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Monday 28 November 2011
Sunday 27 November 2011
Report: Widow dies after thugs take spouse's ashes
A 79-year-old widow has died after a scuffle with thugs who stole her purse and her most cherished possession ? her husband?s ashes, which she carried with her for 17 years.
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Nellie Geraghty of Greater Manchester died in Royal Oldham Hospital about midnight Friday, Sky News reported.
She had suffered fatal head injuries during a fight with a pair of robbers on Thursday, police told Sky News.
Geraghty was discovered in an alleyway near her home in Shaw. She had been carrying her purse and inside was about $300 and a blue velvet bag she had made to hold ashes of her husband, Frank. He died died 17 years ago.
The woman's purse was missing, but the black strap was still in her hand, Sky News reported.
"There has been a level of violence used. Clearly Nellie has ended up on the floor and as a result of those injuries she's now sadly passed away," Catherine Hankinson, superintendent from Greater Manchester Police, told Sky News. "Nellie's sister and children are absolutely devastated by what's happened, and the fact that their dad's ashes were also in that bag are now missing just makes this even more difficult to cope with."
Police arrested two teens, aged 14 and 17, on suspicion of robbery, police said.
? 2011 msnbc.com Reprints
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45447314/ns/world_news-europe/
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Saturday 26 November 2011
Indians bring back OF Grady Sizemore
FILE - In this July 9, 2011, photo, Cleveland Indians' Grady Sizemore rounds the bases after hitting a home run during a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays in Cleveland. The Indians are working on a deal to bring back Sizemore after declining to pick up a $9 million team option after the 2011 season. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)
FILE - In this July 9, 2011, photo, Cleveland Indians' Grady Sizemore rounds the bases after hitting a home run during a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays in Cleveland. The Indians are working on a deal to bring back Sizemore after declining to pick up a $9 million team option after the 2011 season. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)
CLEVELAND (AP) ? Grady Sizemore's trip into free agency didn't take him far.
The Cleveland Indians have agreed to terms with the former All-Star outfielder on a one-year, incentive-based contract. It's a deal that could work for both sides if he can stay healthy and on the field.
The Indians declined a $9 million option for 2012 last month on Sizemore, who has undergone five surgeries the past two years and has only played in 210 games the last three seasons because of injuries. Sizemore reportedly drew interest as a free agent from several other teams, but decided to come back to Cleveland.
Sizemore's base salary in 2012 will be $5 million and he can make another $4 million based on plate appearances. The deal also includes an awards package that includes $500,000 if Sizemore is selected comeback player of the year.
"The Indians were aggressive in wanting to keep Grady, and he has said all along he would keep an open mind toward returning," his agent, Joe Urbon, said in an email. "He appreciates the interest from other clubs, and he just felt that the best place to reassert himself as a great player is in Cleveland."
The 29-year-old Sizemore played in only 71 games last season. He went on the disabled list three times and underwent knee surgery on Oct. 3.
When they decided not to pick up Sizemore's option, Indians general manager Chris Antonetti flew to Arizona to personally meet with Sizemore and explain the team's reasons for letting him go. Antonetti said the team was not closing the door on Sizemore and the Indians would gladly re-sign him ? at the right price.
That gesture of loyalty, and the team's patience with Sizemore while he was hurt, meant a lot to Sizemore. He has remained one of the club's most popular players despite his medical issues.
With Sizemore back, and assuming he can stay healthy, the Indians' starting outfielder appears to be settled with Sizemore in center, Michael Brantley in left and Shin-Soo Choo in right. The club still needs to add some depth.
Sizemore began his pro career in Montreal's organization. He was traded to Cleveland in 2002 as part of a six-player deal that sent Indians ace Bartolo Colon to the Expos.
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Friday 25 November 2011
Man arrested after fatal shooting at Chicago hospital
By msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press
Update at 8:20 a.m. ET: Police arrested a suspect in the shooting after a routine traffic stop?early Friday, University of Illinois at Chicago spokesman Mark Rosati told The Associated Press. The man fled the car and was detained a few blocks away, Rosati added.
Update at 6:35 a.m. ET: A woman was shot dead at a hospital in Chicago late Thursday and a manhunt was launched to find the shooter, authorities told the Chicago Tribune.
An ambulance was not able to reach the wounded woman, who was shot in a parking garage at the University of Illinois at Chicago?Medical Center shortly before midnight, because the area was still dangerous, Chicago Fire Department?spokesman Larry Langford told the paper.?She later died.
Even though the suspect was not located, the hospital resumed normal operations at about 5 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET), according to The Associated Press.
The Tribune reported a?text message was sent out by the medical center warning staff and students that there was "a man with a gun in the UIC Hospital, last seen on the second floor. Stay in a secure location and lock doors if possible. He is armed and dangerous."
A notice posted later on the UIC website said, "Police conclude multiple searches of hospital, no sign of gunman. Hospital, OCC open for normal operations."
SWAT teams, other police and a helicopter were all involved in the search.
A second victim, who was injured but not shot, was in police custody, an?unidentified?source told the Tribune.
The Tribune reported that the suspect was the 47-year-old former boyfriend of the slain woman.
The alert said the man being sought by police was black and?was wearing?a navy blue jacket with a fur-trimmed hood, navy blue cargo pants and white gym shoes at the time.
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Thursday 24 November 2011
Texas QB Schaub back at practice to help Leinart (AP)
HOUSTON ? Injured Texans quarterback Matt Schaub was back at practice on Thanksgiving, wearing a protective boot on his right foot as he kept a close eye on his replacement, Matt Leinart.
Schaub sustained a Lisfranc injury in Houston's 37-9 win over Tampa Bay on Nov. 13, and had to give up hope on returning this season after meeting with foot specialist Dr. Robert Anderson in Charlotte on Wednesday.
Houston (7-3) placed Schaub on injured reserve, and Leinart will make his first start at Jacksonville (3-7) on Sunday.
Schaub is scheduled to have surgery in Charlotte next Wednesday. Doctors have assured him his injury is not career-threatening and isn't likely to occur again when he returns to action.
"Once I talked to everyone, there really wasn't an option out there, other than to get it fixed for the long term," Schaub said. "It's pretty positive as far as after the surgery, getting the rehab done and being able to come back, play and be fine."
Coach Gary Kubiak said Schaub will travel with the team this weekend and be available to support Leinart, rookie T.J. Yates and third-stringer Kellen Clemens, who signed with Houston on Wednesday.
"He needs to stay very much involved," Kubiak said. "I think there's a way he can help this team, so we're going to give him a chance to do that. It's just tough to see him standing back there."
But Kubiak isn't sure how much Schaub will be able to help after his surgery. Schaub said he faces a long recovery, starting with 6-8 weeks of non-weight-bearing activity.
"It's not a quick turnaround, as far as rehabilitation," Schaub said. "It's going to be an offseason getting ready and getting right for training camp."
Schaub has been the Texans' starter since 2007, after he was acquired in a trade with Atlanta. He missed five games in his first year with the team because of a shoulder injury and concussion, then sat out five more in 2008, one with an illness and four with a knee injury.
Critics questioned his durability, but Schaub silenced them by starting every game between 2009-10 and the first 10 of this season. He hurt his foot in the second quarter against Tampa Bay and played the entire second half, but said he didn't make the injury more severe by staying in that game.
"Talking to the doctors, there wasn't anything I could do worse to it, other than something new," he said.
So far, Houston has survived remarkably well as one key player after another has gone down with an injury, taking control of the AFC South behind the best 10-game start in team history.
Running backs Arian Foster and Ben Tate missed time early, outside linebacker Mario Williams was lost for the season with a torn chest muscle, and star receiver Andre Johnson has sat out six games with a right hamstring injury. Johnson is expected to play in Sunday's game, along with safety Danieal Manning, who broke his left leg in a victory over Tennessee on Oct. 23.
Still, the Texans haven't trailed in four games, hold a two-game lead in the division and seem to be closing in on the team's first playoff appearance.
Schaub says this year's success makes the frustration over this injury more disappointing than the ones he's had in past years.
"The physical side of it and actually getting hurt is part of the game and I can handle that," he said. "Mentally and all that, I can deal with that. I'll be back. I'll get back.
"But after all the hard work I've put in and this team's put in, this organization, to get to this point, with six weeks to go, that's the frustrating part, to not see it through with my team," he said. "That's the frustrating part, to get to this point and not be able to finish it."
Schaub was determined to return to practice on Thursday and be on the sideline Sunday to help Leinart, who will make his first start since 2009, when he played for Arizona. Leinart didn't take a snap last season, and re-signed with the Texans because of his comfort level with Kubiak, Schaub and the Houston system.
Schaub is confident the offense won't miss a beat with Leinart taking the snaps.
"He's been around enough football," Schaub said. "He's played enough, too, it's not too big for him. He's going to go out there, be even-keeled, run the huddle, run the offense and he's going to be in good shape."
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Insurance Commissioners Bow to Insurers, Consumers Face $1.2 ...
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One of the Affordable Care Acts most important consumer protection provisions requires health insurers spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on actual medical care, not wasteful administration, marketing or executive pay and bonuses.
But yesterday, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) endorsed a Big Insurers-backed plan to weaken the law when?its members?voted to urge Congress and the Obama administration to exempt brokers? fees from the calculation?known as medical loss ratios?used to determine a company?s premium total.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D. W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, says exempting those fees would allow insurance companies to retain billions of dollars that the health care reform law requires then to give back to consumers in the form of rebates or lower premiums. Click here for a letter Rockefeller sent to the NAIC prior to yesterday?s vote. Last year the NAIC defeated a similar effort.
Ethan Rome, executive director for Health Care for America Now (HCAN), says the commission?s action could cost consumers $1.2 billion.
The commissioners who supported this proposal are tone-deaf to the skyrocketing health premium costs of average Americans. Commissioners said that of the many thousands of messages they received from consumers, not a single one supported the resolution.
He urged Congress and the administration to ?dismiss this anti-consumer action, which would weaken the law that holds insurance companies accountable and puts a check on bloated CEO pay and record insurance company profits.?
You can make your voice heard by calling your state insurance commissioner and telling him or her that bowing to big health insurers hurts working families. Insurance commissioners from the following 26 states voted to side with big health insurers:
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming and American Samoa.
These 20 commissioners voted ?No??Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, the Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.
The state insurance commissioners from Maine, Montana, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia abstained. Not present or not voting were commissioners from Iowa, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
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Wednesday 23 November 2011
Bob Edgar: "Super" Committee Produces Super Vreakdown in Leadership
No one who has watched official Washington's march toward complete dysfunction can be surprised by Monday's announcement that the Congressional "Super Committee" is shutting down without agreeing on a plan to begin putting the nation's finances in order.
The 12-member panel was doomed from the start, stocked with too few members skilled at the art of compromise and too many whose idea of a give-and-take negotiation is "you give and I take." And its focus on long-term deficit reduction, rather than on immediate steps to revive a still moribund economy, was grossly misplaced.
Perhaps worst of all, neither Democrats nor Republicans on the panel appear to have had support from party leaders to strike a deal.
Senior Republicans in Congress and their party's would-be presidents on the campaign trail were particularly intransigent, refusing to entertain serious discussion of a meaningful tax increase on the wealthiest Americans. The long-term deficit reduction they claim to favor cannot be achieved without more tax revenue, a lot more tax revenue; Democrats on the committee appeared willing to accept some cuts in the social safety net but it's unreasonable to ask them to do so without a guarantee of more revenue.
For his part, President Obama showed an encouraging willingness at the outset of the committee's deliberations to work on a balanced program of tax hikes and long-term budget cuts but of late has distanced himself from the process. Perhaps his leadership could not have made a difference, but it would have been nice to see him try to assert it.
The committee's breakdown means that the Congress most likely will spend 2012 tying itself in knots over how to undo the "automatic" deficit reduction measures supposedly triggered by its failure. Defense hawks in both parties already are hard at work to spare the Pentagon from the budget ax, Republicans are trying to figure out how to preserve the Bush tax cuts for their wealthy patrons and Democrats are focused on protecting Social Security and Medicare, even if it means more debt.
What a sad spectacle. We've now had three successive "wave" elections, in which voters disturbed at the inability or unwillingness of those in power to act in the public interest rather than the interest of their big campaign contributors, have voted to replace one party with the other. Each party has ridden its waves but neither has captured and acted on the voters' larger message, their desire for a fundamental change in the way Washington works.
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Follow Bob Edgar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BobEdgarCC
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-bob-edgar/super-committee-produces-_b_1106442.html
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Tuesday 22 November 2011
Debt crisis sweeps towards heart of Europe (Reuters)
BRUSSELS/MADRID (Reuters) ? The euro zone's debt crisis swept closer to the heart of Europe despite a clear-cut election victory in Spain for conservatives committed to austerity, adding to pressure on the European Central Bank to act more decisively.
Spain's Socialists became the fifth government in the 17-nation currency area to be toppled by the sovereign debt crisis this year. Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece went before, while Slovakia's cabinet lost a confidence vote last month and faces a general election in March.
An absolute parliamentary majority for Mariano Rajoy's center-right Popular Party brought no respite on financial markets increasingly alarmed by the absence of an effective firewall to halt a meltdown on sovereign bond markets.
Rajoy kept investors, and Spaniards, guessing about his plans to tackle the crisis, saying the constitution will make him wait until just before December 25 to name an economy minister and explain how he will get five million people back to work.
The risk premiums on Spanish, Italian, French and Belgian government bonds rose as investors fled to safe-haven German Bunds, while European shares (.FTEU3) fell more than 3 percent after Moody's warned that France's credit rating faced new dangers.
"This crisis is hitting the core of the euro zone. We should have no illusions about this," European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said.
He defended the European Union executive's advocacy of austerity policies blamed for choking off growth and jobs.
"One simply cannot build a growth strategy on accumulating more debt, when the capacity to service the current debt is questioned by the markets," Rehn told a Brussels seminar. "One cannot force foreign creditors to lend more money, if they don't have the confidence to do it."
Greece's new technocrat prime minister, Lucas Papademos, on his maiden trip to Brussels, won an assurance that euro zone finance ministers should be in a position to agree at their next meeting, next Monday, to disburse vital bailout funds to avert bankruptcy.
Papademos was expected to meet European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Tuesday evening in Frankfurt.
Borrowing costs for both Spain and Italy hit levels regarded as unsustainable last week before the European Central Bank stepped in temporarily to steady the market.
Two newspapers said the ECB's governing council had imposed a weekly limit of 20 billion euros on purchases of euro zone government bonds, a figure analysts say prevents it wielding massive deterrent power in the markets. Germany's central bank has led resistance to the bond-buying it sees as inflationary.
The latest weekly figures released on Monday showed the central bank bought nearly 8 billion euros in the week to last Wednesday, far below that reported limit in a week when Italian and French spreads hit euro era highs.
Critics say this reluctant, piecemeal approach is aggravating the situation rather than restoring confidence.
ECB governing council member Ewald Nowotny, regarded as a dove, told a conference in Vienna that the central bank could not simply start printing money but would have to discuss its next response to the crisis.
"What we certainly have to discuss is what is a role for the ECB in these difficult times, but this is also something we will discuss in Frankfurt at the appropriate time," he said.
FRENCH RATING RISK
Ratings agency Moody's said a recent rise in interest rates on French government debt and weaker economic growth prospects could be negative for France's credit rating.
"Elevated borrowing costs persisting for an extended period would amplify the fiscal challenges the French government faces amid a deteriorating growth outlook, with negative credit implications," Senior Credit Officer Alexander Kockerbeck said in Moody's Weekly Credit Outlook dated November 21.
France's government spokeswoman insisted on Monday that Paris would not impose a third package of budget savings, despite market pressure on its cost of credit.
Talk of a possible break-up of the 12-year-old single currency has grown among analysts, mostly outside the euro area, as EU paymaster Germany has rejected most of the widely-touted solutions to the debt crisis.
The chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Jim O'Neill, said the crisis of European economic and monetary union (EMU) meant "big decisions have to be taken pretty quickly."
"It's not obvious to me that EMU could survive without Italy," he told a Confederation of British Industry conference.
"It's not obvious to me that Italy can survive with 6-7 percent bond yields, so something's going to have give pretty quickly. Italian bond yields have got to come down pretty quickly or EMU will have some severe challenges."
Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager, one of Berlin's closest allies, acknowledged that the euro zone could splinter.
Asked whether a break-up of the euro would cause an economic depression, he told BNR radio: "This could be a consequence from the euro zone falling apart, that is correct."
The chief executive of Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), Josef Ackermann, said Greece leaving the Eurozone would cause incalculable damage and make it less likely that Greece would pay its debts.
Spaniards gave the People's Party a clear mandate for more austerity against a background of 21 percent unemployment and one of the highest budget shortfalls in the region.
"We will stop being part of the problem and will be part of the solution," Rajoy said after the vote.
Nicolas Lopez, head of research at M&G Valores, said the government had to introduce convincing measures. "While these measures are being taken, the ECB will have to buy up bonds as it has been doing to maintain confidence," he said.
(Additional reporting by Gilbert Kreijger in Amsterdam, Kirsten Donovan and Fiona Sheikh in London, Lefteris Papadimas in Athens, Crispian Balmer in Rome and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Mike Peacock)
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NYT: Lawmakers trade blame as deficit talks crumble
WASHINGTON?? With the hours ticking away toward a self-imposed deadline, Congressional leaders conceded Sunday that talks on a sweeping deficit agreement were near failure and braced for recriminations over their inability to reach a deal.
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Other political news of note
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Justices pressured to sit on sidelines
First Read: Political groups are calling for Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from the pending health reform case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear.
- Romney: Obama doesn't understand America
- Boehner calls GOP deficit plan a 'fair offer'
- First Read: Perry plans to 'uproot' government
- Supreme Court to take up Obama health care law
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Justices pressured to sit on sidelines
The stalemate was the latest sign of partisan deadlock in Washington, which members of both parties do not expect to lift until the 2012 election has clarified which party has the upper hand.
Barring an unexpected turnaround before Monday?s deadline, the failure of the special Congressional deficit committee will be the third high-profile effort to fall short of a deal in the last 12 months, including a bipartisan deficit commission and talks last summer between President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner.
Story: Deficit supercommittee on the brink of failure
By law, the special Congressional committee?s inability to reach an agreement will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over 10 years to the military and domestic programs, to start in 2013.
As time wound down to a Monday night deadline for an agreement, Capitol Hill lacked the frenzied negotiation typical of a Congressional race to beat the clock.? Instead, many members ? well aware that Congressional approval ratings are near historic lows in polls ? seemed resigned to the fact that Democrats and Republicans remained far apart on major budget issues, especially tax increases on the affluent, which Democrats insist must be part of any deficit solution and that Republicans oppose.
Video: Super fail for supercommittee? (on this page)The White House called on the 12 members of the special committee to finish their work, but lawmakers on the panel, which is evenly divided between the two parties, instead blamed each other for its failure.
Many outside Washington, including on Wall Street, had low expectations for the committee, and some analysts predicted that the breakdown might not have a major effect on financial markets. But the developments added to the air of uncertainty at a time when the world economy is coping with Europe?s debt problems and a sluggish recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Some members of Congress were vowing to repeal the automatic cuts, locked in by the law that raised the debt ceiling in August, with new legislation.
Once they return from their Thanksgiving recess, members of Congress face another set of decisions with the potential to hamstring the economy. A temporary payroll-tax cut for nearly all households and jobless benefits for many long-term unemployed are scheduled to expire at year?s end, and many economists predict that growth and hiring will slow further if such measures are not renewed.
On Sunday, in the halls of the Capitol and on television talk shows, Democrats and Republicans offered strikingly different post-mortems for the process.
Democrats blamed the Republicans for their unwillingness to yield on a no-new-taxes pact they signed at the request of a conservative antitax group, arguing that the American public realizes that no grand deal could be reached without a combination of spending cuts and new tax revenue.
?As long as we have some Republican lawmakers who feel more enthralled with a pledge they took to a Republican lobbyist than they do to a pledge to the country to solve the problems, this is going to be hard to do,? Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, the committee?s co-chairwoman said on CNN?s ?State of the Union.?
But Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, the other co-chairman, said it was inflexibility on the part of the Democrats that had caused the impasse, particularly when it came to agreeing to major money-saving changes in social programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Video: Kyl: One way or another, cuts will happen (on this page)?Unfortunately, what we haven?t seen in these talks from the other side is any Democrats willing to put a proposal on the table that actually solves the problems,? Mr. Hensarling said on ?Fox News Sunday.?
At the White House, officials made a final effort to spur the committee on to a conclusion. ?Avoiding accountability and kicking the can down the road is how Washington got into this deficit problem in the first place,? a White House spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, said in a statement. ?So Congress needs to do its job here and make the kind of tough choices to live within its means that American families make every day.?
The apparent failure of the panel already became a topic in the 2012 presidential campaign. Mitt Romney, speaking in New Hampshire on Sunday, blamed President Obama for the failure, saying that he should have been more involved in pushing for a deal.
?He hasn?t had any role. He?s done nothing,? Mr. Romney said. ?This is another example of failed leadership.?
But another committee member, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said on ?Meet the Press,? that President Obama and White House budget officials ?were asked to be hands off.?
Video: Kerry: We?re a deficit cutting committee, not a tax cutting one (on this page)?The Republicans said, ?Don?t let Obama come into this, because if he does, it will make it political,? ? Mr. Kerry said, adding, ?They?ve been intimately involved, but carefully so that they didn?t politicize it. I think they did the right thing.
A deal effectively needs to be reached by Monday night, if the committee is going to approve it by Wednesday, the legal deadline for an agreement before the automated cuts are supposed to be imposed. Automated cuts would not start until January 2013.
Republicans have already begun plans to reconfigure the automatic cuts because about half would come from the Pentagon; Democrats and President Obama are likely to resist those efforts since some domestic spending programs are exempted from the cuts. As of Sunday evening, aides on Capitol Hill said no meeting among all 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction has been set for Monday.
The aides also said that as far as they knew, no significant process had been made over the weekend, although it was possible that there have been private conversations between a few individual members of the committee that could represent an offer of compromise.
?But at this point it looks unlikely that that offer will come,? one aide to a Democratic member on the committee said, asking that he not be named, as he was not authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly.
The focus instead now is mostly on placing blame.
Video: Kerry: ?Republican unwillingness? the only thing stopping a deal (on this page)"Members went into this more than hopeful," Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland who sat on the panel, said in an interview Sunday. "The question from Day 1 was whether or not Republicans would be serious about a balanced plan. That was always the question, and the answer at least appears to be no."
Republicans late last week sent Democrats a proposal to save $643 billion over a decade?about half the goal. But the proposal was quickly rejected as unacceptable, as the Democrats said it included only a small amount of new revenue.
Stock and bond market experts on Sunday said Wall Street markets likely would not react in a major way on Monday, as the so-called sequesters ? budget terminology for automatic spending cuts ? still provide an insurance policy that the annual deficit could be curtailed.
?I don?t think the markets had a lot of expectation that they would reach a deal,? said Ajay Rajadhyaksha, a managing director at Barclays Capital. ?What matters far more is what happens in Europe over the next week or two.?
Among legislators on Sunday, there was even disagreement about what the primary stumbling block had been to reaching an accord.
The Democrats said that the refusal of the Republicans on the bipartisan committee to agree to allow tax cuts first passed during the Bush administration to expire at the end of 2012? which would be one way to raise new revenue, to match spending cuts the Democrats have agreed to accept ? was to blame.
?If they will give up their insistence on the Bush tax cuts, we can get this done,? Mr. Kerry said on ?Meet the Press.?
But Republicans countered that with the economy already weak, Congress would do more harm if it agreed to a deal that would significantly increase federal revenue, implying that the package that the Democrats had pushed called for at least $1 trillion in new taxes.
?You can?t grow if you raise taxes in the middle of a recession,? Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, a committee member and the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, said, also on ?Meet the Press.?
With failure looming, the focus was increasingly turning to how to perhaps change the mix of automated budget cuts before they take effect in January 2013.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that domestic programs ? including education, transportation and immigration ? would be cut by 7.8 percent in 2013 and that Medicare spending would fall by about 2 percent. The biggest cut would be to defense programs, which would be reduced by about 10 percent.
But several large programs would be exempt from automatic cuts, including Social Security, Medicaid, veterans? benefits and various antipoverty programs, based on the agreement Congress and the White House reached in the summer. This is part of the reason why certain Democrats in recent weeks have become less willing to compromise ? the automated cuts, they concluded, may be better than anything they could negotiate.
Jackie Calmes and Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.
This article, "Lawmakers trade blame Congressional budget talks crumble," first appeared in The New York Times.
Copyright ? 2011 The New York Times
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45381699/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/
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Monday 21 November 2011
Chicago mayor visits Iowa to campaign for Obama (AP)
DES MOINES, Iowa ? Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will launch an ardent defense of President Barack Obama to Iowa Democratic activists, warning that "we just can't cut our way to prosperity."
Emanuel was scheduled to speak Saturday night at the Iowa Democratic Party's biggest annual fundraiser. Excerpts from his remarks were provided to The Associated Press in advance.
In them, Emanuel says Obama has made crucial and tough decisions based on his principles, and not to lay the groundwork for a second term in office.
"In the next four years, there will be more challenges and more crises that will determine the economic vitality of the middle class and the economic future of this country," Emanuel says. "Whose character, whose judgment do you want in that office?"
Before winning election as mayor, Emanuel was a top aide for Obama and he's been a vocal advocate for the president. Emanuel says he expects voters to focus on the character of the candidates during the upcoming campaign.
The deficit reduction debate in Washington has centered on a fight between Obama and Democrats, who argue the solution is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. Republicans argue for sole reliance on spending cuts.
"To create true middle-class security, we can't just cut our way to prosperity," Emanuel says. "We must out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the world."
Emanuel was to be the featured speaker at the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Des Moines, the largest annual fundraiser for the Iowa Democratic Party. His appearance was expected to give the party a chance to grab attention from Republican presidential candidates making their case to social conservatives just across town.
While polls show next year's election will likely be competitive, there's a debate about tactics among some Democrats. Some argue Obama benefits from a long and heated Republican primary season in which candidates are burning GOP money and attacking each other. Others warn Republicans are getting all of the media attention and that Obama will be better off when he has a single opponent with whom he can draw contrasts.
In recent weeks, Obama has sharpened his populist message as he shifts to election mode. Emanuel is echoing that theme as he seeks to rally activist Democrats.
"President Obama believes in an America where hard work pays off, where responsibility is rewarded," Emanuel says. "He believes in an America where we don't have two rule books, one for those at the top and another set for everyone else. President Obama believes in the idea that our country prospers when we're all in it together."
Obama has a long history in Iowa. His surprising win in the state's precinct caucuses four years ago launched him on the road to the White House and he easily carried the state in the 2008 general election. Polls have shown the state to be competitive in this election cycle.
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What bacteria don't know can hurt them
Friday, November 18, 2011
Many infections, even those caused by antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, resist treatment. This paradox has vexed physicians for decades, and makes some infections impossible to cure.
A key cause of this resistance is that bacteria become starved for nutrients during infection. Starved bacteria resist killing by nearly every type of antibiotic, even ones they have never been exposed to before.
What produces starvation-induced antibiotic resistance, and how can it be overcome? In a paper appearing this week in Science, researchers report some surprising answers.
"Bacteria become starved when they exhaust nutrient supplies in the body, or if they live clustered together in groups know as biofilms," said the lead author of the paper, Dr. Dao Nguyen, an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University.
Biofilms are clusters of bacteria encased in a slimy coating, and can be found both in the natural environment as well as in human tissues where they cause disease. For example, biofilm bacteria grow in the scabs of chronic wounds, and the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. Bacteria in biofilms tolerate high levels of antibiotics without being killed.
"A chief cause of the resistance of biofilms is that bacteria on the outside of the clusters have the first shot at the nutrients that diffuse in," said Dr. Pradeep Singh, associate professor of medicine and microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, the senior author of the study. "This produces starvation of the bacteria inside clusters, and severe resistance to killing."
Starvation was previously thought to produce resistance because most antibiotics target cellular functions needed for growth. When starved cells stop growing, these targets are no longer active. This effect could reduce the effectiveness of many drugs.
"While this idea is appealing, it presents a major dilemma," Nguyen noted. "Sensitizing starved bacteria to antibiotics could require stimulating their growth, and this could be dangerous during human infections."
Nguyen and Singh explored an alternative mechanism.
Microbiologists have long known that when bacteria sense that their nutrient supply is running low, they issue a chemical alarm signal. The alarm tells the bacteria to adjust their metabolism to prepare for starvation. Could this alarm also turn on functions that produce antibiotic resistance?
To test this idea, the team engineered bacteria in which the starvation alarm was inactivated, and then measured antibiotic resistance in experimental conditions in which bacteria were starved. To their amazement, bacteria unable to sense starvation were thousands of times more sensitive to killing than those that could, even though starvation arrested growth and the activity of antibiotic targets.
"That experiment was a turning point," Singh said. "It told us that the resistance of starved bacteria was an active response that could be blocked. It also indicated that starvation-induced protection only occurred if bacteria were aware that nutrients were running low."
With the exciting result in hand, the researchers turned to two key questions. First does the starvation alarm produce resistance during actual infections? To test this the team examined naturally starved bacteria, biofilms, isolates taken from patients, and bacterial infections in mice. Sure enough, in all cases the bacteria unable to sense starvation were far easier to kill.
The second question was about the mechanism of the effect. How does starvation sensing produce such profound antibiotic resistance?
Again, the results were surprising.
Instead of well-described resistance mechanisms, like pumps that expel antibiotics from bacterial cells, the researchers found that the bacteria's protective mechanism defended them against toxic forms of oxygen, called radicals. This mechanism jives with new findings showing that antibiotics kill by generating these toxic radicals.
The findings suggest new approaches to improve treatment for a wide range of infections.
"Discovering new antibiotics has been challenging," Nguyen said. "One way to improve infection treatment is to make the drugs we already have work better. Our experiments suggest that antibiotic efficacy could be increased by disrupting key bacterial functions that have no obvious connection to antibiotic activity."
The work also highlights the critical advantage of being able to sense environmental conditions, even for single-celled organisms like bacteria. Cells unaware of their starvation were not protected, even though they ran out of nutrients and stopped growth. This proves again that, even for bacteria, "what you don't know can hurt you."
###
University of Washington: http://www.uwnews.org
Thanks to University of Washington for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115338/What_bacteria_don_t_know_can_hurt_them
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Sunday 20 November 2011
Occupy London protesters "repossess" UBS site (Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) ? British anti-capitalist protesters occupied a third location in London on Friday, "repossessing" a large empty office block owned by Swiss banking giant UBS.
A dozen protesters from the "Occupy London" group scaled ladders to gain access overnight to the first floor of the sprawling office complex in the capital's financial district.
"UBS was bailed out for $60 billion in 2008 and had a rogue trader that lost billions just this year," said the group's spokeswoman Tanya Paton.
"It just shows how wealthy and incompetent banks are that they can lose this money and not even notice. Swiss banks have been used as a tax haven for everyone from the Nazis to Gaddafi."
The Occupy London group, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, has set up camps outside St Paul's Cathedral and in Finsbury Square in the heart of the City.
The choice of site for a third occupation appeared a mixture of pragmatism as well as ideology. The UBS building is well-known to squatters and was used by them during a meeting of G20 leaders in London in 2008.
Protesters led Reuters on a tour of the cavernous complex. Rubble-filled rooms were littered with screwdrivers, tins of paint, ropes and bedding.
Occupiers had been tidying up with brooms and vacuum cleaners. An executive pay advice brochure lay discarded under piles of broken glass on damp-stained carpets. Old computers, invoice files and Venetian blinds were still in place.
"BANK OF IDEAS"
The protesters said the location would be reopened on Saturday as a "Bank of Ideas" but there would be no permanent residential occupation as at the other camps.
The Occupy group argued while banks were repossessing homes of families who could not keep up their mortgage repayments, they were sitting on huge empty properties themselves. Official figures show 9,200 homes in Britain were repossessed by mortgage lenders in the third quarter of the year.
"We hope this is the first in a wave of 'public repossessions' of property belonging to companies that crashed the global economy," said protester Jack Holburn.
UBS has been in the headlines in Britain after one of its London-based employees was charged with rogue trading which the bank said had cost it some $2.3 billion.
Kweku Adoboli, a former director of exchange traded funds at UBS, is due to enter a plea to those charges in court next week.
UBS, which confirmed it was the legal owners of the site, said the building was unoccupied and the action had no impact on either its business or its staff.
"We are aware of the situation and are taking appropriate action," the bank said in a statement.
Under laws governing squatting, building owners have to go to court to obtain a possession order, a procedure that usually takes about a month, the Occupy group said.
On Thursday, the anti-capitalists defied a deadline to remove their tents from outside St Paul's Cathedral. The City of London Corporation, which owns much of the land on which the 200 tents were pitched a month ago, will now begin legal proceedings in the High Court to remove them.
The corporation has followed different methods from New York authorities, which used riot police to kick out Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in a surprise pre-dawn raid on Tuesday.
(Writing by Michael Holden; editing by Andrew Roche)
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Saturday 19 November 2011
AOL?s Product Guy, Brad Garlinghouse, Heads For The Exit
AOL doesn't have a chief product officer, but if it did, that person would be Brad Garlinghouse, the president of Applications and Commerce who heads up AOL's Silicon Valley office. As has been widely reported, Garlinghouse has decided to leave AOL. This is not good news. Garlinghouse oversees many of the best product teams at AOL, including those filled with folks from some of the startups AOL has acquired in recent years. (TechCrunch was also acquired by AOL, but we are not part of Garlinghouse's organization). AOL still has a collection of products that are not media properties, including AIM, Mail, and newer mobile apps. But it's not clear exactly how they fit in what is increasingly becoming a pure online media company.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fnBZfrUQo9U/
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Friday 18 November 2011
Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ first impressions (video)
Continue reading Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ first impressions (video)
Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ first impressions (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Guardiola: Messi set to play against Zaragoza
Associated Press Sports
updated 8:59 a.m. ET Nov. 18, 2011
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) -Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola expects forward Lionel Messi to overcome fatigue and play against Zaragoza, while Pedro Rodriguez should also return from injury for Saturday's match.
Messi only arrived Thursday from a lengthy spell of international duty with Argentina and even Guardiola was surprised by how motivated the midfielder was to play.
"Messi is in playing condition," Guardiola said. "He likes to take part, his life is football. So as long as he wants to play I'll keep putting him in."
Messi led Argentina in 2014 World Cup qualifying against Bolivia and a match at Colombia before returning to the Catalan capital on Thursday, when Guardiola sent him home to rest. Messi trained without problems on Friday, as did Pedro who had been sidelined more than three weeks with an ankle injury.
"Pedro trained with us and looks good," Guardiola said. "We'll see how he is tomorrow and whether he can play. He trained with his teammates and without any pain."
Pedro's return could prove valuable with a number of Barcelona's internationals coming off international duty in Central and South America. The club also plays at AC Milan in the Champions League on Wednesday in a match that will likely determine who tops Group H.
"Everybody wants to play, not just Messi," Guardiola said. "I'm surprised by how they have all arrived so motivated."
Three-time defending champion Barcelona trails leader Real Madrid by three points, the largest deficit to its principal domestic rival since Guardiola took over in 2008.
Madrid plays at Valencia on Saturday.
? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Thursday 17 November 2011
US stocks edge down as Spanish bond yields soar
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, traders John Panin, left center, and Joe Tarangelo, right center, work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. World stocks continued to slide Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011, as investors worried that Europe's debt crisis was intensifying and spreading to larger countries in the 17-nation euro union. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, traders John Panin, left center, and Joe Tarangelo, right center, work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. World stocks continued to slide Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011, as investors worried that Europe's debt crisis was intensifying and spreading to larger countries in the 17-nation euro union. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Stock indexes edged lower in early trading Thursday as spiking bond yields in Spain overshadowed the latest signs of growth in the U.S. economy.
An auction of 10-year bonds in Spain left the country paying interest rates of nearly 7 percent. That's the highest rate since 1997 and a level that economists see as unsustainable. Greece and Ireland had to get bailed out by the European Union after their bond yields jumped above the same level.
The auction came a day after Fitch Ratings warned that major U.S. banks could be "greatly affected" if Europe's debt crisis continues to spread beyond financially troubled countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain.
Concerns about Europe's debt crisis contrasted with better economic reports in the U.S. The number of people seeking unemployment benefits last week fell to the lowest level in 7 months. Applications fell to 388,000, below Wall Street's estimates of 395,000. That's a sign layoffs are easing.
Building permits jumped 10.9 percent, much higher than economists expected. That's another sign that the U.S. may not be headed for another recession.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 40 points, or 0.2 percent, to 11,865 at 9:45 a.m. Eastern. Hewlett-Packard Co. led the Dow lower with a 2.2 percent drop.
The S&P 500 lost 6, or 0.5 percent, to 1,230. Telecommunications companies were the only one of the 10 industries in the S&P 500 index to post gains.
The Nasdaq composite slid 14, or 0.5 percent, to 2,626.
In corporate news:
? Sears Holdings Corp. fell 6 percent after its third-quarter results missed Wall Street's expectations. The retailer's sales were dragged down by declining consumer electronics sales and softer sales at its Kmart stores.
? J.M. Smucker Co. lost 1.2 percent after reporting that rising costs for ingredients were cutting into profits.
? Boeing Co. rose 0.4 percent after the company announced its largest commercial airplane order. Lion Air, a private carrier in Indonesia, ordered a total of 230 airplanes at a list price of $21.7 billion.
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Cybook Odyssey takes the hero's journey through the FCC
Ready or not, Bookeen's High Speed Ink System is coming at you soon, in the form of the Cybook Odyssey. The speedy electronic ink technology-packing reader goes up for sale in Europe on November 22nd, for relatively pricey €149 ($203). In the meantime, the six-inch e-reader made a pit stop over at the FCC's site, where it was immediately poked, prodded and generally ripped apart. Never seen the insides of an e-reader before? Behold, in the gallery below.
Cybook Odyssey takes the hero's journey through the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Wednesday 16 November 2011
Reporter lives Broadway fantasy in `Mary Poppins' (AP)
NEW YORK ? For weeks, I dreamed of my Broadway debut in "Mary Poppins."
There was the excitement of costume fittings, the hard work of rehearsals and the anticipation of being on stage at a premier New York theater. I woke up each morning, counting down the days ? I could hardly wait for the moment.
It was over in a blink.
My time in the spotlight as a chimney sweeper in the Disney musical ended just as quickly as it had begun.
For its fifth anniversary, "Mary Poppins" invited me to be a chimney sweep for a day to experience the inner workings of the production at the New Amsterdam Theatre.
I knew it would be fun, but what I thought would be an easy task was anything but. When you're watching a show, you can sit back and, you hope, see an inspiring, entertaining performance. But for this "actress," preparing to be on stage was sheer exhaustion.
Not surprising, said Anthony Lyn, the show's associate director. He told me that being worn out was not at all unexpected for a newcomer. "It is like going to the gym. When you first start, it is hard, but the more you train, the easier it gets," he said, noting his professional cast has trained for years for the theater.
Well, clearly I was a novice. I found myself sweating as if I had run miles after rehearsing for the "Step in Time" scene. ("Never need a reason, Never need a rhyme/Kick your knees up, step in time.") The chimney sweeps ? the professional actors, that is ? tap dance with their long brooms and skitter across the London rooftop set with ease and energy.
Preparation began two weeks before when I was fitted for my costume by a team dedicated to making sure every detail is perfection on every piece of clothing. After all, Mary Poppins is "practically perfect in every way." To my delight, I learned that besides wearing black denim, a newsboy hat, short wig and dark makeup for my chimney sweeper outfit, I would also get fitted Edwardian style ? lace gloves, buttoned up shirt, hat, boots, specially made wig, the works_ to dress as Mary for fun. I was also taught to apply my own sweeper makeup so that on the night of the performance, I could quickly make the transformation.
Finally, the morning of the show, I learned and rehearsed the choreography for the two scenes I was in and for the curtain call. Geoffrey Goldberg, an associate choreographer, was encouraging as he showed me how to jump onto the set and dance across the roof, hop over the rail and dance off of the stage. For "Step in Time," he taught me the choreography for interlocking my arms with another actor, dancing in a circle, running to dance on a desk and then shuffling up the stairs in the house. Once I got the hang of it, the moves seemed to come naturally.
I arrived 30 minutes before the start of the show on a rainy Friday night. I was actually able to watch the first act in the audience since my scenes were not until Act 2. Actress Kelly Jacobs was my chaperone during rehearsals and the performance, literally holding my hand, pulling me along at times. She shared her story about touring (she spent two years on the road with "Mary Poppins" as dance captain and appeared in "Mame" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in "Camelot" at Tokyo Disney) and talked about her husband, Adam, who is currently starring as Simba in "The Lion King."
Backstage, there was a sense of organized chaos as most of the actors, with the exception of the principals, did their own makeup; they had only arrived about a half an hour before the start of the show. In between scenes, the atmosphere was festive, with chimney sweepers laughing and offering support.
As the start of the "Step in Time" loomed, I felt well-prepared, thanks to my two guides: Goldberg and Jacobs. And right before going on stage for my "big" performance, I kept replaying Goldberg's advice over and over in my head: "Just smile and enjoy it." So that's what I did. I put a big smile on, grabbed my fellow chimney sweeper's hand and went on stage for my Broadway debut.
I made sure I was in sync with the other actors as I balanced along the roof set and hopped over the rail to dance. To my surprise, as I looked out at the audience, I could not make out faces. I only saw blackness and a sea of streaming lights. After twirling, running up the steps of the house, kicking my feet and skipping, I felt like an old pro. There is a rush of adrenaline, a total high that takes over your body after completely giving yourself over to a character, to the audience. Now I understand why actresses and actors sacrifice their sleep, life and sometimes even sanity, for the craft.
I may have been nervous before I stepped out on that stage, but there truly was one feeling that superseded all others: a sense of camaraderie. It didn't matter how nervous, anxious or confused I felt, one of the actors was right there with me, pushing me to go on and encouraging me to enjoy the experience. That night, I learned this sense of community is what makes Broadway ? and "Mary Poppins" ? so special.
Once the show ended, I went on stage for curtain call and to bow with the rest of the cast. While I did admittedly mess up my steps, I didn't care! I was a Broadway star, baby. But as I exited the stage on my personal high, I was abruptly stopped by a stagehand.
"Why are they not letting me move? Do I need to go back out?" I wondered.
Then, as a sea of actors parted the hallway and the elevator opened up, Steffanie Leigh, the current Mary Poppins, stepped out to take her bow, and this reporter was quickly brought back to reality.
No, I am not a singer, dancer, or actress. But for one night, I was able to share in the beauty and magic of the Great White Way.
___
Alicia Quarles is Global Entertainment Editor for The Associated Press.
___
Online:
http://www.marypoppins.com/
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