Belgium strikes on day of EU summit (AP)

BRUSSELS ? Belgian trade unions organizing a nationwide strike Monday called on leaders attending the European Union summit in Brussels to move away from austerity measures and start boosting growth and employment.

The 27 EU leaders converging on Brussels for their informal summit were largely unaffected by a train and public transport strike, even though some had to come through a small military airport instead of the main one in Brussels.

"We used our military plane ? very small ? but it functions. It is quite cold, but nevertheless we came," said Finland Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen.

Belgium's three main unions have called for efforts to reinvigorate the European economy by centering on taxing multinationals and boosting public investment instead of slashing public services and imposing a pension reform that forces people to work longer and cuts payments in some cases.

One of the country's airports was closed and Brussels' international airport suffered cancellations, delays and diversions. Traffic delays were limited since many people either worked from home or took a day off.

Trade union leaders converged at the summit building for a small demonstration, demanding a better deal for the workers.

"What we need is growth. Growth creates jobs. And you don't get growth when you suck the oxygen out of the economy by austerity, austerity, and then some," said Christian Democrat union leader Marc Leemans.

Overall, 23 million people are jobless across the EU, 10 percent of the active population.

As part of the demonstration at the summit building, union leaders delivered a symbolic "eurobond" ? pressing for a joint pooling of debt in the eurozone, a measure that has been steadfastly opposed by Germany. Struggling member states like Greece, Portugal and Ireland would benefit most from such bonds.

"At this stage, the poor members states are left in misery and the rich stand by and watch," said Leemans.

After two years of centering summit efforts on austerity and ways to keep debt down, the leaders are assessing ways to spur employment on Monday.

"Only now, we are talking about work and employment. It is too late, but better now than never," said socialist trade union leader Rudy De Leeuw.

Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo said both could go hand in hand.

"Restoring growth that is what is essential for us. Also, we need more budgetary discipline. Together these two elements offer a way out of the crisis," Di Rupo said.

To help jump-start the EU toward more growth and employment, the EU Commission is proposing to the summit leaders to redirect euro82 billion in existing funds toward countries in dire need of help to fix their labor market.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_belgium_strike

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Syria forces retake Damascus suburbs; showdown at U.N. (Reuters)

AMMAN/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) ? Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have taken the upper hand in escalating battles on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, while top Western and Arab diplomats are seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for him to go.

Rebels who seized suburbs of Damascus were driven out after three days of fighting that activists say killed at least 100 people.

Activist organizations said 25 people were killed on Monday in Damascus suburbs and dozens more died in other parts of the country, mostly in raids in Homs and the surrounding countryside.

Events on the ground are difficult to confirm, as the Syrian government restricts most access by journalists.

The Arab League wants the Security Council to pass a resolution backing an Arab peace plan that calls on Assad to relinquish power to his deputy and prepare for elections.

Its Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby and the prime minister of Qatar will make the case at the world body on Tuesday.

The Arab delegation will be supported in person by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe as the West presents a united front.

The resolution's fate depends on whether the Arabs and their Western backers can persuade Russia not to veto it.

NEW PHASE

A 10-month uprising against Assad - one of the most violent revolts of the "Arab Spring" - has entered a new phase in recent weeks, with an increasingly armed and organized opposition attempting to hold territory.

A last-ditch bid by Moscow to broker talks between Assad's government and rebels foundered when the opposition refused to attend, citing the continued killing, torture and imprisonment of the president's opponents.

Washington said countries needed to accept that Assad's rule was doomed and stop shielding him in the Security Council.

"It is important that the Security Council take action," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday. "We believe that the Security Council should not permit the Assad regime to assault the Syrian people while it rejects the Arab League's proposal for a political solution."

"As governments make decisions about where they stand on this issue and what further steps need to be taken with regards to the brutality of the Assad regime, it is important to calculate into your considerations the fact that he will go," Carney said. "The regime has lost control of the country and will eventually fall."

Syria was dismissive of the U.S. remarks.

"We are not surprised at the lack of wisdom or rationality of these statements and regret that they are still issued by countries that are used to making the Middle East an arena for their follies and failures," the state news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry source as saying late on Monday.

A draft of the U.N. Security Council resolution, obtained by Reuters, calls for a "political transition" in Syria, and says the Security Council could adopt unspecified "further measures" if Syria does not comply with its terms.

It endorses the Arab League power transfer plan. So far Moscow has shown little sign of being persuaded to let it pass.

"The current Western draft is only a step away from the October version and can by no means be supported by us," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told Interfax. "This document is not balanced ... and above all leaves the door open for intervention in Syrian (internal) affairs."

Nevertheless, some Western diplomats said they hoped Russia and China could be persuaded not to block the draft.

An abstention by Russia and China last March paved the way for the Security Council to authorize force against Muammar Gaddafi's military in Libya with Arab League support.

Making the Arab League's case, Elaraby will be joined by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, whose country heads the League's committee dealing with Syria.

ASSAULT ON DAMASCUS BEATEN BACK

Assad's forces appear to have decisively beaten back an attempt by the opposition to march on the outskirts of Damascus.

Activists and residents said Syrian troops now had control of Hamouriyeh, one of several districts where they have used armored vehicles and artillery to push back rebels who came as close as 8 km (5 miles) to Damascus.

An activist said the Free Syrian Army (FSA) - a force of military defectors with links to Syria's divided opposition - mounted scattered attacks on government troops who advanced through the district of Saqba, held by rebels just days ago.

Rebels are risking heavier clashes and speaking of creating "liberated" territories to force diplomatic action. In the past three weeks they have taken Zabadani - a town of 40,000 in mountainous near the border with Lebanon.

"God willing, we will liberate more territory, because the international community has only offered delayed action and empty threats," said a lieutenant colonel who had defected to the FSA and asked not to be identified.

Homs residents said fighting erupted on Monday in the al-Qusour neighborhood, and several armored vehicles belonging to loyalist forces where destroyed.

In the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, which had remained mostly on the sidelines in the uprising as an alliance between Assad and the city's Sunni Muslim merchant class held, demonstrations erupted for a fourth day in several districts.

Tension rose there after pro-Assad militiamen killed 10 people following a pro-democracy demonstration on Friday.

Security forces cut off electricity from Fardos neighborhood of Aleppo and arrested 100 youths on Monday after a demonstration demanding the removal of Assad, activists said.

Syria's state news agency said six soldiers died in an attack near Deraa in the south and a gas pipeline was blown up.

The state news agency SANA has reported funerals of more than 70 members of the security forces members since Friday.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Syria agreed to Russian-brokered negotiations over the crisis, but senior members of the council set up to speak for a fragmented Syria opposition said there was no point in talking to Assad, who must quit.

"We rejected the Russian proposal because they wanted us to talk with the regime while it continues the killings, the torture, the imprisonment," Walid al-Bunni, foreign affairs chief for the Syrian National Council, told Reuters.

The escalating bloodshed prompted the Arab League to suspend the work of its monitors on Saturday. Arab foreign ministers, who have urged Assad to step down and make way for a government of national unity, are due to discuss the crisis on February 5.

The United Nations said in December more than 5,000 people had been killed in the protests and crackdown. Syria says more than 2,000 security force members have been killed by militants.

(Writing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120131/wl_nm/us_syria

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Body clock receptor linked to diabetes in new genetic study

Monday, January 30, 2012

A study published in Nature Genetics today has found new evidence for a link between the body clock hormone melatonin and type 2 diabetes. The study found that people who carry rare genetic mutations in the receptor for melatonin have a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The findings should help scientists to more accurately assess personal diabetes risk and could lead to the development of personalised treatments.

Previous research has found that people who work night shifts have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Studies have also found that if volunteers have their sleep disrupted repeatedly for three days, they temporarily develop symptoms of diabetes.

The body's sleep-wake cycle is controlled by the hormone melatonin, which has effects including drowsiness and lowering body temperature. In 2008, a genetic study led by Imperial College London discovered that people with common variations in the gene for MT2, a receptor for melatonin, have a slightly higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The new study reveals that carrying any of four rare mutations in the MT2 gene increases a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes six times. The release of insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels, is known to be regulated by melatonin. The researchers suggest that mutations in the MT2 gene may disrupt the link between the body clock and insulin release, leading to abnormal control of blood sugar.

Professor Philippe Froguel, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: "Blood sugar control is one of the many processes regulated by the body's biological clock. This study adds to our understanding of how the gene that carries the blueprint for a key component in the clock can influence people's risk of diabetes.

"We found very rare variants of the MT2 gene that have a much larger effect than more common variants discovered before. Although each mutation is rare, they are common in the sense that everyone has a lot of very rare mutations in their DNA. Cataloguing these mutations will enable us to much more accurately assess a person's risk of disease based on their genetics."

In the study, the Imperial team and their collaborators at several institutions in the UK and France examined the MT2 gene in 7,632 people to look for more unusual variants that have a bigger effect on disease risk. They found 40 variants associated with type 2 diabetes, four of which were very rare and rendered the receptor completely incapable of responding to melatonin. The scientists then confirmed the link with these four variants in an additional sample of 11,854 people.

Professor Froguel and his team analysed each mutation by testing what effect they have on the MT2 receptor in human cells in the lab. The mutations that completely prevented the receptor from working proved to have a very big effect on diabetes risk, suggesting that there is a direct link between MT2 and the disease.

###

Imperial College London: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/press

Thanks to Imperial College London for this article.

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Mayor: Conn. police chief's retirement 'selfless'

FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2006 file photo, police Chief Leonard Gallo talks with reporters at the East Haven, Conn., police station. Four East Haven police officers were arrested Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, on charges of harassing and intimidating Latino residents. An indictment refers to Gallo as an unnamed co-conspirator, accused of blocking efforts by the police commission to investigate misconduct. His attorney has denied the allegations and criticized prosecutors for including the reference to him when he is not charged. (AP Photo/The New Haven Register, Melanie Stengel, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2006 file photo, police Chief Leonard Gallo talks with reporters at the East Haven, Conn., police station. Four East Haven police officers were arrested Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, on charges of harassing and intimidating Latino residents. An indictment refers to Gallo as an unnamed co-conspirator, accused of blocking efforts by the police commission to investigate misconduct. His attorney has denied the allegations and criticized prosecutors for including the reference to him when he is not charged. (AP Photo/The New Haven Register, Melanie Stengel, File)

EAST HAVEN, Conn. (AP) ? A police chief under fire for his handling of anti-Latino abuse allegations that led to the arrests of four officers last week is retiring from office, the mayor said Monday, describing his departure as a "selfless act" intended to help the town heal.

Leonard Gallo, chief of the East Haven Police Department, has been chastised by federal civil rights investigators for creating a hostile environment for witnesses, and his lawyer has acknowledged that last week's indictment refers to him as an unnamed co-conspirator.

Gallo, 64, had been suspended as police chief in April 2010 after the FBI launched the criminal investigation, but he was reinstated to the post in November after his friend Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. took office.

"His decision to retire at this time is a selfless act, designed to assist in the healing process," said Maturo, who described Gallo as a devoted public servant who "performed admirably in both his personal and professional life."

The four officers, who were arrested Jan. 24 by the FBI, are accused of waging a campaign against Latino residents that included beatings, false arrests and harassment of those who threatened to report misconduct. They face charges including deprivation of rights and obstruction of justice; all of them have pleaded not guilty.

Maturo is also facing heavy criticism for saying last week that he "might have tacos" as a way to do something for the Latino community in the wake of the arrests. He later apologized for the remark.

Frederick Brow, chairman of the town's police commission, said Monday that the commission is preparing to vote Tuesday night on whether to recommend to the mayor that Gallo be fired. He said he believes Gallo should not be allowed to retire.

"It's been a general breakdown in control in that department for quite a while and it's time for Gallo to be terminated," Brow said.

He estimated that in retirement, Gallo would receive a severance lump sum of $130,000 to $150,000, plus an annual pension of $27,000 to $28,000. Brow said Gallo should not be rewarded for his conduct.

If the commission voted to recommend that Gallo be fired and Maturo agreed to fire him, Gallo would still get the pension but lose the severance pay, Brow said.

The FBI also is targeting additional suspects, and state officials say they are preparing for the possibility of widespread arrests that could cripple the town's police department.

An investigation by the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division, which was separate from the criminal probe, noted concerns in a December report that Gallo had helped created a hostile environment for people who cooperated with federal investigators. It said Gallo had warned staff that the Justice Department had agreed to provide him with the names of individuals who cooperated with the investigation, even though that was not the case.

The federal indictment refers to Gallo as co-conspirator 1, accusing him of blocking efforts by the police commission to investigate misconduct. Gallo's attorney, Jon Einhorn, has denied those allegations.

Einhorn said Gallo is retiring because he does not want to be a distraction for the town, and his departure is not an admission of guilt. He said Gallo is the target of a lawsuit and could face charges in the criminal probe. He said his client will be vindicated and he does not believe criminal charges would be justified.

He said waiting until the end of the week will give the town time to settle on a retirement package for Gallo. Maturo said the retirement takes effect Friday, and a search for a new chief will begin immediately. Until a new chief is selected, Deputy Chief John Mannion will assume the duties.

More than 15,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Maturo to replace Gallo. The petition was started by Reform Immigration for America, the same group that sent hundreds of tacos to Maturo's office to protest his remark.

State Rep. Andres Ayala Jr., D-Bridgeport, said he and members of the state Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission met with Maturo on Monday morning, but he declined to elaborate. Ayala and commission members are calling for the resignations of Maturo and Gallo.

"I think it's the mayor's responsibility that the police department represent everyone in the community," Ayala said.

Maturo was mayor from 1997 to 2007 and was re-elected in the fall. After taking office in November, he reinstated Gallo, saying at the time that he did not believe the abuse allegations were true. The previous mayor, April Capone Almon, placed Gallo on administrative leave in April 2010.

___

Associated Press writer Dave Collins contributed to this report from Hartford.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-30-Police%20Discrimination-Conn/id-6412a19ac6534ead813f57b474e97562

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Time short for Gingrich to close gap in Florida (AP)

MIAMI ? Newt Gingrich slammed GOP rival Mitt Romney on Sunday for the steady stream of attacks he likened to "carpet-bombing," trying to cut into the resurgent front-runner's lead in Florida in the dwindling hours before Tuesday's pivotal presidential primary.

Surging ahead in polls, Romney kept the pressure on Gingrich, casting him at an appearance in south Florida as an influence peddler and continuing his heavy advertising blitz questions the former House speaker's ethics.

In what has become a wildly unpredictable race, the momentum has swung back to Romney, staggered last weekend by Gingrich's victory in South Carolina. Romney has begun advertising in Nevada ahead of that state's caucuses next Saturday, illustrating the challenges ahead for Gingrich, who has pledged to push ahead no matter what happens in Florida.

An NBC News/Marist poll published Sunday showed Romney with support from 42 percent of likely Florida primary voters, compared with 27 percent for Gingrich.

Romney's campaign has dogged Gingrich at his own campaign stops, sending surrogates to remind reporters of Gingrich's House ethics probe in the 1990s and other episodes in his career.

Gingrich reacted defensively, accusing the former Massachusetts governor and a political committee that supports him of lying, and the GOP's establishment of allowing it.

"I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false," Gingrich said during appearances on Sunday talk shows. "I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order."

Gingrich objected specifically to a Romney campaign ad that includes a 1997 NBC News report on the House's decision to discipline Gingrich, then speaker, for ethics charges.

Romney continued to paint Gingrich as part of the very Washington establishment he condemns and someone who had a role in the nation's economic problems.

"Your problem in Florida is that you worked for Freddie Mac at a time when Freddie Mac was not doing the right thing for the American people, and that you're selling influence in Washington at a time when we need people who will stand up for the truth in Washington," Romney told an audience in Naples.

Gingrich's consulting firm was paid more than $1.5 million by the federally-backed mortgage company over a period after he left Congress in 1999.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Florida by a wide margin, stayed in his home state, where his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, was hospitalized. She has a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. Aides said he would resume campaigning as soon as possible.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who has invested little in Florida, looked ahead to Nevada. The libertarian-leaning Paul is focusing more on gathering delegates in caucus states, where it's less expensive to campaign. But securing the nomination only through caucus states is a hard task.

The race began moving toward a two-person fight in South Carolina, and has grown more bitter and personal in Florida.

The intense effort by Romney to slow Gingrich is comparable his strategy against Gingrich in the closing month before Iowa's leadoff caucuses Jan. 3.

Gingrich led in Iowa polls, lifted by what were hailed as strong performances in televised debates, only to drop in the face of withering attacks by Romney, aided immensely by ads sponsored by a "super" political action committee run by former Romney aides.

Gingrich has responded by criticizing Romney's conservative credentials. Outside an evangelical Christian church in Lutz, Gingrich said he was the more loyal conservative on key social issues.

"This party is not going to nominate somebody who is a pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax-increase liberal," Gingrich said. "It isn't going to happen."

But Gingrich, in appearances on Sunday news programs, returned to complaining about Romney's tactics, rather than emphasizing his own message as that of a conservative with a record of action in Congress.

"When we get to a positive idea campaign, I consistently win," Gingrich said. "It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all."

Romney and the political committee that supports him had combined to spend some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week. Gingrich and a super PAC that supports him were spending about one-third that amount.

Gingrich worked to portray himself as the insurgent outsider, collecting the endorsement of tea party favorite Herman Cain, whose own campaign for president foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.

It was unclear how aggressively Gingrich would be able to compete in states beyond Florida. The next televised debate, a format Gingrich has used to his advantage, is not until Feb. 22, more than three weeks away.

Romney already has campaigned in Nevada more than Gingrich, is advertising there, and stresses his business background in a state hard-hit by the economy. His campaign welcomed the Sunday endorsement of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper.

Michigan and Maine, states where Romney is well-positioned, also hold their contests in February. Arizona, a strong tea-party state where Gingrich could do well, has its primary Feb. 28.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Naples and Shannon McCaffrey in Lutz contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Quarterly GDP changes in past 4 years, at a glance (AP)

Skip to navigation ? Skip to content ? By The Associated Press The Associated Press ? Fri?Jan?27, 5:41?pm?ET

Here are the quarterly changes in economic activity over the past four years as measured by the gross domestic product. GDP is the total output of goods and services produced in the United States. The figures are seasonally adjusted annual rates.

Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4

2011 0.4 percent 1.3 percent 1.8 percent 2.8 percent

2010 3.9 percent 3.8 percent 2.5 percent 2.3 percent

2009 -6.7 percent -0.7 percent 1.7 percent 3.8 percent

2008 -1.8 percent 1.3 percent -3.7 percent -8.9 percent

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis

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Prejudices? Quite normal!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Girls are not as good at playing football as boys, and they do not have a clue about cars. Instead they know better how to dance and do not get into mischief as often as boys. Prejudices like these are cultivated from early childhood onwards by everyone. "Approximately at the age of three to four years children start to prefer children of the same sex, and later the same ethnic group or nationality," Prof. Dr. Andreas Beelmann of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) states. This is part of an entirely normal personality development, the director of the Institute for Psychology explains. "It only gets problematic when the more positive evaluation of the own social group, which is adopted automatically in the course of identity formation, at some point reverts into bias and discrimination against others," Beelmann continues.

To prevent this, the Jena psychologist and his team have been working on a prevention programme for children. It is designed to reduce prejudice and to encourage tolerance for others. But when is the right time to start? Jena psychologists Dr. Tobias Raabe and Prof. Dr. Andreas Beelmann systematically summarise scientific studies on that topic and published the results of their research in the science journal Child Development (DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01668.x.).

According to this, the development of prejudice increases steadily at pre-school age and reaches its highest level between five and seven years of age. With increasing age this development is reversed and the prejudices decline. "This reflects normal cognitive development of children," Prof. Beelmann explains. "At first they adopt the social categories from their social environment, mainly the parents. Then they start to build up their own social identity according to social groups, before they finally learn to differentiate and individual evaluations of others will prevail over stereotypes." Therefore the psychologists reckon this age is the ideal time to start well-designed prevention programmes against prejudice. "Prevention starting at that age supports the normal course of development," Beelmann says. As the new study and the experience of the Jena psychologists with their prevention programme so far show, the prejudices are strongly diminished at primary school age, when children get in touch with members of so-called social out groups like, for instance children of a different nationality or skin colour. "This also works when they don't even get in touch with real people but learn it instead via books or told stories."

But at the same time the primary school age is a critical time for prejudices to consolidate. "If there is no or only a few contact to members of social out groups, there is no personal experience to be made and generalising negative evaluations stick longer." In this, scientists see an explanation for the particularly strong xenophobia in regions with a very low percentage of foreigners or migrants.

Moreover the Jena psychologists noticed that social ideas and prejudices are formed differently in children of social minorities. They do not have a negative attitude towards the majority to start with, more often it is even a positive one. The reason is the higher social status of the majority, which is being regarded as a role model. Only later, after having experienced discrimination, they develop prejudices, that then sticks with them much more persistently than with other children. "In this case prevention has to start earlier so it doesn't even get that far," Beelmann is convinced.

Generally, the psychologist of the Jena University stresses, the results of the new study don't imply that the children's and youths attitudes towards different social groups can't be changed at a later age. But this would then less depend on the individual development and very much more on the social environment like for instance changing social norms in our society. Tolerance on the other hand could be encouraged at any age. The psychologists' "prescription": As many diverse contacts to individuals belonging to different social groups as possible. "People who can identify with many groups will be less inclined to make sweeping generalisations in the evaluation of individuals belonging to different social groups or even to discriminate against them," Prof. Beelmann says.

###

Raabe T, Beelmann A.: Development of ethnic, racial, and national prejudice in childhood and adolescence: A multinational meta-analysis of age differences. Child Development. 2011; 82(6):1715-37. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01668.x.

Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena: http://www.uni-jena.de

Thanks to Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Occupy protesters barred from camping in DC squares (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The National Park Service will bar Occupy DC protesters from camping in the two parks where have been living since October, in a blow to one of the highest-profile chapters of the movement denouncing economic inequality.

The Occupy DC protesters must stop camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, both a few blocks from the White House, starting at about noon on Monday, the Park Service said on Friday.

The Park Service will start to enforce regulations that "prohibit camping and the use of temporary structures for camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza," the agency said in a flyer distributed at the sites.

"Although 24/7 demonstration vigils and the use of symbolic temporary structures, including empty tents used as symbols of the demonstration, may be permitted in the park areas, camping and the use of temporary structures for camping is not."

The protesters have been in the two sites since around the start of October. They have spearheaded numerous protests in Washington, including a demonstration that drew hundreds of people to the Capitol this month.

The McPherson Square site has drawn increasing criticism from Congress and the District of Columbia administration.

The park bordering K Street, a symbol of Washington lobbyists, has been criticized because of squalor and rats, and the protesters' numbers have been swelled by homeless people.

Sara Shaw, a McPherson Square protester handling contacts with the media, said the group would discuss its response at an evening meeting. She said 50 to 100 people were living in the square.

Bob Vogel, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, said in a statement: "The National Park Service takes very seriously its tradition of providing opportunities for First Amendment activities.

"We have a long history spanning several decades of 24-hour First Amendment vigils."

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Thomasch)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/us_nm/us_occupy_washington

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George Clooney Plans to End Brad Pitt's Career with a Prank

George Clooney and Brad Pitt are world famous -- not just for their acting talent, blockbuster appeal and good looks, but for their penchant for executing elaborate (and hilarious!) pranks on their costars and friends. But as Clooney tells it, Pitt should be afraid -- very, very afraid.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/george-clooney-plans-end-brad-pitts-career-prank/1-a-422647?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Ageorge-clooney-plans-end-brad-pitts-career-prank-422647

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Nielsen: Obama's smallest State of Union audience (omg!)

NEW YORK (AP) ? The interest among television viewers in President Barack Obama's annual State of the Union addresses is dwindling.

The Nielsen measurement company said Wednesday an estimated 37.8 million people watched Obama's speech the night before on one of the 14 networks airing it. Obama's audience for the speech has dropped each year, from a high of 52.4 million in 2009.

Obama narrowly missed President George W. Bush's least-watched State of the Union. Bush's last one was seen by 37.5 million people in 2008.

The largest individual audience for Obama's speech was NBC's, more than 8 million. On cable, MSNBC beat CNN for the first time for second place behind Fox News Channel.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_nielsen_obamas_smallest_state_union_audience012036736/44308171/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/nielsen-obamas-smallest-state-union-audience-012036736.html

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A hopeless romantic meets her match

Touring Greece's antiquities, a traveler comes face to face with the temples of the ancient gods -- and her childhood dreams.

As a child, on windy nights I'd fantasize that my bedroom could disengage from our home. Like a caterpillar giddy for transformation, it would emerge as a sublime sailing ship, float with the vagabond clouds, then drift down to worlds of long ago.

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I would step off the ship onto the bronze earth. Greeting me were Greek gods and goddesses ? Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, and the others ? smiling gently from ivory faces. My life would be adorned by their radiance, their jealousies would captivate me, and my parents would be proud I'd found such famous companions.

After a social studies unit in fourth grade on Greek mythology, anything even remotely connected to ancient Greece was irresistible. It was more thrilling, by far, than a party or a snow day off school in my Indiana hometown.

In high school, I wondered if continuing such unabashed romanticism about antiquity might prove a liability, as most of my egghead friends had a proclivity for the sardonic. Then I discovered books by poets and scholars exalting the romantic melancholy of ancient ruins. If such notables shared my passion, then I knew my infatuation must be legitimate.

One lackluster day, as I looked through routine snail mail, I found a beautiful catalog with a cover photo of an ancient Greek temple soaring above the sea. It was from a newly launched cruise line, Voyages to Antiquity. Instantly, those three words transported me to my childhood reveries.

All the ancient civilizations I'd longed to visit were in that catalog, encompassed in 25 journeys ? aboard a sleek white vessel, the Aegean Odyssey.

It looked like a reincarnation of the ship in my childhood dreams. But this one sailed farther: through the entire Mediterranean world and into the Aegean, Ionian, Adriatic, and Black seas ? to Byzantine Turkey, Renaissance Italy, Pharaonic Egypt, Classical Greece, even exotic ports of Asia.

Unable to resist, I chose an odyssey through the Greek Islands and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul.

The cruise line hosted a presailing tour of the Acropolis. Our guide told how it had been sacred terrain even during the Minoan and Mycenaean periods, before Classical-era Greeks created the Parthenon there ? Athena's temple, dedicated to wisdom. Later, the guide said, the edifice became a church and mosque.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/f4xcq1tIQHA/A-hopeless-romantic-meets-her-match

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Better Understanding, Improving Climate Communications | The ...

Goal of U. of Michigan Erb Institute/UCS Workshop

Some 100 social scientists, communications experts, and climate scientists convene at University of Michigan?s Erb Institute/Union of Concerned Scientists session to better understand, improve climate communication dialogue.

ANN ARBOR, MI. ? Here?s the formula:

Convene nearly 100 of the nation?s foremost climate change social scientists and communicators (you can call them ?practitioners? here) ?

Throw in two group dinners in a storied, albeit wintry, academic environment ?

Open with a top-name documentary film producer highlighting footage from one of the nation?s most respected climate scientists ? who also happens to be one of the field?s leading science communicators. (Hint, hint: Richard Alley and Earth: The Operator?s Manual.

Include a Friday evening public y?all-come ?Town Hall? meeting.

And, and this is important ?

Flat-out prohibit the use of Powerpoints once the opening plenary talk is finished, and limit subsequent formal presentations to only five or seven minutes each, keeping the ball rolling and the invited participants actively engaged.

There you have it. And what exactly you do have is the January 19-21 University of Michigan Erb Institute/Union of Concerned Scientists seminar on ?Increasing Public Understanding of Climate Risks and Choices: What We Can Learn from Social Science Research and Practice.?

Social Sciences: MIA (Missing in Action) from Climate Dialogue

For climate science/social science/communications wonks from across the country, it was a smorgasbord of provocative presentations and group interactions, topped off by commitments to build on the lessons learned and shared. Organized by Erb Institute Director Andrew Hoffman of the University of Michigan and UCS Climate Campaign Chief Scientist Peter C. Frumhoff, the meeting was built around the shared concern that ?

The public dialog concerning human-induced global warming/climate change has been dominated by the physical sciences in defining the problem and by economics in determining suitable policy responses. Missing from the equation are important contributions to be made by the social and psychological sciences, in part because the latter have been inadequately ?incentivized? to join the discourse.

The full-day Friday session opened with a presentation seeking to explain, at least in part, reasons for declines in public concern over climate change in the face of mounting scientific evidence. Among key factors identified: the sagging economy coupled with high unemployment; drop-offs in media coverage; unusual cold weather spells (?snowpocalypse? and ?snowmageddon?) leading to public confusion; efforts by an effective ?denial industry?; and public perceptions of controversies surrounding the hacked e-mail and mistaken melting Himalayan glaciers experiences.

A Host of Key Insights on Communications

Among key messages shared by expert presenters throughout the session, and seemingly accepted in large part by many of those in attendance:

• Climate change ?engagement? strategies and messages need to be specifically targeted to different audiences, including those across a spectrum of acceptance or denial of established climate science evidence;
• As important as the message to be delivered is the specific messenger delivering that message: An ideal message or speaker for one audience may fall flat before other audiences, notwithstanding possible similarities in the message being delivered;
• Providing climate science ?knowledge? to specific audiences is necessary, but ultimately insufficient if that audience?s emotions, values, ideology, and overall belief systems are not accounted for and addressed. In addressing an audience, speak directly to their aspirations and values, one participant advised, and avoid confounding facts and values. ?You?ll otherwise lose the battle for attention ?. The ?should? claims provide an excuse for the audience to run away.? Basing your views primarily on the much-ballyhooed ?knowledge deficit,? ?science illiteracy,? ?knowledge gap? assumptions leads only to a fool?s errand.
• Three critical steps in devising a climate communications strategy: A clear sense of ?present realities?; a clear sense of where we want to go; and a roadmap to get there.
• Avoid an attitude of ?We?re right. They?re wrong. How can we change them??
• Try to avoid the audience?s conflating a policy response, for instance ?cap-and-trade,? with the foundational scientific evidence. They can understand and support the latter while objecting to the former. ?Embed sustainability into the DNA of civilization itself,? one expert suggested, so citizens ?would almost have to make a conscious decision NOT to be sustainable.? Adopt an attitude of ?amnesty,? another suggested, for those who, for instance, have put people at high risks by building in flood plains and vulnerable areas.
• People conform to information processing consistent with their cultures, one expert social scientist said. ?Your processing is motivated to affirm the dominant view of your group; you search for affirming information, and you best remember affirming information.? Another: ?Open communications by reaffirming the listener?s worth ? come as a friend, a friendly communicator. Find connections, and tap into cultural values that speak to that audience ? People will defend their sense of self before they will change their behavior.? In a hero-oriented society, make it heroic ?to act to protect the environment,? and give people ?a reason to become heroes in a climate protection culture.? Another suggestion: ?Start with where they [the audience] are, not with where you are.?
• Consider focusing on climate change risks to motivate particular audiences to take concrete actions. The insurance example ? home owners annually buy fire insurance not because we think our home will burn down, but rather because we don?t know that it won?t ? is one example of effective risk story-telling.
• In the case of those who might be considered to be ?conspiracy theorists? (for instance, suspicious of an agenda they see as seeking to deprive rights and freedoms) providing more information may well be counterproductive: the more information provided a conspiracy theorist ? the bigger the conspiracy they perceive.
• The public at large cannot be expected to ?study? and absorb or substantially understand climate science. Instead, they will ?take their cues? from the political leaders and activists or spokespersons they most admire, whether it be an Al Gore or Bill McKibben or a Rush Limbaugh.
• Public understanding and acceptance that there is a strong consensus on climate science across the scientific community is crucial, but for now too large a segment of the public is unaware that such a consensus indeed exists.
• Constructive policy action on an issue like climate change can be driven by a majority of public opinion, and consensus does not mean ?unanimity.? The ?let me persuade you? model is flawed in addressing the general public. Better to think of the model of a jury trial: ?We don?t have to convince the opposing lawyer, but rather the jury,? one speaker emphasized.
• The public is unrealistic in thinking the scientific community can substantially reduce or eliminate legitimate uncertainty, but uncertainty (which cuts both ways) is not an excuse for inaction in the face of overwhelming evidence.
• Repetition of key points by respected messengers is crucial. For instance: Climate change is real; it?s the result of human activities this time; the scientific community agrees; and there are things that can be done to mitigate its worst impacts.
• In addressing faith communities, several speakers said that notwithstanding strong scientific evidence, an effective message can be that ?You should care because God cares.? ?God cares for those suffering from desertification,? a speaker emphasized. ?Think about it theologically ?. God will hold us accountable.? Another speaker: ?Love God and love your neighbors as yourself,? and if we love our neighbors ? defined to include future generations ? we do not pollute or foul their space.
• A positive attitude, and the very word ?solutions? can be invaluable. ?Industry loves focusing on ?solutions,?? an industry representative advised. Another approach discussed as being helpful in capturing corporate interests: engage them on notions of emerging technologies and long-term business and employment opportunities.
• A question raised: Should there be a climate social sciences ?extension service? analogous to the agricultural extension service?
• Consider the notion not of ?global warming? but rather of ?local warming.? How would your community look in a four-degrees warmer climate? What impacts on water supply, on local farming? What would be involved in adapting to it? How would it be financed? What winners, what losers? Etc.
• Just as climate scientists are not ?monolithic,? neither are social scientists. Each field has its own prestigious journals, its own institutional pressures (e.g., tenure pressures), its own culture.

A Conservative?s ?Conservative Solution? on Climate, Energy

Along with one-and-a-half days of intense information-sharing among the invitees, the Erb Institute/UCS program included a Friday evening ?town hall? open to the public. University security officials, cognizant of the fracas sometimes accompanying discussions of climate change, insisted on having uniformed campus security personnel in the crowded business school theater for the event. That proved unnecessary. View the town hall session as it was live-streamed.

Among the workshop participants addressing that town hall session, former South Carolina Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, who describes himself as staunchly politically conservative, explained how two visits to Antarctica had prompted him to abandon his climate science skepticism and accept the consensus science.

?Who here is a conservative, raise your hand,? Inglis teased in his opening remarks. ?Anyone know a conservative? Anyone seen one in a zoo??

Inglis, defeated in 2010 in the Republican primary, pointed to connections between science and religion and said he advocates a ?conservative solution? to energy and climate issues.

?End all subsidies for all fuels,? Inglis said. ?Attach all costs to all fuels. Make them accountable for all of their costs. Fix the market distortion, internalize the negative externalities. Make it so the market place can properly judge petroleum vis-?-vis other competing transportation fuels; coal-fired electricity vs. other ways of making electricity.?

Inglis, in Q&A with an audience member, acknowledged that zeroing-out all subsidies would initially hurt solar and some other energy supplies, but he said that by reflecting ?all? costs of fossil fuels, that distortion would in time be eliminated. The suggestion prompted some concerns about how ?all costs? would be defined ? would it include military costs involved, for instance, with keeping the Straits of Hormuz open to oil shipments?

Program sponsors pledged toward the end of the Saturday, January 21, session to develop ways to continue the dialogue and foster collaborations among and beyond those invited to participate in the workshop.

UCS?s Frumhoff acknowledged that the climate change challenges amount to ?a marathon and not a sprint? and said that in the end, ?none of us knows exactly how it?s all going to work? in terms of best informing the public and encouraging sustainability in the long run.

A broadcast report by Rebecca Williams of Michigan Public Radio?s ?The Environment Report? highlights some aspects of the meeting.

Source: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2012/01/better-understanding-improving-climate-communications/

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Psychics Say Apollo 16 Astronauts Found Alien Ship

At first, I thought this might be a poorly disguised advert for Iron Sky [ironsky.net], until I read their 'About Us' page: [txception.com]

TRANSCEPTION INCORPORATED is a pioneer in the new frontier of mind itself, founded on the premise that (?foreign?) technology can be transferred lawfully from the state of nature from any place in the Universe, in time or space, using a team of highly trained/skilled Controlled Remote Viewers (CRVers). At least by way of the Recommendation for Nomination for the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, submitted to the NASA Administrator on December 15, 2011, TRANSCEPTION has shown that technology can be transferred lawfully from the state of nature from any place in the Universe, in time or space, using a team of highly trained/skilled Controlled Remote Viewers. In sum, TRANSCEPTION INCORPORATED is an R&D company specializing in the exploitation of CRV and other methods to lawfully extract technology from the state of nature as a means for building, licensing, and enforcing its intellectual property (IP) portfolio of patents and copyrights.

So... "psychic" patent trolls...

Sylvia Browne is gonna be pissed she didn't think of it first.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/c2bgKKopOyw/psychics-say-apollo-16-astronauts-found-alien-ship

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Aretha Franklin calls off her wedding (AP)

NEW YORK ? Aretha Franklin won't be getting fitted for a wedding gown after all: She's called off her engagement. A statement released Monday by her representative said Franklin's wedding to Willie Wilkerson wasn't going to happen.

"Will and I have decided we were moving a little too fast, and there were a number of things that had not been thought through thoroughly. There will be no wedding at this time," Franklin said. "We will not comment on it any further because of the very personal and sensitive nature of it. We appreciate all of the many well wishes from friends."

Franklin, 69, announced shortly after New Year's Day that she was getting married. In an interview with The Associated Press, the jovial Queen of Soul talked about getting fitted for gowns by designers including Vera Wang and Donna Karan, and said she hoped for a summer wedding in either Miami or the Hamptons on Long Island, N.Y.

Franklin said Wilkerson was the one for her and that the relationship was particularly strong because they had been friends first.

"We're very compatible, and he supports me and I support him a lot, and he has given me specialized attention that I don't think I've received from anyone else," she said.

It's unclear if the pair are still romantically involved.

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_en_mu/us_people_aretha_franklin

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GOP wants private sector to rescue space program

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich want to revive Florida's space coast.

But the Republican presidential contenders, eager to address a key local concern in Monday's debate, say they don't want the federal government to spend too much in the effort.

Romney says the space exploration should be a priority. He's calling on NASA to partner with the military and private business interests and educational institutions to help pay for it.

Gingrich wants to offer the private sector special prizes. He says that such incentives, as opposed to a government spending, would help Americans go back to the moon, explore Mars, and develop extraterrestrial space exploration.

Gingrich says the prizes could create a romantic and exciting future for the space program.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-23-GOP-Debate-Space%20Coast/id-63010ea79ad54928bcebdb8b51d7ffdb

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Reno Wildfire: 'Extremely Remorseful' Elderly Man Admits That He Accidentally Started Brush Fire

RENO, Nev. ? An "extremely remorseful" elderly man admitted Friday that he accidentally started a brush fire that destroyed 29 homes near Reno when he improperly discarded fireplace ashes at his home south of town, authorities said.

"He came forward on his own accord," Reno Fire Chief Michael Hernandez said about the man. The resulting blaze, fueled by 82 mph wind gusts, burned nearly 3,200 acres and forced the evacuation of up to 10,000 people Thursday.

"He has given statements to our investigators as well as law enforcement officers. He is extremely remorseful," the chief said.

Investigators already had tracked the origin of the fire to a location in East Lake on the north end of the Washoe Valley, where the man lives about 20 miles south of downtown Reno.

Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley said a formal case file will be forwarded to the district attorney next week for consideration of charges.

"The DA will have to give this case a lot of deliberation," Haley said.

"The fact he came forward and admitted it plays a role. But so does the massive damage and loss of life," he said. "It's a balancing act."

In addition to the potential for facing jail time on arson charges, the man could also be ordered to pay the cost of fighting the fire, which already totals $690,000.

Washoe County Manager Katy Simon said she expects the final bill to run into the millions of dollars.

Gov. Sandoval toured the fire damaged area Friday, describing it as "horrendous, devastating."

"There is nothing left in some of those places except for the chimneys and fireplaces," he said.

The blaze started shortly after noon Thursday and, fueled by the wind, mushroomed to more than 6 square miles before firefighters stopped its surge toward Reno.

The strong, erratic winds caused major challenges for crews evacuating residents, Sierra Front spokesman Mark Regan said. "In a matter of seconds, the wind would shift," he said.

Haley confirmed that the body of June Hargis, 93, was found in the fire's aftermath, but her cause of death has not been established, so it's not known if it was fire related.

Jeannie Watts, the woman's 70-year-old daughter, told KRNV-TV that Hargis' grandson telephoned her to tell her to evacuate but she didn't get out in time.

A break in the weather and calmer winds allowed firefighters to get the upper hand on the blaze Friday.

Hernandez estimated it to be 65 percent contained Friday night. He said 300 firefighters would remain on the scene through the night checking for hot spots along with another 125 support people, including law enforcement officers and the Nevada National Guard.

About 2,000 people remained subject to evacuation, and about 100 households still were without power.

State transportation officials said they expected to reopen all of U.S. Highway 395 between Reno and Carson City by Saturday morning.

The next challenge may be the forecast for rain and snow in the mountains on Saturday, which could cause flooding in burned areas, he said.

Marred in Reno's driest winter in more than 120 years, residents had welcomed the forecast that a storm was due to blow across the Sierra Nevada this week.

Instead, thousands found themselves fleeing their homes Thursday afternoon.

Connie Cryer went to the fire response command post Friday with her 12-year-old granddaughter, Maddie Miramon, to find out if her house had survived the flames.

"We had to know so we could get some sleep," Cryer said, adding her house was spared but a neighbor's wasn't. She had seen wildfires before, but nothing on this scale.

"There was fire in front of me, fire beside me, fire behind me. It was everywhere," she said. "I don't know how more didn't burn up. It was terrible, all the wind and the smoke."

Fire officials said Thursday's fire was "almost a carbon copy" of a blaze that destroyed 30 homes in Reno during similar summer-like conditions in mid-November.

State Forester Pete Anderson said he has not seen such hazardous fire conditions in winter in his 43 years in Nevada. Reno had no precipitation in December. The last time that happened was 1883.

An inch of snow Monday ended the longest recorded dry spell in Reno history, a 56-day stretch that prompted Anderson to issue an unusual warning about wildfire threats.

"We're usually pretty much done with the fire season by the first of November, but this year it's been nonstop," Anderson said.

Kit Bailey, U.S. Forest Service fire chief at nearby Lake Tahoe, said conditions are so dry that even a forecast calling for rain and snow might not take the Reno-Tahoe area out of fire danger.

"The scary thing is a few days of drying after this storm cycle and we could be back into fire season again," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas and Sandra Chereb in Carson City, Nev., contributed to this report.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/reno-wildfire-extremely-remorseful-man_n_1220430.html

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Coordinated sect attack kills 143 in north Nigeria (AP)

KANO, Nigeria ? A coordinated attack by a radical Islamist sect in north Nigeria's largest city killed at least 143 people, a hospital official said Saturday, representing the extremist group's deadliest assault since beginning its campaign of terror in Africa's most populous nation.

Soldiers and police officers swarmed Kano's streets as Nigeria's president again promised the sect known as Boko Haram would "face the full wrath of the law." But the uniformed bodies of security agents that filled a Kano hospital mortuary again showed the sect can strike at will against the country's weak central government.

Friday's attacks hit police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of Nigeria's secret police in Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that remains an important political and religious center in the country's Muslim north. A suicide bomber detonated a car loaded with powerful explosives outside a regional police headquarters, tearing its roof away and blowing out windows in a blast felt miles away as its members escaped jail cells there.

Authorities largely refused to offer casualty statistics as mourners began claiming the bodies of their loved ones to bury before sundown, following Islamic tradition. However, a hospital official told The Associated Press at least 143 people were killed in the attack.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the death toll to journalists. The toll could still rise, since other bodies could be held at other clinics and hospitals in the sprawling city.

State authorities enforced a 24-hour curfew in the city, with many remaining home as soldiers and police patrolled the streets and setup roadblocks. Gunshots echoed through some areas of the city into Saturday morning.

Nwakpa O. Nwakpa, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said volunteers offered first aid to the wounded, and evacuated those seriously injured to local hospitals. A survey of two hospitals by the Red Cross showed at least 50 people were injured in Friday's attack, he said.

A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists Friday. He said the attack came because the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Saturday that he was "shocked and appalled" by the attacks in the former colony.

"The full horror of last night's events is still unfolding, but we know that a great many people have died and many more have been injured," Hague said in a statement. "The nature of these attacks has sickened people around the world and I send my deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of those killed and to those injured."

The U.S. Embassy said it had canceled all staff travel to northern Nigeria after Friday's attacks.

President Goodluck Jonathan also condemned an attack he said saw innocent people "brutally and recklessly cut down by agents of terror."

"As a responsible government, we will not fold our hands and watch enemies of democracy, for that is what these mindless killers are, perpetrate unprecedented evil in our land," Jonathan said in a statement. "I want to reassure Nigerians ... that all those involved in that dastardly act would be made to face the full wrath of the law."

But Jonathan's government has repeatedly been unable to stop attacks by Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north. The group has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law and avenge the deaths of Muslims in communal violence across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

Authorities blamed Boko Haram for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an AP count, including an August suicide bombing on the U.N. headquarters in the country's capital Abuja. So far this year, the group has been blamed for at least 219 killings, according to an AP count.

Boko Haram recently said it specifically would target Christians living in Nigeria's north, but Friday's attack saw its gunmen kill many Muslims. In a recent video posted to the Internet, Imam Abubakar Shekau, a Boko Harm leader, warned it would kill anyone who "betrays the religion" by being part of or sympathizing with Nigeria's government.

"I swear by Allah we will kill them and their killing will be nothing to us," Shekau said. "It will be like going to prayers at 5 a.m."

Friday's attacks also could cause more unrest, as violence in Kano has set off attacks throughout the north in the past, including postelection violence in April that saw 800 people killed. Kano, an ancient city, remains important in the history of Islam in Nigeria and has important religious figures there today.

Amid the recent unrest and attacks, at least two journalists have been killed in Nigeria. Journalist Enenche Akogwu, who worked as a correspondent in Kano for private news station Channels Television, was shot Friday while reporting on the attacks, colleagues said. In central Nigeria's city of Jos, Nansok Sallah, a news editor for a government-owned radio station called Highland FM, was found dead in a shallow stream Thursday, the victim of an apparent murder, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

___

Salisu Rabiu in Kano, Nigeria, and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell reported from Lagos, Nigeria and can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence

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A big leap toward lowering the power consumption of microprocessors

Friday, January 20, 2012

The first systematic power profiles of microprocessors could help lower the energy consumption of both small cell phones and giant data centers, report computer science professors from The University of Texas at Austin and the Australian National University.

Their results may point the way to how companies like Google, Apple, Intel and Microsoft can make software and hardware that will lower the energy costs of very small and very large devices.

"The less power cell phones draw, the longer the battery will last," says Kathryn McKinley, professor of computer science at The University of Texas at Austin. "For companies like Google and Microsoft, which run these enormous data centers, there is a big incentive to find ways to be more power efficient. More and more of the money they're spending isn't going toward buying the hardware, but toward the power the datacenters draw."

McKinley says that without detailed power profiles of how microprocessors function with different software and different chip architectures, companies are limited in terms of how well they can optimize for energy usage.

The study she conducted with Stephen M. Blackburn of The Australian National University and their graduate students is the first to systematically measure and analyze application power, performance, and energy on a wide variety of hardware.

This work was recently invited to appear as a Research Highlight in the Communications of the Association for Computer Machinery (CACM). It's also been selected as one of this year's "most significant research papers in computer architecture based on novelty and long-term impact" by the journal IEEE Micro.

"We did some measurements that no one else had done before," says McKinley. "We showed that different software, and different classes of software, have really different power usage."

McKinley says that such an analysis has become necessary as both the culture and the technologies of computing have shifted over the past decade.

Energy efficiency has become a greater priority for consumers, manufacturers and governments because the shrinking of processor technology has stopped yielding exponential gains in power and performance. The result of these shifts is that hardware and software designers have to take into account tradeoffs between performance and power in a way they did not ten years ago.

"Say you want to get an application on your phone that's GPS-based," says McKinley, "In terms of energy, the GPS is one of the most expensive functions on your phone. A bad algorithm might ping your GPS far more than is necessary for the application to function well. If the application writer could analyze the power profile, they would be motivated to write an algorithm that pings it half as often to save energy without compromising functionality."

McKinley believes that the future of software and hardware design is one in which power profiles become a consideration at every stage of the process.

Intel, for instance, has just released a chip with an exposed power meter, so that software developers can access some information about the power profiles of their products when run on that chip. McKinley expects that future generations of chips will expose even more fine-grained information about power usage.

Software developers like Microsoft (where McKinley is spending the next year, while taking a leave from the university) are already using what information they have to inform their designs. And device manufacturers are testing out different architectures for their phones or tablets that optimize for power usage.

McKinley says that even consumers may get information about how much power a given app on their smart phone is going to draw before deciding whether to install it or not.

"In the past, we optimized only for performance," she says. "If you were picking between two software algorithms, or chips, or devices, you picked the faster one. You didn't worry about how much power it was drawing from the wall socket. There are still many situations today?for example, if you are making software for stock market traders?where speed is going to be the only consideration. But there are a lot of other areas where you really want to consider the power usage."

###

University of Texas at Austin: http://www.utexas.edu

Thanks to University of Texas at Austin for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116910/A_big_leap_toward_lowering_the_power_consumption_of_microprocessors

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CDC: Many teen moms didn't think it could happen

ATLANTA (AP) ? A new government study suggests a lot of teenage girls are clueless about their chances of getting pregnant.

In a survey of thousands of teenage mothers who had unintended pregnancies, about a third said they didn't use birth control because they didn't believe they could pregnant.

What were they thinking, exactly, isn't clear. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey didn't ask teens to explain their reasoning.

But other researchers have talked to teen moms who believed they couldn't get pregnant the first time they had sex, didn't think they could get pregnant at that time of the month or thought they were sterile.

"This report underscores how much misperception, ambivalence and magical thinking put teens at risk for unintended pregnancy," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Other studies have asked teens about their contraception use and beliefs about pregnancy. But the CDC report released Thursday is the first to focus on teens who didn't want to get pregnant but did.

The researchers interviewed nearly 5,000 teenage girls in 19 states who gave birth after unplanned pregnancies in 2004 through 2008. The survey was done through mailed questionnaires with telephone follow-up.

About half of the girls in the survey said they were not using any birth control when they got pregnant. That's higher than surveys of teens in general, which have found that fewer than 20 percent said they didn't use contraception the last time they had sex.

"I think what surprised us was the extent that they were not using contraception," said Lorrie Gavin, a CDC senior scientist who co-authored the report.

Some of the teen moms were asked what kind of birth control they used: Nearly 20 percent said they used the pill or a birth control patch. Another 24 percent said they used condoms.

CDC officials said they do not believe that the pill, condoms and other forms of birth control were faulty. Instead, they think the teens failed to use it correctly or consistently.

Only 13 percent said they didn't use birth control because they had trouble getting it.

Another finding: Nearly a quarter of the teen moms said they did not use contraception because their partner did not want them to. That suggests that sex education must include not only information about anatomy and birth control, but also about how to deal with situations in which a girl feels pressured to do something she doesn't want to, Gavin said.

The findings are sobering, Albert said. But it's important to remember that the overall teen birth rate has been falling for some time, and recently hit its lowest mark in about 70 years.

Albert said it would be a mistake to come away from the report saying, "They can't figure this out?" ''Most of them are figuring it out," he said.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2012-01-19-Pregnant%20Teens/id-ada17895e3164bfab969eb53ae65e1be

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