Wall Street protesters ousted from Zuccotti Park

(AP) ? Police cleared New York's Zuccotti Park early Tuesday so that sanitation crews could clean the site Occupy Wall Street protesters have inhabited for two months, while in Berkeley, Calif., activists planned another attempt at setting up a new camp.

Concerns about health and safety issues at Occupy Wall Street camps around the country have intensified, and protesters have been ordered to take down their shelters, adhere to curfews and relocate so that parks can be cleaned.

At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, New York City police handed out notices from Brookfield Office Properties, owner of Zuccotti Park, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous. Protesters were told they could return in several hours, but without sleeping bags, tarps or tents.

Minutes later, the mayor's office tweeted that the protesters should "temporarily leave."

Police in riot gear filled the streets, car lights flashing and sirens blaring. Protesters, some of whom shouted angrily at police, began marching to two locations in Lower Manhattan where they planned to hold rallies.

Paul Brown, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said arrests had been made.

Some protesters refused to leave the park, but many left peacefully.

Ben Hamilton, 29, said he was arrested "and I was just trying to get away" from the fray.

Rabbi Chaim Gruber, an Occupy Wall Street member, said police officers were clearing the streets near Zuccotti Park.

"The police are forming a human shield, and are pushing everyone away," he said.

Jake Rozak, another protester, said police "had their pepper spray out and were ready to use it."

Notices given to the protesters said the park "poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard to those camped in the park, the city's first responders and the surrounding community."

It said that tents, sleeping bags and other items had to be removed because "the storage of these materials at this location is not allowed." Anything left behind would be taken away, the notices said, giving an address at a sanitation department building where items could be picked up.

Alex Hall, 21, of Brooklyn, said police walked into the park "stepping on tents and ripping them out,"

The New York Times reported that the clearing out of Zuccotti Park came as protesters announced on their website that they planned to "shut down Wall Street" with a demonstration on Thursday to commemorate the completion of two months of the beginning of the encampment, which has spurred similar demonstrations across the country.

On Monday, a small group of demonstrators, including local residents and merchants, protested at City Hall. In recent weeks, they have urged the mayor to clear out the park because of its negative impact on the neighborhood and small businesses.

Occupy encampments have come under fire around the country as local officials and residents have complained about possible health hazards and ongoing inhabitation of parks and other public spaces.

Anti-Wall Street activists intend to converge at the University of California, Berkeley on Tuesday for a day of protests and another attempt to set up an Occupy Cal camp, less than a week after police arrested dozens of protesters who tried to pitch tents on campus.

The Berkeley protesters will be joined by Occupy Oakland activists who said they would march to the UC campus in the afternoon. Police cleared the tent city in front of Oakland City Hall before dawn Monday and arrested more than 50 people amid complaints about safety, sanitation and drug use.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-15-Occupy-Zuccotti/id-e21a9319fd5d4460b1605cadc688d78f

brady quinn nick fairley barry sanders barry sanders tim allen enlightened enlightened

Hungry mosquitoes fly farther than you think

(AP) ? How far does a mosquito fly? Harry Boerema wants to know.

Boerema lives near a drainage project, where Dutch authorities are dredging a huge meter-deep (3-foot) basin in the northern rural landscape to head off flood waters and protect towns and villages from disaster.

The project threatens to inflict hordes of mosquitoes on people living around the water retention area, so scientists set out to calculate how to keep the boundaries of the ditch far enough from human habitation to protect residents from pest infestation.

The question they needed to find out: How far does a common European human-biting mosquito fly?

What they found surprised them: A hungry female looking for a "host" will fly at least 150 meters (yards), three times farther than previously thought, said Piet Verdonschot, who conducted the research.

The 1,700 hectare (4,200-acre) basin, begun in 2003, is designed to collect heavy rainwater that will slowly be channeled to the North Sea. But frequent wet-dry cycles will be perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Buzzing pests are nothing new for Boerema, a retired professor of architectural history who has lived for 36 years in his quiet cottage set amid dairy farms.

"I don't mind them to a certain extent. But not in surplus," he says. "I'm a nature lover, and mosquitoes are part of nature ? although not the most likable ones."

Not everyone took the prospect of living on water's edge with such equanimity, and local complaints led authorities to commission the mosquito research, said project manager John Tukker.

At the outset, Verdonschot believed mosquitoes stay within about 50 meters (yards) of their breeding ground. The biggest nuisance for humans often originates in flower pots, buckets of collected rainwater or any kind of water left stagnant in the back garden or barnyard.

"The assumption in the literature is that people who suffer bites have bred their own specimens in their own gardens," he said.

Hundreds of mosquito species exist around the world ? 36 in the Netherlands alone ? but Verdonschot concentrated on the two species most common in the Dutch climate: the culex pipiens, which prefers birds to people but will still keep you awake at night during the summer, and the Culiseta annulata, larger, more aggressive insects active year-round. Neither normally carries dangerous diseases.

Verdonschot, an aquatic ecologist working for the private environmental research institute Alterra, hatched 40,000 mosquitoes in large tents in a grassy field. The tents were surrounded by concentric circles of traps set at 50 meters, 100 meters and 150 meters. Around the edges of the field were ditches with tall reeds and wild grasses on the banks.

The traps drew mosquitoes into smoke from dry ice then instantly froze them. At the end of each day researchers collected the corpses and counted them one-by-one, using tweezers under a microscope.

Verdonschot expected most mosquitoes to be caught in the closest traps. Instead, about 80 percent were found in the farthest, meaning most flew at least 150 meters from the tent where they were hatched.

Verdonschot then refined his experiment, placing evergreen shrubs within the inner circle of traps. The numbers caught in the closest ring of traps shot up by one-third. The bushes offered both shelter from predators and moisture evaporating from the leaves.

That discovery led Tukker, working in the north, to create small raised islands of vegetation in the middle of the retention area, which becomes a swamp after a heavy rain. Those islands deflect mosquitoes from nearby farms.

The experiments produced a few other surprises, too.

Mosquitoes are mostly quiet during the day, preferring to concentrate on the edge of a body of water. When females hunt for blood ? necessary for reproduction ? they move for about an hour at dusk or at dawn, staying close to the ground.

"They move differently than we thought, they move farther than we thought," Verdonschot said.

Verdonschot believes his team's research adds to scientific knowledge about mosquitoes. Tomes have been written about mosquito bites and the effects on human health, but little research has been done on their habits, he said.

Verdonschot's simple experiments this summer have value for others building catchment areas around Europe and for housing developers.

"The whole northwestern European climate is becoming more dynamic because of climate change, because of wetter summers. And all this urban infrastructure has to be protected from water excess," he said.

Boerema also has a mosquito trap in the hedge around his cottage, helping to keep track of the mosquito population during wet and dry periods. He is anxious to see the water storage project completed, recalling that he was ordered to evacuate his home during a 1998 flood.

"I think it will ease the danger," he said, even though he's likely to have more mosquitoes.

"We've always been bitten. I don't react very much, but my wife hates them ? but not to the extent that we find it unbearable to live here."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-14-EU-Netherlands-Mosquito-Habits/id-366963cce801415f854455c70a107f56

bad lip reading gilad shalit gilad shalit new york jets santonio holmes john edward psychic john edward psychic

CA-CANADA Summary (Reuters)

U.S. punts tricky pipeline decision past 2012 election

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The U.S. government on Thursday delayed approval of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline until after the 2012 U.S. election, bowing to pressure from environmentalists and sparing President Barack Obama a damaging split with liberal voters he may need to win reelection. The decision to explore a new route for TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL oil pipeline to avoid fragile territory in the Sand Hills of Nebraska dismayed the Canadian government, which had lobbied assiduously for the $7 billion project.

Canada's tiny Arctic port faces uncertain future

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Every summer for three months, the Hudson Bay ice breaks up and ships load Canadian Prairie grain for export, putting more than 100 people to work in the tiny northern Manitoba town of Churchill. The town of just 900 - well known for the polar bears that often wander through its streets - is Canada's only Arctic port. But that key driver of the local economy could become as endangered as the polar bear next year when the Canadian Wheat Board, the port's biggest shipper, loses its monopoly on marketing Western Canadian wheat and barley.

Saskatchewan re-elects government; potash royalties firm

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party romped to the biggest election victory in decades on Monday in the resource-rich western Canadian province, promising to leave potash royalties unchanged for the next four years. Saskatchewan holds one of the world's richest reserves of potash -- a mineral mined to fertilize crops -- and royalties typically add hundreds of millions of dollars to the provincial treasury each year.

State Dept eyes rerouting Keystone XL pipeline

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department is considering rerouting TransCanada Corp.'s proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline to avoid ecologically sensitive areas of Nebraska, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. The State Department has been weighing issues raised in public meetings and talks with officials in six states that would be affected "including whether to consider a rerouting of the Keystone XL pipeline away from an environmentally delicate area of Nebraska," the official said.

Unions ground Air Canada's low-cost carrier plan

TORONTO (Reuters) - Months of labor conflict have stalled Air Canada's plans for a low-cost carrier, but Canada's biggest airline says it has not given up the idea. Air Canada, which teetered on the edge of bankruptcy two years ago, has struggled to bring down costs and turn consistent profits, and Chief Executive Calin Rovinescu says the low-cost leisure market is too good an opportunity to ignore.

Canada defiant after U.S. oil pipeline rebuff

OTTAWA/CALGARY (Reuters) - Canada will keep promoting crude from the tar sands of northern Alberta as a secure source of energy despite a U.S. decision to delay approval of a pipeline to carry the oil from Alberta to Texas, officials said on Thursday. The Canadian government and the oil industry have limited options, however, as another controversial proposal to build a pipeline to export tar sands crude to Asian markets is just at the beginning of a lengthy review process.

Canada new home prices up 0.2 percent in September

OTTAWA (Reuters) - New home prices in Canada increased by 0.2 percent in September, the sixth consecutive month-on-month rise, on continued strength in the heavily-populated Toronto area, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday. The growth in the new housing price index matched analysts' expectations. Prices rose 2.3 percent in the 12 months to September and since mid-2010 have been well above the pre-recession levels of 2008.

Bank of Canada's 2 percent inflation target renewed

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The government and the Bank of Canada agreed on Tuesday to renew without change the central bank's five-year mandate to target a 2 percent overall inflation rate. That contrasts with the dual mandate of the U.S. Federal Reserve to target inflation and employment. The Bank of Canada had examined and rejected the idea of lowering the inflation target and also of targeting price levels instead.

Canada's PM says oil pipeline still has US support

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Friday he sees overwhelming U.S. support for TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL oil pipeline to Texas from Canada's oil sands, despite recent signs of reticence in Washington. Harper, who was in France for the G20 summit, said he did not interpret U.S. President Barack Obama's remarks this week as pointing to a rejection of the $7 billion pipeline proposal, which is opposed by environmental groups.

Crocodile Gold cuts 2011 production outlook; shares fall

(Reuters) - Canada's Crocodile Gold Corp reported a quarterly loss, partly due to higher costs, and lowered its gold production forecast for 2011 as it expects much lower-than-expected head grades at its open pit mines in northern Australia. Shares of the company fell as much 19 percent and touched a more than two-year low of 44 Canadian cents.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111111/wl_canada_nm/canada_summary

richard stallman richard stallman williston north dakota williston north dakota kody brown transylvania terrell owens

Deaths at Occupy camps bring pressure for shutdown

A body is removed from a tent in the Occupy Salt Lake camp in Pioneer Park, Friday Nov. 11, 2011 in Salt Lake City. The Occupy Salt Lake group has been in Pioneer Park for weeks, protesting what they say is corporate greed, in solidarity with the larger Occupy Wall Street protests in New York and elsewhere. Police say the body of a man in his 40s was found Friday morning in a tent. A cause of death was not available, but authorities say it did not immediately appear to be foul play. (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Al Hartmann)

A body is removed from a tent in the Occupy Salt Lake camp in Pioneer Park, Friday Nov. 11, 2011 in Salt Lake City. The Occupy Salt Lake group has been in Pioneer Park for weeks, protesting what they say is corporate greed, in solidarity with the larger Occupy Wall Street protests in New York and elsewhere. Police say the body of a man in his 40s was found Friday morning in a tent. A cause of death was not available, but authorities say it did not immediately appear to be foul play. (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Al Hartmann)

Demonstrators light candles at a street corner where a man was shot and killed after an altercation near the campsite for Occupy Wall Street protesters at Frank Ogawa Plaza, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011 in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

An unidentified woman, left, reacts after an Occupy Oakland medic and a paramedic tend to a man is shot in Frank Ogawa plaza near the Occupy Oakland camp on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011 in Oakland, Calif. The man was transported to the hospital and pronounced died. (AP Photo/Jane Tyska/HO) No Sales

Demonstrators light candles in remembrance of a man who was shot and killed after an altercation outside a make-shift camp site for Occupy Wall Street protesters at Frank Ogawa Plaza, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011 in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

An Occupy Oakland medic, center, red jacket, and others tend to a shooting victim in Frank Ogawa plaza near the Occupy Oakland camp on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011 in Oakland, Calif. The man was transported to the hospital and pronounced dead. (AP Photo/Jane Tyska/HOEP) Mags Out

(AP) ? Oakland police handed out eviction notices at an anti-Wall Street encampment and officials elsewhere urged an end to similar gatherings as pressures against Occupy protest sites mounted in the wake of three deaths in different cities, including two by gunfire.

Police first pleaded with and then ordered Occupy Oakland protesters to leave their encampment at the City Hall plaza where a man was shot and killed Thursday.

Officers acting at the direction of Mayor Jean Quan distributed fliers to protesters late Friday afternoon warning that the camp violates the law and must be disbanded immediately. The notices warned campers they would face arrest if tents and other materials were not removed, although the warnings did not say by when.

The city issued similar written warnings before officers raided the encampment before dawn on Oct. 25 with tear gas and bean bags projectiles before arresting 85 people. A day later, Quan allowed protesters to reclaim the disbanded site and the camp has grown substantially since then.

Earlier, the Oakland Police Officer's Association issued an open letter saying the camp is pulling officers away from crime-plagued neighborhoods.

"With last night's homicide, in broad daylight, in the middle of rush hour, Frank Ogawa Plaza is no longer safe," the letter said. "Please leave peacefully, with your heads held high, so we can get police officers back to work fighting crime in Oakland neighborhoods."

City Council President Larry Reid said outside City Hall on Friday that the shooting was further proof the tents must come down. He was confronted by a protester who said he wouldn't be in office much longer.

"You didn't elect me," Reid snapped back. "You probably ain't even registered to vote!"

The Oakland shooting occurred the same day a 35-year-old military veteran apparently shot himself to death in a tent at a Burlington, Vt., Occupy encampment.

In Vermont, police said a preliminary investigation showed the veteran fatally shot himself in the head in a tent in City Hall Park.

The death of the Chittenden County man raised questions about whether the protest would be allowed to continue, said Burlington police Deputy Chief Andi Higbee.

"Our responsibility is to keep the public safe. When there is a discharge of a firearm in a public place like this it's good cause to be concerned, greatly concerned," Higbee said.

On Friday, a man believed to be in his 40s was found dead inside a tent at the Occupy Salt Lake City encampment, from what police said was a combination of drug use and carbon monoxide.

The discovery led police to order all protesters to leave the park where they have camped for weeks. The man has not been identified.

Group organizers said many of the roughly 150 protesters plan to go to jail rather than abandon the encampment.

"We don't even know if this is a tragedy or just natural," protest organizer Jesse Fruhwirth said. "They're scapegoating Occupy."

Salt Lake City police Chief Chris Burbank said officers have made 91 arrests at the camp, roughly the same number seen in the area during all of the last year.

A preliminary investigation into the Oakland shooting suggested it resulted from a fight between two groups of men at or near the encampment, police Chief Howard Jordan said. Investigators do not know if the men in the fight were associated with Occupy Oakland, he said.

Protesters said there was no connection between the shooting and the camp.

The coroner's office said it was using fingerprints to identify the victim and that a positive identification was not likely to be released before Monday.

Protesters have been girding for another police raid as several City Council members have said the Oakland camp must go. After police cleared the camp last month, Quan changed course and allowed protesters to return.

Tensions were also high at the 300-tent encampment in Portland, Ore., which has become a hub for the city's homeless people and addicts.

Mayor Sam Adams ordered the camp shut down by midnight Saturday, saying the tipping point came this week with the arrest of a camper on suspicion of setting off a Molotov cocktail outside an office building, as well as two non-fatal drug overdoses at the camp.

"I cannot wait for someone to die," he said. "I cannot wait for someone to use the camp as camouflage to inflict bodily harm on others."

Many at the camp said they would resist any effort to remove them.

"There will be a variety of tactics used," said organizer Adriane DeJerk, 26. "No social movement has ever been successful while being completely peaceful."

Police said some elements inside the camp may be building shields and makeshift weapons, including nails hammered into wood, while trying to gather gas masks.

"If there are anarchists, if there are weapons, if there is an intention to engage in violence and confrontation, that obviously raises our concerns," Portland police Lt. Robert King said.

___

Associated Press writers Dave Gram in Burlington, Vt., Nigel Duara in Portland, Ore., Josh Loftin and Brian Skoloff in Salt Lake City and Sudhin Thanawala and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-12-Occupy%20Protests/id-810f698a324e477f9531563474bcce0c

bank transfer day daylight savings 2011 day light savings day light savings there will be blood there will be blood us geological survey

Polka-Dotted Horses? Cave Art May Not Be Fantasy

There is art beyond price in the caves of southwestern France. The paintings date back to the Paleolithic period and depict spotted horses, which, according to new research, may actually be how horses looked at the time. Guest host Linda Wertheimer speaks with Professor Terry O'Connor of the University of York in the United Kingdom about the ancient art.

Copyright ? 2011 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: There are paintings beyond price in southwestern France in caves. Wall paintings still visible today date back to the Paleolithic period, more than 25,000 years ago. Over the years, scientists have disagreed about these ancient artists' depiction of animals. Were they realistic or perhaps were they pictures of imaginary creatures? For example, in caves in France, there are paintings of horses - black horses, brown horses, and then polka-dot horses. Where there really horses with a kind of Dalmatian-like coat in the ancient world? Professor Terry O'Connor of the University of York in England is one of the scientists who tried to find out. He joins me from the studio there. Welcome to our program.

TERRY O'CONNOR: Glad to be here.

WERTHEIMER: Now, you are an archaeologist and you specialize in human-animal relationships. Can you briefly describe what you and your colleagues did to try to figure out the mystery of the spotted horses?

O'CONNOR: Yeah, essentially what we were trying to do here was to find out whether we could in some way check whether the horse illustrations that the go - as you were saying - right back as much as 25,000 years in some caves, were accurate representations of what people were actually seeing or whether they had this really imaginary element to them. And the way we did that was simply to access bones of horses over the same date as the paintings from excavations, often in the same caves or in caves in the same area, and from those bones we were able to recover little scraps of DNA sequence that represent particular genes. And by very carefully targeting the right genes, what we've been able to do is to say, look, what can we show in here is we've got genes with a black coat color, and in some we've got genes with a brown coat color. And in just a few, half a dozen, we've got the genes in modern horses produce a spotted-colored coat.

WERTHEIMER: So, there really were polka-dotted horses?

O'CONNOR: There really were, yeah. So, people were drawing what they saw, which is fantastic for us.

WERTHEIMER: Now, why does it matter whether these paintings reflect reality or not?

O'CONNOR: Well, all kinds of reasons really. The very simple reason why we were very pleased with this result is that at least we've been able to show that a color coat characteristic, which for a long time people had said was a mutation that had arisen in domestic horses possibly quite recently, actually had very great antiquity. It goes before domestication of horses. But then, more to the point, some of the things that they're drawing are now extinct. So, nobody on earth today has ever seen a live mammoth. So, if the eyewitness accounts we have of them of the rather beautiful drawings of mammoths that turn up in some of these caves - and woolly rhinoceros, the same, you know - this gives us more confidence, if you like, to say, you know, all right, we can trust what these guys were drawing because we've been able to check, in the case of the horses, that the kind of coat colors and builds and so on that they were representing actually is consistent with what we see in the physical remains of the horses. But it gives us that bit more confidence therefore to say, yeah, that's probably what a woolly mammoth actually did look like.

WERTHEIMER: As I understand it, there is a very beautiful painting of a woolly mammoth in the same cave where the spotted horse painting is.

O'CONNOR: There is, yes. That's right. A mammoth is quite a widespread motif, actually. I had the pleasure last summer of visiting one of the Pictodoine(ph) caves at a place called the Grotto Riffiniac(ph), which deep down in the cave has the most beautiful friezes of mammoths and bison and things drawn on the walls and many of them on the ceiling. They're just line drawings, they're not colored like the horses that we were looking at. And basically, it's a piece of charcoal, a stick from the fire. And somebody's just stood there and drawn on the ceiling these wonderful, simple, but very lively, very sort of dynamic images. And standing there gazing at these really does make you, well, it's your point of contact I think.

WERTHEIMER: Professor Terry O'Connor is an archaeologist at the University of York in England. The study that he and his colleagues did about spotted horses was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor O'Connor, thank you.

O'CONNOR: You're very welcome.

Copyright ? 2011 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/12/142270047/polka-dotted-horses-cave-art-may-not-be-fantasy?ft=1&f=1007

jessica chastain jessica chastain nook tablet involuntary manslaughter stevens johnson syndrome verdict in michael jackson trial verdict in michael jackson trial

Devil horns up! Black Sabbath's back!

Chris Walter / WireImage

Black Sabbath, from left, Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne.

By Alex Smith, TODAY.com

All you kids?who only know?Ozzy Osbourne?as a?doddering potty-mouthed dad on reality TV, your world is about to get rocked.

The?original line-up of veteran British rock band Black Sabbath -- guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Terence "Geezer" Butler, drummer Bill Ward and iconic vocalist Ozzy Osbourne -? has just announced a resumption of duties. The metal blogosphere has been excitedly stoking the rumor mill about this for some time, but the band put its official stamp on it this morning.

For?the devout hard rock and heavy metal communities, this is somewhat akin to the announcement of the second coming.

Rivaled only by their fellow countrymen Led Zeppelin as the primary architects of heavy metal, Black Sabbath's doomy aesthetic, working class roots and relentlessly weighty sonic arsenal made all other contenders sound like dilettantes. Sabbath set the heavy metal template and forged a formula that has thrilled?teens and panicked parents ever since.

The past wasn't?problem-free, of course.?After years of diminishing sales and increasingly reckless behavior by Ozzy, Sabbath ditched their frontman in 1979, replacing him with?Ronnie James Dio. With Dio, Sabbath found their second wind and enjoyed a further wave of success. Ozzy, meanwhile, with the aid of his ferociously tenacious wife Sharon, pursued an unlikely solo career that vaulted him to superstardom.

This?isn't the first time the boys have reconvened. They reunited for a frenetic appearance at Live Aid in 1985 and again in the late 90's for a reunion tour that yielded a live album (aptly titled "Reunion") that even included two new studio tracks. Further touring ensued into the next decade, but plans to record a new album ended up falling through, prompting Ozzy to resume his solo career and find his fortune on reality TV.?

Iommi and Butler, meanwhile, hooked back up with Ronnie James Dio to tour and record under the name Heaven and Hell (after Sharon unleashed her lawyers over the rights to the name Black Sabbath). Shortly after Dio passed away from stomach cancer?in May of 2010 at the age of 67, rumors began of a possible reunion of the original line-up.

What makes this reunion of the original four members more significant is the promise of a full new album of material from the band produced by Rick Rubin. The band will headline the Download Festival in Donington Park in Castle Donington, England and a worldwide tour will follow. ?

But these many years after their heady, hedonistic and heresy-happy heyday, will the reunited Black Sabbath be capable of recapturing the original hellfire? Hang on to your horns.

Are you excited about the Black Sabbath reunion? Tell us in the comments.

?Related content:

?

Source: http://entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/11/8739445-devil-horns-up-black-sabbaths-back

occupy portland occupy portland pacquiao vs marquez pacquiao vs marquez junior dos santos junior dos santos juan manuel marquez

Mexico loss of 2nd in charge won't change drug war (AP)

MEXICO CITY ? President Felipe Calderon said Saturday the loss of Mexico's No. 2 official in a helicopter crash won't weaken the offensive against drug cartels and, if anything, will toughen it.

Speaking at a memorial service, Calderon said the best way to pay tribute to Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora and the seven others killed Friday when their aircraft smashed into a mountainside south of Mexico City is "to keep fighting with greater conviction for the things they fought for."

Blake Mora had been the face of the government's drug war, carrying a message to stay tough and bringing new offensives to states beleaguered by drug violence. He was on his way to a meeting of prosecutors when he died.

"The best way to honor these citizens ... is to step up the efforts to transform Mexico into the country they wanted," Calderon said at a military field where thousands of people, including Cabinet members, governors and relatives of Blake Mora mourned the crash victims.

As a military orchestra played a march, Calderon stood for several minutes on a red carpet next to Blake Mora's coffin, with the other seven caskets lined up behind him amid an honor guard of hundreds of soldiers.

The president then offered his condolences to Blake Mora's wife and children and gave them a portrait of Blake Mora and the Mexican flag that covered his coffin during the vigil. Blake Mora's body was to be cremated later Saturday and the ashes taken to his native Tijuana.

Calderon had choked back emotion Friday when he announced the loss of "a great patriot ... a dear friend." On Saturday, he stood strong while delivering a speech telling Mexicans that despite their grief, the loss should inspire more action in the war against cartels, a conflict that has seen at least 35,000 deaths since late 2006.

Blake Mora's death has been a stunning mishap too odd for some Mexicans to accept as an accident, even with Calderon and officials saying bad weather may have been the cause of the crash. But just like the loss of another interior minister three years ago in a plane crash, Blake Mora's death won't change the course of the deadly assault on organized crime.

While the secretary of the interior is considered the government's second-in-charge, other Cabinet members are more central to carrying out the drug war: the secretaries of defense, navy and public security and the attorney general. The people currently in those positions have been with Calderon through most of his term. Blake Mora, 45, who was appointed in June 2010, was the fourth interior secretary since Calderon's election five years ago.

Mexico's interior secretary coordinates domestic policies such as security, human rights, migration and the president's relations with the legislature and opposition parties. The post has diminished in power over time. Under Mexico's old one-party system that ruled for 71 years, the secretary of the interior often went on to be president, but that changed when the autocratic Institutional Revolutionary Party lost the presidency in 2000.

Deputy Interior Secretary Juan Marcos Gutierrez Gonzalez is assuming Blake Mora's position on a temporary basis.

In his short time in the job, Blake Mora embodied the government's get-tough attitude toward drug cartels and other gangs, publicly pledging not to back down.

"Organized crime, in its desperation, resorts to committing atrocities that we can't and shouldn't tolerate as a government and as a society," he had said.

He was heading to a meeting of prosecutors in central Morelos state, which has been hit heavily by violence among warring cartels, when the Super Puma helicopter crashed in a hilly area southeast of Mexico City.

The political impact of Blake Mora's death is "relatively minor," said historian Lorenzo Meyer of the College of Mexico, adding that the position of interior secretary "is not remotely what it was ... it lost power in the new system."

Still, the crash adds to the public sense of tragedy the drug war has brought.

"Polls have been showing that insecurity now tops poverty as the No. 1 concern among Mexicans," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. "An event like this ... is going to increase the sense of uncertainty and insecurity."

The crash of the Super Puma helicopter, part of the presidential fleet, also killed the undersecretary for legal affairs and human rights, Felipe Zamora, two other interior officials, the chief of Blake Mora's security detail and three crew members, all air force officers who served in the equivalent of Mexico's Secret Service.

Transportation Secretary Dionisio Perez Jacome said Saturday that the pilot was following visual flight rules, which requires always keeping eye contact with the ground and the craft wasn't being directed by air traffic control officials. He said the pilot chose an alternate route, presumably because of dense fog in the Ajusco mountain range south of Mexico City.

Perez said weather conditions were proper when the helicopter left the military base in Mexico City on Friday morning, but 10 minutes later officials lost track of the aircraft.

The Mexican government has asked the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and French aviation crash experts to help in the investigation.

NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said he was not allowed to discuss the crash because the U.S. agency was not the lead investigative agency.

"The federal government should open the investigation well beyond the secretary of communications and transport," said organized crime analyst Edgardo Buscaglia. "Three Cabinet secretaries falling from the sky is too much of a challenge to the laws of probability."

In 2005, during President Vicente Fox's administration, a helicopter crash blamed on poor weather conditions killed Mexico's top police official, public safety secretary Ramon Martin Huerta.

Despite tendencies to suspect a deliberate hit on a top Mexican official, initial indications are that Friday's crash was an accident, Calderon said. So far the investigation shows that when the helicopter hit the ground it was structurally complete, Perez said Saturday.

Calderon seemed to try to quell any suggestions of sabotage, saying that Blake Mora's helicopter "was always under guard" in the Secret Service hangar and that it had recently undergone maintenance.

Video of the wreckage suggested the helicopter plowed into the hillside and broke in half, but did not explode or burn. Perez said Saturday the craft had not exploded.

In what many Mexicans find hard to believe was an odd coincidence, a Learjet slammed into a Mexico City street in 2008, killing former Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino and 15 others. That was blamed on pilot error, with the government issuing a detailed report on that accident in the face of even more persistent rumors that it was a drug-cartel hit.

One of Blake Mora's last postings on his Twitter account commemorated the loss of Mourino. "Today we remember Juan Camilo Mourino three years after his death, a person who was working to build a better Mexico," he tweeted on Nov. 4.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111113/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_blake_mora

shel silverstein dont ask dont tell dont ask dont tell troy davis execution date troy davis execution date skylar grey building 7

Early, intensive therapy for type 1 diabetes prevented kidney disease in long-term study

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 12-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Leila Gray
clareh@uw.edu
206-543-3620
University of Washington

Years later participants see benefits of good blood sugar control in reducing slow-progressing complications

Maintaining good glucose control early in the course of type 1 diabetes could lessen the long-term risk of kidney disease, as measured by a common test of kidney function.

This finding comes from more than two decades of research on preventing life-shortening complications of type 1 diabetes. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the longitudinal study. Results will be published online Nov. 12 in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Nov. 12 at the American Society of Nephrology Kidney Week in Philadelphia.

Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and several collaborating institutions in the United States and Canada examined the effects of early, intensive glucose-lowering therapy on glomerular filtration rates (GFR). This measurement estimates how much blood passes each minute through tiny filters in the kidneys. A GFR blood test checks the kidney's ability to rid the body of a muscle-generated waste product, creatinine. If the kidneys can't filter fast enough, the substance builds up in the blood.

A low GFR is a dangerous sign of existing diabetic kidney disease that can progress to kidney failure, also called end-stage kidney disease, which requires dialysis or kidney transplantation. Moreover, a low GFR also can contribute to the heart and blood vessel complications of diabetes, the researchers explained.

People with type 1 diabetes are prone to kidney disease and related complications resulting in disability and premature death. Until this study, no interventions for this population have been shown to prevent impaired GFR.

According to Dr. Ian de Boer, UW assistant professor of medicine, Division of Nephrology, once GFR is impaired, progression to end-stage kidney disease and major blood vessel disease precipitating heart attacks or stroke "occurs at unacceptably high rates, even with optimal medical management."

"This underscores the need to find ways to prevent impaired glomerular filtration rates among persons with type 1 diabetes," said de Boer.

de Boer is a UW Medicine kidney specialist at the Kidney Research Institute. He led the group that researched the effects of intensive diabetes therapy, compared to traditional diabetes treatment, on the development of impaired GFR.

The project draws on continuous studies over 28 years of 1,441 participants with type 1 diabetes mellitus. These patients originally enrolled between 1983 to 1989 in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT). At the time, the participants were between 13 and 39 years of age. The enrollees either showed no small blood vessel complications of their diabetes, or had only mild signs.

de Boer explained, "The DCCT was a multicenter clinical trial in diabetes mellitus that examined the effects of intensive therapy aimed at lowering blood sugar levels as close to the normal range as safely possible."

Participants randomly assigned to intensive therapy had three or more insulin injections a day, or used an insulin pump. Those in conventional therapy had the goal of preventing symptoms of low blood sugar and high blood sugar with one or two daily insulin injections.

On average, participants in the intensive diabetes therapy group achieved a hemoglobin A1c of 7.3 percent, compared with 9.1 percent for participants in the conventional therapy group. Hemoglobin A1c is a quarterly blood sugar level test that indicates how well diabetes is being controlled.

When the DCCT ended in 1993, all participants were encouraged to join a follow-up, the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications Study (EDIC). Conventional therapy patients were taught intensive therapy, and those on intensive therapy were encouraged to continue intensive treatment. All returned to their own physicians for diabetes care.

By 2009, the mean age of the participants was 50 years and their mean duration of diabetes was 28 years. At that point the blood level of creatinine was measured in 85 percent of all participants (1, 222 people).

Examining results collected each year from 1983 through 2009, the researchers found that 70 participants developed impaired GFR: 24 from the initial intensive therapy group, and 46 from the group that had started out on conventional therapy.

This represented a reduced risk of developing impaired GFR by 50 percent over a total median participant follow-up of 22 years, they reported.

"This effect was only evident more than 10 years after the patients were randomized in the initial Diabetes Control and Complications Trial, beyond the period of the trial's intervention," the researchers noted.

In the present study, end-stage kidney disease developed in 8 participants in the intensive diabetes therapy group and 16 in the conventional therapy group. This represented a 51 percent reduction in risk that was not statistically significant, possibly due to the small numbers of participants reaching kidney failure.

The researchers added that the study results reported today reinforce findings of other studies on the importance of early, intensive control of blood sugar levels in type 1 diabetes. Previous research has shown benefits in reducing retina damage, nerve damage and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers stressed that this study did not look at people with type 2 diabetes, and cautioned that risks and benefits may differ in type 2 diabetes or among individuals with more advanced diabetes complications.

###

In addition to de Boer, others from the DCCT/EDIC Research Group who worked on the project, "Intensive Diabetes Therapy and Glomerular Filtration Rate in Type 1 Diabetes," are Wanjie Sun, Patricia A. Cleary, and John M. Lachin of The George Washington University, Rockville, Md.; Mark E. Molitch of Northwestern University, Chicago; Michael W. Steffes, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and Bernard Zinman, Mt. Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto.

The research was funded by contracts from the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK), the National Eye Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the General Clinical Research Centers Program and by funding from the Clinical and Translational Sciences Awards Program, the National Center for Research Resources, all of the National Institutes of Health, and from Genentech, through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with NIDDK.

Free or discounted supplies or equipment were provided by Abbott, Animas, Aventis, Bayer, Becton Dickinson, Can Am, Eli Lilly, LifeScan, Medtronic, MiniMed, Omron, Omnipod, Roche, and Sanofi-Aventis. These companies had no role in the study design or analysis of data.



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

?


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


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 12-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Leila Gray
clareh@uw.edu
206-543-3620
University of Washington

Years later participants see benefits of good blood sugar control in reducing slow-progressing complications

Maintaining good glucose control early in the course of type 1 diabetes could lessen the long-term risk of kidney disease, as measured by a common test of kidney function.

This finding comes from more than two decades of research on preventing life-shortening complications of type 1 diabetes. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the longitudinal study. Results will be published online Nov. 12 in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Nov. 12 at the American Society of Nephrology Kidney Week in Philadelphia.

Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and several collaborating institutions in the United States and Canada examined the effects of early, intensive glucose-lowering therapy on glomerular filtration rates (GFR). This measurement estimates how much blood passes each minute through tiny filters in the kidneys. A GFR blood test checks the kidney's ability to rid the body of a muscle-generated waste product, creatinine. If the kidneys can't filter fast enough, the substance builds up in the blood.

A low GFR is a dangerous sign of existing diabetic kidney disease that can progress to kidney failure, also called end-stage kidney disease, which requires dialysis or kidney transplantation. Moreover, a low GFR also can contribute to the heart and blood vessel complications of diabetes, the researchers explained.

People with type 1 diabetes are prone to kidney disease and related complications resulting in disability and premature death. Until this study, no interventions for this population have been shown to prevent impaired GFR.

According to Dr. Ian de Boer, UW assistant professor of medicine, Division of Nephrology, once GFR is impaired, progression to end-stage kidney disease and major blood vessel disease precipitating heart attacks or stroke "occurs at unacceptably high rates, even with optimal medical management."

"This underscores the need to find ways to prevent impaired glomerular filtration rates among persons with type 1 diabetes," said de Boer.

de Boer is a UW Medicine kidney specialist at the Kidney Research Institute. He led the group that researched the effects of intensive diabetes therapy, compared to traditional diabetes treatment, on the development of impaired GFR.

The project draws on continuous studies over 28 years of 1,441 participants with type 1 diabetes mellitus. These patients originally enrolled between 1983 to 1989 in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT). At the time, the participants were between 13 and 39 years of age. The enrollees either showed no small blood vessel complications of their diabetes, or had only mild signs.

de Boer explained, "The DCCT was a multicenter clinical trial in diabetes mellitus that examined the effects of intensive therapy aimed at lowering blood sugar levels as close to the normal range as safely possible."

Participants randomly assigned to intensive therapy had three or more insulin injections a day, or used an insulin pump. Those in conventional therapy had the goal of preventing symptoms of low blood sugar and high blood sugar with one or two daily insulin injections.

On average, participants in the intensive diabetes therapy group achieved a hemoglobin A1c of 7.3 percent, compared with 9.1 percent for participants in the conventional therapy group. Hemoglobin A1c is a quarterly blood sugar level test that indicates how well diabetes is being controlled.

When the DCCT ended in 1993, all participants were encouraged to join a follow-up, the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications Study (EDIC). Conventional therapy patients were taught intensive therapy, and those on intensive therapy were encouraged to continue intensive treatment. All returned to their own physicians for diabetes care.

By 2009, the mean age of the participants was 50 years and their mean duration of diabetes was 28 years. At that point the blood level of creatinine was measured in 85 percent of all participants (1, 222 people).

Examining results collected each year from 1983 through 2009, the researchers found that 70 participants developed impaired GFR: 24 from the initial intensive therapy group, and 46 from the group that had started out on conventional therapy.

This represented a reduced risk of developing impaired GFR by 50 percent over a total median participant follow-up of 22 years, they reported.

"This effect was only evident more than 10 years after the patients were randomized in the initial Diabetes Control and Complications Trial, beyond the period of the trial's intervention," the researchers noted.

In the present study, end-stage kidney disease developed in 8 participants in the intensive diabetes therapy group and 16 in the conventional therapy group. This represented a 51 percent reduction in risk that was not statistically significant, possibly due to the small numbers of participants reaching kidney failure.

The researchers added that the study results reported today reinforce findings of other studies on the importance of early, intensive control of blood sugar levels in type 1 diabetes. Previous research has shown benefits in reducing retina damage, nerve damage and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers stressed that this study did not look at people with type 2 diabetes, and cautioned that risks and benefits may differ in type 2 diabetes or among individuals with more advanced diabetes complications.

###

In addition to de Boer, others from the DCCT/EDIC Research Group who worked on the project, "Intensive Diabetes Therapy and Glomerular Filtration Rate in Type 1 Diabetes," are Wanjie Sun, Patricia A. Cleary, and John M. Lachin of The George Washington University, Rockville, Md.; Mark E. Molitch of Northwestern University, Chicago; Michael W. Steffes, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and Bernard Zinman, Mt. Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto.

The research was funded by contracts from the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK), the National Eye Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the General Clinical Research Centers Program and by funding from the Clinical and Translational Sciences Awards Program, the National Center for Research Resources, all of the National Institutes of Health, and from Genentech, through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with NIDDK.

Free or discounted supplies or equipment were provided by Abbott, Animas, Aventis, Bayer, Becton Dickinson, Can Am, Eli Lilly, LifeScan, Medtronic, MiniMed, Omron, Omnipod, Roche, and Sanofi-Aventis. These companies had no role in the study design or analysis of data.



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

?


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


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/uow-eit110911.php

st louis cardinals josh hamilton beavis and butthead cardinals jennifer nicole lee jennifer nicole lee chris harris

Michael Jackson's deathbed for sale (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Psst -- wanna buy the bed that Michael Jackson died in?

First off, you're sick. Secondly, you'll soon have your chance!

Julien's Auctions is holding a live auction featuring items from the deceased King of Pop's former Holmby Hills residence next month. Among the many items up for bid? The bed that Jackson passed away in at the age of 50 on June 25, 2009, TMZ reports.

Hopefully, the bed's been changed -- and possibly exorcised -- in the ensuing two and a half years.

Also going on the block at the auction, which will be held at Jackson's former home December 17: artwork by the likes of Maurice Utrillo, Ludolf Bakhuysen and Abraham Hulk; George Smith-upholstered sofas; and "a fancy burlwood Victorian Revival Style armoire."

One person who's not likely to be in attendance at the auction: Jackson's former physician, Conrad Murray, who on Monday was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after administering propofol to the singer in that very same bed. Murray, who was denied bail, is currently awaiting sentencing on November 29.

For those who can't scrape up a few grand to purchase the bone-chilling piece of show-biz memorabilia, the items will be on display free to the public at the Julien's Auctions gallery in Beverly Hills beginning December 12.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111111/music_nm/us_michaeljackson_bed_f

second time around bill gates steve jobs bill gates steve jobs brett favre associated press 99% breast cancer awareness