lost faith in the aggressive overhaul. The rapid-fire changes included getting rid of coupons and most discounts in favor of everyday low prices, bringing in new brands and remaking its outdated stores. Johnson's goal was to reinvent the stodgy retailer into a mini-mall of hip specialty shops.
Instead, Penney's loyal shoppers went in search of deals elsewhere, and the chain didn't attract the younger and more affluent shoppers that Johnson coveted. Now the 1,100-store chain is burning through cash. In the past year, the company lost nearly a billion dollars and saw its revenue tumble by nearly $4.3 billion to $12.98 billion. Customer traffic dropped 13 percent. Steep sales declines have continued, say analysts, even though Johnson added back some sales events and coupons early this year.
Some speculate that Ullman may ditch the everyday price strategy and instead ramp up the return to discounting and coupons to get shoppers back in the stores. But that will still be an expensive move. Michael Binetti, an analyst at UBS Investment Research, and others believe that Ullman also will temporarily suspend the rollout of the mini-shops, which started late last year and feature such brands as Joe Fresh and Levi's.
When the overhaul of its home area is completed next month, the company will have carved up 30 percent of its store space into mini-boutiques. But after that, Ullman is expected to pull back the pace of the rollout as Penney tries to conserve cash. That means that some suppliers who expected to have mini-shops could be left in the lurch.
Ullman also will have to find ways to boost employee morale amid severe cuts that have slashed the work force by nearly 30 percent. As of February, Penney employed 116,000 full- and part-time workers, down from 159,000 a year ago.
Whatever Ullman ends up doing, analysts expect him to be thoughtful and deliberate in his moves. That's a big difference from Johnson, who was criticized for not testing his strategies in a few stores, particularly the pricing plan.
In a statement released by Penney on Monday, Ullman said he plans to immediately "engage with the company's customers, team members, vendors and shareholders, to understand their needs, view and insights" and then work with the management team and the board to develop a game plan.
"(The board) chose stability and experience, in my mind," said Antony Karabus, president of SD Retail Consulting. "Instead of big, grandiose ideas, what they need now is someone to stabilize and execute effectively. He has a calm way about him. If anyone can do it, he can, because he knows the business. He knows the customers."
Bud Konheim, president of designer fashion brand Nicole Miller, which has sold an affordable version to Penney since 2005, agrees.
"(Ullman) is very smart. Everybody loves him. He's a strong executive but he's not a bull in the china shop," he said. "He's not as much show biz as Ron Johnson. He flies under the radar."
Still, there are concerns. Penney struggled under Ullman's first regime, though the company was still profitable. Ullman brought in Penney's first mini-shops, including beauty company Sephora and exclusive names like MNG by Mango, a European clothing brand. But he didn't do much to transform the store's shopping experience or to attract new customers.
That showed up in the sales figures. During Ullman's previous tenure, from December 2004 to October 2011, sales declined from $18.18 billion in 2004 to $17.6 billion in 2010, his last full year at the company. Sales per square foot dropped to $155 from $177, according to Deborah Weinswig, an analyst at Citi Research.
When Ullman left Penney in November 2011, the situation wasn't great. But it also wasn't the crisis it is now. The company's credit ratings are deep into junk status. Its stock has lost 67 percent of its value since February 2012 when investors bullish on Johnson's grand plans drove the price up around $43. That makes it that much harder for Ullman to turn business around.
History also dictates that the odds are against a sales recovery. Last fall, Credit Suisse surveyed 17 retailers that reported annual declines of anywhere from 15 percent to 25 percent in a single year from 2000 to 2011. Of that group, only four retailers recovered the lost revenue ? Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Ann Inc., Guess Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. ? and it took an average of three years to do so. The rest were either acquired by a private equity company, went bankrupt or merged with another public company.
Ultimately, Penney's fate lies in once-loyal shoppers like Beth Williams, 39, who deserted the chain early last year.
Williams, a writer and mother of a 3-year-old from Plum, Pa., said she used to shop at Penney once a month for her family. But that changed when her local store got rid of coupons and sales events. She also doesn't like the new styles that she believes only target customers in their teens and 20s.
Williams says she would go back if Penney had more sales and brought back more traditional clothing like khaki shorts with forgiving fits.
"I would go back," she said. "I miss it. That was my go-to store for a long time, and then it changed."
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Anne D'Innocenzio can be reached at __http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has joined the fray over Royal Bank of Canada?s plan to outsource dozens of jobs at its Toronto operation, calling on the Conservative government to close legal loopholes that encourage corporations to farm out work performed by Canadian employees.
RBC?s now tarnished reputation tangled up in government crosshairs
Gord Nixon should take little comfort, amid the public relations fiasco engulfing Royal Bank of Canada, that it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Continue reading.
Canada?s biggest bank landed in hot water over the weekend following media reports that RBC had struck a deal with iGate Corp., a leading global outsourcing company with significant operations in India, and was in the process of transferring dozens of IT jobs at its Toronto operation out of the country.
But it?s not simply the fact that jobs are being lost that?s causing the ruckus ? after all, companies have been outsourcing for years ? but rather the way it?s happening.
Under the deal, iGate staff will come to Canada to be trained by the RBC workers whose jobs they will ultimately be taking. It?s all perfectly legal under Canada?s controversial Temporary Foreign Worker program (TFP) which enables companies to bring people into the country on a temporary basis. Not only is it legal, but it?s happening at plenty of other workplaces as well.
RBC is ?using the techniques put in place by the Conservatives to lower the working conditions of Canadian workers,? Mr. Mulcair told reporters, adding that the government must reconsider the TFP.
The program is aimed at allowing companies to foreign workers when qualified Canadians are not available, and is frequently used to alleviate labour shortages in agriculture and home care sectors. But according to Mr. Mulcair, there?s little justification for the TFP with more than 1.5-million Canadians unemployed.
The comments come a day after the federal government raised concerns of its own.
?We have recently learned of allegations that RBC could be replacing Canadian workers by contracting with iGATE, which is filling some of the roles with temporary foreign workers,? Diane Finley, the federal minister of human resources and skills development, said in a statement on Sunday. ?If true, this situation is unacceptable.?
Critics say the real question is whether the TFP makes any sense for Canada. Canadian banks, like most other industries, have been looking for way to lower costs and compete more effectively in an increasingly globalized world. As part of that process, they?ve been outsourcing for years ? a legitimate business strategy.
?There?s nothing wrong with outsourcing,? said Finn Poschmann, vice president of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, an economic policy think tank based in Toronto.?The problem with the TFP is it?s not aligned with established government strategy? and the public is starting to recognize that, he said.
In other words, outsourcing is a fact of life but moving people from other lower-cost jurisdictions to this country in order for Canadian companies to cut costs is not in the interests of the country.
But more than ever Canada?s big banks are facing pressure to put a lid on expenses. With the domestic economy showing signs of slowing and consumer debt at record levels, their bread-and-butter retail operations are expected to generate thinner profits in the coming quarters. If they are to stay in shareholders? good books they must find ways to maintain earnings momentum and one of the simplest ways to do that is to aggressively move work to lower cost jurisdictions.
Microsoft's next Xbox, which could get an initial unveiling as early as next month, will use an AMD system-on-a-chip according to a new Bloomberg report. The new AMD SoC will mean that Microsoft is moving to an x86-based system architecture, which Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 is also adopting. The change is great news for AMD, and for gamers, and bad news for AMD's chief rival Intel.
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korea has raised its surveillance of North Korea after the reclusive state moved one or more long-range missiles in readiness for a possible launch, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region, said the U.S. military believed North Korea had moved an unspecified number of Musudan missiles to its east coast.
An Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters "our working assumption is that there are two missiles that they may be prepared to launch". That was in line with South Korean media reports.
The North has been threatening the United States and its "puppet" South Korea on an almost a daily basis in recent weeks, although the threats appear to be aimed partly at boosting internal support for young leader Kim Jong-un.
The Combined Forces Command in Seoul raised its "Watchcon 3" status, a normal defense condition, by one level in order to step up monitoring and increase the number of intelligence staff, a senior military official told Yonhap on Wednesday.
"There are clear signs that the North could simultaneously fire off Musudan, Scud and Nodong missiles," Yonhap quoted an unidentified official as saying.
Pyongyang has frequently tested short-range Scud missiles but the longer-range Musudan and Nodong missiles are an unknown quantity. The Musudan missiles are reckoned to have a range of roughly 3,000-3,500 km (1,865-2,175 miles).
The North has said it would target American bases in the Pacific, although it is not known whether the untested missiles have the range to do so.
"If the missile was in defense of the homeland, I would certainly recommend that action (of intercepting it). And if it was defense of our allies, I would recommend that action," Locklear told a Senate hearing in Washington.
Pyongyang has turned up its shrill rhetoric in recent weeks after the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions for the state's third nuclear weapons test in February.
It has threatened a nuclear strike on the United States - something it does not have the capacity to carry out - and "war" with South Korea.
On Tuesday, it told foreigners in South Korea to leave the country to avoid being dragged into a "thermonuclear war". It previously warned diplomats in Pyongyang to prepare to leave.
The streets of Seoul, a city of 10 million people, bustled as normal on Wednesday morning as commuters travelled to work in sunny, spring-time weather. Foreign embassies in the capital of Asia's fourth-largest economy have played down the latest North Korean threats as rhetoric.
The North closed a money-spinning joint industrial park it operates with South Korean companies this week, putting at risk a venture that is one of its few sources of hard cash.
Analysts say the current tensions will likely last until the end of April, when joint U.S.-South Korean military drills end. The harsh rhetoric also precedes the first anniversary of Kim's formal ascent to power in Pyongyang.
The North has termed the drills "hostile" preparation for invasion by Seoul and Washington, who say the drills are regular annual exercises.
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - John Malone's Liberty Global will get unconditional EU clearance for its $15.8 billion bid for Virgin Media, two people familiar with the matter said on Monday, in a move which pits the U.S. billionaire against rival Rupert Murdoch.
Liberty Global, Europe's No. 1 cable operator, unveiled the takeover offer for Britain's second-biggest pay-TV provider in February. The move underscores the growing rivalry between cable groups and traditional telecoms operators.
"The European Commission does not have any competition concerns about the deal," one of the sources said.
The European Union competition authority is set to announce its decision by April 15. Antoine Colombani, Commission spokesman for competition policy, and Virgin Media declined to comment. A spokesman for Liberty Global was not available for comment.
Malone, Liberty Global's controlling shareholder, clashed with Murdoch, owner of British satellite group BSkyB, a decade ago when they fought for control of U.S. satellite TV broadcaster DirecTV Group.
The Virgin Media deal will reinforce Liberty Global's challenge against BSkyB, Britain's top pay-TV provider.
The $15.8 billion value of the deal was the implied price on February 6, the day it was announced.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is warning friend and foe alike: They're not going to like every part of President Barack Obama's budget when it is released this week.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer is telling Republicans their "my way or the highway" approach would spell the GOP's defeat in upcoming budget negotiations. He also is telling Obama's Democratic allies that they, too, will have to bend on the spending plan that is due Wednesday.
"Look, this is compromise," Pfeiffer said on Sunday. "And compromise means there are going to be some folks on both sides who are not happy."
The White House is laying the groundwork to work with rank-and-file Republicans, including a dinner with GOP senators and the president on Wednesday night. That outreach is unlikely to calm concerns among liberal Democrats that Obama is open to trading traditionally sacrosanct programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
And the White House is also preparing to offer programs likely to be popular among its liberal allies, including expanded education programs for toddlers before they reach kindergarten. Republicans are unlikely to support any massive new initiatives because of their cost, and some conservatives are particularly critical of existing Head Start programs for children from low-income families.
Obama is set to formally release his budget outline Wednesday morning. Its delay from February, then to March and now to April has left lawmakers in the Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate to write their own budget proposals and move ahead without a concrete plan from Obama's economic team.
White House officials say they want to come up with an outline that both jump-starts the economy and reduces the nation's red ink ? a goal broadly shared by both parties.
Yet the details may prove a sticking point.
"The president is showing a little bit of leg here, this is somewhat encouraging," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, before quickly noting the Obama proposal as a whole "isn't going to make it."
"We're beginning to set the stage for the grand bargain," the South Carolina Republican added in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press."
Such a large-scale deal has proved elusive for Obama ? first with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and now with Senate Republicans. Time and again, the White House has tried to negotiate an overarching compromise that brings down spending while protecting social safety nets for those who need them most. Each time, talks have fallen apart amid revolt among the strongest partisans in Democrats' and Republicans' caucuses.
Yet Obama is again working to find a deal, his top advisers said.
"What we're looking for is what the president calls a caucus of common sense, folks who are willing to compromise and who understand that in divided government, both sides aren't going to get everything they want," Pfeiffer told "Fox News Sunday."
In a separate interview, Pfeiffer told ABC's "This Week" that the White House sees an opening to work with rank-and-file lawmakers on a deal, perhaps bypassing the party's leadership.
"Is it going to be easy? Absolutely not. But there is a possibility," Pfeiffer said.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ? Elder Eldred G. Smith, the oldest Mormon church general authority and oldest known Utahn, has died at the age of 106.
Smith, who was born in Lehi, died Thursday night.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement praising him as a "valued friend" and "respected leader."
During his 32 years as church patriarch, he traveled to every continent and gave more than 18,000 blessings. He had been an emeritus church patriarch since 1979.
Provo's Daily Herald reports he had five children, 24 grandchildren, 45 great-grandchildren and 19 great-great grandchildren as of a year ago.
KSL reports he was the most long-lived general authority in the church's history. Smith celebrated his 106th birthday on Jan. 9.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is warning friend and foe alike: They're not going to like every part of President Barack Obama's budget when it is released this week.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer is telling Republicans their "my way or the highway" approach would spell the GOP's defeat in upcoming budget negotiations. He also is telling Obama's Democratic allies that they, too, will have to bend on the spending plan that is due Wednesday.
"Look, this is compromise," Pfeiffer said on Sunday. "And compromise means there are going to be some folks on both sides who are not happy."
The White House is laying the groundwork to work with rank-and-file Republicans, including a dinner with GOP senators and the president on Wednesday night. That outreach is unlikely to calm concerns among liberal Democrats that Obama is open to trading traditionally sacrosanct programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
And the White House is also preparing to offer programs likely to be popular among its liberal allies, including expanded education programs for toddlers before they reach kindergarten. Republicans are unlikely to support any massive new initiatives because of their cost, and some conservatives are particularly critical of existing Head Start programs for children from low-income families.
Obama is set to formally release his budget outline Wednesday morning. Its delay from February, then to March and now to April has left lawmakers in the Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate to write their own budget proposals and move ahead without a concrete plan from Obama's economic team.
White House officials say they want to come up with an outline that both jump-starts the economy and reduces the nation's red ink ? a goal broadly shared by both parties.
Yet the details may prove a sticking point.
"The president is showing a little bit of leg here, this is somewhat encouraging," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, before quickly noting the Obama proposal as a whole "isn't going to make it."
"We're beginning to set the stage for the grand bargain," the South Carolina Republican added in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press."
Such a large-scale deal has proved elusive for Obama ? first with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and now with Senate Republicans. Time and again, the White House has tried to negotiate an overarching compromise that brings down spending while protecting social safety nets for those who need them most. Each time, talks have fallen apart amid revolt among the strongest partisans in Democrats' and Republicans' caucuses.
Yet Obama is again working to find a deal, his top advisers said.
"What we're looking for is what the president calls a caucus of common sense, folks who are willing to compromise and who understand that in divided government, both sides aren't going to get everything they want," Pfeiffer told "Fox News Sunday."
In a separate interview, Pfeiffer told ABC's "This Week" that the White House sees an opening to work with rank-and-file lawmakers on a deal, perhaps bypassing the party's leadership.
"Is it going to be easy? Absolutely not. But there is a possibility," Pfeiffer said.
An Orion exploration vehicle approaches a near-Earth asteroid in this artist's conception. Such a mission would be carried out in 2021 under the White House's new plan for NASA exploration beyond Earth orbit.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
NASA's accelerated vision for exploration calls for moving a near-Earth asteroid even nearer to Earth, sending out astronauts to bring back samples within a decade, and then shifting the focus to Mars, a senior Obama administration official told NBC News on Saturday.
The official said the mission would "accomplish the president's challenge of sending humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 in a more cost-effective and potentially quicker time frame than under other scenarios." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to discuss the plan publicly.
The source said more than $100 million would be sought for the mission and other asteroid-related activities in its budget request for the coming fiscal year, which is due to be sent to Congress on Wednesday. That confirms comments made on Friday by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a one-time spaceflier who is now chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space. It also confirms a report about the mission that appeared last month in Aviation Week.
The asteroid retrieval mission is based on a scenario set out last year by a study group at the Keck Institute for Space Studies. NASA's revised scenario would launch a robotic probe toward a 500-ton, 7- to 10-meter-wide (25- to 33-foot-wide) asteroid in 2017 or so. The probe would capture the space rock in a bag in 2019, and then pull it to a stable orbit in the vicinity of the moon, using a next-generation solar electric propulsion system. That would reduce the travel time for asteroid-bound astronauts from a matter of months to just a few days.
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The Keck study estimated the total mission cost at $2.6 billion ??but the administration official said the price tag could be reduced to $1 billion, or roughly $100 million a year, if the mission took advantage of an already-planned test flight for NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew exploration vehicle. That flight would send astronauts around the moon and back in 2021.
"This mission would combine the best of NASA's asteroid identification, technology development, and human exploration efforts to capture and redirect a small asteroid to just beyond the moon to set up a human mission using existing resources and equipment, including the heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule that have been under development for several years," the official said in an email.
The 2014 budget would set aside $78 million for planning the asteroid retrieval mission, plus $27 million to?accelerate NASA's efforts to detect and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids. The federal government currently spends $20 million annually on asteroid detection.
Meteor sparked action The official said the plan had been under discussion for months, but coalesced after February's meteor blast over Russia. The meteor's breakup injured more than 1,000 people and sparked a worldwide sensation. It also sparked a series of congressional hearings about threats from space, during which Republicans as well as Democrats hinted that they would support more funding to counter asteroid threats.
"This plan would help us prove we're smarter than the dinosaurs," said the official, referring to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species 65 million years ago. An asteroid in the 7- to 10-meter range would be about half as wide as the one that broke up over Russia. That's?far?too small to pose any threat to Earth, even if the space rock was coming directly at our planet. But the captured asteroid could provide valuable insights for dealing with bigger ones in the future.?
Initial preparations for the mission won't have to wait for a deal to end budget sequestration, or approval of the budget for the 2014 fiscal year. NASA would begin immediately to identify the asteroid for retrieval, and take advantage of existing efforts funded by the agency's science, technology and human exploration directorates. The most expensive element of the plan, the multibillion-dollar Orion/SLS launch system, is already being funded under the terms of an agreement with Congress.
Discussions with NASA's international and commercial partners will continue in the months and years ahead, the official said. The retrieved asteroid could conceivably become a target for other scientific missions or asteroid-mining operations. In the process, governments might have to address issues surrounding the ownership and exploitation of space resources.
"We're trying to force the question," the official said. "We're trying to push the envelope on this new frontier."
Questions raised Some observers have already raised questions about the plan, based on the advance reports. Scott Pace, the director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, told The Associated Press that it was a bad idea on scientific as well as diplomatic grounds. It would be better for the United States to join forces with other countries to conduct?a comprehensive survey of all potentially dangerous asteroids, Pace said.
Rick Tumlinson, chairman of an asteroid-mining venture called Deep Space Industries, said he was concerned that NASA's asteroid mission might interfere with private-sector efforts?? and he called on NASA to rely on private enterprise wherever possible. The administration official assured NBC News that cooperation with commercial ventures as well as other groups such as the B612 Foundation was part of the plan.
The official noted that the mission would provide a relatively low-cost route to satisfying President Barack Obama's goal of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025. The lessons learned during the mission could be applied to future missions aimed at diverting other asteroids ? perhaps?to head off a potential threat, or conduct further scientific study, or exploit the potentially valuable resources that asteroids contain.
After the asteroid mission, NASA would turn its attention to a farther-out destination: Mars. The Obama administration has called for astronauts to travel to the Red Planet and its moons by the mid-2030s, and that would be the next major target for space exploration. The administration official told NBC News that other concepts, such as sending astronauts back to the moon or creating a deep-space platform beyond the far side of the moon, are not on the agenda for the foreseeable future.?
More about asteroids:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Apr. 6, 2013 ? Researchers using a tool called BEAMing technology, which can detect cancer-driving gene mutations in patients' blood samples, were able to identify oncogenic mutations associated with distinct responses to therapies used to treat patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), according to a researcher who presented the data at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013, held in Washington D.C., April 6-10.
Data from a subanalysis of the phase III GIST-Regorafenib In Progressive Disease (GRID) trial indicated that this blood-based screening technology may provide physicians with a real-time, comprehensive picture of a patient's tumor mutations, according to George D. Demetri, M.D., director of the Ludwig Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass.
"Our results show that it is possible to sum the total of all of the heterogeneity in a cancer and get a clear picture of the entire tumor burden, using a simple blood sample," Demetri said.
In this era of targeted cancer therapies, the goal is to focus cancer treatments on a specific molecular target. However, as researchers discover more about cancers and their heterogeneity, they are finding many patients have anywhere from one to dozens of different mutations in their tumors.
"It is a real issue that when you do a biopsy on one tumor, and then biopsy a different tumor in that same patient a few inches away or on the other side of the body, you may get a different answer when you do the molecular analysis," Demetri said. "With this blood test, you get a robust summary statement about all the different mutations present across the different tumors in the body. I believe this testing technology has promise to become a standard part of care in the next five to 10 years."
Data from the main analysis of the phase III GRID study showed that the molecularly targeted drug regorafenib significantly improved progression-free survival compared with placebo for patients with GIST. The researchers hope these results will ultimately lead to the drug's approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to Demetri. The drug is intended to treat patients with advanced GIST whose disease has failed to be controlled by the only two other FDA-approved therapies for GIST, imatinib and sunitinib (Sutent).
Demetri and colleagues conducted an exploratory analysis on patients in the GRID study to assess GIST genotypes. They isolated DNA from archival tumor tissue, which was then analyzed for mutations in two genes, KIT and PDGFRA, which generate the cancer-driving proteins that are the targets of imatinib, sunitinib and regorafenib. The researchers believed that primary mutations would be detectable using traditional analysis, but that those mutations that developed after treatment with imatinib and sunitinib would not be detectable. They then took blood samples drawn at study entry after failure of both imatinib and sunitinib, and analyzed them for mutations via BEAMing technology.
Mutations in the KIT gene were detected in 60 percent of the blood samples compared with 65 percent of the tumor tissue samples. However, when focusing their analysis on secondary KIT mutations, which are the mutations that drive resistance to targeted therapies like imatinib and sunitinib, the researchers found mutations in 48 percent of blood samples compared with only 12 percent of tissue samples. In addition, nearly half of blood samples in which secondary KIT mutations were found harbored multiple secondary mutations.
Importantly, regorafenib was clinically active compared with placebo in patients with secondary KIT mutations.
According to Demetri, the results show a clear association between the presence of different cancer-driving gene mutations in patients' blood samples and clinical outcomes.
"By using this technology, we hope to develop the most rational drug combinations and better tests to match patients with the most effective therapies going forward," Demetri said.
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BERLIN (AP) ? Rabbits scamper over quiet runways. Only the call of a crow disturbs the silence around a gleaming, empty terminal that should be humming with the din of thousands of passengers.
Willy Brandt International Airport, named for Germany's famed Cold War leader, was supposed to have been up and running in late 2011, a sign of Berlin's transformation from Cold War confrontation line to world class capital of Europe's economic powerhouse. Instead it has become a symbol of how, even for this technological titan, things can go horribly wrong.
After four publicly announced delays, officials acknowledged the airport won't be ready by the latest target: October 2013. To spare themselves further embarrassment, officials have refused to set a new opening date.
The saga of Berlin's new airport has turned into a national joke and a source of humiliation for a people renowned for being on time. Yet it is just highest profile in a string of big-ticket projects ? including a concert hall in Hamburg, railway tunnels in Munich and Leipzig, a subway line in Cologne and a Stuttgart underground train station ? that have been plagued by huge cost overruns and delays.
The airport fiasco presents a staggering picture of incompetence.
German media have tracked down a list of tens of thousands of technical problems. Among them: Officials can't even figure out how to turn the lights off. Thousands of light bulbs illuminate the gigantic main terminal and unused parking lots around the clock, a massive energy and cost drain that appears to be the result of a computer system that's so sophisticated it's almost impossible to operate.
Every day, an empty commuter train rolls to the unfinished airport over an eight-kilometer-long (five-mile) stretch to keep the newly-laid tracks from getting rusty, another example of gross inefficiency. Meanwhile, hundreds of freshly planted trees had to be chopped down because a company delivered the wrong type of linden trees; several escalators need to be rebuilt because they were too short; and dozen of tiles were already broken before a single airport passenger ever stepped on them.
The airport itself points to problems with the fire safety system as the immediate cause of the delays: The fire safety system incorporates some 75,000 sprinklers, but computer programming glitches mean it's not clear whether all of these sprinklers would spray enough water during a fire. And the system's underground vent system, designed to suck away smoke, isn't working. Here, again, technology's getting in the way: It's so advanced that technicians can't figure out what's wrong with it.
Critics say that that the difficulties with handling today's complex technology have been compounded by hasty, negligent work due to the intense time pressures.
Underlying these problems appears to be a culture of political dishonesty.
"Many politicians want prestigious large-scale projects to be inseparably connected with their names," said Sebastian Panknin, a financial expert with the Taxpayer's Association Germany. "To get these expensive projects started, they artificially calculate down the real costs to get permission from parliament or other committees in charge."
In addition to that, politicians at the city, state and federal levels then often come with extra demands once construction is underway, which leads to expensive modifications. In the case of the Berlin airport, said Pankin, there were about 300 ad hoc change requests by politicians which created an explosion of costs and several delays ? among them a last minute wish to expand the terminal to include a shopping mall.
"The airport is a classic example of the incompetence of our politicians," said Sven Fandrich, a 28-year-old Berliner who works for an insurance company. "We've seen this happen with many big infrastructure projects in Germany. Nobody feels responsible. The politicians are more concerned about winning the next elections than devoting their service to the people."
Hamburg's concert hall was to have opened by 2010. Instead it's nowhere near complete and costs have more than doubled to 575 million euros. It's now due to open in 2016.
Construction on Cologne's North-South subway line began in 2004. After cost overruns and a collapse that killed two people in 2009, officials say the entire line may not be open for until 2019. Costs have soared from 780 million to 1.08 billion euros.
In Leipzig, the city tunnel for commuter trains was expected to open in 2009. Construction is still not finished, and costs have jumped from 572 million to 960 million euros.
Of all the bungled projects, the Berlin airport is the biggest embarrassment.
The initial plan foresaw building a stately airport that would be financed by private investors and replace the city's two Cold War airports ? Tegel in former West Berlin and Schoenefeld in what was the communist east.
After a series of disputes with private investors, the city, state and federal governments eventually took over the airport project. In 2006, costs were estimated at 2 billion euros, but after four delays, the figure spiked to 4.4 billion euros.
Companies like Air Berlin, Germany's second biggest carrier, have been severely affected by the delays and are suing for lost revenues. Small businesses like coffee shops, restaurants, retail stores or bus operators ? who had already hired staff and invested in new stores at the airport ? are facing bankruptcy.
Twitter users asked the mayor to "please open this gate," playing off President Ronald Reagan's famous 1987 appeal to Moscow to "tear down" the Berlin Wall.
And by the time the airport finally opens, it may face a new headache.
Some aviation experts are warning that by its inauguration date, the airport will already be too small to handle the rising number of passengers. The nearly 3.9 million square foot (360,000 square meter) airport complex was designed to handle 27 million passengers. But the existing two city airports handled 25 million passengers last year ? and the city keeps attracting more visitors every year.
"The airport is too expensive, too small and too much behind time," said aviation expert Dieter Faulenbach da Costa, who recently caused a stir when he proposed that the airport ought to be torn down.
In an effort to salvage the mess, Hartmut Mehdorn, the hardnosed former boss of the German railway system with a reputation for turning around failing corporations, was named chief executive of the airport in early March.
"The whole world says: it's not possible at all," Mehdorn said when he took over. "I say: It should be possible.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's economic situation is "worrisome" and it needs quick measures to restore economic activity, the planning minister told the state news agency MENA on Saturday as Egypt holds talks with the IMF on a $4.8 billion loan.
After two years of political turmoil, Egypt is struggling with an economic crisis and a high budget deficit. Foreign currency reserves are critically low, limiting its ability to import wheat and fuel.
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation resumed long delayed talks with the government on Wednesday on a loan, which would throw Egypt a financial lifeline and potentially unlock a much larger amount in foreign aid and investment.
"The economic situation has become worrisome and quick measures are needed to restore (economic) activity," Planning Minister Ashraf al-Araby said, according to MENA.
Araby described the IMF talks as "positive" and said he hoped Egypt would reach a deal in principle with the global lender within two weeks, MENA said. The IMF has made no comment on the negotiations and set no deadline for their conclusion.
Cairo reached a provisional agreement with the IMF last November but President Mohamed Mursi halted implementation of the economic conditions the following month amid political violence over the extent of his powers, suspending an unpopular increase and widening of the sales tax on goods and services.
Economic conditions have worsened significantly since November, widening the fiscal gap that needs to be plugged, while the Egyptian pound has depreciated.
Foreign reserves dipped further to $13.4 billion at end-March, the central bank said on Thursday, down from $13.5 billion a month earlier, equivalent to less than three months' imports.
Egypt must convince the IMF it is serious about reforms aimed at boosting growth and curbing an unaffordable budget deficit. That implies tax hikes and politically risky cuts in state subsidies for fuel and food, including bread.
Just before the visit, the government announced an increase in the price of subsidized cooking gas. But it has postponed plans to ration subsidized fuel using smart cards until July 1, and some reports say that date may be pushed back further.
Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said on television on Friday night that Egypt needed to rationalize its energy consumption as a "national duty", with or without an IMF loan.
He defended the decision last week to raise the price of gas canisters to 8 Egyptian pounds ($1.17) from 5, saying there was no real increase since households were used to buying gas on the open market at between 20 and 40 pounds a bottle.
In remarks seen as preparing the population for sacrifices to fulfill the IMF's conditions, Kandil said the country was facing a great challenge and ordinary citizens were suffering the greatest burden.
The Egyptian pound has lost nearly one-10th of its value against the dollar on the official market this year and has fallen more sharply on the black market in the last few days due to dwindling supplies of the U.S. currency. ($1 = 6.8383 Egyptian pounds)
(Reporting by Ulf Laessing and Paul Taylor; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Did you know that more than $90 million was bet online in New Jersey last year on horse racing?
Did you even know that it was legal to bet on horse racing online?
Many Meadowlands Matters regulars are horsemen, so they all knew it.
But a 2010 poll found that not only were just 10 pct of state residents aware, 35 pct incorrectly said it was NOT legal.
So I put together a little primer/history lesson for today?s edition of The Record.
And even horsemen can check their sense of where betting takes place against my chart within the link listing the 2012 figures for on-track, at OTWs, online, and at Atlantic City casinos.
The state, of course, is looking to offer lots more gambling online by the end of the year ? not only online poker, but any casino game that gets the go-ahead from the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.
It?s a brave new world ? welcomed by some, feared by others. This article was to show what we already have.
Flies model a potential sweet treatment for Parkinson's diseasePublic release date: 6-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phyllis Edelman pedelman@genetics-gsa.org 301-634-7302 Genetics Society of America
Research presented at the Genetics Society of America's ongoing annual Drosophila Conference in Washington, D.C., suggests that mannitol, a sugar substitute, could lead to a future treatment for Parkinson's disease
Washington, D.C. (April 6, 2013) Researchers from Tel Aviv University describe experiments that could lead to a new approach for treating Parkinson's disease (PD) using a common sweetener, mannitol. This research is presented today at the Genetics Society of America's 54th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Washington D.C., April 3-7, 2013.
Mannitol is a sugar alcohol familiar as a component of sugar-free gum and candies. Originally isolated from flowering ash, mannitol is believed to have been the "manna" that rained down from the heavens in biblical times. Fungi, bacteria, algae, and plants make mannitol, but the human body can't. For most commercial uses it is extracted from seaweed although chemists can synthesize it. And it can be used for more than just a sweetener.
The Food and Drug Administration approved mannitol as an intravenous diuretic to flush out excess fluid. It also enables drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), the tightly linked cells that form the walls of capillaries in the brain. The tight junctions holding together the cells of these tiniest blood vessels come slightly apart five minutes after an infusion of mannitol into the carotid artery, and they stay open for about 30 minutes.
Mannitol has another, less-explored talent: preventing a sticky protein called ?-synuclein from gumming up the substantia nigra part of the brains of people with PD and Lewy body dementia (LBD), which has similar symptoms to PD. In the disease state, the proteins first misfold, then form sheets that aggregate and then extend, forming gummy fibrils.
Certain biochemicals, called molecular chaperones, normally stabilize proteins and help them fold into their native three-dimensional forms, which are essential to their functions. Mannitol is a chemical chaperone. So like a delivery person who both opens the door and brings in the pizza, mannitol may be used to treat Parkinson's disease by getting into the brain and then restoring normal folding to ?-synuclein.
Daniel Segal, PhD, and colleagues at Tel Aviv University investigated the effects of mannitol on the brain by feeding it to fruit flies with a form of PD that has highly aggregated ?-synuclein.
The researchers used a "locomotion climbing assay" to study fly movement. Normal flies scamper right up the wall of a test tube, but flies whose brains are encumbered with ?-synuclein aggregates stay at the bottom, presumably because they can't move normally. The percentage of flies that climb one centimeter in 18 seconds assesses the effect of mannitol.
An experimental run tested flies daily for 27 days. After that time, 72% of normal flies climbed up, in comparison to 38% of the PD flies. Their lack of ascension up the sides of the test tube indicated "severe motor dysfunction."
In contrast, were flies bred to harbor the human mutant ?-synuclein gene, who as larvae feasted on mannitol that sweetened the medium at the bottoms of their vials. These flies fared much better -- 70% of them could climb after 27 days. And slices of their brains revealed a 70% decrease in accumulated misfolded protein compared to the brains of mutant flies raised on the regular medium lacking mannitol.
It's a long way from helping climbing-impaired flies to a new treatment for people, but the research suggests a possible novel therapeutic direction. Dr. Segal, however, cautioned that people with PD or similar movement disorders should not chew a ton of mannitol-sweetened gum or sweets; that will not help their current condition. The next step for researchers is to demonstrate a rescue effect in mice, similar to improved climbing by flies, in which a rolling drum ("rotarod") activity assesses mobility.
"Until and if mannitol is proven to be efficient for PD on its own, the more conservative and possibly more immediate use can be the conventional one, using it as a BBB disruptor to facilitate entrance of other approved drugs that have problems passing through the BBB," Dr. Segal said. A preliminary clinical trial of mannitol on a small number of volunteers might follow if results in mice support those seen in the flies, he added, but that is still many research steps away.
Session Title: Drosophila Models of Human Diseases I
Program #91 -- Date and Time: Saturday, April 6, 2013; 8:30-8:45 AM
Location: Marriott Wardman Park, Marriott Ballroom Salon 1, Lobby Level
Mannitol -- a BBB disrupter is also a potent ?-synuclein aggregation inhibitro for treating Parkinson's disease. Daniel Segal1,2, Ronit Shaltiel-Karyo1, Moran Frenkel-Pinter1, Edward Rockenstein3, Christina Patrick3, Michal Levy-Sakin1, Nirit Egoz-Matia1, Eliezer Masliah3, Ehud Gazit1. 1) Department of Molecular Microbiol & Biotech, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; 2) Sagol School of Neurosciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; 3) Department of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
###
FOR MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA: The 54th Annual Drosophila Research Conference is open to print, online and broadcast news media and freelance science, medical and health writers on a verifiable assignment from an established news source. If you would like to attend all or part of the Conference, complimentary meeting registration is available to members of the media who provide appropriate press credentials and identification. Please contact: Phyllis Edelman, GSA Communications and Public Relations Manager, pedelman@genetics-gsa.org, or phone: 301-351-0896.
ABOUT THE GSA DROSOPHILA RESEARCH CONFERENCE: Nearly 1,500 researchers attend the annual GSA Drosophila Research Conference to share the latest research using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and other insect species. Many of findings from these model organisms have broad application for the study of human genetic traits and diseases. For more information about the conference, see http://www.dros-conf.org/2013/
ABOUT GSA: Founded in 1931, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) is the professional membership organization for scientific researchers, educators, bioengineers, bioinformaticians and others interested in the field of genetics. Its nearly 5,000 members work to advance knowledge in the basic mechanisms of inheritance, from the molecular to the population level. The GSA is dedicated to promoting research in genetics and to facilitating communication among geneticists worldwide through its conferences, including the biennial conference on Model Organisms to Human Biology, an interdisciplinary meeting on current and cutting edge topics in genetics research, as well as annual and biennial meetings that focus on the genetics of particular organisms, including C. elegans, Drosophila, fungi, mice, yeast, and zebrafish. GSA publishes GENETICS, a leading journal in the field and a new online, open-access publication, G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics. For more information about GSA, please visit http://www.genetics-gsa.org. Also follow GSA on Facebook at facebook.com/GeneticsGSA and on Twitter @GeneticsGSA.
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Flies model a potential sweet treatment for Parkinson's diseasePublic release date: 6-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phyllis Edelman pedelman@genetics-gsa.org 301-634-7302 Genetics Society of America
Research presented at the Genetics Society of America's ongoing annual Drosophila Conference in Washington, D.C., suggests that mannitol, a sugar substitute, could lead to a future treatment for Parkinson's disease
Washington, D.C. (April 6, 2013) Researchers from Tel Aviv University describe experiments that could lead to a new approach for treating Parkinson's disease (PD) using a common sweetener, mannitol. This research is presented today at the Genetics Society of America's 54th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Washington D.C., April 3-7, 2013.
Mannitol is a sugar alcohol familiar as a component of sugar-free gum and candies. Originally isolated from flowering ash, mannitol is believed to have been the "manna" that rained down from the heavens in biblical times. Fungi, bacteria, algae, and plants make mannitol, but the human body can't. For most commercial uses it is extracted from seaweed although chemists can synthesize it. And it can be used for more than just a sweetener.
The Food and Drug Administration approved mannitol as an intravenous diuretic to flush out excess fluid. It also enables drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), the tightly linked cells that form the walls of capillaries in the brain. The tight junctions holding together the cells of these tiniest blood vessels come slightly apart five minutes after an infusion of mannitol into the carotid artery, and they stay open for about 30 minutes.
Mannitol has another, less-explored talent: preventing a sticky protein called ?-synuclein from gumming up the substantia nigra part of the brains of people with PD and Lewy body dementia (LBD), which has similar symptoms to PD. In the disease state, the proteins first misfold, then form sheets that aggregate and then extend, forming gummy fibrils.
Certain biochemicals, called molecular chaperones, normally stabilize proteins and help them fold into their native three-dimensional forms, which are essential to their functions. Mannitol is a chemical chaperone. So like a delivery person who both opens the door and brings in the pizza, mannitol may be used to treat Parkinson's disease by getting into the brain and then restoring normal folding to ?-synuclein.
Daniel Segal, PhD, and colleagues at Tel Aviv University investigated the effects of mannitol on the brain by feeding it to fruit flies with a form of PD that has highly aggregated ?-synuclein.
The researchers used a "locomotion climbing assay" to study fly movement. Normal flies scamper right up the wall of a test tube, but flies whose brains are encumbered with ?-synuclein aggregates stay at the bottom, presumably because they can't move normally. The percentage of flies that climb one centimeter in 18 seconds assesses the effect of mannitol.
An experimental run tested flies daily for 27 days. After that time, 72% of normal flies climbed up, in comparison to 38% of the PD flies. Their lack of ascension up the sides of the test tube indicated "severe motor dysfunction."
In contrast, were flies bred to harbor the human mutant ?-synuclein gene, who as larvae feasted on mannitol that sweetened the medium at the bottoms of their vials. These flies fared much better -- 70% of them could climb after 27 days. And slices of their brains revealed a 70% decrease in accumulated misfolded protein compared to the brains of mutant flies raised on the regular medium lacking mannitol.
It's a long way from helping climbing-impaired flies to a new treatment for people, but the research suggests a possible novel therapeutic direction. Dr. Segal, however, cautioned that people with PD or similar movement disorders should not chew a ton of mannitol-sweetened gum or sweets; that will not help their current condition. The next step for researchers is to demonstrate a rescue effect in mice, similar to improved climbing by flies, in which a rolling drum ("rotarod") activity assesses mobility.
"Until and if mannitol is proven to be efficient for PD on its own, the more conservative and possibly more immediate use can be the conventional one, using it as a BBB disruptor to facilitate entrance of other approved drugs that have problems passing through the BBB," Dr. Segal said. A preliminary clinical trial of mannitol on a small number of volunteers might follow if results in mice support those seen in the flies, he added, but that is still many research steps away.
Session Title: Drosophila Models of Human Diseases I
Program #91 -- Date and Time: Saturday, April 6, 2013; 8:30-8:45 AM
Location: Marriott Wardman Park, Marriott Ballroom Salon 1, Lobby Level
Mannitol -- a BBB disrupter is also a potent ?-synuclein aggregation inhibitro for treating Parkinson's disease. Daniel Segal1,2, Ronit Shaltiel-Karyo1, Moran Frenkel-Pinter1, Edward Rockenstein3, Christina Patrick3, Michal Levy-Sakin1, Nirit Egoz-Matia1, Eliezer Masliah3, Ehud Gazit1. 1) Department of Molecular Microbiol & Biotech, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; 2) Sagol School of Neurosciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; 3) Department of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
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ABOUT THE GSA DROSOPHILA RESEARCH CONFERENCE: Nearly 1,500 researchers attend the annual GSA Drosophila Research Conference to share the latest research using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and other insect species. Many of findings from these model organisms have broad application for the study of human genetic traits and diseases. For more information about the conference, see http://www.dros-conf.org/2013/
ABOUT GSA: Founded in 1931, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) is the professional membership organization for scientific researchers, educators, bioengineers, bioinformaticians and others interested in the field of genetics. Its nearly 5,000 members work to advance knowledge in the basic mechanisms of inheritance, from the molecular to the population level. The GSA is dedicated to promoting research in genetics and to facilitating communication among geneticists worldwide through its conferences, including the biennial conference on Model Organisms to Human Biology, an interdisciplinary meeting on current and cutting edge topics in genetics research, as well as annual and biennial meetings that focus on the genetics of particular organisms, including C. elegans, Drosophila, fungi, mice, yeast, and zebrafish. GSA publishes GENETICS, a leading journal in the field and a new online, open-access publication, G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics. For more information about GSA, please visit http://www.genetics-gsa.org. Also follow GSA on Facebook at facebook.com/GeneticsGSA and on Twitter @GeneticsGSA.
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Public release date: 6-Apr-2013
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