Jan
28

Inside In

Gingrich is also helped by?attacks on him by establishment figures: John McCain, Trent Lott, and a parade of former and current officials who populate the daily Romney campaign conference calls savaging Gingrich. Thursday afternoon, even Bob Dole took a swing at Gingrich. Dole is like many in Washington who?grumble about Gingrich, can’t believe he’s doing so well, and don’t want him to be president, but had assumed he?d collapse from his own hubris. “I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich, but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates?running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.”

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=cf3ba98ac9528c54d0c7644ea918d8b8

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Jan
28

Obama administration reveals new ATF gun probe rules (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Obama administration on Friday revealed new reforms undertaken to improve how it conducts undercover gun trafficking investigations in the wake of a botched operation in which scores of weapons disappeared.

The reforms require additional oversight of undercover operations, including those that involve more than 50 firearms, and, in most cases, ends the practice of paying gun dealers to serve as confidential informants.

Additionally, a new review committee has been established to monitor sensitive undercover cases or those that would have a “significant regional or national impact,” according to the Justice Department.

The details were revealed just before Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Thursday before members of the House of Representatives’ Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the bungled operation known as “Fast and Furious.”

The operation, run out of the Phoenix offices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and U.S. Attorney’s office was meant to follow the guns from the initial buyers along the U.S. border to violent drug cartel leaders in Mexico.

However ATF agents did not track the weapons after they were transferred from the initial buyer to others who smuggled them across the border. As many as 2,000 guns may have been sold under the operation.

Two AK-47 style weapons from that program were found in Arizona 18 miles from the border where a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, was shot and killed during a December 2010 shootout with illegal immigrants.

A similar, smaller program was run during the Bush administration dubbed “Wide Receiver.”

“We are undertaking key enhancements to existing department policies and procedures to ensure that mistakes like those that occurred in ‘Wide Receiver’ and ‘Fast and Furious’ are not repeated,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a letter to Congress.

Republicans have been demanding to know who in the Obama administration knew about the “Fast and Furious” operation and when. Holder and other senior ATF and Justice Department officials said they did not learn about it until early 2011.

(Reporting By Jeremy Pelofsky)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/pl_nm/us_usa_mexico_guns

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Jan
27

Suspect in Ohio Craigslist case pleads not guilty (AP)

AKRON, Ohio ? A self-styled chaplain suspected in a deadly Craigslist robbery scheme pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges including aggravated murder and kidnapping.

An attorney for Richard Beasley, 52, entered the plea on his behalf as his client hid his face in his arms during his arraignment by video hookup from jail.

Beasley, only his head, shoulders and arms showing on the screen, asked about news cameras in the courtroom. “I’m worried about contaminating a jury pool,” Beasley said without looking up.

Magistrate John Shoemaker asked Beasley to briefly show his face to confirm his identity but then agreed to let the defense attorney and prosecutor confirm who it was.

Beasley refused to skip the reading of the indictment, a routine move that speeds up the case. Two prosecutors spent more than 55 minutes taking turns reading the indictment and its numerous death penalty specifications.

Beasley has been held without bond and Shoemaker continued that arrangement. Beasley’s count-appointed attorney, Brian Pierce, said he might take up the issue of pretrial release on bond with trial Judge Lynne Callahan.

A pretrial hearing was scheduled for Feb. 8.

Beasley is accused of killing three men and wounding a fourth and could face the death penalty if convicted.

A 17-year-old co-defendant, Brogan Rafferty, has pleaded not guilty to juvenile counts brought against him Friday. Rafferty was a student at Stow-Munroe Falls High School in suburban Akron when he was arrested in the fall.

Rafferty was charged with three counts of aggravated murder, one count of attempted murder, four counts of aggravated robbery and four counts of kidnapping, Summit County prosecutor’s spokeswoman April Wiesner said.

Two men were shot and killed and a third was shot but survived and escaped after hiding in woods in Noble County, authorities said. Those shootings happened between Aug. 9 and Nov. 6. A fourth man was killed Nov. 13, and his body was found in Akron.

The victims had answered Craigslist ads for work on a nonexistent cattle farm in rural Noble County in southeast Ohio. The scheme targeted older, single, out-of-work men with backgrounds that made it unlikely their disappearances would be noted right away.

In a four-page handwritten letter to the Akron Beacon Journal, Beasley has said he has been miscast as a con man when he really helped feed, house and counsel scores of needy families, alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill and crime suspects for years.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_us/us_craigslist_jobseekers_killed

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Jan
27

NASA’s Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 planets

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) ? NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.

The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.

“Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky,” said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits.”

Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet passes in front of the star. That passage casts a small shadow toward Earth and the Kepler spacecraft.

“Confirming that the small decrease in the star’s brightness is due to a planet requires additional observations and time-consuming analysis,” said Eric Ford, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Florida and lead author of the paper confirming Kepler-23 and Kepler-24. “We verified these planets using new techniques that dramatically accelerated their discovery.”

Each of the newly confirmed planetary systems contains two to five closely spaced transiting planets. In tightly packed planetary systems, the gravitational pull of the planets on each other causes some planets to accelerate and some to decelerate along their orbits. The acceleration causes the orbital period of each planet to change. Kepler detects this effect by measuring the changes, or so-called Transit Timing Variations.

Planetary systems with Transit Timing Variations can be verified without requiring extensive ground-based observations, accelerating confirmation of planet candidates. This detection technique also increases Kepler’s ability to confirm planetary systems around fainter and more distant stars.

“By precisely timing when each planet transits its star, Kepler detected the gravitational tug of the planets on each other, clinching the case for 10 of the newly announced planetary systems,” said Dan Fabrycky, Hubble Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and lead author for a paper confirming Kepler-29, 30, 31 and 32.

Five of the systems (Kepler-25, Kepler-27, Kepler-30, Kepler-31 and Kepler-33) contain a pair of planets where the inner planet orbits the star twice during each orbit of the outer planet. Four of the systems (Kepler-23, Kepler-24, Kepler-28 and Kepler-32) contain a pairing where the outer planet circles the star twice for every three times the inner planet orbits its star.

“These configurations help to amplify the gravitational interactions between the planets, similar to how my sons kick their legs on a swing at the right time to go higher,” said Jason Steffen, the Brinson postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Ill., and lead author of a paper confirming Kepler-25, 26, 27 and 28.

Kepler-33, a star that is older and more massive than our sun, had the most planets. The system hosts five planets, ranging in size from 1.5 to 5 times that of Earth. All of the planets are located closer to their star than any planet is to our sun.

The properties of a star provide clues for planet detection. The decrease in the star’s brightness and duration of a planet transit combined with the properties of its host star present a recognizable signature. When astronomers detect planet candidates that exhibit similar signatures around the same star, the likelihood of any of these planet candidates being a false positive is very low.

“The approach used to verify the Kepler-33 planets shows the overall reliability is quite high,” said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the paper on Kepler-33. “This is a validation by multiplicity.”

These discoveries are published in four different papers in the Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler’s ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission’s development.

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA’s 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.

For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press kit, visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler . More information about exoplanets and NASA’s planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126155915.htm

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Jan
27

Pentagon: Army, Marines to shrink as budget slows (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The Pentagon outlined a plan Thursday for slowing the growth of military spending, including cutting the size of the Army and Marine Corps, retiring older planes and trimming war costs. It drew quick criticism from Republicans, signaling the difficulty of scaling back defense budgets in an election year.

The changes Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described at a news conference are numerous but hardly dramatic. They aim to save money by delaying some big-ticket weapons like a next-generation nuclear-armed submarine, but the basic shape and structure of the military remains the same.

The Army would shrink from a peak of 570,000 to 490,000 within five years, and the Marines would drop by 20,000, to 182,000. Those are considerable declines, but both services will still be slightly larger than on 9/11, before they began a decade of war. Both will keep their footholds abroad, although the Army will decrease its presence in Europe and the Marines plan to increase theirs in Asia.

Panetta said the administration will ask Congress for $525 billion to run the Pentagon in 2013 ? $6 billion less than the current budget. War costs, which are not considered part of the base budget, would decline from $115 billion to $88 billion, reflecting the completion of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

The base budget would then increase in each year of the Pentagon’s five-year plan, reaching $567 billion in 2017. A year ago the Pentagon had projected 2017 spending to reach $622 billion. The Pentagon counts those reductions in projected future spending as “defense savings.”

When Obama took office in January 2009 the Pentagon’s base budget was $513 billion. In 2001 it was $297 billion.

Under a budget deficit-cutting deal Congress made last summer, the Pentagon is committed to reducing projected spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years. The plan Panetta presented Thursday covers the first five years of that span and would cut a cumulative total of $259 billion in planned spending.

“We believe this is a balanced and complete package,” Panetta said.

In a bid to pre-empt election-year Republican criticism, Panetta said the plan begins to shift the Pentagon’s focus from the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to future challenges in Asia, the Mideast and in cyberspace. More special operations forces like the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden will be available around the world, he said, and the Pentagon will stress improvements in cyberdefenses.

Republicans were quick to pounce on the proposed Army and Marine Corps reductions.

“These cuts reflect President Obama’s vision of an America that is weakened, not strengthened, by our men and women in uniform,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

McKeon voted for the bill last August that established the requirement for $487 billion in defense savings over five years.

“Taking us back to a pre-9/11 military force structure places our country in grave danger,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that will hold hearings on the Pentagon budget plan.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the Panetta plan “ignores the lessons of history.” He said it provides for a military that is “too small to respond effectively to events that may unfold over the next few years.”

The military’s top general, however, defended the administration’s approach. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he is convinced that the risks raised by cutting the size of the military are manageable. He said failing to make these changes would have meant even bigger risks.

“This budget is a first step ? it’s a down payment ? as we transition from an emphasis on today’s wars to preparing for future challenges,” he said, adding, “This budget does not lead to a military in decline.”

Among other details Panetta disclosed:

–The Air Force would retire some older planes including about two dozen C-5A cargo aircraft and 65 of its oldest C-130 cargo planes.

— The Navy would keep a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers but retire seven cruisers earlier than planned. It also would delay purchase of some other ships, including a new Virginia-class submarine.

–Purchase of F-35 stealth fighter jets, to be fielded by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, would be slowed.

–Current plans for building a new generation of submarines that carry long-range nuclear missiles would be delayed by two years. The current fleet of nuclear-capable bombers and land-based nuclear missiles would be left unchanged.

–Military pay raises will remain on track until 2015, when the pace of increase will be slowed by an undetermined amount.

–Obama will ask Congress to approve a new round of domestic base closures, although the timing of this was left vague and there is little chance that lawmakers would agree to this in a presidential election year.

The defense spending plan is scheduled to be submitted to Congress as part of the administration’s full 2013 budget on Feb. 13.

The defense budget is being reshaped in the midst of a presidential contest in which Obama seeks to portray himself as a forward-looking commander in chief focusing on new security threats. Republicans want to cast him as weak on defense.

Obama has highlighted his national security successes ? the killing of bin Laden, the death of other senior al-Qaida leaders and the demise of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi ? to counter Republican criticism. He also has emphasized the completion of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and the start of a drawdown in Afghanistan as turning points that offer new opportunities to scale back defense spending.

But several congressional Republicans see a political opening in challenging the reductions in projected military spending that the GOP and Obama agreed to last summer as part of a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing authority. They’ve echoed Obama’s potential presidential rivals Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who plead for fiscal austerity but contend that sizable cuts would gut the military.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Lolita C. Baldor and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.

___

Robert Burns can be reached on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_defense_budget

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Jan
27

iPhone Apps for Homeowners (ContributorNetwork)

Running a household can be an exciting, yet overwhelming experience. The task of finding the perfect home and keeping it running can be a full time job. Thanks to technology, if you have an iPhone, there are apps that can help you tackle these tasks with ease, help you organize your life, and let you take full command of your domain right at your fingertips; all that is needed is a browse through the Apple App Store to get you started.

Zillow - Free

Use: Buying and Selling Property

Zillow is an app that is most often used by home buyers rather than homeowners, but it offers many features that any homeowner can find useful.

  • Gives a bird’s eye view of your neighborhood with estimated property values
  • Shows sales history of surrounding properties and taxes
  • Shows houses for sale as you tour your neighborhood

Houzz - Free

Use: House Design

Houzz is an iPhone app that helps homeowners find ideas for their dream house. The images are breathtaking and can help to inspire anyone to design their perfect room.

  • Photos have tags on items with pricing and availability, members can also tag items they have seen in stores and provide additional info
  • Follow the designers of your favorite rooms to see their latest creations
  • Put favorites into an idea book for quick reference for your contractors
  • Facebook, Flicker, and Twitter integration to share ideas with friends

ServiceMagic Mobile and HomeSmarts – Free

Use: Home Repair and Maintenance

ServiceMagic is a service that matches homeowners with qualified contractors and home repair professionals in their local areas. ServiceMagic has two apps in the Apple App Store that help homeowners take care of their homes and give them piece of mind when things go wrong.

ServiceMagic Mobile

  • Pre-screens contractors
  • Gives several quotes to compare prices
  • Posts reviews from other customers
  • One touch contact with service pros on iPhone
  • Related articles and advice

HomeSmarts

  • Make a home maintenance schedule on your iPhone
  • Recommends preventative maintenance to save money
  • Maintenance reminders
  • Do it yourself tips and instruction
  • Connects users with ServiceMagic pros if needed

Mint.com - Free

Use: Budgeting

Owning a home means you have to be able to budget your money. Mint.com by Intuit lets you control all of your finances on your iPhone easily.

  • Gathers all bank, credit card, and loan statements in one place, letting users see where every penny goes
  • Categorizes all expenses
  • Gives downloadable transaction history
  • Makes money saving recommendations based on spending habits

Plentifi - Free

Use: Financial Health

Being financially fit is what every homeowner needs to be in order to keep their home and their lifestyle intact. The Plentifi app keeps users in the know about financial matters by offering advice and news through their iPhone app.

  • Articles about loans, saving money, and banking
  • Connect with professionals to answer questions about investing, real estate and rates
  • Post interesting related articles and comments
  • Set up alerts about your favorite topic

AroundMe – Free

Use: Local business information

Whether you are new to a neighborhood or an old local, there are always new and exciting places to go in your own neighborhood that you need to explore. AroundMe will help you locate local restaurants, stores, and businesses in your town or city.

  • Locates a variety of services including, taxi, gas, supermarkets, etc..
  • Checks hotel availability and makes restaurant reservations
  • Works with TomTom navigation software
  • Facebook and Twitter integration to connect with friends

Groupon - Free

Use: Bargains

Groupon is known for their deals on restaurants, but they offer other services that are very useful for the bargain savvy homeowner. Groupon often offers many items and services that homeowners need, like bedding, repair, and cleaning services, at half price. If you are quick, you can get valuable services for incredible prices. Groupon’s iPhone app allows users to take advantage of their deals as soon as they become available.

  • Alerts for daily deals
  • Tap to purchase
  • Use iPhone as Groupon – No printing needed
  • Groupon Now – flash sales at local business

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120125/tc_ac/10876643_iphone_apps_for_homeowners

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Jan
26

Ex-head of French breast implant maker arrested (AP)

PARIS ? Police in southeast France on Thursday arrested the former head of a French company at the center of a breast implant scandal affecting tens of thousands of women worldwide, a police official said.

Jean-Claude Mas, who ran the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese, was detained at his residence in the Mediterranean coastal town of Six Fours Les Plages shortly before dawn, the official said.

A police search of the residence was under way, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is officially in the hands of judicial investigators.

The implants were pulled from the market in several countries in and beyond Europe amid fears they could rupture and leak silicone into the body.

Authorities worldwide have been scrambling to strike a proper public response to the scandal ? notably about who will pay to remove the implants made with cheap, industrial-grade silicone instead of medical-grade gel, or if the implants need to invariably come out.

European governments have taken different positions: German, Czech and French authorities say the implants should be removed, while Britain says there is not enough evidence of health risks to suggest they should be taken out in all cases.

On Wednesday, health authorities in Brazil said the government will fine private health plans that refuse to pay for the removal and replacement of faulty breast implants sold by PIP and a Dutch company.

A lawyer for Mas said in a statement earlier this month that his client, who ran PIP until it was closed in March 2010, would not speak publicly on the case.

The scandal has put pressure on French health authorities for allegedly not doing enough to vet the quality of a product used by untold thousands of women both in France and abroad.

France’s Health Safety Agency has said the suspect implants ? just one type of implants made by PIP ? appear to be more rupture-prone than other types. Investigators say PIP sought to save money by using industrial silicone, whose potential health risks are not yet clear.

PIP’s website said the company had exported to more than 60 countries and was one of the world’s leading implant makers. The silicone-gel implants in question are not sold in the United States.

According to estimates by national authorities, over 42,000 women in Britain received the implants, more than 30,000 in France, 9,000 in Australia and 4,000 in Italy. Nearly 25,000 of the implants were sold in Brazil.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_breast_implants

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Jan
26

Clashes between Tibetans, gov’t spread in China (AP)

BEIJING ? Deadly clashes between ethnic Tibetans and Chinese security forces have spread to a second area in southwestern China, the government and an overseas activist group said Wednesday.

The group Free Tibet said two Tibetans were killed and several more were wounded Tuesday when security forces opened fire on a crowd of protesters in Seda county in politically sensitive Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan province. It quoted local sources as saying the area was under a curfew.

According to the Chinese government, a “mob” of people charged a police station in Seda and injured 14 officers, forcing police to open fire on them.

The official Xinhua News Agency said police killed one rioter, injured another and arrested 13.

The spread of violence came after some 30 Tibetans sheltered in a monastery after being wounded when Chinese police fired into a crowd of protesters in neighboring Luhuo county, a Tibetan monk said Tuesday. He said military forces had surrounded the building.

The monk who would not give his name out of fear of government retaliation, and the Draggo monastery could no longer be reached by phone Wednesday.

The counties have been tense for some time, and at least 16 Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans have set themselves on fire in protest in the past year. Most have chanted for Tibetan freedom and the return of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Many Tibetans resent Beijing’s heavy-handed rule and the large-scale migration of China’s ethnic Han majority to the Himalayan region. While China claims Tibet has been under its rule for centuries, many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for most of that time.

“Chinese forces are responding with lethal force to Tibetans’ ever-growing calls for freedom,” Free Tibet director Stephanie Brigden said in a statement Wednesday.

A man who answered the telephone at the Seda county government office would not confirm or deny the group’s account of Tuesday’s violence. He would not give his name.

Later Wednesday, phone lines for Seda police and government offices were constantly busy while calls to many other numbers in the county could not be connected.

Xinhua cited a police officer as saying the mob gathered Tuesday afternoon to storm the Chengguan Police Station and that they attacked police with gasoline bottles, knives and stones.

“They also opened fire at us, injuring 14 police officers,” the report quoted the officer as saying.

Chinese authorities have similarly blamed Monday’s unrest in Luhuo on a “mob” and said that overseas advocacy groups are twisting the truth about what happened in order to undermine the government. The government says order has been restored there after one Tibetan died and four others were injured. It said five police were wounded.

The International Campaign for Tibet says three were killed on Monday, including the brother of a religious leader in a local monastery.

Independent confirmation of the clashes is difficult due to a heavy security presence and lack of access to outsiders.

The United States, which will host Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping at the White House next month, has expressed grave concern at the reported violence.

U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Maria Otero urged Beijing to address “counterproductive policies” in Tibetan areas that have created tensions and threatened Tibetans’ religious, cultural and linguistic identity.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington has always been clear with China about its concerns for the human rights of Tibetans and others. She said the U.S. would be “just as clear” when Xi visits next month.

British Foreign Minister Jeremy Browne said the U.K. also was concerned. “I urge the Chinese government to exercise restraint, to release full details of the incidents, and to work to resolve the underlying grievances,” his statement said.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

____

Gillian Wong can be reached on http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_as/as_china_tibet

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Jan
26

Morgan Stanley Reports International Gaming Technology FY1Q …

In a research report released today, Morgan Stanley said International Gaming Technology’s (NYSE: IGT) F1Q revenue and EPS results were significantly below consensus estimates.

According to Morgan Stanley, ?EPS of $0.17 missed our estimate by $0.04 and consensus by $0.05. It is important to note that the opaque ?non-box? product sales segment drove $0.03 of the EPS miss, indicating that core operating results, while still light, were relatively resilient. That said, we expect the stock to react negatively to the release and potentially test recent lows in the $14 range.?

International Gaming Technology is currently trading at $15.95.

(c) 2011 Benzinga.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published in its entirety or redistributed without the approval of Benzinga.

?

?

Source: http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/12/01/2284352/morgan-stanley-reports-international-gaming-technology-f

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Jan
25

Joe Paterno, revered coach tainted by scandal, dies (Reuters)

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) ? Penn State’s Joe Paterno, the winningest coach in major college football history who was fired in November over a child sexual abuse scandal involving an assistant that rocked America, died on Sunday of lung cancer. He was 85.

Paterno won adoration from fans of the highly successful and profitable Penn State football program and they unleashed invective at the university board of trustees who fired him unceremoniously after 46 years as head coach, tarnishing his outsized legacy.

Equally outraged were his critics and advocates for victims of sexual abuse who faulted Paterno for his relative inaction upon hearing an accusation that former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused a young boy in the Penn State football showers in 2002.

Paterno told university officials but not police, opening him to criticism that he protected an accused child molester for nine years.

Sandusky, 67, who has maintained his innocence, faces 52 criminal counts accusing him of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years, using his position as head of a The Second Mile, a charity dedicated to helping troubled children, to find his victims. The court placed him under house arrest.

Waves of mourners descended on a makeshift shrine to Paterno outside the university’s Beaver Stadium. They draped an American flag on a statue of Paterno and wrapped its neck with a Penn State scarf.

Sobbing at the statue’s feet was Dana Gordon, a 1982 graduate who blamed the school’s board of trustees for hastening Paterno’s death by firing him in a “callous way.”

“The way the board treated him took a lot of the fight out of him,” Gordon said.

Later, a few thousand mourners braved freezing cold temperatures to attend a vigil. Many held candles while the football team’s marching band played somber music, including “Amazing Grace.”

“I am not only a better player because of him, but also a better person as well,” Penn State quarterback Matt McGloin said in a ceremony that made only vague references to the scandal. “This guy was not only a football coach. He was also a father, a husband, and I consider him a friend.”

The scandal raised questions about the measures the university took to protect Sandusky and a football program that Forbes magazine estimated made a profit of $53 million in 2010, especially since accusations against him first surfaced in 1998. At that time a university police detective admonished Sandusky to stop showering naked with boys but stopped short of bringing criminal charges.

One of the biggest scandals in college sports history, it provoked a national discussion about pedophilia in the same way charges involving Roman Catholic priests did years earlier.

The matter also drew impassioned arguments about the balance between protecting the young and the rights of criminal defendants, who are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

“I hope his passing and the controversy surrounding Sandusky will deter other people, especially powerful people, from covering up child sex crimes,” said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a support group.

“Even decades of professional achievement should not obscure dreadfully reckless and callous inaction that results in child sex crimes,” Clohessy said.

Sandusky issued a statement sending condolences to the Paterno family but did not mention the investigation.

“Nobody did more for the academic reputation of Penn State than Joe Paterno. He maintained a high standard in a very difficult profession,” Sandusky said.

Paterno won a reputation for making sure his players graduated and one of the program’s mottos was “Success With Honor.”

Paterno’s downfall was spectacular. For decades he was a symbol of vitality who patrolled the Penn State sidelines with unchallenged authority, easily recognizable by his thick eyeglasses and jet-black hair that grayed a little in his later years. His two national championships, in 1982 and 1986, won him enduring loyalty from fans who affectionately called him “JoePa.”

In the end, he was confined to a wheelchair upon breaking his hip in a fall one month after being fired, and he wore a wig after losing his hair to chemotherapy, according to the Washington Post, which interviewed Paterno about a week before his death.

Paterno was surrounded by family when he died 9:25 a.m. on Sunday of metastatic small cell carcinoma of the lung, Mount Nittany Medical Center said in a statement.

IMPACT ON CRIMINAL CASE

Paterno’s death may not significantly affect the case against Sandusky, but was more likely to weaken the criminal case against two university officials charged with perjury, legal experts said.

Paterno learned of at least one accusation against Sandusky in 2002, when graduate assistant Mike McQueary told Paterno he witnessed Sandusky molesting a boy of about 10 years old in the showers of the Lasch Football Building.

Paterno told university officials but not police, a decision that ultimately led to his downfall.

Paterno, in an interview with the Washington Post published on January 14, said he was uncertain how to handle the matter and trusted the university administration.

Paterno testified before the grand jury that he informed former athletic director Tim Curley about what McQueary told him. About 10 days later, McQueary testified, he was called to a meeting with Curley and university finance official Gary Schultz to discuss what happened.

Curley and Schultz both face perjury charges based on their inaction. Schultz also testified before the grand jury he was aware of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky.

University President Graham Spanier was fired along with Paterno, and Curley and Schultz stepped down.

“If he (Paterno) had known the devastation that this means, he would have reacted differently,” said Peter Pelullo, founder of Let Go, Let Peace Come In, a support group helping some of Sandusky’s accusers with counseling.

Because Paterno was not believed to have witnessed any purported abuse, his testimony would not have been crucial to Sandusky trial, said Paul Callan, a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney.

But his death could set back the criminal case against Curley and Schultz because they will be denied the chance to cross-examine an important witness.

Max Kennerly, a Philadelphia trial lawyer who has followed the case, said Paterno’s death was unlikely to alter any civil litigation being contemplated by Sandusky’s accusers. If any were considering suing Paterno, they could just name his estate.

“Death doesn’t change your status as a party,” Kennerly said.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson, Barbara Goldberg, Noeleen Walder and Andrew Longstreth; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/diseases/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/ts_nm/us_usa_paterno

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