Brazil's Silva beginning chemotherapy for tumor (AP)

SAO PAULO ? Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is beginning chemotherapy to treat a cancerous tumor in his larynx.

Silva's doctors say Monday he is also expected to undergo radiation therapy, likely in January.

The tumor was detected over the weekend. A statement from Sao Paulo's Sirio Libanes Hospital says it was caught in its early stages.

Roberto Kalil, one of Silva's doctors, says the chances of a full recovery are excellent and that the 66-year-old Silva is otherwise in good health.

Silva was first elected in 2002. He left office on Jan. 1 of this year with an approval rating of 87 percent.

Brazil underwent rapid economic growth during Silva's time in office. The nation's political power on the international stage also rose.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111031/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_former_president

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Shots near US embassy in Sarajevo

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina?? A man armed with hand grenades and an automatic weapon opened fire outside the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia Friday in what authorities called a terrorist attack. A policeman and the gunman were wounded, but the embassy said none of its employees was hurt.

Sarajevo Mayor Alija Behmen said the gunman "got off a tram with a Kalashnikov and started shooting at the American Embassy." Witnesses told Bosnian television that the man urged pedestrians to move away, saying he was targeting only the embassy.

He wore a beard and was dressed in an outfit with short pants that reveal his ankles ? typical for followers of the conservative Wahhabi branch of Islam.

One police officer guarding the building was wounded before police surrounded the gunman. After a 30-minute standoff, the sound of a single shot echoed and AP video showed the shooter slump to the ground.

Police arrested the wounded man ? who one of Bosnia's three presidents said is a foreigner ? and took him away in an ambulance as pedestrians cowered behind buildings and vehicles. Hospital spokeswoman Biljana Jandric told The Associated Press the gunman had a minor wound to his leg, and would spend the night at the hospital before being released into police custody.

State Prosecutor Dubravko Campara identified the shooter as Mevlid Jasarevic, from Novi Pazar, the administrative capital of the southern Serbian region of Sandzak, who was tried in Austria for robbery in 2005.

Campara said Jasarevic had crossed the Serbian border into Bosnia Friday morning. He said Jasarevic had two hand grenades with him when he was arrested and is also currently under investigation by Serbian police, but did not detail why.

Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic confirmed his identity and said he is 23 years old. Bosnian TV said Jasarevic is a Wahhabi follower.

The Wahhabis are an extremely conservative branch which is rooted in Saudi Arabia and linked to religious militants in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Western intelligence reports have alleged that the tense, impoverished area of Sandzak, along with Muslim-dominated regions in Bosnia, are rich ground for recruiting so-called "white al-Qaida" ? Muslims with Western features who could easily blend into European or U.S. cities and carry out attacks.

The Islamic extremists joined Bosnia's 1992-95 war for independence. They were largely tolerated by the U.S. and the West because of their opposition to late Serbia's strongman Slobodan Milosevic's quest to create "Greater Serbia" out of the former Yugoslav republics.

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In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said several bullets struck the outside wall of the embassy, but that all embassy personnel were safe. She said the wounded police officer had been assigned to protect the embassy. Ambassador Patrick Moon expressed his gratitude for the swift response by the police.

"Our thoughts and prayers at this time are with those who put their lives on the line to protect the embassy," Nuland told reporters.

Bakir Izetbegovic, one of Bosnia's three presidents, issued a statement condemning "the terrorist attack on the embassy of the United States."

"The United States is a proven friend of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its government and its people supported us in the most difficult moments in our history and nobody has the right to jeopardize our relations," he said.

Zeljko Komsic, chairman of Bosnia's presidency, said told AP that authorities have not yet determined whether the attack "was the act of an individual, or something organized."

"But whatever it was, it is not just an attack on the U.S. Embassy or the U.S., it is also an attack on Bosnia and Herzegovina," he said.

Bosnian Muslims are extremely protective of their relations with the U.S. because it was the driving force behind NATO military intervention and brokered a peace agreement that ended Bosnia's war.

The head of Bosnia's Islamic Community, Mustafa Ceric, condemned the attack late Friday, and said "the attack on the U.S. Embassy is an attack on us."

"We will confront every individual or group that jeopardizes the peace and security in this city and this country," he said in a statement.

Serbian police said Jasarevic was briefly arrested a year ago for brandishing "a large knife" during a visit by the U.S. Ambassador to Serbia and other Western envoys to Novi Pazar.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45077217/ns/world_news-europe/

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Belleruth Naparstek: The Science Behind Guided Imagery (Huffington post)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/155401587?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Yeast model connects Alzheimer's disease risk and amyloid beta toxicity

Thursday, October 27, 2011
Using yeast cells, a team of Whitehead scientists in the lab of Whitehead Member Susan Lindquist investigated the harmful effects of amyloid beta (A?), a peptide whose accumulation in amyloid plaques is a hallmark of AD. Work by the lab indicates that A? disrupts normal cellular trafficking, with clathrin-mediated endocytosis being specifically vulnerable. Under normal conditions, the membrane bound receptor Ste3 (green) is subject to clathrin-mediated endocytosis and is trafficked to the cell?s vacuole (left). In A? expressing yeast cells, Ste3 is not localized to the vacuole, but is dispersed in foci throughout the cell, indicating that endocytic trafficking is perturbed (center). Expression of the yeast homolog of PICALM, one of the most highly validated human AD risk factors, restores normal trafficking in A?-expressing yeast, and Ste3 is again localized in the vacuole (right). Credit: Courtesy of Science/AAAS

In a development that sheds new light on the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a team of Whitehead Institute scientists has identified connections between genetic risk factors for the disease and the effects of a peptide toxic to nerve cells in the brains of AD patients.

The scientists, working in and in collaboration with the lab of Whitehead Member Susan Lindquist, established these previously unknown links in an unexpected way. They used a very simple cell type?yeast cells?to investigate the harmful effects of amyloid beta (A?), a peptide whose accumulation in amyloid plaques is a hallmark of AD. This new yeast model of A? toxicity, which they further validated in the worm C. elegans and in rat neurons, enables researchers to identify and test potential genetic modifiers of this toxicity.

"As we tackle other diseases and extend our lifetimes, Alzheimer's and related diseases will be the most devastating personal challenge for our families and one the most crushing burdens on our economy," says Lindquist, who is also a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "We have to try new approaches and find out-of the-box solutions."

In a multi-step process, the researchers were able to introduce the form of A? most closely associated with AD into yeast in a manner that mimics its presence in human cells. The resulting toxicity in yeast reflects aspects of the mechanism by which this protein damages neurons. This became clear when a screen of the yeast genome for genes that affect A? toxicity identified a dozen genes that have clear human homologs, including several that have previously been linked to AD risk by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) but with no known mechanistic connection.

With these genetic candidates in hand, the team set out to answer two key questions: Would the genes identified in yeast actually affect A? toxicity in neurons? And if so, how?

To address the first issue, in a collaboration with Guy Caldwell's lab at the University of Alabama, researchers created lines of C. elegans worms expressing the toxic form of A? specifically in a subset of neurons particularly vulnerable in AD. This resulted in an age-dependent loss of these neurons. Introducing the genes identified in the yeast that suppressed A? toxicity into the worms counteracted this toxicity. One of these modifiers is the homolog of PICALM, one of the most highly validated human AD risk factors. To address whether PICALM could also suppress A? toxicity in mammalian neurons, the group exposed cultured rat neurons to toxic A? species. Expressing PICALM in these neurons increased their survival.

The question of how these AD risk genes were actually impacting A? toxicity in neurons remained. The researchers had noted that many of the genes were associated with a key cellular protein-trafficking process known as endocytosis. This is the pathway that nerve cells use to move around the vital signaling molecules with which they connect circuits in the brain. They theorized that perhaps A? was doing its damage by disrupting this process. Returning to yeast, they discovered that, in fact, the trafficking of signaling molecules in yeast was adversely affected by A?. Here again, introducing genes identified as suppressors of A? toxicity helped restore proper functioning.

Much remains to be learned, but the work provides a new and promising avenue to explore the mechanisms of genes identified in studies of disease susceptibility.

"We now have the sequencing power to detect all these important disease risk alleles, but that doesn't tell us what they're actually doing, how they lead to disease," says Sebastian Treusch, a former graduate student in the Lindquist lab and now a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University.

Jessica Goodman, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lindquist lab, says the yeast model provides a link between genetic data and efforts to understand AD from the biochemical and neurological perspectives.

"Our yeast model bridges the gap between these two fields," Goodman adds. "It enables us to figure out the mechanisms of these risk factors which were previously unknown."

Members of the Lindquist lab intend to fully exploit the yeast model, using it to identify novel AD risk genes, perhaps in a first step to determining if identified genes have mutations in AD patient samples. The work will undoubtedly take the lab into uncharted territory.

###

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research: http://www.wi.mit.edu/index.html

Thanks to Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114701/Yeast_model_connects_Alzheimer_s_disease_risk_and_amyloid_beta_toxicity

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Republican proposes reshaping mortgage market (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? A top Republican in the House of Representatives on Thursday proposed legislation to retool the mortgage market and pave the way for a larger private sector role in the housing finance system.

The legislation, sponsored by Representative Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, aims to create clear underwriting standards and establish new market rules for the buying, selling, and securitization of mortgage loans as groundwork for an eventual winding down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"We have not had a degree of certainty in this market place for some period of time prior to the collapse of 2008, but it is even more exacerbated by what happened after the collapse," said Garrett, who heads the House subcommittee that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the Federal Housing Administration, finance almost 90 percent of U.S. home loans.

Fannie and Freddie, government-sponsored enterprises that were seized by the government at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 as losses on subprime mortgage debt ballooned, have received about $141 billion in taxpayer aid.

The bill would expand the mandate of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates the two firms, to make it responsible for the quality of underwriting for mortgage-backed securities and for increasing pricing transparency in the secondary mortgage market.

FHFA would set standards for the issuance of all housing debt, including private-label mortgage-backed securities and not just Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's securities.

The plan envisions FHFA would be able to establish different classes of mortgages in order to create a highly liquid market that appeals to private investors.

Garrett has led a House Republican effort to chip away at the role Fannie and Freddie play in the secondary mortgage market, which has already led to the introduction of 15 separate bills.

"So long as the GSEs exist in their present configuration, the bailouts continue," Garrett said, referring to his goal to end taxpayer support to keep the two firms afloat.

The two firms, which were taken over by the government at

FHFA said on Thursday that the two firms could cost taxpayers another $121 billion to $193 billion through 2014.

Both Democrats and Republicans agree that the U.S. system of mortgage finance, the epicenter of the financial crisis, needs to be overhauled.

Republicans aim to remove most government involvement in the mortgage market, while many Democrats favor some kind of continued government support of homeownership.

(Reporting by Margaret Chadbourn; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111027/pl_nm/us_usa_housing_gse_bill

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Google TV, Take 2: Android Apps Join the Smart TV Party

Google’s smart TV software platform, Google TV, is poised for its first significant overall since it launched in Logitech and Sony hardware a year ago. Via over-the-air updates that should begin streaming to hardware devices on October 30, Google TV users will find new TV-optimized Android Apps, an improved YouTube experience, and new features that [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/WG1QFX0Tb5A/

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Elisabeth R?hm: Going Green ? How Do We Do It?

In her latest blog, R?hm - mom to 3?-year-old Easton August with fianc? Ron Anthony - wants to know how you make "going green" work for yourselves as busy moms and for your children's health.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/CM7wWJmzJdI/

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We'll have to wait for Game 6

MLB announced that tonight?s scheduled Game 6 of the World Series has been postponed because of expected rain in St. Louis.

Cardinals and Rangers officials learned of the early postponement during an afternoon conference call with MLB. Light rain has been falling throughout the day in St. Louis and various weather reports peg the chances of rain tonight at 75-90 percent. Rather than attempt to play through the bad weather and perhaps get stuck having to delay the game after several innings they?ll push Game 6 to Thursday night and schedule a potential Game 7 for Friday night.

That gives both managers an opportunity to adjust their rotations, but Ron Washington has said repeatedly that he?ll stick with Colby Lewis in Game 6 and Matt Harrison in Game 7. Derek Holland, who shut out the Cardinals for 8.1 innings in Game 4, could be available in relief of Harrison.

Tony La Russa hasn?t said for certain what he?ll do following the postponement, but there?s been speculation that he could bump scheduled Game 7 starter Kyle Lohse from the rotation and use Chris Carpenter on three days? rest. Jaime Garcia will start Game 6 for the Cardinals.

And according to the National Weather Service no rain is expected Thursday or Friday.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/26/mlb-postpones-game-6-until-thursday-due-to-expected-rain/related

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Libya's Awash in Qaddafi's Golden Guns and Other Weapons (The Atlantic Wire)

As more Libyan rebels are flaunting Qaddafi's golden handguns, we can't help but wonder what they're doing with the warehouses full of surface-to-air missiles.?It's been a couple of months since the rebels stormed Tripoli, but we're hearing more and more stories about what they found when they stormed the military bases. Some of the stories?are entertaining. Others are unnerving.

Related: How Qaddafi's Son Lost 1,000 Olympics Tickets in 24 Hours

An Atlantic Wire reader?just sent us the above photo of what appears to be a gold-plated Beretta 92 that was allegedly taken from Qaddafi's main military base in Tripoli. The reader, a Lebanese national who works in development consulting, says he was hanging around in Martyr Square on September 21, three days after the fall of Tripoli, when he struck up a conversation with some Libyan rebels from Jado who were some of the first to arrive in the capital.

Related: Locals Say NATO Bombed a Hospital in Libya

"I was just chatting to the guy who was in charge because I was impressed with how they installed the anti-aircraft gun on the pick-up truck," said The Atlantic Wire reader, who asked not to be named. "And he called over a younger rebel and told him to show me the gun."

Related: Libyan Rebels Have Captured Qaddafi's Compound

The black handle and blinding gold shine matches a previously taken photograph of a rebel soldier holding up a gun that he said once belonged to Qaddafi. We've learned over the past month or so that?Qaddafi had a bit of a love affair with golden guns--as well as pretty much anything made of gold. Qaddafi loved golden guns so much that he was carrying one when a rebel fighter who found him hiding in a drainage ditch on the day that he was captured and killed. That gun as well as this latest discovery both featured coins embedded in the handle and messages inscribed on the barrel.

Related: Qaddafi's Son to Turn Himself In

"I think it's an antique coin, maybe an old Iraqi coin because it's presumably a present from Iraq," the reader said in an email. "The rubbed off bit is the inscription. It said something like "to my dear friend, from Tariq Aziz", but I'm not sure." (Aziz is the former foreign minister of Iraq and close advisor to Saddam Hussein who was convicted of war crimes last year.)?"He just shoved it in my hand and boasted about how he found it in Bab al-Aziziyah."We joked about how war criminals like to give each other guns."

Related: Not Sticking to Script, Qaddafi Loyalists Fight On

War criminals also liked to give each other some pretty dangerous, heavy weaponry that's still unaccounted for and reportedly very cheap. Con Coughlin at The Telegraph reports this week:

As a result of Gaddafi's arms profligacy, liberated Libya is now awash with weapons, with rival groups of heavily-armed militiamen positioned at the major intersections of Libya's principal towns and cities. The ready availability of guns has meant that the street price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle has fallen from $2,000 before the conflict to around $800. ?

But the real concern is not light weaponry such as assault rifles, but what has become of the vast stockpiles of more sophisticated weaponry, such as long-range rockets and surface-to-air missiles, which the Gaddafi regime is known to have acquired, but which have somehow vanished into the sands of the Libyan desert during the confusion of war.

With the civil war in Libya now officially over, everyone agrees that the top priority is finding and securing those missing weapons. On her recent unannounced trip to Libya demanded the destruction of Qaddafi's weapon stores--that is, as soon as we can find them. Perhaps, the onus will fall on development workers like the one holding the weapon above, and NATO forces for seeing the job through.

Meanwhile, the golden guns that are already accounted for would make for a popular, if somewhat tasteless tourist attraction. (There's a similar one in Mexico that features the baroquely designed golden weapons of drug lords.) After all, anything is better than the dead dictator's body on display in a meat locker.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20111025/wl_atlantic/libyasawashqaddafisgoldengunsandotherweapons44059

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Biden His Time (TIME)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/152554554?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Doug Molitor: 12 GOP Reactions to Hearing Gaddafi's Dead (Doug's Dozen VIDEO)

Well, that's how Reuters spelled it. Or it could be one Gadafi (the Guardian), Quaddafi (CBS), Qaddafi (WaPo, NY Times), Qadafi (Malaysian Sun), Gadhafi (CNN, Wall Street Journal), Kadafi (LA Times), or Kadhafi (Agence France Presse).

We'll never get it out of him now.

But to me, he'll always be the smiling prick who blew up our airliner.

But I probably should have used the French spelling, since Marco Rubio (R, FL) credits the French with the successful campaign to remove the King of Conflicting Consonants from power in Libya before he could remove any more Libyans.

In fact, so do all the other Republicans. I haven't heard so much love from them for the French since the Republicans renamed French fries because they hated the French.

But that was three wars ago, back when those foolish French didn't believe there were WMDs in Iraq. Republicans have long since forgiven them for being so publicly right.

The important thing is, not to give anyone the impression that President Obama might have been right about using all those expensive missiles to take out Libya's air defenses and major armor, then letting the Libyans settle their dictator's hash without a single American casualty.

Which should make for some pretty amazing backflips from such an out-of-shape crowd of presidential contenders, when asked to comment on Gaddafi's passing.

I have distilled a Dozen examples of what they're trying to tell us.

But if you really want a laugh, you'll have to wait for the GOP debate on foreign policy.

See more Doug's Dozen lists at www.dougsdozen.com.

And watch Doug's Dozen videos on FunnyOrDie.

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-molitor/12-gop-reactions-to-heari_b_1023911.html

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James Murdoch to testify again to UK committee (AP)

LONDON ? British lawmakers said Monday they will grill Rupert Murdoch's son James about newspaper phone hacking for a second time next month, as Murdoch's former right-hand man denied that he knew about the scale of the wrongdoing when he paid almost 250,000 pounds ($400,000) to a reporter convicted of illegal eavesdropping.

The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee said James Murdoch, his father's heir-apparent, will give evidence on Nov. 10.

Rupert Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old British tabloid News of the World in July after it was accused of illegally hacking into the voice mails of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims in search of scoops.

Both Murdochs denied knowing about the scale of the wrongdoing when they appeared before the panel of lawmakers the same month.

Former News. Corp. employees have since cast doubt on the Murdochs' testimony. Ex-company lawyer Jonathan Chapman rejected the notion that the two had been kept in the dark by subordinates, saying their statements had contained "serious inaccuracies."

Other senior executives have backed the Murdochs' claim that they did not know News of the World reporters regularly hacked phones and paid police officers for information.

Some News Corp. critics ? and shareholders ? have called for James Murdoch to resign from his post as CEO of his father's international division over the scandal.

Les Hinton, former publisher of the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal and one of Rupert Murdoch's closest allies, said he considered that unlikely.

"I see no reason why James Murdoch should resign," he told the panel of lawmakers Monday.

Hinton worked for Murdoch for 52 years until the scandal, which has convulsed Britain's media landscape. In July he resigned as publisher of the Journal and CEO of Dow Jones & Co. ? the most senior Murdoch executive claimed by the furor.

Hinton said Monday he had resigned because "although unaware, I was in charge of this company at the time of the core wrongdoing."

The former publisher said he had had no idea hacking was rife when he personally approved a quarter of a million pound payment to Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter jailed in 2007 for eavesdropping on the mobile phone voice mails of royal aides.

Hinton, who was then executive chairman of Murdoch's British newspaper division, acknowledged he had seen a letter from Goodman to the company's human resources department in which the reporter alleged phone hacking was widespread at the paper and common knowledge among editors.

Hinton, 67, said he had launched a "pretty thorough" internal investigation into Goodman's claim, but said "there was no basis found for it."

He said he fired Goodman for gross misconduct, but decided to pay him the substantial sum, almost three times the reporter's annual salary, to end an unfair dismissal claim by Goodman.

"I decided at the time that the right thing to do was to settle this and put it behind us," Hinton said, giving evidence by video link from the United States.

The phone hacking scandal has forced the resignation of two of London's top police officers and claimed the job of Prime Minister David Cameron's former spin doctor, Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor. More than a dozen people have been arrested in the last year, including Coulson, though none has yet been charged.

Murdoch's global News Corp. has expressed contrition, launched an internal inquiry and set aside 20 million pounds ($32 million) to compensate victims, who could number in the hundreds. Dozens of alleged hacking victims, from lawmakers and sports figures to Hollywood star Jude Law, are suing the company.

In previous appearances before the committee in 2007 and 2009, Hinton said he had seen no evidence that phone hacking went beyond a single rogue reporter, Goodman.

On Monday he denied he had misled the committee, but said "the full picture" of what had happened was still emerging.

"I think it's clear ... that some of the answers you were given were not accurate," Hinton said. "Whether 'untruthful' is the right word, I don't know."

Hinton claimed he was hazy on details of what happened several years ago, answering "I don't remember" or "I am foggy on this detail," to several questions ? to the exasperation of some members of the committee.

Labour lawmaker Paul Farrelly asked whether Hinton thought he had been "kept in the dark" by those beneath him.

"I can't answer that question," Hinton said, "as I don't know what happened."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_phone_hacking

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Three Reasons Rick Perry Is Still Down in the Polls (ContributorNetwork)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a candidate for president of the United States, should by now be the front runner, perhaps even over Mitt Romney, the former Mass governor. Indeed, for a time, Perry was the front runner.

The fall of Perry in the polls since his surge just after his announcement for president has been ascribed to a series of poor debate performances. However there are two major issues that have irked conservative voters concerning Perry. In addition Perry's campaign has been snake bit by a press report that interjected the ugly issue of race into his campaign and character.

What is the Texas Dream Act?

The Texas Dream Act is a law signed by Gov. Perry in 2001 that allowed certain children of illegal aliens to attempt Texas institutions of higher education at in-state tuition rates. A student has to have lived in Texas for a certain number of years, has to have attended and graduated from a Texas high school or gotten a GED, and has to have applied to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for legal status. The act passed by overwhelming margins and was considered non controversial at the time.

However, since 2001, illegal immigration has become a burning issue in American politics, particularly for conservative voters. The Texas Dream Act is seen by many as a magnet for illegal aliens, who might use it to take their children to the United States in order to get a better education. Perry did not help matters when he suggested that those who did not support the act lacked a heart.

What was the HPV Vaccination Program?

In February, 2007, Perry issued an executive order requiring that Texas girls receive the HPV vaccination which protects against the human papilloma virus, thought to lead to cervical cancer. Perry was criticized for, in effect, using government power to override parental authority, since the girls being vaccinated were still minors. That the girls were still minors and were getting protection from a sexually transmitted disease was another flash point among conservative Texans. There was also the matter of an alleged relationship between Perry and Merck, the manufacturer of the drug. The Texas Legislature passed a law undoing the order.

What was N Word Rock?

A hunting camp used by Perry and his family was called by a name that no one in polite society uses again. It was marked by a rock by the gate to the hunting area. Perry claimed that his father had the name on the rock painted over as soon as possible. There are those who dispute that story, suggesting at least racial insensitivity on the part of Perry. Herman Cain, the Godfather's Pizza CEO and rival for the president of Perry's, made that suggestion.

Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network .

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111021/pl_ac/10258565_three_reasons_rick_perry_is_still_down_in_the_polls

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Supernatural ?Shut Up Dr. Phil? Episode Review

Supernatural?s new episode entitled ?Shut Up Dr. Phil? welcomed Buffy The Vampire Slayer?s former cast members, James Marster and Charisma Carpenter. Get the full review on the duo’s guest appearance below. A woman scorned, Charisma Carpenter?s guest appearance in this week?s episode of Supernatural was far from disappointing! After reading the synopsis for the episode days before, it looked like Carpenter was the only witch in town, angry over her cheating husband, until Marster uses his own power and hexes. Although I could have gone without the cheesy bee scenario, trying to keep in mind that it was possible given the storyline, watching Sam and Dean attempt to council the married couple was cool. With flower beds turning brown, beating hearts in cupcakes and the nail gun scene, the special effects where awesome. Stepping back a bit – the workout scene with Sam was also funny, while Dean puts back a few hardcore drinks. The only problem is how the conflict between the Winchesters changed so fast. Instead of Sam having issues, Dean’s now the one who is brooding, sad and angry. I have to admit though, it was nice to be done with all of that crazy Sam seeing, [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/kK-l_EJ-ldM/

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Even with all the advances we have viewed in pcs, software package applications, even more and far better news and swifter value delivery, these changes have made no distinction the variety of winners, so there is no way to defeat the marketplace the secret of trading achievements is dependent on ?anything else? which we will seem at now.

There is no way to defeat the marketplace and currently, the most effective Currency trading investing methods are basic a lot of traders assume they stand far more prospect of winning with a complex program but they never make money a complicated buying and selling technique has to a lot of components to break and losses. Any one can build a strategy which can make dollars and now, we will come to the genuine solution of Foreign exchange buying and selling results and that?s mindset. If you want to win the top secret is to adopt the appropriate mindset for success ? so what is it?

Forex Buying and selling Robots ? The Concealed Insider secrets Of Specialist Advisors

The result of Forex trading investing robots has on the general sector is expanding by the day. Their capacity to assistance traders in their investing actions is looked at as quite useful. Currency trading robots are also well-known as Pro Advisors or EA, and they contribute to the $3 trillion industry turnover that takes place each day in the Currency trading market place. An excellent case in point of a clearly highly regarded EA is the Fx Megadroid Robot.

As an expert advisor, trading robots can support a trader in his choices on what trades to enter and his exit factors. To do this, a robot will evaluate the market place developments and generate buying and selling signals that have a large prospect of profitability.

Foreign exchange Buying and selling Tricks ? The Top secret of Accomplishment Can Be Identified by Learning One particular Simple Point!

You need to have to be in a position to trade your process with discipline and that signifies holding losses compact and obtaining the courage to run your profits and most traders merely cannot do this. They refuse to acknowledge their wrong and operate losses and take their income to quickly due to lack of self-belief and this leads to their demise.

Any person can understand Fx buying and selling and anyone can win, as we have looked at you only desire a simple strategy but obtaining a disciplined mindset, is more difficult and is genuinely what separates winners from losers but the beneficial news is it can be finished. So rather than glimpse for the secret of achievements from someone else, look and feel within just and you will discover the important to unlocking massive revenue.

Georgette Adanas has been writing articles or reviews on forex trading broker since 2004.

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Source: http://webmasterarticles.net/forex-trading-investing-strategies-unveiled/

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Global Business Leaders Urge "Effective" Climate Deal in Durban

Global Business Leaders Urge "Effective" Climate Deal in Durban

LONDON, UK, October 20, 2011 (ENS) - Some of the world's largest corporations today issued an "urgent call to action" to governments to approve a "robust, equitable and effective agreement" on climate change at the annual UN climate summit set for Durban, South Africa from November 28 to December 9.

A statement endorsed by over 200 companies from the energy, finance, retail, and manufacturing sectors calls for "a carbon price sufficient to drive necessary emissions reductions" and "an end to fossil fuel subsidies."

Corporations from 29 countries called on governments to "break the deadlock" that has stalled climate negotiations for years - as rich countries and developing countries battle over such issues as whether to continue the Kyoto Protocol past expiration of its first commitment period at the end of 2012, and billions in funding to help poor countries cope with climate change.

Shell, Unilever, Tesco, Johnson and Johnson, Ricoh, Cemex, Proctor & Gamble, Nedbank, the Lloyd's Banking Group and Vale are among the companies endorsing the "2?C Challenge Communique," released today by the newly formed Corporate Leaders' Network for Climate Action.

The 2?C stands for two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the global average temperature increase above pre-industrial levels that most scientists say would avert the worst consequences of climate change.

Scientists from around the world said in 2007 that the global surface temperature had increased by 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees F) since the Industrial Revolution began in 1750.

Truett Tate, vice chairman, Lloyds Banking Group, said, "Climate change is one of the most important environmental issues of our time. Effecting change will require a concerted effort between businesses, governments as well as individuals. Lloyds Banking Group remains firmly committed to the important role it can play in this area, from financing renewable energy to helping our customers transition to a low carbon economy."

The corporations say their goal in releasing the communique is to influence governments ahead of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC.

"Time is running out to keep global warming under 2?C and, if they fail to act, governments "risk permanent damage to their credibility," the corporate leaders warn.

"The window to stabilise global warming to less than 2?C, as agreed in Cancun, has almost closed," they state. "The International Energy Agency has shown that CO2 emissions in 2010 were the highest on record, and are still rising. While there are examples of strong policies and actions to prevent dangerous climate change, with current progress we will cross the 2?C boundary."

Without a global deal "business will have insufficient clarity or certainty of action to invest to its full potential," the statement warns.

But right action would "secure a low carbon-emission economy that is more resilient, more efficient and less vulnerable to global shock," they assert.

The UN's top climate official, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, said, "The companies endorsing the 2?C Challenge Communique set a great example."

She said, "Corporate leadership that provides powerful vocal support for action gives governments the greater confidence they need to move forward a global climate change agreement that will ultimately cover the current ambition gap."

At Durban, the corporations are calling on governments to put in place an international agreement that provides:

• a reformed Clean Development Mechanism that provides effective finance flows while protecting environmental outcomes. The CDM allows projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction credits, each equivalent to one metric tonne of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The credits can be traded, sold, and used by industrialized countries to a meet their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.


• Technology Transfer and Adaptation committees


• an "operationalised" Green Climate Fund

Last year, negotiators from 194 nations agreed to create the Green Climate Fund to channel up to US$100 billion a year by 2020 to developing countries.

But negotiations over the mechanics of the Green Climate Fund broke down this week at a meeting of the Transitional Committee in Cape Town, South Africa. On Tuesday, the United States and Saudi Arabia withdrew their support for the overall design of the fund that is backed by all other countries.

Regardless of this and other setbacks, the corporate leaders today urged governments to take "immediate action at the national level," to curb climate change without waiting for a new international treaty to be in place.

Among the actions that companies are asking all national goverments to adopt are:

• A carbon price sufficient to drive necessary emissions reductions


• Effective adaptation programs


• Increased funding for innovation, investment and low-carbon development


• Help for businesses and consumers to cut emissions by using energy more efficiently


• Targeted regulation and procurement, together with new thinking on intellectual property rights to encourage low-carbon innovation


• Action to conserve and increase forests and other land-based carbon sinks


• International agreement to establish and maintain strong institutions including a reformed Clean Development Mechanism and a Green Climate Fund that is operational


• An end to fossil fuel subsidies

The Corporate Leaders' Network for Climate Action includes groups from Brazil, Chile, the European Union, Hong Kong, Mexico, Asia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and the United States.

The communique is the fifth in a series of statements initiated by The Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders' Group on Climate Change and managed and developed by the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership.

Eliot Whittington, director of The Prince of Wales's UK Corporate Leaders' Group on Climate Change, said, "The expansion of the network to include business groups from other countries shows that, far from losing interest in climate change as an issue, there is an emerging and increasingly international consensus amongst enlightened corporate leaders of the need for urgent action."

"We will be taking signatures up to June next year and look forward to being joined by other businesses," said Whittington.

In spite of the unfavorable economic outlook and the lack of recent progress at the multilateral level, the statement urges governments not to "let short-term concerns, however important, drive climate change off the agenda."

"As business leaders, we believe that the only sustainable future for our companies and for the globe is to build a robust, green, climate-resilient economy."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2011. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2011/2011-10-20-02.html

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Sen. Rubio denies claims he embellished history (AP)

MIAMI ? Florida's freshman U.S. senator and rising GOP star Marco Rubio is fighting back against allegations he embellished his family's history in saying his parents fled Cuba after Fidel Castro's communist revolution.

Rubio's Senate website says his parents came to America following Castro's 1959 takeover, and he has always publicly identified with the exile community and called himself a son of exiles in campaign commercials. In turn he has maintained a strong and loyal political following within its Miami hub.

But reports Thursday by the St. Petersburg Times and The Washington Post revealed his parents emigrated to the U.S. in 1956, when Cuban dictator Fulgencia Batista was still in power and Fidel Castro had just been released from prison and exiled in Mexico.

Rubio's father was a security guard at a small store when he and his wife left, according to Rubio's staff, and came for economic reasons. Rubio, 40, was born in 1971 in the United States.

Rubio responded to the report with a statement saying his parents had tried to return to Cuba in March of 1961 in hopes that things were improving on the island post-revolution but quickly left because they did not want to live under communism.

"My parents are from Cuba. After arriving in the United States, they had always hoped to one day return to Cuba if things improved and traveled there several times," he wrote. "In 1961, my mother and older siblings did in fact return to Cuba while my father stayed behind wrapping up the family's matters in the U.S. After just a few weeks living there, she fully realized the true nature of the direction Castro was taking Cuba and returned to the United States one month later, never to return."

Rubio's staff said they expected to update his Senate website to reflect the date his parents came to the United States.

The family's effort to return came at a tumultuous time as the U.S. confrontation with Castro's Communists heated up and more than a thousand Cuban exiles from Miami were preparing for their doomed April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion meant to topple Castro's fledgling government.

As early as January of 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy warned in his State of the Union: "Communist agents seeking to exploit that region's peaceful revolution of hope have established a base on Cuba, only 90 miles from our shores."

"You got to remember over 80 percent of Cubans back then supported the revolution, not Fidel but the revolution. We had another dictatorship, Batista. So everyone thought the revolution was going to bring social change," said Professor Andy Gomez, a senior fellow University of Miami's Institute for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies.

The head of the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, Pepe Hernandez, himself an exile and longtime opponent of Castro, said the initial departure date was not important.

"There were a number of people who came here during the Batista regime because they were against Batista somehow," he said. "Then they returned to Cuba when Castro came in because they thought now things were going to change, and then after some time they realized this was not going to happen, he said.

"Maybe their case is not exactly the same. They really came here as immigrants, but the second time the reason was that they couldn't live in Cuba under those circumstances. I don't see any difference between his parents and myself and everyone else who came here."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111021/ap_on_re_us/us_rubio_family

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GOP speed daters ready to go steady with Romney? (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Michele Bachmann's moment came and went. Chris Christie was a no-show. Rick Perry faded. Now folks are waiting for the Herman Cain boomlet to go bust. Could it be that Republican voters are done speed-dating and ready to go steady with Mitt Romney?

Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and other what-about-me candidates are hoping that the meh-about-Mitt crowd may still be ready to check out someone else.

It's been that kind of year, after all, with first one candidate and then another capturing the party's attention ? for a time.

Remember when Bachmann surged to victory in the Iowa straw poll? When Christie's big tease that he might join the race captivated the party? When Perry still pulsed with Texas swagger?

Why not check out me next? the long-shot candidates reason.

After all, Santorum has been looking tough lately, Gingrich has turned in some thoughtful debate performances, Ron Paul's got a new ad blitz, and Jon Huntsman's pushing hard in New Hampshire.

And Romney, even with a big bump in his favorability ratings of late, still hasn't been able to generate much enthusiasm among GOP voters.

Republican strategist Mark McKinnon thinks GOP voters will "keep on looking right up until prom night."

"They like shopping around and the alternatives to Romney in theory, but when it gets to be more than just about lunch, the voters so far have been disappointed and let down," McKinnon says.

The idea that Republicans may still be willing to look around is what motivates Santorum, Huntsman and other candidates who are polling in the single digits to head out the door each morning to yet another town hall, Rotary club or fundraiser. They're vigorously challenging the top-tier candidates, sniping at President Barack Obama and keeping the debate stages crowded.

"I don't need a poll to tell us that we're moving up," Huntsman enthuses in New Hampshire.

Gingrich, who's kept his focus trained on what he considers Obama's shortcomings, has a new ad offering himself as "the right candidate at just the right time."

Paul is plowing $2 million into early primary state ads that dismiss his GOP rivals as big spenders beholden to Wall Street.

Santorum, whose tough talk has made him stand out in recent debates, is questioning Cain's credentials as a true conservative. And Perry, hoping to regain his stride, has been particularly aggressive in going after Romney in recent debates.

But Cain, whose popularity surged in recent weeks, isn't ready to cede the spotlight ? even if he's been widely dismissed as just the latest "flavor of the month."

Cain's comeback: "Haagen-Dazs black walnut tastes good all the time."

Huntsman, a former Utah governor, and Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, are the only two GOP candidates who remain unknown to large numbers of Republicans, and that means they've got the widest opening to change opinions.

So it's sort of good news that 53 percent of Republicans don't have an opinion about Huntsman, and 48 percent don't have an opinion about Santorum.

Just about everybody's already got an opinion about Gingrich, by contrast. But the former House speaker has made some headway recently in shifting people from the negative to positive column.

Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, a veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, thinks Cain is destined to fade. The former pizza executive and his 9-9-9 tax plan have been coming under tough scrutiny since voters sent his stock rising.

But Shrum throws cold water on the idea that any of the GOP also-rans will be the next big thing, supplanting Cain.

"There are very limited outcomes here," Shrum says. "If Perry gets a bounce in the next week or two, then he's alive again and he could become a real alternative.

"In the absence of that," says Shrum, "Romney has to be the nominee ? unless the party completely loses its mind."

___

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott and Deputy Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

___

Nancy Benac can be reached at http://twitter.com/nbenac.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111021/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_speed_dating

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4th arrest in Philly basement case; 10 youths held

PHILADELPHIA?? Authorities say a fourth person has been charged in a case in which four mentally disabled people were found locked up in a Philadelphia basement, allegedly so their captors could cash their Social Security checks.

Thirty-two-year-old Jean McIntosh was arrested Wednesday. Prosecutors say she is the daughter of the scheme's alleged ringleader, 51-year-old Linda Weston. Philadelphia police said detectives had been interviewing her about the case and put her under arrest around 3:45 a.m.

Two other men are also charged in the case.

News of the fourth arrest came after authorities in at least two states acknowledged that they missed opportunities to help the four captives.

Linda Weston, the woman charged with orchestrating the scheme, is a convicted murderer, authorities said Tuesday. She was legally disqualified from cashing the victims' government disability checks because of her criminal past. But she apparently did anyway, enabled in part by a lack of accountability and follow-through by government agencies and police in Philadelphia and West Palm Beach, Fla.

Weston, 51, was charged Monday with kidnapping, false imprisonment and other offenses after her landlord stumbled on the four adults, all weak and malnourished, in a dank, foul-smelling boiler room over the weekend. Her bail was set at $2.5 million.

Also charged were Gregory Thomas, 47, whom Weston described as her boyfriend, and Eddie "the Rev. Ed" Wright, 50.

The three remained jailed Tuesday and couldn't be reached for comment. A lawyer for Weston didn't return telephone calls seeking comment.

Also Tuesday, Philadelphia police ? acting on a tip from Florida authorities ? searched for and took into protective custody six juveniles and four young adults believed to be related to the suspects and possibly the victims.

Signs of abuse
Police spokesman Lt. Raymond Evers said the 2- to 16-year-old children and 18- to 19-year-old young adults were being medically evaluated.

The 19-year-old, identified as a niece of Weston, was found malnourished and with signs of abuse, Evers said.

The case began Saturday morning when landlord Turgut Gozleveli discovered the victims after he heard dogs barking.

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The door to the basement room was chained shut, but Gozleveli got inside and lifted a pile of blankets to find several sets of eyes staring back at him. One man was chained to the boiler.

Police identified the victims as Derwin McLemire, 41, of North Carolina; Herbert Knowles, 40 of Virginia; and Tamara Breeden, 29, and Edwin Sanabria, 31, both of Philadelphia.

Detectives also found dozens of identification cards, power-of-attorney forms and other documents.

Video: 10 kids, teens held in Philly ?dungeon? case (on this page)

Philadelphia police formed a task force to investigate the case as authorities try to find as many as 50 more possible fraud victims, Officer Jillian Russell said.

Knowles was reported missing in Norfolk in December 2008. According to an investigatory report by Norfolk police, Knowles' mental health case worker reported him missing when she couldn't reach him and family members failed to hear from him.

No follow-up
The case worker, who did not return a call from The Associated Press, reported that Knowles' Social Security checks were going to a Philadelphia address. The report said Philadelphia police went by the address and were told no one there had ever heard of Knowles.

A Philadelphia police report shows that officers knocked on the door on Dec. 5, 2008, and the woman who answered said that no one by the name of Herbert Knowles lived there, said Russell, the department spokeswoman. The report showed no sign of a follow-up or any indication that the responding officers had any reason to disbelieve the woman who answered the door, Russell said.

Knowles was found last weekend in the basement of a different house, chained to the boiler.

Video: Cops: Trio held disabled adults captive (on this page)

Norfolk police spokesman Chris Amos said authorities did not continue looking for Knowles because, as an adult, he was under no obligation to report to the case worker.

"It's not illegal to be missing," Amos said. "A lot of people are missing by choice."

Story: Teen linked to Pa. 'dungeon' case found safe

Douglas Thomassen, the Norfolk police officer who filed the missing-persons report, told the AP on Tuesday that police lacked evidence that any crime had been committed at the Philadelphia address to which the Social Security checks were rerouted.

"I don't know what Philadelphia police could have done," said Thomassen, who's now retired. "You can't barge in."

'A trusting person'
Ella Davis, Knowles' grandmother, told WTKR-TV he likely was an easy target because of his mental disability.

"He was a trusting person. You know if you told him something, he would believe it. I tried to get him to not have that kind of confidence in people," Davis said. "He thought everyone was his friend and act like his friends. That's the way he was."

Police in West Palm Beach, where Weston lived earlier this year with the four mentally disabled adults, also missed a chance to crack the case.

Chase Scott, a spokesman for the West Palm Beach police, said officers were dispatched to the house several times for complaints about trash and code violations.

Investigators said they're trying to piece together details of Weston's scheme, including how long it went on, how much money it brought in and how many people in all were victimized. The FBI has joined the probe.

Weston had been convicted in the starvation death of a man nearly 30 years ago, though it's unclear how much prison time she served.

The Social Security Protection Act of 2004 generally bars people who have been imprisoned for more than a year from becoming representative payees, those who cash someone else's check. Yet a 2010 report by Social Security's watchdog found that staff members do not perform background checks to determine if payees have criminal records.

'Not always reliable'
The report from the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General said that people who apply to become payees are supposed to answer a question on whether they've ever been convicted of an offense and imprisoned for more than a year. But the report noted that the agency recognizes that self-reporting of such information "is not always reliable."

The inspector general said that in the cases it reviewed, about 6 percent of non-relative payees had been imprisoned for longer than a year and "may pose a risk to the beneficiaries they serve."

Maureen Westcott, public policy advocate for adult issues with the Arc of Pennsylvania, an organization that benefits people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, said of the Social Security report that background checks might be a good idea, but the issue ought to be studied first.

"Always what we say when they go to do these policy changes (is) you really need to have advocates at the table," she told the AP. "It would be a good thing to suggest they investigate the use of background checks."

In Philadelphia, neighbors said Weston lived with Thomas, one of the other suspects, in the northeast section of the city several years ago, with four kids of their own and a girl, 11 or 12, introduced as her niece.

The woman who now lives in the house, Anna Rotondo, said Tuesday that Social Security statements in the names of various people were delivered to her house for years after she began living there in 2005. Rotondo said she notified the post office and the Social Security office but nothing was ever done.

Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle declined to provide details of the agency's investigation into Weston but said the agency recently strengthened oversight of payees.

"We are very concerned about this situation," Hinkle said via email.

Next-door neighbor Kathy Ritterson said the children in Weston's home were often verbally abused. Ritterson said she called police "because we heard the mom beating them," while other neighbors called social services agencies. Ritterson said she never saw any sign of mentally handicapped adults.

"I can't believe they would let her have handicapped people when she already murdered someone," Ritterson said.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44958677/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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Senators back Georgia in WTO talks with Russia (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Two U.S. senators urged the Obama administration on Wednesday not to sacrifice Georgia's security and sovereignty concerns in Washington's effort to help Moscow join the World Trade Organization.

Russia, after more than 18 years of negotiations, appears to be on the verge of joining the WTO. But it must first reach an agreement with Georgia, with whom it fought a brief war in August 2008, on customs and border issues.

Russia still has troops in the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Moscow recognized as independent nations after the five-day war.

Because the WTO operates by consensus, Georgia has an effective veto over Russia's entry into the world trade body, giving it some leverage over its more powerful neighbor.

Georgia wants customs monitors on its internationally recognized borders, but has conceded they could be international officials rather than Georgian.

The two countries are expected to hold another round of talks this week in Geneva. A round earlier this month in Tbilisi, the Georgia capital, ended in failure.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Senators Roy Blunt and James Inhofe came down strongly on the side of Georgia.

"It should not come as any surprise that Georgian leaders are insisting on maintaining at least some semblance of territorial integrity through the customs process," they said.

"Without such recognition, agreeing to Russia WTO accession could be tantamount to international ratification of a new border arrangement imposed by Russia through force of arms.

"We fail to see how this outcome could possibly be in the United States' national interest," the senators wrote.

If Russia were to join the WTO, the United States would be required under world trade rules to establish "permanent normal trade relations" (PNTR) by removing a Cold War-era trade restriction known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment.

The 1974 amendment denies normal trade relations to countries with command economies that restrict emigration. The determination that nations comply with the provisions of Jackson-Vanick must be made by the president.

Both the Senate and House of Representatives would have to approve PNTR. That is already expected to be a difficult pair of votes, so the White House can not afford to alienate lawmakers whose support it will need.

Blunt and Inhofe, two usually reliable votes for trade, said in their letter they could only support PNTR if Russia agrees to border and custom procedures that respect "Georgia's security considerations and future sovereignty."

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Todd Eastham)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111020/pl_nm/us_usa_russia_georgia

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Crowdpark Raises $6 Million To Bring Legal, ?Social Betting? Games To Facebook (And Soon Android & iOS)

Crowdpark, a Berlin-headquartered game developer, announced today that it has raised $6 million in series B financing from top German venture capital firms, Target Partners and existing investor, Earlybird Venture Capital. Waldemar Jantz, partner at Target Partners, will be joining the startup's board as a result of the investment. The new round of funding brings Crowdpark's total to $8 million. Why should you care? Well, Crowdpark is aiming to give gamers their fix of legal gambling, er, betting. Using its patented "dynamic betting" technology, Crowdpark enables forecasting in realtime for social gaming in much the same way the brave among us play the stock market. Unlike its social gaming competitors, the German startup allows gamers to compete against each other in betting events using virtual currency. This includes the opportunity to bet on real world events taking place in everything from sports and entertainment to news and technology.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/5LGOtKJrfPI/

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