Monday, December 31, 2012

Egypt's leader sees currency stabilizing "within days"

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's pound fell to a record low on Monday as the president signaled his government would allow it to depreciate slowly for several more days to stop a drain on foreign reserves that has driven the economy into crisis since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

Hit by a new bout of political turmoil in the last month, the pound had weakened to a record low on Sunday at a new dollar auction brought in by the central bank. It fell further at a second auction on Monday, last trading at 6.37 to the dollar on the interbank market.

The drop means the central bank has allowed the pound to slide by almost 3 percent over the last two days after limiting its decline to only 6 percent since the uprising that removed Mubarak from power almost two years ago.

The pound's fall, which is certain to increase the price of imported staples such as tea and sugar, underlines the economic crisis facing President Mohamed Mursi as his administration tries to contain the political fall-out of his move to fast-track a contentious new constitution passed into law last week.

Egyptians panicked by street clashes between Mursi's Islamist backers and his more secular-minded opponents on the streets of Cairo and other cities have rushed to change their pounds into dollars in recent weeks, fearing it would be devalued further.

"The market will return to stability," Mursi told Arab journalists on Sunday evening, the state news agency MENA reported.

The pound's fall "does not worry or scare us, and within days matters will balance out," he said.

Having just sold their last dollar bills, dealers at one Cairo foreign exchange bureau did not bother changing their price board when the new low appeared on their trading screens.

"He took our last dollars," said one of the traders, pointing to a man walking out of the door.

Outside, another man told a friend his dollar hunt had failed. "They have no dollars. What can I do?" he said by mobile phone. "I went to many dealers and could not find dollars."

The fall has been driven mainly by ordinary citizens who have been trying to turn their savings into foreign currency, worried that the pound will weaken further because of the latest political turmoil.

The crisis wiped 10 percent off the value of Egyptian stocks when it erupted in late November. But the main index has mostly recovered since then, climbing in the two sessions since the introduction of the new foreign currency system.

Market participants attribute the rise to buying by Arab and international investors using the cheaper pound to bargain hunt.

FREE FLOATING POUND

The auctions are part of a shift announced on Saturday and designed to conserve foreign reserves, which the bank says are now at "critical" levels that cover just three months of the food, fuel and other goods Egypt imports.

Bankers have described the new system as a move towards establishing a free market value for the pound, which has been tightly controlled since a managed devaluation which ended in 2004.

The head of the Egyptian banking federation said the new system was an "important first step" towards a free float.

In remarks to MENA, Tarek Amer, who is also chairman of Egypt's largest bank, state-owned National Bank of Egypt, said the new system was a success on its first day and had "significantly reduced" demand for dollars.

The central bank has sold about $75 million at each of Sunday's and Monday's auctions.

The run on the pound prompted officials last week to impose controls on how much cash could be physically carried out of the country. Security men at one Cairo bank branch had to remove one customer angered by a $10,000 limit on how much currency he could withdraw, witnesses said.

The changes announced on Saturday include regular foreign currency auctions and also limit how much foreign currency companies can withdraw at a time.

The central bank had spent more than $20 billion - or more than half of its reserves - over the past two years to defend the currency. The reserves fell by a further $448 million in November to about $15 billion.

Prices of imports have already started to rise. Pyramid Oil Field, a firm that imports chemicals for use in water treatment and oil fields, had put up its prices by 10 to 15 percent last week, fearing a further weakening of the pound.

"This instability obliges you to increase the price, to have a safety factor," said Ashraf el-Gamal, president and managing director of the company, told Reuters. "From now on, the contracts will be of a very short validity."

To be on the safe side, he was projecting that the pound would weaken to stand at 9 against the euro, compared to a previous level of 8.

ECONOMY FRAGILE

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said on Sunday that the economy was in "a very difficult and fragile" situation, adding that he expected talks with the International Monetary Fund on a $4.8 billion loan to resume in January.

Egypt won preliminary approval in November from the IMF for the loan, but delayed seeking final approval until January after it suspended a series of tax increases to allow more time to explain a heavily criticized package of economic austerity measures to the public.

Kandil's efforts to revive the economy have been hit by the latest turmoil, which scared off tourists who had begun to return. On the eve of the anti-Mubarak revolt, Egypt's tourism industry accounted for one in eight jobs.

Mursi hoped that the passage of a new constitution would stabilize Egypt's politics, giving him space to implement economic reforms and attract investment. The constitution, written by Mursi's Islamist allies, was approved in a popular referendum in December.

But it remains the focus of controversy, and the opposition is likely to seize upon austerity measures demanded under an IMF deal as a stick to beat the Muslim Brotherhood ahead of a parliamentary vote expected in early 2013.

Two-fifths of Egypt's 84 million population live around the poverty line and depend on subsidies that are straining the treasury.

Gamal of Pyramid Oil Field said he knew of at least three foreign companies that were hesitant to make large investments in the country because of the instability.

"They are feeling insecure because of everything that is happening," he said. "One is looking to invest billions."

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Writing by Tom Perry and Patrick Werr; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-mursi-sees-pound-stabilizing-within-days-105343405--business.html

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Israel court overturns ban on Arab politician

JERUSALEM: Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Sunday an Arab lawmaker could stand in elections, overturning her disqualification by electoral officials over her participation in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in 2010.

The nine-justice court ruled unanimously Haneen Zoabi "shall be a candidate for the Knesset" in a Jan. 22 poll without giving details of its reasons.

Zoabi drew widespread criticism in Israel for taking part in an international aid flotilla that challenged the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, territory ruled by Hamas Islamists opposed to the existence of the Jewish state.

She was on the Mavi Marmara when Israeli naval commandos raided the Turkish vessel in May 2010, killing nine Turks in clashes with activists on board.

The Central Elections Committee voted on Dec. 19 to disqualify Zoabi, saying she had shown "support for an enemy state or terrorist organisation engaged in armed conflict against Israel".

Zoabi has said she had no role in any of the violence on board the Mavi Marmara and had tried to mediate between the sides during the raid.

Environment Minister Gilad Erdan criticised the ruling saying Zoabi had been involved in "expressing solidarity with our enemies".

Zoabi told Israeli Army Radio the judges had "avoided giving in to the racist right".

The Central Elections committee, which authorises parties' candidates ahead of votes, is chaired by a Supreme Court justice and made up of legislators from a number of political factions.

It has tried several times in the past to disqualify Arab political parties for alleged disloyalty to Israel, only to be overruled by the Supreme Court on appeal.

Zoabi belongs to the tiny Balad party that believes Israel should not be defined as a Jewish state.

Most of the Arabs who make up about 20 percent of the Israeli population are related to or descended from Palestinians who fled or were driven away in a 1948 war over Israel's establishment.

They are full-fledged citizens, though many complain of discrimination.

Source: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Dec-30/200362-israel-court-overturns-ban-on-arab-politician.ashx

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Sunday, December 30, 2012

US family pleas for couple missing in Afghanistan

In this undated photo provided by James Coleman, Caitlan Coleman, right, sits with her husband, Josh. Caitlan Coleman's family has broken months of silence over her mysterious disappearance. According to her family, Coleman, an ailing, pregnant American woman missing in Afghanistan with her Canadian husband, was due to deliver in January and needed urgent medical attention for a liver ailment that required regular checkups. The family is making public appeals for the couple's safe return. The Colemans have asked that Josh be identified by his first name only to protect his privacy. (AP Photo)

In this undated photo provided by James Coleman, Caitlan Coleman, right, sits with her husband, Josh. Caitlan Coleman's family has broken months of silence over her mysterious disappearance. According to her family, Coleman, an ailing, pregnant American woman missing in Afghanistan with her Canadian husband, was due to deliver in January and needed urgent medical attention for a liver ailment that required regular checkups. The family is making public appeals for the couple's safe return. The Colemans have asked that Josh be identified by his first name only to protect his privacy. (AP Photo)

(AP) ? The family of an ailing, pregnant American woman missing in Afghanistan with her Canadian husband has broken months of silence over the mysterious case, making public appeals for the couple's safe return.

James Coleman, the father of 27-year-old Caitlan Coleman, told The Associated Press over the weekend that she was due to deliver in January and needed urgent medical attention for a liver ailment that required regular checkups. He said he and his wife, Lyn, last heard from their son-in-law Josh on Oct. 8 from an Internet cafe in what Josh described as an "unsafe" part of Afghanistan. The Colemans asked that Josh be identified by his first name only to protect his privacy.

The couple had embarked on a journey last July that took them to Russia, the central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then finally to Afghanistan.

Neither the Taliban nor any other militant group has claimed it is holding the couple, leading some to believe they were kidnapped. But no ransom demand has been made.

An Afghan official said their trail has gone dead.

"Our goal is to get them back safely and healthy," the father told AP on Friday night by phone. "I don't know what kind of care they're getting or not getting," he added. "We're just an average family and we don't have connections with anybody and we don't have a lot of money."

He made a similar appeal in a video posted on YouTube on Dec. 13.

"We appeal to whoever is caring for her to show compassion and allow Caity, Josh and our unborn grandbaby to come home," he said.

Before the video came out, the family had kept quiet about the case since the couple disappeared in early October. They appear to have broken their silence in hopes it might lead to a breakthrough.

But many questions remain over the disappearances.

It is not known whether the couple is still alive or how or why they entered Afghanistan. And there is no information about what they were doing in the country before they went missing.

James Coleman, of York County, Pennsylvania, said he was not entirely sure what his daughter and her husband were doing in Afghanistan. But he surmised they may have been seeking to help Afghans by joining an aid group after touring the region. In the AP interview, he described his daughter as "naive" and "adventuresome" with a humanitarian bent.

He said Josh did not disclose their exact location in his last email contact on Oct. 8, only saying they were not in a safe place. James Coleman also said the last withdrawals from the couple's account were made Oct. 8 and 9 in Kabul with no activity on the account and no further communication from them after that date.

"He just said they were heading into the mountains ? wherever that was, I don't know," the father said, adding, "They're both kind of naive, always have been in my view. Why they actually went to Afghanistan, I'm not sure... I assume it was more of the same, getting to know the local people, if they could find an NGO (non-governmental organization) or someone they could work with in a little way."

There was some indication that the couple knew they were in dangerous territory, though they perhaps did not grasp just how dangerous. James Coleman said in general, they preferred small villages and communities because they felt safer there than in big cities, and that is where they wanted to focus their travels.

"I assume they were going to strike out on foot like they were doing," he added.

Both the U.S. State Department and Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry say they are looking into the disappearance.

"Canada is pursuing all appropriate channels and officials are in close contact with local authorities," Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Chrystiane Roy said Friday, calling the incident a "possible kidnap."

It was not known whether the silence over the case by U.S. and Canadian officials and, until now, by the Coleman family was because of ongoing negotiations to seek their release. But information black-outs have kept some similar past cases quiet in an attempt to not further endanger those missing.

According to Hazrat Janan, the head of the provincial council in Afghanistan's Wardak province, the two were abducted in Wardak in an area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of the capital Kabul. They were passing through Wardak while traveling from Ghazni province south of Kabul to the capital.

Wardak province, despite its proximity to Kabul, is a rugged, mountainous haven for the Taliban and travel along its roads is dangerous. Foreigners who do not travel with military escorts take a substantial risk.

He said they were believed to have been taken from one district in Wardak to a second and then into Ghazni.

"After that, the trail went dead," Janan said.

He said it was suspected that the kidnappers were Taliban because criminal gangs would have likely asked for a ransom.

When the AP contacted Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid about the missing couple two months ago, he said the group had carried out an investigation and found no Taliban members were involved.

"We do not know about these two foreigners," he said in a telephone interview.

Janan's information could not be independently verified, and U.S. and Canadian officials still do not say for certain the couple was abducted.

NATO officials said they had no current information on the case, which was turned over to the U.S. State Department after it was determined the couple were not affiliated with foreign military forces.

Coleman said his daughter and her husband met on the Internet and married in 2011. They had previously travelled through Central America so they had some experience abroad.

During their recent Asian travels, they bought local goods to help vendors, slept in their tent and hostels and interacted with villagers. Despite her travel fever, love of history and a desire to do good, her father said Caitlan "wanted basically to be a housewife and have a bunch of kids."

___

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-12-30-Afghanistan-Missing%20Couple/id-8ca8d758caa541ce9eac9ab1a5ed954c

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GOP governors walk balance beam on health law

FILE - In this May 16, 2012 file photo, Florida Gov. Rick Scott speaks in Fort Lauderdale. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, long opposed President Barack Obama's remake of the health insurance market. After President Obama won re-election, the Republican governor softened his tone. He said he wanted to "have a conversation" with the administration about implementing the 2010 law. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter, File)

FILE - In this May 16, 2012 file photo, Florida Gov. Rick Scott speaks in Fort Lauderdale. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, long opposed President Barack Obama's remake of the health insurance market. After President Obama won re-election, the Republican governor softened his tone. He said he wanted to "have a conversation" with the administration about implementing the 2010 law. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter, File)

FILE - This Dec. 20, 2012 file photo shows New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie listens to a question in Belmar, N.J. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who made a fortune as a health care executive, long opposed President Barack Obama's remake of the health insurance market. After the Democratic president won re-election, the Republican governor softened his tone. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie also has walked a careful line. Both Republican governors face re-election in states that Obama won twice, Christie in 2013 and Scott in 2014. (AP Photo/Mel Evans, File)

(AP) ? Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who made a fortune as a health care executive, long opposed President Barack Obama's remake of the health insurance market. After the Democratic president won re-election, the Republican governor softened his tone. He said he wanted to "have a conversation" with the administration about implementing the 2010 law. With a federal deadline approaching, he also said while Florida won't set up the exchange for individuals to buy private insurance policies, the feds can do it.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie held his cards before saying he won't set up his own exchange, but he's avoided absolute language and says he could change his mind. He's also leaving his options open to accept federal money to expand Medicaid insurance for people who aren't covered. The caveat, Christie says, is whether Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius can "answer my questions" about its operations and expense.

Both Republican governors face re-election in states that Obama won twice, Christie in 2013 and Scott in 2014. And both will encounter well-financed Democrats.

Their apparent struggles on the issue, along with other postures by their GOP colleagues elsewhere, suggest political uncertainty for Republicans as the Affordable Care Act starts to go into effect two years after clearing Congress without a single Republican vote. The risks also are acute for governors in Democratic-leaning or swing-voting states or who know their records will be parsed should they seek the presidency in 2016 or beyond.

"It's a tough call for many Republican governors who want to do the best thing for their state but don't want to be seen as advancing an overhaul that many Republicans continue to detest," said Whit Ayers, a consultant in Virginia whose clients include Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee, a Republican who didn't announce his rejection of a state exchange until days before Sebelius's Dec. 14 deadline.

Indeed, cracks keep growing in the near-unanimous Republican rejection of Obama's health care law that characterized the GOP's political messaging for the last two years. Five GOP-led states ? Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah ? are pressing ahead with state insurance exchanges. Ongoing monitoring by The Associated Press shows that another five Republican-led states are pursuing or seriously a partnership with Washington to help run the new markets.

Democrats, meanwhile, hope to use the law and Republican inflexibility to their advantage, betting that more Americans will embrace the law once it expands coverage. The calculus for voters, Democrats assume, will become more about the policy and less about a polarizing president.

"It shouldn't be complicated at all," said John Anzalone, an Obama pollster who assists Democrats in federal races across the country. Anzalone said Republicans could use their own states-rights argument to justify running exchanges. Instead, he said, "They are blinded by Obama-hatred rather than seeing what's good for their citizens."

Governors can set up their own exchanges, partner with Sebelius' agency or let the federal government do it. The exchanges are set to open Jan. 1, 2014, allowing individuals and businesses to shop online for individual policies from private insurers. Low- and middle-income individuals will get federal premium subsidies calculated on a sliding income scale. Eighteen states plus Washington, DC, most led by Democrats, have committed to opening their own exchanges.

The law also calls for raising the income threshold for Medicaid eligibility to cover people making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $15,400 a year for an individual. That could add more than 10 million people, most of them childless adults, to the joint state-federal insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. Together, the exchanges and the Medicaid expansion are expected to reduce the number of uninsured by about 30 million people within the next decade.

A Supreme Court ruling last summer made the Medicaid expansion voluntary, rather than mandatory for states. At least eight governors, all of them Republicans, have already said they have no plans to expand Medicaid.

The complexity is obvious.

National exit polls from last month's election showed that 49 percent of voters wanted some or all of Obama's signature legislative achievement rolled back. Among self-identified independents, that number was 58 percent. Among Republicans, it spiked to 81 percent. When asked about the role of government, half of respondents said the notion that government is doing too much fits their views more closely than the idea that government should do more.

Before the election, a national AP-GfK poll suggested that 63 percent of respondents preferred their states to run insurance exchanges, almost double the 32 percent who wanted the federal government to take that role. And the same electorate that tilts toward repealing some or all of the new law clearly re-elected its champion.

That's not the most important consideration for governors who face re-election in Republican states. Georgia's Nathan Deal and Alabama's Robert Bentley, who also face 2014 campaigns, initially set up advisory commissions to consider how to carry out the health care law, but they've since jumped ship. But, unlike others, Deal and Bentley aren't eyeing national office.

Three Republicans who are viewed as potential national candidates ? Rick Perry of Texas, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana ? were full-throated opponents. Jindal, the only one of the three who is term-limited, is the incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association. In that role, he has co-signed more conciliatory letters to Sebelius asking questions to flesh out how the designs might work.

Republican governors also are feeling quiet pressure from hospitals and other providers.

Deal, the Georgia governor, offers the typical argument for saying no: "We can't afford it." But the law envisions the new Medicaid coverage more or less as a replacement of an existing financing situation that pays hospitals to treat the uninsured. The law contemplates cuts in that program, which already requires state seed money. The idea was that expanding Medicaid coverage would reduce "uncompensated care" costs.

"Some of those cuts were made with the expectation that Medicaid would be expanded and that hospitals would be paid for portions of business that we are not being paid for now," said Don Dalton of the North Carolina Hospital Association.

Dalton's Governor-elect, Republican Pat McCrory, said as a candidate that he opposed Medicaid expansion. Dalton said his industry is leaning on McCrory and legislative leaders, though he commended "their deliberate approach." Similar efforts are underway in South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri and elsewhere.

For Democrats, Anzalone said the framing will be simpler: "You don't want to take a 9-to-1 match? That's a pretty easy investment. These governors who aren't expanding Medicaid, they're basically giving taxpayer money to the states that do."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-30-Governors-Health%20Care/id-619c515b94b44696bcafd05d1d81dcbe

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Remotely Fetch Files from Your PC with SkyDrive (When It Isn't on Your SkyDrive)

Remotely Fetch Files from Your PC with SkyDrive (When It Isn't on Your SkyDrive)Windows: Like other online storage and syncing tools, SkyDrive is great for convenient access to the files you have in its sync folder(s). But it also has a killer feature: The ability to grab a file from a remote computer even if it hasn't been synced or is stored outside of the sync folder.

SkyDrive's Fetch feature is responsible for this awesome capability that can save you in a pinch when you've forgotten a file. 7Tutorials has a step-by-step guide to using SkyDrive's Fetch feature, but basically, you only need a few things: Enable Fetch in the SkyDrive desktop app (if you didn't do so already during the initial set up, it's under the app's settings menu) and make sure the computer you want to connect to is on and connected to the internet. Note that you can only fetch files that are on a Windows machine, but you can use a Mac to upload them to SkyDrive.

Then, log in to SkyDrive on the web from any computer and click on the name of the remote computer. You'll have to enter a security code Microsoft will email or text you for extra security, then you can browse the computer's files, right click the one you want, and upload it to SkyDrive.

For more screenshots and details, you can check out 7Tutorial's instructions or Microsoft's Fetch page .

How to Fetch Files Remotely from Your Computers Using SkyDrive | 7Tutorials via TinyHacker

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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Tigers Making Comeback in Asia

Camera trap images reveal tiger numbers rebounding across Asia, especially in southwestern India, where young tigers are leaving protected reserves due to population pressure, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The WCS attributes the rise in different tiger groups to better law enforcement and protection of additional habitat. For example, a notorious poaching ring was busted in Thailand last year, and the gang leaders have been given prison sentences of up to five years ? the most severe punishments for wildlife poaching in Thailand's history, the conservation group said in a statement.

Tiger numbers have been rising steadily in Thailand's Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary since 2007, with a record 50-plus tigers counted last year, the WCS said. The sanctuary is part of the country's Western Forest Complex. This core spans 7,000 square miles (18,000 square kilometers) and is home to an estimated 125 to 175 tigers.

In India's mountainous landscape of Nagarahole and Bandipur national parks, tigers have reached saturation levels, with more than 600 individuals caught on camera trap photos in the past decade. Young tigers are leaving the parks along protected corridors and entering a landscape with a population of a million people, the group said. [In Images: Tigers Rebound in Asia]

Conservationists also worked with government officials in Russia to create additional protected areas for tigers. The country declared a new corridor, called the Central Ussuri Wildlife Refuge, on Oct. 18. The refuge links the Sikhote-Alin tiger population in Russia ? the main group of endangered Amur tigers? with tiger habitat in China's Heilongjiang Province in the Wandashan Mountains. The refuge ensures that tigers can move across the border between Russia and China in this region.

An estimated 3,200 tigers are living in the wild, with only 2,500 breeding adult pairs, according to TRAFFIC, a monitoring group funded by the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Tigers have lost 93 percent of their historical range, which once sprawled across Asia from Turkey to Russia and south to Bali, according to the group.

"Tigers are clearly fighting for their very existence, but it's important to know that there is hope. Victories like these give us the resolve to continue to battle for these magnificent big cats," Cristi?n Samper, WCS president, said in a statement.

Reach Becky Oskin at boskin@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @beckyoskin. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter?@OAPlanet. We're also on?Facebook?and Google+.

Copyright 2012 OurAmazingPlanet, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tigers-making-comeback-asia-144611814.html

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Where can young people go for refuge? (Open letter to the Principle ...

Courtni Webb, one of your 17 year old high school students, is now facing the possibility of being expelled from your school after writing a poem about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the poem Courtni wrote she understood why someone like Adam Lanza might do what he did. She wasn?t agreeing with it, but in her poem said she understood the oppression in society that could cause such a tragedy.

For her intelligence and insight you did not award her a scholarship, but you alienated her further, exactly what she was writing about in her poem.? Working against young people like this, rather than with them, will do more harm than good. But you know this already, as that will be the reason your school was founded in the first place.? Your Life Learning Academy, that Courtni attends, is a last chance educational facility that takes on children that have struggled at their previous schools, who have been in trouble with the police, been involved with gangs etc. ?So no doubt Courtni has a reputation that precedes her.? She will not be an angel, and that may have influenced your decision to suspend her on this occasion.? I don?t have the luxury of knowing the inside story of what was going on here.

is it a case that Courtni is more intelligent than you give her credit for?? If so this is a sad situation, as we hope teachers have high expectations of their students, and have a duty of care to support them when they show signs of intelligence, (even when challenging to society?s norms), not to demonize them, as has happened here.? From what I can see, a young person who has struggled in life, has turned to poetry to creatively express her feelings, (which at her age will be as confused as they are clear), and rather than those of you with a duty of care for her to see that talent and nurture her skills, you have thrown it back in her face and have alienated her further.

Have we learned nothing?

Where can young people go for refuge from a world that doesn?t understand them, if not into the safety of the creative world, in a school that is their last chance? If a 17 year has the clarity of mind to write a poem about their feelings, no matter how challenging to adult polite society those feelings may be, they should be applauded, not treated as a bad person, (which is obviously why they might be angry in the first place).

Where are the ears to hear what these young people have got to say?

All over the United States (if not the world) there are people, experts and lay people, trying to make sense of the tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School, trying to understand the actions of Adam Lanza. They will be criminal psychologists, police officers, sociologists, anthropologists, school teachers, news reporters, columnists, politicians, bloggers, cultural commentators, mental health practitioners, and a whole host of other stakeholders that have an interest in seeing a peaceful world. Why do you not allow a young person their say also? More specifically, why not allow Courtni Webb her say? What makes her not worthy of an opinion, but all the others are allowed a say? What is going on here?

The other type of person I did not include in that list of opinion givers are artists. I?m sure artists have been having their say on the issue, but for them it maybe too soon to make a creative response. This is where Courtni should have been applauded even more. She has had the courage to make a creative response, to make her feelings known. She saw her art, poetry, as a safe place to explore the feelings she is having. Courtni is an much of an expert as any listed above. She is exactly the demographic we should be listening to, not silencing.

Where can young people go for refuge, if not in the safety of their own note books, and the trust of the adults around them?

Do not make it that the only place of refuge a young person has to go, is their own grave, by their own hand.

We need to keep our young people safe, not treat them as outcasts, cut adrift.? But as I said, I know you know all of this already, as that will be the reason your school was founded in the first place.

What other options do young people have to be taken seriously, and for their voices to be heard?? We (as adults) need to learn something here. Be careful how we treat the hearts of young people.

Your sincerely,

Dr Shawn Sobers
PhD ? Community Education

News story source ? http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/354278/28/Student-suspended-after-writing-poem-about-Sandy-Hook-shooter

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Source: http://beyondproject.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/where-can-young-people-go-for-refuge-open-letter-to-the-principle-and-governors-of-life-learning-academy-san-francisco/

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You can be part of the action with MirrorCase for iPhone 4/4S

With the iPhone 4/4S built-in cameras, you never find yourself without a camera anymore, but you’ll probably find yourself blocked from what’s happening with the iPhone in front of your face. ?The MirrorCase for iPhone 4/4S lets you hold the phone in the more natural, horizontal orientation, so you can see what’s happening around you [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/12/27/you-can-be-part-of-the-action-with-mirrorcase-for-iphone-44s/

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Winter Storm Systems Continue to Affect Post-Holiday Travel Plans ...

A powerful winter storm system is sweeping through the Northeast, bringing icy conditions to roadways and causing thousands of flights cancellations for travelers returning from Christmas vacation.

Stranded travelers across the middle and Northeastern region of the states may not have much to rescue them from travel despair except for their travel insurance policies. Travelers who have a policy in place can look for the following benefits to help relieve the stress and frustration of disrupted travel plans:

- Travel Delay ? This benefit can provide reimbursement for unexpected meal and accommodation expenses that travelers may be subject to during lengthy flight delays. The benefit usually allows a few hundred dollars per person to cover these costs. However, travelers should be aware that in most cases, they would need to be delayed for a specific number of hours before coverage is available.

- Missed Connection ? In the event a traveler misses a connecting flight because of inclement weather, this benefit can help pay the costs to ?catch up? to the trip. Travelers should note that some policies only cover missed cruise or tour departures, while others cover missed departures of any kind.

- Trip Interruption ? For those who are prevented from continuing on a trip, the trip interruption benefit can cover any unused non-refundable, prepaid trip expenses. It may also cover travelers who need to return home early due to a reason listed on the policy.

Weather can be just as unpredictable this time of year as it is during hurricane season. In order to maximize coverage, travelers should understand policy details. Look for benefits that cover delays, cancellations, or interruptions because of weather. With the right benefits in place, the stress of traveling during the busy holiday season can be alleviated.

Related articles:

Source: http://blogs.squaremouth.com/travel-advice/winter-storm-systems-continue-to-affect-post-holiday-travel-plans/

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Friday, December 28, 2012

Elite Professional Golfers at Home in Old Palm Golf Club | Old Palm ...

Old Palm has become the North American home for several of the biggest golf stars on the PGA Tour and European Tour. Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, and Lee Westwood have purchased residences at Old Palm, citing its gracious neighborhoods, award-winning builders and sense of community. Darren Clarke is a member and ?regular? at the Club, where he mingles with his contemporaries and other Old Palm owners.

Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open Champion, was the first of the group to purchase a home in Old Palm. Louis, his wife Nel-Mare, and two young daughters moved into a stunning, two-story estate overlooking the third hole of Old Palm?s spectacular Raymond Floyd-designed golf course.? The home is located within the Golf Estates, where the family will reside when Louis plays in North American PGA Tour events.

?Old Palm is a haven for relaxation and enjoyment for me when I am in the United States,? says Oosthuizen. ?The world-class amenities, exclusivity and a sense of community provide a sense of comfort and home between Tour events.?

Fellow South African and 2011 Masters champion and recent winner of the Thailand Golf Championship, Schwartzel, purchased a large estate at Old Palm. Charl and his wife, Rosalind, are finalizing plans on the custom home they?ll build in the Custom Estates. Home sites in this elegant neighborhood average one full acre, a rare and welcome luxury in the Palm Beaches.

?Living at Old Palm has been a wonderful experience and not just because of its exceptional golf facilities,? says Schwartzel. ?Old Palm makes for a relaxing lifestyle, so I can play my best when traveling throughout the United States for PGA Tour events. It allows for privacy when we want it, and when we?re in the Club the members have welcomed us like old friends.?

Westwood, who hails from England, recently purchased his home in Old Palm?s Custom Estates neighborhood as a year-round base. Hasey Construction is customizing the residence to suit the Westwood family, which includes Lee?s wife, Laurae, and their son and daughter. The home is designed for entertaining and features unique characteristics such as a fire pit within the swimming pool, and a NanaWall system of folding glass doors that opens the home?s interior space to the outdoors.

?Old Palm is an ideal living situation for me and my family, and the convenient location and weather are optimal for my PGA Tour schedule. The phenomenal practice facilities coupled with the outstanding amenities and atmosphere make Old Palm the perfect home for us.?

Source: http://oldpalmgolfclub.com/2012/12/27/elite-professional-golfers-at-home-in-old-palm-golf-club-2/

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Baby Boomer Alert: #1 Hit Maker Fontella Bass Dies At 72! (VIDEO)

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She really only had one hit?but it was a doozie!

Fontella Bass, who had a monster #1 hit in 1965 called ?Rescue Me,? has died in St. Louis according to family members.? ?Rescue me? stayed at #1 for over a month and sold 1.2-million records.

Turn your speakers up and pay tribute to one of the 1960s greatest ?One Hit Wonders.?

Source: http://cnynews.com/baby-boomer-alert-1-hit-maker-fontella-bass-dies-at-72-video/

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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Video: George H.W. Bush?s fever worsens

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50300379/

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N.Y. firefighters' killer had detailed plan for attack

WEBSTER, N.Y. (AP) ? The ex-con turned sniper who killed two firefighters wanted to make sure his goodbye note was legible, typing out his desire to "do what I like doing best, killing people" before setting the house where he lived with his sister ablaze, police said.

Police Chief Gerald Pickering said Tuesday that the 62-year-old loner, William Spengler, brought plenty of ammunition with him for three weapons including a military-style assault rifle as he set out on a quest to burn down his neighborhood just before sunrise on Christmas Eve.

And when firefighters arrived to stop him, he unleashed a torrent of bullets, shattering the windshield of the fire truck that volunteer firefighter and police Lt. Michael Chiapperini, 43, drove to the scene. Fellow firefighter Tomasz Kaczowka, 19, who worked as a 911 dispatcher, was killed as well.

Two other firefighters were struck by bullets, one in the pelvis and the other in the chest and knee. They remained hospitalized in stable condition and were expected to survive.

On Tuesday, investigators found a body in the Spengler home, presumably that of the sister a neighbor said Spengler hated: 67-year-old Cheryl Spengler. Spengler's penchant for death had surfaced before. He served 17 years in prison for manslaughter in the 1980 hammer slaying of his grandmother.

But his intent was unmistakable when he left his flaming home carrying a pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber revolver and a .223-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle with flash suppression, the same make and caliber weapon used in the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., that killed 26.

"He was equipped to go to war, kill innocent people," the chief said of a felon who wasn't allowed to possess weapons because of his criminal past. It was not clear how he got them.

The assault rifle was believed to be the weapon that struck down the firefighters. He then killed himself as seven houses burned on a sliver of land along Lake Ontario. His body was not found on a nearby beach until hours afterward.

Residents of the suburban Rochester neighborhood who left their homes during the fire were allowed to return Tuesday. Police SWAT team members had used an armored vehicle to evacuate more than 30 residents.

Spengler's motive was left unclear, Pickering said, even as authorities began analyzing a two- to three-page typewritten rambling note Spengler left behind.

He declined to reveal the note's full content or say where it was found. He read only one chilling line: "I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down, and do what I like doing best, killing people."

Pickering added: "There was some rambling in there and some intelligence we need to follow up on."

It remained unknown what set Spengler off but a next-door neighbor, Roger Vercruysse, noted that he loved his mother, Arline, who died in October after living in the house in a neighborhood of seasonal and year-round homes across the road from a lakeshore popular with recreational boaters.

Pickering said it was unclear whether the person believed to be Spengler's sister died before or during the fire.

"It was a raging inferno in there," Pickering said.

As Pickering described it and as emergency radio communications on the scene showed, the heavily armed Spengler took a position behind a small hill by the house as four firefighters arrived after 5:30 a.m. to extinguish the fire: two on a fire truck; two in their own vehicles.

Several firefighters went beneath the truck to shield themselves as an off-duty police officer who came to the scene pulled his vehicle alongside the truck to try to shield them, authorities said.

The first police officer who arrived chased and exchanged shots with Spengler, recounting it later over his police radio.

"I could see the muzzle blasts comin' at me. ... I fired four shots at him. I thought he went down," the officer said.

At another point, he said: "I don't know if I hit him or not. He's by a tree. ... He was movin' eastbound on the berm when I was firing shots." Pickering portrayed the officer as a hero who saved many lives.

The audio posted on the website RadioReference.com also has someone reporting "firefighters are down" and saying "got to be rifle or shotgun ? high-powered ... semi or fully auto."

Spengler had been charged with murder in his grandmother's death but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, apparently to spare his family a trial. After he was freed from prison, Spengler had lived a quiet life on Lake Road on a narrow peninsula where Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario.

That ended when he left his burning home Monday morning, armed with his weapons, a lot of ammunition and a measure of hate.

"I'm not sure we'll ever know what was going through his mind," Pickering said.

Services were set for the two Rochester-area volunteer firefighters. Calling hours will be held at Webster Schroeder High School on Friday and Saturday. A funeral service for Chiapperini was scheduled for noon Sunday at the high school, with burial in West Webster Cemetery.

A funeral Mass for Kaczowka will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Stanislaus Church in Rochester. Burial will be at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester.

___

Esch reported from Albany. Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister in New York City also contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ny-firemens-killer-mapped-plan-slayings-071946537.html

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US gun support runs far deeper than politics

BRYAN, Texas (AP) ? Adam Lanza's mother was among the tens of millions of U.S. gun owners. She legally had a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle and a pair of handguns, which her 20-year-old son used to kill 20 children and six adults in 10 minutes inside a Connecticut school.

In the raw aftermath of the second-worst school shooting in U.S. history, countless gun enthusiasts much like Lanza's mother complicate a gun-owning narrative that critics, sometimes simplistically, put at the feet of a powerful lobby and caricatured zealots. More civilians are armed in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, with Yemen coming in a distant second, according to the independent Small Arms Survey in Geneva.

Take Blake Smith, a mechanical engineer who lives near Houston and uses an AR-15 style rifle in shooting competitions.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who famously claimed to have shot a coyote while jogging with a pistol holstered to his running shorts, has signed a half-dozen certificates applauding Smith as one of the state's top marksmen. "But I won't call myself a fanatic," said Smith, 54, whose father first let him handle a gun around age 6.

"I sit at a desk all day. And when I get out to the range, I don't hear any gunfire going on," said Smith, who likens his emotional detachment to his guns to the way he would feel about a car or any other machine. "I'm so intent on my sight alignment, my trigger pull, my position. I don't worry about anything. I don't think about anything. It's relieving. It's therapeutic. Everybody has to have their Zen."

Since the school shooting, President Barack Obama has asked for proposals on reducing gun violence that he can take to Congress in January, and he called on the National Rifle Association, the country's most powerful gun-rights organization, to join the effort.

Gun laws in the U.S. vary from state to state ? for instance, as of last month it is now legal to carry a gun in public view in Oklahoma ? and are defended by the firearms industry and the NRA. On Friday, the NRA broke a weeklong silence since the Connecticut massacre by calling for armed volunteers at public schools, prompting criticism from many quarters.

But in the U.S., gun-control advocates are up against a sizeable bloc of mainstream Americans for whom guns are central to their lives, whether for patriotism or personal sense of safety, or simply to occupy their spare time.

Dave Burdett, who owns an outdoors and adventure shop across the street from the sprawling Texas A&M University campus in College Station, says his affinity for guns is rooted in history, not sport.

"It isn't about hunting. Everyone says, 'Well, I can understand having a sporting rifle, but not an AR-15," Burdett said. "But wait a second ? the idea of the Second Amendment was to preserve and protect the rights of individuals to have those guns."

"Remember that the (American) revolution was fought by citizen soldiers," he added. "To this day, that's one of the cornerstones of our military defense. We have an all-volunteer military."

An NRA poster picturing a bald eagle is taped to the glass door of his office. He started as a lawyer, dabbling in everything from commercial land to trying to block the deportation of an illegal immigrant, before seguing into selling guns.

When his daughter graduated with a business degree from Texas A&M, Burdett figured she would move somewhere cosmopolitan like Dallas and work in a downtown high-rise. She instead went to work in the store, built her own AR-15 out of spare parts and used it to join what her father described as the "let's-go-pig-hunting-tonight circuit." Those feral hog hunts often include high-powered rifles as well as night-vision goggles.

"The other thing is, shooting is fun. It really is," Burdett said.

Many think so. Smith, the mechanical engineer, said that includes teenage girls. At national shooting competitions, Smith has run into a group of girls around 13 or 14 years old who call themselves "The Pink Ladies," firing high-powered rifles at targets. He also recalls meeting Australians, whose country bans guns, who told him, "I love to shoot, so I'm going to the U.S."

Others add safety to the list of reasons for allowing people easy access to guns.

"To me it's obvious ? the more people that have guns, or at least in their homes, it's more of a criminal deterrent," said Bill Moos, a local taxidermist in the small town of Bryan, near College Station. Moos, who owns more than 30 guns, can be spotted any given morning, prowling his roughly 40-acre (16-hectare) ranch with his dogs and a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

He tells a story of standing in the post office one day and hearing about a suspect driving around, wanted by the police. He thought of the woman behind the counter near him.

"My first thought was, 'How are you going to protect yourself?' Does she have a gun, in case someone tries to rob her?" he said. "It's the first thing you think of: How are you going to defend yourself?"

On the television in the corner of his workshop, above a stuffed gray fox and a clutch of animal jawbones dangling on a ring like a set of keys, Obama is holding his first press conference since the Connecticut tragedy. He's promising to send Congress legislation tightening gun laws and urging them to reinstate a ban on military-style assault weapons, like the one used by Lanza.

Moos turns down the volume.

"I guess it's something you get used to," he said of guns. "That you grow up around, and you enjoy them, and you accept the fact that you can own. It's a privilege. It's a whole different way of life. I guess I don't need three pick-ups and a Corvette. But I have them."

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-gun-support-runs-far-deeper-politics-161134679.html

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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

MRI can screen patients for Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal lobar degeneration

MRI can screen patients for Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal lobar degeneration [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 26-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kim Menard
kim.menard@uphs.upenn.edu
215-662-6183
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Penn-designed non-invasive MRI screening method is cost-effective, statistically powerful

PHILADELPHIA - When trying to determine the root cause of a person's dementia, using an MRI can effectively and non-invasively screen patients for Alzheimer's disease or Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD), according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Using an MRI-based algorithm effectively differentiated cases 75 percent of the time, according to the study, published in the December 26th, 2012, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The non-invasive approach reported in this study can track disease progression over time more easily and cost-effectively than other tests, particularly in clinical trials testing new therapies.

Researchers used the MRIs to predict the ratio of two biomarkers for the diseases - the proteins total tau and beta-amyloid - in the cerebrospinal fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid analyses remain the most accurate method for predicting the disease cause, but requires a more invasive lumbar puncture. "Using this novel method, we obtain a single biologically meaningful value from analyzing MRI data in this manner and then we can derive a probabilistic estimate of the likelihood of Alzheimer's or FTLD," said the study's lead author, Corey McMillan, PhD, of the Perelman School of Medicine and Frontotemporal Degeneration Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Using the MRI prediction method was 75 percent accurate at identifying the correct diagnosis in both patients with pre-confirmed disease diagnoses and those with biomarker levels confirmed by lumbar punctures, which shows comparable overlap between accuracy of the MRI and lumbar puncture methods. "For those remaining 25 percent of cases that are borderline, a lumbar puncture testing spinal fluid may provide a more accurate estimate of the pathological diagnosis."

Accurate tests to measure disease progression are very important in neurodegenerative diseases, especially as clinical trials test new therapies to slow or stop the progression or the disease. Biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases have been steadily improving, with new developments including spinal fluid tests detecting tau and amyloid-beta protein levels and other neuroimaging techniques developed at Penn Medicine, as part of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. While a spinal fluid test can be used to accurately pinpoint whether disease-specific proteins are present, the test requires a more invasive lumbar puncture making it more difficult to repeat over time. And for studies using other imaging techniques, such as test measuring whole brain volume, reduced sensitivity of the measurement requires more patients to be enrolled in clinical trials for statistical power to be achieved.

"Since this method yields a single biological value, it is possible to use MRI to screen patients for inclusion in clinical trials in a cost-effective manner and to provide an outcome measure that optimizes power in drug treatment trials," the authors concluded.

###

The Penn team includes Dr. McMillan, Brian Avants, PhD, David Irwin, MD, John Toledo, MD, David Wolk, MD, Vivianna Van Deerlin, MD, PhD, Leslie Shaw, PhD, John Trojanowski, MD, PhD, and Murray Grossman, MD, EdD, with Penn's departments of Neurology, Radiology and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine as well as the Penn Memory Center, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, and the Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center.

The study was funded by the Wyncote Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (AG17586, NS44166).

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $479.3 million awarded in the 2011 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2011, Penn Medicine provided $854 million to benefit our community.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


MRI can screen patients for Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal lobar degeneration [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 26-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kim Menard
kim.menard@uphs.upenn.edu
215-662-6183
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Penn-designed non-invasive MRI screening method is cost-effective, statistically powerful

PHILADELPHIA - When trying to determine the root cause of a person's dementia, using an MRI can effectively and non-invasively screen patients for Alzheimer's disease or Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD), according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Using an MRI-based algorithm effectively differentiated cases 75 percent of the time, according to the study, published in the December 26th, 2012, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The non-invasive approach reported in this study can track disease progression over time more easily and cost-effectively than other tests, particularly in clinical trials testing new therapies.

Researchers used the MRIs to predict the ratio of two biomarkers for the diseases - the proteins total tau and beta-amyloid - in the cerebrospinal fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid analyses remain the most accurate method for predicting the disease cause, but requires a more invasive lumbar puncture. "Using this novel method, we obtain a single biologically meaningful value from analyzing MRI data in this manner and then we can derive a probabilistic estimate of the likelihood of Alzheimer's or FTLD," said the study's lead author, Corey McMillan, PhD, of the Perelman School of Medicine and Frontotemporal Degeneration Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Using the MRI prediction method was 75 percent accurate at identifying the correct diagnosis in both patients with pre-confirmed disease diagnoses and those with biomarker levels confirmed by lumbar punctures, which shows comparable overlap between accuracy of the MRI and lumbar puncture methods. "For those remaining 25 percent of cases that are borderline, a lumbar puncture testing spinal fluid may provide a more accurate estimate of the pathological diagnosis."

Accurate tests to measure disease progression are very important in neurodegenerative diseases, especially as clinical trials test new therapies to slow or stop the progression or the disease. Biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases have been steadily improving, with new developments including spinal fluid tests detecting tau and amyloid-beta protein levels and other neuroimaging techniques developed at Penn Medicine, as part of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. While a spinal fluid test can be used to accurately pinpoint whether disease-specific proteins are present, the test requires a more invasive lumbar puncture making it more difficult to repeat over time. And for studies using other imaging techniques, such as test measuring whole brain volume, reduced sensitivity of the measurement requires more patients to be enrolled in clinical trials for statistical power to be achieved.

"Since this method yields a single biological value, it is possible to use MRI to screen patients for inclusion in clinical trials in a cost-effective manner and to provide an outcome measure that optimizes power in drug treatment trials," the authors concluded.

###

The Penn team includes Dr. McMillan, Brian Avants, PhD, David Irwin, MD, John Toledo, MD, David Wolk, MD, Vivianna Van Deerlin, MD, PhD, Leslie Shaw, PhD, John Trojanowski, MD, PhD, and Murray Grossman, MD, EdD, with Penn's departments of Neurology, Radiology and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine as well as the Penn Memory Center, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, and the Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center.

The study was funded by the Wyncote Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (AG17586, NS44166).

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $479.3 million awarded in the 2011 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2011, Penn Medicine provided $854 million to benefit our community.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/uops-mcs121812.php

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Our Google Play Gift Card giveaway continues today!

Android Central Stocking StuffersOh, my. So ... full. Can't ... hardly ... type. But the giving must go on. We're marching toward the final round of our month-long (ish) Google Play Gift Card giveaway, in which we're giving 31 lucky winners $10 to spend on Android apps, movies, music, magazines or TV shows from Google Play.

Oh, and by the way -- all 31 winners (one for each day in December) will be entered to win a shiny new Nexus 4, still in its box, sitting here on our desk. (In case you had any concern for our ability to snag what remains an unsnaggable device.)

So ... for today's entries: Leave a comment on this post and tell us the top Android-related feature you're hoping for in 2013. One entry per person, yadda yadda yadda.

Good luck!



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/88iQhotTlQU/story01.htm

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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Officials: NY gunman set 'trap' for firefighters

A house burns Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Jamie Germano)

A house burns Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Jamie Germano)

A house burns Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. An ex-con set a car and a house ablaze in his lakeside neighborhood to lure firefighters, then opened fire on them, killing two, engaging in a shootout with police and committing suicide while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Jamie Germano)

Police officers move in to look for a man who set fire to a house, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Jamie Germano)

Homes burn on Lake Road, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Max Schulte)

A Monroe County Sheriff's Department armored truck drops off residents who were evacuated from the neighborhood, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, New York. A former convict set a house and car ablaze in his lakeside New York state neighborhood to lure firefighters then opened fire on them, killing two and engaging police in a shootout before killing himself while several homes burned. Authorities used an armored vehicle to evacuate the area. (AP Photo/Democrat & Chronicle, Max Schulte)

WEBSTER, N.Y. (AP) ? A man who set his house on fire then lured firefighters to their deaths in a blaze of flames and bullets had attracted little attention since he got out of prison in the 1990s for killing his grandmother, authorities said.

But two months ago, William Spengler's mother died, leaving the 62-year-old ex-con in a Lake Ontario house with his sister, who he "couldn't stand," a friend said.

Spengler set a car and a house in his neighborhood ablaze early Monday, luring firefighters to the neighborhood and then killed two, wounded two others and injured a police officer while several homes burned around him, police said. Spengler then killed himself. His sister, Cheryl, was missing.

About 100 people attended an impromptu memorial vigil Monday evening in Webster, a suburb of Rochester. Dozens of bouquets were left at the fire station, along with a handwritten sign that said, "Thanks for protecting us. RIP."

Spengler, had been living in the home in Webster, a suburb of Rochester, with his mother and sister since his parole in 1998. He had served 17 years in prison after the beating death of his 92-year-old grandmother in 1980, for which he had originally been charged with murder but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter. His mother, Arline, died in October.

On Monday, Spengler fired at the four firefighters when they arrived shortly after 5:30 a.m. at the blaze, town police Chief Gerald Pickering said. The first police officer who arrived chased the gunman and exchanged shots.

Spengler lay in wait outdoors for the firefighters' arrival, then opened fire probably with a rifle and from atop an earthen berm, Pickering said. "It does appear it was a trap," he said.

Authorities used an armored vehicle to help residents flee dozens of homes on the shore of Lake Ontario a day before Christmas. Police restricted access to the neighborhood, and officials said it was unclear whether there were other bodies in the seven houses left to burn.

Authorities said Spengler hadn't done anything to bring himself to their attention since his parole. As a convicted felon, he wasn't allowed to possess weapons. Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley said Spengler led a very quiet life after he got out of prison.

A friend said Spengler hated his sister. Roger Vercruysse lived next door to Spengler and recalled a man who doted on his mother, whose obituary suggested contributions to the West Webster Fire Department.

"He loved his mama to death," said Vercruysse, who last saw his friend about six months ago.

Vercruysse also said Spengler "couldn't stand his sister" and "stayed on one side of the house and she stayed on the other."

The West Webster Fire District learned of the fire early Monday after a report of a car and house on fire on Lake Road, on a narrow peninsula where Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario, Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said.

The fire appeared from a distance as a pulsating ball of flame glowing against the early morning sky, flames licking into treetops and reflecting on the water, with huge bursts of smoke billowing away in a brisk wind.

Emergency radio communications capture someone saying he "could see the muzzle flash coming at me" as Spengler carried out his ambush. The audio posted on the website RadioReference.com has someone reporting "firefighters are down" and saying "got to be rifle or shotgun - high powered ... semi or fully auto."

Two of the firefighters arrived on a fire engine and two in their own vehicles, Pickering said. After Spengler fired, one of the wounded men fled, but the other three couldn't because of flying gunfire.

The police officer who exchanged gunfire with Spengler "in all likelihood saved many lives," Pickering said.

A police armored vehicle was used to recover two men, and eventually it removed 33 people from nearby homes, the police chief said. The gunfire initially kept firefighters from battling the blazes.

The dead men were identified as police Lt. Michael Chiapperini, 43, the Webster Police Department's public information officer; and 19-year-old Tomasz Kaczowka, also a 911 dispatcher.

Pickering described Chiapperini as a "lifetime firefighter" with nearly 20 years in the department, and he called Kaczowka a "tremendous young man."

Kaczowka's brother, reached at the family home Monday night, said he didn't want to talk.

The two wounded firefighters, Joseph Hofstetter and Theodore Scardino, remained in guarded condition Tuesday at Strong Memorial Hospital, authorities said. Both were awake and alert and are expected to recover.

Hofstetter, also a full-timer with the Rochester Fire Department, was hit once in the pelvis, and the bullet lodged in his spine, authorities said. Scardino was hit in the chest and knee.

At West Webster Fire Station 1, there were at least 20 bouquets on a bench in front and a bouquet of roses with three gold-and-white ribbons saying, "May they rest in peace," ''In the line of duty" and "In memory of our fallen brothers."

A handwritten sign says, "Thanks for protecting us, RIP." Two candles were lit to honor the dead.

Grieving firefighters declined to talk to reporters. At an impromptu memorial vigil Monday evening, about 100 people stood in the cold night air, some holding candles. A fire department spokesman made a brief appearance, thanked them all and told them to go home and appreciate their families.

Cathy Bartlett was there with her teenage son, who was good friends with Kaczowka. Bartlett's husband, Mark Bartlett, has been a firefighter there for 25 years but missed the call this morning.

"Thank God my husband slept through the first alarm and didn't get up until the second one went off," she said.

The shooting and fires were in a neighborhood of seasonal and year-round homes set close together across the road from the lakeshore. The area is popular with recreational boaters but is normally quiet this time of year.

"We have very few calls for service in that location," Pickering said. "Webster is a tremendous community. We are a safe community, and to have a tragedy befall us like this is just horrendous."

O'Flynn lamented the violence, which comes on the heels of other shootings including the massacre of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"It's sad to see that this is becoming more commonplace in communities across the nation," O'Flynn said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the State Police and Office of Emergency Management were working with local authorities.

"Volunteer firefighters and police officers were injured and two were taken from us as they once again answered the call of duty," Cuomo said in a statement. "We as the community of New York mourn their loss as now two more families must spend the holidays without their loved ones."

Webster, a middle-class suburb, now is the scene of violence linked to house fires for two Decembers in a row.

Last Dec. 7, authorities say, a 15-year-old boy doused his home with gasoline and set it ablaze, killing his father and two brothers, 16 and 12. His mother and 13-year-old sister escaped with injuries. He is being prosecuted as an adult.

___

Associated Press writers Chris Carola, George Walsh and Mary Esch in Albany contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-25-Fire-Shooting/id-85a15238e992476fa83435686c156e5d

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