In this race for the Republican Party's nomination, things seem to be continuously turning on a dime. Mitt Romney, the well-established front-runner going into the campaign, has been trading the lead with a series of candidates for months now. His most recent -- and likely last -- sparring partner for the nomination is Newt Gingrich, who earlier this month sprinted back into the lead with a solid victory in the South Carolina primary.
But following a strong debate performance last week in Jacksonville, Fla., Romney appears to be taking a commanding lead in Florida polls.
What are the latest polls in Florida indicating?
According to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Sunday, Romney has built a big lead going into Tuesday's primary. The poll, which was conducted Saturday, shows a 16-point lead for Romney. He has 44 percent, while Gingrich is a distance second with 28 percent. Rick Santorum is third with 12 percent and Ron Paul is bringing up the rear with 10 percent. Five percent of respondents were unsure of who they would vote for when they were asked.
A Public Policy Polling survey, which was also conducted Saturday, gave Romney a slimmer lead, 40 percent to 32 percent, over Gingrich. Santorum comes in with 15 percent and Paul has 9 percent of the vote in the poll.
How are the candidates doing nationally?
Given the fact the nomination process involves individual state primaries and caucuses, national polling doesn't hold the same level of importance as each state poll does. That said, there is some hope for Gingrich in a recent national Gallup poll conducted late last week showing he has maintained the gains he has made over Romney following the South Carolina primary. Santorum and Paul remain far down in the poll, as they do in most state polls as well.
After Florida, what will the future hold for the Republican candidates?
The nomination process will speed up. Nevada, Maine, Minnesota and Colorado will vote during the first week in February, with more states to follow later in the month. The race already seems to be down to two candidates -- Romney and Gingrich -- who can realistically win. But Paul has vowed to stay in the race no matter what, and his strategy for collecting delegates in caucus states could prove menacing for Romney and Gingrich.
Santorum's campaign has been stalled since his surprise victory in Iowa. Even if he maintains the funding that he needs to continue into February he shows no signs of gaining traction among voters. The probability that he would drop out of the race by early February, if not sooner, would seem to be high at this point.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) ? The Libyan civil war may have given militant groups in Africa's Sahel region like Boko Haram and al Qaeda access to large weapons caches, according to a U.N. report released on Thursday.
The report on the impact of the Libyan civil war on countries of the Sahel region that straddle the Sahara - including Nigeria, Niger and Chad - also says some national authorities believe the Islamist sect Boko Haram has increasing links to al Qaeda's North African wing. Boko Haram killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 this year in Nigeria.
The U.N. Security Council met to discuss the report, which was prepared by a U.N. assessment team that met with officials from countries in the region. The discussion highlighted the deep divisions between Western powers and Russia over NATO's intervention in the North African oil-producing state.
"The governments of the countries visited indicated that, in spite of efforts to control their borders, large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Libyan stockpiles were smuggled into the Sahel region," the report said.
Such weapons include "rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light anti-aircraft artillery (light caliber bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles," it said.
More advanced weapons such as surface-to-air-missiles and man-portable air defense systems, known as MANPADS, also may have reached groups in the region, the report said.
U.N. special envoy to Libya Ian Martin, however, has told the Security Council that Libya's missing stocks of MANPADS have largely remained inside the country.
The report said some countries believe weapons have been smuggled into the Sahel by former fighters in Libya - Libyan army regulars and mercenaries who fought on behalf of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was ousted and killed by rebels.
Some of the countries told the assessment team that they had registered an increase in arms trade across West Africa.
"Some of the weapons may be hidden in the desert and could be sold to terrorist groups like al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram or other criminal organizations," the U.N. report said.
'UNCONTROLLED SPREAD OF WEAPONS'
Lynn Pascoe, U.N. under-secretary-general for political affairs, told the Security Council that the new Libyan government insists many of the problems related to weapons and the Sahel originated when Gaddafi was still in power.
"Some of the problems are directly related to the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya but the nation's interlocutors emphasize that most of the problems are long-standing ones," he said.
British, French and U.S. envoys echoed the Libyan view that the problems existed long before the civil war.
Russia, which has criticized the toppling of Gaddafi and accused NATO of using a U.N. mandate to protect civilians in Libya as a springboard for regime change, said the U.N. report highlighted problems unleashed by NATO's intervention in Libya.
Russian envoy Alexander Pankin said the U.N. report confirmed that the "real consequences of the Libyan crisis, the real scope of which is only beginning to come to light, are a serious threat to security and stability in the entire region."
He said Moscow was especially concerned about "the uncontrolled spread of weapons in Libya and beyond its border."
The U.N. report said Nigeria was not the only country worried about the activities of Boko Haram. It said the group also was in Niger, adding that some governments believed Boko Haram members from Nigeria and Chad had received training at al Qaeda training camps in Mali in 2011.
"Although Boko Haram has concentrated its terrorist acts inside Nigeria, seven of its members were arrested while transiting through the Niger to Mali," it said, adding that they possessed documents about explosives manufacturing, propaganda leaflets and contact details for known al Qaeda members.
Links between al Qaeda and Boko Haram have become "a growing source of concern for the countries of the region," it said.
(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Bill Trott)
Think the fight over the new rule from the Department of Transportation (DOT) requiring airlines to include all taxes and fees in their posted fares is over?
Think again. Even though the new rule is set to go into effect Thursday, it seems the battle is as intense as ever. Consider:
On Tuesday, Spirit Airlines, which is currently contesting the rule in court, launched a website called KeepMyFaresLow.org with the headline: Warning: New government regulations require us to HIDE taxes in your fares.
That brought a swift denunciation from Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, an advocacy group for corporate travel buyers. ?With this ill-considered attack on DOT, Spirit Airlines has reached a new low and no doubt secured the poster-child crown for 2012 for misleading consumers.?
Not so, countered Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza. ?Our view is that fares should be transparent and clear and that you should know what you?re paying your airline and what you?re paying in taxes,? he told msnbc.com.
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And then raising the specter of even higher taxes in these tax-averse times, he suggested the move toward full-fare advertising was ?an insidious way to then raise taxes on consumers? across the board. ?
?If the government is successful with this, it?s coming to everything you buy ? for cars, in restaurants, at big-box stores,? he said.
That ominous warning aside, the bottom line is that the new rule will go into effect on Thursday. Airlines will, indeed, be required to post fares that include all taxes and mandatory government fees. However, they?ll also be able to post information that shows the breakdown between the airline?s and the government?s respective portions.
?Nothing in our rule will prohibit a carrier from informing consumers that the fare includes a specified amount of taxes and government fees, as long as the stated fare includes those taxes and fees,? said DOT spokesman Bill Mosley. ?The carrier can then break out taxes and fees if it wishes.?
More stories you might like:
Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.
WASHINGTON ? Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The color-coded map of planting zones often seen on the back of seed packets is being updated by the government, illustrating a hotter 21st century.
It's the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revised the official guide for the nation's 80 million gardeners, and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.
The new guide, unveiled Wednesday at the National Arboretum, arrives just as many home gardeners are receiving their seed catalogs and dreaming of lush flower beds in the spring.
It reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn't as cold as it used to be, so some plants and trees can now survive farther north.
"People who grow plants are well aware of the fact that temperatures have gotten more mild throughout the year, particularly in the wintertime," said Boston University biology professor Richard Primack. "There's a lot of things you can grow now that you couldn't grow before."
He stand the giant fig tree in his suburban Boston yard stands as an example: "People don't think of figs as a crop you can grow in the Boston area. You can do it now."
The new guide also uses better weather data and offers more interactive technology. For example, gardeners using the online version can enter their ZIP code and get the exact average coldest temperature.
Also, for the first time, calculations include more detailed factors such as prevailing winds, the presence of nearby bodies of water, the slope of the land, and the way cities are hotter than suburbs and rural areas.
The map carves up the U.S. into 26 zones based on five-degree temperature increments. The old 1990 map mentions 34 U.S. cities in its key. On the 2012 map, 18 of those, including Honolulu, St. Louis, Des Moines, Iowa, St. Paul, Minn., and even Fairbanks, Alaska, are in newer, warmer zones.
Those differences matter in deciding what to plant.
For example, Des Moines used to be in zone 5a, meaning the lowest temperature on average was between minus 15 and minus 20 degrees. Now it's 5b, which has a lowest temperature of 10 to 15 degrees below zero. Jerry Holub, manager of a Des Moines plant nursery, said folks there might now be able to safely grow passion flowers.
Griffin, Ga., used to be in zone 7b, where the coldest day would average between 5 and 10 degrees. But the city is now in zone 8a, averaging a coldest day of 10 to 15 degrees. So growing bay laurel becomes possible. It wasn't recommended on the old map.
"It is great that the federal government is catching up with what the plants themselves have known for years now: The globe is warming and it is greatly influencing plants (and animals)," Stanford University biology professor Terry Root wrote in an email.
The changes come too late to make this year's seed packets, but they will be in next year's, said George Ball, chairman and CEO of the seed company W. Atlee Burpee, which puts the maps on packages of perennials, not annuals. But Ball said many of his customers already know what can grow in their own climate and how it has warmed.
"Climate change, which has been in the air for a long time, is not big news to gardeners," he said.
Mark Kaplan, a New York meteorologist who helped create the 1990 map, said the latest version clearly shows warmer zones migrating north. Other experts agreed.
The 1990 map was based on temperatures from 1974 to 1986, the new map from 1976 to 2005. The nation's average temperature from 1976 to 2005 was two-thirds of a degree higher than it was during the old time period, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
USDA spokeswoman Kim Kaplan, who was part of the map team, repeatedly tried to distance the new zones on the map from global warming. She said that while much of the country is in warmer zones, the map "is simply not a good instrument" to demonstrate climate change because it is based on just the coldest days of the year.
David W. Wolfe, a professor of plant and soil ecology at Cornell University, said that the USDA is being too cautious and that the map plainly reflects warming.
The revised map "gives us a clear picture of the `new normal' and will be an essential tool for gardeners, farmers and natural resource managers as they begin to cope with rapid climate change," Wolfe said in an email.
The Arbor Day Foundation issued its own hardiness guide six years ago, and the new government map is very similar, said Woodrow Nelson, a vice president at the plant-loving organization.
"We got a lot of comments that the 1990 map wasn't accurate anymore," Nelson said. "I look forward to (the new map). It's been a long time coming."
Nelson lives in Lincoln, Neb., where the zone warmed to a 5b. Nelson said he used to be in a "solid 4," but now he has Japanese maples and Fraser firs in his yard ? trees that shouldn't survive in a zone 4.
Vaughn Speer, an 87-year-old master gardener in Ames, Iowa, said he has seen redbud trees, one of the earliest blooming trees, a little farther north in recent years.
"They always said redbuds don't go beyond U.S. Highway 30," he said, "but I'm seeing them near Roland," 10 miles to the north.
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AP Writer Michael J. Crumb contributed to this report from Des Moines.
MIT postdoc Emile Bruneau has long been drawn to conflict ? not as a participant, but an observer. In 1994, while doing volunteer work in South Africa, he witnessed firsthand the turmoil surrounding the fall of apartheid; during a 2001 trip to visit friends in Sri Lanka, he found himself in the midst of the violent conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.
Those chance experiences got Bruneau, who taught high school science for several years, interested in the psychology of human conflict. While teaching, he also volunteered as counselor for a conflict-resolution camp in Ireland that brought Catholic and Protestant children together. At MIT, Bruneau is now working with associate professor of cognitive neuroscience Rebecca Saxe to figure out why empathy ? the ability to feel compassion for another person's suffering ? often fails between members of opposing conflict groups.
"What are the psychological barriers that are put up between us in these contexts of intergroup conflict, and then, critically, what can we do to get past them?" Bruneau asks.
Bruneau and Saxe are also trying to locate patterns of brain activity that correlate with empathy, in hopes of eventually using such measures to determine how well people respond to reconciliation programs aimed at boosting empathy between groups in conflict.
"We're interested in how people think about their enemies, and whether there are brain measures that are reliable readouts of that," says Saxe, who is an associate member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research. "This is a huge vision, of which we are at the very beginning."
Before researchers can use tools such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate whether conflict-resolution programs are having any effect, they need to identify brain regions that respond to other people's emotional suffering. In a study published Dec. 1 in Neuropsychologia, Saxe and Bruneau scanned people's brains as they read stories in which the protagonist experienced either physical or emotional pain. The brain regions that responded uniquely to emotional suffering overlapped with areas known to be involved in the ability to perceive what another person is thinking or feeling.
Failures of empathy
Hoping to see a correlation between empathy levels and amount of activity in those brain regions, the researchers then recruited Israelis and Arabs for a study in which subjects read stories about the suffering of members of their own groups or that of conflict-group members. The study participants also read stories about a distant, neutral group ? South Americans.
As expected, Israelis and Arabs reported feeling much more compassion in response to the suffering of their own group members than that of members of the conflict group. However, the brain scans revealed something surprising: Brain activity in the areas that respond to emotional pain was identical when reading about suffering by one's own group or the conflict group. Also, those activity levels were lower when Arabs or Israelis read about the suffering of South Americans, even though Arabs and Israelis expressed more compassion for South Americans' suffering than for that of the conflict group.
Those findings, published Jan. 23 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, suggest that those brain regions are sensitive to the importance of the opposing group, not whether or not you like them.
However, because the study did not reveal any correlation between the expression of empathy and the amount of brain activity, more study is needed before MRI can be used as a reliable measure of empathy levels, Saxe says.
"We thought there might be brain regions where the amount of activity was just a simple function of the amount of empathy that you experience," Saxe says. "Since that's not what we found, we don't know what the amount of activity in these brain regions really means yet. This is basically a first baby step, and one of the things it tells us is that we don't know enough about these brain regions to use them in the ways that we want to."
Bruneau is now testing whether these brain regions send messages to different parts of the brain depending on whether the person is feeling empathy or not. He hypothesizes that when someone reads about the suffering of an in-group member, the brain regions identified in this study send information to areas that process unpleasant emotions, while stories about suffering of a conflict-group member activate an area called the ventral striatum, which has been implicated in schadenfreude ? taking pleasure in the suffering of others.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice
Thanks to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for this article.
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LOS ANGELES ? A man who stole John Travolta's vintage 1970 Mercedes-Benz convertible has been sentenced to 16 months in jail and ordered to pay the actor $50,000 in restitution, according to court records obtained Wednesday.
Travolta had parked the convertible on a residential street in Santa Monica for about 10 minutes in September when it was stolen.
The Oscar-nominated actor had the keys with him while he went to a nearby Jaguar dealership.
Santa Monica police Sgt. Richard Lewis said Travolta's car had been dismantled by the time it was recovered. Among the pieces found were seats, the speedometer, hubcaps and other parts.
D L Rayford Jr., 52, pleaded no contest on Jan. 5 to grand theft auto after he and Michael T. Green were arrested last month.
Green has pleaded not guilty to two counts of grand theft auto. Robert Conley, his public defender, said he could not comment.
Lewis said authorities waited until Wednesday to announce the arrests because their investigation into Rayford and Green had been ongoing. Police were able to clear eight stolen car cases after their arrests, Lewis said.
An email message seeking comment from Travolta's publicist Samantha Mast was not immediately returned.
Rayford has a previous conviction for robbery. Green, 58, has prior convictions for robbery and grand theft auto. He is due in court on Feb. 8.
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Follow Anthony McCartney at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
Steven Tyler's had a number of memorable moments already this season as a judge?on "American Idol," mostly related to the ridiculous hats he's been wearing at auditions.
But the one that was most notable was when 15-year-old Shannon Magrane showed up for the Savannah tryouts. Her parents and sisters were brought into the room, and her dad asked Tyler how it was going. "Hot, humid and?happening -- just like your daughter," Tyler replied.
And the show stopped.
Granted, it did so because of editing and creative sound effects, but also because it was easy to see the thoughts going through Mr. Magrane's head --?and those thoughts were that his daughter would never be allowed near Tyler again without armed guards. It also was the first moment of the season that got an ?ewwww? reaction from the audience, or at least those viewers with daughters of their own.
Magrane shouldn't have been surprised by Tyler's response, and viewers shouldn?t have been either. One of the reasons for hiring Tyler as an "Idol" judge was his status as a rock icon, and Tyler plays the part well. The Aerosmith frontman has the swagger that causes women of all ages to swoon before him on the "Idol" stage, adulation he strongly encourages.
The crowd usually meets him more than halfway. ?For example Jennifer Dilley didn't show up to her San Diego audition in a bikini because she sings best without a shirt on, and Erica Nowak didn?t call him ?my future ex-husband? and make a grab for his rear end because it would help her vocals.? Plenty of dreamers of both genders use whatever tools they have to give themselves a tiny edge.
But when Tyler hits on teens it leads to some uncomfortable but logical questions: What's the line that he can't cross? And how close is he to reaching it? When does he cease being the wacky comic relief and become the creepy old guy leering at girls young enough to be his granddaughters?
The show encourages such behavior --?as long as it remains chaste. Judge Jennifer Lopez is always getting songs dedicated to her by awestruck male contestants, and who can forget the Kara DioGuardi-Casey James ?cougar? storyline of a couple of years ago?
And to be clear, there?s no sense that anything untoward is happening, or that Tyler is doing anything more than playing a role. He?s engaged to be married to 38-year-old Erin Brady, and there haven?t been rumors of him doing anything more than exchanging risqu? puns with anyone on ?Idol.?
But there?s something a little?... well, off-putting about watching Tyler leer at attractive young women as they audition. He is, after all, 63 years old. He has a grandson who was born in December 2004. It won?t be long until the little guy?s eligible to try out for the show as well.
As a rock star, what he?s doing is entirely within character. (After all, Mick Jagger is older than he is and still going strong.) But as a reality show judge? That's the big question.
Should there be a line drawn for Steven Tyler? If so, what's OK and what's not? Tell us what you think on our Facebook page.
A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.
MONDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) -- People who engage in activities such as reading and playing games throughout their lives may be lowering levels of a protein in their brains that is linked to Alzheimer's disease, a new study suggests.
Although whether the buildup of the protein, beta amyloid, causes Alzheimer's disease is debatable, it is a hallmark of the condition, the researchers noted.
"Staying cognitively active over the lifetime may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's by preventing the accumulation of Alzheimer's-related pathology," said study author Susan Landau, a research scientist at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Some of the literature has hypothesized this finding, but this is the first study to report that lifetime cognitive activity is directly linked to amyloid deposition in the brain," she said. "We think that cognitive activity is probably one of a variety of lifestyle practices -- occupational, recreational and social activities -- that may be important."
The report was published in the Jan. 23 online edition of the Archives of Neurology.
In the United States, more than 5 million people have Alzheimer's disease, and it is now the sixth-leading killer in the country, according to the researchers. No cure exists for the neurodegenerative condition, but a draft of the first-ever National Alzheimer's Plan released last week laid out plans by the federal government to have effective treatment by 2025.
For the study, Landau's team used a special imaging technique called positron emission tomography, which is able to see beta amyloid plaque in the brain, plus neuropsychological tests to see what effect cognitive stimulation might have on Alzheimer's risk.
The tests were done on 65 healthy people, average age of about 76. In addition, they tested 10 patients with Alzheimer's disease whose average was nearly 75 and 11 young people who were an average of about 25 years old.
"We interviewed them about their lifetime participation in cognitively stimulating activities," said lead researcher Dr. William Jagust, a professor of neuroscience also at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.
The researchers found that people who engaged in brain-stimulating activities, particularly when they were young and middle-aged, had the least amount of beta amyloid.
Those older adults who reported the most activity had amyloid levels similar to those young individuals, while those who engaged in the least such activities had amyloid levels similar to the Alzheimer's patients.
"This study suggests that not only does it reduce your risk of Alzheimer's disease, but it may affect the pathological process itself," Jagust said.
Why this kind of mind stimulation reduces the amount of beta amyloid isn't known, he added.
"The environment may affect the amount of amyloid that's deposited," he said. "This kind of lifetime cognitive activity may make people's brains more efficient. And if your brain is functioning better, it's possible that would result in producing less of this amyloid," he explained.
"Cognitive activity seems to have powerful effects on the brain," Jagust said. "Lifestyle can have a profound effect on the basic biology of Alzheimer's disease."
The size of the effect isn't known nor is the size of the reduction in risk for Alzheimer's disease, he noted.
Greg M. Cole, associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that "a number of studies have suggested that increased education or cognitive activity associates with reduced risk for Alzheimer's."
"So if you have more wits to begin with, you can afford to lose more before you become impaired," he said.
However, this new study reports something different, namely that higher cognitive activity in young and middle-aged adults is associated with lower levels of Alzheimer's pathology, Cole said.
"There may be a plausible theory for this because increased brain use increases fitness and reduces the amount of brain activity required to execute a task, and production of the beta amyloid toxin is associated with brain activity. This is an interesting new finding that may have serious implications," he said.
Another expert, Dr. Sam Gandy, the Mount Sinai Professor of Alzheimer's Disease Research at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, added that "this new study jibes well with other existing epidemiological studies in which social engagement has been linked to successful cognitive aging on purely clinical grounds."
"There is also a link between physical activity and reduced risk for Alzheimer's, and one would guess that physical exercise might well delay onset of Alzheimer's if exercise were begun years before cognitive decline developed, but this is yet to be established," Gandy said.
More information
For more information on Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association.
Five-time champion Serena Williams is out of the Australian Open in a shocking upset, beaten Monday by unseeded Ekaterina Makarova of Russia 6-2, 6-3.
'Amazing' win over 49ers earns Giants title trip
Lawrence Tynes kicked a winning 31-yard field goal in sudden-death overtime and New York beat the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 in the NFC championship game Sunday night to reach its second Super Bowl in five seasons.
Patriots prevail vs. Ravens, gain 7th Super Bowl
The Patriots beat the stunned Ravens 23-20 in the AFC championship game Sunday after Baltimore's Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal attempt with 11 seconds remaining that would have tied the score.
HAVANA (Reuters) ? An American convicted of subversive acts in Cuba last year tried to keep his work undercover and was aware of its political aims, Cuban officials said in a leaked court document published this week.
Alan Gross, 62, has been jailed in Cuba since December 3, 2009, and is serving a 15-year sentence for providing Internet gear to Cubans under a U.S. program that Cuba views as subversive. Gross' attorney said he went to Cuba only to help the island's Jewish community, not for political purposes.
A leaked copy of an 18-page Cuban sentencing document came to light this week, providing details about Cuba's allegations and Gross' trial for the first time.
Neither Cuban officials nor Gross' attorney denied the authenticity of the document, which was published this week by Cafe Fuerte, a Miami-based news blog heavily focused on Cuba.
The court document said Gross tried to avoid detection by using American tourists to transport sophisticated satellite Internet gear to Cuba and showed residents how to use the Internet without the Cuban government's knowledge. Information is tightly controlled on the Caribbean island, Internet use is limited and visitors are not allowed to carry satellite technology.
Gross worked in Cuba in 2009 for a U.S.-funded program to promote political change by increasing Internet access and the flow of communications. Cuba views such programs as part of longstanding U.S. attempts to topple the island's Communist government.
Gross, a veteran development worker, went to Cuba five times as a subcontractor for Maryland-based DAI, which had a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development.
USAID said in a statement on Friday that Gross's job was "simply facilitating Internet connectivity to the Cuban people so they could communicate with the rest of the world."
"Alan Gross has been unjustly imprisoned for more than two years," USAID said in an emailed statement.
According to the sentencing report, Gross set up the Internet in Jewish centers in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Camaguey as part of what was planned to be a network of undercover Internet outlets around the country.
It said he was to meet with a member of the fraternal organization known as the Masons to discuss setting up Internet networks in Masonic lodges on December 3, 2009, the day Cuban authorities seized him.
The court said it found evidence, including on the flash drives and computer confiscated during his arrest, that Gross knew more than he admitted and took action to avoid detection, including using American tourists to bring Internet equipment to Cuba without telling them what it was for.
GROSS ATTORNEY: NO PROOF OF SUBVERSIVE ACTS
The gear included three satellite Internet terminals, or BGANs, along with Blackberry phones, iPods and an assortment of other electronics.
The court said he could have been paid up to $258,274 for his work, which showed "the lucrative, conspiratorial and concealed character of his actions."
The court said Gross got involved in Cuba as early as 2004 when he accepted $400 from another U.S.-backed program to take a video camera to Jose Manuel Collera Vento, a member of the Masons in Cuba.
Collera was an agent for the Cuban government, the court said, implying that Gross was on the radar of Cuban intelligence services well before his current problems.
Gross' lawyer, Peter Kahn, said the court document proved nothing about the allegedly subversive acts for which his client was convicted in March 2011.
It "is further confirmation of what we have said all along. The Cuban authorities cannot point to any action that Alan P. Gross intended to subvert their government," he said in a statement. "The Cuban government knows that Alan never intended to, or in fact ever was, a threat to them."
"The trial evidence cited in the document confirms that Alan's actions were intended to improve the Internet and Intranet connectivity of Cuba's small, peaceful, non-dissident, Jewish community," Kahn said. "All this document evidences is that it was the USAID program that was on trial in Cuba."
Not mentioned, he said, was testimony from Cuban Jews "who unequivocally testified that Alan never uttered a single word nor took any action which could be considered subversive."
When Gross himself brought in one of the BGANs, he declared it at the Havana airport and was not told by Cuban customs officers it was illegal. The court said he told them that it was a modem.
During his trial, Gross said, "I did nothing in Cuba that is not done on a daily basis in millions of home and offices around the world ... I am deeply sorry for being a trusting fool. I was duped, I was used."
CRITICS SAY PROGRAMS PROBLEMATIC
The new document, if authentic, fuels some critics' long-held view that the clandestine nature of the program and U.S.-government funding was destined to backfire.
"The programs did not involve our intelligence community, but the secrecy surrounding them, the clandestine tradecraft (including the use of advanced encryption technologies) and the deliberate concealment of the U.S. hand, had all the markings of an intelligence covert operation," said Fulton Armstrong, who until recently was a lead investigator with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff.
"We confirmed that State and USAID had no policy in place to brief individuals conducting these secret operations or that they are not legal in Cuba," said Armstrong, writing in a recent opinion column in The Miami Herald.
"Nor did State and USAID brief them that U.S. law similarly does not allow unregistered foreign agents to travel around the United States providing satellite gear, wide-area WiFi hotspots, encryption and telephony equipment and other cash-value assistance."
The Gross case has put a hold on U.S.-Cuba relations that warmed slightly after U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.
The U.S. government has said Gross should not be jailed for providing Internet access to Jews and has repeatedly demanded his release.
His wife, Judy Gross, has pleaded for his freedom because their daughter and his mother have cancer.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn)
(Reporting by Jeff Franks; Editing by David Adams and Stacey Joyce)
Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found.
Carbon dioxide concentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century will interfere with fishes' ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, says Professor Phillip Munday of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.
"For several years our team have been testing the performance of baby coral fishes in sea water containing higher levels of dissolved CO2 ? and it is now pretty clear that they sustain significant disruption to their central nervous system, which is likely to impair their chances of survival," Prof. Munday says.
In their latest paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Prof. Munday and colleagues report world-first evidence that high CO2 levels in sea water disrupts a key brain receptor in fish, causing marked changes in their behaviour and sensory ability.
"We've found that elevated CO2 in the oceans can directly interfere with fish neurotransmitter functions, which poses a direct and previously unknown threat to sea life," Prof. Munday says.
Prof. Munday and his colleagues began by studying how baby clown and damsel fishes performed alongside their predators in CO2-enriched water. They found that, while the predators were somewhat affected, the baby fish suffered much higher rates of attrition.
"Our early work showed that the sense of smell of baby fish was harmed by higher CO2 in the water ? meaning they found it harder to locate a reef to settle on or detect the warning smell of a predator fish. But we suspected there was much more to it than the loss of ability to smell."
The team then examined whether fishes' sense of hearing ? used to locate and home in on reefs at night, and avoid them during the day ? was affected. "The answer is, yes it was. They were confused and no longer avoided reef sounds during the day. Being attracted to reefs during daylight would make them easy meat for predators."
Other work showed the fish also tended to lose their natural instinct to turn left or right ? an important factor in schooling behaviour which also makes them more vulnerable, as lone fish are easily eaten by predators.
"All this led us to suspect it wasn't simply damage to their individual senses that was going on ? but rather, that higher levels of carbon dioxide were affecting their whole central nervous system."
The team's latest research shows that high CO2 directly stimulates a receptor in the fish brain called GABA-A, leading to a reversal in its normal function and over-excitement of certain nerve signals.
While most animals with brains have GABA-A receptors, the team considers the effects of elevated CO2 are likely to be most felt by those living in water, as they have lower blood CO2 levels normally. The main impact is likely to be felt by some crustaceans and by most fishes, especially those which use a lot of oxygen.
Prof. Munday said that around 2.3 billion tonnes of human CO2 emissions dissolve into the world's oceans every year, causing changes in the chemical environment of the water in which fish and other species live.
"We've now established it isn't simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption ? as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons ? but the actual dissolved CO2 itself is damaging the fishes' nervous systems."
The work shows that fish with high oxygen consumption are likely to be most affected, suggesting the effects of high CO2 may impair some species worse than others ? possibly including important species targeted by the world's fishing industries.
###
ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies: http://www.coralcoe.org.au/
Thanks to ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies for this article.
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MIAMI ? New Miami Dolphins coach Joe Philbin takes over a team that hasn't been to the Super Bowl since 1985 and missed the playoffs nine of the past 10 years.
Maybe that's why one of his predecessors, Jimmy Johnson, offered this tweet Friday: "Joe Philbin new Dolphin coach..good luck!"
The former Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator became the seventh coach in the past eight years for the Dolphins, who are coming off a third consecutive losing season, their longest such stretch since the 1960s.
The hiring was the latest turn in an emotionally wrenching month for Philbin, whose 21-year-old son recently drowned in an icy Wisconsin river.
Philbin had been with Green Bay since 2003, working as offensive coordinator since 2007. Coach Mike McCarthy called the plays, but Philbin put together the game plan for one of the NFL's most prolific offenses.
The Dolphins' top choice, Jeff Fisher, turned them down a week ago to become coach of the St. Louis Rams. Miami owner Stephen Ross and general manager Jeff Ireland then conducted a second round of interviews this week with Philbin, Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and Todd Bowles, the Dolphins' interim coach at the end of the season.
"Joe has all the attributes that we were looking for when we started this process," Ross said in a statement. "Jeff Ireland and I felt Joe was the right choice to bring the Dolphins back to the success we enjoyed in the past."
Despite the Dolphins' woes of recent years, including a 6-10 record in 2011, Philbin called them "one of the premier franchises in professional sports." At 50, he's old enough to remember the 1972 Perfect Season.
"The Dolphins have a strong nucleus to build around," he said in a statement. "And working with everyone in the organization, I know that together we will return the team to its winning tradition."
Philbin, who has never been a head coach, first interviewed with Miami on Jan. 7. The body of son Michael, one of Philbin's six children, was recovered the next day in Oshkosh.
After spending a week away from the Packers, Philbin rejoined the team last Sunday for its divisional playoff loss to the New York Giants.
Ross fired Tony Sparano last month with three games to go in his fourth year as the Dolphins' coach. When the search for a new coach began, Ross said he would like to give the franchise much-needed stability by hiring "a young Don Shula."
Instead he chose Philbin, who has 28 years of coaching experience, including 19 years in college.
With Philbin's help, the Packers have ranked in the top 10 in the NFL in yardage each of the past five seasons, including third in 2011. A year ago they won the Super Bowl.
"A huge congratulations to Joe Philbin," Green Bay tight end Jermichael Finley tweeted. "No one deserves it more than this guy. The Pack will miss him!"
The hiring might give the Dolphins an edge if they decide to pursue Packers backup quarterback Matt Flynn, who becomes a free agent this offseason. Flynn set Packers records with 480 yards passing and six touchdowns in their regular-season finale. Philbin played a major role in the development of Flynn and Pro Bowl quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Assistants becoming first-time NFL head coaches have had mixed results in recent years. The group includes the Ravens' John Harbaugh, the Saints' Sean Peyton and the Steelers' Mike Tomlin, but also three coaches recently fired ? Jim Caldwell by the Colts, Todd Haley by the Chiefs and Steve Spagnuolo by the Rams.
Before joining the Packers, Philbin was Iowa's offensive line coach for four years. The former small-college tight end has been an offensive coordinator at Harvard, Northeastern and Allegheny College.
Philbin will now begin assembling a staff. Bowles might remain as a replacement for defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, who took the same job this week with the Atlanta Falcons.
GREENVILLE, S.C. ? Preparing for the long haul, Mitt Romney said Saturday's South Carolina presidential contest "could be real close" and he agreed to two more debates with his rivals ahead of the Florida primary.
In the face of questions about releasing his tax returns and struggling with a renewed threat from Newt Gingrich, Romney lashed out at the former speaker, calling on the former House speaker to better explain his contractual ties to Freddie Mac, the quasi-government mortgage company. Gingrich served as a consultant to Freddie Mac over a period of eight years.
Romney said he would attend a debate Monday in Tampa, Fla., and his campaign confirmed he would be at one Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla., ahead of the state's primary Jan. 31. His planned appearances are an acknowledgment that the former Massachusetts governor will have to continue the battle with Gingrich longer than expected or hoped.
But Romney avoided confronting Gingrich, his chief rival in South Carolina's first-in-the South vote, at a stop at Tommy's Country Ham House.
Both men had scheduled campaign events for the same time on primary day. Romney stopped by the breakfast restaurant 45 minutes ahead of schedule. When Gingrich arrived at the restaurant ? just minutes after Romney's bus left the parking lot ? he said: "Where's Mitt?"
About an hour earlier, Romney was outside of his Greenville headquarters, launching a new attack on the speaker. He called on Gingrich to further explain his contracts with Freddie and release any advice he had provided. "I'd like to see what he actually told Freddie Mac. Don't you think we ought to see it?" Romney said.
It was another response to pressure on Romney to release his tax returns before Republican voters finish choosing a nominee. A day earlier, Romney had called on Gingrich to release information related to an ethics investigation of Gingrich in the 1990s.
Romney says he will release several years' worth of tax returns in April. Gingrich has called on him to release them much sooner. On Saturday, Romney refused to answer questions from reporters about the returns and whether his refusal to release them had hurt him with South Carolina voters.
Romney still has significant advantages over his three remaining Republican rivals, including an enormous financial edge and a well-organized campaign. But with his Iowa victory now rescinded, losing in South Carolina would be a setback that could draw the primary contest out much longer. Just 10 days ago, Romney's campaign was looking ahead to the general election as they anticipated a quick sweep in early primaries.
"This could be real close," said Romney as he chatted on the phone with a voter he called Saturday morning. He urged the man to go vote.
And as he stood on a chair inside Tommy's, where it was impossible to tell who in the tightly packed crowd was there to see him and who was there to see Gingrich, a woman shouted her thanks for buying breakfast.
"I'm happy to pay for breakfast," Romney responded, "but there's no free lunch."
PARIS ? President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a euro430 million ($550 million) plan to drive down unemployment and restart growth Wednesday, a move criticized as an attempt to boost his popularity three months before France's presidential election.
With the unemployment rate pushing 10 percent and the recent downgrade of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's, Socialist candidate Francois Hollande is hitting the president hard, saying the financial crisis reflects Sarkozy's failed economic stewardship.
Sarkozy, who is trailing Hollande in polls, has countered that the crisis is Europe-wide and that French people who are suffering need help now. To that end, he met with business and labor leaders on Wednesday to formulate a plan to create more jobs and ease the pressure on those looking for work.
It's unclear whether Sarkozy's government can put the jobs plan in place before the presidential elections, held in two rounds in April and May.
"The current economic situation in France as in Europe is very perilous. It's urgent," Sarkozy said in the opening remarks of the closed-door session, according to a transcript made public by his office.
In a clear rebuttal to his critics, Sarkozy told reporters after the meeting: "Regardless of the political calendar, the crisis, unemployment, the suffering of our compatriots don't give any of us the right to stay immobilized, inactive."
He said he'd proposed a euro430 million ($550 million) jobs plan in the meeting ? a relatively minor package compared to France's euro1.9 trillon GDP.
The measures include increasing aid to those forced to take unpaid leave, training for the unemployed and incentives to hire young people. He also suggested creating a state-funded body to invest in industry.
But he gave little detail on his main plan to increase France's competitivity and spur hiring: reducing the amount companies contribute to the social benefits system, and raising the sales tax to make up for the shortfall.
After Wednesday's meeting, Bernard Thibault, head of the CGT labor union, said he didn't think the measures outlined would "have a real impact on the current employment situation."
Thibault and representatives of other hard-charging unions said they wanted more details on Sarkozy's main plan, which they've resisted because it would shift some of the burden of paying for generous social benefits from businesses to all consumers ? including workers.
"We refuse to see household budgets diminished," said Philippe Louis, head of the CFTC union.
In his speech to the meeting, he compared France, at times unfavorably, with "our main competitor ... Germany" ? the bellwether of economic success in Europe. Germany retained its triple-A rating from S&P when France lost it last week.
Sarkozy said French labor costs have risen 20 percent between 2000 and 2009, compared to 7 percent in Germany. He said the relative cost to employers for a worker who earns a gross monthly salary of euro2,500 ($3,200) was twice as high in France than in Germany.
Sarkozy's gamble is that reducing those costs will spark a hiring spree.
But labor unions insist workers shouldn't have to pay the cost of the financial crisis at a time when many French companies are still making profits, and accuse Sarkozy of putting together a slapdash solution ahead of elections.
___
Associated Press writer Sarah DiLorenzo contributed to this report.
Nursing home residents with dementia: Antidepressants are associated with increased risk of fallingPublic release date: 18-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jennifer Beal healthnews@wiley.com 44-012-437-70633 Wiley-Blackwell
Nursing home residents with dementia who use average doses of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are three times more likely to have an injurious fall than similar people who don't use these drugs. The association can be seen in people who use low doses of SSRIs and the risk increases as people take higher doses. The results are published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
Many nursing home residents with dementia suffer from depression, and are therefore treated with antidepressants. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are generally considered the treatment of choice. "Our study also discovered that the risk of an injurious fall increased even more if the residents were also given hypnotic or sedative drugs as sleeping pills," said lead author Carolyn Shanty Sterke, who works in the Section of Geriatric Medicine at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Falls are a major health problem in nursing home residents with dementia. In nursing homes one-third of all falls result in an injury. "Physicians should be cautious in prescribing SSRIs to older people with dementia, even at low doses," says Sterke.
Sterke carried out this research by recording the daily drug use and daily falls in 248 nursing home residents with dementia from 1 January 2006 until 1 January 2008. Data about the residents' day-by day drug use came from a prescription database, and information on falls and subsequent injuries came from a standardised incident report system. In total, she had collected a dataset of 85,074 person-days.
The mean age of the participants was 82 years, and the prescription records showed that antidepressants had been used on 13,729 (16.1%) days, with SSRIs being used on 11,105 of these days.
The incident reports showed that 152 of the 248 residents (61.5%) sustained 683 falls. This corresponds to a fall incidence of 2.9 falls per person-year. Thirty-eight residents had a single fall, but 114 fell frequently. Two hundred twenty falls resulted in injury or death. Of these 10 were hip fractures, 11 were other fractures and 198 were injuries such as grazes, open wounds, sprains, bruises, and swellings. One person died after falling.
The risk of having an injurious fall increased threefold for residents taking SSRIs, from an absolute daily risk of 0.09% for a female aged 80 not taking an SSRI, to 0.28% for a female aged 80 taking one defined daily dose of SSRIs. Similar increases in absolute daily risk were found for both men and women, for different ages.
"Staff in residential homes are always concerned about reducing the chance of people falling and I think we should consider developing new treatment protocols that take into account the increased risk of falling that occurs when you give people SSRIs," says Sterke.
###
This study is published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
Full citation: Dose-response relationship between Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Injurious falls: A study in Nursing Home Residents with Dementia. Carolyn S Sterke, Gijsbertus Ziere, Ed F. van Beeck, Caspar W. N. Looman & Tischa J. M. van der Cammen. BJCP (2012); DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2125.2011.04124.x
About the Author:
Dr. C. Shanty Sterke is based at the Section of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Aafje, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
About the Journal
Published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Pharmacological Society, the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP) contains papers and reports on all aspects of drug action in man, including invited review articles, original papers, short communications, and correspondence. BJCP enjoys a wide readership, bridging the medical profession, clinical research, and the pharmaceutical industry. The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology can be accessed at http://www.bjcp-journal.com.
About the British Pharmacological Society
The British Pharmacological Society (BPS) is the primary UK learned society concerned with research into drugs and the way they work. Our members work in academia, industry, and the health services, and many are medically qualified. The Society covers the whole spectrum of pharmacology, including laboratory, clinical, and toxicological aspects.
BPS Press Office: T. 020-7239-0184 | M. 07899-921111 | E. jb@bps.ac.uk | W. http://www.bps.ac.uk
About Wiley-Blackwell:
Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, with strengths in every major academic and professional field and partnerships with many of the world's leading societies. Wiley-Blackwell publishes nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed journals and 1,500+ new books annually in print and online, as well as databases, major reference works and laboratory protocols. For more information, please visit http://www.wileyblackwell.com or our new online platform, Wiley Online Library (http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com), one of the world's most extensive multidisciplinary collections of online resources, covering life, health, social and physical sciences, and humanities.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Nursing home residents with dementia: Antidepressants are associated with increased risk of fallingPublic release date: 18-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jennifer Beal healthnews@wiley.com 44-012-437-70633 Wiley-Blackwell
Nursing home residents with dementia who use average doses of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are three times more likely to have an injurious fall than similar people who don't use these drugs. The association can be seen in people who use low doses of SSRIs and the risk increases as people take higher doses. The results are published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
Many nursing home residents with dementia suffer from depression, and are therefore treated with antidepressants. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are generally considered the treatment of choice. "Our study also discovered that the risk of an injurious fall increased even more if the residents were also given hypnotic or sedative drugs as sleeping pills," said lead author Carolyn Shanty Sterke, who works in the Section of Geriatric Medicine at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Falls are a major health problem in nursing home residents with dementia. In nursing homes one-third of all falls result in an injury. "Physicians should be cautious in prescribing SSRIs to older people with dementia, even at low doses," says Sterke.
Sterke carried out this research by recording the daily drug use and daily falls in 248 nursing home residents with dementia from 1 January 2006 until 1 January 2008. Data about the residents' day-by day drug use came from a prescription database, and information on falls and subsequent injuries came from a standardised incident report system. In total, she had collected a dataset of 85,074 person-days.
The mean age of the participants was 82 years, and the prescription records showed that antidepressants had been used on 13,729 (16.1%) days, with SSRIs being used on 11,105 of these days.
The incident reports showed that 152 of the 248 residents (61.5%) sustained 683 falls. This corresponds to a fall incidence of 2.9 falls per person-year. Thirty-eight residents had a single fall, but 114 fell frequently. Two hundred twenty falls resulted in injury or death. Of these 10 were hip fractures, 11 were other fractures and 198 were injuries such as grazes, open wounds, sprains, bruises, and swellings. One person died after falling.
The risk of having an injurious fall increased threefold for residents taking SSRIs, from an absolute daily risk of 0.09% for a female aged 80 not taking an SSRI, to 0.28% for a female aged 80 taking one defined daily dose of SSRIs. Similar increases in absolute daily risk were found for both men and women, for different ages.
"Staff in residential homes are always concerned about reducing the chance of people falling and I think we should consider developing new treatment protocols that take into account the increased risk of falling that occurs when you give people SSRIs," says Sterke.
###
This study is published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
Full citation: Dose-response relationship between Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Injurious falls: A study in Nursing Home Residents with Dementia. Carolyn S Sterke, Gijsbertus Ziere, Ed F. van Beeck, Caspar W. N. Looman & Tischa J. M. van der Cammen. BJCP (2012); DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2125.2011.04124.x
About the Author:
Dr. C. Shanty Sterke is based at the Section of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Aafje, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
About the Journal
Published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Pharmacological Society, the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP) contains papers and reports on all aspects of drug action in man, including invited review articles, original papers, short communications, and correspondence. BJCP enjoys a wide readership, bridging the medical profession, clinical research, and the pharmaceutical industry. The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology can be accessed at http://www.bjcp-journal.com.
About the British Pharmacological Society
The British Pharmacological Society (BPS) is the primary UK learned society concerned with research into drugs and the way they work. Our members work in academia, industry, and the health services, and many are medically qualified. The Society covers the whole spectrum of pharmacology, including laboratory, clinical, and toxicological aspects.
BPS Press Office: T. 020-7239-0184 | M. 07899-921111 | E. jb@bps.ac.uk | W. http://www.bps.ac.uk
About Wiley-Blackwell:
Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, with strengths in every major academic and professional field and partnerships with many of the world's leading societies. Wiley-Blackwell publishes nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed journals and 1,500+ new books annually in print and online, as well as databases, major reference works and laboratory protocols. For more information, please visit http://www.wileyblackwell.com or our new online platform, Wiley Online Library (http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com), one of the world's most extensive multidisciplinary collections of online resources, covering life, health, social and physical sciences, and humanities.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
When it was first mooted that LightSquared's LTE technology might interfere with GPS equipment, the firm was quick to deny it. Since then, the company has tried to mitigate the issue, but the nine agencies making up the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee (PNT ExComm) all agreed that the problems are real and any attempts at mitigation are futile. This comes only days after Sprint reneged on a resource sharing deal, issuing a further blow to the company's plans for a terrestrial network. LightSquared's reaction is naturally not a happy one, claiming that the testing process is not only flawed, but that the agencies have a bias in favor of the GPS industry. By our reasoning, this only leaves the stage of depression before final acceptance of the grief-ridden situation.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]In only the second procedure of its kind, surgeons in Sweden replaced the cancerous windpipe of a Baltimore man with one made in a laboratory.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The Academy has made it official: New rules in the documentary category will take effect this year, dramatically changing the way nonfiction films are judged for the 85th Academy Awards in 2013.
The most drastic change is the elimination of a committee system in the Documentary Feature category. Instead, all branch members will be eligible to vote in the nominating process, and the entire Academy will be permitted to vote for the winner, without the previous requirement that they see all five nominees in a theatrical setting.
Oscar-winning director Michael Moore), who spearheaded the move to change the system, discussed the new rules at length with TheWrap this week, and said that they will bring democracy to the process and help stop the practice of TV networks quietly sneaking films into theaters for theatrical runs before holding splashy television "premieres."
The most controversial of the new rules, which requires a review in the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times, was designed to halt this process.
Under the previous system, a small number of voters judged each film in the early rounds, essentially giving each of those voters the chance to kill a film's chances.
The history of the documentary category is full of shocking snubs and omissions, from the failure of "Hoop Dreams" to be nominated in 1994 to this year's shortlist, which did not include the acclaimed documentaries "The Interrupters" (from the director of "Hoop Dreams," Steve James), "Into the Abyss" (Werner Herzog) and "Tabloid" (Errol Morris).
Changes were also made in the Live Action Short and Animated Short categories.
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Public release date: 18-Jan-2012
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