Romney not taking any chances ahead of Fla. vote

Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Emma Lou Olson Civic Center, in Pompano Beach, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Emma Lou Olson Civic Center, in Pompano Beach, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with his wife Callista, campaign at The Villages, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lady Lake, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Audience members listen as Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Emma Lou Olson Civic Center, in Pompano Beach, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Residents arrive in golf carts for a campaign event by Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, at the The Villages, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Lady Lake, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Mitt Romney isn't taking any chances.

A day before voting begins in Florida's Republican primary, Romney is running?ahead of rival Newt Gingrich in polls.?The former Massachusetts governor earned positive reviews during two debates. And Romney has put the former House speaker on the defensive over ethics and Freddie Mac.?

"It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all," Gingrich is complaining.?

But instead of stepping back and refocusing on President Barack Obama ? as he?did in Iowa when it became clear that Gingrich had lost?? Romney?is ratcheting up his rhetoric and continuing his attacks until the very end. He hopes to close the Florida campaign strongly to push Gingrich as far back as possible.

?"His record is one of failed leadership," Romney said of Gingrich?Sunday night?at a rally in Pompano Beach, in South Florida. And Romney challenged Gingrich to "look in the mirror" to figure out why the former House speaker has fallen back in Florida.

"His record is one of failed leadership. We don't need someone who can speak well perhaps or can say things we agree with, but does not have the experience of being an effective leader," he said.

Aides say Romney's attacks are partially a response to increasingly angry rhetoric from Gingrich, who on Sunday called the former Massachusetts governor "somebody who is a pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax-increase liberal."?Gingrich also accused Romney of lying. "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.

Romney's campaign on Sunday fired back immediately, starting with the candidate and continuing?with statements from top surrogates who cast Gingrich's assault as an unfair attack on Romney's character.

"Mitt Romney is man of impeccable character," said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. "It offends me that Newt Gingrich would attack the character of Mitt Romney."

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty called the attacks "over the line."

Romney's supporters particularly defended his anti-abortion credentials following Gingrich's attack. Gingrich allies are also running radio ads attacking Romney's record on the issue.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi called Romney a "champion for pro-life values" as she introduced him at the rally.?Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen offered a similar defense during an earlier rally with the Cuban American community in Hialeah.

In what has become a wildly unpredictable race, the momentum has swung back to Romney, who just last weekend was staggered 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.

To hang onto his lead,?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, skipped campaigning to be with his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who was hospitalized. He planned to campaign in Missouri and Minnesota early this week.

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 intense effort by Romney to slow Gingrich is comparable to 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. But his support dropped in the face of withering attacks by Romney, aided immensely by ads sponsored by a "super" political action committee run by former Romney aides.

But Romney aides say they made the mistake of assuming Gingrich could not rise again as he did in South Carolina. Romney appears determined not to let that happen again.

Romney has three events scheduled across the state Monday. He planned events in Jacksonville and the Tampa area. Gingrich has five planned events.?

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-30-GOP-Campaign/id-89d0d4ba3ddf44ebbcd52393f0baf316

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Democrats spend big in Ore. special election (The Arizona Republic)

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EcoSpeed App Saves 30% On Gas With Clever Routing

Still insist on using that gas-guzzling holdover from the 20th century, the automobile? Well, I have a little something for you, you naughty boy, and it will save you a little cash as well as protecting the environment you so callously defile with your every trip. It’s called EcoSpeed, and it’s pretty clever. EcoSpeed consists [...]

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Oil spill brings attention to delicate Gulf coast (AP)

TIVOLI, Texas ? For decades, farmers and fishermen along the Gulf of Mexico watched as their sensitive ecosystem's waters slowly got dirtier and islands eroded, all while the country largely ignored the destruction.

It took BP PLC's well blowing out in the Gulf ? and the resulting environmental catastrophe when millions of gallons of oil spewed into the ocean and washed ashore ? for the nation to turn its attention to the slow, methodical ruin of an ecosystem vital to the U.S. economy. Last month, more than a year and a half after the spill began, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a three-year, $50 million initiative designed to improve water quality along the coast.

"I'm not going to say that it's the silver lining," Will Blackwell, a district conservationist with the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Services, said of the oil spill. Blackwell is one of many regional officials who have long worked with farmers and ranchers to fence cattle, reseed native grasses and take on other seemingly inane projects that go a long way toward preventing pollution and coastal erosion.

"I'm going to say that it will help get recognition down here that we have this vital ecosystem that needs to be taken care of," he said. "This will keep it at the forefront."

NRCS administrators struggled for years to divide a few million dollars among farmers and ranchers in the five Gulf states. Now, they are getting an eleven-fold increase in funding, money that will allow them to build on low-profile programs that already have had modest success in cleaning crucial waterways by working with farmers and ranchers to improve land use practices.

The nation's focus turned sharply to the Gulf when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up in April 2010. Images of oil-coated birds and wetlands were splashed across newspapers and cable news networks. Coastal wetlands that are habitat to all sorts of wildlife were soiled and oyster beds were wiped out, underscoring the Gulf's ecological and economic importance.

The project is called the Gulf of Mexico Initiative, the first concrete step from a year's worth of meetings, studies and talking by the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, a committee formed by President Barack Obama in the spill's wake.

Sometimes, the money is spent on simple projects, such as building fences and installing troughs to keep cattle away from rivers and creeks that flow into the Gulf. The minerals in cow manure can pollute those upstream waters and then flow into the ocean. Those minerals can deplete oxygen in the Gulf, creating "dead zones" where wildlife can't thrive.

Other times, the program pays for expensive farming equipment that turns soil more effectively and creates straighter rows. That helps keep fertilizers on the farm ? where it helps crops ? and out of the Gulf, where the nutrients choke oxygen from the water. This equipment also decreases erosion, which has eaten up hundreds of miles of Gulf Coast habitat in the past century.

Until now, most counties in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas got right around $100,000 apiece to spend annually on these programs. The demand was far greater in many areas, but money was hard to come by, Blackwell said, highlighting the popularity of the program in Refugio County, Texas ? the rural area of Southeast Texas he oversees.

The influx of money has many farmers and ranchers ? especially those who have reaped the program's benefits in the past ? eager for more opportunities to improve the environment they rely upon for their livelihood.

Now, they are hurriedly filling out applications and waiting for officials to rank the paperwork ? those considered to have the greatest possible impact are the most likely to be approved.

"Fifty million dollars sounds like a lot. But when you consider ? Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and Texas, it's not going to be enough," said Glen Wiggins, a Florida farmer applying for help buying new farming equipment.

"But it'll help."

Dallas Ford, owner of the 171-acre Smoky Creek Ranch in Tivoli, Texas, first worked with the NRCS to build fences and strategically located troughs. The fences keep cattle in separate fields and allow him to rotate the cows between the fields, a practice that helps keep grass longer and better able to recover when it rains. The troughs ensure the cattle remain in the area and keep away from Stony Creek ? a bountiful tributary of the Gulf's Hynes Bay.

Ford estimates he has between $15,000 and $20,000 worth of additional work to do on his ranch ? all of which will ultimately improve water quality in Stony Creek ? but he will be able to do it only if he can get another contract with NRCS, which would cover about half the costs.

The cash infusion reminded him of a mentor who once said you could cook anything with time and temperature. In this project, Ford said, time is plentiful ? the temperature is money and manpower.

"We might be able to cook something a little faster," Ford said. "Now, maybe I can get you a nice steak."

About 685 miles away, Wiggins has been buying new tilling equipment to use on his 800-acre peanut and cotton farm that straddles the Alabama-Florida line. The high-tech farming equipment helps him better turn the soil and plant straighter rows, which ultimately prevent erosion and keep nutrients in the soil rather than allowing them to flow downstream and into the Gulf.

Wiggins' land sits on three watersheds ? Canoe Creek and Pine Barren Creek that are part of Sandy Hollow Creek, and Little Pine Barren Creek. With the work he's already done, Wiggins estimates he has reduced erosion by at least 50 percent. Now, he wants to further reduce it, mostly through the use of new equipment that will decrease conventional, and more destructive, tillage of his land.

"I'd like to get it down to zero, but if I could get it to 10 percent conventional tillage, I would be tickled to death," Wiggins said.

He estimated the new equipment will cost about $70,000. The only way he can make that purchase is with NRCS' help ? and now it may be within reach.

"The oil spill has been a powerful force to get people's attention," Wiggins said.

___

Ramit Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com//RamitMastiAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_re_us/us_gulf_oil_spill_restoration

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Loved and loathed, Lana Del Rey set to face the music (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Rarely has a pop star just starting out been so loved and loathed as Lana Del Rey, the 25-year-old who has filled acres of newspaper column inches even before her debut album "Born to Die" hits shelves next week.

First came the "breakthrough" when her video for the song "Video Games" was viewed millions of times on YouTube leading to the sultry chanteuse becoming the talk of the music business.

That success prompted the question 'just who is Del Rey?' and inquisitive fans quickly uncovered that the New York native, whose real name is Elizabeth Grant, was the daughter of Internet domain investor Rob Grant and came from a wealthy background.

Then, it was learned singer had previously been signed to a label, which fueled debate about her authenticity as an indie music artist garnering success through a viral video. The backlash picked up steam after Del Rey's recent, shaky singing as the musical guest on U.S. sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live." It was attacked with vitriol by fans and critics alike.

"She's hit a nerve in some way, which is both a good thing and a bad thing as people are talking about her," said Lyndsey Parker, blogger at Yahoo! Music.

"There's a huge curiosity about her and if that was what the label wanted, they've done a great job."

But rather than addressing the criticism directly, Del Rey's response has been to retreat from the public eye and shun live performances ahead of the album's release -- a rarity these days when promotion is the name of the game in show business if stars want to sell records, books, movies or TV shows.

She appears to have given only one interview following the "Saturday Night Live" performance, published last week in British newspaper The Telegraph.

"I don't want to talk about how it (the criticism) made me feel because I think it's disrespectful to God to go to a dark place with this kind of thing. People just want to see me go off the rails. That's the only reason they're watching," Del Rey told the Telegraph.

That interview has seemed only to add to the intrigue surrounding the singer who many have tipped as the next big thing among female solo acts. Del Rey, through her representatives, declined an interview with Reuters.

"It's really hard to get people to stop and pay attention to you, and Lana Del Rey has done that. So, she's cleared a hurdle that ninety-nine percent of millions of artists never clear," said Bill Werde, editorial director of Billboard. "The next hurdle is, can she deliver a hit song or hit album?"

"HITCHCOCK HEROINE"

Part of Del Rey's appeal has been her manicured, vintage-inspired appearance, with waves of tumbling auburn hair framing an often expressionless demeanor in a look that Yahoo's Parker likened to an "icy, Hitchcock heroine."

Del Rey has denied that her look, which has earned her a modeling contract, and on-stage persona is a gimmick. But whether pre-meditated image-making or just personal taste, one thing is certain: the singer's retro style and attractive features have won over fans and critics.

"The image matches the music and it does make her stand out in an era where a lot of people dress in hotpants, almost naked, and her throwback image is kind of cool," said Parker.

Del Rey's voice ranges from syrupy sweet to huskily haunting on what Freddie Campion at Vogue calls "epic, scene-setting melodies" when she sings lyrics such as "You were sorta punk rock, I grew up on hip hop, but you fit me better than my favorite sweater" on her single, "Blue Jeans."

Lyrically, the "Born To Die" album tracklist fluctuates between dark tales of star-crossed lovers in "Lucky Ones" and "Blue Jeans" and gritty stories of broken dreams in songs like "Carmen." She references teen drinking and drug abuse in the ode "National Anthem" and in "This is What Makes Us Girls."

Whether Del Rey earns hit status with her new album remains to be seen. Early reviews have been mixed.

New York Times' Jon Caramancia likened "Born To Die" to "a multiple choice test with every answer scanned 'C'."

Andrew Hampp at Billboard.com called the record "as puffy as the singer's oft-debated lips," adding that some of the songs became stale throughout the album.

But there has been positive, too. James Lachno at The Telegraph gave the record four out of five stars, saying the "misty-eyed retro-pop makes for compelling listening."

For Del Rey, the album marks a personal achievement after her struggle to break in to the industry.

"I think it's beautiful. I think it's gorgeous. This album is myself in song form," she told The Telegraph. "All I wanted to do was make something beautiful, and I think I've done that."

"Born to Die" will be released on Interscope, part of the Universal Music Group, on January 30 in the United Kingdom and January 31 in the United States.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; editing by Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/music_nm/us_lanadelrey

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94% Hugo

Got dragged along to this one, certainly wasn't something I would have picked out myself! Kids films are really not my thing, it's just as well this isn't "really" a kids movie - I honestly think they would be bored with it, it is way too long at over 2 hours (even for me, it could have happily been half an hour shorter). I saw this in 3D, which I think helped make it a little more interesting. It is very slow and there are a few bits I didn't like all that much. I have to say I am surprised by the negative comments on Asa Butterfield, who plays Hugo. I often don't like kid actors, but I thought he did really well with this. He isn't over the top and he has a nice screen presence. (Is it just me, or is he a bit like a young Jarvis Cocker in looks?!). Sacha Baron Cohen WAS over the top. I really hated his train guard character, and not just because he was mean - he just totally left me cold and I found myself hoping he wouldn't get together with Lisette because he was just so disgusting I wouldn't wish him on her! The other thing that bugged me is that it set in France, yet everyone talks in English with an English accent - that bit really did my head in! Aside from that, I liked the French setting and it was a very pretty movie to look at. Also the dogs stole the show on several occasions. I found the movie bits with Georges really ugly to look at. (I am sure I will get panned for criticising early works of film, but seriously?!).It had its good points and its bad points, really I think if you enjoy it or not will come down to personal taste. I enjoyed it more than I expected to, but once was enough for me.

January 27, 2012

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hugo/

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Ex-'SYTYCD' choreographer jailed for rape

By Josh Grossberg, E! Online

Now this is what we call facing the music.

Alex Da Silva, former choreographer of Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance," was handed a 10-year prison sentence Friday for raping a female student and assaulting another and was ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

MORE from E!: So You Think You Can Dance Choreographer Alex Da Silva: Guilty of Rape, Assault

Last September, a Los Angeles jury convicted Da Silva, 43, of the forcible rape of a 22-year-old woman in August 2002 and assaulting a 25-year-old protg with the intent to rape in March 2009 -- part of a series of shocking charges alleging the salsa expert sexually assaulted four different women during private lessons over a six-year period between 2003 and 2009.

However, the panel deadlocked on four other counts, including an additional charge from the March 2009 attack and the alleged rapes of two other women in 2004 and 2005.

Had he been found guilty of those other charges, the Latin dance instructor could've been jailed for life.

RELATED E! story: Shocker! SYTYCD Choreographer Shane Sparks Busted for Child Molestation

While meting out his punishment, L.A. Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy formally dismissed those counts today. She also chastized Da Silva in court, saying he "does not respect women" and "believes he is entitled to do whatever he wants when he wants."

The Brazilian native was originally arrested in August 2009, following a police probe into criminal complaints that alleged he lured four female victims to private one-on-one lessons he conducted in his North Hollywood home and then raped them.

--Additional reporting by Baker Machado

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Can Too Much Information Harm Patients? [Excerpt]

Features | Health

In his new book, cardiologist Eric Topol explores the ways in which the digital age is transforming medicine

By Eric Topol ?| January 27, 2012

CLICKS AND TRICKS: To what extent are consumers empowered? Eric Topol's new book The Creative Destruction of Medicine examines how the latest innovations in medicine and communication are changing the landscape of health care. Image: Basic Books

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care (Basic Books, 2012), by Eric Topol, a professor of innovative medicine and the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute.

Nearly 7 Billion people on the planet

Over 3 million doctors

Tens of thousands of hospitals

6000 prescription medicines, 4000 procedures and operations

Countless supplements, herbs, alternative treatments

Who gets what, when, where, why and how?

When a 58 year old, active, lean, intelligent financier from Florida came to see me for a second opinion, I should not have been surprised. For Valentine's Day the prior year, his wife's present was a computed tomography (CT) scan for his heart. She heard about it on the radio and also saw heart scan billboards on the highway. There was even a special deal of $100 off for Valentine's.

But her husband didn't have any symptoms of heart disease, didn't take any medications, and played at least two rounds of golf a week. On the other days, he worked out on an elliptical machine for 30 to 40 minutes. Until he got the heart scan.

My patient was told that he had a score of 710?a high calcium score?and his physician had told him that he would need to undergo a coronary angiogram, a roadmap movie of the coronary anatomy, as soon as possible. He did that and was found to have several blockages in two of the three arteries serving his heart. His cardiologists in Florida immediately put in five stents (even though no stress-test or other symptoms had suggested they were necessary), and put him on a regimen of Lipitor, a beta-blocker, aspirin and Plavix.

Now, in my office four months later, this patient is not doing well at all. He is worried that he might have a heart attack if one of the stents becomes clotted. He feels profoundly tired and has muscle aches that are so disturbing he can neither play golf nor do his usual exercise. He complains of marked depression and an inability to have or sustain an erection. A fit individual, who had taken good care of himself and was enjoying his life, was now debilitated and depressed. The cardiology trainee who saw this patient with me asked, "How could this have happened?"

Unfortunately, this individual's story is not so uncommon. Think predator and prey: the physicians and hospital advertise, leading to a high volume of heart scans, billed directly to the patients at some $500 each. Then, should an abnormal score come up, the patient may be quickly referred for first a diagnostic procedure, and then one to implant metal stents in the arteries on the surface of the heart. Naturally the cardiologist who put in multiple stents feels gratified to have saved the patient's life with unsuspected, advanced coronary disease. Overall, however these cases are like riding a train to the last stop, regardless of the most logical destination. All procedures are performed, as likely as not, the outcome is not a saved life but a "cardiac cripple."

I didn't enjoy telling the patient that he should probably not have ever had the stents. I could see the cholesterol buildup in the two arteries on an angiogram he brought with him, but the case was not severe. Of course, it was too late to do anything about the stents, which can't be removed, except to reassure him that he was not in any imminent or real danger, but I could get him off some of his medications, which would help his current symptoms and get him back to golf and exercise.

Mark Twain said, "To a man with a hammer, a lot of things looks like nails that need pounding." Surgeons are notorious for a similar bias: "When it doubt, cut it out." My patient was the victim of the same tendency. As badly as he got pounded, it could have been worse: in 2010 the "Olympic record" of stenting was published. One patient had sixty-seven stents placed throughout his coronary arteries and bypass grafts, in the course of twenty-eight coronary angiograms over a ten-year period.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=82900df7612edac6a69381c4a806a9a2

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Ind. House Dems end long right-to-work fight (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS ? In the end, they just didn't have the votes.

For two legislative sessions, Indiana Democrats fought the divisive labor measure known as right-to-work. They offered amendments aimed at changing the bill. They sought to put the issue before voters in a referendum. And in their most high-profile gambit, House Democrats staged occasional boycotts to deny the Republican-dominated chamber enough members to conduct business.

But that all ended Wednesday when the minority party acceded to the mathematical reality of the Republican's 60-40 majority in the chamber. Democrats showed up, and the Indiana House voted 54-44 to make Indiana the 23rd right-to-work state.

It is the latest successful legislative push targeting union power following a Republican sweep of statehouses in 2010, and if Gov. Mitch Daniels signs the bill as expected it will make Indiana the first Rust Belt state to ban contracts that require workers to pay mandatory union fees for representation.

Highlighting his party's lack of power, House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer said Wednesday that his caucus' ability to stall the measure for even a few weeks itself constituted a success, of sorts.

"The fact that the Senate is going to have another week on this was probably undreamed of by (Republicans)," he said, referring to the likely timeline for passage in the Indiana Senate. "They never though that a full month would go by before they shoved this down the employees of the state's throats."

The measure faces little opposition in Indiana's Republican-controlled Senate and could reach Daniels' desk shortly before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

"This announces, especially in the Rust Belt, that we are open for business here," Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said.

Indiana is the latest Midwestern state where Republicans have pushed labor legislation with safe voting margins even as the efforts have drawn large protests by union backers and spawned recall efforts.

Wisconsin and Ohio last year passed laws stripping most public sector unions of collective bargaining rights. In both states, the laws provoked a firestorm. Wisconsin Democrats staged a similar, and similarly unsuccessful, boycott of their chamber for a time but also lacked the votes to ultimately kill the measure. Its passage sparked a backlash and the ongoing efforts to recall GOP Gov. Scott Walker and several Republican legislators. In Ohio, the law was handily repealed in November by voters in a referendum, a stinging defeat for GOP Gov. John Kasich and his Republican allies.

In Indiana, it's unclear whether Wednesday's vote marks the end of the controversy or a new phase.

But without the votes, Democratic opponents and a handful of Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose the measure, were left only to deliver emotional pleas to block it.

Democratic Rep. Linda Lawson called the Republican measure an attack on the union strongholds throughout the state.

"What you are doing is destroying my community!" said Lawson, who represents a northwest Indiana district packed with heavy manufacturers and a major BP oil refinery.

"What if I came into your community and said `No more cows' and `No more pigs?'" she said, referring to the agriculturally heavy districts represented by many of the Republicans who supported the bill.

Indiana would mark the first win in 10 years for national right-to-work advocates who have pushed unsuccessfully for the measure in other states. But few right-to-work states boast Indiana's union clout, borne of a long manufacturing legacy.

Oklahoma passed right-to-work legislation in 2001 but has a rural-based economy that produces comparatively fewer union jobs than Indiana.

Teamsters President Jim Hoffa sounded resigned to the right-to-work measure's passage, in a statement released shortly after the vote, but promised a voter backlash like those seen in other Midwest states.

"I have little doubt in my mind that Gov. Daniels and Indiana's Republican members of the state House and Senate will see a tremendous backlash from their constituents if right-to-work is passed," Hoffa said. "If there's one thing that we have seen this past year, it's that working men and women will rise up to challenge any legislation that threatens the welfare of their families."

___

Tom LoBianco can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/tomlobianco

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/democrats/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_us/us_indiana_right_to_work

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New map for what to plant reflects global warming (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The color-coded map of planting zones often seen on the back of seed packets is being updated by the government, illustrating a hotter 21st century.

It's the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revised the official guide for the nation's 80 million gardeners, and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.

The new guide, unveiled Wednesday at the National Arboretum, arrives just as many home gardeners are receiving their seed catalogs and dreaming of lush flower beds in the spring.

It reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn't as cold as it used to be, so some plants and trees that once seemed too vulnerable to cold can now survive farther north.

"People who grow plants are well aware of the fact that temperatures have gotten more mild throughout the year, particularly in the wintertime," said Boston University biology professor Richard Primack. "There's a lot of things you can grow now that you couldn't grow before."

He uses the giant fig tree in his suburban Boston yard as an example: "People don't think of figs as a crop you can grow in the Boston area. You can do it now."

The new guide also uses better weather data and offers more interactive technology. For example, gardeners using the online version can enter their ZIP code and get the exact average coldest temperature.

Also, for the first time, calculations include more detailed factors such as prevailing winds, the presence of nearby bodies of water, the slope of the land, and the way cities are hotter than suburbs and rural areas.

The map carves up the U.S. into 26 zones based on five-degree temperature increments. The old 1990 map mentions 34 U.S. cities in its key. On the 2012 map, 18 of those, including Honolulu, St. Louis, Des Moines, Iowa, St. Paul, Minn., and even Fairbanks, Alaska, are in newer, warmer zones.

For example, Des Moines used to be in zone 5a, meaning the lowest temperature on average was between minus 15 and minus 20 degrees. Now it's 5b, which has a coldest temperature of 10 to 15 degrees below zero.

Those differences matter in deciding what to plant. Griffin, Ga., used to be in zone 7b, where the coldest day would average between 5 and 10 degrees. But the city is now in zone 8a, averaging a coldest day of 10 to 15 degrees. So growing bay laurel becomes possible. It wasn't recommended on the old map.

Mark Kaplan, a New York meteorologist who helped create the 1990 map, said the latest version clearly shows warmer zones migrating north. Other experts agreed.

The 1990 map was based on temperatures from 1974 to 1986, the new map from 1976 to 2005. The nation's average temperature from 1976 to 2005 was two-thirds of a degree higher than it was during the old time period, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

USDA spokeswoman Kim Kaplan, who was part of the map team, repeatedly tried to distance the new zones on the map from global warming. She said that while much of the country is in warmer zones, the map "is simply not a good instrument" to demonstrate climate change because it is based on just the coldest days of the year.

David W. Wolfe, a professor of plant and soil ecology at Cornell University, said that the USDA is being too cautious and that the map plainly reflects warming.

The revised map "gives us a clear picture of the `new normal' and will be an essential tool for gardeners, farmers and natural resource managers as they begin to cope with rapid climate change," Wolfe said in an email.

The Arbor Day Foundation issued its own hardiness guide six years ago, and the new government map is very similar, said Woodrow Nelson, a vice president at the plant-loving organization.

"We got a lot of comments that the 1990 map wasn't accurate anymore," Nelson said. "I look forward to (the new map). It's been a long time coming."

Nelson lives in Lincoln, Neb., where the zone warmed to a 5b. Nelson said he used to be in a "solid 4," but now he has Japanese maples and Fraser firs in his yard ? trees that shouldn't survive in a zone 4.

Vaughn Speer, an 87-year-old master gardener in Ames, Iowa, said he has seen redbud trees, one of the earliest blooming trees, a little farther north in recent years.

"They always said redbuds don't go beyond U.S. Highway 30, but I'm seeing them near Roland," 10 miles to the north, he said.

___

AP Writer Michael J. Crumb contributed to this report from Des Moines.

___

Online:

Plant map: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_sc/us_sci_planting_zone_map

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IAEA checks Japan reactors pending safety approval

OHI, Japan (AP) ? A team of International Atomic Energy Agency experts is making its first inspection of a Japanese nuclear power plant that has undergone official "stress tests" required after the Fukushima disaster.

On Thursday, the 10-member IAEA team was inspecting two reactors at the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui prefecture in western Japan.

Passing the test is one of several steps needed to restart dozens of idled nuclear plants.

Only four of Japan's 54 reactors are currently operating, so getting some back on line would help Japan avoid a power crunch.

If none get approval, Japan will be without an operating reactor by the end of April.

The stress tests are meant to assess how well the plants could withstand earthquakes, tsunamis and other extreme events.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-25-AS-Japan-Nuclear/id-521b56fd4fe64bde8131665e9863befa

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Device makers urge coverage of weight-loss surgery (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) ? Device manufacturers are pushing the government and health insurers to cover weight-loss surgery, an effort that could give millions more obese Americans access to the treatments.

Advocates say it will give obese patients a complete arsenal for fighting the condition that can spur a host of life-threatening illnesses and help save billions of dollars in healthcare costs for employers and the government.

Critics argue that bariatric surgery has high rates of complications and that, ultimately, surgery does not change the behavior underlying obesity.

One of the most vocal manufacturers is Allergan Inc, the maker of Botox and breast implants. The company wants to revive weak sales of its LapBand, a silicone cuff that is implanted around the top portion of the stomach to constrict food intake.

"It's all about reimbursements," Allergan Chief Executive David Pyott told Reuters. The benefits of weight loss surgery, he added, "are not well understood by policy makers."

Allergan recently beefed up its staff working on securing reimbursement for LapBand to more than 100 people from seven.

Pyott is spending more time in Washington D.C. speaking with officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as with lawmakers about having bariatric surgery included in the package of standard benefits that all insurance plans must offer under the 2010 Affordable Care Act health system overhaul.

LapBand competes with a device called Realize made by Johnson & Johnson, which says it is also working toward better reimbursement.

Gastric banding is only one type of bariatric surgery. Others are more complicated, involving stapling portions of the stomach to limit food intake or re-routing the path of digestion, limiting calorie absorption. As with any major surgery, all carry the risk of complications and infection.

Allergan is pushing for coverage for all bariatric surgery, including methods that compete with its LapBand device, because it is more likely that private and public insurers would approve the entire category.

The company says some private insurers have changed their policies as a result. For example, the Midwest Blue Cross/Blue Shield Plan and the Health Alliance Medical Plan in Southern Illinois and Iowa recently eliminated the requirement that a patient must have tried and failed to lose weight under the supervision of a physician before getting surgery.

COSTS IN THE BILLIONS

Nearly 73 million Americans are considered obese, defined as having a ratio of weight to height, or Body Mass Index (BMI), of more than 30. For example, a 5'9" adult weighing more than 203 pounds is consider obese. About 12 million people are classified as morbidly obese, defined as having a BMI over 40.

The condition is the second leading cause of preventable death in the country behind smoking, as it can cause type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, gall bladder and liver disease and many types of cancer. It leads to nearly $150 billion in annual U.S. healthcare costs.

A survey by Hewett Associates found that 45 percent of U.S. employers cite obesity as one of the most significant health concerns for their businesses, but many of their insurance plans - 44 percent of those with 5,000 or more employees - do not cover bariatric surgery.

Bariatric surgery coverage is often viewed as a separate benefit, said Gus Georgiadis, president of Triad USA, an employee benefits services and consulting firm. Larger employers tended to have better coverage.

Employers who do cover surgery often define patients as eligible at a higher BMI and require them to first try other methods for an extended period of time - even if they already have already made such attempts - and undergo a psychological evaluation. Most plans have high co-payments of around $5,000 to $7,500, making it too expensive for many.

"If you're making $25,000 a year and you have a $5,000 co-pay, that's 20 percent of your salary," said Joseph Nadglowski, President and CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition, a patient advocacy group. "High co-payments and the hoops and hurdles insurance companies put in front of surgery is limiting."

But Nadglowski still wants to see patients first try diet and exercise programs, followed by medications and then surgery as a last resort.

"There's a gap between Weight Watchers and surgery," Nadglowski said.

His organization is pushing for more access to all kinds of treatment, including nutrition counseling.

Georgiadis argues that certain treatments are more or less appropriate for a patient, given their condition.

"Diet and exercise at a BMI of 35 or greater will fail more often than it will succeed," he said.

Studies show that bariatric surgery is almost 10 times more effective for losing weight and keeping it off than other approaches. Some research has shown that gastric bypass is superior to banding, with bypass patients losing more weight and keeping it off better than patients who got the band.

Patients who choose gastric bands may do so because the surgery is less invasive and the device can be removed. But they require more maintenance and follow-up doctor visits for adjustments.

The band sometimes slips from where it was placed and in rare cases can erode into the stomach, complications that require removal.

The number of all types of bariatric surgeries was down about 8 percent in 2010, a year that saw a decline across the board in medical procedures as many Americans lost health insurance when they lost their jobs. High co-payments are also to blame.

Although just a small part of Allergan's revenue, LapBand sales fell 14 percent from a year ago to $156 million in the first 9 months of 2011, even after the Food and Drug Administration lowered the weight requirement to get the device.

STATE BY STATE COVERAGE

Some states already require some level of coverage.

Virginia and Georgia, for instance, mandate that state-regulated insurers offer bariatric surgery, but employers are not required to buy that coverage. Michigan has a unique provision that says all "medically necessary" procedures, not just bariatric surgery, are covered.

The government's Medicare and Medicaid health programs for the elderly and the poor, respectively, cover bariatric surgery and use the same guidelines as private insurance companies.

Convincing employers has been challenging, especially if they have a high turnover of employees, said Dr. Richard Feifer, Medical Director for National Accounts for Aetna Inc, the third largest U.S. health insurer.

"Employers who have significant turnover every year may not want to invest in bariatric surgery for employees who may not be working for them in 2 or 3 or 4 years when the benefits start to accrue," he added.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weightloss/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/hl_nm/us_devicemakers_weightloss

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Moammar Gadhafi loyalists seize Libyan town (AP)

BENGHAZI, Libya ? Moammar Gadhafi loyalists seized control of a Libyan city and raised the ousted regime's green flag, an official and commander said Tuesday, in the most serious revolt yet against the country's government.

The retaking of Bani Walid comes as Libya's new leaders have struggled to unify the oil-rich North African nation three months after Gadhafi was captured and killed.

Hundreds of well-equipped and highly trained remnants of Gadhafi's forces raised the green flag over buildings in the western city late Monday after hours of clashes that drove out the local "revolutionary brigade," said Mubarak al-Fatamni, the head of Bani Walid local council. Revolutionary brigades are militias that are nominally loyal to the National Transitional Council, the national government.

Al-Fatamni, who fled to the nearby city of Misrata following the attack, said four revolutionary fighters were killed and 25 others were wounded.

The head of Bani Walid's military council, Abdullah al-Khazmi, also said Gadhafi loyalists had taken the city. He spoke to The Associated Press at a position on the eastern outskirts of Bani Walid, where hundreds of pro-NTC reinforcements from Benghazi were deployed, with convoys of cars mounted with machine guns.

A top commander of a revolutionary brigade in Bani Walid, Ali al-Fatamni, who was present in Benghazi during the attack, says he has lost contact with other fighters in the town.

The revolt is the latest breakdown in security, three months after Gadhafi's capture and killing. Protests have surged in recent weeks, with people demanding that the interim leaders deliver on promises of transparency and compensation for those injured in the fighting.

Bani Walid, located in the mountains 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli, was one of the last Gadhafi strongholds to fall to revolutionary forces amid a monthslong civil war. It held out for weeks after the fall of the regime, with loyalist fighters dug into its formidable terrain of valleys and crevasses.

Gadhafi's son and longtime heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, was long believed to have been hiding in the town. Seif al-Islam, who has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, was captured in November by fighters from the town of Zintan in Libya's western mountains, who continue to hold him.

The main tribe in Bani Walid is a branch of the Warfala tribal confederation, which stretches around the country with around 1 million members. The Bani Walid branch was one of the most privileged under Gadhafi, who gave them top positions and used their fighters to try to crush protesters in the early months of last year's uprising against his rule.

Such has left the tribe with deep mistrust and enmities with the rest of the cities, especially those whose residents have suffered the most during the uprising.

The fighters who rose up in Bani Walid on Monday belong to Brigade 93, a militia created by Gadhafi loyalists who reassembled after the fall of the regime in August, said al-Khazmi and the local council chief.

The brigade is named after a famous coup against Gadhafi in 1993 by members of the Warfala tribe. Gadhafi ordered executions and arrests of all the military officers involved in the coup, except for a few. Among those spared was Salem al-Aawar, who is believed to have helped the regime uncover the plot and who is believed to head Brigade 93, said al-Khazmi.

The Britain's Foreign Office said that tension is not between pro-Gadhafi loyalists but between tribal leaders and the National Transitional Council.

"This follows increased tensions in this area in recent weeks with local tribal leaders," a ministry spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. "These events underline the importance of an inclusive political process, which the Libyans are working hard to take forward together with rebuilding Libya," he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_libya

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Cooling semiconductor by laser light

Monday, January 23, 2012

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have combined two worlds ? quantum physics and nano physics, and this has led to the discovery of a new method for laser cooling semiconductor membranes. Semiconductors are vital components in solar cells, LEDs and many other electronics, and the efficient cooling of components is important for future quantum computers and ultrasensitive sensors. The new cooling method works quite paradoxically by heating the material! Using lasers, researchers cooled membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature Physics.

"In experiments, we have succeeded in achieving a new and efficient cooling of a solid material by using lasers. We have produced a semiconductor membrane with a thickness of 160 nanometers and an unprecedented surface area of 1 by 1 millimeter. In the experiments, we let the membrane interact with the laser light in such a way that its mechanical movements affected the light that hit it. We carefully examined the physics and discovered that a certain oscillation mode of the membrane cooled from room temperature down to minus 269 degrees C, which was a result of the complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances," explains Koji Usami, associate professor at Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute.

From gas to solid

Laser cooling of atoms has been practiced for several years in experiments in the quantum optical laboratories of the Quantop research group at the Niels Bohr Institute. Here researchers have cooled gas clouds of cesium atoms down to near absolute zero, minus 273 degrees C, using focused lasers and have created entanglement between two atomic systems. The atomic spin becomes entangled and the two gas clouds have a kind of link, which is due to quantum mechanics. Using quantum optical techniques, they have measured the quantum fluctuations of the atomic spin.

"For some time we have wanted to examine how far you can extend the limits of quantum mechanics ? does it also apply to macroscopic materials? It would mean entirely new possibilities for what is called optomechanics, which is the interaction between optical radiation, i.e. light, and a mechanical motion," explains Professor Eugene Polzik, head of the Center of Excellence Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

But they had to find the right material to work with.

Lucky coincidence

In 2009, Peter Lodahl (who is today a professor and head of the Quantum Photonic research group at the Niels Bohr Institute) gave a lecture at the Niels Bohr Institute, where he showed a special photonic crystal membrane that was made of the semiconducting material gallium arsenide (GaAs). Eugene Polzik immediately thought that this nanomembrane had many advantageous electronic and optical properties and he suggested to Peter Lodahl's group that they use this kind of membrane for experiments with optomechanics. But this required quite specific dimensions and after a year of trying they managed to make a suitable one.

"We managed to produce a nanomembrane that is only 160 nanometers thick and with an area of more than 1 square millimetre. The size is enormous, which no one thought it was possible to produce," explains Assistant Professor S?ren Stobbe, who also works at the Niels Bohr Institute.

Basis for new research

Now a foundation had been created for being able to reconcile quantum mechanics with macroscopic materials to explore the optomechanical effects.

Koji Usami explains that in the experiment they shine the laser light onto the nanomembrane in a vacuum chamber. When the laser light hits the semiconductor membrane, some of the light is reflected and the light is reflected back again via a mirror in the experiment so that the light flies back and forth in this space and forms an optical resonator. Some of the light is absorbed by the membrane and releases free electrons. The electrons decay and thereby heat the membrane and this gives a thermal expansion. In this way the distance between the membrane and the mirror is constantly changed in the form of a fluctuation.

"Changing the distance between the membrane and the mirror leads to a complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances and you can control the system so as to cool the temperature of the membrane fluctuations. This is a new optomechanical mechanism, which is central to the new discovery. The paradox is that even though the membrane as a whole is getting a little bit warmer, the membrane is cooled at a certain oscillation and the cooling can be controlled with laser light. So it is cooling by warming! We managed to cool the membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C", Koji Usami explains.

"The potential of optomechanics could, for example, pave the way for cooling components in quantum computers. Efficient cooling of mechanical fluctuations of semiconducting nanomembranes by means of light could also lead to the development of new sensors for electric current and mechanical forces. Such cooling in some cases could replace expensive cryogenic cooling, which is used today and could result in extremely sensitive sensors that are only limited by quantum fluctuations," says Professor Eugene Polzik.

###

University of Copenhagen: http://www.ku.dk

Thanks to University of Copenhagen 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/116929/Cooling_semiconductor_by_laser_light

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Pre-caffeine tech: Apple blather, hipster cats!

By Helen A.S. Popkin

via BuzzFeed

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning. Here's everything that you need to know before taking that first sip of coffee today

Here's why Apple can't make iPhones in the United States ? Steve Jobs' deal to collect souls for Beelzebub surprisingly not one of the reasons.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft's supplier chief calls his one million employees "animals." Classy.

Get an iPad, Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet over the holidays? You're not alone: Tablet and e-reader ownership increased by nearly double over the holidays, and more than 1 out of every 4 Americans now has one of the devices, according to a new study.

Despite the ho-hum launch last week, Apple's text books are off and running, with more than 350,000?textbook downloads in three days.

Meanwhile: Kim "I'm Smarter than Bill Gates" Dotcom, founder of file-sharing website Megaupload, was ordered to be held in custody by a New Zealand court Monday, as he denied charges of Internet piracy and money laundering.

Speaking of which,?digital storage services like Megaupload play a small but growing role in a broader piracy problem that continues to evolve and dog the entertainment industry.

Hey, remember BlackBerry? Takeover talk is swirling around its maker?Research In Motion as investors and analysts pondered whether new Chief Executive Thorsten Heins had been appointed to lead aturnaround of the struggling smartphone maker or prepare it for sale.

That's a lot of laughing babies: YouTube streams 4 billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the past eight months, says its parent company, Google.

That's a lot of blog-to-book deals: Tumblr just passed 15 million page views (and 120 million users)?per month.

In closing, here's 44 pictures of cats in glasses ... and one in a monocle.

?????compiled by Helen A.S. Popkin, who invites you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook.?Also, Google+.???

?

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10216233-pre-caffeine-tech-apple-blather-hipster-cats

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New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer? (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease.

All three newly identified areas "contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research," said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with about 1 million new cases annually worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths a year.

Scientists conducting genome-wide association studies -- research that looks at the association between genetic factors and disease to pinpoint possible causes -- had already identified 22 breast cancer susceptibility loci. Locus is the physical location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome.

"The three [newly identified] loci take the number of common susceptibility loci from 22 to 25," said Easton.

However, the three new susceptibility loci might explain only about 0.7 percent of the familial risks of breast cancer, bringing the total contribution to about 9 percent, the researchers said.

Michael Melner, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said this current research adds some important new clues to existing evidence, but he agreed that the number of cases likely associated with these three variants is probably low.

"So the total impact in terms of patients would be fairly small," Melner said.

The study is published online Jan. 22 in Nature Genetics.

To find the new clues, Easton's team worked with genetic information on about 57,000 breast cancer patients and 58,000 healthy women obtained from two genome-wide association studies.

The investigators zeroed in on 72 different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP -- pronounced "snip" -- is a change in which a single base in the DNA differs from the usual base. The human genome has millions of SNPs, some linked with disease, while others are normal variations.

The researchers focused on three SNPs -- on chromosomes 12p11, 12q24 and 21q21.

Easton's team found that the variant on the 12p11 chromosome is linked with both estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (which needs estrogen to grow) and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. The other two variants are only linked with ER-positive cancers, they said.

One of the newly identified variants is in an area with a gene that has a role in the development of mammary glands and bones. Easton said it was already known that mammary gland development in puberty is an important period in terms of determining later cancer risk. "But these are the first susceptibility genes to be shown to be involved in this process," he said.

One of the other SNPs is in an area that can affect estrogen receptor signaling, the researchers found.

Melner, noting some of the research is "fine tuning" of other work, said in his view the new understanding of the signaling pathways and their genetic links is the most important finding.

"When you delineate a pathway, you bring up new potential targets for therapy," he said. "The more targets you have, you open up the potential for having multiple drugs and attacking a cancer more easily, without it becoming more resistant."

Overall, Melner added, the results underscore the complexity of the different mechanisms involved in breast cancer development.

More information

For more about the genetics of breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120123/hl_hsn/newgeneticcluestobreastcancer

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At least 150 killed in Nigeria Kano attacks (AP)

KANO, Nigeria ? An internal Red Cross document seen by an Associated Press reporter in north Nigeria's largest city shows at least 150 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks by a radical Islamist sect there.

A spokesman at Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital in Kano, the city's largest, declined to immediately comment Sunday on the latest count.

The toll of the attacks claimed by Boko Haram could be seen as armed police drove by in a pickup truck with a corpse wrapped in a white burial shroud. Children outside the hospital also sold surgical masks to responders going into the hospital's overflowing mortuary.

President Goodluck Jonathan arrived in Kano on Sunday afternoon to pay his condolences. A military attack helicopter flew over the city center as he visited, and soldiers stood guard around the areas where the sect had attacked Friday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence

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Ambush of police truck in Syria kills 14 (AP)

BEIRUT ? A string of explosions struck a police truck transporting prisoners in a tense area of northwestern Syria on Saturday, killing at least 14 people, the country's state-run news agency and an opposition group said.

Troops fought intense battles against defectors elsewhere in northern Syria, activists said, leaving "dozens" of people wounded. The 10-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad has turned increasingly militarized and chaotic as more frustrated regime opponents and army defectors arm themselves and fight back against government forces.

SANA news agency blamed the attack on the police truck on "terrorists" and said it occurred on the Idlib-Ariha highway, an area near the Turkish border that has witnessed intense fighting with army defectors recently.

Four bombs that went off in "two phases" hit the truck, and then attackers targeted an ambulance that arrived to assist the wounded, SANA reported.

Six policemen who were accompanying the prisoners were also wounded, some of them in critical condition, it said.

The British-based opposition activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed the incident Saturday and said 15 prisoners were killed.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the group, said the truck was hit by several roadside bombs, but it was not clear who was behind the attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but members of the so-called Free Syrian Army are known to be active in the area.

A Syria-based activist said the area has several army encampments and is full of roadside bombs planted to target army tanks passing by, adding that the truck carrying prisoners may not have been the intended target.

The activist spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Abdul-Rahman and other activists in the country's northern Idlib province also reported heavy clashes between Syrian troops and defectors in the Jabal al-Zawiya region, along the Turkish border.

He said "dozens" of people from both sides were wounded in the fighting, some of them in serious condition.

The Local Coordination Committees activist network said five other people were killed in Syria Saturday, including three in the central city of Homs, one in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour and another in Douma, a suburb of the Syrian capital.

The conflict in Syria has marked the most serious challenge to Assad, who took over from his father in 2000. The U.N. estimates some 5,400 have been killed since March, when the uprising began.

The capital has seen three suicide bombings since late December which the government blamed on terrorist extremists.

The violence comes as the head of an Arab League observers mission was to submit his report to the League's Cairo headquarters. Foreign ministers for the Arab League will meet Sunday in Cairo to discuss the future of the mission, which expired Thursday.

Arab League officials said the organization is likely to extend its observer mission in Syria and increase its numbers, despite complaints from the Syrian opposition that it has failed to curb the bloodshed in the country.

Members of the Syrian opposition have said Arab observers in Syria have failed to curb the bloodshed and many have called for the dispatch of foreign troops to Syria to create safe zones for dissidents, or even a more wide-ranging military mission similar to the air campaign which helped Libyan rebels bring down dictator Moammar Gadhafi last year.

Burhan Ghalioun, head of the main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, was in the Egyptian capital Saturday for talks with Arab League officials ahead of Sunday's meeting.

Security officials in Lebanon meanwhile said the Syrian navy arrested three Lebanese fishermen and confiscated their boat Saturday in Lebanese waters off the northern town of Arida.

The two brothers and their nephew were taken after Syria soldiers aboard a naval vessel fired in the direction of the boat, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

After the incident, angry residents of Arida blocked the highway linking Lebanon and Syria for hours with burning tires.

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

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Julianne Moore Debuts Valentine?s Day Cards for Charity

The actress and her children's book author friends create adorable Valentine's Day cards for charity.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/qnhL0gM_l-k/

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Video: Can Newt Keep His Private Life Out of Race?

Robert Costa, National Review, has the latest details on an interview by Newt's ex-wife, and discussing whether Gingrich can overcome the fallout, with Steve Forbes, Forbes Media chairman & editor-in-chief; Robert Shrum, Democratic strategist; and Tony...

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46064196/

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AP sources: Perry abandoning bid, backing Gingrich (AP)

CHARLESTON, S.C. ? Texas Gov. Rick Perry will abandon his presidential bid and endorse Newt Gingrich, two Republican officials said Thursday, a move coming just two days before the pivotal South Carolina primary as Republican front-runner Mitt Romney struggles to fend off a challenge from the former House speaker.

Perry scheduled a news conference Thursday morning at a hotel in North Charleston to announce his decision.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the announcement.

Adding to the intrigue in the last hours of the South Carolina campaign, a bus emblazoned with Herman Cain's name sat in the hotel parking lot where Perry was to speak. Cain, a tea party favorite, dropped out of the race late last year.

Perry has faced calls in recent days to drop out of the race in hopes of compelling conservative voters, whose support has been divided among several like-minded candidates, to rally behind Gingrich in hopes of stopping Romney.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor considered the more moderate candidate in the race, has benefited thus far from having several conservative challengers competing for the same segment of voters. New polls show Romney leading in South Carolina but Gingrich gaining steam heading into Saturday's contest in a state where conservatives hold great sway in choosing the GOP nominee.

Perry's decision to endorse Gingrich does not necessarily mean conservatives will rally behind the former House speaker. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a champion of the anti-abortion issue, is still in the race and over the weekend was endorsed by a group of evangelical leaders.

And there's no guarantee that the Texas donors who fueled Perry's bid will shift to Gingrich, even if the governor asks them to.

Romney has been working to court them in recent weeks, having made repeated visits to Texas to meet with major Republican donors. He also won the backing of former President George H.W. Bush. Several Perry supporters, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly discussing their next steps before Perry's announcement, said they have been approached by Romney's campaign and will support him as the most-likely candidate to face President Barack Obama in November.

At least three so-called "super" political action committees have sprung up since early 2011 supporting Perry. One, Americans for Rick Perry, raised about $193,000 during the first half of 2011, federal election records show.

But none of the groups has been more prominent than Make Us Great Again, which aired more than $3.3 million worth of ads in Iowa and South Carolina supporting the Texas governor. A spokesman for the group did not immediately return calls from the AP seeking comment about whom, if anyone, the PAC would support after Perry drops out.

Perry entered the race last August to great fanfare and high numbers in polls. But his standing quickly fell after a series of gaffes and other verbal missteps. Those errors called into question whether the Texas politician who had never lost a race during his three-decade career in elected office was ready for the national stage.

His biggest flub came in a nationally televised debate in early November, when he could not remember the name of the third Cabinet department he pledged to eliminate.

Perry could only manage to say, "Oops." Making fun of himself afterward, he told reporters: "I stepped in it."

It was a cringe-inducing moment replayed more than a million times on YouTube. The memory lapse not only solidified Perry's reputation for weak debate performances, it gave the impression that he couldn't articulate his own policies. The stumble further tamped down his already faltering poll numbers.

Perry, 61, was relatively unknown outside of Texas until he succeeded George W. Bush as governor after Bush was elected president in 2000. A former Democrat, Perry had already spent about 15 years in state government when he became governor. He went on to win election to the office three times ? the most recent was in 2010 ? to become the state's longest-serving chief executive.

Part of Perry's appeal came from his humble beginnings as a native of tiny Paint Creek, Texas. He graduated from Texas A&M University and was a pilot in the Air Force before winning election in 1984 to the Texas House of Representatives. He switched to the GOP in 1989, and served as the state's agriculture commissioner before his election as lieutenant governor in 1998.

Perry's success as a politician suggested he would be a strong competitor to Obama. He had never lost a race in Texas, and his fight against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010 showed how tough he could be on a rival.

Perry picked Aug. 13 for his official announcement speech, the same day as the Iowa Straw Poll. While rival Michele Bachmann won that poll, the Texas governor cast a shadow over her victory by challenging her as conservatives' best hope for winning the nomination and defeating Obama.

He entered near the top of some polls. But his support of a Texas policy to allow children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates soon proved to be problematic with conservatives nationwide. So, too, did his 2007 order that would have required schoolgirls in Texas to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus. Although state lawmakers overturned the order, Perry defended the vaccination as necessary to combatting the sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer.

His performance on the campaign trail also led to concerns about how his rhetoric would sound to a national audience. During a campaign stop in Iowa in August, he suggested that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be practically committing treason if he were to print more money and said, "I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."

A Perry speech to a New Hampshire audience in October led to a damaging video, during which he appeared unusually animated ? "loopy" to some observers ? a stark contrast to the image of the serious, starchy governor he had projected. Amid questions, Perry later told reporters that he hadn't been drinking or taking medication at the time and called it "a pretty typical speech for me."

More flubs followed. While criticizing the nine-member Supreme Court to a newspaper editorial board, he referred to "eight unelected and frankly unaccountable judges" and struggled to come up with the name of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then called her "Montemayor." He urged college students in New Hampshire to support his candidacy, "those of you that will be 21" on Election Day, though the voting age is 18.

The widespread criticism of those performances and his rivals' attacks on his immigration and vaccination policies led to a significant drop in support.

___

AP Special Correspondent David Espo in North Charleston and Associated Press writer Chris Tomlinson in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_el_pr/us_perry

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