Court wins expected to bolster gay pride events

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Cities across the nation were gearing up Sunday for what were expected to be especially well-attended and exuberant gay pride parades following the U.S. Supreme Court decisions restoring same-sex marriages to California and granting gay couples the federal benefits of marriage they were previously denied.

The gay pride celebrations scheduled in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle and St. Louis are annual, and in most cases decades-old events whose tones and themes have mirrored the gay rights movement's greatest victories and defeats. This year's parades, coming on the heels of the high court's historic decisions, should be no exception.

In San Francisco, the four plaintiffs in the case that led to the end of California's gay marriage ban will be riding in a contingent organized by the city attorney. Newlyweds Kris Perry and Sandy Stier of Berkeley, and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, were able to marry Friday after a federal appeals court lifted a hold it had put on same-sex marriages while the couples' lawsuit challenging the ban worked its way toward and then through the Supreme Court. City officials decided to keep the clerk's office open throughout the weekend so couples who were in town for the celebration could get married.

On Saturday, defeated backers of the state's gay marriage ban made a last-ditch effort to halt the ceremonies. Lawyers for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom filed an emergency petition to the high court asking for a halt to the weddings on the grounds that the decision was not yet legally final. The filing came as dozens of couples filled City Hall in San Francisco to obtain marriage licenses.

The parade in New York City, where the first pride march was held 44 years ago to mark the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots that kicked off the modern gay rights movement, also will become a sort of victory lap for Edith Windsor, the 84-year-old widow who challenged the federal Defense of Marriage Act after she was forced to pay $363,053 on the estate of her late wife. Windsor was picked as a grand marshal for the New York parade months ago, before the Supreme Court used her lawsuit to strike down the provision of the act that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman.

"We're very lucky, sometimes I like to think that when the decisions are made, they keep us in mind," joked NYC Pride media director Tish Flynn.

In an average year, an estimated 2 million people show up for what is one of the world's oldest and largest gay pride parades. But Flynn expects a surge in attendance like the one New York experienced two years ago, when the march was held days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo won legislative passage of a measure to legalize same-sex marriage in his state.

In Seattle, organizers of the city's annual Gay Pride parade were already planning on a larger gathering because Washington voters approved same-sex marriage last November. Voters upheld a law that the Legislature passed earlier in 2012. Since the measure took effect in December, more than 2,400 gay and lesbian couples have gotten married in the state.

Adam McRoberts, spokesman for Seattle Out & Proud, said it is expected that Sunday's parade will draw record crowds. Tens of thousands of people typically line the route through Seattle's Downtown and Belltown neighborhoods. McRoberts said the parade would have nearly 200 contingents participating.

In St. Petersburg, Fla., where Florida's largest gay pride event took place on Saturday, officials also made plans for a record turnout. It normally draws between 80,000-100,000 people, but Eric Skains, executive director of the St. Pete Pride Parade, said about 125,000 participants were expected, largely due to the Supreme Court ruling.

Although Florida is one of a few dozen states that does not recognize same-sex marriage, Skains said now is the time for the local LGBT community to work to change the laws locally and that the defeat of the Defense of Marriage Act "is an opportunity for us to be truly equal under the law."

This was the 11th year that parade was held in St. Petersburg. The mayor of Tampa, Bob Buckhorn, became the highest-ranking Florida official ever to participate when he walked the parade route on Saturday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-wins-expected-bolster-gay-pride-events-082807160.html

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College Loan Rates Likely Doubling Monday, Affects Thousands of Marylanders

By Sonia Su

Interest rates on college loans are likely to?double for more than?100,000 Maryland college students?on Monday, jumping from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent?without congressional action.

"With immigration taking center stage on the Senate floor this week, it's unlikely anything will get to the president's desk before?July 1?when the rates automatically double," according to U.S. News, which compiles annual college rankings.?

With the average loan debt at about $24,000, students in Maryland would have to pay an additional $95.4 million, or an average $909 more for each student,?according to the?Baltimore Business Journal,?citing figures from?Maryland Public Interest Research Group.

On?May 23?of this year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the?Smarter Solutions for Students Act, under which the?loan rate would?be reset every year, depending on the interest rate on U.S. Treasuries, U.S. News states.

However, Congress has not agreed on a plan to address the issue.

One plan supported by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-MD, of Baltimore?would extend?the 3.4-percent rate for two years and?give lawmakers more time to create a more long-term solution, according to?Southern Maryland Newspapers.

President Obama told college students at a Rose Garden ceremony in May that student loan debt forces people to cut back on spending and therefore fueling the economy, according to the?Baltimore Business Journal.

"It holds back our entire middle class," he said.

UMBC rising junior Atib Siddiqui said the rate increases won't affect him but he said it will be felt by many of his friends.

"A?majority of my friends are using student loans to finance their education, and increasing the interest rate on their loans would be devastating,"?Siddiqui said. "It's already hard enough to find a job coming directly out of college now, and with the pressure of paying off expensive loan, life after graduation seems very dark."

About 57 percent of people with student loans are concerned about being unable to repay them, according to a?new study?by the?Urban Institute?s Opportunity and Ownership Project.

The increase "would be a crippling blow to many college students, and affects the admission of future students as well,"?Siddiqui said.

"I cannot see any positive outcome out of this for any college student now or in the future," Siddiqui said. "Why are we punishing students who are choosing to further their education? It just doesn't seem right to me."

Colleges in the Baltimore metro area include?UMBC,?Community College of Baltimore County,?Johns Hopkins University,?College of Notre Dame of Maryland,?Towson University?and?more.

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Source: http://timonium.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/college-loan-rates-likely-doubling-monday-affects-thousands-of-marylanders_c2ec9374

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It's complicated: Lots to sort out on gay marriage

Renata Moreira, right, and partner Lori Bilella embrace at San Francisco's City Hall shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California on Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The couple plans to marry. The justices issued two 5-4 rulings in their final session of the term. One decision wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage law that has kept legally married same-sex couples from receiving tax, health and pension benefits. The other was a technical legal ruling that said nothing at all about same-sex marriage, but left in place a trial court's declaration that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Renata Moreira, right, and partner Lori Bilella embrace at San Francisco's City Hall shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California on Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The couple plans to marry. The justices issued two 5-4 rulings in their final session of the term. One decision wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage law that has kept legally married same-sex couples from receiving tax, health and pension benefits. The other was a technical legal ruling that said nothing at all about same-sex marriage, but left in place a trial court's declaration that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Two landmark Supreme Court rulings that bolster gay marriage rights don't remove all barriers to same-sex unions by a long shot. Where gay couples live still will have a lot to do with how they're treated.

Some questions and answers about Wednesday's court rulings:

Q: Can you boil down these two big rulings ? 104 pages in all ? to the basics?

A: In one case, the court said legally married gay couples are entitled to the same federal benefits available to straight couples. In the other, it cleared the way for gay marriages to resume in California, where voters banned them in 2008.

Q: What type of benefits are we talking about?

A: More than you'd expect. There are more than 1,000 federal laws in which marital status matters, covering everything from income and inheritance taxes to health benefits and pensions. In states where gay marriage is legal, same-sex couples may actually be looking forward to filing their income taxes next April ? married, filing jointly.

Q. Why does it matter where a gay couple lives?

A: Even with Wednesday's ruling, where legally married gay couples live still may affect the federal benefits they can obtain, at least for now. Social Security survivor benefits, for example, depend on where a couple is living when a spouse dies. If that happens in a state that bans or does not recognize the union, it's not for sure that the surviving spouse will be entitled to the payments. Immigration law, meanwhile, only looks at where people were married, not where they live. It's complicated.

Q: What does the U.S. marriage map look like right now?

A: It's a patchwork. Same-sex marriage is legal in 12 states and the District of Columbia ? representing 18 percent of the U.S. population. When gay marriage resumes in California, the figure will jump to 30 percent. Twenty-nine other states have constitutional amendments that ban gay marriage. Six states have laws that ban it. Two states neither allow gay marriage nor ban it.

Q: How many same-sex couples in the U.S. have been legally married?

A: The numbers are squishy. The Pew Research Center estimates there have been at least 71,000 legal marriages since 2004, when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize them, but says there are almost certainly more. The Williams Institute, a UCLA-based think tank, says approximately 114,000 couples are legally married and more than 108,000 are in civil unions or registered domestic partnerships. In California alone, 18,000 same-sex couples were married during the 142-day period when gay unions were legal there in 2008.

Q: What's all this talk about DOMA?

A: DOMA is the federal Defense of Marriage Act, enacted in 1996. The court on Wednesday struck down a section of that law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman for purposes of federal law. That's what had denied legally married gay couples access to a host of federal benefits and programs that are available to straight couples.

Q: Why all of the focus Wednesday on California?

A: The second case that the court addressed related to a 2008 state ballot proposition that added a ban on gay marriage to the California Constitution. The court didn't rule on the merits of that ballot proposal, but it left in place a trial court's declaration that the proposition is unconstitutional. That means same-sex weddings could resume in California in about a month, although a federal appeals court there said it may continue to bar gay marriages even longer if proponents of Proposition 8 ask for a rehearing.

Q: What more could the Supreme Court have done?

A: Tons. It could have given gay Americans the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. Instead, it sidestepped the looming question of whether banning gay marriage is unconstitutional.

Q: What's President Barack Obama's take on all of this?

A: He welcomed the ruling striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act and directed Attorney General Eric Holder to make sure federal laws are in sync with the ruling. (Obama, who endorsed gay marriage last year, broke with his Republican and Democratic predecessors and declined to defend the law in court.) Already, the Defense Department says it is beginning the process to extend health care, housing and other federal benefits to the same-sex spouses of members of the military.

Q: How does the public feel about gay marriage?

A: Public support has grown dramatically in the last few years, with a majority now favoring legal marriage for gay couples. There's even broader support for extending to gay couples the same legal rights and benefits that are available to married straight couples. An Associated Press-National Constitution Center poll last fall found 63 percent favored granting gay couples the same legal benefits straight couples had. And 53 percent favored legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

Q: What happens next?

A: Supporters of gay marriage will keep pressing to legalize same-sex unions in all 50 states. That means more battles in individual states, and more visits to the Supreme Court.

___

Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-27-US-Supreme-Court-Gay-Marriage-QandA/id-8c407c5882f84f35ba166fdea3188316

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Devo drummer Alan Myers dies of cancer

Music

Eric R. Danton Rolling Stone

21 hours ago

Michael Ochs Archives

Alan Myers of the band Devo performs onstage in Los Angeles around 1979.

Alan Myers, Devo's drummer during their period of greatest success, died Monday of brain cancer. He was 58. Myers' death was first reported on Facebook by his friend Ralph Carney, a jazz musician who knew Myers in Devo's hometown of Akron, Ohio, (and the uncle of Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney).

Myers became Devo's third drummer when he joined the band in 1976. Known for his precision on the kit, his playing featured on Devo's first seven albums, including 1978's "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!" and 1980's "Freedom of Choice," which included the single "Whip It." He left the band in 1986 over a lack of creative fulfillment as the group increasingly used electronic drums, according to the 2003 book "We Are Devo!"

100 Best Debuts of All Time: Devo, 'Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

After leaving Devo, Myers worked as an electrical contractor in Los Angeles, and since 2005 had played improvisational music with his wife, Christine Myers, in the group Skyline Electric. He had also performed with his daughter, Laena Geronimo, in the experimental ensemble Swahili Blonde.

Myers' former bandmate Gerald Casale praised the drummer on Twitter as news of his death spread. The Devo founder called Myers "the most incredible drummer I had the privilege to play with for 10 years. Losing him was like losing an arm."

In subsequent tweets, Casale wrote, "I begged him not to quit Devo. He could not tolerate being replaced by the Fairlight and autocratic machine music. I agreed ... Alan, you were the best -- a human metronome and then some."

Drummer Josh Freese, who joined Devo for their 2010 reunion, has cited Myers as one of his major influences. "An underrated/brilliant drummer," Freese tweeted. "Such an honor playing his parts w/Devo. Godspeed Human Metronome."

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/devo-drummer-alan-myers-dies-cancer-6C10454468

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U.S. boss held captive by angry Chinese employees released

By Maxim Duncan

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese factory workers on Thursday released their U.S. boss, held captive for a week, after a compensation dispute was resolved, a company official and union representative said.

Chip Starnes, president of Specialty Medical Supplies, in the Beijing suburb of Huairou, was allowed to leave the factory and was resting in a hotel, the company official said.

The workers had demanded severance packages identical to those offered to 30 employees who were recently laid off, even though the firm planned no further layoffs, Starnes said earlier.

"The mass labor dispute incident for this unit has been resolved," said Chu Lixian, head of the rights and interests department of the Huairou District Labour Union.

"Both sides have come to an agreement through joint efforts made by Mr. Starnes and the workers' side. The results have turned out to be satisfactory."

The workers' demands followed rumors that the entire plant was being closed after the company's plastic injection molding division began a move to India to lower production costs.

"As of now my boss Chip feels exhausted after two harsh days and has gone back to a hotel, okay?" Specialty Medical General Manager Xing Shuang told Reuters Television. "This is all I have to say."

Starnes spent the week inside the plant, which produces alcohol pads and plastic blood lancets for diabetics, behind barred windows. He could not be immediately reached for comment.

The stand-off highlighted one of the lesser-known risks of doing business in China - that trust between workers and management, and faith in the legal system, is often low.

Starnes, whose company is based in Florida, flew to China on June 18 and his detention started on Friday.

(Writing by Terril Yue Jones; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-boss-held-captive-angry-chinese-employees-released-065633865.html

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Meet Wendy Davis, the Democrats' New Superstar

No matter the outcome of last night's Texas legislative debate, it was clear to everyone watching that the world of politics had found itself a new hero in Wendy Davis, the tennis-shoe wearing, abortion-law filibustering State Senator who became a literal overnight sensation. Davis, who?represents?Texas's 10th Senate District, led the charge against the state's strict new abortion bill with ?an 11-hour marathon performance that had supporters echoing her name around the capitol dome.

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Even if the bill somehow becomes law in the future, she already won a huge battle for liberals, for women, and her party's fortunes.?And with that victory comes?notoriety?and a rise in her own political prospects.?Democrats who didn't even know her name two days ago are already looking to hand her a starting spot in their national roster. If you're a political operative looking for a star, there's a lot to like about the 50-year-old Davis.?

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For starters, there's her inspiring biography.?Raised by a single mother, she became a single mother herself at just 19 years old, but still found time and energy to go from junior college to the top of her class at Texas?Christian University and then?graduate from Harvard Law School.?She worked as lawyer in the Fort Worth area for several years, before joining the city council (while continuing to practice law, of course). In 2008, she knocked off a two-term Republican incumbent ?? the only incumbent to not get re-elected that year ? to win a spot in the State Senate. Her office even survived a fire bombing during her re-election campaign last year. (Though that was probably unrelated to politics.)

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That's a pretty good resum?, even before you get to her habit of making principled stands in the legislature.?This wasn't even her first?filibuster, either. In 2011, she "torpedoed" a budget battle (and forced a special legislative session) in a fight over the state's plan to slash public school budgets. That made her a major thorn in the side of Republicans and hero to always undermanned Democrats of Texas. Even back then,?there were rumblings of a future run for governor.?After last night, a statewide race will almost feel like an inevitability.?

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If she launched her campaign tomorrow, she'd have no problem filling the donation box, thanks to her legion of new fans that spreads far beyond Austin. (The same goes for Letitia Van de Putte, last night's other Democratic hero, who left her own father's funeral yesterday to give Davis her biggest assist.) The filibuster?quickly became a win-win situation for Davis. If she made it through the 13 hours, she would kill the?detested?bill. If she lost in a valiant effort, it could only win more sympathy to the cause and draw ire down upon the state's bullying majority. Just as she rasied her own public profile, Republicans like Sen. Bill Zedler and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst managed to turn themselves into national villains.

There is no doubt that the?procedural?roadblocks (or dirty tricks, depending on who you ask) thrown up by the GOP actually helped her cause. When the news broke online that Davis was forced to yield the floor after more than 11 hours of speaking, that only galvanized her supporters and sucked in more viewers to the Texas Tribune's livestream of the hearing. More than 170,000 viewers tuned in at the peak of the drama, with many more following the action on Twitter. (Her own account went from about 1,200 followers on Monday to more than 60,000 today.)

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If the dream of "turning Texas blue" is ever going to come to fruition, no one appears better positioned to lead the charge that Davis. She would face quite an uphill climb should she decide to challenge Rick Perry for the governorship or even go after a U.S. Senate seat, but now that she's on the national stage, even a spot in the U.S. House of Represenatives could make her a household name. (She faces her own re-election next year, but should be a huge favorite now if she decides to stay in her current job, even if the GOP makes her seat a target.)?From there, it could be anything from a Cabinet position to a major judicial appointment to ... who knows?

For now, she'll join the Joaquin and Julio Castro in the vanquard of the young new Texas Democrats, looking to win back the south from the GOP and will be one of the most sought after campaign-stop partners of 2014. (You might as well book her 2016 convention keynote right now.) Not many Democrats make it out of Texas to the national stage these days, but Davis the hard part is already done. For now, she can enjoy her victory and try to keep the?momentum?rolling into next year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/meet-wendy-davis-democrats-superstar-125630075.html

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SF Examiner Is Suing Chronicle Over Ads - Business Insider

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? The San Francisco Examiner filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that the city's dominant daily newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, has slashed advertising prices to stifle competition.

The suit claims Chronicle owner The Hearst Corp. and officials at the paper took advantage of its greater corporate resources to "selectively and secretly" target Examiner advertisers with "below-cost and discriminatory offers designed to injure the Examiner."

The two newspapers shared business operations and revenues from 1965 until 2000, when then-Examiner-owner Hearst acquired the Chronicle and sold the Examiner to a local family.

The suit alleges the Chronicle charged significantly higher rates for ad space as expected after selling the Examiner, but reversed course when the new Examiner owners, San Francisco Newspaper Company LLC, took over in 2011.

Attorneys said the Chronicle began using the tactic when the new group, which unlike its immediate predecessors, had significant experience operating major newspapers, took over the Examiner and brought the threat of heightened competition.

"It started happening just as new ownership came in," Examiner attorney Ralph C. Allredge said in a telephone interview.

The suit claims that the Chronicle charged less than $1,000 for space that its public rate lists said cost between $59,000 and $92,000 per page.

The Examiner alleges the intention behind the lowered rates was clearly to harm the competition.

"In many cases," the lawsuit says, "these discounts were specifically conditioned on the advertiser agreeing to purchase advertising services exclusively from Hearst and requiring it to stop doing business with the Examiner."

The suit seeks damages it says will be determined at trial, and an injunction keeping the Chronicle from charging below cost for advertising and from keeping prices secret.

At issue is the same state law behind a suit involving San Francisco's alternative weeklies, where a jury in 2008 found the SF Weekly engaged in predatory price-cutting on advertisements in order to thwart competition from the rival Bay Guardian. The Guardian was awarded $21 million in damages but later settled for a smaller undisclosed amount.

Allredge was also the lead attorney for the Guardian in that lawsuit, and both weeklies now belong to the same owners as the Examiner.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/sf-examiner-is-suing-chronicle-over-ads-2013-6

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Obama opens 2nd-term drive against climate change

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Appealing for courageous action "before it's too late," President Barack Obama launched a major second-term drive Tuesday to combat climate change and secure a safer planet, bypassing Congress as he sought to set a cornerstone of his legacy.

Abandoning his suit jacket under a sweltering sun at Georgetown University, Obama issued a dire warning about the environment: Temperatures are rising, sea level is climbing, the Arctic ice is melting and the world is doing far too little to stop it. Obama said the price for inaction includes lost lives and homes and hundreds of billions of dollars.

"As a president, as a father and as an American, I'm here to say we need to act," Obama said. "I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing."

At the core of Obama's plan are new controls on new and existing power plants that emit carbon dioxide ? heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming. The program also will boost renewable energy production on federal lands, increase efficiency standards and prepare communities to deal with higher temperatures. Obama called for the U.S. to be a global leader in the search for solutions.

But Obama's campaign will face extensive obstacles, including a complicated, lengthy process of implementation and the likelihood that the limits on power plants will be challenged in court. Likewise, the instantaneous political opposition that met his plan made clear the difficulty the president will face in seeking broad support.

"There will be legal challenges. No question about that," former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said in an interview. "It's a program that's largely executive. He doesn't need Congress. What that does, of course, is make them (Congress) madder."

Obama also offered a rare insight into his deliberations on whether to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, deeming it in America's interests only if it doesn't worsen carbon pollution. Obama has faced intense political pressure from supporters and opponents of the 1,200-mile pipeline from Canada to Texas.

Declaring the scientific debate over climate change and its causes obsolete, Obama mocked those who deny that humans are contributing to the warming of the planet.

"We don't have time for a meeting of the flat-earth society," Obama said.

Obama's announcement followed years of inaction by Congress to combat climate change. A first-term effort by Obama to use a market-based approach called cap-and-trade to lower emissions failed, and in February a newly re-elected Obama issued lawmakers an ultimatum in his State of the Union: "If Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will."

Four months later, impatient environmental activists reveled in the news that Obama was finally taking matters into his own hands, announcing a series of steps that don't require congressional approval.

"This is the change we have been waiting for," said Michael Brune, who runs the Sierra Club, an environmental group. "Today, President Obama has shown he is keeping his word to future generations."

Republicans on both sides of the Capitol dubbed Obama's plan a continuation of his "war on coal" and "war on jobs." The National Association of Manufacturers claimed Obama's proposals would drive up costs. Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of the coal-heavy state of West Virginia slammed what she called Obama's "tyrannical efforts to bankrupt the coal industry."

"The federal government should leave us the hell alone," said Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, whose agency handles Texas' environment and energy markets.

Even industry groups that have been friendly to Obama and supportive of his climate goals, such as the Edison Electric Institute, which represents power plants, signaled their apprehension by calling for "achievable compliance limits and deadlines."

Obama said the same arguments have been used in the past when the U.S. has taken other steps to protect the environment.

"That's what they said every time," Obama said. "And every time, they've been wrong."

Obama broke his relative silence on Keystone XL, explicitly linking the project to global warming for the first time in a clear overture to environmental activists who want the pipeline nixed. The pipeline would carry carbon-intensive oil from Canadian tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast refineries and has sparked an intense partisan fight.

"Our national interest would be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," Obama said.

The White House indicated Obama was referring to overall, net emissions that take into account what would happen under alternative scenarios. A State Department report this year said other methods to transport the oil ? like shipping it on trains ? could yield even higher emissions.

"The standard the president set today should lead to speedy approval of the Keystone pipeline," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Announcing he will allow more renewable energy projects on public lands, Obama set a goal to power the equivalent of 6 million homes by 2020 from sources like wind and solar, effectively doubling the current capacity. The set of actions also includes a new set of fuel efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks, more aggressive efficiency targets for buildings and appliances, and $8 billion in federal loan guarantees to spur innovation.

By far the most sweeping element ? and the one likely to cause the most consternation ? is new limits on carbon dioxide pollution from power plants.

The administration has already proposed rules for new coal-fired plants, but they have been delayed amid industry concerns about the cost. A presidential memorandum Obama issued Tuesday directs the EPA to revise and reissue the new plant rules by September, then finalize them "in a timely fashion."

The key prize for environmental groups comes in Obama's instruction that the EPA propose rules for the nation's existing plants by June 2014, then finalize them by June 2015 and implement them by June 2016 ? just as the presidential campaign to replace Obama will be in full swing.

Rather than issue a specific, uniform standard that plants must meet, the EPA will work with states, power sector leaders and other parties to develop plans that meet the needs of individual states and also achieve the objective of reducing emissions.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington and Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston, contributed to this report.

___

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-opens-2nd-term-drive-against-climate-change-223816865.html

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Leap Motion starts expanded beta, opens dev portal to the public, shows off Airspace app store (hands-on)

Slowly but surely Leap Motion is making its way toward a commercial release. Today, the company has announced it's moving into the next phase of beta testing and that it will be opening up its developer portal to the public later in the week. While this still won't get folks a Leap device any faster, it will let them dig into Leap's tools and code base in preparation for when they finally get one. The move marks a shift from the company's previous SDK-focused beta to a consumer-focused one that'll serve to refine the UX in Windows and OSX. Within each operating system, there will be two levels of Leap control: basic, which essentially allows you to use Leap in place of a touchscreen, and advanced to allow for more 3D controls enabled by Leap's ability to detect the pitch and yaw of hands in space.

CEO Michael Buckwald gave us this good news himself, and also gave us a preview of Airspace, Leap's app store, and a few app demos for good measure. As it turns out, Airspace is a two-pronged affair -- Airspace Store is showcase for all software utilizing the Leap API and Airspace Home is a launcher that keeps all the Leap apps that you own in one convenient place. There will be 50 apps in Airspace at the start of the beta, with offerings from pro tools and utility apps to casual games, and we got to see a few examples.

Gallery: Leap Motion Airspace store and apps preview

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/AqxUoj6sNAQ/

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Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx Salsa Dance on Univision: Watch Now!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/channing-tatum-jamie-foxx-salsa-dance-on-univision-watch-now/

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Ten thousandth near-Earth object discovered in space

June 25, 2013 ? More than 10,000 asteroids and comets that can pass near Earth have now been discovered. The 10,000th near-Earth object, asteroid 2013 MZ5, was first detected on the night of June 18, 2013, by the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope, located on the 10,000-foot (convert) summit of the Haleakala crater on Maui. Managed by the University of Hawaii, the PanSTARRS survey receives NASA funding.

Ninety-eight percent of all near-Earth objects discovered were first detected by NASA-supported surveys.

"Finding 10,000 near-Earth objects is a significant milestone," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "But there are at least 10 times that many more to be found before we can be assured we will have found any and all that could impact and do significant harm to the citizens of Earth." During Johnson's decade-long tenure, 76 percent of the NEO discoveries have been made.

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that can approach the Earth's orbital distance to within about 28 million miles (45 million kilometers). They range in size from as small as a few feet to as large as 25 miles (41 kilometers) for the largest near-Earth asteroid, 1036 Ganymed.

Asteroid 2013 MZ5 is approximately 1,000 feet (300 meters) across. Its orbit is well understood and will not approach close enough to Earth to be considered potentially hazardous.

"The first near-Earth object was discovered in 1898," said Don Yeomans, long-time manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Over the next hundred years, only about 500 had been found. But then, with the advent of NASA's NEO Observations program in 1998, we've been racking them up ever since. And with new, more capable systems coming on line, we are learning even more about where the NEOs are currently in our solar system, and where they will be in the future."

Of the 10,000 discoveries, roughly 10 percent are larger than six-tenths of a mile (one kilometer) in size -- roughly the size that could produce global consequences should one impact the Earth. However, the NASA NEOO program has found that none of these larger NEOs currently pose an impact threat and probably only a few dozen more of these large NEOs remain undiscovered.

The vast majority of NEOs are smaller than one kilometer, with the number of objects of a particular size increasing as their sizes decrease. For example, there are expected to be about 15,000 NEOs that are about one-and-half football fields in size (460 feet, or 140 meters), and more than a million that are about one-third a football field in size (100 feet, or 30 meters). A NEO hitting Earth would need to be about 100 feet (30 meters) or larger to cause significant devastation in populated areas. Almost 30 percent of the 460-foot-sized NEOs have been found, but less than 1 percent of the 100-foot-sized NEOs have been detected.

When it originated, the NASA-instituted Near-Earth Object Observations Program provided support to search programs run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory (LINEAR); the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NEAT); the University of Arizona (Spacewatch, and later Catalina Sky Survey) and the Lowell Observatory (LONEOS). All these search teams report their observations to the Minor Planet Center, the central node where all observations from observatories worldwide are correlated with objects, and they are given unique designations and their orbits are calculated.

"When I began surveying for asteroids and comets in 1992, a near-Earth object discovery was a rare event," said Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center. "These days we average three NEO discoveries a day, and each month the Minor Planet Center receives hundreds of thousands of observations on asteroids, including those in the main-belt. The work done by the NASA surveys, and the other international professional and amateur astronomers, to discover and track NEOs is really remarkable."

Within a dozen years, the program achieved its goal of discovering 90 percent of near-Earth objects larger than 3,300 feet (1 kilometer) in size. In December 2005, NASA was directed by Congress to extend the search to find and catalog 90 percent of the NEOs larger than 500 feet (140 meters) in size. When this goal is achieved, the risk of an unwarned future Earth impact will be reduced to a level of only one percent when compared to pre-survey risk levels. This reduces the risk to human populations, because once an NEO threat is known well in advance, the object could be deflected with current space technologies.

Currently, the major NEO discovery teams are the Catalina Sky Survey, the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS survey and the LINEAR survey. The current discovery rate of NEOs is about 1,000 per year.

NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program manages and funds the search for, study of and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. The Minor Planet Center is funded by NASA and hosted by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is available at: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch and via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/asteroidwatch .

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/YH3ceC95U68/130625112104.htm

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Regional Smart Growth Concerns With the LCA-Allentown Lease ...

The City of Allentown chose Lehigh County Authority (LCA) as the top bid in a lengthy process to lease the city?s water and wastewater system for 50 years.? Whether you like the lease scenario or not, LCA will be taking over control of the Allentown water system by August 2013.? This large deal is meant to assist Allentown with its large legacy obligation, a grave financial problem many other municipalities are also facing.? Is the lease perfect? No. Are there some real concerns about the environmental impact, given both LCA and Allentown?s history with overflow in the Lehigh River and Little Lehigh Creek? Yes.? Are there also real concerns about how this lease will assist the city with its debt obligations? Again, yes, but there is a lot of opportunity to make this work for the region.

Now Renew Lehigh Valley has been involved with LCA and the City of Allentown for a number of years discussing the possibility of consolidating the two systems to realize efficiencies, cost savings, and other benefits of regional consolidation. Though the current deal did not come about as we had hoped, it certainly is an opportunity to once again review the possibilities for and benefits of regional consolidation of water and wastewater systems in the Lehigh Valley.? Did you know there are more than three dozen water and wastewater authorities in our two-county region?? RenewLV developed a series of ?Guiding Principles? as we moved through the water and wastewater discussions.? (You can read our Guiding Principles on our website.)? In accordance with these principles, RenewLV did support LCA as a public option during the lease discussions because a public authority with public oversight provides the opportunity for further regional collaboration of systems; whereas, a private entity would have taken that option off the table.

Since LCA now has the bid and the wheels are turning with the transfer getting underway, RenewLV does have some concerns about the lease and LCA and Allentown?s practices over the course of that lease.? I attended one of the public meetings LCA held to inform the public and answer questions.? Unfortunately, the turnout was disappointing, given the population of Allentown and the size of LCA?s service area.? That said, I think it was an important first step by LCA to begin a dialogue with the public throughout this process.? Some information about the transfer of billing and other details for the consumer were shared.? Open, transparent conversation between the public, LCA, and the City of Allentown must be maintained in order for this lease to be successful and an effective model for other regional consolidation (albeit, under slightly different circumstances? sans the financial implications of a lease.)? The following is a summary of some of RenewLV?s concerns and recommendations with this lease.? A full copy of the position paper can be found on our website.

• All monies received by the City of Allentown from the LCA under this lease must be kept in a Restricted Fund for the sole purpose of paying for Pension Costs
• Adopt sustainable practices for water resource management
• Undertake regional water services planning, cooperative projects among water systems, and consolidation of systems
• Prioritize the use of existing water system assets over the creation of new infrastructure
• Encourage water and sewer infrastructure projects that promote revitalization of older communities (cities and boroughs)
• Prohibit projects that contribute to suburban sprawl
• Apply best practices for the environmental stewardship of our watersheds
• Transparent and inclusive stakeholder and community engagement by the LCA and Allentown in providing access to materials and public meetings

For more information about LCA and the proposed lease, visit http://allentownwatersewer.com/#

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Source: http://renewlv.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/regional-smart-growth-concerns-with-the-lca-allentown-lease/

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Giving children non-verbal clues about words boosts vocabularies

June 24, 2013 ? The clues that parents give toddlers about words can make a big difference in how deep their vocabularies are when they enter school, new research at the University of Chicago shows.

By using words to reference objects in the visual environment, parents can help young children learn new words, according to the research. It also explores the difficult-to-measure quality of non-verbal clues to word meaning during interactions between parents and children learning to speak. For example, saying, "There goes the zebra" while visiting the zoo helps a child learn the word "zebra" faster than saying, "Let's go to see the zebra."

Differences in the quality of parents' non-verbal clues to toddlers (what children can see when their parents are talking) explain about a quarter (22 percent) of the differences in those same children's vocabularies when they enter kindergarten, researchers found. The results are reported in the paper, "Quality of early parent input predicts child vocabulary three years later," published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Children's vocabularies vary greatly in size by the time they enter school," said lead author Erica Cartmill, a postdoctoral scholar at UChicago. "Because preschool vocabulary is a major predictor of subsequent school success, this variability must be taken seriously and its sources understood."

Scholars have found that the number of words youngsters hear greatly influences their vocabularies. Parents with higher socioeconomic status -- those with higher income and more education -- typically talk more to their children and accordingly boost their vocabularies, research has shown.

That advantage for higher-income families doesn't show up in the quality research, however.

"What was surprising in this study was that social economic status did not have an impact on quality. Parents of lower social economic status were just as likely to provide high-quality experiences for their children as were parents of higher status," said co-author Susan Goldin-Meadow, the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at UChicago.

Although scholars have amassed impressive evidence that the number of words children hear -- the quantity of their linguistic input -- has an impact on vocabulary development, measuring the quality of the verbal environment -- including non-verbal clues to word meaning -- has proved much more difficult.

To measure quality, the research team reviewed videotapes of everyday interactions between 50 primary caregivers, almost all mothers, and their children (14 to 18 months old). The mothers and children, from a range of social and economic backgrounds, were taped for 90-minute periods as they went about their days, playing and engaging in other activities.

The team then showed 40-second vignettes from these videotapes to 218 adults with the sound track muted. Based on the interaction between the child and parent, the adults were asked to guess what word the parent in each vignette used when a beep was sounded on the tape.

A beep might occur, for instance, in a parent's silenced speech for the word "book" as a child approaches a bookshelf or brings a book to the mother to start storytime. In this scenario, the word was easy to guess because the mother labeled objects as the child saw and experienced them. In other tapes, viewers were unable to guess the word that was beeped during the conversation, as there were few immediate clues to the meaning of the parent's words. Vignettes containing words that were easy to guess provided high-quality clues to word meaning.

Although there were no differences in the quality of the interactions based on parents' backgrounds, the team did find significant individual differences among the parents studied. Some parents provided non-verbal clues about words only 5 percent of the time, while others provided clues 38 percent of the time, the study found.

The study also found that the number of words parents used was not related to the quality of the verbal exchanges. "Early quantity and quality accounted for different aspects of the variance found in the later vocabulary outcome measure," the authors wrote. In other words, how much parents talk to their children (quantity), and how parents use words in relation to the non-verbal environment (quality) provided different kinds of input into early language development.

"However, parents who talk more are, by definition, offering their children more words, and the more words a child hears, the more likely it will be for that child to hear a particular word in a high-quality learning situation," they added. This suggests that higher-income families' vocabulary advantage comes from a greater quantity of input, which leads to a greater number of high-quality word-learning opportunities. DMaking effective use of non-verbal cues may be a good way for parents to get their children started on the road to language.

Joining Cartmill and Goldin-Meadow as authors were University of Pennsylvania scholars Lila Gleitman, professor emerita of psychology; John Trueswell, professor of psychology; Benjamin Armstrong, a research assistant; and Tamara Medina, assistant professor of psychology at Drexel University.

The work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/U2KmlDslfMQ/130624152529.htm

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Sugar solution makes tissues see-through

June 23, 2013 ? Japanese researchers have developed a new sugar and water-based solution that turns tissues transparent in just three days, without disrupting the shape and chemical nature of the samples. Combined with fluorescence microscopy, this technique enabled them to obtain detailed images of a mouse brain at an unprecedented resolution.

The team from the RIKEN Center for Developmental biology reports their finding today in Nature Neuroscience.

Over the past few years, teams in the USA and Japan have reported a number of techniques to make biological samples transparent, that have enabled researchers to look deep down into biological structures like the brain.

"However, these clearing techniques have limitations because they induce chemical and morphological damage to the sample and require time-consuming procedures," explains Dr. Takeshi Imai, who led the study.

SeeDB, an aqueous fructose solution that Dr. Imai developed with colleagues Drs. Meng-Tsen Ke and Satoshi Fujimoto, overcomes these limitations.

Using SeeDB, the researchers were able to make mouse embryos and brains transparent in just three days, without damaging the fine structures of the samples, or the fluorescent dyes they had injected in them. They could then visualize the neuronal circuitry inside a mouse brain, at the whole-brain scale, under a customized fluorescence microscope without making mechanical sections through the brain.

They describe the detailed wiring patterns of commissural fibers connecting the right and left hemispheres of the cerebral cortex, in three dimensions, for the first time.

Dr. Imai and colleagues report that they were also able to visualize in three dimensions the wiring of mitral cells in the olfactory bulb, which is involved the detection of smells, at single-fiber resolution.

"Because SeeDB is inexpensive, quick, easy and safe to use, and requires no special equipment, it will prove useful for a broad range of studies, including the study of neuronal circuits in human samples," explain the authors.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/4Wo5sA_hYKA/130623144947.htm

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U.S. Talks Tough on Leaker (WSJ)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314961507?client_source=feed&format=rss

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'Mad Men' ending season with Don Draper at new low

NEW YORK (AP) ? Breaking up is hard to do. That is, unless you're "Mad Men," which this season has been free-and-easy in its fragmentation.

By now Peggy Olson and her radical beau are splitsville. So are Pete Campbell and wife Trudy, who caught him philandering one too many times.

Twice-wed Roger Sterling, currently solo, saw his knotty relationship with his mom torn asunder with her death this season, and he's alienated from his daughter and grandson.

And don't forget the latest romantic entanglement of Don Draper, whose marriage to winsome Megan seemed on suicide watch as, every chance he got, he scorched the sheets with downstairs neighbor Sylvia (wife of Don's presumed friend Dr. Arnold Rosen).

The only notable coming-together: the stormy merger of Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce with former rival ad agency Cutler, Gleason and Chaough, which has assembled a bickering band of ad execs only slightly more collegial than either house of Congress.

Is the unmoored zeitgeist of 1968 to blame for this season's pattern of upheavals? Does the Vietnam War, the assassinations and riots help account for the turmoil on the show? Or the '60s drug culture (they smoke pot at the office, and on one episode, a Dr. Feelgood arrives with a hypodermic needle to keep everybody energized)?

Whatever, the psyches on "Mad Men" in this, its sixth and penultimate season, seem to be unraveling as the season finale approaches (Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT on AMC). The male psyches, anyway.

On the other hand, the sisters increasingly are doin' it for themselves.

Peggy Olson is stronger, more clear-eyed and outspoken than ever. (In last week's episode, she read Don the riot act: "You're a monster!")

Tough, pneumatic Joan Harris, who since the series began has fashioned an unlikely rise from office manager to agency partner, has truly come into her own in recent weeks, notably when she went rogue and landed a major account all by herself (a no-no for a woman in this Alpha Male shop).

Don's ex, the remarried Betty Francis, seemed to step outside her pouty state of victimhood in a recent episode to forcefully remind Don that he still has feelings for her.

But who knows what awaits Megan, Don's devoted wife? In love with Don but unsettled by his growing detachment (even as she remains oblivious to his cheating), she seems poised to become the latest Draper roadkill.

"That poor girl," said been-there Betty to Don. "She doesn't know that loving you is the worst way to get to you."

All in all, it's been a satisfying, illuminating season well served by the superb cast, including Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks and Jessica Pare.

In his new supporting role, Harry Hamlin as a courtly, quirky agency partner has been a delight in his every scene. Likewise, eager-beaver enigma Bob Benson (James Wolk) has been fun to watch while raising questions from the audience (Just what's his game at the agency?) and inspiring wild speculation (a government spy?!).

And Linda Cardellini has been a revelation as Sylvia, the latest woman Don believed he had to have, and did, with a calamitous outcome.

"Mad Men," which arguably has never really been about advertising, seems this season to have taken a step further back from the nuts-and-bolts of Madison Avenue. At the office, the internecine bickering, politics and posturing seem to leave little time for creating ads. Even conference-room sparring about butter versus margarine seemed more about one-upmanship than selling a product.

This season, as usual, "Mad Men" stuck to its elliptical ways, rarely saying too much or gobsmacking the viewer with an OMG moment.

All the more shocking, then, when in a recent episode - by the worst mischance - Don's teenage daughter, Sally, caught Don in the sack with Sylvia.

For a girl already alienated by her parents' divorce, by her own roiling adolescence and perhaps - who knows? - by the youth rebellion the '60s are fomenting, this sight is clearly traumatic (and perhaps all the more so, since Sally was nursing a crush on the Rosens' teenage son). It's a lot to bear for this member of the youth generation already conditioned not to trust anybody over 30.

And Don knows it. Throughout the season, he seems to have hastened a downward slide. Not only has his private life been extra messy, he has also sabotaged his agency's campaigns and messed up a stock offering that stood to make him and his partners rich.

Now, after Sally barged in on him, his shame is beyond measure. At last week's fade-out, viewers left him in a state of surrender: on his office couch, curled in a fetal position.

Among the questions for the season finale: How can Don begin the process of redeeming himself? And will he?

___

EDITOR'S NOTE - Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mad-men-ending-season-don-draper-low-135805852.html

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AOL Reader: Simple, Fast, But Hardly Groundbreaking

With Google Reader ready to tap out, it seems like everyone is keen to throw their hat into the feed reader ring. The latest offering is from AOL and it's simple, fast and lacking any unique features?though that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/lbGtaUx2wow/aol-reader-simple-fast-but-hardly-groundbreaking-554993248

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Russia defiant as U.S. raises pressure over Snowden

By Lidia Kelly and James Pomfret

MOSCOW/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Washington pressed Moscow on Monday to do all in its power to expel former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden before he gets the chance to take an expected flight to Cuba to evade prosecution in the United States for espionage.

Snowden, whose exposure of secret U.S. government surveillance raised questions about Washington's intrusion into private lives, was allowed to leave Hong Kong on Sunday after Washington had asked the Chinese territory to arrest him.

His decision to fly to Russia, which like China challenges U.S. dominance of global diplomacy, is another embarrassment to President Barack Obama who has tried to "reset" ties with Moscow and build a partnership with Beijing.

The White House said it expected the Russian government to send Snowden back to the United States and lodged "strong objections" to Hong Kong and China for letting him go.

"We expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged," said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

The Kremlin and the Russian government did not immediately comment. But Russian officials were defiant, saying Moscow had no obligation to cooperate with Washington after it passed the so-called Magnitsky law, which can impose a visa ban and asset freeze on Russian officials accused of human rights violations.

"Ties are in a rather complicated phase and when ties are in such a phase, when one country undertakes hostile action against another, why should the United States expect restraint and understanding from Russia?" said Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of parliament.

Pushkov does not speak for the Kremlin and is not a policy maker, but is an ally of President Vladimir Putin.

The lawmaker suggested Russia could consider granting asylum for Snowden if he required it, but it looked as if he would prefer to go to "other countries like Venezuela or Ecuador".

A spokesman for Putin said on Sunday the Russian leader was not aware of Snowden's location or plans. Russian leaders have not sought to draw attention to Snowden's arrival, and have not paraded him before cameras or trumpeted his arrival.

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, on a trip to Vietnam, said Snowden had sought asylum in his country. He declined to say what the Ecuadorean government would do, but added the request would be analyzed with a "lot of responsibility".

An aide said the minister would hold a news conference around 7.00 p.m. local time (8 a.m. EDT) in Hanoi.

A source at Russian airline Aeroflot said Snowden was booked on a flight scheduled to depart for Havana on Monday at 2:05 p.m. (6.05 a.m. EDT). Snowden is believed to be in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Cuba said it had no information on Snowden's plans.

"HAND OF BEIJING"

A State Department official said Washington had told countries in the Western Hemisphere that Snowden "should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States".

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer said Putin had probably known about and approved Snowden's flight to Russia. He predicted "serious consequences" for a U.S.-Russian relationship already strained over Syria and human rights.

"Putin always seems almost eager to stick a finger in the eye of the United States - whether it is Syria, Iran and now of course with Snowden," Schumer, a senior Senate Democrat, told CNN's "State of the Union". He also saw "the hand of Beijing" in Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden leave.

But taking the higher ground after being accused of hacking computers abroad, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed "grave concern" over Snowden's allegations that the United States had hacked computers in China.

It said it had taken up the issue with Washington.

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported Snowden's new details about U.S. surveillance activities, including accusations of hacking of Chinese mobile phone firms and the targeting of China's elite Tsinghua University, the alma mater of many of China's top leaders including President Xi Jinping.

ECUADOR ROLE

Snowden was aided in his escape by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization whose founder Julian Assange said he had helped to arrange documents from Ecuador.

Ecuador, like Cuba and Venezuela, is a member of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America that pride themselves on their "anti-imperialist" credentials. The Quito government has been sheltering Assange at its London embassy for the past year.

The New York Times quoted Assange as saying in an interview that his group had arranged for Snowden to travel on a "special refugee document" issued by Ecuador last Monday.

U.S. sources said Washington had revoked Snowden's passport. The New York Times said his passport was annulled a day before he left Hong Kong to try to thwart his escape.

WikiLeaks said Snowden was accompanied by diplomats and Sarah Harrison, a British legal researcher working for WikiLeaks.

U.S. FINDS HONG KONG DECISION "TROUBLING"

Snowden, who had worked at a U.S. National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, had been hiding in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programs to news media.

U.S. officials had been in contact with Hong Kong since June 10, and had expressed optimism about cooperation.

Snowden has been charged with theft of federal government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, with the latter two charges falling under the U.S. Espionage Act.

In a statement announcing Snowden's departure, Hong Kong authorities said they were seeking clarification from Washington about reports of U.S. spying on government computers in the territory.

A spokesman for the Hong Kong government said it had allowed the departure of Snowden as the U.S. request for his arrest did not comply with the law.

A U.S. Justice Department official said at no point in discussions through Friday did Hong Kong raise issues about the sufficiency of the U.S. arrest request. "In light of this, we find their decision to be particularly troubling," the official said.

Adding to the mystery, a Hong Kong lawyer representing Snowden said on Monday a middle man claiming to represent the Hong Kong government told Snowden he should leave.

Albert Ho, who is also a legislator, told reporters he was approached by Snowden several days ago, and that Snowden had sought reassurances from the Hong Kong government on whether he would be able to leave the city freely, if he chose to do so.

Ho said an individual claiming to represent the Hong Kong government had subsequently indicated to Snowden that he was free to leave the city and should do so. "This is a highly unusual action," said Ho.

Snowden's revelations have become a major problem for Obama, who has found his domestic and international policy agenda sidelined as he scrambled to deflect accusations that U.S. surveillance practices violate privacy protections and civil rights. The president has said the measures were necessary to thwart attacks on the United States.

The latest drama coincides with the court-martial of Bradley Manning, a U.S. soldier accused of providing reams of classified documents to WikiLeaks, which Assange began releasing on the Internet in 2010. The government says the leaks put national security and people's lives at risk.

Documents previously leaked by Snowden revealed that the NSA has access to vast amounts of Internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from large companies, including Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Martin Petty in Hanoi; Sui-Lee Weein Beijing; Andrew Cawthorne, Mario Naranjo and Daniel Wallis in Caracas; Alexandra Valencia in Quito, and Mark Felsenthal, Paul Eckert and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Dean Yates, Elizabeth Piper, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-warns-countries-against-snowden-travel-014740817.html

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Getting to grips with migraine: Researchers identify some of the biological roots of migraine from large-scale genome study

June 23, 2013 ? Migraine is an extremely difficult disorder to study. Between episodes, the patient is basically healthy, making the underlying pathology very difficult to uncover. In the largest migraine study, an international team of researchers have identified genetic regions linked to the onset and susceptibility of migraine.

In the largest study of migraines, researchers have found 5 genetic regions that for the first time have been linked to the onset of migraine. This study opens new doors to understanding the cause and biological triggers that underlie migraine attacks.

The team identified 12 genetic regions associated with migraine susceptibility. Eight of these regions were found in or near genes known to play a role in controlling brain circuitries and two of the regions were associated with genes that are responsible for maintaining healthy brain tissue. The regulation of these pathways may be important to the genetic susceptibility of migraines.

Migraine is a debilitating disorder that affects approximately 14% of adults. Migraine has recently been recognized as the seventh disabler in the Global Burden of Disease Survey 2010 and has been estimated to be the most costly neurological disorder. It is an extremely difficult disorder to study because no biomarkers between or during attacks have been identified so far.

"This study has greatly advanced our biological insight about the cause of migraine," says Dr Aarno Palotie, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Migraine and epilepsy are particularly difficult neural conditions to study; between episodes the patient is basically healthy so it's extremely difficult to uncover biochemical clues.

"We have proven that this is the most effective approach to study this type of neurological disorder and understand the biology that lies at the heart of it."

The team uncovered the underlying susceptibilities by comparing the results from 29 different genomic studies, including over 100,000 samples from both migraine patients and control samples.

They found that some of the regions of susceptibility lay close to a network of genes that are sensitive to oxidative stress, a biochemical process that results in the dysfunction of cells.

The team expects many of the genes at genetic regions associated with migraine are interconnected and could potentially be disrupting the internal regulation of tissue and cells in the brain, resulting in some of the symptoms of migraine.

"We would not have made discoveries by studying smaller groups of individuals," says Dr Gisela Terwindt, co-author from Leiden University Medical Centre. "This large scale method of studying over 100,000 samples of healthy and affected people means we can tease out the genes that are important suspects and follow them up in the lab."

The team identified an additional 134 genetic regions that are possibly associated to migraine susceptibility with weaker statistical evidence. Whether these regions underlie migraine susceptibility or not still needs to be elucidated. Other similar studies show that these statistically weaker culprits can play an equal part in the underlying biology of a disease or disorder.

"The molecular mechanisms of migraine are poorly understood. The sequence variants uncovered through this meta-analysis could become a foothold for further studies to better understanding the pathophysiology of migraine" says Dr K?ri Stef?nsson, President of deCODE genetics.

"This approach is the most efficient way of revealing the underlying biology of these neural disorders," says Dr Mark Daly, from the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. "Effective studies that give us biological or biochemical results and insights are essential if we are to fully get to grips with this debilitating condition.

"Pursuing these studies in even larger samples and with denser maps of biological markers will increase our power to determine the roots and triggers of this disabling disorder."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/O-mykvzCfIg/130623144952.htm

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