Lohan tells Letterman rehab is a 'blessing'

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Lindsay Lohan is going into rehab next month, but first she had to face David Letterman.

In an appearance taped for Tuesday's "Late Show," Lohan was pressed by Letterman about her upcoming rehab stint. She faces a 90-day stay as part of a plea deal in a misdemeanor traffic accident case.

Letterman tried to draw Lohan out, asking how many times she'd been in rehab, how this time would differ, and what she's being treated for.

Lohan looked uncomfortable and said she didn't expect Letterman's line of questioning.

But she said that she wants to be healthy and focus on what she loves ? her work. She added that she looks at rehab as "a blessing and not a curse."

CBS released a partial clip of the interview before it aired.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lohan-tells-letterman-rehab-blessing-002832232.html

Colorado Springs Nora Ephron mario balotelli mario balotelli espn3 kevin youkilis Tropical Storm Debby

McConnell campaign asks for FBI investigation over leaked Ashley Judd tapes (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/297773364?client_source=feed&format=rss

thursday night football japan earthquake Star Trek Into Darkness Heisman watch John McAfee Jenny Rivera Pacquiao vs Marquez 4

Google, BlackBerry, EarthLink and Red Hat ask DoJ and FTC to help starve patent trolls

Tired of all the patent-related stories? Especially the ones that seem like they are more about financial gain than fairness? We thought so. We'd imagine it's even more of a frustration if you're one of the companies regularly involved. No surprise then that some firms -- such as Google, BlackBerry, EarthLink and Red Hat -- have decided to do something about it, taking the fight directly to the FTC and DoJ. In a recent blog post, Google explains that -- along with its collaborators -- it has submitted comments to the aforementioned agencies, detailing the impact that "patent trolls" have on the economy.

While the financial cost to the US taxpayer is said to be nearly $30 billion, the four companies also point out how such behavior hurts consumers even further, suggesting that when start-ups and small businesses are strong-armed, innovation and competition suffer. Some specific practices such as "patent priveteering" -- when a company sells patents to trolls who don't manufacture anything and therefore can't be countersued -- also come under direct criticism. The cynical might assume this all comes back to the bottom line, but with the collaborative extending an invitation to other companies to help develop revised, cooperative licensing agreements, they are the very least making it difficult for them to engage in similar behavior in the future. At least until the FTC and DoJ respond.

Filed under: Misc, Google, Blackberry

Comments

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Google Public Policy (blog)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/07/google-blackberry-earthlink-and-red-hat-patent-trolls/

chris carter superbowl 2012 kickoff time what time is the super bowl 2012 nfl mvp lana del rey snl performance nick diaz sheryl sandberg

Charlotte Motor Speedway sues over $80M deal

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ? The mogul behind one of the country's largest auto racing track operators is trying to resurrect a lawsuit claiming local officials reneged on an offer of $80 million in incentives to land a new drag strip and upgrade the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

A three-judge state Court of Appeals panel will hold a closed-door discussion Tuesday to determine whether the lawsuit will be heard by a jury. A judge last year dismissed the lawsuit against Cabarrus County by Speedway Motorsports Inc. and Charlotte Motor Speedway, both based in Concord and headed by magnate Bruton Smith.

At issue is whether Smith can enforce what his lawyers say was an oral agreement that ended threats to move the 135,000-seat speedway and build a new drag strip somewhere other than the heart of NASCAR country. The contract wasn't put in writing until after the new drag strip opened the following year, with terms the track operator rejected. If the lawsuit doesn't move forward, Speedway Motorsports could have to wait up to 40 years to be reimbursed for road and other upgrades around the track.

"Cabarrus has received what it bargained for, and seeks now to avoid its return promise," lawyers for SMI said in court filings.

The county's lawyers counter that it's not their responsibility that SMI built the drag strip and made other improvements before a contract was finalized. Business logic didn't seem to hold when Smith threatened in 2007 to somehow move the superspeedway the successful auto dealer helped design and build in 1959, the county's lawyers said.

"The fact that abandonment of the dragway improvements would be economically senseless by no means prevented it being done. After all, plaintiffs insisted that they 'had every right and intention' to abandon the far more expansive speedway improvements," the county's lawyers said.

It's not clear if SMI ? which owns the track and seven others in Georgia, Tennessee, California, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas ? has yet seen any of the $80 million announced in 2007. A track spokesman declined comment and lawyers for both sides did not respond to requests for comment last week.

SMI reported profits of $42.1 million last year on revenues of $490 million.

The dispute started when Smith ordered workers to start grading land on speedway property for the $60 million drag strip 20 miles north of Charlotte before seeking permits from local officials. Area residents complained about the potential for increased noise.

Smith downplayed those objections in a 2008 interview.

"Do you have any friends that built a house close to a speedway that didn't know there was a speedway here?" Smith, SMI's chief executive officer and chairman, told The Associated Press. "Can you imagine? All of you knew there was a speedway here, right?"

When local officials delayed granting approvals, Smith threatened to build the drag strip elsewhere and move the speedway, which helped foster a motorsports industry estimated to be worth $6 billion dollars a year in North Carolina.

Local officials tried to soothe Smith. The county tourism bureau flew a plane over the speedway with a banner that read, "We (heart) you Bruton." The street leading to the track was renamed "Bruton Smith Boulevard."

The two sides announced a deal in November 2007 for Smith to build the drag strip and make more than $200 million in speedway upgrades, with Concord and Cabarrus County officials offering tax breaks worth $80 million.

But the two sides never reduced their announced agreement into contract language until the day after the 30,000-seat, four-lane zMax Dragway officially opened the following August, just three weeks before its first scheduled race.

The contract's terms said SMI would spend its millions in infrastructure improvements within three years, the company's lawyers said, but would be reimbursed from property tax breaks as the improvements increased its value. The method is a common way North Carolina governments encourage company investment.

Smith rejected the contract. SMI and the speedway sued the county and the city in September 2009. Concord was dropped from the case after agreeing to pay a $2.8 million and getting land easements, The Charlotte Observer reported.

SMI's lawyers say local officials verbally promised in 2007 to come up with the $80 million in no more than six years. They say the county had a financial motive like a corporation and therefore can't defend itself with a state law protecting municipalities from lawsuits.

Cabarrus County's lawyers counter that there was nothing that could be considered a contract until the 2008 document described what both sides would do and when. The agreement announced the previous year included none of that, the county's lawyers said.

"This was an agreement to agree, which is not an agreement at all," Cabarrus lawyers said.

The attorneys say it would be difficult for the county to come up with $80 million quickly because it is allowed to collect only $104 million in property taxes a year. That capacity is publicly known, so SMI can't say it was blindsided, the lawyers said.

A decision is expected in about three months. If the case moves forward, it could be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

___

Emery Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/charlotte-motor-speedway-sues-over-80m-deal-083427287--spt.html

dontari poe space shuttle nyc monkeypox nick perry 30 rock live nfl draft picks 2012 space shuttle enterprise

China?s Water Crisis: More Than Half of Rivers Disappear

April 6th, 2013 ? 0 comments ? Filed Under ? by ABMN Staff

?

For years, China claimed to hold an estimated 50000 rivers within its borders. Now, more than half of them have abruptly vanished.

"China's Water Crisis: More Than Half of Rivers Disappear" is categorized as "world". This video was licensed from Grab Networks. For additional video content, click the "video" tab at the top of this page.

If you are a new American Banking & Market News reader, we would like to welcome you to our website. American Banking & Market News provides daily coverage of analysts' ratings for some of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. We cover news surrounding large-cap U.S. financial companies, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase and discuss the fledgling industry of peer to peer lending. American Banking & Market News publishes hundreds of press releases per day and is part of the American Consumer News, LLC network. We would invite you to consider following our 'AmericanBanking' account on Twitter and subscribing to our RSS Feed. You can always view our latest articles and video content by visiting our home page.

Get Analysts' Upgrades and Downgrades via Email - Stay on top of analysts' coverage with Analyst Ratings Network's FREE daily email newsletter that provides a concise list of analysts' upgrades and downgrades. Click here to register now.

Source: http://www.americanbankingnews.com/2013/04/06/chinas-water-crisis-more-than-half-of-rivers-disappear/

Bronson Pelletier andy reid redskins sugar bowl downton abbey season 3 2013 Calendar chris christie

Authorities: Escaped Texas inmates now in custody

SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas (AP) ? Officials say someone trying to pawn stolen jewelry led them to the hideout of two inmates who escaped from an East Texas jail.

Capital murder suspect Brian Allen Tucker and admitted drug offender John Marlin King were returned Thursday to the Hopkins County Jail in Sulphur Springs.

Ricky Smith is the sheriff of nearby Delta County, where the arrests were made.

Smith says authorities were led to the men after a pawn shop clerk reported that someone had been trying to pawn jewelry left in a vehicle that had been stolen. Investigators believed the fugitives had stolen the vehicle.

Police then question the person who tried to pawn the jewelry. Smith says that person told them where the fugitives were hiding.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A capital murder suspect and a convicted drug offender who escaped from an East Texas jail were captured Thursday, two days after they slipped past a fence only to be found in a neighboring county to the north.

Brian Allen Tucker and John Marlin King were captured in the town of Cooper, said Hopkins County sheriff's Deputy Alvin Jordan. He said they were being returned to the Hopkins County Jail in Sulphur Springs but had no other details.

Sheriff's officials said the inmates fled the jail Tuesday by scaling a fence or slipping through a gap in a perimeter fence in Sulphur Springs, about 75 miles northeast of Dallas. Officials said a maintenance person noticed a problem with the fence around a recreation yard used by female inmates. Hours later, deputies and other law enforcement were searching the woods and area east and northeast of the jail.

The men were found Thursday just 20 miles north of the jail, holed up in a barn behind a house, said Scott Cass, sheriff from nearby Lamar County, which helped in the capture.

Tucker was being held on $1 million bond in the 2011 death of Bobby Riley of Mahoney. Riley was found strangled in his home and some music instruments and firearms had been stolen. Jury selection in his murder trial was set to begin June 3. He previously was convicted of burglary and driving while intoxicated, and has been arrested several times for violating parole.

King was being held on several charges, including evading arrest, burglary and possession of a controlled substance. According to court documents, he pleaded guilty last month to the possession charge as a habitual offender and received a sentence of 40 years in prison.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/authorities-escaped-texas-inmates-captured-224431972.html

mike kelley puxatony phil josh harvey clemons college football recruiting rankings ground hog day 2012 aaron carter black history month

BOJ's Kuroda: monetary onslaught won't cause asset bubbles

By Leika Kihara and Stanley White

TOKYO (Reuters) - Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda played down concerns his unprecedented burst of monetary stimulus would create asset-price bubbles even as it delivered an immediate pay-off in global markets, with government bond yields at a record low, the yen hitting a 3-1/2 year trough and stocks surging to multi-year highs.

The yen weakened past 97 per dollar on Friday for the first time since August 2009, a day after the BOJ vowed to inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy in less than two years in a dose of shock therapy to end two decades of deflation.

The Nikkei share average jumped as much as 4.7 percent, extending Thursday's 2.2 percent rise and breaking through 13,000 points for the first time since August 2008. The 10-year JGB yield fell as much as 12 basis points to a record low of 0.315 percent.

"We will be vigilant of the risk of a bubble. I don't think there's a bond or stock market bubble now and I don't see one emerging any time soon. But we will be vigilant of the risk," Kuroda told the lower house of parliament.

The BOJ's strategy to reach 2 percent inflation within two years was viewed as a radical gamble to revive the economy. It will buy about 7 trillion yen ($73 billion) of bonds per month, equivalent to about 1.4 percent of gross domestic product. By comparison, the U.S. Federal Reserve is buying $85 billion of bonds per month, about 0.6 percent the size of the economy.

The central bank will also increase purchases of exchange-traded funds by 1 trillion yen per year and real-estate trust funds by 30 billion yen per year.

"We think there is a risk of a bubble," said Hiroshi Shiraishi, senior economist at BNP Paribas Securities.

"If these types of asset purchases are going to work, then they work by distorting asset markets."

DEBT BUILD-UP

A falling yen risks upsetting other Asian exporters who may lose competitiveness, and leave Japan open to accusations it is covertly devaluing the currency. Emerging economies will also be concerned about the potential flood of inflows as investors borrow cheaply in yen and then invest elsewhere, as they have done with the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing.

The Fed and the Bank of England have also embraced large-scale bond purchases in an effort to boost growth, while the European Central Bank said on Thursday it would keep policy loose for as long as necessary to revive the struggling euro zone economy.

"Like other central banks, the BOJ will carefully watch asset price moves, job and wage conditions and other data in striving to achieve price stability," Kuroda said in testimony that was effectively a re-application for his job.

Kuroda's predecessor, Masaaki Shirakawa, was not due to step down until April 8, but decided to leave office in mid-March so the government could appoint a new governor and two deputies at the same time. A procedural quirk meant Kuroda was initially only appointed for the remainder of the Shirakawa's term, and now needs to be voted in again for a full five-year term.

The overhaul of monetary policy means the BOJ's monthly government debt purchases will total about 70 percent of new debt issued by the government. Purchases of this scale will do a lot to keep yields low, but it also raises concerns that the BOJ has basically agreed to bankroll fiscal spending.

At more than twice the size of its $5 trillion economy, Japan's public debt burden is already the worst among major economies. Politicians regularly talk about fiscal discipline, but have made little progress in trimming debt.

Moody's Investors Service said on Friday that while the Japanese government's borrowing costs are likely to remain very low over the next two years, there are concerns about whether domestic savings can finance future government debt.

When the BOJ announced its 2 percent inflation target in January, the government agreed to take steps to ensure sound fiscal policy. But so far, the government has been coy on the specific steps it will take to reign in debt.

"Based on the joint statement, the finance ministry must proceed with firm fiscal plans so as not to damage our relationship with the BOJ," Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau and Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by John Mair)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bojs-kuroda-monetary-onslaught-wont-cause-asset-bubbles-043528179--sector.html

monkees songs rail gun harrisburg top chef texas great pacific garbage patch ben affleck and jennifer garner google privacy changes

Visualized: an Earth-year through stunning NASA imagery (video)

Our planet had kind of a rough year in 2012, but thanks to its array of satellites and a certain floating lab, NASA documented every divine and terrifying moment from afar. On top of the usual beauty shots and time-lapses rendered by the ISS and true-color satellites, NASA also showed some spectacular data and modeling visualizations of atmospheric movement, storms and ocean salinity. That helps even the densest of us understand how hurricanes form, gulf streams flow and arctic ice breaks off and drifts seaward. But enough talk -- if a picture equals a thousand words, there are three million of them in the two minute video, after the break.

Filed under: Cameras, Science, HD

Comments

Via: Gizmodo

Source: NASA

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/etwSeu9xHhg/

Rebecca Soni Snoop Lion London 2012 Table Tennis badminton Dominique Dawes Gabby Olympic Gymnast Robyn Lawley

HBT: 15 Astros struck out for second straight day

Alexi Ogando wasn?t quite Yu Darvish today, but he did surrender just four hits and strike out 10 Astros over 6 1/3 innings in the Rangers? 4-0 win.

Michael Kirkman and Joe Nathan combined to fan five in relief, giving the Rangers their second straight 15-strikeout game. Darvish racked up that many all by himself in his near-perfect game last night.

The Astros became the fourth team since 2000 to strike out 15 times in back-to-back games. The 2002 Brewers did it against the Diamondbacks and the duo of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. It also happened last year to the Mariners (versus the Rays) and the Pirates (versus the Brewers). In all, the Astros fanned 43 times in the three-game series, though they did sneak in a win in Sunday night?s opener.

That made the Rangers the first team in big league history (well, at least since 1916 and probably before) to strike out at least 13 batters in the first three games of the season. The 2001 Diamondbacks, again with Johnson and Schilling, were the only team since 1916 to start off with two such games.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/03/rangers-strike-out-15-astros-in-second-straight-shutout/related/

marian hossa philip humber red sox white sox chuck colson ufc 145 results orrin hatch

School faces new questions in Colo. massacre

FILE - In this March 12, 2013 file photo, James Holmes, left, and defense attorney Tamara Brady appear in district court in Centennial, Colo. for his arraignment. Court documents are raising new questions for the university that Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes attended before the July 20 theater shooting that left 12 people dead and 70 injured. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, RJ Sangosti, Pool, File)

FILE - In this March 12, 2013 file photo, James Holmes, left, and defense attorney Tamara Brady appear in district court in Centennial, Colo. for his arraignment. Court documents are raising new questions for the university that Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes attended before the July 20 theater shooting that left 12 people dead and 70 injured. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, RJ Sangosti, Pool, File)

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) ? New questions are confronting the university that Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes attended amid disclosures that a psychiatrist warned campus police a month before the deadly assault that Holmes was dangerous and had homicidal thoughts.

Court documents made public Thursday cited Dr. Lynne Fenton, a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado, Denver who had treated Holmes. The documents said Fenton told a campus police officer in June that the shooting suspect also threatened and intimidated her.

It was more than a month before the July 20 attack at a movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70.

Campus police Officer Lynn Whitten told investigators after the shooting that Fenton had contacted her. Whitten said Fenton was following her legal requirement to report threats to authorities, according one of the documents, a search warrant affidavit.

"Dr. Fenton advised that through her contact with James Holmes she was reporting, per her requirement, his danger to the public due to homicidal statements he had made," the affidavit said.

Whitten added that Fenton said she began to receive threatening text messages from Holmes after he stopped seeing her for counseling, the documents said.

It was not clear if Fenton's blunt warning about Holmes reached other university officials. Whitten told investigators she deactivated Holmes' access card after hearing from Fenton, but the affidavit did not say other action she took.

Whitten did not immediately respond to messages left at her home and office Thursday. University spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said she could not comment because the school had not reviewed the court records.

The indication that a psychiatrist had called Holmes a danger to the public gave momentum to Democratic state lawmakers' plans to introduce legislation to further restrict mentally ill people from buying guns. State Rep. Beth McCann initially cited the information Thursday as a reason she would introduce a bill as soon as Friday, but quickly backed off and said no date has been set.

The theater massacre already helped inspire a new state ban on large-capacity firearm magazines.

Holmes had enrolled in the university's Ph.D. neuroscience program in 2011 but resigned about six weeks before the shootings after failing a key examination.

In the days after the attack, university officials released little information about Holmes or how it responded to concerns about him. University officials cited both a gag order in the criminal case and federal privacy laws.

"To the best of our knowledge at this point, we think we did everything that we should have done," university Chancellor Don Elliman said three days after the attack.

Campus police also said they had never had contact with Holmes. University officials acknowledged a criminal background check had been run on Holmes, but the person who requested the background check has not been publicly identified.

When prosecutors said in court that the university had banned Holmes from campus, university officials denied that. They said Holmes' access card had been deactivated because he had left the neuroscience program.

That statement could not immediately be reconciled with Whitten's statement in the affidavit that she deactivated Holmes' card because of Fenton's concerns.

The documents released Thursday were previously sealed, but the new judge overseeing the case ordered them released after requests from news organizations including The Associated Press.

District Judge Carlos Samour took over this week after the previous judge, who had sealed the documents, removed himself. Judge William Sylvester handed off to Samour on Monday, saying the case would take up so much time that he couldn't carry out his administrative duties as chief judge of a four-county district.

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys had raised concerns about releasing the documents. Prosecutors said they were worried about the privacy of victims and witnesses if the records were released. Attorneys for Holmes said they didn't want to hurt his chances for a fair trial.

Sylvester had said he was reluctant to release the documents before the preliminary hearing, when prosecutors laid out evidence on whether Holmes could be brought to trial. That hearing was held in January, with investigators giving the names and injuries of every theater victim in graphic detail.

Media organizations said there has been a "wealth of information already made public in the proceedings thus far." They argued there was no basis for the documents to remain sealed.

Samour said lawyers failed to show that releasing the records would cause any harm, or that keeping the documents sealed would prevent any harm.

Sylvester entered a plea of not guilty on Holmes' behalf. Defense lawyers revealed last week that Holmes had offered to plead guilty, but prosecutors rejected the offer and announced Monday they would seek the death penalty.

___

Associated Press writer Catherine Tsai contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-05-Colorado%20Shooting/id-ee2c5e5963e149d28524cb050bfa171b

rob dyrdek oberon donald driver donald driver robin thicke mariana trench transcendental meditation

Big East to become American Athletic Conference

NEW YORK (AP) ? The current Big East will be called the American Athletic Conference starting next season.

The conference announced the decision Wednesday after university presidents approved the new moniker earlier in the day.

The Big East football schools were in need of a new name after they agreed to let seven basketball schools break away from the conference to start a new league this summer to be called the Big East. In return, the football schools received about $100 million of a $110 million pot the league had accumulated in recent years from exit and entry fees and NCAA basketball tournament revenue.

The American Athletic Conference will have 10 members in its first season: Rutgers, Louisville, Connecticut, South Florida, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Memphis, Houston, SMU and Temple.

Rutgers and Louisville are likely leaving after 2013 and are set to be replaced by Tulane, East Carolina and Tulsa in 2014. Navy is scheduled to join in 2015 for football only, and the conference will begin playing a league championship football game.

Nine of the schools set to compete in the American Athletic Conference were at one time part of Conference USA. By 2014, South Florida, UConn, Temple and Cincinnati will be the only schools in the AAC to have been in the Big East.

Commissioner Mike Aresco said the members worked with marketing experts, media partners and asked for feedback from fans to come up with a list of possible names.

"Versions that included the word 'American' led every list," Aresco said in a statement. "American Athletic Conference represents a strong, durable and aspirational name for our re-invented Conference."

The rebuilt conference has new television deals in place with ESPN and CBS.

"The American Athletic Conference is a brand that suggests a national scope and quality membership," said Burke Magnus, Senior Vice President, College Sports Programming, ESPN. "It is an exciting time for the new conference and ESPN looks forward to our future together."

The Big East will now be a basketball-centric conference with old Big East members Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's, Seton Hall, Marquette, DePaul and Providence, along with Xavier, Butler and Creighton.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/big-east-become-american-athletic-conference-225857821--spt.html

meryl streep oscars school shooting ohio billy crystal oscar winners 2012 billy crystal oscars 2012 angelina jolie oscars chardon high school

How Copyrights Suppress Innovation

U.S. copyright protections don't promote innovation. They stifle it.

That was one of the arguments that got intellectual-property reformer Derek Khanna fired from his job last year at the Republican Study Committee, a policy shop for the House GOP. The problem, Khanna said, was that too much copyright protection encourages the country's creative class to make a living suing other people instead of coming up with ideas. Brilliant inventions will be quashed, thanks to aggressive infringement lawsuits.

Shockingly, the recording industry didn't appreciate Khanna's critique of the system. Within weeks, it became clear that the young Hill staffer's comments would cost him his job. But the question stands: To what extent do the country's current intellectual-property safeguards actually promote innovation like they're supposed to?

Heidi Williams is an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Political Economy, she argues that copyrighted content enables some discovery, but it doesn't lead to nearly as much learning as content that's governed under a free and open license.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, for example, scientists at the Human Genome Project were trying to comprehensively sequence people's DNA. Every gene they identified was plugged into a giant repository and made available to other researchers. Partway through the process, a company named Celera decided to start sequencing genes, too. But instead of adding its findings to the public domain, wrote Williams, Celera walled off its data with copyright protections:

This IP [intellectual-property protection]?enabled Celera to sell its data for substantial fees and required firms to negotiate licensing agreements with Celera for any resulting commercial discoveries, even though it was publicly known at the time that all of Celera?s genes would be sequenced by the public effort, and thus be in the public domain, by 2003.

Celera probably made a lot of money between the time it completed its genetic research and when the Human Genome Project caught up.

Forget the duplicated effort, though. Williams also found that the Human Genome Project was nearly twice as fast at discovery as the Celera project. Using a standard measure of academic-knowledge production, she compared the number of papers published using HGP data and Celera data. By 2009, genes that had been sequenced in 2001 from HGP had produced an average of 2.1 academic papers a year, while genes sequenced that same year by Celera led to just 1.2 papers a year over the next eight years. Even though the annual pace of Celera-linked papers rose rapidly after its IP was lifted in 2003, it never caught up to the rate of publication tied to the always-open non-Celera data.?

Williams also looked at the number of diagnostic tests that were developed as a result of gene sequencing. Again, non-Celera genes were nearly twice as common in gene-based tests compared with Celera genes.

Add it all up, wrote Williams, and you get a pretty depressing picture of how much Celera delayed genetic research. "If Celera genes had counterfactually had the same rate of subsequent innovation as non-Celera genes, there would have been 1,400 additional publications between 2001 and 2009 and 40 additional diagnostic tests as of 2009," she concludes.

We can't know for sure whether opening up Celera's database would have led to the same rates of innovation. Perhaps Celera's genes weren't that interesting to begin with. And, of course, the quantity of papers produced in a given year says nothing about the quality of the work. But at the very least, Williams's research shows us how we can apply the idea of opportunity costs to intellectual property.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/copyrights-suppress-innovation-110749950--politics.html

independence day BET Awards 2012 declaration of independence 4th Of July 2012 Zach Parise Spain Vs Italy Euro 2012 Pepco

Baylor's Brittney Griner leads AP All-America team

Baylor's Brittney Griner (42) and Louisville forward Monique Reid (33) reach for a rebound in the first half of a regional semifinal in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament in Oklahoma City, Sunday, March 31, 2013. Louisville won 82-81. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Baylor's Brittney Griner (42) and Louisville forward Monique Reid (33) reach for a rebound in the first half of a regional semifinal in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament in Oklahoma City, Sunday, March 31, 2013. Louisville won 82-81. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2013 file photo, Baylor's Brittney Griner (42) blocks the shot of Oklahoma's Joanna McFarland (53) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Waco Texas. Griner was selected to the 2012-13 AP Women's?All-America team, Tuesday, April 2, 2013. (AP Photo/LM Otero, FIle)

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2012 file photo, Notre Dame guard Skylar Diggins, left, puts up a shot against UCLA guard Kari Korver during the first half of an NCAA women's college basketball game in Los Angeles. Diggins was selected to the 2012-13 AP Women's?All-America team, Tuesday, April 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 17, 2013 file photo, Stanford forward Chiney Ogwumike, left, shoots over UCLA forward Alyssia Brewer during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Los Angeles. Ogwumike was selected to the 2012-13 AP Women's?All-America team, Tuesday, April 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

Delaware forward Elena Delle Donne, left, drive to the basket against Kentucky forward Jelleah Sidney, right, during the second half of a regional semifinal in the NCAA college basketball tournament in Bridgeport, Conn., Saturday, March 30, 2013. Delle Donne scored 33 points, but Kentucky won 69-62. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Brittney Griner has been in a class by herself all season. Now she's part of a select group.

Baylor's 6-foot-8 star senior was a unanimous selection to The Associated Press' All-America team Tuesday.

Griner became the fifth three-time AP All-American, joining Tennessee's Chamique Holdsclaw, Duke's Alana Beard, Oklahoma's Courtney Paris and Connecticut's Maya Moore. Paris and Moore were the only two to earn the honor all four years.

"That's pretty special company," Griner said.

She was joined on the squad by Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins, Stanford's Chiney Ogwumike, Delaware's Elena Delle Donne and Baylor teammate Odyssey Sims.

With Sims and Griner, it marked the sixth time that teammates were first team All-Americans. Connecticut has done it four times and Tennessee once.

"I think they're two of the best, period," Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said.

It's hard to argue. Griner was unstoppable nearly all season, averaging 23.4 points, 9.4 rebounds and 5.2 blocks. She also had 11 dunks, including three in one game against Florida State in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Griner and Diggins received 200 points and were unanimous choices by the 40-member national media panel that votes in the weekly Top 25. It's the sixth straight season that there has been at least one unanimous choice. Voting was done before the NCAA tournament.

Diggins has had an unbelievable season herself, guiding Notre Dame to its first Big East tournament title and a second straight conference regular-season championship. She's averaged 17 points, 5.9 assists and 3.1 steals and became the school's all-time scoring leader.

"This means a lot to me," said Diggins, who also was an All-America last season. "I was fortunate enough to have a school like Notre Dame in my backyard, and this is an honor that I share with all my coaches and teammates."

Diggins joins Ruth Riley as the only Irish players to earn first-team All-America honors in consecutive seasons. Riley did it in 2000 and 2001.

The senior guard said she would love to have the All-America team on the floor.

"This would be a coach's dream team. I'd have a field day with this team," Diggins said. "We wouldn't lose."

Ogwumike guided Stanford to its seventh straight conference tournament championship before the Cardinal lost in the regional semifinals of the NCAA tournament to Georgia. That ended a streak of five straight trips to the Final Four for the team.

She did all she could for the Cardinal, averaging 22 points and 13 rebounds.

Ogwumike was thrilled to learn she and her sister Nnemkadi, who graduated last year, were the first pair of sisters ever to be All-Americans.

"Wow, what a really cool accomplishment for our family," she said. "She always pulled me up when we were playing together, and to join her now is incredible."

While it was Chiney Ogwumike's first time as an All-American, Delle Donne earned the honor for a second straight time.

She carried Delaware to unprecedented heights this year with a trip to the NCAA tournament regional semifinals for the first time. The 6-foot-5 senior was second in the nation in scoring and helped the Blue Hens go undefeated in the Colonial Athletic Association for the second season in a row.

"It's an incredible honor to be an All-American," Delle Donne said. "To be with that group of girls is really special."

She ended her career as the fifth all-time leading scorer in NCAA history with 3,039 points, passing former stars Cheryl Miller, Holdsclaw and Moore in her last game Saturday.

Sims averaged 12.5 points and 5.7 assists for the Lady Bears, who lost in the regional semifinals to Louisville on Sunday night. She almost rallied them from a 19-point second-half deficit, scoring 29 points in the loss.

"I'm glad to be named to that; it's a great accomplishment," Sims said of making the All-America team.

The five All-Americans were on the preseason team, along with Maryland junior Alyssa Thomas. It was only the third time that the postseason All-Americans were all on the preseason team since the AP started compiling a squad in 1995.

Thomas headlined the second team with Connecticut sophomore Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, Penn State junior Maggie Lucas, Duke junior Chelsea Gray and Kentucky senior A'dia Mathies.

The third team was Texas A&M's Kelsey Bone, UConn's Stefanie Dolson, Duke's Elizabeth Williams, Tennessee's Meighan Simmons and Notre Dame's Kayla McBride.

___

Follow Doug on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dougfeinberg

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-02-Women's%20All-America/id-76ad1e48b8854f06b44976874ac34de0

ESPYs 2012 venus williams Freeh Report direct tv wimbledon ray allen Savages

India's rejection of drug patent could reverberate

A cameraman films the head office of Novartis India Limited in Mumbai, India, Monday, April 1, 2013. India's Supreme Court on Monday rejected drug maker Novartis AG's attempt to patent a new version of a cancer drug Glivec, in a landmark decision that healthcare activists say ensures poor patients around the world will get continued access to cheap versions of lifesaving medicines. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

A cameraman films the head office of Novartis India Limited in Mumbai, India, Monday, April 1, 2013. India's Supreme Court on Monday rejected drug maker Novartis AG's attempt to patent a new version of a cancer drug Glivec, in a landmark decision that healthcare activists say ensures poor patients around the world will get continued access to cheap versions of lifesaving medicines. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

The India Supreme Court's rejection of a patent for an improved version of a costly cancer drug by Novartis AG could have big implications for the world's largest drugmakers.

The ruling, which was handed down on Monday, signals the latest shift in the world of drug development in emerging markets such as India and Brazil, where drugmakers have been looking for growth.

Western governments routinely grant patents for slightly improved versions of medicines whose patents are about to expire. That enables drugmakers to get many patients to upgrade to their new, generally more expensive versions rather than the cheaper, generic knockoffs even though some doctors and patients argue that the improvements don't justify the high cost.

But India, Indonesia and some other developing countries have been bucking that trend. They've been shooting down Western patents and licensing local pharmaceutical companies to make cheap generic versions of medicines that most of their residents otherwise could not afford.

Major drugmakers such as Pfizer and Bayer AG on Monday declined to say what they might do regarding the ruling and other recent decisions by poor countries to let local drugmakers sell cheap generic versions for medicines that have monopolies under patents in Western countries. But some industry insiders ? including a Novartis executive ? predict that multinational drugmakers will decide against doing drug research and development in India.

"Novartis will not invest in drug research in India. Not only Novartis, I don't think any global company is planning to research in India," Ranjit Shahani, the vice chairman and managing director of Novartis India, said after the ruling.

Erik Gordon, a professor and analyst at University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, agrees. He said the ruling means that there's "no reason to do research and development in India" because of its "national policy of hostility toward medicine patents."

One thing is clear, though: Emerging markets are not the gold mine that optimistic pharmaceutical executives have been making them out to be.

India's move casts significant doubt on the companies' predictions that within a few years, emerging markets will generate one-quarter or even one-third of their global revenue. They've been counting on governments and a rising middle class in emerging markets to spend more on their brand-name medicines rather than the locally made drugs that may be counterfeit.

"Less patent protection in huge, developing markets means less revenue, and growth stories that are going to look like fantasies," Gordon said.

That's a big problem for drugmakers that already squeezed on all sides.

Government and private health plans in industrialized countries, particularly in deficit-laden Europe, have been pushing for lower drug prices and occasionally even refusing to cover very-expensive drugs. Consumer health spending has been constrained by severe recessions across the globe. Research is ever more expensive. And virtually every drugmaker has been hurt in the last few years by expirations of patents for popular drugs that once made billions every year.

Countries such as Indonesia and Brazil for several years have been licensing local pharmaceutical companies to make cheap generic versions of medicines, usually drugs for HIV, the deadly virus that causes AIDS.

But recently, India has overturned patents for several cancer drugs, including Bayer AG's Nexavar, AstraZeneca PLC's Iressa, Pfizer Inc.'s Sutent and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's Sprycel, according to Mark Grayson, spokesman for the big drugmakers' trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

"Certainly companies will take this into account in deciding ... whether India's a good market," he said.

Grayson noted India has granted patents for very few medicines. He and the trade group's members say that without patents to protect sales of their drugs, drug companies won't have the billions they need to develop innovative new drugs.

"This is really about the future and coming up with medicines for unmet medical needs," he said.

Meanwhile, last month Pfizer's chief intellectual property lawyer, Roy F. Waldron, testified before a House trade subcommittee hearing on U.S.-India trade relations that India's stance makes it extremely difficult to get and keep a medicine patent there.

"We have seen several countries adopt policies similar to India's, which are leading to a worldwide deteriorating trend" that weakens the competitiveness of U.S. drugmakers and threatens U.S. economic growth and future medical advances, Waldron said.

But some say ending research in India would backfire, or that operating in India is so cheap a pullout wouldn't make sense.

"That would just be cutting off their nose to spite their face," said analyst Steve Brozak of WBB Securities, adding, "It's still much cheaper to put whole lab in India," as opposed to hiring a postdoctoral student to do research in the U.S.

___

Follow Linda A. Johnson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-01-Patent%20Battle-Implications/id-9c9b1b3e473d4bc98e97df6b85d37fc0

lra eric johnson eric johnson big east tournament ashley olsen new apple tv sun flare

Prostate Cancer Risk Rises in Men with Inherited Genetic Condition

New study adds prostate to cancers associated with Lynch syndrome

Newswise ? ANN ARBOR, Mich. ? Men with an inherited genetic condition called Lynch syndrome face a higher lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer and appear to develop the disease at an earlier age, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Lynch syndrome is an inherited condition linked to a higher risk of several types of cancer. People with Lynch syndrome have up to 80 percent lifetime risk of colorectal cancer and are also more likely to develop endometrial, gastric, ovarian, urinary tract, pancreatic and brain tumors. Overall, about 1 in 440 people are carriers for the genetic mutation, making it one of the most common inherited cancer conditions.

The findings in prostate cancer have implications for screening younger men who may be at higher risk of the disease. Recent guideline recommendations advise against prostate cancer screening in men younger than 75 who do not have any symptoms.

?For men with an inherited risk factor for prostate cancer, they should still be thinking about prostate cancer screening. Our study suggests men with Lynch syndrome might benefit from regular prostate cancer screening,? says lead study author Victoria M. Raymond, a certified genetic counselor with the University of Michigan?s Cancer Genetics Clinic.

The researchers looked at 198 families who have a strong family history of cancer and were enrolled in registries at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center or at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. These family registries included 4,127 men who were included in this analysis.

Among men with a mutation linked to Lynch syndrome, the researchers estimated their lifetime risk of prostate cancer to be 30 percent, compared to 18 percent among the general population. Men aged 20-59 who carried this mutation also faced a higher risk of prostate cancer than the general public.

Results of the study appear online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Earlier studies have suggested that Lynch syndrome might play a role in inherited prostate cancer, but studies to date have been controversial.

?It?s been tricky to figure out if prostate cancer is really associated with Lynch syndrome. It?s a very common cancer. When you see it occurring in families, it?s difficult to figure out if that?s because it?s associated with Lynch syndrome or just because it?s really common,? Raymond says.

The current study uses a more rigorous statistical analysis and pulls from a larger number of people. This same method has previously linked Lynch syndrome to endometrial cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Prostate cancer statistics: 238,590 Americans will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year and 29,720 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society

Additional authors: Bhramar Mukherjee, Fei Wang, Shu-Chen Huang, Elena M. Stoffel, Fay Kastrinos, Sapna Syngal, Kathleen A. Cooney, Stephen B. Gruber

Funding: National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute grants K24-113433, R01-CA136621, P50-CA69568, P30-CA014089 and P30-CA46592

Disclosure: None

Reference: Journal of Clinical Oncology, doi: 10.1200/JCO.2012.44.1238, published online March 25, 2013

Resources:
U-M Cancer AnswerLine, 800-865-1125
U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center, www.mcancer.org
Clinical trials at U-M, www.UMClinicalStudies.org/cancer

# # #

Comment/Share

'); if(ui.tab.hash == "#source") { //alert("Loading Source"); $('#source').load('/articles/related/?article_id=601059&source_id=868&tab_selected='+(ui.panel.id)); } if(ui.tab.hash == "#channel") { //alert("Loading Channel"); $('#channel').load('/articles/related/?article_id=601059'+'&channel[]=9&channel_name[]=Cancer&channel[]=6283&channel_name[]=Featured%3A+DailyWire&channel[]=6285&channel_name[]=Featured%3A+MedWire&channel[]=6272&channel_name[]=Men%27s+Health'+'&tab_selected='+(ui.panel.id)); } if(ui.tab.hash == "#tags") { //alert("Loading Tags"); $('#tags').load('/articles/related/?article_id=601059'+'&tag[]=12&tag[]=3852&tag[]=41970&tag[]=42998&tag[]=45979'+'>&tab_selected='+(ui.panel.id)); } } //dump(ui.panel); }); function dump(obj) { var out = ''; for (var i in obj) { out += i + ": " + obj[i] + "\n"; } //alert(out); // or, to avoid alerts... var pre = document.createElement('pre'); pre.innerHTML = out; document.body.appendChild(pre) }

Source: http://www.newswise.com/articles/prostate-cancer-risk-rises-in-men-with-inherited-genetic-condition

What Time Does The Superbowl Start 2013 Psalm 91 Super Bowl 2013 Commercials Evasi0n NFL.com Superdome Iron Man 3 Trailer

CERN Gives Away Higgs Boson Particles To 10 Lucky Winners

erqyrggreqnir jevgrf "Va na hacerprqragrq zbir fher gb funxr hc gur jbeyq bs cnegvpyr culfvpf, PREA naabhaprq ba Zbaqnl gung vg jvyy tvir njnl vgf arjyl-qvfpbirerq Uvttf obfba cnegvpyrf va n ybggrel. Ohg tvira gur enevgl bs Uvttf obfba cnegvpyrf bayl bar cnegvpyr vf perngrq bhg bs bar zvyyvba zvyyvba pbyyvfvbaf PREA jvyy bayl or noyr gb erjneq 10 yhpxl jvaaref. 'Ng PREA, jr unir nyjnlf oryvrirq va funevat gur erfhygf bs bhe erfrnepu, naq gur gvzr unf pbzr gb znxr gung gnatvoyr,' fnvq PREA qverpgbe bs erfrnepu Fretvb Oregbyhppv. 'Guvf vf bhe jnl bs fnlvat gunaxf sbe gur vaperqvoyr yriry bs raguhfvnfz gung unf terrgrq guvf qvfpbirel.'"
Read below for your FREE logged-in-user's-eye view of the unencrypted version!

redletterdave writes "In an unprecedented move sure to shake up the world of particle physics, CERN announced on Monday that it will give away its newly-discovered Higgs boson particles in a lottery. But given the rarity of Higgs boson particles ? only one particle is created out of one million million collisions ? CERN will only be able to reward 10 lucky winners. 'At CERN, we have always believed in sharing the results of our research, and the time has come to make that tangible,' said CERN director of research Sergio Bertolucci. 'This is our way of saying thanks for the incredible level of enthusiasm that has greeted this discovery.'" Confused? Don't be! Read more about Slashdot's Rot13 initiative here!

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/Kh2DM2IIivE/story01.htm

Dick Morris Daily Show provisional ballot npr rush limbaugh rush limbaugh karl rove

Rivals prepare to go head to head over abortion bans

Abortion-rights activists plan to challenge laws in Arkansas and North Dakota. The Arkansas law bans most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, while the North Dakota measure bans them after six weeks.?

By David Crary,?AP National Writer / March 31, 2013

Kris Kitko leads chants of protest at an abortion-rights rally at the state Capitol in Bismarck, N.D. March 25. Rival legal teams, each well-financed and highly motivated, are girding for high-stakes court battles over the coming months on laws enacted in Arkansas and North Dakota that would impose the nation's toughest bans on abortion.

James MacPherson/AP/File

Enlarge

Rival legal teams, well-financed and highly motivated, are girding for court battles over the coming months on laws enacted in Arkansas and North Dakota that would impose the nation's toughest bans on abortion.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

For all their differences, attorneys for the two states and the abortion-rights supporters opposing them agree on this: The laws represent an unprecedented frontal assault on the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.

The Arkansas law, approved March 6 when legislators overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward. On March 26, North Dakota went further, with Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple signing a measure that would ban abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, when a fetal heartbeat can first be detected and before some women even know they're pregnant.

Abortion-rights advocates plan to challenge both measures, contending they are unconstitutional violations of the Roe ruling that legalized abortion until a fetus could viably survive outside the womb. A fetus is generally considered viable at 22 to 24 weeks.

"I think they're going to be blocked immediately by the courts ? they are so far outside the clear bounds of what the Supreme Court has said for 40 years," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The center will be leading the North Dakota legal challenge and working in Arkansas alongside the American Civil Liberties Union's state and national offices. Both Northup and ACLU lawyers say they have ample resources to wage the battles, and they expect victories that would require their attorneys' fees to be paid by two states.

Dalrymple, in signing the ban, acknowledged that its chances of surviving a court challenge were questionable, but said it was worth the eventual price tag ? at this point unknown ? in order to test the boundaries of Roe.

North Dakota's attorney general, Wayne Stenehjem, initially said lawyers from his office would defend any lawsuits but is now considering hiring outside help. His office is working on a cost estimate for the litigation that could be presented to lawmakers soon.

"We're looking at a sufficient amount to adequately defend these enactments," Stenehjem said.

A lead sponsor of the Arkansas ban, Republican state Sen. Jason Rapert, said threats of lawsuits "should not prevent someone from doing what is right."

He contended that the ban had a chance of reaching the U.S. Supreme Court through the appeals process and suggested that the victory predictions made by abortion-rights lawyers amounted to "posturing" aimed at deterring other states from enacting similar bans.

In both Arkansas and North Dakota, the states' lawyers will be getting pro bono assistance from lawyers with Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian legal group.

Mathew Staver, the group's chairman, said supporters of the bans were resolved to fight the legal battles to the end, and issued a caution to the rival side.

"They ought to hold off on their celebrations," he said. "The cases have a long way to go through the court system."

The North Dakota ban is scheduled to take effect Aug. 1, along with two other measures that have angered abortion-rights backers. One would require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, the other would make North Dakota the first state to ban abortions based on genetic defects such as Down syndrome.

The Center for Reproductive Rights is reviewing its options regarding the latter two bills, but definitely plans to challenge the 6-week ban before Aug. 1. Northup said her team is pondering whether to file suit in state court or U.S. district court.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/JIR2zrwpIWI/Rivals-prepare-to-go-head-to-head-over-abortion-bans

SEC Championship Rick Majerus Cotto vs Trout Robin Givens Gus Malzahn hyperemesis gravidarum miranda kerr

This Is What Air War Over North Korea Would Look Like

It's easy to mock North Korea for its lack of infrastructure?shoddy communications, electricity, and transportation. But one thing the nation has is a decent air defense system. Because military action of any size would require dominating the airspace over the rogue nation, the radar sites and antiaircraft missiles available to Kim Jong-un make the airspace over North Korea one of the world's most dangerous.

That's not to say it's impenetrable. The U.S. Air Force has faced much of this hardware before, and prevailed?it's just not easy. And last week, the U.S. began to fly B-2 practice missions over the Korean peninsula, just to remind North Korea what the American Air Force can do.

Here's what you should know about the attack and defense strategies on both sides of the DMZ.

North Korean Defense

North Korea has air defenses that cover most of the country. The border is a wall of radar, with overlapping coverage. The coasts are also covered to prevent access from that direction. And because so much military infrastructure is located in the interior of North Korea, much of that airspace is well-defended too. Much of this gear was made during the Soviet era but modernized with digital controls. North Korea also fields Chinese versions of radar equipment. Mobile radar units, mounted on vehicles, can provide a shoot-and-scoot capability that helps radar defenses survive an attack.

High-flying attack aircraft may choose to duck under radar nets. To defend against that strategy, the North Koreans have invested a lot of energy in antiaircraft guns. These are low-tech but can be dangerous. In fact, their relative lack of sophistication could be an asset?the manually operated systems are immune to cyber attacks and other electronic warfare. North Korea will use these guns to protect its radar sites, and it has another, more capable threat to low-fliers: thousands of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.

Yes, North Korea has Soviet-era fighters and bombers, but these are not much of a threat given South Korea's air defenses and highly capable pilots in modern warplanes such as U.S. F-15s and F-16s.

The last lines of defense are the tunnels?some air bases and command centers are burrowed underground. An attacking air force could cave these in or destroy them outright, but that would require extra-precision airstrikes and possibly special ordnance such as bunker busters. This complicates an air campaign, especially one with many priority targets to hit early in the war (North Korean artillery batteries, ballistic missiles, weapons of mass destruction, and troop concentrations, for example), each competing for attention.

Some observers equate the North Korean defenses with Iraq's in 1991, which the U.S.-led coalition dismantled with surprisingly few casualties. It's true that a lot of the equipment is the same, but the seeming ease of Desert Storm belies the dangers that could await on the Korean peninsula. In one often-forgotten encounter, the Iraqis observed the aerial refueling of inbound F-117 stealth fighters on radar. They waited for a half-hour, then let loose a barrage of missiles and AA gunfire over Baghdad. It turned out that the U.S. warplanes were bound for Mosul, but if they had been heading to the capital, the tactic could have worked.

Allied Attack Strategy

Stealth airplanes such as the B-2 Spirit and F-22 Raptor are built to operate in areas with thick air defenses. Yes, their shapes and materials can evade radar, giving the U.S. an obvious advantage over North Korea. But each has specific capabilities that must make North Korea war planners uneasy.

The B-2 has an immense range. North Korea has hundreds of ballistic missiles that it could use to attack airbases in the region. The B-2, however, can fly from the safety of Missouri to strike targets deep inside North Korea. And when it comes to ordnance, the B-2 is rated to drop the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bunker buster. This is a good antidote for underground priority targets.

The B-2 has other tricks. In 1991, the U.S. fooled Iraqi defenders with a barrage of decoys that caused the radar crews to switch on their systems?which could then be targeted. This is an important tactic when facing radar systems mounted on vehicles. Decoys have gotten smaller and more advanced; Raytheon's MALD is a good example. The B-2 can carry these decoys, launch them from 500 miles away, and confuse defenders into firing at the wrong targets.

The F-22 has never faced combat. But Raptors have appeared in Pentagon exercises in Korea, signaling that this is a place they could make their debut. Of all stealth aircraft, the Raptor is the fastest, most maneuverable, and hardest to spot. It dominates the sky?the North Korean air force would be seriously outmatched?but can also conduct air-to-ground missions. The F-22 could play a major role along the DMZ, if there were air bases nearby that had not been struck with conventional or chemical weapon warheads (the F-22 doesn't have the B-2's globe-spanning range).

The appearance of stealth warplanes over the Korean peninsula spooked North Korea. The reason: They are meant to exploit and defeat the regime's defense plans.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/military/this-is-what-air-war-over-korea-would-look-like-15293363?src=rss

zimmerman website miami marlins marlins marlins facebook buys instagram kevin systrom fibonacci sequence

For prosecutors across the country, threat of violence 'comes with the job'

Kaufman County District Attorney's Office via AFP

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland.

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

The murder of two Texas prosecutors is a reminder that officers of courts across the nation continually face threats that can be terrifying but are rarely carried out.

"It comes with the job," said Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association. "We all know that our jobs entail exposing ourselves to threats and risks."

---

Burns, who was a prosecutor in Utah, said it would be hard to find a member of his group who has not at some point been threatened or menaced.

Yet before?Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse and DA Mike McLelland were gunned down two months apart, the NDAA had counted just 11 revenge slayings of local prosecutors since 1912.

The U.S. Marshals Service keeps tracks of threats against federal prosecutors and judges, and the number has hovered between 1,258 and 1,394 annually for the past five years after doubling between 2003 and 2008.

The National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys said when a threat is lodged, the Marshals Service decides on the response, which can range from a new alarm system for the prosecutor's home to a family escort to 24-hour guard outside the house.

The group's lobbyist, Bruce Moyer, has pushed for more secure parking facilities for federal prosecutors.

"These folks work incredible hours. During a trial it's not unusual for them to be at the office from 10:30 to 11 o'clock at night. Parking is not always in a secure location and they might have to walk several blocks in an urban area unescorted," Moyer said.

He said other federal prosecutors have pushed to be deputized, which would allow them to carry a loaded firearm, but many requests are rejected.

The Marshals Service would not discuss specific security measures but said in a statement that it takes "appropriate steps to provide additional protection when it is warranted."

Personal accounts of unnamed prosecutors who had been threatened were attached to testimony the association submitted to Congress in 2007. They included:

? A prosecutor working a case against a group called Soldiers of the Aryan Culture said the marshals "intercepted a letter which spelled out a directive to killed the 'tall, bald prosecutor who runs a lot, goes to the airport a lot, and drives a silver Honda.'" He already had a home security system after threats during a motorcycle-gang prosecution. Now a closed-circuit TV was placed on a light-pole outside his home and he was deputized.

? A prosecutor whose children were threatened by an inmate said that after the marshals decided he was no longer in danger, he still feared for their lives. "They are now never left alone in our home," he said. His children's bus routes were changed, and he began carrying a gun.

? A drug prosecutor said an inmate tried to hire a hitman and provided him "detailed information about my home, automobiles and family." He was deputized and trained to check his car for a possible bomb, "which I did each day for more than a year."

Kaufman County Sheriff's Department via Reuters

Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse.

? A prosecutor who said a defendant in a gun case shot at him and another defendant had set his horses and dogs loose on a public roadway. "It is often unavoidably dangerous to be an AUSA and the more time spends in the position, the more danger the position entails," he said.

When he was a county prosecutor, Burns said, there was a defendant who would follow and film him. He would get anonymous phone threats saying, "'You're a dead man.'"

"The worst was when I would show up at a restaurant and find out the cook was someone I had put in prison and I'd already eaten the meal," he said.

But Burns said he didn't dwell on the possibility that someone might strike out because there was little he could do to prevent it beyond responding to a specific threat.

"It's impossible to have any security detail or system in place that would protect prosecutors 24/7," he said. "And the truth is what's happened in Texas is very rare."

He noted that there are 40,000 city, state, county and district prosecutors in the country who handle 10 million felony-level cases a year. Many are threatened; very few are ever attacked.

"Divorce attorneys are more likely to get shot in the head than we are," he said.

The death of Hasse and McLelland will give his membership pause, and they may take the next poison-pen letter or anonymous call more seriously, he said. But in general, he said, they will view threats as an unpleasant part of a job they love.

"You live with it," he said.

Related: Texas community in shock over slaying of DA, wife

?

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a39d4ce/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C0A10C175566850Efor0Eprosecutors0Eacross0Ethe0Ecountry0Ethreat0Eof0Eviolence0Ecomes0Ewith0Ethe0Ejob0Dlite/story01.htm

imbibe msg network ray j anthony shadid gary carter this means war bobby brown

Jason Yang: Game of Thrones Violin Cover

The season 3 premier is upon us, people. There were a lot of quality contenders for this soundtrack slot. Mashups, covers and original tracks abound. Jason Yang's cover of the Game of Thrones theme by Ramin Djawadi is all-around solid, though, and also pretty epic. The track incorporates acoustic and electric violin, and was recorded before the start of season 2. Play this on loop when the premier is over and you're already starved for more. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/q7-H1Fv4WTE/jason-wang-game-of-thrones-violin-cover

cape breton bowling green marysville tornados dr. seuss the temptations rush limbaugh sandra fluke