PowerVoice, a new social media marketing company founded by former federal consultant at IBM Ryan Landau and ex-Googler (and brother) Andrew Landau, is launching today. The service compensates users for sharing brands' messages on social networks in a somewhat similar fashion to Adly. However, unlike Adly, it's not focused solely on enabling celebrities and other public figures to earn additional income through recommendations. Instead, on PowerVoice, anyone can sign up and get paid to promote brands' ads.
'It's album-quality music, it's not just a bunch of throwaways,' Green Lantern tells Mixtape Daily of Maino's I Am Who I Am. By Rob Markman
Maino Photo: MTV News
Main PickHeadliners: Maino and DJ Green Lantern Representing: Brooklyn, New York Mixtape: I Am Who I Am: The Album Before the Album
Real Spit: While Maino is known to keep close ties with the streets, the Brooklyn MC has a knack for making rap hits that transcend his 'hood. From 2008's "Hi Hater" to his T-Pain-assisted "All the Above" and his current Lil Wayne-featured banger "Cream," Main has managed to keep a stash of radio gems but has never compromised his underground appeal. Now, as he gets set to finally release his sophomore album, The Day After Tomorrow, Maino leads first with a mixtape prelude, I Am Who I Am: The Album Before the Album.
"It's the album before the album, it's album-quality music, it's not just a bunch of throwaways," the tape's disc jock Green Lantern told Mixtape Daily.
"With mixtapes, a lot of times, a lot of people do something where they're rhyming over other people's beats, they freestyling and stuff like that. I wanted to do something that was a little bit more different and something that I was used to doing," Maino said. "I feel like one of my strong points is making hot records, making songs. So I wanted to do that right before my album was gonna drop."
I Am Who I Am features a handful of street odes. "Cream," with Lil Wayne, is included, and why wouldn't it be? The repetitive Rick Ross sample on the hook makes it memorable, while Main and Weezy's focused vocals make it bang. "Yes Yes Ya'll" featuring Lloyd Banks is another winner. The Hustle Hard boss trades bars with Banks over a bouncy beat that draws inspiration from Peedi Crakk's 2003 single "One for Peedi Crakk."
Then there is "Last of the Mohicans" with Push! Montana. Over the pounding drum track, Maino and Montana rhyme about their struggles coming up. They draw a clear distinction on the song between themselves and the rappers who only portray a gangster's lifestyle.
Maino truly embodies everything that he raps about on I Am Who I Am and that's what makes his tape so compelling. And just to think, this is only The Album Before the Album. Next up: The Day After Tomorrow.
Joints to Check For
» "Last of the Mohicans" - "Last of a dying breed, ya know? Right now we're seeing a different trend in hip-hop where it's not so much about street credibility. It's not so much about what you may have done in the streets; it's not so much about you being a gangsta and stuff like that. It's about just making hot music."
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, talks with supporters at a campaign rally in Coral Springs, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, talks with supporters at a campaign rally in Coral Springs, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, speaks at a campaign rally in Coral Springs, Fla. Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) ? Newt Gingrich has the momentum. Mitt Romney has the money.
Rick Santorum? He has neither at the moment.
Not that he's going to let details like that stop him from pressing ahead in his White House quest. Or, for that matter, hurdles like scant cash in an expensive state and a rapidly disappearing opportunity to emerge as the consensus candidate of conservative voters now that Gingrich has emerged as the leading anti-Romney candidate.
"Our feeling is that this is a three-person race," Santorum insisted on CNN's "State of the Union." He added that he felt "absolutely no pressure at all" to abandon his bid given Gingrich's rise.
Still, Santorum acknowledged a hard road ahead in what he called "a tough state for everybody."
"It's very, very expensive. It's a very short time frame," he said.
The former Pennsylvania senator placed third in Saturday's South Carolina primary.
Gingrich scored his first win, entering the Florida campaign with the political winds pushing the former House speaker from behind. Romney, who has raised mounds of cash, came in second and was ready to regroup with sophisticated political machines in the upcoming states, Florida included.
Underscoring Santorum's challenges, he was taking a few days away from the campaign trail in Florida this week to restock his thin campaign bank accounts. He plans fundraisers in other states, leaving Gingrich and Romney with free rein in Florida, while he stops in states such as Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Money is a necessity in a state like Florida with numerous expensive media markets and where campaigns are usually won on TV.
That's not a natural fit for Santorum, who has run his campaign on a shoestring and won the Iowa caucuses ? albeit narrowly ? by spending more than a year making house calls to voters and traveling the state in a pickup truck.
To make up ground and perhaps earn some free media, Santorum is going on the attack.
Standing in a strip mall's parking lot here Sunday before heading to fundraising events, Santorum cast Romney as an inconsistent figure who would not be an effective foil to President Barack Obama's re-election bid and argued that Gingrich was too "high risk" to be the Republican standard-bearer.
"Trust is a big issue in this election," Santorum told several hundred people. "Who are you going to trust when the pressure is on, when we're in that debate? It's great to be glib, but it's better to be principled."
He also met privately Sunday with pastors and delivered a sermon at Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, where he emphasized his conservatism. Santorum, who sprinkles his campaign speeches with his Catholic faith, is banking on evangelicals to coalesce around him over the thrice-married Gingrich or Romney, a Mormon.
"Can he win? Only God knows," said David Babbin, a voter here who works at the nearby children's hospital and likes Santorum. "But I believe in miracles."
Still, he noted one of the candidate's challenges: "Rick Santorum is one of us. And that's his biggest flaw ... We live in a society that is 'American Idol' and Rick Santorum is not like that."
Santorum has other hurdles beyond what even admirers call his lack of charisma.
His tough talk on Social Security and Medicare ? ending benefits for wealthier retirees, cutting payments to those who don't need them ? is going to dog him here in a state of 3.3 million seniors, or 17 percent of the population. AARP estimates that more than a third of those seniors would have incomes below the poverty line without Social Security and one in three seniors rely on Social Security as their sole source of income.
Santorum didn't mention those proposals at his first public campaign event since the primary in South Carolina.
PYONGYANG, North Korea ? A senior North Korean party official dismissed concerns about Kim Jong Un's readiness to lead, saying he spent years working closely with his late father and helped him make key policy decisions on economic and military affairs.
In the first interview with foreign journalists by a high-level North Korean official since Kim Jong Il's Dec. 17 death, Politburo member and Kim family confidante Yang Hyong Sop told The Associated Press that North Koreans were in good hands with their young new leader. He emphasized an unbroken continuity from father to son that suggests a continuation of Kim Jong Il's key policies.
"We suffered the greatest loss in the history of our nation as a result of the sudden, unexpected and tragic loss of the great leader Kim Jong Il," he said in the interview Monday at Mansudae Assembly Hall, seat of the North Korean legislative body.
"But still, we are not worried a bit," he added, "because we know that we are being led by comrade Kim Jong Un, who is fully prepared to carry on the heritage created by the great Gen. Kim Jong Il."
Daily life in this cold, somber capital has begun to return to normal one month after Kim's death, reportedly from a heart attack while riding on his private train.
The white mourning bouquets and massive portraits of the departed leader have been cleared from Pyongyang's main buildings and monuments. People are busy getting back to daily life, with children whizzing down icy slopes on wooden sleds and workers running to catch morning buses and trams as the Kim Jong Un ode "Footsteps" blares over loudspeakers.
Vast Kim Il Sung Square, where a sea of mourners converged after Kim's death, was ghostly quiet except for a few people who scurried quickly across the frigid plaza.
In recent weeks, as North Koreans filled the capital's streets with their emotive mourning and the government staged elaborate funeral proceedings, party and military officials moved quickly to install Kim's son as "supreme leader" of the people, party and military.
Kim Jong Un had been kept out of the public eye for most of his life before suddenly emerging as his father's heir only in September 2010. Though still in his 20s, he was quickly promoted to four-star general and named a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea.
But the new ruler's youth and quick ascension to power have raised questions in foreign capitals about how ready he is to inherit rule over this nation of 24 million with a nuclear program as well chronic trouble feeding all its people.
Yang said he had no concerns about Kim's ability to lead.
"The respected comrade Kim Jong Un had long assisted the great Gen. Kim Jong Il," he told AP. "It's not a secret that he has helped the great general in many different aspects ? not only in military affairs but also the economy and other areas as well."
A soft-spoken octogenarian who is vice president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly and a standing member of the powerful Political Bureau of the Communist party's Central Committee, Yang has long-standing ties with the Kim family that stretch back to his close alliance with the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung.
During a 2010 interview with Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang, he provided the first confirmation by a government official that Kim Jong Un would eventually become the nation's next leader.
"He knows what the exact intention of the great Gen. Kim Jong Il was," he said Monday.
His comments this week indicated there would be little change to major policies laid out by Kim Jong Un's father in the three years before his death. Yang said the new leader was focused on a "knowledge-based" economy and looking at economic reforms enacted by other nations, including China.
The North has increasingly looked to China for guidance on how to revitalize its moribund economy, particularly as South Korea, Japan and other nations have frozen trade and aid to the North amid concerns about its nuclear ambitions.
Little is known about Kim Jong Un's background and experience, though North Koreans have been told he studied at Kim Il Sung Military University and was involved in military operations such as the November 2010 artillery attack on a South Korean island that killed four South Koreans.
Earlier this month, North Korea's state-run broadcaster aired a documentary about the new leader that began filling in some blanks from before his public debut.
The footage shows him observing the April 2009 launch of a long-range rocket and quotes him threatening to wage war against any nation attempting to intercept the rocket, which North Korea claimed was carrying a communications satellite but the United States, South Korea and Japan say was really a test of its long-range missile technology.
It was the first indication of his involvement in that controversial launch.
Yet if Kim Jong Un was playing a prominent behind-the-scenes role prior to 2010, his training period would have been much shorter than that of his Kim Jong Il, who spent 20 years working under his own father, Kim Il Sung. Even after his father's death, Kim Jong Il observed a three-year mourning period before formally assuming leadership.
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Follow AP's Korea Bureau Chief Jean H. Lee at twitter.com/newsjean and Chief Asia Photographer David Guttenfelder at twitter.com/dguttenfelder.
LAHAD DATU, Malaysia |
Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:31am EST
LAHAD DATU, Malaysia (Reuters) - Puntung is a Sumatran rhino, one of roughly two hundred left in the world.
Captured in a Borneo forest on Christmas Day, she is the latest addition to Malaysia's Borneo Rhino Sanctuary -- and experts say she may also be one of the last hopes for a species on the brink of extinction.
Veterinarians want to introduce Puntung to Tam, a 20-year-old male Sumatran rhinoceros in the enclosure next door, in the hopes that they will breed -- although this cannot take place for a number of months yet, until Puntung is deemed ready.
Estimated to be 10 to 12 years old, she was airlifted to the sanctuary in the Tabin Forest Reserve after her capture, and has since been adjusting to her new home, eating more than 60 kg (132 lb) of leaves each day.
"She doesn't look stressed, she's eating well ... but the stress (of a new environment) is enough to offset her cycle, her normal cycle," said Zainal Zahari Zainuddin, a veterinarian with the Borneo Rhino Alliance.
"So she may not have a cycle now. That's why we're monitoring her."
Captive breeding is now regarded as the only way to boost the population of the two-horned Sumatran rhino, which at 500 to 600 kg (1,100 to 1,322 lb) and 1.3 metres tall (4.3 feet) is the world's smallest rhinoceros.
Deforestation and illegal hunting have decimated the population in the wild, and habitat fragmentation has cut the surviving animals off from potential mates. The animals are ageing to the point where they are too old to breed.
But even the capture of Puntung, dubbed a "Christmas miracle" by scientists, does not mean success is assured.
Though she is the right age to breed, she may well turn out to be infertile, said John Payne, at the Borneo Rhino Alliance.
"The rhinos that were caught in Malaysia. Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sumatra in the past ... quite a few wild caught females did have reproductive tract problems. They weren't producing eggs or they had cysts or tumors in the fallopian tubes," Payne said.
"So we are not over the hurdle yet. It may prove that she's not fertile, in which case we need to go on what sort of treatments might be possible to make her fertile."
The sanctuary's only other female rhino, Gelegob, was unable to conceive even with the help of fertility treatment, since she could not produce eggs. She is now 30 years old and blind.
If Puntung shows signs of being ready after six months of observation, she'll be released into an enclosure with Tam, who walked out of a palm oil plantation in 2008 and refused to go back into the forest.
The two are now being kept in adjacent paddocks so each is aware of the other's existence. But Sumatran rhinos are solitary animals and only come together in the wild for courtship and the rearing of young.
Two breeding attempts have been made since the Malaysian captive breeding project began in 1983, but neither succeeded. The last successful attempt to breed captive rhinos took place at the Cincinnati Zoo in the United States.
Rhinoceros horns are a coveted ingredient in traditional Eastern medicine, which has led to widespread illegal hunting.
The WWF said last year that the Javan rhinoceros had been poached into oblivion in Vietnam and is now believed to be confined to one population of less than 50 individuals in an Indonesian national park.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? "Contraband" managed to steal the top slot away from competitors at the weekend box office.
The Universal action drama film starring Mark Wahlberg as a reformed smuggler debuted above expectations at No. 1 with $24 million, while Disney's 3-D rerelease of "Beauty and the Beast" waltzed into the No. 2 position with $18.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Both films helped boost Hollywood's business after a sluggish holiday season.
"It's great to have an uptick in the total box office, and Universal is thrilled that 'Contraband' was the driving force behind that," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for the studio. "I think it's combination of a great marketing campaign, audiences love Mark Wahlberg and (producer) Working Title made a terrific movie, particularly for the cost."
"Joyful Noise," the Warner Bros.' musical comedy starring Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton, opened below expectations with $11.3 million in the No. 4 spot behind Paramount's "Mission: Impossible ? Ghost Protocol," which earned $11.5 million in its fifth week, bringing the total haul of the fourth installment of the Tom Cruise action franchise to $186.7 million.
"The Devil Inside," Paramount's horror film that scared up a massive $33.7 million debut last weekend, experienced a steep 77 percent drop in its second weekend, coming in at No. 6 with $7.9 million. Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian said the film's terrifying plunge didn't matter because the independently produced movie has already made a huge profit.
"Horror movies typically drop big, but that is a huge drop," said Dergarabedian. "It doesn't matter because 'Devil Inside' is a profit-making machine. If your budget is low enough, who cares if it drops big and you're making money? It's already one of the most profitable films of the past year, so there's nothing really to complain about there."
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," ''War Horse" and "The Iron Lady" were the only Golden Globes contenders that managed to crack the top ten ahead of Sunday's ceremony. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" fell to the No. 7 spot in its fourth week of release, while "War Horse" galloped into the No. 9 position. "Iron Lady" rounded out the list at No. 10.
"The Artist," which leads this year's Globes race with six nominations, earned $1.1 million at No. 14, and the George Clooney family drama "The Descendants," which is tied for second place with "The Help" with five nominations, surfed away with $2 million at No. 13. Other contenders, such as "The Help" and "Midnight in Paris," left theaters last year.
Overall domestic revenues totaled $130 million, on par with the same weekend last year, when "The Green Hornet" led with $33.5 million and the box office totaled $130.1 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
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Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Contraband," $24 million ($1.5 million international).
2. "Beauty and the Beast," $18.5 million.
3. "Mission: Impossible ? Ghost Protocol," $11.5 million ($16.8 million international).
4. "Joyful Noise," $11.3 million.
5. "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows," $8.4 million ($27.4 million international).
6. "The Devil Inside," $7.9 million.
7. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," $6.8 million ($16.5 million international).
8. "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked," $5.8 million ($14.4 million international).
9. "War Horse," $5.6 million ($8.5 million international).
10. "The Iron Lady," $5.3 million ($3.4 million international).
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Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:
1. "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows," $27.4 million.
In this 2009 photo released by researcher Bryan Lessard of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), a newly discovered horse fly in Austrlia with its golden-haired bum is shown at the Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra, Australia. For 24-year-old CSIRO researcher Lessard, a fan of pop diva Beyonce, there was only one name worthy of its beauty: Beyonce, He told The Associated Press Monday, Jan.16, 2012 he wanted to pay respect to the insect's beauty by naming it Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae. (AP Photo/Bryan Lessard, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) NO SALES, EDITORIAL USE ONLY, CREDIT MANDATORY
In this 2009 photo released by researcher Bryan Lessard of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), a newly discovered horse fly in Austrlia with its golden-haired bum is shown at the Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra, Australia. For 24-year-old CSIRO researcher Lessard, a fan of pop diva Beyonce, there was only one name worthy of its beauty: Beyonce, He told The Associated Press Monday, Jan.16, 2012 he wanted to pay respect to the insect's beauty by naming it Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae. (AP Photo/Bryan Lessard, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) NO SALES, EDITORIAL USE ONLY, CREDIT MANDATORY
In this 2009 photo released by researcher Bryan Lessard of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), a newly discovered horse fly in Austrlia with its golden-haired bum is pinned at the Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra, Australia. For CSIRO researcher Lessard, 24, a fan of pop diva Beyonce, there was only one name worthy of its beauty: Beyonce, He told The Associated Press Monday, Jan.16, 2012 he wanted to pay respect to the insect's beauty by naming it Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae. (AP Photo/Bryan Lessard, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) NO SALES, EDITORIAL USE ONLY, CREDIT MANDATORY
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? A newly discovered horse fly in Australia was so "bootylicious" with its golden-haired bum, there was only one name worthy of its beauty: Beyonce.
Previously published results from Bryan Lessard, a 24-year-old researcher at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, were recently announced on the species that had been sitting in a fly collection since it was captured in 1981 ? the same year pop diva Beyonce was born.
He says he wanted to pay respect to the insect's beauty by naming it Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae.
Lessard said Beyonce would be "in the nature history books forever" and that the fly now bearing her name is "pretty bootylicious" with its golden backside.
"Bootylicious" was the title of a song by Beyonce's previous group, Destiny's Child.
It's unknown if the rare species is a bloodsucker like many female horse flies. Lessard says he was unable to find any live specimens when he went looking in 2010 in northeast Queensland's Atherton Tablelands, where it was captured three decades ago. However, at least one member of the public has alerted him that he was recently bitten by what's locally called the "gold bum fly."
The description of the fly was earlier published in the Australian Journal of Entomology, but the results were announced last week.
Lessard says he hasn't heard from Beyonce, who recently gave birth to her first child, but he is a fan and hopes she will take his scientific gesture as a compliment. He also said the name was picked to help draw attention to the importance of his field and the need for more researchers to catalog and study insects.
Horse flies are "vital pollinators of native plants, not just in Australia, but all over the world," Lessard said. "It's extremely important to name all the undescribed species so we can measure our human impact on the environment and hopefully protect it for future generations to enjoy."
MEXICO CITY ? Police have captured the man who allegedly ran the Zetas drug gang in three northern Mexican states and who is suspected in the killing of a U.S. immigration agent, authorities announced Friday.
Soldiers and local police captured Luis Jesus Sarabia in Garcia, a town in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, said Army spokesman Gen. Ricardo Trevilla.
Trevilla said Sarabia is a confidant of top Zeta leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and Miguel Angel Trevino and was in charge of operations in the states of Coahuila, Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosi, Trevilla said.
Gunmen in February attacked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila as they drove on a highway in San Luis Potosi. Zapata was killed and Avila injured.
Trevilla said Sarabia was captured on Wednesday without a shot fired. Sarabia, whose face was bruised and body shaking, was shown to the media Friday along with another man detained with him.
He is suspected in at least 50 killings, most involving members of a rival cartel.
TAIPEI, Taiwan ? Economy first, politics later ? if ever. That's the mandate Taiwanese voters gave their newly re-elected president on relations with the Chinese mainland, which is bent on achieving unity with the democratic island but will have to wait for it.
Beijing favored President Ma Ying-jeou over a challenger from a pro-independence party, and has worked with Ma to build closer economic links. But while Chinese President Hu Jintao would like to see progress in repairing the political rift between Taiwan and the mainland before he leaves office this year, Ma made clear after declaring victory Saturday that he wants to strengthen economic ties before addressing political issues.
He told reporters there is no clear timetable for beginning any political talks with the authoritarian mainland, the world's second-biggest economy.
"With mainland relations, we will work on the economy first and politics later, work on the easier tasks first and the more difficult ones later," Ma said after winning a second four-year term. "There is no rush to open up political dialogue. It's not a looming issue."
That could present a challenge to the Chinese leadership, which insists that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory and sooner or later needs to come under Beijing's control. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949.
Hu has pivoted sharply away from the intimidation and bullying that used to be a hallmark of Beijing's policy toward the island, but his government continues to point hundreds of missiles at Taiwanese targets and maintains its long-standing threat to resort to force if Taiwan resists unification indefinitely.
Failure by Hu to produce concrete political achievements in Taiwan could strengthen the hand of less patient Chinese leaders emerging in the military and the government.
Ma, for his part, has ruled out even meeting Hu.
"My formal capacity is the president of the Republic of China," he said, referring to Taiwan's official name. "It will not be possible for me to meet with mainland leaders in another capacity. People here would not accept it."
No Chinese leader could acknowledge Ma's status as ROC president, because to do so would be to accept that a separate China exists alongside the People's Republic. That violates the so-called "one-China policy," the central canon of Beijing's approach to Taiwan for the past 62 years.
In its first reaction to Ma's victory, China's official Xinhua News Agency took a positive tone, reflecting Beijing's view that he was a far better choice than challenger Tsai Ing-wen, whose party maintains its theoretical support for an independent Taiwan.
"The results of the elections have indicated that the peaceful development of the cross-strait relations is a correct path and has been widely recognized by the Taiwan people," Xinhua said.
Although the Nationalists formally advocate unification between the sides, they reject the idea of doing so under mainland communist rule and have decisively sidelined the issue in favor of maintaining the status quo.
Chao Chun-shan, a China expert at Taipei's Tamkang University, said that Hu's imminent departure makes it unlikely that Beijing will press Ma to make a political deal anytime soon. If a Taiwan political gambit failed, Hu's successors could come off looking bad while they are still in the relatively vulnerable position of just beginning to consolidate their power, Chao said.
"I don't think there is room for talks on a political deal in (Ma's) second term." Chao said. "Economics is the first priority."
There is considerable appetite in Taiwan for pursuing the kind of economic deals that Ma brought to fruition during his first term. Under his leadership Taiwan increased the number of direct mainland China flights, opened itself to large numbers of free-spending Chinese tourists and cut tariffs on scores on Taiwanese exports to the mainland.
That contrasts sharply with a strong local resistance to engaging China politically, out of fear that any deal could undermine the island's hard-won democratic freedoms. Polls over the last 10 years have shown that no more than 10 percent of Taiwanese favor union with the mainland, with most of the rest supporting an open-ended continuation of Taiwan's de facto independence.
Sixty-three year-old Tsai supporter Victor Tsai ? no relation to the defeated candidate ? said he too favored strengthening economic ties with the mainland, as long as there were no political strings attached.
"I do business with China all the time but it doesn't influence my political views," he said.
Ardella Jackson leaves the Detroit Police Northeastern District in Detroit, Jan. 10, 2011. Police precincts and district headquarters in Detroit will be closed to the public for 16 hours each day as officials push more officers from behind desks and out into the streets where many residents feel they're under siege by crime. The policy is termed ?virtual precincts? and started this week at a single-story, brick building in an especially tough east side neighborhood. In less than a month, it will roll out from Detroit's Northeastern District to the remaining six station houses in the city. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)
Ardella Jackson leaves the Detroit Police Northeastern District in Detroit, Jan. 10, 2011. Police precincts and district headquarters in Detroit will be closed to the public for 16 hours each day as officials push more officers from behind desks and out into the streets where many residents feel they're under siege by crime. The policy is termed ?virtual precincts? and started this week at a single-story, brick building in an especially tough east side neighborhood. In less than a month, it will roll out from Detroit's Northeastern District to the remaining six station houses in the city. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)
DETROIT (AP) ? Fighting crime is a 24-hour job, but Detroit police stations will be sticking to business hours.
The department is rolling out a plan to close precincts and district headquarters to the public after 4 p.m. It's an effort to put more officers on patrol, especially in the most besieged neighborhoods, without adding to the city's $200 million budget deficit.
The policy took effect this week in an especially tough area on the city's east side. Over the next month, the practice will spread to the six other stations.
At the first precinct to adopt the new system, Michael Morris stopped by to make an accident report. He said he would reserve judgment.
"Let's see the response time on the street," Morris said. Then he'll be able to say if it's working.
Officers are still inside the building around the clock, but at night public access is limited to a phone in the foyer linked to a 24-hour crime-reporting unit.
Smaller communities have adopted the same approach, but Detroit will be the largest American city to try it. Police Chief Ralph Godbee said the idea would "re-engineer" how the department operates.
Closing precincts to the public by late afternoon is not expected to save money. It just reassigns officers and their duties. Two clerks have typically staffed the midnight shift at each precinct, and a recent survey by the chief's office showed they take an average of only two reports each night, Godbee said.
Like many police departments, Detroit's force is under severe financial constraints. The city has about 2,700 officers, down from 4,000 a decade ago. Another 100 officers could be laid off by next month without federal grant money.
There are few areas to make cuts other than jobs, something the police chief and Mayor Dave Bing are loath to do, particularly in light of the city's violent crime rate, one of the highest in the country, and a spike in murders.
Compounding matters is Detroit's size: 139 square miles. Although the population has fallen from 1.8 million in 1950 to 700,000 today, officers must still patrol a large area.
"We have done a disservice to our community by spreading ourselves thin, giving citizens the belief that we will respond to things that are not an emergency," Godbee said. The changes are mainly "for those brave men and women that are overtaxed out there" answering calls for service.
Godbee expects to put 100 to 150 officers more officers on patrol.
Restricted and light-duty officers are being moved to the 24-hour unit that will handle non-emergency calls that might normally have gone to the front desk at neighborhood precincts. That part of Detroit's policy was gleaned from Milwaukee, which began a similar program in 2008. Milwaukee officers who in the past would have handled complaints in person can now be sent to areas with rising crime.
"If we don't stay in public spaces, crime goes up and citizens lose heart," Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said. But his department has not reduced the hours its seven precincts are open to the public.
Some smaller police departments, including in Detroit's better-off suburbs, already close their front desks during slower evening hours. But Nancy Kolb, a senior program manager with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, has not heard of any city the size of Detroit adopting a similar policy.
A lot of agencies are turning to volunteers to work the front desks and using more social media.
"It's not always possible for an officer to go to neighborhood watch meetings, but residents can use social media to engage with that officer," Kolb said.
Bing, who is trying to keep Detroit from being taken over by an emergency financial manager, is cutting 1,000 city jobs in the next few weeks. Services like fixing lights and sidewalks and cutting grass are being reduced. The mayor is also seeking medical and pension concessions from city unions.
Other cities are reluctant to tinker with their police forces, even if doing so might save money.
Officials in Baltimore, which has a deficit of more than $50 million, have not considered cutting hours at their nine police precincts and headquarters, largely because such a step would close doors on community outreach.
"We have a lot of situations where people come into the districts to report crime," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. "It's a big part of our community policing."
In New Orleans, eight district offices are open around the clock. Most are staffed overnight by a desk sergeant and two officers.
"You have citizens who will still feel more comfortable reporting crime by coming into the districts," New Orleans police spokesman Frank Robertson said.
In Detroit, the precincts have often been seen as islands of safety.
"I really don't know how it's going to work," said Ardella Jackson, who also filed an accident report Tuesday at the precinct with shorter hours. "We don't really like changes."
Godbee has stressed that the precincts won't be abandoned at night. And though there will be no access to front desk areas, a limited number of officers will be inside performing other duties. But he prefers people become familiar with the telephone reporting system for non-emergencies such as neighbor complaints, property damage reports and fender benders.
"If the situation calls for me to have an officer come to the station to deal with them," he said, "I would rather do that than have that officer sitting there like the Maytag repair person."
Republican presidential candidate former, House Speaker Newt Gingrich waves as he arrives at a rally for home ownership, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, at the State Capitol in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate former, House Speaker Newt Gingrich waves as he arrives at a rally for home ownership, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, at the State Capitol in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Karen Santorum, right, interjects during a question and answer session with her husband Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, left, at a campaign town hall meeting Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry greets people during a campaign visit, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, in Summerville, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets supporters at the conclusion of a campaign stop at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Many of Mitt Romney's presidential challengers are having trouble fulfilling a fundamental requirement of running for public office: getting on the ballot.
Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman have all failed to qualify for the ballot in at least one upcoming GOP primary. In other states, they have failed to file full slates of delegates with state or party officials, raising questions about whether these candidates have the resources to wage effective national campaigns.
And if one of them were able to marshal enough anti-Romney forces to challenge the front-runner, the ballot blunders could limit their ability to win delegates in key states.
The exception: Ron Paul, who appears to have avoided such pitfalls so far.
"This is why you need a real-life, no-kidding-around campaign," said Rich Galen, a GOP strategist and former Gingrich aide who is neutral in the 2012 race. "All these guys who have been crowing that they found a new way to run for president, it's like saying I'm inventing a new airplane, and it has only one wing."
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, won the first two contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire, and he is leading in the polls in South Carolina and Florida, the next two states to have primaries. Romney raised $56 million in 2011 for his campaign, giving him big financial and organizational advantages over his GOP rivals.
Those advantages are on display as many of his competitors miss deadlines or fail to collect enough signatures to meet ballot requirements in upcoming contests.
Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who came within a few votes of winning the Iowa caucuses, failed to get on the ballot in Virginia or the District of Columbia. His campaign also filed incomplete slates of delegates in Illinois and Ohio, which could limit his ability to win delegates in those key states.
Virginia has been a tough ballot to crack for several GOP candidates because the state requires campaigns to collect signatures from at least 10,000 registered voters. Romney and Paul were the only ones who made the ballot for the March 6 primary. Perry sued, and he has since been joined in the lawsuit by Gingrich, Huntsman and Santorum.
Santorum is the only major candidate who will be left off the ballot in the District of Columbia primary April 3, said Paul Craney, executive director of the DC Republican Committee. The party provides two ways to get on the ballot: Pay $10,000, or pay $5,000 and collect signatures from 296 registered Republicans in the heavily Democratic capital city.
"It's not easy, but it can be done, if you are a serious presidential candidate," Craney said. "All the presidential candidates who are serious about winning the nomination will be on the D.C. ballot."
Santorum adviser John Brabender acknowledged that Romney has more money and a larger campaign organization. But, he said, Santorum's campaign has gained resources and momentum since the close finish in Iowa. Romney, he said, has been running for president for the past six years, giving him more time to build his organization.
"It's a different campaign than it was earlier," Brabender said.
Huntsman, the former Utah governor, failed to get on the ballot in Arizona or Illinois.
The requirements to get on the GOP ballot in Arizona are pretty easy ? all you have to do is fill out a two-page form. Twenty-three candidates managed to do it properly, so they will be on the ballot for the state's Feb. 28 primary.
Huntsman, however, was left off the ballot because his filing had a photocopied signature and wasn't notarized, said Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett.
"If you can't get on the ballot around the country, you're a regional candidate, by definition," said Rich Beeson, the Romney campaign's political director. "Barack Obama is going to be on the ballot in all 50 states, and so will we."
Gingrich, the former House speaker, didn't make it on the ballot for primaries in Missouri or Virginia, though he has joined the lawsuit to get on the Virginia ballot and Missouri won't award any delegates based on its Feb. 7 primary. Instead, Missouri Republicans will hold caucuses March 17.
Perry, the Texas governor, made the ballot in Illinois, but he will only be eligible to win one delegate in the state's March 20 primary ? a contest in which 54 delegates will be up for grabs.
It will take 1,144 delegates to win the nomination at the Republican national convention this summer.
Illinois has a unique way of awarding delegates to candidates. The winner of the state's GOP primary doesn't necessarily get any delegates. Instead, Republicans will vote for the actual delegates, who are listed separately on the ballot but are identified by the candidate they support.
Each of the state's 18 congressional districts will elect three delegates, for a total of 54. To appear on the ballot as a delegate, candidates had to collect signatures from at least 600 registered voters in the district where they are running.
Only one Perry delegate filed signatures by the deadline, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. Gingrich, Paul and Romney filed full slates, while only 44 Santorum delegates filed signatures.
The system is designed to keep fly-by-night candidates from crowding the ballot, said Christopher Mooney, a political science professor at the University of Illinois in Springfield.
"It keeps people who don't know what they're doing out of the arena," Mooney said.
___
Associated Press writers Paul Davenport in Phoenix and Ann Sanner in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.
Gene identified as a new target for treatment of aggressive childhood eye tumorPublic release date: 11-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Summer Freeman summer.freeman@stjude.org 901-595-3061 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project findings help solve mystery of retinoblastoma's rapid growth in work that also yields a new treatment target and possible therapy
New findings from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) have helped identify the mechanism that makes the childhood eye tumor retinoblastoma so aggressive. The discovery explains why the tumor develops so rapidly while other cancers can take years or even decades to form.
The finding also led investigators to a new treatment target and possible therapy for the rare childhood tumor of the retina, the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye. The study appears in the January 11 advance online edition of the scientific journal Nature.
Researchers have known for decades that loss of a tumor suppressor gene named RB1 launches retinoblastoma during fetal development. But the other steps involved in the rapid transformation from a normal cell to a malignant tumor cell that occurs in this cancer were unknown.
This study linked the RB1 mutation to abnormal activity of other genes linked to cancer without changing the makeup of the genes themselves. Evidence suggests that epigenetic factors, including reversible chemical changes that influence how genes are switched on and off in tumor cells, are altered when RB1 is mutated.
"The dogma in the field has been that once RB1 is mutated, the genome of the affected cell becomes unstable, chromosomes begin to break and recombine, and mutations quickly develop in the pathways that are essential for cancer progression," said Michael Dyer, Ph.D., member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist. "What we found through the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project was exactly the opposite. These tumors contain very few mutations or chromosomal rearrangements."
Dyer is one of the paper's corresponding authors. The others are James Downing, M.D., St. Jude scientific director, and Richard Wilson, Ph.D. director of The Genome Institute at Washington University in St. Louis.
Worldwide, retinoblastoma is found in more than 5,000 children each year, including about 300 in the U.S. Most are age 5 or younger, and some are infants when the cancer is discovered, making them among the youngest cancer patients.
While 95 percent of patients are cured with current therapies if their tumors are discovered before they spread beyond the eye, Dyer said the prognosis is much worse for children in developing countries whose cancer is often advanced when it is discovered. For up to half of those patients, retinoblastoma remains a death sentence. Researchers are working to develop curative treatments that preserve vision without radiation or surgical removal of the eye. Success is particularly important for children with tumors in both eyes.
For this study, researchers sequenced the complete normal and cancer genomes of four St. Jude patients with retinoblastoma. The human genome is the complete set of instructions needed to assemble and sustain an individual.
The effort, a first for retinoblastoma, was part of the PCGP that St. Jude and Washington University officials launched in 2010. The three-year project aims to complete whole-genome sequencing of normal and tumor DNA from 600 children and adolescents battling some of the most challenging cancers. Organizers believe the results will provide the foundation for the next generation of clinical care.
The retinoblastoma tumors sequenced contained about 15-fold fewer mutations than have been found in nearly all other cancers sequenced so far. In one patient's tumor, RB1 was the only mutation.
The findings prompted Dyer to integrate the whole-genome sequencing results with additional tests that looked at differences in the patterns of gene activity in tumor and normal tissue. In particular, researchers focused on genes that, when mutated, promote cancer development. "To our surprise and excitement, what we found was that instead of cancer genes having genetic mutations, they were being epigenetically regulated differently than normal cells," Dyer said.
The genes included SYK, which is required for normal blood development and has been linked to other cancers. Drugs targeting the SYK protein are already in clinical trials for adults with leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis.
SYK has no role in normal eye development. When researchers checked SYK protein levels in normal and retinoblastoma tissue, they found high levels of the protein in 82 tumor samples and absent in normal tissue. "We see changes in the SYK gene in retinoblastoma that probably give the cancer cell a growth advantage or provide other key factors with regard to how retinoblastoma is initiated," Wilson said.
When researchers used the experimental drugs to block SYK in human retinoblastoma cells growing in the laboratory or in the eye of a mouse, the cells died. Dyer said work is now underway to reformulate one of the experimental drugs, a SYK-inhibitor called R406, so it can be delivered directly into the eye. If successful, those efforts are expected to lead to a Phase I trial in retinoblastoma patients.
Results of another PCGP study are being published in Nature's Jan. 12 edition. The study provides the first details of the genetic alterations fueling a subtype of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)that has a poor prognosis. Data from both studies are available at no cost to investigators onthe PCGP Explore website, which can be accessed at http://explore.pediatriccancergenomeproject.org.
###
The retinoblastoma paper's first authors were Jinghui Zhang, Claudia Benavente, Justina McEvoy and Jacqueline Flores-Otero, all of St. Jude. The other authors are Li Ding, Charles Lu, Robert Fulton, Lucinda Fulton, Xin Hong, David Dooling, Kerri Ochoa and Elaine Mardis, all of Washington University; Xiang Chen, Gang Wu, Matthew Wilson, Jianmin Wang, Rachel Brennan, Michael Rusch, Jing Ma, John Easton, Sheila Shurtleff, Charles Mullighan, Stanley Pounds, SurajMukatira, Pankaj Gupta, Geoff Neale, David Zhao, Clayton Naeve, ArmitaBahrami and David Ellison, all of St. Jude; Anatoly Ulyanov, formerly of St. Jude; and Amity Manning and Nicholas Dyson, both of Massachusetts General Hospital.
The study was funded in part by the PCGP, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation and ALSAC.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Since opening 50 years ago, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has played a pivotal role in pushing overall U.S. pediatric cancer survival rates from 20 to 80 percent. Founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas, St. Jude is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. St. Jude is also a leader in research and treatment of life-threatening blood disorders and infectious diseases in children. No family ever pays St. Jude for the care their child receives. To learn more, visit www.stjude.org. Follow us on Twitter @StJudeResearch.
Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
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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.
Gene identified as a new target for treatment of aggressive childhood eye tumorPublic release date: 11-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Summer Freeman summer.freeman@stjude.org 901-595-3061 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project findings help solve mystery of retinoblastoma's rapid growth in work that also yields a new treatment target and possible therapy
New findings from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) have helped identify the mechanism that makes the childhood eye tumor retinoblastoma so aggressive. The discovery explains why the tumor develops so rapidly while other cancers can take years or even decades to form.
The finding also led investigators to a new treatment target and possible therapy for the rare childhood tumor of the retina, the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye. The study appears in the January 11 advance online edition of the scientific journal Nature.
Researchers have known for decades that loss of a tumor suppressor gene named RB1 launches retinoblastoma during fetal development. But the other steps involved in the rapid transformation from a normal cell to a malignant tumor cell that occurs in this cancer were unknown.
This study linked the RB1 mutation to abnormal activity of other genes linked to cancer without changing the makeup of the genes themselves. Evidence suggests that epigenetic factors, including reversible chemical changes that influence how genes are switched on and off in tumor cells, are altered when RB1 is mutated.
"The dogma in the field has been that once RB1 is mutated, the genome of the affected cell becomes unstable, chromosomes begin to break and recombine, and mutations quickly develop in the pathways that are essential for cancer progression," said Michael Dyer, Ph.D., member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist. "What we found through the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project was exactly the opposite. These tumors contain very few mutations or chromosomal rearrangements."
Dyer is one of the paper's corresponding authors. The others are James Downing, M.D., St. Jude scientific director, and Richard Wilson, Ph.D. director of The Genome Institute at Washington University in St. Louis.
Worldwide, retinoblastoma is found in more than 5,000 children each year, including about 300 in the U.S. Most are age 5 or younger, and some are infants when the cancer is discovered, making them among the youngest cancer patients.
While 95 percent of patients are cured with current therapies if their tumors are discovered before they spread beyond the eye, Dyer said the prognosis is much worse for children in developing countries whose cancer is often advanced when it is discovered. For up to half of those patients, retinoblastoma remains a death sentence. Researchers are working to develop curative treatments that preserve vision without radiation or surgical removal of the eye. Success is particularly important for children with tumors in both eyes.
For this study, researchers sequenced the complete normal and cancer genomes of four St. Jude patients with retinoblastoma. The human genome is the complete set of instructions needed to assemble and sustain an individual.
The effort, a first for retinoblastoma, was part of the PCGP that St. Jude and Washington University officials launched in 2010. The three-year project aims to complete whole-genome sequencing of normal and tumor DNA from 600 children and adolescents battling some of the most challenging cancers. Organizers believe the results will provide the foundation for the next generation of clinical care.
The retinoblastoma tumors sequenced contained about 15-fold fewer mutations than have been found in nearly all other cancers sequenced so far. In one patient's tumor, RB1 was the only mutation.
The findings prompted Dyer to integrate the whole-genome sequencing results with additional tests that looked at differences in the patterns of gene activity in tumor and normal tissue. In particular, researchers focused on genes that, when mutated, promote cancer development. "To our surprise and excitement, what we found was that instead of cancer genes having genetic mutations, they were being epigenetically regulated differently than normal cells," Dyer said.
The genes included SYK, which is required for normal blood development and has been linked to other cancers. Drugs targeting the SYK protein are already in clinical trials for adults with leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis.
SYK has no role in normal eye development. When researchers checked SYK protein levels in normal and retinoblastoma tissue, they found high levels of the protein in 82 tumor samples and absent in normal tissue. "We see changes in the SYK gene in retinoblastoma that probably give the cancer cell a growth advantage or provide other key factors with regard to how retinoblastoma is initiated," Wilson said.
When researchers used the experimental drugs to block SYK in human retinoblastoma cells growing in the laboratory or in the eye of a mouse, the cells died. Dyer said work is now underway to reformulate one of the experimental drugs, a SYK-inhibitor called R406, so it can be delivered directly into the eye. If successful, those efforts are expected to lead to a Phase I trial in retinoblastoma patients.
Results of another PCGP study are being published in Nature's Jan. 12 edition. The study provides the first details of the genetic alterations fueling a subtype of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)that has a poor prognosis. Data from both studies are available at no cost to investigators onthe PCGP Explore website, which can be accessed at http://explore.pediatriccancergenomeproject.org.
###
The retinoblastoma paper's first authors were Jinghui Zhang, Claudia Benavente, Justina McEvoy and Jacqueline Flores-Otero, all of St. Jude. The other authors are Li Ding, Charles Lu, Robert Fulton, Lucinda Fulton, Xin Hong, David Dooling, Kerri Ochoa and Elaine Mardis, all of Washington University; Xiang Chen, Gang Wu, Matthew Wilson, Jianmin Wang, Rachel Brennan, Michael Rusch, Jing Ma, John Easton, Sheila Shurtleff, Charles Mullighan, Stanley Pounds, SurajMukatira, Pankaj Gupta, Geoff Neale, David Zhao, Clayton Naeve, ArmitaBahrami and David Ellison, all of St. Jude; Anatoly Ulyanov, formerly of St. Jude; and Amity Manning and Nicholas Dyson, both of Massachusetts General Hospital.
The study was funded in part by the PCGP, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation and ALSAC.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Since opening 50 years ago, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has played a pivotal role in pushing overall U.S. pediatric cancer survival rates from 20 to 80 percent. Founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas, St. Jude is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. St. Jude is also a leader in research and treatment of life-threatening blood disorders and infectious diseases in children. No family ever pays St. Jude for the care their child receives. To learn more, visit www.stjude.org. Follow us on Twitter @StJudeResearch.
Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
[ | 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.
In April 2010 Polish President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior Polish figures were killed in a mysterious plane crash in Russia. The Polish dignitaries were traveling to events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police. Poland?s former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski identified the bodies of his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, and his sister-in-law, Maria after the crash. (Novinite)
Today Polish prosecutor Mikolaj Przybyl shot himself after news conference on the horrific plane crash that killed 96 Polish officials. Right before he shot himself he said this:
?During my entire service as a civilian and later military prosecutor, I have never brought shame to the Republic of Poland and I will protect the honour of an officer of the Polish armed forces and prosecution. Thank you, please give me a five-minute break, I need to rest.?
Then he shot himself in the head.
The Daily Mail reported:
A Polish prosecutor shot himself today in dramatic footage caught on film in his office after cutting short a news conference.
Moments earlier, he had defended a military investigation into leaks related to a plane crash that killed Poland?s president two years ago.
At the start of the conference at his office in Poznan, Colonel Mikolaj Przybyl said: ?During my entire service as a civilian and later military prosecutor, I have never brought shame to the Republic of Poland and I will protect the honour of an officer of the Polish armed forces and prosecution.
?Thank you, please give me a five-minute break, I need to rest,? Przybyl said, as the reporters then leave the room.
With the camera still rolling, he walks across the floor and, just out of shot, a pistol can be heard being reloaded and then a gunshot sounded.
As he slumps to the ground, only his feet are in the frame.
He was immediately taken to hospital after reporters found him lying in a pool of blood.
Hospital director Leslaw Lenartowicz said Przybyl is in stable condition, conscious, and his life is not in danger. He added that Przybyl had suffered injuries to his face.
(Reuters) ? Counting container ships plying the high seas and air cargo takeoffs is one way to track the outlook for the global economy. Both measures point to weak growth in the months ahead but no severe storms.
Solid employment gains in the United States that pushed the jobless rate down to its lowest level in almost three years and a stabilizing of business activity in December even suggest global growth could firm at the start of 2012 -- a welcome contrast to the gloomy predictions at the close of last year.
Europe continues to present the biggest risk. Recovery could be undermined if Italy's debt woes worsen or political discord among European Union leaders threatens the viability of monetary union. A clutch of EU meetings this week will put the euro zone back in the spotlight.
Rising oil prices on Iran nuclear tensions also cast a shadow.
But right now, the economic data is providing some reassurance that a gradual strengthening in the United States will underpin slow but steady growth globally.
"I guess we have a hunch that things will start to go a little bit better than expected, or at least not dramatically down," said Tal Shapsa, global economist for Barclays Capital, which expects industrial output to stabilize in the months ahead.
A global factory index compiled by JPMorgan ticked upward unexpectedly in December to 53 from 52 the prior month, led by a better U.S. performance and a slowing in the pace of contraction in China and Europe. A services sector index also strengthened.
Shipping measures, a forward indicator of trade flows, likewise have steadied. The Baltic Dry Goods Index (.BADI), which tumbled in November, has leveled out though it remains stuck at crisis-era lows. It provides an early window into global demand by measuring shipping costs for iron ore, cement, grain and other raw commodities.
Similarly a basket of global commodity prices, as measured by the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index (.CRB), has ticked upward since mid-December, even after adjusting for the recent rise in oil, suggesting some of the late 2011 pessimism about global demand is dissipating.
Air freight traffic, which the International Air Transport Association said picked up in November by 0.5 percent after months of contraction, also looks to have firmed in December. FedEx and UPS reported strong activity last month on shipping of consumer electronic goods from Asia, such as IPhone 4 models, and robust online shopping in the holiday season.
DOLLOPS OF CAUTION
FedEx is forecasting moderate economic growth in 2012 but it adds a dose of caution. Chief Financial Officer Alan Graf told analysts last month that volatility of trade flows is "as high as it's ever been and we think it's going to be the new normal." Business inventories are tight as companies reduce excess stock, he said, a sign of uncertainty.
Truckmakers' production plans, another barometer of expectations, show similar caution. Sweden's Scania (SCVb.ST) is cutting output this year by 15 percent due to recession in Europe and uncertainty over Brazil. Volvo, (VOLVb.ST) its top competitor, also has cut European production and sees demand slowing in Brazil and in the Chinese construction equipment market.
"There is a lot of caution in the air right now. We had a lot of false starts to the recovery (in 2010 and in 2011). The recovery is positive but just barely, and is it sustainable?" said Charles Clowdis, an economist at IHS Global Insight.
Trade data due out this week will probably confirm the global slowdown of late 2011.
Growth in Chinese imports is expected to have slipped to 17 percent year-over-year in December from 22.1 percent the prior month, while export growth held steady around 13 percent. Japan's current account surplus, due on Wednesday, is expected to have narrowed sharply, falling 74.7 percent in November, as manufacturers battle yen strength.
In contrast, data on the U.S. trade gap for November on Friday is seen little changed at around $45 billion. More attention will go to the retail sales report for December on Thursday. Early reports indicate modest spending over the holiday season for a 0.3 percent gain.
Overhanging the data, however, are the travails of the euro zone.
Shuttle diplomacy resumes with French President Nicholas Sarkozy meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti heading to Berlin on Wednesday, the same day the EU monetary commissioner discusses Eurobonds. Then, the European Central Bank holds its rates meeting on Thursday and EU and International Monetary Fund officials head to Greece on Saturday.
The unsettled situation in the euro zone gives pause to Alan Krueger, chief economist at the White House, who otherwise welcomes the signs of economic resiliency. "Going forward, we certainly face some headwinds from Europe, and possibly elsewhere."
(Reporting By Stella Dawson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
WASHINGTON ? The more astronomers look for other worlds, the more they find that it's a crowded and crazy cosmos. They think planets easily outnumber stars in our galaxy and they're even finding them in the strangest of places.
And they've only begun to count.
Three studies released Wednesday, in the journal Nature and at the American Astronomical Society's conference in Austin, Texas, demonstrate an extrasolar real estate boom. One study shows that in our Milky Way, most stars have planets. And since there are a lot of stars in our galaxy ? about 100 billion ? that means a lot of planets.
"We're finding an exciting potpourri of things we didn't even think could exist," said Harvard University astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger, including planets that mirror "Star Wars" Luke Skywalker's home planet with twin suns and a mini-star system with a dwarf sun and shrunken planets.
"We're awash in planets where 17 years ago we weren't even sure there were planets" outside our solar system, said Kaltenegger, who wasn't involved in the new research.
Astronomers are finding other worlds using three different techniques and peering through telescopes in space and on the ground.
Confirmed planets outside our solar system ? called exoplanets ? now number well over 700, still-to-be-confirmed ones are in the thousands.
NASA's new Kepler planet-hunting telescope in space is discovering exoplanets that are in a zone friendly to life and detecting planets as small as Earth or even tinier. That's moving the field of looking for some kind of life outside Earth from science fiction toward just plain science.
One study in Nature this week figures that the Milky Way averages at least 1.6 large planets per star. And that is likely a dramatic underestimate.
That study is based on only one intricate and time-consuming method of planet hunting that uses several South American, African and Australian telescopes. Astronomers look for increases in brightness of distant stars that indicate planets between Earth and that pulsating star. That technique usually finds only bigger planets and is good at finding those further away from their stars, sort of like our Saturn or Uranus.
Kepler and a different ground-based telescope technique are finding planets closer to their stars. Putting those methods together, the number of worlds in our galaxy is probably much closer to two or more planets per star, said the Nature study author Arnaud Cassan of the Astrophysical Institute in Paris.
Dan Werthimer, chief scientist at the University of California Berkeley's search for extraterrestrial intelligence program and who wasn't part of the studies, was thrilled: "It's great to know that there are planets out there that we can point our telescopes at."
Kepler also found three rocky planets ? tinier than Earth ? that are circling a dwarf star that itself is only a bit bigger than Jupiter. They are so close to their small star that they are too hot for life.
"It's like you took your shrink ray gun and you set it to seven times smaller and zap the planetary system," said California Institute of Technology astronomer John Johnson, co-author of the study presented Wednesday at the astronomy conference.
Because it is so hard to see these size planets, they must be pretty plentiful, Johnson said. "It's kind of like cockroaches. If you see one, then there are dozens hiding."
It's not just the number or size of planets, but where they are found. Scientists once thought systems with two stars were just too chaotic to have planets nearby. But so far, astronomers have found three different systems where planets have two suns, something that a few years ago seemed like purely "Star Wars" movie magic.
"Nature must like to form planets because it's forming them in places that are kind of difficult to do," said San Diego State University astronomy professor William Welsh, who wrote a study about planets with two stars that's also published in the journal Nature.
The gravity of two stars makes the area near them unstable, Welsh said. So astronomers thought that if a planet formed in that area, it would be torn apart.
Late last year, Kepler telescope found one system with two stars. It was considered a freak. Then Welsh used Kepler to find two more. Now Welsh figures such planetary systems, while not common, are not rare either.
"It just feels like it's inevitable that Kepler is going to come up with a habitable Earth-sized planet in the next couple of years," Caltech's Johnson said.
PowerVoice, a new social media marketing company founded by former federal consultant at IBM Ryan Landau and ex-Googler (and brother) Andrew Landau, is launching today. The service compensates users for sharing brands' messages on social networks in a somewhat similar fashion to Adly. However, unlike Adly, it's not focused solely on enabling celebrities and other public figures to earn additional income through recommendations. Instead, on PowerVoice, anyone can sign up and get paid to promote brands' ads.
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Public release date: 11-Jan-2012
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