Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/307027650?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
PFT: Bucs saw Revis injury as opportunity
Getty ImagesJets running back Mike Goodson faces gun and drug charges that could, under the weapons portion of the case, put him behind bars for a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.
For the Jets, the challenge becomes what to do with Goodson while the court process plays itself out.
On Monday, owner Woody Johnson tiptoed around the crux of the problem.? If they cut Goodson now, he walks away with a $1 million signing bonus that can?t be recovered.? They can get some of the money back, and in turn can obtain cap relief, only if they let the process play out.
The key date in the process comes on June 12, when Goodson will have a pre-trial hearing.? As pointed out by Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, that falls in the middle of the team?s mandatory minicamp.? If Goodson misses practice to attend the hearing, the Jets could penalize Goodson, at a minimum with a fine.
The problem for the Jets would be the plain language of Article 4, Section 9 of the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement.? While the revised terms expand the situations in which all or a portion of a player?s signing bonus can be recovered, the provision makes no reference to partial reimbursement arising from a missed mandatory minicamp practice.? Instead, the forfeiture process begins in training camp, and applies more forcefully in the regular season.
But the Jets can?t recover money from Goodson unless he?s still on the roster.? That?s why the Falcons never released Mike Vick after he was incarcerated for dogfighting in 2007; to recover bonus money paid to Vick (and to get the cap credit that goes along with it), the Falcons had to hold their nose and refrain from cutting Vick.
For the Jets, the far better approach to the Goodson conundrum would be to stop channeling Clark Kent and explain in blunt, candid terms that there?s only one way to make a player answer financially for off-field misconduct ? by keeping him on the roster while the legal process unfolds.
Of course, that kind of candor could open the Jets up to criticism that they?re more concerned about money than doing the right thing.? But if the plan will be to keep Goodson around in order to eventually recover money from him, why not remove the confusion regarding the reason for not cutting him loose?
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South Africa: Mandela name pulled into politics
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Nelson Mandela, old and frail, lives in seclusion in his Johannesburg home. Beyond the high walls of the house, the fighting over his image and what he stood for has already begun.
The sense of possibility that Mandela embodied is fading as a gulf between rich and poor widens. Many South Africans believe their leaders are out to help themselves and not the nation, which showed such promise when it broke the shackles of apartheid by holding the first all-race elections in 1994 and putting Mandela, who had been jailed for 27 years by the country's racist leaders, into the presidency.
In a remarkable achievement, South Africa has held peaceful elections since the end of apartheid. But it is struggling on other fronts.
Last year, corruption deprived the country of nearly 1 billion rand ($111 million) in taxpayers' money, according to a recent report. In one of the latest scandals to shake South Africans' confidence in their government, authorities let a chartered plane carrying about 200 guests from India land at a South African air force base ahead of a lavish wedding hosted by a politically connected family.
South Africans, worried about graft, high unemployment and other problems, tend to compare their current leadership with the virtually unassailable record of Mandela as a freedom fighter and South Africa's first black president. No small wonder, then, that politicians and even family members are moving to use that image for their own benefit.
Mandela no longer speaks publicly. He retired after a single term as president that ended in 1999 then worked for some years as an advocate for peace, awareness for HIV/AIDS and other causes. His last public appearance on a major stage was in 2010, when South Africa hosted the soccer World Cup.
Last month, President Jacob Zuma and other leaders of the ruling African National Congress party visited Mandela. After the encounter at Mandela's home, Zuma cheerily said the 94-year-old was up and about, in good spirits and doing well. But the images carried by state TV showed Mandela sitting with a blanket covering his legs, silent and unmoving with his cheeks showing what appear to be marks from a recently removed oxygen mask. Mandela did not acknowledge Zuma, who sat right next to Mandela.
The footage unsettled some viewers who considered the visit to be a stunt to make Zuma look good. A cartoon in The Star newspaper depicted a leering Zuma holding a clothes hanger from which the once robust Mandela dangled limply, eyelids sagging. The ANC insisted it had no ulterior motive ahead of elections next year, and that it was only showing respect for a living national treasure.
For their part, ANC supporters said the opposition was crassly capitalizing on the Mandela name to get support when the Democratic Alliance party published a pamphlet showing an old photograph of Mandela embracing Helen Suzman, an anti-apartheid activist whose party was a forerunner of the DA.
Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who like Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize for being a leader in the struggle against apartheid, later clashed swords with the ANC when he spoke about Mandela's eventual passing.
"The best memorial to Nelson Mandela would be a democracy that was really up and running; a democracy in which every single person in South Africa knew that they mattered, and where other people knew that each person mattered," The Mail & Guardian, a South African newspaper, quoted Tutu as saying in a May 10 article.
Tutu said South Africa needs political change and that criticism of the ANC has so far been muted because South Africans felt it would be a "slap in the face to Mandela" who once headed the liberation movement-turned political party.
The ANC's youth league disputed Tutu's assertion that the ruling party had failed to deliver.
"Young people, who constitute a large voting bloc in the country, expect the Archbishop and other leaders to speak truth anchored by reality and facts and not anecdotal information based on creativity and imagination," the league said in a statement.
The government, however, has said unemployment in the first quarter of this year was just over 25 percent, a figure that analysts say has been caused by weak economic growth and layoffs in the troubled mining sector and other industries. Also, protests against poor delivery of water, electricity and other government services periodically erupt in some South African communities.
Across South Africa, Mandela's face is a familiar sight, beaming from T-shirts, drink coasters and new banknotes. South African bridges, hospitals and schools carry Mandela's name. Statues of him abound, including a towering bronze one in Nelson Mandela Square in a posh shopping complex in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Sandton.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Mandela name is also being used commercially by members of his family. There is a "House of Mandela" wine label and two granddaughters are starring in a U.S. television reality show titled "Being Mandela."
Some family members are trying to oust several old allies of the former president from control of two companies. That dispute is headed for the courts, though the old Mandela associates, including human rights lawyer George Bizos, want the case to be dismissed.
Mandela's stellar record can be easily mined in commercial branding, which is based on a "notion of perfection around a set of ideas," said Michael J. Casey, author of "Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image."
The book tells how the famous photograph of the bearded, Argentine-born revolutionary in a beret evolved into a global symbol and brand, seized upon by political activists, sales executives and all manner of other people for whom it resonated, or who wanted to make money from it.
"The narrative around Mandela is a man who stuck to his guns in terms of the struggle," said Casey, who noted that some people bestow a "level of deity" on such transcendent figures.
"You want him to live for the man that he was," Casey said. "It's not to say that he's not a great man, but nobody's perfect."
Already, that sort of personification by artists is turning, well, cartoonish.
For a music video, South African dance DJ Euphonik matched a beat with part of the recording of Mandela's 1964 speech in the sabotage trial at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
"I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination," a cartoon Mandela intones in the music video. Limber and white-haired, he busts a few moves on the dance floor.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-africa-mandela-name-pulled-politics-160416511.html
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Arias attorneys will put one witness on: Arias
PHOENIX (AP) ? Complaining that Jodi Arias' sensational murder case has become a modern-day "witch trial," her lawyers tried to quit in the middle of the death-penalty phase Monday, then said they will call only one witness: Arias.
When Arias addresses the jury on Tuesday, the big question will be whether she pleads for mercy or repeats what she told a TV reporter minutes after she was convicted: that she would rather be executed than spend the rest of her life in prison.
The courtroom fireworks came as the jury that found Arias guilty of murder in the 2008 shooting and stabbing death of boyfriend Travis Alexander was hearing evidence on whether the former waitress should get the death penalty or a life sentence.
Last week, Alexander's brother and sister tearfully described for the jury how his killing had torn their lives apart. This week, the defense planned to call its own witnesses, including a female friend and an ex-boyfriend of Arias, in hopes of convincing the jury her life is worth saving.
But defense attorney Kirk Nurmi told the court Monday morning that the female witness refused to testify after receiving threats, and he asked the judge to declare a mistrial in the penalty phase. He argued that he could no longer effectively defend Arias without all of the intended witnesses, and that "a partial picture is not good enough for this jury."
Nurmi also renewed arguments that the judge should have sequestered the jury during the nearly five-month trial and that it should never have been broadcast live. The case became a tabloid and cable sensation, with its tales of sex, lies and death.
"The court had a duty to protect Ms. Arias' right to a fair trial and failed to do so time and time again," Nurmi told the judge. "This cannot be a modern-day version of ... a witch trial."
Judge Sherry Stephens denied the mistrial request. Nurmi then asked that he and co-counsel Jennifer Willmott be allowed to withdraw from the case, saying they could not effectively represent Arias.
The judge turned down that request too, to which Nurmi quickly replied, "We will not be calling witnesses in the defense case."
Arias' attorneys also tried without success to quit after she gave the interview in which she said she would prefer death over life in prison.
Arias, 32, initially claimed she knew nothing about the slaying, then blamed masked intruders, then claimed self-defense. Prosecutors argued she killed Alexander in a jealous rage because he wanted to end their relationship and go to Mexico with another woman.
Experts say the sheer brutality of the killing has probably already sealed Arias' fate, so any witnesses presented during the penalty phase would have been pointless.
The victim suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, his throat was slit from ear to ear, and he was shot in the forehead. Arias then dragged him into his shower, where his decomposed body was found days later.
"I think they could put Mother Teresa on there and it's not going to spare her life," said Phoenix defense attorney Mel McDonald, a former judge and federal prosecutor.
San Francisco-area criminal defense lawyer Michael Cardoza said the request to quit the case and the defense decision not to call any witnesses on Arias' behalf could very well be a strategic move ? but one that could backfire.
"She could argue ineffective counsel on appeal, but the fact is, it's anything but ineffective because what they're doing is handing her an appeal," Cardoza said. "So it's actually very effective counsel."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arias-attorneys-put-one-witness-arias-214024843.html
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World Premiere of The River at Handel Performing Arts Center - WCCT
 The Farmington River (Promotional Photo / May 20, 2013) |
10:10 a.m. EDT, May 20, 2013
Local composer-director Kathryn Swanson, with support from composer Lief Ellis, presents a multimedia music-dance-film project called The River (as in the Farmington River, pictured, and its Windsor expanse in particular). The work features music played by Uncanny Valley cellist Katie Kennedy, percussionist Bill Solomon and guitarist Christopher Ladd and the Full Force Dance Theatre, choreographed by Katie Stevinson-Nollet.
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World Premiere of The River
May 25, 7:30 p.m., $20, Handel Performing Arts Center, 35 Westbourne Parkway, Hartford, (860) 688-2528, windsorartcenter.org
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Source: http://www.ct.com/entertainment/stage/nm-ht21-stageblrb-0523-20130523,0,2111963.story
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House Republicans Say They Can Legislate and Investigate at the Same Time
House Republicans are pushing back against a prominent conservative group?s suggestion that congressional leaders should avoid scheduling potentially divisive votes which could shift the media spotlight away from the White House?s recent woes.
Heritage Action, an influential group that works closely with the Republican Study Committee and its conservative members, wrote a letter Thursday to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., urging them not to bring two bills to the floor.
Both pieces of legislation?the Marketplace Fairness Act and the farm bill?are opposed by the group. In the letter, Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham warns Boehner and Cantor that voting on these bills ?would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another ?circular firing squad? article.?
But the notion that House Republicans should steer clear of any potentially discordant votes did not sit well with some lawmakers.
?This is the House of Representatives,? said Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona, a conservative RSC member who said he normally supports Heritage Action?s efforts. ?We need to step up and do our work.?
At the opposite end of the GOP?s ideological spectrum, Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., a moderate who sometimes refers to himself as an independent, scoffed at the suggestion. Coffman said there?s no reason the House, which is playing a part in the investigations of the IRS and Justice Department, can?t simultaneously tend to its legislative duties.
?We?ve got two things occurring at the same time: committees doing oversight work, and committees doing legislative work,? he said. ?I don?t see the legislative agenda being changed at all?and that?s how it should be.?
According to a senior House leadership aide, Heritage Action isn?t concerned with the harmony of the House Republican Conference. Rather, the group wrote to leadership with the sole purpose of preventing legislation they?ve fought against from coming to the floor. ?Are they opposed to the farm bill because of timing, or are they just opposed to the farm bill?? the aide said. ?It?s not a serious argument.?
House Republicans realize the damage being done to the Obama administration and aren?t eager to distract the media with another internecine battle on the House floor. Still, members say, they have a job to do.
?Speaker Boehner is well-known for saying, ?When your opponent is committing suicide, don?t shoot him,? ? said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn. ?The White House is dealing with these scandals, but our job includes more than just watching to see whether this provides a political edge. Our job is to take part in governance, and enact policies that are good for the country.?
The leadership aide was quick to point out that neither of the bills mentioned in the Heritage Action letter is scheduled to come up next week. The Marketplace Fairness Act, which is being considered in the Ways and Means Committee, is not scheduled for a vote in the near future. And the farm bill, which just cleared the Agriculture Committee, isn?t likely to reach the House floor until June, after members return from Memorial Day recess.
Even if both bills were to come to the House floor next week, it?s not clear that House conservatives share Heritage Action?s concerns. Consideration of these bills may not splinter the conference at all. Either way, as Schweikert pointed out, this past week showed that House conservatives have no intention of easing up on the Obama administration anytime soon.
?They don?t have to worry,? Schweikert said of Heritage Action, smiling. ?My brothers and sisters here are focusing plenty on the IRS and the Department of Justice.?
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/house-republicans-legislate-investigate-same-time-073930038.html
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Monday, May 20, 2013
Jennifer Lawrence, more stars shine at Cannes
Celebs 
18 hours ago
The stars continued to sparkle despite the rain falling on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.
Actress Jennifer Lawrence was among the big names to step out on Saturday for the premiere of the film "Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian)" at the 66th annual festival.
AFP - Getty Images
Actress Jennifer Lawrence on May 18 in Cannes, France.
AP
Actress Eva Longoria.
AP
Singer Cheryl Cole.
EPA
Actress Jane Fonda.
AP
Actress Paz Vega.
Getty Images
Actor Liam Hemsworth.
AFP - Getty Images
Model Doutzen Kroes.
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/jennifer-lawrence-eva-longoria-more-stars-shine-cannes-1C9984451
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Obama to discuss al Qaeda, drones, Guantanamo Bay in Thursday speech
By Steve Holland
ATLANTA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, under fire for security lapses at a U.S. mission in Libya, will in a speech on Thursday lay out his wide-ranging counter-terrorism policy, from the controversial use of drones to efforts to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Obama's use of military drone aircraft to attack extremists has drawn fire and increased tensions in countries like Pakistan and been criticized by human rights activists in the United States.
His inability to follow through on a 2008 campaign pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison has been dramatized by a hunger strike among many of the terrorism suspects being held there.
And the resurgence in recent weeks of questions surrounding the deaths of U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, last year has put Obama on the defensive.
In his State of the Union speech early this year Obama pledged to work with Congress to make certain that the U.S. targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorism suspects was consistent with U.S. law.
A White House official said Obama would address these issues in a speech on Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington. He will say that al Qaeda has been significantly degraded but remains a threat, along with its affiliates, the official said on condition of anonymity.
"He will review the state of the threats we face, particularly as al Qaeda's core has weakened but new dangers have emerged," said the official.
Obama also will discuss the policy and legal framework under which the United States acts against terrorism threats, including the use of drones.
"He will review our detention policy and efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and he will frame the future of our efforts against al Qaeda, its affiliates and adherents," the official said.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Paul Simao)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-discuss-al-qaeda-drones-guantanamo-bay-thursday-025333790.html
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Sunday, May 19, 2013
Hope rises: Woman found alive 17 days after deadly Bangladesh factory collapse
The death toll from the collapse reached 1,036 today, but the recovery of 'Reshma' is giving rescuers hope that more people may still be found alive.
Rescuers carry a survivor pulled out from the rubble of a building that collapsed in Saver, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday. When the woman, whom soldiers identified as Reshma, was freed within an hour of her discovery in the flooded basement of the building, the crowd erupted in both cheers and tears.
AP
EnlargeSeventeen days after the building collapsed killing more than 1,000 workers in Bangladesh, armed forces and firefighters have rescued one woman alive from the basement of the eight-story building at?4:28 p.m.?local time, raising cautious hope that more people could still be found alive.
Skip to next paragraph Saad HammadiBangladesh Correspondent
Saad Hammadi is an investigative journalist based in Dhaka, covering Bangladesh for The Christian Science Monitor and The Guardian.?He is also the assistant editor of Xtra, the weekend magazine of New Age, one of the leading English dailies in Bangladesh.?Saad graduated from the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh with a BSS in media studies and journalism and a minor in English.
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When the woman, whom soldiers identified as Reshma, was freed within an hour of her discovery in the flooded basement of the building, the crowd erupted in both cheers and tears. Despite her ordeal, she appeared to be in good shape and was rushed to a military hospital on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital.
Reshma?s rescue comes 12 days after Bangladesh mourned a failed attempt to rescue another woman, Shahina Akhter. After the death of Ms. Akhter, rescuers lost hope of finding anyone alive in the rubble and rolled out heavier equipment to clear the rubble and recover dead bodies. But with Reshma's rescue, the mood at the scene has been uplifted.?
The death toll from the collapse of a building, which housed five factories, reached 1,036 today, and that number is expected to rise as more bodies are being found. The incident is being described as the world's deadliest garment industry disaster and one of the worst industrial accidents. As many as 6,000 people may have worked in the building, according to some estimates. The collapse puts a spotlight on the often extremely poor labor conditions of the country?s $20 billion garment industry, which provides cheap clothing for major retailers around the world.
As some bulldozers were crushing building beams to clear the way to look for bodies today they reached the basement, and noticed something.
?We were removing slabs. Between 2:45 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. we learned of the trace of a person,? says Lt. Col. SM Imran-Uz-Zaman, an Army spokesman at the site. ?We immediately halted work in all other areas and [focused] people on rescuing Reshma.?
Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Sarwardy, coordinator of the search and rescue operations at the disaster site, told The Christian Science Monitor how she was discovered: ?She shouted when we were going inside. We saw her. I talked to her,? he says.
?We have halted use of all heavy equipment such as hydraulic drilling. Our rescuers are working with information we are getting from her,? said Sarwardy ? just before she was rescued.?
Rescuers at the site said Reshma was confined between two beams and they had to be extremely cautious in order to rescue her alive.?
After a fire broke out just before the rescue of Shahina, Imran said the rescuers put water around the perimeter of their rescue operation to ensure that wouldn?t happen again.?
Once the woman was pulled out alive, says Sawardy, ?we provided her with oxygen and saline.? Reshma was rescued unhurt but with complications after 17 days without food and trauma.
Though Reshma told rescuers there were no more survivors in her area, workers began to sift through nearby rubble for more survivors.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina congratulated the rescuers for saving Reshma.?"This is an unbelievable feat," she was quoted as saying by her assistant, Mahbubul Haque Shakil.
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Something Wicked Lingerie: Incredible designs by Leanne Brook
It?s no secret that I?m a huge fan of exquisite lingerie. It?s also no secret that unfortunately for me, it?s not always easy to find the most beautiful pieces in my size.
Today, a little piece of my heart chipped off and drifted away as I realised that neither I, or my poor deprived boyfriend would ever get to see me in the incredible creations I?ve just discovered at Something Wicked?Lingerie. This pleasure emporium stocks only the most sensational underwear, designed by the highly acclaimed, award winning British designer Leanne Brook ? alongside a few additional treats and toys to keep you entertained.
Leanne?s designs are breathtaking. Each piece is visually stunning; jaw-dropping lay sexy without being slutty, outrageous or too obvious. The beauty of this collection is in the suggestion of seduction, rather than in your face SEX. Yes, there are cut away panels, zips leading off secure our most secret places and bold design features that leave little to the imagination but ? there?s the key. They do leave something to your imagination. The collection just encourages you to imagine certain things?
This is the kind of underwear that women would love to see gift-wrapped on Valentines Day, and I can?t imagine many complaints from the boys either. However, while its lovely that the men may reap the benefits, Leanne has designed this collection for women ? to encourage us to explore our sensuality, exude confidence and look screaming hot while we do it.
As you can probably tell, I?ve fallen in love with Leanne Brook?s designs and would quite happily snap up the lot IF ONLY THEY DID IT IN MY SIZE!
Perhaps I?ll just have to treat myself to something else a little bit saucy and leave the sexy bras to you lucky lot.
(Follow Something Wicked on Twitter)
The header image features Something Wicked?s Annabel Collection, while the lower image features the Savina Bodysuit, 1/2? cuffs and Carina Bodysuit. Severe lingerie lust happening here.
- Would you wear this kind of lingerie?
- Do you already have some in your knicker drawer?
- Or is it a bit too saucy for you?
Let me know what you think of Something Wicked on?twitter,?Facebook?or in the comment box below.
If you enjoyed this post, why not A perfectly packaged daily round up of reviews, events, contests & style news. You can also add us to your RSS feed or chat to us on Facebook or Twitter. We love to hear from you!
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Source: http://thislittlelady.co.uk/2013/05/something-wicked-incredible-lingerie-by-louise-brook/
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Venezuela's military enters high-crime slums
In this May 14, 2013 photo, a National Guard soldier frisks a man outside his car at a checkpoint that is part of the "Secure Homeland" initiative in Petare, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Caracas, Venezuela. Since Monday, this scene is playing out day and night at dozens of military checkpoints set up here in the socialist government's latest attempt to control the oil-rich country?s pandemic of violence. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
In this May 14, 2013 photo, a National Guard soldier frisks a man outside his car at a checkpoint that is part of the "Secure Homeland" initiative in Petare, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Caracas, Venezuela. Since Monday, this scene is playing out day and night at dozens of military checkpoints set up here in the socialist government's latest attempt to control the oil-rich country?s pandemic of violence. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
In this May 14, 2013 photo, a National Guard soldier checks a driver's vehicle documents at a checkpoint that is part of the "Secure Homeland" initiative in Petare, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Caracas, Venezuela. Critics dismiss the "Secure Homeland" initiative as a political charade that risks degenerating into human rights abuses while having no lasting impact on crime. But to many residents, weary of being terrorized by armed gangs, seeing troops on the streets is a welcome projection of government power. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
In this May 14, 2013 photo, National Guard soldiers patrol on motorcycles as part of the "Secure Homeland" initiative in Petare, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Caracas, Venezuela. With some 15,000 killings a year, Venezuela?s homicide rate is the fifth highest in the world, according to U.N. statistics. Critics dismiss the "Secure Homeland" initiative as a political charade that risks degenerating into human rights abuses while having no lasting impact on crime. But to many residents, weary of being terrorized by armed gangs, seeing troops on the streets is a welcome projection of government power. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
In this May 14, 2013 photo, Gen. Antonio Benavides, left, gives instructions to a soldiers during a security operation that is part of the "Secure Homeland" initiative in Petare, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Caracas, Venezuela. The murder rate doubled during the 14-year-rule of the late President Hugo Chavez as cheap access to guns and an ineffective justice system fed a culture of violence in slums like Petare, parts of which have become no-go zones for outsiders, including police. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
In this May 14, 2013 photo, National Guard soldiers patrol as part of the "Secure Homeland" initiative in Petare, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Caracas, Venezuela. The initiative started in the Caracas area on Monday and will be expanded to the states of Zulia, Lara and Carabobo next week. Human rights activists worry that sending soldiers trained for warfare on policing missions will only make things worse for the residents they are meant to protect. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
PETARE, Venezuela (AP) ? Stern-looking soldiers clutching assault rifles wave down the beat-up Chevy Caprice entering this sprawling slum on the outskirts of Caracas.
Flashlights in his face, the driver steps out and places his hands on the roof while the soldiers frisk him for drugs and weapons.
He's clean, and a hand gesture from the commanding officer sends him off into the maze of ramshackle homes that is Petare, one of the most dangerous parts of Venezuela's notoriously crime-infested capital.
Since Monday, this scene is playing out day and night at dozens of military checkpoints set up here in the socialist government's latest attempt to control the oil-rich country's pandemic of violence.
Critics dismiss the "Secure Homeland" initiative as a political charade that risks degenerating into human rights abuses while having no lasting impact on crime. But to many residents, weary of being terrorized by armed gangs, seeing troops on the streets is a welcome projection of government power.
"You have to act forcefully so that people feel the force of the state," said 47-year-old Irving Garcia, an unemployed former Army reservist, who like many Caracas residents has firsthand experience of violent crime. Garcia said he was shot in the chest when he unknowingly walked into a restaurant robbery. The bullet shattered his sternum, he said, inviting a reporter to feel a piece of protruding bone through his shirt.
With some 15,000 killings a year, Venezuela's homicide rate is the fifth highest in the world, according to U.N. statistics. The murder rate doubled during the 14-year-rule of the late President Hugo Chavez as cheap access to guns and an ineffective justice system fed a culture of violence in slums like Petare, parts of which have become no-go zones for outsiders, including police.
Chavez banned gun sales, expanded a new national police force and stepped up policing and other programs in high-crime areas. Now, his hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, is adding military muscle by deploying 3,000 troops on the streets. The initiative started in the Caracas area on Monday and will be expanded to the states of Zulia, Lara and Carabobo next week.
Human rights activists worry that sending soldiers trained for warfare on policing missions will only make things worse for the residents they are meant to protect.
"It's going to aggravate the situation, unfortunately, because the army isn't prepared to deal with issues of public safety," said Liliana Ortega, director of the COFAVIC human rights group. "We have various emblematic cases in which the use of the armed forces resulted in disproportional force."
She said they include the 1989 street riots known as the "Caracazo," when 300 people were killed, and a 1992 prison riot in Caracas in which 63 prisoners died.
The soldiers, who work together with the National Guard and national police force, have the power to make arrests but are supposed to hand over the detainees to civilian authorities. Any human rights abuses would be tried by civilian courts, according to the constitution.
In deeply divided Venezuela, there are also concerns over the initiative's political undertones. Maduro narrowly won an April 14 presidential election that the opposition claims he stole through fraud, voter intimidation and abuse of government powers. Some of the first military units were deployed in areas under the political control of the opposition.
Petare, for example, lies in Miranda state, which is governed by Henrique Capriles, Maduro's challenger in the presidential election. The mayor overseeing Petare also is from the opposition.
On Tuesday night, the military commander in charge of the troops in Petare, Gen. Antonio Benavides, led a motorcycle-borne unit roaring up deserted, winding streets, with a gaggle of journalists in tow. They stopped for a meeting with grass-roots Chavistas in the hilltop Bombilla neighborhood.
"How often does the mayor come here? How often does the governor come here?" Benavides asked the crowd of about 40 people. "Never," they replied, unanimously.
A Capriles poster on a staircase above the outdoor gathering indicated not everyone here supports the government.
David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at the University of Georgia, said that for Maduro, the security initiative was both "an effort to fight crime and an effort to maintain or recover support in places where it has been declining because of crime and violence, among other issues."
Though the idea of using military force against criminals resonates among Venezuelans, Smilde said, it would probably amount to little more than setting up road blocks and trying to project a presence on street corners. "But of course that just means that crime takes place a block away," he said.
Some in Petare said the success of the initiative would depend not only on the soldiers' ability to hunt down criminals and delinquents, but to win the trust of its law-abiding residents.
"What matters is how they are integrating with society, what they teach our young," said Carmen Aponte, 47.
At one checkpoint, on a potholed street where stray dogs rummaged through foul-smelling litter from a daytime food market, irritated taxi drivers complained that the stop-and-search was bad for business.
"They make it hard for us," said Jorge Torres, 50. "We can't stop anywhere we want to and people don't know where we can pick them up."
He conceded the area was safer, for now, but predicted the military presence would be short lived. The government has said the soldiers will stay in the streets for a few months until regular law enforcement units can be boosted by new recruits.
"Once they leave, everything changes," Torres said.
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Associated Press video: https://vimeo.com/66289079
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AP writer Jorge Rueda in Caracas contributed to this report.
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Saturday, May 18, 2013
Watch the First Campaign Ad to Invoke the Newtown Shootings
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In the first campaign ad?to?explicitly?mention the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Ed Markey on Thursday accused Republican opponent Gabriel Gomez of opposing the kind of gun-control measures that could have prevented the mass shootings that killed 26 people in Connecticut earlier this year.
"Gomez is against banning high-capacity magazines, like the one used in the Newtown school shooting," says the ad, which also mentions his opposition to an assault-weapons ban. It includes footage of Gomez explaining his opposition to both.?
The 30-second spot is an early significant test of the potency of gun-control politics. Markey is locked in a tougher-than-expected contest against the relatively unknown Gomez, a former Navy SEAL, in one of the most solidly Democratic states in the country. His decision to go negative early suggests the campaign believes the race is competitive. The June 25 election will determine the successor to former Sen. John Kerry, who was appointed as President Obama's secretary of State.?
Although a measure to expand gun-sale background checks failed to gain a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate last month, gun violence remains a potentially potent issue in Massachusetts. Like former Republican Sen. Scott Brown before him,?Gomez's success depends on his ability to define his independence from the national GOP--a strategy threatened by tying him to the GOP's opposition to gun-control measures.?
Gomez and national Republicans said they were outraged by the implication that Gomez was to blame for the Newtown murders.
?Ed Markey first compared Gabriel Gomez, former Navy SEAL and father of four children, to Osama bin Laden, and now Markey is blaming him for horrific murders in Newtown," said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "It?s disgusting, deplorable, and desperate, but that?s par for the course for Ed Markey, who will do just about anything to avoid talking about the issues that voters care about."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/watch-first-campaign-ad-invoke-newtown-shootings-120650711.html
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Nine-year-old Mars rover passes 40-year-old record
May 17, 2013 ? While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles or 35.744 kilometers). That was the farthest total distance for any NASA vehicle driving on a world other than Earth until yesterday.
The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation in a transmission from Mars today that the rover drove 263 feet (80 meters) on Thursday, bringing Opportunity's total odometry since landing on Mars in January 2004 to 22.220 statute miles (35.760 kilometers).
Cernan discussed this prospect a few days ago with Opportunity team member Jim Rice of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Apollo 17 astronaut said, "The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I'm excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity."
The international record for driving distance on another world is still held by the Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the surface of Earth's moon in 1973.
Opportunity began a multi-week trek this week from an area where it has been working since mid-2011, the "Cape York" segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater, to an area about 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) away, "Solander Point."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL also manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and its rover, Curiosity, which landed on Mars in August 2012.
For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130517120939.htm
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Thursday, May 16, 2013
The BUM Seat: Style, Portability, and Charity for Your Butt
It's almost camping season. Is your tukus prepared? If not, here's the BUM stool, a stylish chair created by BAGGU and UM Project especially for Reclaim x2, a Hurricane Sandy relief fund created by local designers.
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Google boosts photo offerings to rival Facebook
Vic Gundotra, senior vice president, engineering for Google, speaks at Google I/O 2013 in San Francisco, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Vic Gundotra, senior vice president, engineering for Google, speaks at Google I/O 2013 in San Francisco, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
FILE - This June 27, 2012 file photo shows an Android display at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Google is expected to use its annual software developers? conference to showcase the latest mobile devices running on its Android software, while also unveiling other features in its evolving product line-up. The gathering is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, May 15, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Google is digging deeper into its technology toolkit to turn its social networking service into a more formidable threat to Facebook, sprucing up its photo features at a time when sharing snapshots online and on mobile gadgets is growing more popular.
Many of the 41 new features being added to Google Plus beginning Wednesday will draw upon the computing power, machine learning, algorithms, semantics analysis and other innovations that established Google's search engine as the most influential force on the Internet.
"All of these features collectively put more of 'the Google' into Google Plus," said Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of engineering, in an interview. "This will give people a powerful reason to come to Google Plus."
But the most compelling new attraction may be a new photo-management tool that promises to test how much control people want to cede to computers. It will also further blur the lines between a real moment in time and augmented reality.
Google promises the feature will pick out the best shots from a wide assortment of photos. The automatic photo selection is done by calling upon Google's knowledge of the elements that make up a visually pleasing picture, coupled with facial recognition technology and a vast database that helps tie together the relationships of people appearing in a photo. Google says its computers will recognize the best photos featuring family members or close friends of a person who uploads a bunch of pictures to Plus.
"You have amazing images of the most precious image of your life," Gundotra told a software developers conference Wednesday as he discussed the additions to Google Plus. "But if we are honest with each other photos are very labor intensive."
If the photos don't look quite right, Google is promising to enhance them, taking over a job that typically requires people to buy and master special photo editing software such as Adobe System Inc.'s Photoshop, Apple's iPhoto or Google's Picasa. Computer-controlled editing tools will automatically remove red eyes, soften skin tones, sharpen colors and adjust contrast.
In an effort to get more photos onto the Plus network, Google is offering to back up all pictures taken on a mobile device, as soon as they're snapped. To accommodate the increased volume, Google Plus will now provide each accountholder with up to 15 gigabytes of storage for full-resolution photos.
Gundotra believes Plus' management tools will be compelling because they are designed to save people the time and trouble of choosing and editing photos. Google Plus users will be able to compare all original photos with the versions altered by computers. The auto-enhancement tool can also be turned off.
Another new photo feature promises to stitch together a sequence of photos taken of the same group of people or a panoramic scene. This stitching system can be used to create a single photo that pulls the best shots of everyone featured in a series of pictures. It will also produce an animated short film featuring the motions of people captured in a succession of photos taken against the same background.
By appealing to people's photo fondness, Google is hoping to make Plus a more useful and fun place to hang out than Facebook. But Google Plus still hasn't proven it can become as much of a magnet as Facebook, largely because people had already established their online social circles at Facebook.
Google Plus has built up a broad swath of accountholders since its introduction nearly two years ago, mainly because so many people already had set up Google logins while using the company's Gmail or other services. Gundotra announced Wednesday that Google Plus now has 190 million users who interact on the service each month, up from 135 million in late December. About 390 million people log in to Google Plus each month, but that includes a large number who have tied their Gmail accounts to the social networking service. Facebook says it has about 1.1 billion active users.
As such, Google has a long way to go. Facebook has claimed the title of being the world's largest photo-sharing site for years, and with last year's purchase of Instagram only propelled it further ahead. Instagram has 100 million monthly active users, up from 22 million when Facebook agreed to buy it last spring.
Rather than offer powerful editing tools or high-quality pictures, Facebook became the most popular way to share the photos online simply because it is the most popular place to hang out online. Today, users upload more than 350 million photos to Facebook each day.
Over the years, it enhanced the quality of the photos displayed, too, and has recently redesigned its site to make photos more pronounced. Instagram, meanwhile, offers an easy-to-use mobile app and playful filters users can apply to snapshots of friends, quirky buildings or plates of food.
Google Plus is getting a new look just two months after Facebook spruced up its news feed ? the centerpiece of its service ? to feature photos more prominently and generally make posts look more like articles in a magazine or newspaper. Unlike Facebook, Google says there are no current plans to show ads on the revamped Plus.
In another change aimed at attracting more traffic, Google Plus will start to display automatic hash tags to identify the main topic being discussed in a post or featured in a photo. Google is using its understanding of semantics and photo-scanning technology to figure out what is going on. Individuals will still have an option of editing or forbidding a hash tag from appearing if they don't agree with Google's automatic selection. Clicking on the hashtag will take Google Plus users to other posts and pictures bearing the same marker. Similar content being shared by family and friend is supposed to show up first, thanks to the same ranking system that Google's search engine uses to pick out the most relevant results.
Facebook doesn't currently use hash tags, though there have been reports that it is working on incorporating them to its site, just as Twitter and Instagram already do.
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AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report from New York.
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Get Push Notifications on the latest iMore, CrackBerry, and Windows Phone Central Forums apps for iOS!
We've brought Push Notification support to our iMore Forums app for iOS, and the CrackBerry and Windows Phone Central Forums apps for iOS (hey, we're one big Mobile Nations family!)
They're all powered by Tapatalk, of course, so get the same experience you know, but in handy, dedicated, free form! Get them all now!
- iMore Forums - Free - Download now
- CrackBerry.com Forums - Free - Download now
- Windows Phone Central Forums - Free - Download now
- webOS Nation Forums - Free - Download now
Since the App Store doesn't seem to support Android-focused apps at this time, if you want to access Android Central on the go, you'll need the full, generic Tapatalk app.
- Tapatalk - $2.99 - Download now
And yes, we're working on Push support for the iMore news app as well, stay tuned! In the meantime, grab it here:
- iMore app - Free - Download now
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/-i7XDxwJFhY/story01.htm
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New drug enhances radiation treatment for brain cancer in ...
A novel drug may help increase the effectiveness of radiation therapy for the most deadly form of brain cancer, report scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center. In mouse models of human glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the new drug helped significantly extend survival when used in combination with radiation therapy.
Recently published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, the study provides the first preclinical evidence demonstrating that an ATM kinase inhibitor radiosensitizes gliomas. Gliomas are brain tumors that originate from glial cells, which provide support for nerve cells and help regulate the internal environment of the brain. ATM, or ataxia telangiectasia mutated, is an enzyme that helps repair DNA damage. The scientists used an experimental drug, KU-60019, to block the activation of ATM, which led to the enhanced destruction of the gliomas due to their reduced ability to repair the DNA damage caused by the radiation treatment. The new approach was particularly effective against gliomas that have a mutation in the p53 tumor suppressor gene, which accounts for approximately 30 percent of all glioma cases.
"Sadly, the average life expectancy of patients diagnosed with glioblastoma is just 12 to 15 months," says the study's lead researcher Kristoffer Valerie, Ph.D., co-leader of the Radiation Biology and Oncology research program and a professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at VCU Massey Cancer Center. "By limiting the tumor's ability to combat DNA damage caused by treatments such as radiation, we are hopeful that we can enhance our ability to specifically target the glioma, prolong survival and reduce damage to surrounding brain tissue."
Currently, GBM is treated with surgery, followed by chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Potentially, ATM kinase inhibitors like the one used in this study could enhance the effectiveness of some other cancer treatments that kill tumor cells by damaging DNA. The scientists chose radiation therapy in this study since it is already standard care and can be delivered to brain tumors with extreme accuracy, minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue.
This image shows Kristoffer Valerie, Ph.D.,Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center.
(Photo Credit: Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center)
"If these findings hold up in early phase clinical trials, we expect patients with p53 mutant gliomas to respond well to this treatment while showing few side effects. Also, we anticipate that this same treatment strategy could be effective for other cancers that are treated with DNA-damaging chemotherapies," says Valerie. "We are encouraged by these early findings and will continue to move forward with our research. However, more studies are needed before we can proceed with testing this new therapy in humans."
This first, 'proof-of-principle' study is an important follow-up of a study published several years ago on KU-60019 by Valerie and his research team that demonstrated KU-60019's superior efficacy, specificity and potency on glioma cells as compared to a predecessor ATM inhibitor.
Valerie and his team are conducting additional studies examining the effects of KU-60019 and other ATM kinase inhibitors on gliomas, including studies that combine ATM kinase inhibitors with a type of drug known as a PARP inhibitor to increase the effectiveness of the treatment. PARP inhibitors block the action of poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP), an enzyme that also aids in the repair of DNA damage. The researchers believe that combining an ATM kinase inhibitor with a PARP inhibitor may cause a condition referred to as "synthetic lethality," which arises when the functions of at least two interacting genes are simultaneously inhibited, which, in turn, leads to tumor cell death.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Deal of the Day: 52% off the BodyGuardz UltraTough Clear Full Body for iPhone 5
Today Only: Purchase the BodyGuardz UltraTough Clear Full Body for iPhone 5 and save $12.95!
These durable protectors are made from the same material used to shield the front of vehicles from rock chips and provides your iPhone 5 with unmatched scratch protection from outside elements. After simple installation, Clear Skins not only offer the best coverage for the screen and body of your iPhone 5, but are also optically clear to preserve its beauty and design.
List Price: $24.95???? Today Only: $12.00
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Q417WemU7XA/story01.htm
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