Nigeria governor, 5 others die in helicopter crash

0 comments





LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa’s most populous nation, officials said.


Nigeria‘s ruling party said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta. The People’s Democratic Party’s statement described Yakowa’s death as a “colossal loss.”






The statement said the former national security adviser, General Andrew Azazi, also died in the crash. Azazi was fired in June amid growing sectarian violence in Nigeria, but maintained close ties with the government.


Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said four other bodies had been found, but he could not immediately give their identities.


The crash occurred at about 3:30 p.m. after the navy helicopter took off from the village of Okoroba in Bayelsa state where officials had gathered to attend the burial of the father of a presidential aide, said Commodore Kabir Aliyu. He said that the helicopter was headed for Nigeria’s oil capital of Port Harcourt when it crashed in the Nembe area of Bayelsa state.


Aviation disasters remain common in Nigeria, despite efforts in recent years to improve air safety.


In October, a plane made a crash landing in central Nigeria. A state governor and five others sustained injuries but survived.


In June, a Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane crashed into a neighborhood in the commercial capital of Lagos, killing 153 people onboard and at least 10 people on the ground. It was Nigeria’s worst air crash in nearly two decades.


In March, a police helicopter carrying a high-ranking police official crashed in the central Nigerian city of Jos, killing four people.


Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

RIM shows how BlackBerry 10 touch screen keys could rival even its traditional keyboards [video]

0 comments





Read More..

“Modern Family” star’s dad granted control of her estate

0 comments





LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The father of “Modern Family” star Ariel Winter was given temporary control over the teenage actress’ estate on Wednesday in a court-approved settlement in Los Angeles after allegations that her mother had abused her.


Winter, 14, who plays the brainy and precocious teenager Alex Dunphy on the Emmy-winning ABC comedy, will remain under temporary guardianship of her older sister, Shanelle Gray, under the settlement, court officials said.






Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Levanas scheduled a hearing for March 29 in which he could hand permanent guardianship over to Gray and control of Winter’s estate to her father, Glenn Workman.


Gray, 34, was first awarded temporary guardianship of the actress in October.


Winter’s mother, Chrisoula Workman, has denied allegations, earlier submitted in court documents, that she verbally and physically abused her daughter.


Messages left with Winter’s publicist and attorney seeking comment were not immediately returned.


“Modern Family” portrays the lives of three zany families and has won three consecutive Emmy awards as American television’s best comedy series.


(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Nick Zieminski)


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Clinton sustains concussion; Benghazi testimony postponed

0 comments





WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who canceled an overseas trip last weekend because of illness, suffered a concussion after fainting due to dehydration, prompting the postponement of her scheduled congressional testimony on the attack on a U.S. mission in Libya, officials said on Saturday.


“While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion,” State Department spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement.






“She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors,” Reines said, adding that she would work from home and stay in regular contact with other top officials.


Clinton, 65, fell ill with a stomach virus last weekend and was forced to cancel a planned trip to the Middle East and North Africa. The virus also hit other members of her staff, who were returning with her from a European trip, and was described as uncomfortable, but not medically serious.


Clinton’s doctors, Lisa Bardack of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group and Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University, issued a statement saying that Clinton fainted as a result of “extreme dehydration” due to the virus.


“Over the course of this week we evaluated her and ultimately determined she had also sustained a concussion,” the doctors said in their statement, which was distributed by the State Department.


“We recommended that the secretary continue to rest and avoid any strenuous activity, and strongly advised her to cancel all work events for the coming week. We will continue to monitor her progress as she makes a full recovery.”


Clinton has often been cited as a potential Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2016 and frequently refers to her general good health. She said in an interview with ABC broadcast on Wednesday that she has “incredible stamina and energy.”


She has maintained a punishing schedule in her final weeks as the top U.S. diplomat, a position she intends to leave toward the end of January when U.S. President Barack Obama is sworn in for a second term.


Obama telephoned Clinton to wish her well, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.


BENGHAZI TESTIMONY NEXT WEEK


Clinton had been expected to testify on December 20 before the House of Representatives and Senate foreign affairs committees on a report on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in September that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans and raised questions about security at far-flung posts.


Jodi Seth, a spokeswoman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee head John Kerry, said that given her condition, Clinton’s testimony would be postponed, but did not say until when. Seth said the planned hearings would be held with other senior officials appearing in Clinton’s place.


The Republican chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, issued a statement saying she was sorry to hear of Clinton’s ill health, but it was “unfortunate” she would be unable to testify before the committee next week.


“We still don’t have information from the Obama Administration on what went so tragically wrong in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of four patriotic Americans,” Ros-Lehtinen said.


“We have been combing through classified and unclassified documents and have tough questions about State Department threat assessments and decision-making on Benghazi. This requires a public appearance by the Secretary of State herself.”


Ros-Lehtinen’s statement said William Burns and Thomas Nides, deputy secretaries of state, would provide testimony in Clinton’s place.


REPUBLICAN CRITICISM


Republicans have criticized the Democratic Obama administration for its early public explanations of the attack.


Much of the criticism focused on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who on Thursday said she was withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Clinton as secretary of state to avoid a potentially disruptive confirmation process.


Clinton has appointed a special panel known as an accountability review board to assess both the Benghazi incident and the official response to it.


The board’s report, which will contain both classified and unclassified sections, is expected to be complete next week and Clinton has promised to be as transparent as possible with Congress in sharing its findings.


Clinton, whose husband, Bill Clinton, was president from 1993 to 2001 and who herself came tantalizingly close to winning the Democratic presidential nomination four years ago, has used her star power to promote U.S. interests around the world since Obama named her to lead the State Department in 2009.


She has consistently been rated as the most popular member of Obama’s Cabinet, leading to speculation she might mount another White House bid in 2016, although she herself has played down suggestions that she still hopes to become president.


“I’ve said I really don’t believe that that’s something I will do again. I am so grateful I had the experience of doing it before,” Clinton told ABC’s Barbara Walters in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.


“I just want to see what else is out there. I’ve been doing … this incredibly important and … satisfying work here in Washington, as I say, for 20 years. I want to get out and spend some time looking at what else I can do to contribute.”


(Reporting by Andrew Quinn and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Will Dunham, David Brunnstrom and Mohammad Zargham)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Sandy Hook shooter a mystery to neighbors and former classmates

0 comments

Police prohibited access on Saturday to the neighborhood where gunman Adam Lanza lived. (Jason Sickles/Yahoo N …


[Updated at 8:10 p.m. ET]

NEWTOWN, CONN. -- Even to his neighbors, the gunman who massacred 26 kids and educators at an elementary school here still remains somewhat of a mystery.


"I want to know more," said Len Strocchia, who lives less than half mile away from the shooter's house.


Authorities say Adam Lanza, 20, killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their well-to-do home Friday morning before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary where he stormed in and committed one of the worst mass school shootings in U.S. history. The victims were 20 first-graders and six staffers, including the principal.


Adam Lanza's parents divorced a few years ago. Late Saturday, his father, Peter Lanza, wrote his family is, "in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can."


"Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy," he explained in a written statement. "No words can truly express how heartbroken we are."


On Saturday, Strocchia walked down the street to see the shooter's house firsthand, but was forbidden to go past a police barricade near the Lanza home.


"I want to know which house and why I didn't know them," the father of two teenagers told Yahoo News.


[RELATED: Names and ages of shooting victims]


Another neighbor did know Adam Lanza. Megan, who declined to give her last name, was a classmate of the shooter from kindergarten through middle school.


"He wasn't like a weird kid as a child," Megan told Yahoo News. "He was just quiet. He didn't put off a friendly vibe."


But she said he was one of the smartest students in school.


"He was always participating in class and everything," Megan said.


But she said her former classmate with whom she rode the school bus sort of vanished after their junior high years.


"He almost fell off the radar in middle school," Megan told Yahoo News.


The shooter's aunt, Marsha Lanza, told ABC News that his mother pulled him out of Newtown public schools because of a dispute over the district's plan for her son.


"She mentioned she wound up home-schooling him because she battled with the school district," the aunt told ABC News.


Police said Adam Lanza, dressed in all black, was armed with two handguns and a semi-automatic Bushmaster .223 rifle when he barged into the school.


[RELATED: Obama to visit Connecticut families]


Dr. Carver, the medical examiner, said it appears that all the children where gunned down by the military-style rifle. Authorities said all the weapons were legally owned and registered by Nancy Lanza, the shooter's mother.


Newtown school superintendent Janet Robinson told reporters Saturday that Nancy Lanza had no connection to Sandy Hook school, despite initial reports Lanza was on the faculty or a substitute teacher there.


"I'm sickened that this mass murder was done with legal guns," said Strocchia, the neighbor. "I'd like to find out why. Why did she have guns?"


But acquaintances of Nancy Lanza told The New York Times that the 52-year-old mother was a big fan of guns.


"She had several different guns," Dan Holmes told the newspaper. "I don't know how many. She would go target shooting with her kids."


Reports that Adam Lanza may have suffered from a personality disorder are being supported by people who knew the mother to have a troubled son.


According to the Times story, a friend said Nancy Lanza was "handling a very difficult situation with uncommon grace."


Investigators revealed on Saturday that evidence found in the Lanza might provide a possible motive for the massacre.


State police spokesman Lt. Paul Vance declined to provide specifics about the evidence but said, "we're hopeful it will paint a complete picture."


Neighbors like Strocchia are searching for answers too. However, he said, said he harbors no anger.


"I'm thankful my children are alive," he said. "I have compassion and mercy. There was something wrong with him."



Read More..

NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler

0 comments





PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.


Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father’s death.






The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.


Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.


Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.


Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country’s international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea’s military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim’s rule.


The launch’s success, 14 years after North Korea’s first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.


“North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader” who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.


The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.


Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.


Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.


North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star” — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.


Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il.”


But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.


Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.


“It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space,” Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday’s ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.


“The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again,” she told The Associated Press. “And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future.”


Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.


Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.


“Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige,” according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.


Noland, however, also mentioned the “Machiavellian argument” that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — “the only real threat to his rule.”


Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.


The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father’s legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea’s political and economic isolation, he said.


On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.


Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.


North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.


The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.


Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.


If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, “it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger,” Snyder said.


____


Jon Chol Jin in Pyongyang, and Foster Klug and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Jean H. Lee on Twitter: (at)newsjean.


Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Owner of Rivera plane being investigated by DEA

0 comments





PHOENIX (AP) — The company that owns a luxury jet that crashed and killed Latin music star Jenni Rivera is under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the agency seized two of its planes earlier this year as part of the ongoing probe.


DEA spokeswoman Lisa Webb Johnson confirmed Thursday the planes owned by Las Vegas-based Starwood Management were seized in Texas and Arizona, but she declined to discuss details of the case. The agency also has subpoenaed all the company’s records, including any correspondence it has had with a former Tijuana mayor who U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected has ties to organized crime.






The man widely believed to be behind the aviation company is an ex-convict named Christian Esquino, 50, who has a long and checkered legal past. Corporate records list his sister-in-law as the company’s only officer, but insurance companies that cover some of the firm’s planes say in court documents that the woman is merely a front and that Esquino is the one in charge.


Esquino’s legal woes date back decades. He pleaded guilty to a fraud charge that stemmed from a major drug investigation in Florida in the early 1990s and most recently was sentenced to two years in federal prison in a California aviation fraud case. Esquino, a Mexican citizen, was deported upon his release. Esquino and various other companies he has either been involved with or owns have also been sued for failing to pay millions of dollars in loans, according to court records.


The 43-year-old California-born Rivera died at the peak of her career when the plane she was traveling in nose-dived into the ground while flying from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey to the central city of Toluca early Sunday morning. She was perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated Mexico regional style, and had branched out into acting and reality television.


It remained unclear Thursday exactly what caused the crash and why Rivera was on Esquino’s plane. The 78-year-old pilot and five other people were also killed. Esquino was not on the plane.


The late singer’s brother, Pedro Rivera Jr., said that he didn’t know anything about the owner or why or how she ended up in his plane.


Esquino told the Los Angeles Times in a telephone interview from Mexico City earlier this week that the singer was considering buying the aircraft from Starwood for $ 250,000 and the flight was offered as a test ride. He disputed reports that he owns Starwood, maintaining that he is merely the company’s operations manager “with the expertise.”


In response to an email from The Associated Press, Esquino said he did not want to comment. Calls to various phone numbers associated with him rang unanswered.


Esquino is no stranger to tangles with the law. He was indicted in the early 1990s along with 12 other defendants in a major federal drug investigation that claimed the suspects planned to sell more than 480 kilograms of cocaine, according to court records. He eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal money from the IRS and was sentenced to five years in prison, but much of the term was suspended for reasons that weren’t immediately clear.


He served about five months in prison before being released.


Cynthia Hawkins, a former assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case and is now in private practice in Orlando, remembered the investigation well.


“It was huge,” Hawkins said Thursday. “This was an international smuggling group.”


She said the case began with the arrest of Robert Castoro, who was at the time considered one of the most prolific smugglers of marijuana and cocaine into Florida from direct ties to Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s. Castoro was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to life in prison, but he then began cooperating with authorities, leading to his sentence being reduced to just 10 years, Hawkins said.


“Castoro cooperated for years,” she said. “We put hundreds of people in jail.”


He eventually gave up another smuggler, Damian Tedone, who was indicted in the early 1990s along with Esquino and 11 others in a conspiracy involving drug smuggling in Florida in the 1980s at a time when the state was the epicenter of the nation’s cocaine trade.


Tedone also cooperated with authorities and has since been released from prison. Telephone messages left Thursday for both Tedone and Castoro were not returned.


Esquino eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of concealing money from the IRS.


Joseph Milchen, Esquino’s attorney at the time, said Thursday the case eventually revolved around his client “bringing money into the United States without declaring it.”


However, Milchen acknowledged that a plane purchased by Esquino was “used to smuggle drugs.”


He denied his former client has ever had anything to do with illegal narcotics.


“The only thing he has ever done is with airplanes,” Milchen said.


Court filings also indicate Esquino was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to committing fraud involving aircraft he purchased in Mexico, then falsified the planes’ log books and re-sold them in the United States.


Also in 2004, a federal judge ordered him and one of his companies to pay a creditor $ 6.2 million after being accused of failing to pay debts to a bank.


As the years passed, Esquino’s troubles only grew.


In February this year, a Gulfstream G-1159A plane the government valued at $ 500,000 was seized by the U.S. Marshals Service on behalf of the DEA after landing in Tucson on a flight that originated in Mexico


Four months later, the DEA subpoenaed all of Starwood’s records dating to Dec. 13, 2007, including federal and state income tax documents, bank deposit information, records on all company assets and sales, and the entity’s relationship with Esquino and more than a dozen companies and individuals, including former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank-Rhon, a gambling mogul and a member of one of Mexico’s most powerful families. U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected Hank-Rhon is tied to organized crime but no allegations have been proven. He has consistently denied any criminal involvement.


He was arrested in Mexico last year on weapons charges and on suspicion of ordering the murder of his son’s former girlfriend. He was later freed for lack of evidence.


The subpoena was obtained by the U-T San Diego newspaper.


A Starwood attorney listed on the subpoena, Jeremy Schuster, declined Thursday to provide details.


“We don’t comment on matters involving clients,” he said.


In September, the DEA seized another Starwood plane — a 1977 Hawker 700 with an insured value of $ 1 million — after it landed in McAllen, Texas, from a flight from Mexico.


Insurers of both aircraft have since filed complaints in federal court in Nevada seeking to have the Starwood policies nullified, in part, because they say Esquino lied in the application process when he noted he had never been indicted on drug-related criminal charges. Both companies said they would not have issued the policies had he been truthful.


Another attorney for Starwood has not responded to phone and email messages seeking comment, and no one was at the address listed at its Las Vegas headquarters. The address is a post office box in a shipping and mailing store located between a tuxedo rental shop and a supermarket in a shopping center several miles west of the Las Vegas Strip.


___


Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Colorado Medical Provider Convicted of Medicaid Theft

0 comments





Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced today that an occupational therapist from Castle Rock has been convicted of stealing from the state’s Medicaid program. Here are the details.


* The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the Attorney General initiated an investigation of Cheryl Moss, a 47-year-old occupational therapist, following a citizen complaint alleging that she had improperly billed the Medicaid program.






* The investigation revealed 83 forged treatment records that were meant to support fraudulent bills to the Colorado Medicaid Program, the Attorney General’s Office reported.


* Medicaid paid Moss for services she never rendered, based on forged invoices for payment that were submitted between November 2009 and August 2011.


* Moss pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft and one count of felony forgery. She has been ordered to repay the Colorado Medicaid Program $ 54,332 in criminal restitution and will serve 60 days in-home detention and 300 hours of community service. She will pay all fees and court costs resulting from the case, the Attorney General’s Office stated.


* In addition, Moss has agreed to pay the Medicaid program $ 46,000 in order to resolve any potential civil issues and is required to report her conviction to the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, which is the state department responsible for licensing occupational therapists.


* The Colorado Medicaid Fraud Control Unit consists of criminal investigators, an auditor, a nurse investigator and prosecutors experienced in criminal and financial investigations.


* The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies reported that, as of fiscal year 2010-11, there were 2,497 registered occupational therapists statewide.


* Occupational therapy, as defined by the Colorado legislature, is the therapeutic use of everyday life activities with individuals or groups for the purpose of participation in roles and situations in home, school, workplace, community and other settings, the Department of Regulatory Agencies stated. Occupational therapists work with clients who may be mentally, physically, developmentally or emotionally impaired and occupational therapists help those individuals to develop, recover or maintain daily living and work skills.


* According to a report by Colorado Health Institute, around 65-70 percent of the licensed medical providers in Colorado accept Medicaid. Analysis from the institute found that Medicaid expansion authorized by the Affordable Care Act will create the need for an additional 83 to 141 primary care providers to care for the newly insured.


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

'Evil visited this community today': 20 children killed in shooting

0 comments


Twenty children died today when a heavily armed man invaded a Newtown,
Conn., elementary school and sprayed staff and students with bullets.



The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was found dead in the school.



Lt. Paul Vance said 18 children died in the school and two more died
later in a hospital. Six adults were also slain, bringing the total to
26.



In addition to the casualties at the school, Lanza's mother Nancy Lanza
was killed in her home, federal and state sources told ABC News.



According to sources, Lanza shot his mother in the face, then left his
house armed with at least two semi automatic handguns, a Glock and a Sig
Sauer, and a semi automatic rifle. He was also wearing a bullet proof
vest.



Lanza drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and continued his rampage,
killing 26 people, authorities said. He was found dead at the school. It
appears that he died from what is believed to be a self inflicted
gunshot wound. The rifle was found in his car.



In the early confusion surrounding the investigation, federal sources
initially identified the suspect as Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24.
He is being questioned by police.



LIVE UPDATES: Newtown, Conn., School Shooting



"Evil visited this community today," Gov. Dan Malloy said at a news conference this evening.



First grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, 29, locked her 14 students in a class bathroom and listened to "tons of shooting" until police came to help.



"It was horrific," Roig said. "I thought we were going to die."



She said that the terrified kids were saying, "I just want Christmas…I don't want to die. I just want to have Christmas."



A tearful President Obama said there's "not a parent in America who doesn't feel the overwhelming grief that I do."



The president had to pause to compose himself after saying these were
"beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10." As he continued
with his statement, Obama wiped away tears from each eye.



He has ordered flags flown as half staff.



CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.



The alert at the school ended when Vance announced, "The shooter is deceased inside the building. The public is not in danger."



The massacre prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all its schools
and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today. Authorities
initially believed that there were two gunmen and were searching cars
around the school, but authorities do not appear to be looking for
another gunman.



It is the second worst mass shooting in U.S. history, exceeded only by
the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 when 32 were killed before the
shooter turned the gun on himself. Today's carnage exceeds the 1999
Columbine High School shooting in which 13 died and 24 were injured.



The Newtown shooting comes three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts
opened fire in a busy Oregon mall, killing two before turning the gun
on himself.



Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which
includes 450 students in grades K-4. The town is located about 12 miles
east of Danbury.



State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41 a.m. and immediately
began sending emergency units from the western part of the state.
Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a
classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State
Police source.



Lt. Paul Vance said that on-duty and off-duty officers swarmed to the
school and quickly checked "every door, every crack, every crevice" in
the building looking for the gunman and evacuating children.



A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.



Three patients have been taken to Danbury Hospital, which is also on lockdown, according to the hospital's Facebook page.



"Out of abundance of caution and not because of any direct threat
Danbury Hospital is under lockdown," the statement said. "This allows us
simply to focus on the important work at hand."



Newtown Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June
said in a statement that the district's schools were locked down because
of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive
measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety
of all students and staff," she said.



State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown.



All public and private schools in the town were on lockdown.



"We have increased our police presence at all Danbury Public Schools due
to the events in Newtown. Pray for the victims," Newtown Mayor Boughton
tweeted.



State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.



A message on the school district website says that all afternoon
kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no midday bus runs.




Also Read

Read More..

Cuban lawmakers meet to consider economy, budget

0 comments





HAVANA (AP) — Cuban lawmakers are holding the second of their twice-annual sessions with a year-end report expected on the state of the country’s economy.


Legislators are also to approve next year’s budget.






Cuban leaders have sometimes used the parliamentary gatherings to make important announcements or policy statements.


Observers will be watching for word on the progress of President Raul Castro‘s economic reform plan and efforts to promote younger leaders.


The unicameral parliament will reconvene in February with a new membership following elections. It is then expected to name Castro to another five-year term.


State-run media said Castro presided over Thursday’s session.


It was not open to international journalists.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Facebook, Google tell the government to stop granting patents for abstract ideas

0 comments





Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG) and six other tech companies have petitioned the courts to begin rejecting lawsuits that are based on patents for vague concepts rather than specific applications, TechCrunch reported. The agreement, which was cosigned by Zynga (ZNGA), Dell (DELL), Intuit (INTU), Homeaway (AWAY), Rackspace (RAX), and Red Hat (RHT), notes the only thing these abstract patents do is increase legal fees and slow innovation in the industry. The companies claim that “abstract patents are a plague in the high tech sector” and force innovators into litigation that results in huge settlements or steep licensing fees for technology they have already developed on their own, which then leads to higher prices for consumers.


“Many computer-related patent claims just describe an abstract idea at a high level of generality and say to perform it on a computer or over the Internet,” the briefing reads. “Such barebones claims grant exclusive rights over the abstract idea itself, with no limit on how the idea is implemented. Granting patent protection for such claims would impair, not promote, innovation by conferring exclusive rights on those who have not meaningfully innovated, and thereby penalizing those that do later innovate by blocking or taxing their applications of the abstract idea.”






The companies conclude, “It is easy to think of abstract ideas about what a computer or website should do, but the difficult, valuable, and often groundbreaking part of online innovation comes next: designing, analyzing, building, and deploying the interface, software, and hardware to implement that idea in a way that is useful in daily life. Simply put, ideas are much easier to come by than working implementations.”


Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

One Direction named MTV’s 2012 Artist of the Year

0 comments





NEW YORK (AP) — They’re platinum. They’re fascinating. And now One Direction is MTV‘s 2012 Artist of the Year.


MTV says the fivesome is “the clear choice for the top spot” after a year that included two No. 1 albums, hits such as “What Makes You Beautiful” and a sold-out world tour.






One Direction’s Louis (LOO’-ee) Tomlinson calls Thursday’s honor “the icing on the cake.”


MTV’s team of music staffers chose Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe” as song as the year.


One Direction placed third on the U.K. version of “The X Factor” in 2010 and made their U.S. debut in March with the No. 1 album “Up All Night.” Their sophomore album, “Take Me Home,” was the year’s third-highest debut.


The group also made Barbara Walters’ most fascinating people of 2012 list.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker

0 comments





LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.


The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.






Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.


With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.


“The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn’t premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases,” said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.


In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.


The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.


The research found wide variations in what’s killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.


— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia’s “suicide belt,” from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.


— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).


— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.


Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.


While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.


“It’s the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up,” said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.


Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. “The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care,” she said.


Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.


“We have to take this data with some grains of salt,” said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.


He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn’t fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.


“We’re getting a better picture, but it’s still incomplete,” he said.


___


Online:


www.lancet.com


http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Why Rice took her name off the list

0 comments

Ambassador Susan Rice stunned Washington Thursday afternoon by withdrawing her name for consideration as secretary of State. President Obama accepted her decision.


Currently the US envoy to the United Nations, Ambassador Rice was widely seen as a top prospect to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is retiring at the end of Mr. Obama’s first term. But her star was tarnished in September after she made erroneous statements on TV about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.


High-profile Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, had promised a major fight if Obama had sent her name to the Senate for confirmation. By accepting her withdrawal, Obama has avoided expending political capital in trying to get her through the Senate, and also avoided refocusing the national spotlight on what went wrong in Benghazi.


RECOMMENDED: Five ways events overseas could shape Obama's second term


“If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive, and costly – to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,” Rice wrote in a letter to Obama and obtained by NBC News. “That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country…. Therefore, I respectfully request that you no longer consider my candidacy at this time.”


The White House released a statement from the president indicating that he had spoken with Rice, and accepted her request to remove her name from consideration. He lauded her service as “an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant.”


“While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first,” the president’s statement said.


At issue were her statements over what had precipitated the attack on the US mission in Benghazi. In a round of Sunday morning TV interviews five days after the Sept. 11 incident, she said it had resulted from spontaneous protests over an anti-Islamic video and was not a coordinated terrorist attack, possibly linked to Al Qaeda affiliates.


In late November, Rice acknowledged that her initial explanation was partially inaccurate, but that did not mollify her critics. She met on Capitol Hill with Senator McCain and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte (R) of New Hampshire, but they did not back down in their opposition to her potential nomination as secretary of State.


McCain slammed the handling of Benghazi as either a coverup or incompetence. Fox News also kept up the drumbeat of pressure with in-depth coverage. The suggestion was that the Obama administration did not want to acknowledge a successful terrorist attack – one that led to the first killing of a US ambassador since 1979 – at the height of the presidential campaign.


In his statement, Obama indicated that Rice will remain as UN ambassador, and lauded her service.


“Already, she has secured international support for sanctions against Iran and North Korea, worked to protect the people of Libya, helped achieve an independent South Sudan, stood up for Israel’s security and legitimacy, and served as an advocate for UN reform and the human rights of all people,” Obama said.


“I am grateful that Susan will continue to serve as our ambassador at the United Nations and a key member of my cabinet and national security team, carrying her work forward on all of these and other issues.”


Now all eyes turn to Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts, another top prospect for secretary of State. Senator Kerry is an experienced foreign-policy hand, and has long been thought to want the job. But having him leave the Senate could cost the Democrats his seat.


Massachusetts’s other senator, Scott Brown (R), just lost reelection to Democratic firebrand Elizabeth Warren. But he remains popular in the Bay State and would be a strong candidate in a special election to replace Kerry. The Democrats don’t have an obvious choice – unless Gov. Deval Patrick (D) were to jump in.


Obama also must soon decide his nominee for another about-to-be-vacant post: secretary of Defense. News reports Thursday indicated that former US Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican, may have the edge to replace Leon Panetta, who has made clear his intention to step down.


RECOMMENDED: Five ways events overseas could shape Obama's second term



Related stories


Read this story at csmonitor.com


Become a part of the Monitor community


Read More..

The Hobbit: Richard Armitage Talks Preparations For Playing Thorin Oakenshield

0 comments





British actor Richard Armitage admitted it wasn’t a walk in the park to play a J.R.R. Tolkien character in Peter Jackson’s reimagining of “The Hobbit,” the first installment of which is on its way into theaters.


Upon touching down in New Zealand, where the trilogy was shot, the cast had a lot of character preparation to do.






PLAY IT NOW: Martin Freeman Discusses The Hobbit’s ‘Good Chemistry’ & Playing Bilbo Baggins


“We arrived in February 2011 and we went straight into a training program, which was called ‘Dwarf Bootcamp,’ which was literally boots — these huge boots. We learned how to walk, we wrestled with each other, we did archery together, we did sword fighting, hammer fighting, horse riding — everything you could possibly think of,” Richard, who plays Thorin Oakenshield in the film told Access Hollywood at the film’s junket.


In addition, the cast, which includes his former “Cold Feet” co-star James Nesbitt as Bofur, found ways to get to know each other better off set.


VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — New York City Premiere


“We went round to each other’s houses and we cooked food together, we went to the pub and got drunk together, so there was an incredibly great bonding time between the dwarves,” he said.


Richard had plenty of experience sword fighting and horse riding in the BBC America series “Robin Hood,” but it was something else that came in handy during the long days on set.


“I’d done a number of shows where I’d had to use sword fighting and I’d also done horse riding. I’d also pulled guns out of my pocket. That was less useful,” he laughed, likely referring to his recent role in the PBS-import series “MI-5,” where he played a British spy. “But, yeah, you draw on everything. I’d worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company, so the vocal work was really useful to kind of pull that from there. I’d worked in a circus, there were… all sorts of things that were really useful, but the one thing that I do have — for lack of talent — is stamina and that’s the one thing I think everybody needed on this job.”


VIEW THE PHOTOS: Meet ‘The Hobbit’ Cast!


An imagination was useful also, but Richard said what turned out on the big screen was still wilder – and more beautiful – than he dreamed of.


“So many moments… Actually, apart from the eagles — which every single time I’ve seen this film absolutely blows my mind and I can barely keep the tears back and [it has] nothing to do with the pathos of the scene, just that feeling of flight moves me — is the throne of Aragorn, in the beginning of the prologue,” he told Access of the moment that moved him most. “When it got to [filming] that scene, I walked on and… it was just a green cross on the floor with a tiny green chair… [But in the film], they just made this incredible, almost space aged, sort of suspended seat in the middle of this stalagmite. It just blows my mind when I see that.”


VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Brit Pack: Hot Shots Of Stars From The UK!


“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters on December 14, 2012, followed by “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” on December 13, 2013 and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” on July 18, 2014.


– Jolie Lash


Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

New Flickr iPhone app to compete with Instagram and Twitter with 16 filters

0 comments





Hot on the heels of its email redesign, Yahoo (YHOO) announced on Wednesday that it has completely redesigned the Flickr iPhone app. The new app borrows heavily from Instagram and focuses on what makes Flickr special: photos and communities. Yahoo’s new Flickr app also includes 16 filters with their own fancy names to go head-on with Instagram and Twitter’s recently updated app that added eight filters. Users can now access the Flickr app with numerous accounts including Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOG) and photos can be shared to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or via email. The new Flickr app is available for free on iPhone but to our disappointment, there isn’t an iPad-optimized version.


Ellis Hamburger from The Verge penned an interesting editorial on how Twitter misses the mark by simply adding filters to its app without having the close community that makes Instagram so addictive. Led by CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo seems aware that mobile apps thrive on the communities that sprout up. The new Flickr app’s emphasis on how the images are displayed and shared in visually appealing and digestible thumbnails suggests Yahoo finally understands mobile.






Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Music, comedy strike defiant tone at Sandy concert

0 comments





NEW YORK (AP) — Music and comedy royalty struck a defiant tone in a benefit concert for Superstorm Sandy victims on Wednesday, asking for help to rebuild a New York metropolitan area most of them know well.


The sold-out Madison Square Garden show was televised, streamed online and aired on radio all over the world. Producers said up to 2 billion people could experience the concert live.






“When are you going to learn,” comic and New Jersey native Jon Stewart said. “You can throw anything at us — terrorists, hurricanes. You can take away our giant sodas. It doesn’t matter. We’re coming back stronger every time.”


Jersey shore hero Bruce Springsteen set a roaring tone, opening the concert with “Land of Hope and Dreams” and “Wrecking Ball.” He addressed the rebuilding process in introducing his song “My City of Ruins,” noting it was written about the decline of Asbury Park, N.J. before that city’s renaissance over the past decade. What made the Jersey shore special was its inclusiveness, a place where people of all incomes and backgrounds could find a place, he said.


“I pray that that characteristic remains along the Jersey shore because that’s what makes it special,” Springsteen said.


He mixed a verse of Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl” into the song before calling New Jersey neighbor Jon Bon Jovi to join him in a rousing “Born to Run.” Springsteen later returned the favor by joining Bon Jovi on “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.”


Adam Sandler hearkened back to his “Saturday Night Live” days with a ribald rewrite of the oft-sung “Hallelujah” that composer Leonard Cohen never would have dreamed. The rewritten chorus says, “Sandy, screw ya, we’ll get through ya, because we’re New Yawkers.


Sandler wore a New York Jets T-shirt and mined Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg, the New York Knicks, Times Square porn and Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez for laugh lines.


The music lineup was heavily weighted toward classic rock, which has the type of fans able to afford a show for which ticket prices ranged from $ 150 to $ 2,500. Even with those prices, people with tickets have been offering them for more on broker sites such as StubHub, an attempt at profiteering that producers fumed was “despicable.”


“This has got to be the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden,” Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger said. “If it rains in London, you’ve got to come and help us.”


In fighting trim for a series of 50th anniversary concerts in the New York area, the Stones ripped through “You’ve Got Me Rockin’” and “Jumping Jack Flash.


Jagger wasn’t in New York City for Sandy, but he said in an interview before the concert that his apartment was flooded with 2 feet of water.


Eric Clapton switched from acoustic to electric guitar and sang “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” and “Crossroads.” New York was a backdrop for Clapton’s personal tragedy, when his young son died after falling out of a window.


Roger Waters played a set of Pink Floyd’s spacey rock, joined by Eddie Vedder for “Comfortably Numb.” Waters stuck to the music and left the fundraising to others.


“Can’t chat,” he said, “because we only have 30 minutes.”


The sold-out “12-12-12″ concert was being shown on 37 television stations in the United States and more than 200 others worldwide. It was to be streamed on 30 websites, including YouTube and Yahoo, and played on radio stations. Theaters, including 27 in the New York region and dozens more elsewhere, were showing it live.


Proceeds from the show will be distributed through the Robin Hood Foundation. More than $ 30 million was raised through ticket sales alone.


The powerful storm left parts of New York City underwater and left millions of people in several states without heat or electricity for weeks. It’s blamed for at least 125 deaths, including 104 in New York and New Jersey, and it destroyed or damaged 305,000 housing units in New York alone.


Other concert performers were to include Long Islander Billy Joel (“New York State of Mind”) and New Yorker Alicia Keys (“Empire State of Mind”). Even Liverpool’s Paul McCartney has a New York office, Hamptons home and a wife, Nancy Shevell, who spent a decade on the board of the agency that runs New York‘s public transit system.


E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt said backstage that musicians are often quick to help when they can.


“Yes, it’s more personal because literally the Jersey shore is where we grew up,” he said. “But we’d be here anyway.”


The concert came a day after the death of sitar master Ravi Shankar, a performer at the 1971 “Concert for Bangladesh” considered the grandfather of music benefits. That concert also was in Madison Square Garden.


___


AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in New York contributed to this report.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Advancing the Promise of Personalized Medicine: Companion Diagnostics

0 comments





When I was a sophomore in college, my mother unfortunately lost her very short battle with pancreatic cancer, an experience that changed my life forever. During that time I witnessed firsthand the devastating effects caused by the administration of toxic, non-specific treatments which ultimately failed to stop the spread of the cancer, and instead only made my mother extremely sick. Her death, at the young age of 44, profoundly influenced my feelings towards medicine and altered my career path. As a result, I became driven to discover better drugs for treating cancer, with a focus to specifically target diseased cells while leaving healthy tissues unharmed.Thankfully, my passion for developing smarter cancer drugs is shared by many others, and it has been exciting to see the progress made over the years in developing treatments that can be characterized as “personalized medicines”. A commonly cited example that demonstrates the impact of personalized medicine in cancer is the successful development of the breast cancer drug, Herceptin(R), which specifically targets aggressive HER2-positive breast cancer. Importantly, before this medication was developed, women with HER2-expressing breast cancer were less responsive to standard treatments. Now, however, treatment with Herceptin in combination with chemotherapy has amazingly been shown to reduce the recurrence rate of this type of cancer by 52 percent.Building on Biomarkers: Companion DiagnosticsA biomarker is a unique trait of a disease, such as genetic marker or overexpressed protein like HER2. Developing a medicine that targets a specific biomarker can have a positive effect on patient outcome, but this approach is only one part of the therapeutic equation. To truly fulfill the promise of personalized medicine, there must also be a tool available for identifying those patients bearing that biomarker. An agent of this type is called a companion diagnostic. The outcome of this type of test should enable the right drug to be administered, to the right person, at the right time. In this manner, a companion diagnostic helps to identify those patients that may benefit from a given targeted treatment while at the same time identifying patients that will likely not benefit from therapy. Related to the example above, such a test is available to determine if a patient has HER2-positive breast cancer, and it is performed before Herceptin is prescribed.Recently, due to the benefits realized from biomarker testing, interest in developing companion diagnostics has surged. The FDA is very supportive of the development of these patient-selective tests. In fact, one companion diagnostic was approved this year and two within the same month last year to accompany Pfizer’s targeted drug for lung cancer, Xalkori(R), and Roche’s personalized therapeutic for melanoma, Zelboraf(R). Importantly, Roche stated that it aims to have 60 percent of its drugs in development to be accompanied by some form of a companion test, an indication that, like the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry is also embracing the continued development of companion diagnostic agents.There are many reasons for the significant interest in this space that stem from the benefits of identifying patients with companion diagnostics. For example, in the area of cancer, where development of these agents is most advanced, significant delay of tumor growth and increased survival rates have been demonstrated in patients that were preselected using a companion diagnostic. Having the ability to determine whether a patient may or may not respond to a given treatment enables the selection of the best medicine for that individual, without wasting precious time with trial and error approaches.It is precisely this advantage that allows clinical trials to be conducted in a specific patient population, which can decrease the size and related cost of these studies. Lower costs may allow drug developers to use such savings to invest in additional areas of disease research. Furthermore, smaller clinical trial size means that studies can be conducted more quickly, which could accelerate the arrival of these treatments to the market and broaden access to patients. Collectively, these conserved resources translate into savings for the entire healthcare system, which is an important benefit as rising healthcare costs are a significant issue for our nation.It is worth noting that a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the genetic characteristics of a tumor, such as biomarker expression, can and often do change over time. Thus, in contrast to conventional companion diagnostics that typically utilize tissue samples obtained through biopsy (especially those performed on archived tissue), additional benefits are found with the use of companion diagnostics that are based on whole-body imaging. Results obtained from non-invasive, real-time imaging methodology, therefore, provide the most up-to-date biomarker information possible to inform treatment decision making. But, regardless of the method employed, the impact of patient selection can be substantial.A New ApproachAt Endocyte, we have seen this patient-selective approach translate into positive clinical results. The technology we’re developing consists of targeted therapeutics called small molecule drug conjugates, or SMDCs. Each of these novel compounds consists of a high affinity, cell-specific targeting molecule (the ligand) that is chemically linked to a potent chemotherapy drug. This yields a highly potent, yet selective therapeutic agent; but, this approach also allows us to easily create a companion diagnostic by simply replacing the chemotherapeutic drug in the SMDC construct with an imaging agent.Vintafolide is our most advanced SMDC in development. This therapeutic binds to the folate receptor, which is a confirmed biomarker expressed on many human cancers, including ovarian, lung, breast and colon. Vintafolide’s companion diagnostic imaging agent (etarfolatide) is designed to identify cancer patients that have high levels of the folate receptor expression, which is the exact population of patients expected to respond to this drug.In a previous clinical trial in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, women identified as “FR-positive” by etarfolatide and then subsequently treated with vintafolide had significantly delayed tumor growth. Based on these unprecedented results, especially in a patient population that fails to adequately respond to any therapy, both etarfolatide and vintafolide are being considered for conditional approval in Europe. This could mean that patients would have access to these agents much sooner than expected. Overall, this exciting opportunity would never have been possible if our companion diagnostic agent was not used to select the right patient population to treat with vintafolide in our clinical trials.A Promising FutureBecause of the numerous benefits companion diagnostics hold for patients, physicians, drug developers and our healthcare system, their continued development and use will only increase in the future. Regulatory agencies worldwide are also embracing this approach, and they continue to encourage drug developers to pursue this path for the treatment of all types of diseases. As the number of companion diagnostics in development continues to grow, we are moving closer each day to truly fulfilling the promise of personalized medicine.


Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News






Read More..

Mall shooter quit job, was going to Hawaii

0 comments


In the days before he stole a semiautomatic weapon and stormed into an Oregon shopping mall, killing two people in a shooting spree, Jacob Roberts quit his job, sold his belongings and began to seem "numb" to those closest to him.



Roberts' ex-girlfriend, Hannah Patricia Sansburn, 20, told ABC News today that the man who donned a hockey mask and opened fire on Christmas shoppers was typically happy and liked to joke around, but abruptly changed in the week before the shooting.



Roberts unleashed a murderous volley of gunfire on the second floor of the Clackamas Town Center on Tuesday while wearing the mask and black clothing, and carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon and "several" magazines full of ammunition. He ended his barrage by walking down to the first floor of the mall and committing suicide.



READ: Why Mass Shooters Wear Masks



"I don't understand," Sansburn said. "I was just with him. I just talked to him. I didn't believe it was him at all. Not one part of me believed it."



She said that in recent weeks, Roberts quit his job at a gyro shop in downtown Portland and sold all of his belongings, telling her that he was moving to Hawaii. He had even purchased a ticket.



She now wonders if he was really planning to move.



"He was supposed to catch a flight Saturday and I texted him, and asked how his flight went, and he told me, 'oh, I got drunk and didn't make the flight,'" she said. "And then this happens... It makes me think, was he even planning on going to Hawaii? He quit his job, sold all of his things."



Roberts described himself on his Facebook page as an "adrenaline junkie," and said he is the kind of person who thinks, "I'm going to do what I want."



Roberts, who attended Clackamas Community college, posted a picture of himself on his Facebook page firing a gun at a target. His Facebook photo showed graffiti in which the words "Follow Your Dreams" were painted over with the word "Cancelled."



Sansburn said the pair had dated for nearly a year but had broke up over the summer. Throughout their relationship, she had never seen him act violently or get angry.



"Jake was never the violent type. He didn't go out of his way to try to hurt people or upset people. His main goal was to make you laugh, smile, make you feel comfortable. I never would have guessed him to do anything like this ever," she said.



"You can't reconcile the differences. I hate him for what he did, but I can't hate the person I knew because it was nothing like the person who would go into a mall and go on a rampage. I would never associate the two at all."



The last time she saw him, which was last week, he "seemed numb," and she didn't understand why, she said.



"I just talked to him, stayed the night with him, and he just seemed numb if anything. He's usually very bubbly and happy, and I asked him why, what had changed, and said 'nothing.' He just had so much he had to do before he went to Hawaii that he was trying to distance himself from Portland," Sansburn said.



Sansburn said the last message she sent Roberts was a text, asking him to stay, and saying she didn't want him to leave. He replied "I'm sorry," with a sad face emoticon.



Police are still seeking information about what Roberts was doing in the days leading up to the shooting. They said today they believe Roberts stole the gun he used in the rampage from someone he knew. They have searched his home and his car for other clues into his motive.



Read ABC News' full coverage of the Oregon Mall Shooting



Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said earlier today on "Good Morning America" that he believes Roberts went into the mall with the goal of killing as many people as he could.



"I believe, at least from the information that's been provided to me at this point in time, it really was a killing of total strangers. To my knowledge at this point in time he was really trying, I think, to kill as many people as possible."



Sansburn said she has not talked to police.




Mall Shooter Told Ex-Girlfriend He Was Moving to Hawaii



Roberts' mother, Tami Roberts, released a statement through a friend today saying she had no explanation of her son's behavior.



"Tami Roberts wishes to express her shock and grief at the events at Clackamas Town Center Tuesday," the friend said, reading from a statement outside of Tami Roberts' home.



The friend noted that Tami raised Roberts, but was not his biological mother. Sansburn said that Roberts' biological mother had died when he was very young.



"She has no understanding or explanation for her son's behavior...It's so out of his character," the friend said.



Officials from the Oregon City School District, where Roberts graduated from Oregon City High School, were also surprised at the news.



"This news is very shocking to those who knew Jacob while at OCHS. He was known as a soft spoken and polite young man who was often eager to be helpful. The motive for such a horrific act is likely to remain a mystery to us all," the district said in a statement.



Roberts had attended the school for only his senior year. He spent three years at Milwaukie High School, where officials described him as an "average student with average grades."



He had no disciplinary record at the school, but chose to transfer for his senior year to Oregon City High School, according to Joe Krumm, an administrator at the North Clackamas School District. Krumm did not know why he transferred, and said that in all, Roberts did not stand out in memory for anything in particular.



Also Read

Read More..

Corruption probe shrouds Quebec in new darkness

0 comments





MONTREAL (Reuters) – Half a century ago, a new crop of Quebec leaders sparked the so-called Quiet Revolution to eradicate the “Great Darkness” – decades of corruption that kept Canada‘s French-speaking province under the dominance of one party and the Catholic church.


The revolution’s reforms, including cleaning up the way lawmakers were elected and secularizing the education system, seemed to work, paving the way for decades of growth, progress and prominence as Canada emerged as a model of democracy.






Fifty years later, a public inquiry into corruption and government bid-rigging suggests the province’s politics are not as clean as Quebecers had hoped or believed.


Since May, when the inquiry opened in Montreal, Canadians have been getting daily doses of revelations of fraud through live broadcasts on French-language television stations. Corruption involving the Mafia, construction bosses and politicians, the inquiry has shown, drove up the average building cost of municipal contracts by more than 30 percent in Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city.


Last month, Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay resigned as did the mayor of nearby Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt. Both denied doing anything wrong, but said they could not govern amid the accusations of corruption involving rigging of municipal contracts, kickbacks from the contracts and illegal financing of elections.


Tremblay has not been charged by police. Vaillancourt’s homes and offices have been raided several times by Quebec’s anti-corruption squad, which operates independently of the inquiry, but no charges have been filed against him either. Police said the raids were part of an investigation but they would not release further details.


“Quebecers lived for several years under the impression that they had found the right formula, that their parties were clean,” said Pierre Martin, political science professor at the University of Montreal. Now, he said, “people at all levels are fed up.”


The inquiry must submit its final report to the Quebec government by next October. It has exposed practices worthy of a Hollywood noir thriller – a mob boss stuffing his socks with money, rigged construction contracts, call girls offered as gifts, and a party fundraiser with so much cash he could not close the door of his safe.


“Even though we are in the early days, what is emerging is a pretty troubling portrait of the way public contracts were awarded,” said Antonia Maioni, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in Montreal.


Quebec’s Liberals, the force behind the Quiet Revolution, launched the inquiry as rumors of corruption swirled. The government then called an election for September, a year ahead of schedule, in what was seen as an attempt to stop damaging testimony hurting its popularity.


The tactic did not help. Jean Charest’s Liberals lost to the Parti Quebecois, whose ultimate aim is to take the French-speaking province, the size of Western Europe, out of Canada.


‘IT WASN’T COMPLICATED’


According to allegations at the inquiry, the corruption helped three main entities: the construction bosses who colluded to bid on contracts, the Montreal Mafia dons who swooped in for their share, and the municipal politicians who received kickbacks to finance campaigns.


In Quebec, the Mafia has been dominated by the Rizzuto family, with tentacles to the rest of Canada and crime families in New York and abroad. But recently the syndicate has been facing challenges from other crime groups in Montreal, according to the Toronto-based Mafia analyst and author Antonio Nicaso.


The reputed godfather of the syndicate, Vito Rizzuto, has been subpoenaed to appear before the commission, but the date for his testimony has not been set.


The hearings have zeroed in on four construction bosses and how their companies worked with the Mafia, bribed municipal engineers and provided funds for mayoralty campaigns in Montreal, the business capital for Quebec’s 8 million people.


“It’s not good for the economy,” said Martin. “It’s not good for any kind of legitimate business that tries to enter into any kind of long-term relationship with the public sector.”


Quebec’s anti-corruption squad has arrested 35 people so far this year, staging well-publicized raids on mayoral offices and on construction and engineering companies. The squad has arrested civil servants and owners of construction companies, among others.


“I now must suffer an unbearable injustice,” Tremblay said in a somber resignation speech earlier this month after a decade as mayor of Montreal, saying he could not continue in office because the allegations of corruption were causing a paralysis at City Hall.


Some of the most explosive allegations at the inquiry, headed by Quebec Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau, came from Lino Zambito, owner of a now bankrupt construction company, and from a top worker for Tremblay’s political party, Union Montreal.


Zambito, who is seen as one of the smaller players and who also faces fraud charges, described a system of collusion between organized crime, business cartels and corrupt civil servants, with payments made according to a predetermined formula.


“The entrepreneurs made money, and there was an amount that was due to the Mafia,” Zambito told the inquiry. “It wasn’t complicated.”


Zambito said the Mafia got 2.5 percent of the value of a contract, 3 percent went to Union Montreal and 1 percent to the engineer tasked with inflating contract prices.


Tremblay did not respond to emails requesting comment on the allegations of corruption at city hall.


A former party organizer, Martin Dumont, alleged the mayor was aware of double bookkeeping used to hide illegal funding during a 2004 election.


Dumont said the mayor walked out of the room during a meeting that explained the double bookkeeping system, saying he did not want to know anything about it.


Dumont also described how he was called into the office of a fundraiser for Union Montreal to help close the door of a safe because it was too full of money.


“I think it was the largest amount I’d ever seen in my life,” Dumont said at the inquiry.


GOLF, HOCKEY, ESCORTS


The inquiry also saw videos linking construction company players with Mafia bosses. In one police surveillance video, a Mafia boss was seen stuffing cash into his socks.


A retired city of Montreal engineer, Gilles Surprenant, described how he first accepted a bribe in the late 1980s after being “intimidated” by a construction company owner. Over the years he said he accepted over $ 700,000 from the owners in return for inflating the price of the contracts.


Another retired engineer, Luc Leclerc, admitted to bagging half a million dollars for the same service. He said the system was well-known to many at city hall and simply part of the “business culture” in Montreal. He also got gifts and paid golf trips to the Caribbean with other businessmen and Mafia bosses.


Gilles Vezina, who is currently suspended from his job as a city engineer, concurred.


“It was part of our business relationships to get advantages like golf, hockey, Christmas gifts” from construction bosses, he told the inquiry in mid-November.


The gifts didn’t stop there. Vezina said he was twice offered the services of prostitutes from different construction bosses in the 1980s or early 1990s, which he said he refused.


The accusations are jarring for a country that prides itself on being one of the least corrupt places in the world, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International. But experts say corruption in Montreal was something of an open secret.


“The alarm signals have been going off here for 20 years and no one has done anything,” said Andre Cedilot, a former journalist who co-wrote a book on the Canadian Mafia.


Quebec’s new government has introduced legislation tasking the province’s securities regulator with vetting businesses vying for public contracts and allowing it to block companies that do not measure up.


Anti-corruption activist Jonathan Brun was not optimistic.


“You’ve got to use modern technology,” said Brun, a co-founder of Quebec Ouvert, a group that wants to make all information about contracts freely available rather than asking regulators to oversee individual companies. “You’ve got to change the entire system if you really want to fight corruption.”


(Writing by Russ Blinch; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Mary Milliken and Prudence Crowther)


Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Facebook helps FBI bust cybercriminals blamed for $850 million losses

0 comments





SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Investigators led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and aided by Facebook Inc, have busted an international criminal ring that infected 11 million computers around the world and caused more than $ 850 million in total losses in one of the largest cybercrime hauls in history.


The FBI, working in concert with the world’s largest social network and several international law enforcement agencies, arrested 10 people it says infected computers with “Yahos” malicious software, then stole credit card, bank and other personal information.






Facebook’s security team assisted the FBI after “Yahos” targeted its users from 2010 to October 2012, the U.S. federal agency said in a statement on its website. The social network helped identify the criminals and spot affected accounts, it said.


Its “security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats,” the FBI said.


According to the agency, which worked also with the U.S. Department of Justice, the accused hackers employed the “Butterfly Botnet”. Botnets are networks of compromised computers that can be used in a variety of cyberattacks on personal computers.


The FBI said it nabbed 10 people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States, executed numerous search warrants and conducted a raft of interviews.


It estimated the total losses from their activities at more than $ 850 million, without elaborating.


Hard data is tough to come by, but experts say cybercrime is on the rise around the world as PC and mobile computing become more prevalent and as more and more financial transactions shift online, leaving law enforcement, cybersecurity professionals and targeted corporations increasingly hard-pressed to spot and ward off attacks.


(Reporting By Edwin Chan; Editing by Matt Driskill)


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Spice Girls take stage at musical premiere

0 comments





LONDON (Reuters) – The Spice Girls took to the stage on Tuesday after the world premiere of a new musical loosely based on their meteoric rise to fame in the 1990s, earning huge cheers from an audience that only really got going at the encore.


“Viva Forever!” was the brainchild of producer Judy Craymer, whose “Mamma Mia!” musical based on the hits of ABBA has earned nearly $ 2 billion worldwide and spawned a hit movie starring Meryl Streep.






She teamed up with British comedian Jennifer Saunders to create a story about the central character Viva, a sprightly teenager who, along with her friends, gets into the final stages of a TV singing contest closely resembling “The X Factor”.


To boost flagging audience figures – a nod to “The X Factor”s real-life ratings woes in Britain this season – their “mentor” springs a surprise and throws out three members of the band to leave Viva on her own.


What follows is part morality tale examining what is more important – friends, family or fame – and part satire on reality television, including a callous, Simon Cowell-like producer.


“We love you Judy!” said Geri Halliwell at the end of the show, which closed with a romp through some of the Spice Girls‘ biggest hits including “Spice Up Your Life”.


“Thank you for making the Spice Girls‘ dream come true,” Halliwell added.


Halliwell was joined on stage by Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton and Melanie Chisholm, who together stormed the charts in the 1990s and put “girl power” on the map.


Beckham, who arrived at the London premiere after her ex-bandmates, sat with her soccer star husband David and three sons, who clapped along to the music during the final medley.


NATIONAL TREASURES


Now all young mothers in their late 30s and early 40s, The Spice Girls are still affectionately known by the nicknames they adopted in the band – Posh (Beckham), Scary (Brown), Baby (Bunton), Sporty (Chisholm) and Ginger (Halliwell).


They were hailed as modern-day feminists by some and dismissed as vacuous pop princesses by others, but their success is beyond doubt. They sold 55 million records, had nine British No. 1 singles and three back-to-back Christmas No. 1s.


The band broke up around 12 years ago, and internal bickering among the members was long the delight of Britain’s celebrity-obsessed tabloids.


Perhaps surprisingly, given the bust-ups and hissy fits, the group has been united in its backing of the new musical, and underlining the Spice Girls‘ lasting popularity they played a major part in the closing ceremony at the London Olympics.


Paul Taylor, writing in the Independent newspaper, gave the musical two stars out of five in his review.


The Spice Girls‘ songs, with their clever hooks and catchy rhythms, are better at projecting an attitude than fleshing out a dramatic situation,” he wrote, describing Saunders’ story as “charmless”, “messy” and “lackluster”.


“Not only does her script rarely give you that necessary gleeful sense of expectancy about where the songs are going to be shoe-horned in, but it’s embarrassingly derivative of ‘Mamma Mia!’ and looks way past its sell-by date in its utterly surprise-free satiric swipe at ‘X Factor’.”


Saunders said before the show that she considered herself the “sixth” Spice Girl.


“We used to travel around everywhere to see them and they were so great with my kids,” said the 54-year-old, best known for playing a self-absorbed, eccentric mother in the popular British comedy series “Absolutely Fabulous”.


“The thought of a Spice Girls musical written by somebody else was not acceptable,” she told the Daily Mirror newspaper. “Because I was so close to them, I couldn’t let it slip through my fingers.”


(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Jill Serjeant)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..