Stimulation of brain hormone action may improve pneumonia survival

ScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2012) ? An international research team may have found a way to block a second wave of death that can result from pneumonia treatment. Antibiotics are effective at killing pneumococcus -- the cause of about 50 percent of pneumonias -- but as it dies the bacterium releases potentially lethal toxins.

Adding an agonist that mimics the action of growth hormone-releasing hormone -- which ultimately enables growth -- may stop that second wave, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"You have to take antibiotics, if you don't, the bugs will grow and you most likely will die anyway," said Dr. Rudolf Lucas, vascular biologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.

Problems start when a bacterium that causes pneumonia, in this case pneumococcus, is inhaled. Symptoms include mucus buildup, cough, fever, chills and shortness of breath. Antibiotics are the front line treatment to kill the infection.

An unfortunate result of bacterium death is release of pneumolysin, a toxin that can trigger formation of holes in the walls of the millions of tiny air sacs and blood vessels in the lungs. The result is that fluid, blood and other products find their way into air sacs that were intended for oxygen exchange.

"It's like making a hole in a bucket," said Lucas. He and Dr. Andrew V. Schally, Distinguished Leonard M. Miller Professor of Pathology & Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, are co-corresponding authors on the study.

Pneumolysin naturally binds to cholesterol, a component of all cell membranes including cells lining the air sacs, or alveoli. Once attached to the membrane, the toxin produces complexes that make holes in the membranes of the air sacs before escaping to do similar damage to nearby capillaries. While the close proximity of capillaries normally enables air sacs to replenish blood with oxygen and to remove carbon dioxide, the now open exchange enables fluid and cells from the capillaries to penetrate air sacs as well as the space in between them. To make matters worse, the toxin also blocks a protective sodium uptake system in the lungs that can help remove fluids. Within a few days, the patient is back in jeopardy. "These patients are being treated with an antibiotic and aggressive intensive care support and they (can) still die," Lucas said.

Surprisingly, GHSU scientists detected receptors for growth hormone releasing hormone in cells lining the air sacs. Typically, growth hormone-releasing hormone is produced by the hypothalamus then goes to the pituitary which makes and releases growth hormone. "We were asking ourselves, what is it doing there?" Lucas said.

They got a clue when they applied the agonist to the growth hormone-releasing hormone in an animal model of pneumonia as well as human lung cells in culture: leaking was significantly reduced and beneficial sodium uptake was restored. Conversely, when they applied a hormone antagonist -- to block its action -- lung cells became leaky even without toxin exposure, further indicating the hormone's apparent role in protecting the lining of the air sacs and capillaries.

"This is an acute problem; dangerous lung fluid accumulation occurs within days in patients," said Lucas who anticipates the agonist, or a compound with a similar function, could someday be given to patients in those first few critical days to avoid the second onslaught.

As a result of the findings, extensive collaborative studies are being planned on the use of growth hormone-releasing hormone agonists to prevent edema in patients with bacterial pneumonia. Next steps include pursing a National Institutes of Health grant with Dr. Michael A. Matthay, Senior Associate, Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco, to support more studies that include an isolated human lung model and a preclinical model of laboratory animals who follow the same course as patients: they are infected with the bacterium then given an antibiotic. In the model for the PNAS study, scientists gave the resulting toxin directly.

Dr. Trinad Chakraborty, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Giessen in Germany, developed the purified toxin used for the study. Study co-authors Dr. Richard White, GHSU pharmacologist, showed restoration of sodium uptake, and Dr. Supriya Sridhar, GHSU research associate, performed the cell permeability experiments. University of Miami co-authors included Dr. Norman L. Block, Professor of Pathology, Urology, Oncology and Biomedical Engineering, as well as Dr. Ferenc G. Rick, Assistant Research Professor of Pathology.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Health Sciences University. The original article was written by Toni Baker.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. R. Lucas, S. Sridhar, F. G. Rick, B. Gorshkov, N. S. Umapathy, G. Yang, A. Oseghale, A. D. Verin, T. Chakraborty, M. A. Matthay, E. A. Zemskov, R. White, N. L. Block, A. V. Schally. Agonist of growth hormone-releasing hormone reduces pneumolysin-induced pulmonary permeability edema. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1121075109

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120131093056.htm

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Researchers visualize the development of Parkinson's cells

Public release date: 31-Jan-2012
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Contact: Katherine Scott
katherine.scott@jove.com
617-765-4367 x301
The Journal of Visualized Experiments

In the US alone, at least 500,000 people suffer from Parkinson's disease, a neurological disorder that affects a person's ability to control his or her movement. New technology from the University of Bonn in Germany lets researchers observe the development of the brain cells responsible for the disease.

Up until now, research into the brain cells responsible for Parkinson's disease has focused on the function and degeneration of these neurons in the adult and aging brain. The new tissue slicing method, which will be published in the world's only peer-reviewed science video journal, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), allows scientists to observe the development of these brain cells for the first time.

"Little is known about the behavior of these neurons during their differentiation and migration phase," said article author Dr. Sandra Blaess, "and with this technique, we can really observe how these cells behave during development."

The new technique also makes the cells available for genetic manipulation, and more information about how these cells develop and function could lead to new treatment options.

"Being able to visualize cell development in this area of the brain is exciting," said JoVE Editor Dr. Claire Standen. "The availability of this technique could help scientists understand diseases of the dopaminergic system such as Parkinson's."

###

To watch the video-article, which will be published in JoVE on Jan. 31, please follow the link: http://www.jove.com/video/3350/organotypic-slice-cultures-of-embryonic-ventral-midbrain-a-system-to-study-dopaminergic-neuronal-development-in-vitro

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[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Public release date: 31-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Katherine Scott
katherine.scott@jove.com
617-765-4367 x301
The Journal of Visualized Experiments

In the US alone, at least 500,000 people suffer from Parkinson's disease, a neurological disorder that affects a person's ability to control his or her movement. New technology from the University of Bonn in Germany lets researchers observe the development of the brain cells responsible for the disease.

Up until now, research into the brain cells responsible for Parkinson's disease has focused on the function and degeneration of these neurons in the adult and aging brain. The new tissue slicing method, which will be published in the world's only peer-reviewed science video journal, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), allows scientists to observe the development of these brain cells for the first time.

"Little is known about the behavior of these neurons during their differentiation and migration phase," said article author Dr. Sandra Blaess, "and with this technique, we can really observe how these cells behave during development."

The new technique also makes the cells available for genetic manipulation, and more information about how these cells develop and function could lead to new treatment options.

"Being able to visualize cell development in this area of the brain is exciting," said JoVE Editor Dr. Claire Standen. "The availability of this technique could help scientists understand diseases of the dopaminergic system such as Parkinson's."

###

To watch the video-article, which will be published in JoVE on Jan. 31, please follow the link: http://www.jove.com/video/3350/organotypic-slice-cultures-of-embryonic-ventral-midbrain-a-system-to-study-dopaminergic-neuronal-development-in-vitro

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/tjov-rvt013012.php

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Ferris Bueller-Inspired Super Bowl Ad Debuts

Matthew Broderick gets another day off in the Honda commercial.
By Eric Ditzian

Matthew Broderick in his Honda CR-V commercial
Photo: Honda

In retrospect, perhaps it would have been better for Ferris Bueller to stay hidden away in Hollywood retirement. Perhaps when the classic '80s troublemaker reappeared in a viral video last week — a teaser spot leading up to a Super Bowl ad for Honda — we should have realized no good could come of hauling out a movie icon to shill for the auto industry.

And now, as depressing as an early-bird special, the commercial has arrived long ahead of primetime. Inspired by but not reprising his Ferris role, Matthew Broderick shuffles through the commercial, halfheartedly repeating lines from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and finding himself in situations ripped from the 1986 John Hughes comedy. Once again, Broderick doesn't want to work, so he fakes an illness and heads off on an adventure. When he says to the camera, like Ferris had more than 25 years ago, "One of the worst performances of my life, and he never doubted it for a second," we can't help feeling Mr. Broderick is trying to tell us all something that might not make Honda execs so happy.

Or perhaps the joke is on us. The Web has been abuzz for days about the ad and the extended version, available now on YouTube, will only ensure Ferris and Honda are part of the pop-culture conversation in the lead-up to Sunday's Super Bowl. Why the ad arrived so early, though, remains an open question.

We have many others. Is it true, as the automotive blog Jalopnik reported, that "Hangover" director Todd Phillips oversaw the effort, and if so, why is the whole thing not funnier? Why did Broderick play himself, rather than Ferris? Does Broderick really need the money? And what would Hughes, who passed away in 2009, say?

At the same time, it could be worse. The ad did deliver some amusing moments (a staring contest with a walrus, for example) and we never get tired of "Oh Yeah" by Yello. At the very least, the ad made for a far better reimagining of a beloved '80s comedy than Billy Crystal's short-form sequel last year to "When Harry Met Sally..." That viral video managed to be both unfunny and sacrilegious. At least Honda didn't turn Ferris' buddy Cameron into a vampire.

What did you think of the Ferris Bueller Super Bowl ad? Leave your comments below!

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678124/ferris-bueller-honda-super-bowl-matthew-broderick-ad.jhtml

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Space station dodges Chinese satellite debris

The International Space Station fired its thrusters Saturday in order to steer clear of orbital debris from China's 2007 anti-satellite test.

The dodging maneuver was required to avoid space junk from the Chinese satellite Fengyun 1C, which peppered low-Earth orbit with an estimated 3,000 pieces of shrapnel when it was intentionally destroyed by China five years ago. The remaining debris has required several similar avoidance maneuvers by the space station in recent years.

Rocket thrusters on the space station's Russian-built Zvezda service module fired at 6:50 p.m. EST (2350 GMT) in a 1-minute, four-second burn to slightly raise the laboratory's orbit, leaving it on a path that reaches just over 251 miles above Earth at the highest point, NASA officials said in an update.

Saturday's maneuver was "designed to place the station at the correct altitude and trajectory for future visiting vehicle activities and to avoid a repetitive coincidence of possible conjunctions with a piece of Chinese Fengyun 1C satellite debris," NASA officials explained.

A conjunction is what scientists call instances in which space debris will fly close enough to the station to cause concern. Since the space station orbits Earth at about 17,500 mph even a small piece of orbital debris can cause serious damage if it hits. [ Photos: Space Debris & Cleanup Concepts ]

The Fengyun 1C satellite debris had the potential to cause seven conjunctions with the space station, so steering the $100 billion safely into the clear was required, according to an earlier NASA update.

The space station is currently home to a six-man crew that includes three Russians, two Americans and one Dutch astronaut. NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston typically orders a dodging maneuver when debris is expected to fly inside a safety perimeter, which is shaped like a pizza box, that extends about 15 miles around the space station, as well as a half-mile above and below the orbiting lab.

When there is not enough time to plan a dodging maneuver, station astronauts can take shelter inside the Russian Soyuz vehicles that ferry them to and from the station until a piece of space junk has safely zoomed by. The Soyuz capsules, two of which are docked at the station now, each seat three people and can double as lifeboats.

Maneuvers to avoid space junk conjunctions are not uncommon for the space station and other satellites orbiting Earth.? Earlier this month, the space station fired its thrusters to avoid debris from a 2009 satellite crash between an U.S. and Russian spacecraft.

Space junk poses an ongoing threat to astronauts on the space station , as well as other satellites in orbit. To date, there are about 6,000 tons of space junk orbiting Earth ranging from tiny bolts and paint chips to huge spent rocket stages and dead satellites.

More than 500,000 pieces of space junk are currently tracked every day by NASA and the U.S. military's Space Surveillance Network in order to avoid collisions in orbit.

You can follow Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

? 2012 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46182311/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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Need for courtroom artists fade as cameras move in (AP)

CHICAGO ? One marker in hand and one in his mouth, Lou Chukman glances up and down from a sketchpad to a reputed Chicago mobster across the courtroom ? drawing feverishly to capture the drama of the judge's verdict before the moment passes.

Sketch artists have been the public's eyes at high-profile trials for decades ? a remnant of an age when drawings in broadsheet papers, school books or travel chronicles were how people glimpsed the world beyond their own.

Today, their ranks are thinning swiftly as states move to lift longstanding bans on cameras in courtrooms. As of a year ago, 14 states still had them ? but at least three, including Illinois this month, have taken steps since then to end the prohibitions.

"When people say to me, `Wow, you are a courtroom artist' ? I always say, `One day, you can tell your grandchildren you met a Stegosaurus," Chukman, 56, explained outside court. "We're an anachronism now, like blacksmiths."

Cutbacks in news budgets and shifts in aesthetic sensibilities toward digitized graphics have all contributed to the form's decline, said Maryland-based sketch artist Art Lien.

While the erosion of the job may not be much noticed by people reading and watching the news, Lien says something significant is being lost. Video or photos can't do what sketch artists can, he said, such as compressing hours of court action onto a single drawing that crystallizes the events.

The best courtroom drawings hang in museums or sell to collectors for thousands of dollars.

"I think people should lament the passing of this art form," Lien said.

But while courtroom drawing has a long history ? artists did illustrations of the Salem witch trials in 1692 ? the artistry can sometimes be sketchy. A bald lawyer ends up with a full head of hair. A defendant has two left hands. A portly judge is drawn rail-thin.

Subjects often complain as they see the drawings during court recesses, said Chicago artist Carol Renaud.

"They'll say, `Hey! My nose is too big.' And sometimes they're right," she conceded. "We do the drawings so fast."

Courtroom drawing doesn't attract most aspiring artists because it doesn't afford the luxury of laboring over a work for days until it's just right, said Andy Austin, who has drawn Chicago's biggest trials over 40 years, including that of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

"You have to put your work on the air or in a newspaper whether you like it or not," she said.

The job also involves long stretches of tedium punctuated by bursts of action as a witness sobs or defendant faint. It can also get downright creepy.

At Gacy's trial, a client asked Austin for an image of him smiling. So, she sought to catch the eye of the man accused of killing 33 people. When she finally did, she beamed. He beamed back.

"The two of us smiled at each other like the two happiest people in the world until the sketch was finished," Austin recalled in her memoirs, titled "Rule 53," after the directive that bars cameras in U.S. courts.

There's no school specifically for courtroom artists. Many slipped or were nudged into it by circumstance.

Renaud drew fashion illustrations for Marshall Field's commercials into the `90s but lost that job when the department store starting relying on photographers. That led her to courtroom drawing.

Artists sometime get to court early and sketch the empty room. But coming in with a drawing fully finished in advance is seen as unethical.

Some artists use charcoal, water colors or pungent markers, which can leave those sitting nearby queasy. Most start with a quick pencil sketch, then fill it in. Austin draws right off the bat with her color pencils.

"If I overthink it, I get lost," she said. "I have a visceral reaction. I just hope what I feel is conveyed to my pen."

These days, Chukman and Renaud fear for their livelihoods. They make the bulk of their annual income off their court work. Working for a TV station or a newspaper can bring in about $300 a day. A trial lasting a month can mean a $6,000 paycheck. Chukman does other work on the side, including drawing caricatures as gifts.

Austin is semiretired and so she says she worries less. She also notes that federal courts ? where some of the most notorious trials take place, like the two corruption trials of impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich ? seem more adamant about not allowing cameras.

Still, though Rule 53 remains in place, federal courts are experimenting with cameras in very limited cases.

"If federal courts do follow, that will be the end of us," Austin said.

Renaud holds out hope that, even if the worst happens, there will still be demand from lawyers for courtroom drawings they can hang in their offices. Lien plans to bolster his income by launching a website selling work from historic trials he covered, including of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Chukman, a courtroom artist for around 30 years, jokes that if asked for his opinion, he'd have told state-court authorities to keep the ban in place a few more years until he retires.

"I recognize my profession exists simply because of gaps in the law ? and I've been grateful for them," he said wistfully. "This line of work has been good to me."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_us/us_camera_in_courts_sketch_artist

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Survey suggests family history of psychiatric disorders shapes intellectual interests

Survey suggests family history of psychiatric disorders shapes intellectual interests

Friday, January 27, 2012

A hallmark of the individual is the cultivation of personal interests, but for some people, their intellectual pursuits might actually be genetically predetermined. Survey results published by Princeton University researchers in the journal PLoS ONE suggest that a family history of psychiatric conditions such as autism and depression could influence the subjects a person finds engaging.

Although preliminary, the findings provide a new look at the oft-studied link between psychiatric conditions and aptitude in the arts or sciences. While previous studies have explored this link by focusing on highly creative individuals or a person's occupation, the Princeton research indicates that the influence of familial neuropsychiatric traits on personal interests is apparently independent of a person's talent or career path, and could help form a person's basic preferences and personality.

Princeton researchers surveyed nearly 1,100 students from the University's Class of 2014 early in their freshman year to learn which major they would choose based on their intellectual interests. The students were then asked to indicate the incidence of mood disorders, substance abuse or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in their family, including parents, siblings and grandparents.

Students interested in pursuing a major in the humanities or social sciences were twice as likely to report that a family member had a mood disorder or a problem with substance abuse. Students with an interest in science and technical majors, on the other hand, were three times more likely to report a sibling with an ASD, a range of developmental disorders that includes autism and Asperger syndrome.

Senior researcher Sam Wang, an associate professor in Princeton's Department of Molecular Biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, said that the survey ? though not exhaustive nor based on direct clinical diagnoses ? presents the idea that certain heritable psychiatric conditions are more closely linked to a person's intellectual interests than is currently supposed.

During the past several decades, Wang said, various researchers have found that, in certain people and their relatives, mood or behavior disorders are associated with a higher-than-average representation in careers related to writing and the humanities, while conditions related to autism exhibit a similar correlation with scientific and technical careers.

By focusing on poets, writers and scientists, however, those studies only include people who have advanced far in "artistic" or "scientific" pursuits and professions, potentially excluding a large group of people who have those interests but no particular aptitude or related career, Wang said. He and lead author Benjamin Campbell, a graduate student at Rockefeller University, selected incoming freshmen because the students are old enough to have defined interests, but are not yet on a set career path. (Princeton students do not declare a major until the end of sophomore year.)

"Until our work, evidence of a connection between neuropsychiatric disorders and artistic aptitude, for example, was based on surveying creative people, where creativity is usually defined in terms of occupation or proficiency in an artistic field," Wang said. "But what if there is a broader category of people associated with bipolar or depression, namely people who think that the arts are interesting? The students we surveyed are not all F. Scott Fitzgerald, but many more of them might like to read F. Scott Fitzgerald."

The Princeton research provides a new and "provocative" consideration that other scientists in this area can build upon, said Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatry and behavioral science professor at Johns Hopkins University and co-director of the university's Mood Disorders Center.

Jamison, who is well known for her research on bipolar disorder and her work on the artistic/mood disorder connection, said that while interests and choice of career are presumably related, Wang and Campbell present data suggesting that intellectual interests might also be independently shaped by psychiatric conditions, which provides the issue larger context.

In addition, the researchers focused on an age group that is not typically looked at specifically, but that is usually included in analyses that span various ages. Such a targeted approach lends the results a unique perspective, she said. Though the incidence of psychiatric conditions in the Princeton study was based on the students' own reporting and not definitive diagnoses, the rates Wang and Campbell found are not different from other populations, she noted.

"This is an additional way of looking at a complex problem that is very interesting," said Jamison, who played no role in the research project. "This work provides a piece of the puzzle in understanding why people go into particular occupations. In this field, it's important to do as many different kinds of studies as possible, and this is an interesting initial study with very interesting findings. It will provoke people to think about this question and it will provoke people to design other kinds of studies."

An implied connection between psychiatric conditions and a flair for art or science dates to at least Aristotle, who famously noted that those "eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia."

Modern explorations of that relationship have examined the actual prevalence of people with neuropsychiatric disorders and their relatives in particular fields.

Among the most recent work, researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institute reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry in November that of the 300,000 people studied, people with bipolar disorder, as well as their healthy parents and siblings, were more likely to have a "creative" job ? including a field in the arts or sciences ? than people with no familial history of the condition. Parents and siblings of people with schizophrenia also exhibited a greater tendency to have a creative job, though people with schizophrenia did not.

Various other studies in the past few decades have found a similar correlation between psychiatric disorders and "creativity," which is typically defined by a person's career or eminence in an artistic field such as writing or music. In their work, however, Wang and Campbell present those criteria as too narrow. They instead suggest that psychiatric disorders can predispose a person to a predilection for the subject matter independent of any concrete measure of creativity.

Jamison, in an editorial regarding the Karolinska study and published in the same journal issue, wrote that "having a creative occupation is not the same thing as being creative." Wang and Campbell approached their project from the inverse of that statement: Being creative does not necessarily mean a person has a creative occupation.

"A person is not just what they do for a living," Wang said. "I am a scientist, but not just a scientist. I'm also a guy who reads blogs, listens to jazz and likes to cook. In that same respect, I believe we have potentially broadened the original assertion of Aristotle by including not just the artistically creative, but a larger category ? all people whose thought processes gravitate to the humanistic and artistic."

As past studies have, Wang and Campbell suggest a genetic basis for their results. The correlation with interests and psychiatric conditions they observed implies that a common genetic path could lead relatives in similar directions, but with some people developing psychiatric disorders while their kin only possess certain traits of those conditions. Those traits can manifest as preferences for and talents in certain areas, Wang said.

"Altogether, results of our study and those like it suggest that scientists should start thinking about the genetic roots of normal function as much as we discuss the genetic causes of abnormal function. This survey helps show that there might be common cause between the two," Wang said.

"Everyone has specific individual interests that result from experiences in life, but these interests arise from a genetic starting point," Wang said. "This doesn't mean that our genes determine our fate. It just means that our genes launch us down a path in life, leading most people to pursue specific interests and, in extreme cases, leading others toward psychiatric disorders."

###

Princeton University: http://www.princeton.edu

Thanks to Princeton University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117145/Survey_suggests_family_history_of_psychiatric_disorders_shapes_intellectual_interests

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U.S. growth quickens in Q4, but speed-bumps ahead (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in 1-1/2 years in the fourth quarter of 2011, but a strong rebuilding of stocks by businesses and a slower pace of spending on capital goods hinted at softer growth early this year.

U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Friday, a sharp acceleration from the 1.8 percent clip of the prior three months and the quickest pace since the second quarter of 2010.

It was, however, a touch below economists' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3 percent rate, and nearly 2 percentage points was due to the build-up in business inventories.

The report supported the Federal Reserve's ultra easy monetary policy stance to nurse the recovery.

"This seems consistent with the Fed's view that the U.S. economy is going to need all the help it can get to hit escape velocity in the next couple years," said David Watt, a senior currency strategist, RBC Capital, Toronto

U.S. stock index futures turned negative after the data, while government debt prices pared losses. The euro held gains against the dollar.

Growth in the fourth quarter got a temporary boost from the rebuilding of business inventories, which was the fastest since the third quarter of 2010, after they declined in the third-quarter for the first time since late 2009.

Inventories increased $56.0 billion, adding 1.94 percentage points to GDP growth. Excluding inventories, the economy grew at a tepid 0.8 percent rate, a sharp step-down from the prior period's 3.2 percent pace.

The robust stock accumulation suggests the recovery will lose a step in early 2012.

Also pointing to slower growth, business spending on capital goods was the slowest since 2009, a sign the debt crisis in Europe was starting to take its toll.

Expectations of soft growth led the Fed on Wednesday to say it expected to keep interest rates at rock bottom levels at least through late 2014.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank, which forecast growth this year in a 2.2 percent to 2.7 percent range, was mulling further asset purchases to speed up the recovery.

The Fed warned the economy still faced big risks, a suggestion the euro zone debt crisis could still hit hard.

The economy grew 1.7 percent in 2011 after expanding 3 percent the prior year.

"The Fed is attempting to shield the economy from a potentially more severe recession in Europe," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

"Even though the economy improved last quarter there are a number of headwinds and a lot of uncertainty surrounding Europe, emerging markets and also U.S. fiscal policy."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the World Economic Forum in Davos the U.S. economy still faced big challenges.

"We're still repairing the damage done by the financial crisis. On top of that we face a more challenging world. We have a lot of challenges ahead in the United States," Geithner said.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, stepped up to a 2 percent rate from the third-quarter's 1.7 percent pace - largely driven by pent-up demand for motor vehicles.

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami had disrupted supplies early in the year, leaving showrooms bereft of popular models.

Spending was also lifted by moderate inflation.

A price index for personal spending rose at a 0.7 percent rate in the fourth-quarter, the slowest increase in 1-1/2 years, after rising at a 2.3 percent pace in the July-September period.

A core inflation measure, which strips out food and energy costs, increased at a 1.1 percent rate after rising 2.1 percent in the third quarter.

The increase last quarter was the smallest in a year and put this measure well below the Fed's 2 percent target.

SLUGGISH INCOME GROWTH

Sluggish income growth amid an 8.5 percent unemployment rate, which has prompted households to tap savings and credit cards to fund their purchases, is expected to weigh on consumers as the new year unfolds.

The saving rate was 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter, slowing from the prior period's 3.9 percent.

"Though the unemployment rate has improved, the jobs market remains a major challenge. Part of the decline in the unemployment rate is due to the fact that ... people have stopped looking for work," said Adolfo Laurenti, deputy chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.

"The high level of people out of the workforce and underemployed people show there isn't really much income generation to contribute to a better spending pattern."

About 23.7 million Americans are either out of work or underemployed.

The shrinking labor force suggests the economy's long-term growth potential has slipped below 2.5 percent.

A sustained growth pace of at least 3 percent would likely be needed to make noticeable headway in absorbing the unemployed and those who have given up the search for work.

Business spending grew at a sluggish 1.7 percent rate, pulling back sharply from the third-quarter's 15.7 percent pace.

Though exports held up despite slowing global demand, an increase in imports left a trade gap that sliced off 0.11 percentage point from GDP growth.

Despite an anticipated slowdown in growth this year, analysts do not believe the economy will fall into recession.

"The United States has enough momentum to offset the losses coming from Europe," said Laurenti.

Unseasonably mild winter weather helped home construction post its fastest growth pace since the second quarter of 2010, with much of the increase going to meet rising demand for rental apartments.

Spending on nonresidential structures fell. Government spending shrank for a fifth consecutive quarter, reflecting a large decline in defense and still weak state and local government outlays.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; editing by Neil Stempleman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/bs_nm/us_usa_economy

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Cop uses iCloud to track robber who stole woman's iPhone

iFound you!

A tech-savvy cop used the iCloud feature on his iPhone Thursday to track an armed robber who had stolen a young woman?s iPhone at a Midtown clothing store, cops said.

A 24-year-old woman was using her phone inside Tuci Italia on Sixth Avenue near West 57th Street when the thug burst in with a black handgun and demanded the pricey gadget yesterday at 7:10 p.m., cops said.

Responding police searched the area without success, but then Officer Robert Garland, who has been on the force for three years, had the bright idea.

?He said, ?What?s your iTunes account?? It was his idea,? a police source said.

Garland, using his own iPhone along with the iCloud feature, tracked the stolen phone ten blocks to the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 49th Street.

When the unknowing thief walked near the cops, the stolen phone began to beep.

George Bradshaw, 40, of Brownsville, Brooklyn, was arrested at 7:53 p.m. and charged with robbery and criminal possession of stolen property, cops said.

The pilfered phone was found in his boot, but his gun was not recovered, cops said.

Source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/cop_uses_icloud_to_track_robber_GXjuvvdiCsXjCc7mjbYS0I?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

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Now on Google Music: Download songs to computer

Google Music

Screenshot of the latest addition to album/song options on Google Music

By Athima Chansanchai

As much as we like having access to our own music in the cloud, it's also nice to have it on our computers (especially for syncing with standalone MP3 players). Now Google Music lets you download everything you've bought on the site, or re-download anything you might have lost.

Since it debuted as Music Beta in the spring of 2011, (launching formally as Google Music in November), I've been playing around with it, adding it to my online music options (along with Amazon's Cloud Player, Songza and Spotify). But I've always hated that the songs I bought (or got for free) on Google Music were trapped on the cloud. (With $2 album sales, Google Music is the first place I go to now when streaming isn't enough for me.)?

Lifehacker noticed the change, and we're grateful for it.

Just hover over the song you want and it'll pull up the arrow to the pull-down menu.

Each song can be downloaded twice from Google Music on the web, but if you have the Music Manager desktop application, you can circumvent the limit.?

Android Market gives you full instructions on how to do all this, too.

By the way, if you already use Amazon's Cloud Player (which bolted out of the cloud music gate before Google and Apple), the two-way exchange (uploading/downloading) has always been available.

More stories:

On Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/27/10251044-now-on-google-music-download-songs-to-your-computer

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Taylor Armstrong Accuses Late Husband of Spying, Paranoia

It's been far too long since Taylor Armstrong bashed her late husband in public.

But, don't worry, the latest issue of Us Weekly contains excerpts from the reality star's disgusting upcoming memoir, "Hiding from Reality."

In the book, Taylor describes Russell as a paranoid stalker, someone who constantly asked her about past sexual partners and even posed as a potential employer in order to run a background check on his wife with her alma mater.

She even found a tape recorder under her home office desk once.

"For the next nearly six years, I always assumed I was being recorded in the car and at home," Taylor writes. "I was always careful to make sure the content of my conversations was very clear."

Russell supposedly defended his actions by saying he had "been burned before" and just wanted to get to know his wife as well as possible.

Years after that discovery, Armstrong added, "I went into my email settings and found that he had set it up so that all of my emails were forwarded to him the moment I received them."

Taylor says she never changed the setting or asked Russell about this issue, and it's not like we can get his take on the allegations.

What a sad, pathetic, money-hungry woman.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/taylor-armstrong-accuses-late-husband-of-spying-paranoia/

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Funeral service for Paterno as thousands mourn

People pay their respects as the hearse carrying the casket of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno passes through State College, Pa., Wednesday Jan. 25, 2012. Paterno died Sunday at the age of 85. (AP Photo/John Beale)

People pay their respects as the hearse carrying the casket of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno passes through State College, Pa., Wednesday Jan. 25, 2012. Paterno died Sunday at the age of 85. (AP Photo/John Beale)

Meghan James, 14, left, and her grandmother Joan Wanat, both from Huntington, N.Y., comfort each other after going through the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus for the viewing for former Penn State coach Joe Paterno Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Mourners arrive at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus for memorial services for former Penn State coach Joe Paterno Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Alysha Ulrich, 10, left foreground, from Oley, Pa., waits in line to go through the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus for the viewing for former Penn State coach Joe Paterno Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 in State College, Pa. The second day of a three-day period of public mourning for Paterno will culminate with the funeral and burial for the Hall of Fame football coach who became the face of Penn State University. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Blaze Feury, right, a member of the Penn State rugby team, gives out hot chocolate to mourners in line to go through the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus for the viewing for former Penn State coach Joe Paterno Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 in State College, Pa. The second day of a three-day period of public mourning for Paterno will culminate with the funeral and burial for the Hall of Fame football coach who became the face of Penn State University. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Quiet mourners lined the route of Joe Paterno's funeral procession Wednesday, watching with grief and reverence as the electric-blue hearse carrying the Penn State coach's casket slowly drove by.

Some took pictures with their cell phones, or waved to his widow. Others craned their necks hoping for a better glimpse through the crowd sometimes four deep or more.

The private funeral and burial service capped another emotional day for a campus and community pained over Paterno's death from lung cancer Sunday at age 85, and over the way his stellar career ended ? being fired by university trustees Nov. 9 in the wake of child sex-abuse charges against a former assistant.

Thousands of students, alumni and fans took to the streets in and around Penn State to say their last goodbyes to the football coach who grew into a beloved figure in Happy Valley, not only for his five undefeated seasons but for his love of the school and his generosity.

"He cared about the kids. He wanted to see us succeed. So for a lot of us, he became a grandfather-like figure," Jordan Derk, a senior from York, said after the procession went past Beaver Stadium.

"He loved us and we loved him back," Derk said. "So saying goodbye is very tough."

Jay Paterno, the coach's son and quarterbacks coach, sent a message to the mourners via Twitter.

"Thank you to all the people who turned out for my father's procession," he wrote. "Very moving."

The elder Paterno won two national titles and a Division I record 409 games over 46 seasons as head coach. His cancer was disclosed just nine days after he was forced to leave the football program he had worked with since 1950.

But Wednesday was once again a salute to Paterno's life and accomplishments. The service, a Roman Catholic Mass, was attended by a veritable who's who of Penn State and Paterno connections.

Paterno's family arrived about an hour before the funeral service on two blue school buses, the same kind the coach and his team rode to home games on fall Saturdays. His wife of nearly six decades, Sue, sat in the seat traditionally reserved for her husband and was first off the bus, followed by Jay.

Former defensive coordinator Tom Bradley walked to the service with NFL great Franco Harris. Also in attendance were other ex-NFL players including Matt Millen and Todd Blackledge, both now TV analysts. Nike founder Phil Knight and actor William Baldwin were there, too.

"Today's Mass was a celebration. We laid to rest a great man," Bradley said. "Not so much for the football victories ... He meant so much to so many people."

Charles Pittman, who played for Paterno in the 1960s, also was at the Mass.

"It really focused on the type of person Joe Paterno was ? his devotion to his family, his wife, his grandkids," said Pittman, a senior vice president for publishing at Schurz Communications Inc., an Indiana-based company that owns television and radio stations and newspapers, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Associated Press.

A family spokesman, Dan McGinn, said Paterno's grandchildren escorted the casket down the aisle during the opening procession, and again at the end of the service. Jay Paterno and his brother, Scott, were among the pallbearers.

In between, during the service, all of Paterno's children spoke except for Jay, who is scheduled to talk at a campus memorial service Thursday at the Jordan Center. Two of Paterno's 17 grandchildren also talked and shared the favorite moments collected among the rest of the grandkids ? including one instance when Paterno mistakenly drove over a bicycle after returning home from work.

Former defensive tackle Anthony Adams, who carried a program with a black-and-white picture of a smiling Paterno on the cover, said the service was befitting of his former coach, who loved to be surrounded by family and just talk.

On the other hand, Paterno also was notorious for trying to avoid the spotlight himself.

"He would've been embarrassed. He would've hated it," Millen said. "He would've told us to shut up already. I guarantee it."

Paterno didn't focus on the scandal that led to his stunning ouster, Scott Paterno has said, and neither did mourners.

Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant coach at the center of the abuse scandal, has been charged with molesting 10 boys over a period of 15 years. He has pleaded not guilty and is out on bail, awaiting trial. Paterno was criticized in the days after Sandusky's arrest for not going to authorities outside campus when he was told of an allegation against the retired assistant in 2002. Paterno did notify two of his superiors at Penn State.

Mike McQueary, the then-graduate assistant who told Paterno about the alleged assault, went both to the public viewing and the funeral. Also at the service was former athletic director Tim Curley, who along with former university official Gary Schultz, is charged with perjury and failure to notify authorities about the 2002 allegation.

They melted into the crowd on a day when Paterno was the center of attention.

"The things he did for athletes, the things he did for all students actually ? that alone earns our respect to say one final goodbye," said Alex Jimenez, a sophomore from Manapalan, N.J., standing directly across from Paterno Library. The procession went right past the library to which the Paterno family has donated millions of dollars.

And the procession rolled past Beaver Stadium, the 100,000-plus seat facility that Paterno helped turn into a college football landmark. Thousands watched in silence there until the convoy reached "Paternoville," the makeshift campground outside the stadium used by students the week before games.

There, as the procession slowed nearly to a stop to negotiate a curve, someone in the throng screamed, "We are!"

"Penn State!" came the crowd's reply.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam and AP freelance writer Emily Kaplan contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-25-Penn%20State-Paterno/id-882270cf2f12456ca48a4d88c0e4af7f

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Why Online Reputation Matters to Small Business

You?re a small business owner. Most of your customers are the people who live within 25 miles of your storefront. Why does it even matter what the Internet has to say about your brand? That has no impact on your bottom line.
Right?

No. Dangerously wrong.

Weber Shandwick recently released a new report called The Company Behind The Brand: In Reputation We Trust [PDF] that breaks down exactly why business owners should be concerned with the online footprint they?re leaving (or not leaving) behind. One of the most interesting parts of the report for me was the finding that any disconnect between corporate and brand reputation triggers a sharp consumer reaction. That means even if your product or service is excellent?if the image of your brand is less than stellar, it will still hurt you.

According to the report, when a consumer learns that a product they like is made by a company they have a negative relationship with (54 percent of consumers responded they?ve experienced this), 96 percent of consumers took some kind of action.

What kind of action?

?

The most frequent response was that consumers stopped purchasing the product (40 percent). In fact, surprised consumers were twice as likely to STOP buying the product as they were to continue to buy it. And this is a product they originally admitted to liking! That was pretty startling to me. Just as noteworthy ? consumers who didn?t immediately stop buying the product went online to try and learn more about the company.

Both of these statements speak to the importance of creating a positive Web presence.

1. Consumers are using social word of mouth, online reviews, and other online content to form a judgment about your company. The judgment they form is then strongly tied to whether or not they decide to purchase your product.
2. When consumers are conflicted, they go to the Internet to answer the ?should I trust you? question. They?re then using the information they find about your brand to help them make that decision.

It doesn?t matter if you?re not trying to target a national audience. Local consumers are using the Web to find information about local businesses. It?s up to you to make sure they?re finding the right kind of information.

What should every small business be doing to help build their Web presence?

1. Create a Web site: Your brand Facebook profile or Google+ business page is great. But your business still needs a Web site. Some place where you can talk about your product/services, establish credibility, introduce your team, offer resources, and be found for hyper-local keywords.
2. Blog: There are few better ways to build industry authority than with an active blog. Producing content on a regular basis also ensures there?s always something you can promote and be found for.
3. Get involved in social media: Maybe that means getting active on Twitter or Facebook. Or maybe it means developing a presence on a Q&A site like Quora or participating in a small business networking site like BizSugar. Either way, find out where your audience is engaging online, and set up a satellite community there. Talk to your audience and let them get to know you on a more human level. Just don?t get too human.
4. Get involved in your community: Whether it?s sponsoring your town?s little league team, speaking at local events, or putting together an industry-related group at the local high school, by getting involved in the community that you live in you help to build a positive reputation offline, which can then carry online when people write about your efforts, link to sponsors, etc.
5. Guest blog on relevant sites: Guest blogging is a great way to build goodwill, establish industry credibility, and introduce your company to people in other networks.
6. Solicit & manage online reviews: This is a biggie and it?s only becoming more important. We?re going to sites like Yelp, Google Place Pages, TripAdvisor, etc, to learn how the experiences others had with your brand. Make sure you?re not only doing what you can to encourage customers to leave reviews, but positively responding to any negative or neutral comments that may be there. You not only help save that relationship, but you show everyone else who may find that review in the search results that you?re listening, you care, and that you hear them.

Online reputation management is important for businesses of any size. It?s about creating a positive Web presence to make your brand one that people trust and want to engage with. Because, as the report mentioned above shows, it doesn?t matter how great your product is ? if people don?t trust you, they won?t be interested in it.

About the Author

Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an SEO consulting firm that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services.

Connect with Lisa Barone:

?

Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/01/why-online-reputation-matters-to-small-business.html

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Obama isn't the first president to serenade public (AP)

Is it too much to ask our presidents to uphold the Constitution, command the armed forces, execute the nation's laws ? AND provide us with a little musical interlude?

The question comes to mind in the wake of Barack Obama's appearance at the Apollo Theater, when the leader of the free world took a moment to channel the Rev. Al Green, singing a bar from "Let's Stay Together." The crowd (and admirers on the Internet) went nuts, reacting in a way they rarely do to, say, a veto message or a Thanksgiving Proclamation.

Obama, of course, is not the first president to show his tuneful side to the public. Through the years, commanders-in-chief have turned musicians-in-chief, with varying results.

Among them:

_RICHARD NIXON. He was no Billy Joel. And yet twice in 1974, in the last months of his doomed administration, the President Who Was Not a Crook became the President Who Was the Piano Man. He played "God Bless America" at the Grand Ole Opry, and the same tune when he accompanied singer Pearl Bailey in the East Room of the White House. The two also conspired on "Home on the Range" and "Wild Irish Rose." "You don't play as well as I sing," Bailey joked, "but I don't sing as well as you govern." She was half right.

Nixon also appeared on TV with Jack Paar in 1963, and played a little concerto of his own devising. Nixon said this would put the kibosh on his political career: "The Republicans don't want to another piano player in the White House," he said.

_HARRY TRUMAN. Nixon was referring to "Give `em Hell Harry," a Democrat who could never pass a piano without sitting down to play a few bars. In 1952, Truman conducted a nationally televised tour of the newly renovated White House and played a bit on the 1938 Steinway. The building had been condemned when a leg of piano played by his daughter Margaret, a singer whose talent was of some dispute, crashed through the floor of the decrepit mansion.

Truman also played for Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill at the Potsdam Conference, neither shortening nor lengthening World War II appreciably. The man did love the piano: "My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician," he once said. "And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference."

_THOMAS JEFFERSON. He played the violin, and not just to meet women (though that is how he came to know his harpsichord-playing wife, Martha). When he wasn't writing the Declaration of Independence or rewriting the Bible or inventing a four-sided music stand for string quartets, he made music. He played the cello and clavichord, but the violin was his instrument, and he was a ringer for several orchestras. Though often in need of money, he always refused payment.

_BILL CLINTON. William Jefferson Clinton, not yet president, took a giant step in that direction in June 1992 when he showed up with a saxophone and wraparound sunglasses to play "Heartbreak Hotel" on "The Arsenio Hall Show." "It's nice to see a Democrat blow something besides the election," quipped the host.

After he won the presidency, Clinton played with E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons at an inaugural ball. He also took a moment from an East European tour in 1994 to climb the stage of Prague's Reduta Jazz Club and play "My Funny Valentine" and "Summertime." At one point he invited Czech leader Vaclav Havel to join him; this would be remembered in political and musical history as the Two Presidents Gig.

_Many other chief executives performed, though not necessarily in public. John Quincy Adams played the flute, Chester Arthur the banjo, Woodrow Wilson the violin. Franklin Roosevelt liked to sing. And John Tyler ? of "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too" fame ? organized his 15 children in a White House minstrel band. Historian Elise Kirk says this probably included banjo, bones, drums and guitar. Plus a country fiddle.

Mercifully, no videos exist.

___

News Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_re_us/us_presidents_in_tune

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Cruise ship threatens marine paradise off Italy

PORTO ERCOLE, Italy (AP) ? Stone fortresses and watchtowers that centuries ago stood guard against marauding pirates loom above pristine waters threatened by a modern peril: fuel trapped within the capsized Costa Concordia luxury liner.

A half-million gallons (2,400 tons) of heavy fuel oil is in danger of leaking out and polluting some of the Mediterranean's most unspoiled sea, where dolphins chase playfully after sailboats and fishermen's catches are so prized that wholesalers come from across Italy to scoop up cod, lobster, scampi, swordfish and other delicacies.

"Even the Caribbean has nothing on us," said Francesco Arpino, a scuba instructor in the chic port of Porto Ercole, noting how the sleek granite sea bottom helps keep visibility crystal clear even 135 feet (40 meters) down.

Divers in these transparent waters marvel at an underwater world of sea horses and red coral, while on the surface sperm whales cut through the sea.

But worry is clouding this paradise, which includes a stretch of Tuscan coastline that has been the holiday haunt of soccer and screen stars, politicians and European royals.

Rough seas hindering divers' search for bodies in the Concordia's submerged section have also delayed the start of a pumping operation expected to last weeks to remove the fuel from the ship. Floating barriers aimed at containing any spillage now surround the vessel.

According to the Dutch salvage firm Smit, which has been contracted to remove the fuel, there are about a half million gallons (2,400 tons) of heavy fuel oil on board, as well as some 200 tons of diesel oil and smaller amounts of lubricants and other environmentally hazardous materials.

The ship lies dangerously close to a drop-off point on the sea bottom. Should strong waves nudge the vessel from its precarious perch, it could plunge some 90 feet (30 meters), further complicating the pumping operation and possibly rupturing fuel tanks. Italy's environment minister has warned that if the tanks break, the thick black fuel would block sunlight vital for marine life in the seabed.

A week after the Concordia struck a reef off the island of Giglio, flipping on its side, its crippled 114,000-ton hull rests on seabed rich with an underwater prairie of sea grass vital to the ecosystem. Environmentalists warn the sheer weight of the wreckage has likely already damaged a variety of marine life, including endangered sea sponges, and crustaceans and mollusks, even before a drop of fuel leaks.

"The longer it stays there, the longer it impedes light from reaching the vegetation," said Francesco Cinelli, an ecology professor at the University of Pisa in Tuscany.

The seabed is a flourishing home to Poseidon sea grass native to the Mediterranean, Cinelli told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"Sea grass ... is to the sea what forests are to terra firma," Cinelli said. They produce oxygen and serve as a refuge for organisms to reproduce or hide from predators.

The Tuscan archipelago's seven islands are at the heart of Europe's largest marine park, extending over some 150,000 acres (60,000 hectares) of sea.

They include the islands of Elba, where Napoleon lived in exile, and Montecristo, a setting for Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo," where rare Mediterranean monk seals have been spotted near the coast.

Montecristo has a two-year waiting list of people hoping to be among the 1,000 people annually escorted ashore by forest rangers to admire the uninhabited island. Navigation, bathing and fishing are strictly prohibited up to a half mile (one kilometer) from Montecristo's rocky, cove-dotted coast. A monastery established on the island in the 7th century was abandoned 900 years later after repeated pirate raids.

Come spring, Porto Ercole's slips will be full, with yachts dropping anchor just outside the port. A steep hill provides a panoramic view of a sprawling seaside villa, once a holiday retreat of Dutch royals, and of the crescent-shaped island of Giannutri, with its ancient Roman ruins.

Alberto Teodori, who said he has been hired as a skipper for the yachts of Rome's VIPs for 30 years, noted that the area thrives on tourism in the spring and summer and survives on fishing in the offseason.

If the Concordia's fuel should pollute the sea, "Giglio will be dead for 10, 15 years," Teodori fretted, as workers nearby shellacked the hull of an aging fishing boat.

The international ocean-advocacy group, Oceana, describes the national marine park as an "ecological diamond," favored by divers for its great variety of species.

"If the pollution gets into the water, we are ruined," said Raffaella Manno, who with her husband runs a portside counter selling fresh fish in Porto Santo Stefano, a nearby town where ferries and hydrofoils depart for Giglio.

She said fish from the archipelago's waters are prized throughout Italy for their quality and variety.

"The water is clean and the reefs are rich" for fish to feed, she said, as trucks carrying oil-removal equipment waited to board ferries to Giglio. "The priciest markets in Italy come here to buy, from Milan, Turin, even Naples."

Concordia's captain, initially jailed and then placed under house arrest in his hometown near Naples, is suspected of having deliberately deviated from the ship's route, to hug Giglio's reef-studded coastline in order to perform a kind of "salute" to amuse passengers and islanders.

The maneuver is apparently a common practice by cruise ships, environmentalists lament.

"These salutes are an established practice by the big cruise ships," said Francesco Emilio Borrelli, a Green party official from Naples. He said that the Greens have received reports of numerous such sightings by ships sailing by the Naples area islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida.

Even before the Concordia tragedy, environmentalists had railed against what they brand "sea monsters," ? massive cruise liners releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases ? sailing perilously close to the coast to thrill the passengers aboard.

"These virtual cities put at risk the richness of biodiversity, which we must never forget is at the foundation of our very survival on Earth," said Marevivo, an Italian environmental group.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2012-01-20-EU-Italy-Paradise-in-Peril/id-bc724a269f61487cb228f76a221050ee

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Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke dead at 29 (AP)

SALT LAKE CITY ? Sarah Burke was an X Games star with a grass-roots mentality ? a daredevil superpipe skier who understood the risks inherent to her sport and the debt she owed to it.

The pioneering Canadian freestyler, who helped get superpipe accepted into the Olympics, died Thursday after a Jan. 10 crash during a training run in Park City, Utah.

Burke, who lived near Whistler, in British Columbia, was 29.

Tests revealed she sustained "irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest," according to a statement released by her publicist, Nicole Wool, on behalf of the family.

A four-time Winter X Games champion, Burke crashed on the same halfpipe where snowboarder Kevin Pearce sustained a traumatic brain injury during a training accident on Dec. 31, 2009.

Wool said Burke's organs and tissues were donated, as she had requested before the accident.

"The family expresses their heartfelt gratitude for the international outpouring of support they have received from all the people Sarah touched," the statement said.

A four-time Winter X Games champion, Burke will be remembered as much for the hardware she collected as the legacy she left for women in superpipe skiing, a sister sport to the more popular snowboarding brand that has turned Shaun White, Hannah Teter and others into stars.

Aware of the big role the Olympics played in pushing the Whites of the world from the fringes into the mainstream, Burke lobbied to add superpipe skiing to the Winter Games program, noting that no new infrastructure would be needed.

Her arguments won over Olympic officials and the discipline will debut at the Sochi Games in 2014, where Burke likely would have been a favorite for the gold medal.

"Sarah, in many ways, defines the sport," Peter Judge, the CEO of Canada's freestyle team, said before her death. "She's been involved since the very, very early days as one of the first people to bring skis into the pipe. She's also been very dedicated in trying to define her sport but not define herself by winning. For her, it's been about making herself the best she can be rather than comparing herself to other people."

She was, Judge said, as committed to the grass roots of the sport ? giving clinics to youngsters and working with up-and-coming competitors ? as performing at the top levels.

"She was a great, positive person for the whole team, the whole sport," said David Mirota, the Canadian team's high performance director. "She enlightens the room, and she's great."

News of Burke's death spread quickly through the action-sports world, where the Winter X Games are set to start next week in Aspen, Colo., without one of their biggest and most-beloved stars.

"She's probably one of the nicest people I've known in my life, and that's about the only thing I have to say about it," said American superpipe skier Simon Dumont, a multiple X Games medalist.

Jeremy Forster, the program director for U.S. Freeskiing and U.S. Snowboarding, said freeskiers would remember Burke "first, as a friend, and then as a competitor who constantly inspired them to do greater things."

"She was a leader in her sport, and it's a huge loss for the freeskiing community," Forster said.

"Shocked and saddened," former freestyle Olympian Jeremy Bloom said on Twitter. "Sarah was a true champion in everything that she did."

Burke's death is also sure to re-ignite the debate over safety on the halfpipe.

Pearce's injury ? he has since recovered and is back to riding on snow ? was a jarring reminder of the dangers posed to these athletes who often market themselves as devil-may-care thrillseekers but know they make their living in a far more serious, and dangerous, profession.

The sport's leaders defend the record, saying mandatory helmets and air bags used on the sides of pipes during practice and better pipe-building technology has made this a safer sport, even though the walls of the pipes have risen significantly over the past decade. They now stand at 22 feet high.

Some of the movement to the halfpipe decades ago came because racing down the mountain, the way they do in snowboardcross and skicross, was considered even more dangerous ? the conditions more unpredictable and the athletes less concerned with each other's safety.

But there are few consistent, hard-and-fast guidelines when it comes to limiting the difficulty of the tricks in the halfpipe, and as the money and fame available in the sport grew, so did the tricks. In 2010, snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton told The Associated Press that much of this was self-policed by athletes who knew where to draw the line.

"If the sport got to the point where halfpipe riding became really dangerous, I think riders would do something about it," Burton said. "It wouldn't be cool anymore."

His opinion is shared by many.

"There are inherent risks in everything," Judge said. "Certainly, freestyle skiing has one of the greatest safety records of almost any sport. Freestyle is a very safe sport in large part because we had to build a safe sport in order to get into the Olympics."

In 2009, Burke broke a vertebra in her back after landing awkwardly while competing in slopestyle at the X Games. It was her lobbying that helped get the X Games to include women's slopestyle ? where riders shoot down the mountain and over "features" including bumps and rails.

It wasn't her best event, but she felt compelled to compete because she pushed for it.. She came to terms with her injury quickly.

"I've been doing this for long time, 11 years," she said in a 2010 interview. "I've been very lucky with the injuries I've had. It's part of the game. Everybody gets hurt. Looking back on it, I'd probably do the exact same thing again."

She returned a year after that injury and kept going at the highest level, trying the toughest tricks and winning the biggest prizes.

A native of Midland, Ontario, Burke won the ESPY in 2007 as female action sports athlete of the year.

In 2010, she married another freestyle skier, Rory Bushfield, and they were headliners in a documentary film project on the Ski Channel called "Winter."

In her interview with AP two years ago, Burke reflected on the niche she'd carved out in the action-sports world.

"I think we're all doing this, first off, because we love it and want to be the best," she said. "But I also think it would've been a great opportunity, huge for myself and for skiing and for everyone, if we could've gotten into the (Vancouver) Olympics. It's sad. I mean, I'm super lucky to be where I am, but that would've been pretty awesome."

A little more than a year later, with Burke's prodding, her sport was voted in for the next Winter Games.

___

AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed to this story from Denver.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_sp_ot/fre_obit_sarah_burke

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India, China Agree to Prevent Flareups along Border

Posted Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 at 11:40 am

India and China have agreed to work to prevent any flare-ups and to ensure peace along their disputed Himalayan border.

India's ambassador to China, S. Jaishankar, and China's Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin signed an agreement in New Delhi to establish a committee on border management.

The agreement calls for both countries to strive to maintain ?peace and tranquility? along their border, and to conduct ?timely communication? about border incidents. The new committee is to meet once or twice a year.

The agreement was signed Tuesday after several days of meetings between Indian and Chinese officials.

India and China, two of the world's foremost emerging economic powers, have a history of disagreements, including unresolved border disputes. The two countries fought a brief but bloody war in 1962.

Kashmir is one source of tension between the two countries. India and Pakistan both claim full ownership of the disputed territory, which is also claimed in part by China.

The Tibetan issue is another source of tension. China has long objected to India granting asylum to the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Tags: China, Correction, India, V
Posted in East Asia Pacific

Source: http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/01/18/india-china-agree-to-prevent-flareups-along-border-2/

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