Calling an initial compensation offer ?insulting,? an attorney representing Costa Concordia passengers announced Tuesday details of a $460 million civil lawsuit against the owner of the wrecked cruise ship, The Guardian reports.
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FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) ? Dogs and cats that were abandoned in the Fukushima exclusion zone after last year's nuclear crisis have had to survive high radiation and a lack of food, and they are now struggling with the region's freezing winter weather.
"If left alone, tens of them will die everyday. Unlike well-fed animals that can keep themselves warm with their own body fat, starving ones will just shrivel up and die," said Yasunori Hoso, who runs a shelter for about 350 dogs and cats rescued from the 20-km evacuation zone around the crippled nuclear plant.
The government let animal welfare groups enter the evacuation zone temporarily in December to rescue surviving pets before the severe winter weather set in, but Hoso said there were still many more dogs and cats left in the area.
"If we cannot go in to take them out, I hope the government will at least let us go there and leave food for them," he said.
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami on March 11 triggered the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years and forced residents around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to flee, with many of them having to leave behind their pets.
More than 150,000 people from Fukushima prefecture still cannot return to their homes, with nearly half of them from the exclusion zone.
While Japan focuses on containing the nuclear accident and protecting people from radiation, Hoso, representative director of United Kennel Club Japan, has been trying to save as many dogs and cats from the no-go zone as possible, or keep pets for those who are living in shelters where pets are not allowed.
Toru Akama, an engineer working at the Fukushima nuclear plant, asked Hoso to look after his 14 dogs when an entry ban was imposed on his town.
"I was really happy for my dogs. They are part of my family. There was no way I could abandon them," Akama said.
Hoso said he aims to carry on until the last dog in his shelter is returned to its owner or finds a new home.
"When dogs are returned, many owners are really grateful and a limited few are not so grateful. But when it comes to dogs, all of them, without exception, become really ecstatic when they get reunited with their owners," Hoso said.
"That is what keeps me going, what makes me determined that I have to push ahead until the last one goes back to its owner."
(Reporting by Issei Kato and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
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KABUL, Afghanistan ? France's plans to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan a year early drew harsh words Saturday in the Afghan capital, with critics accusing French President Nicolas Sarkozy of putting domestic politics ahead of Afghans' safety.
A wider proposal by Sarkozy for NATO to hand over all security to Afghans by the end of next year also came under fire, with one Afghan lawmaker saying it would be "a big mistake" that would leave security forces unprepared to fight the Taliban insurgency and threaten a new descent into violence in the 10-year-old war.
Sarkozy's decision, which came a week after four French troops were shot dead by an Afghan army trainee suspected of being a Taliban infiltrator, raises new questions about the unity of the U.S.-led military coalition.
It also reopens the debate over whether setting a deadline for troop withdrawals will allow the Taliban to run out the clock and seize more territory once foreign forces are gone.
"Afghan forces are not self-sufficient yet. They still need more training, more equipment and they need to be stronger," said military analyst Abdul Hadi Khalid, Afghanistan's former interior minister.
Khalid said the decision by Sarkozy was clearly political. Sarkozy's conservative party faces a tough election this year, and the French public's already deep discontent with the Afghan war only intensified when unarmed French troops were gunned down by an Afghan trainee Jan. 20 at a joint base in the eastern province of Kapisa.
Sarkozy announced France's new timetable on Friday alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was in Paris for a previously planned visit. He also said Karzai had agreed with him to ask for all international forces to hand security over to the Afghan army and police in 2013, a plan he would present at a Feb. 2-3 meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. He said he would call President Barack Obama about his plan on Saturday.
Afghan lawmaker Tahira Mujadedi said Afghan security forces will not be ready in time for any early NATO withdrawal, saying the current timetable already is rushing the training of national forces.
"That would be a big mistake by the Afghan government if they accept it," Mujadedi said of Sarkozy's plan. "In my view, they should extend 2014 by more years instead of cutting it short to 2013."
She said she sympathizes in the matter of the French soldiers' deaths, but argued that they present no logical reason for France to deviate from the U.S. timetable for NATO to hand over security by 2014.
"When military forces are present in a war zone, anything can happen," Mujadedi said. The French troops "are not here for a holiday."
France now has about 3,600 soldiers in the international force, which is mostly made up of American troops.
Afghan forces started taking the lead for security in certain areas of the country last year and the plan has been to add more areas, as Afghan police and soldiers were deemed ready to take over from foreign troops.
According to drawdown plans already announced by the U.S. and more than a dozen other nations, the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan will shrink by an estimated 40,000 troops at the close of this year. Washington is pulling out the most ? 33,000 by the end of the year. That's one-third of 101,000 U.S. troops that were in Afghanistan in June, the peak of the U.S. military presence in the war, Pentagon figures show.
Sarkozy also said France would hand over authority in the province of Kapisa, where the French troops were killed this month, by the end of March. Karzai's office confirmed that decision Saturday, saying it was made at the French president's request.
The NATO coalition has started to hand over security in several areas of Afghanistan, aiming to transfer about half of the country in the coming months. But Kapisa was not one of the provinces earmarked for handover, according to U.S. Navy Lt. James McCue, a coalition spokesman.
Mujadedi, a lawmaker who represents Kapisa, argued that Afghan forces in her province are not ready to go it alone in fighting the Taliban insurgency, which is especially strong in several of the province's districts. She warned that if NATO forces do pull back from Kapisa, it could also destabilize nearby Kabul.
"We have had so many attacks, ambushes and also suicide attacks in Kapisa," Mujadedi said. "Unfortunately, our national police and army, while present in Kapisa, are unable to provide good security for people."
France's early withdrawal announcement could step up pressure on other European governments like Britain, Italy and Germany, which also have important roles in Afghanistan.
Karzai, who praised the role of France and other NATO allies, didn't object at Friday's joint news conference when Sarkozy said the 2013 NATO withdrawal timetable was sought by both France and Afghanistan.
However, the Afghan leader appeared to suggest that it was a high-end target.
"We hope to finish the transition ... by the end of 2013 at the earliest ? or by the latest as has been agreed upon ? by the end of 2014," Karzai said.
Nick Witney, a senior policy fellow at the Paris-based European Council on Foreign Relations, said public support of the war in Europe started sliding fast after the coalition agreed to end the combat mission in 2014.
"It has become more and more difficult to justify every single casualty, since it's now clear that these are wasted lives," said Witney, a former head of the European Defense Agency.
"Most European policymakers realize that on a purely cost-benefit assessment, we would all leave Afghanistan tomorrow," Witney said.
___
Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.
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Source: Medical Express
Nearly 12,000 people will die of head and neck cancer in the United States this year and worldwide cases will exceed half a million.
A study published this week in the journal Carcinogenesis shows that in both cell lines and mouse models, grape seed extract (GSE) kills head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
?It?s a rather dramatic effect,? says Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
It depends in large part, says Agarwal, on a healthy cell?s ability to wait out damage.
?Cancer cells are fast-growing cells,? Agarwal says. ?Not only that, but they are necessarily fast growing. When conditions exist in which they can?t grow, they die.?
Grape seed extract creates these conditions that are unfavorable to growth. Specifically, the paper shows that grape seed extract both damages cancer cells DNA (via increased reactive oxygen species) and stops the pathways that allow repair (as seen by decreased levels of the DNA repair molecules Brca1 and Rad51 and DNA repair foci).
?Yet we saw absolutely no toxicity to the mice, themselves,? Agarwal says.
Again, the grape seed extract killed the cancer cells but not the healthy cells.
Related:
Whole Grape ? Seed and Skin ? May Be Perfect Colon Cancer Fighting Food
Grape-Seed Extract Kills Laboratory Leukemia Cells
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German court rejects Samsung's second 3G patent complaint against Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Pentagon unveiled a 2013 budget plan that would cut $487 billion in spending over the next decade by eliminating nearly 100,000 ground troops, mothballing ships and trimming air squadrons in a bid to create a smaller, agile force with a new strategic focus.
The funding request, which includes painful cuts that will be felt across the country, comes at a historic turning point for the military as it winds down 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and shifts its strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.
The budget plan, sharply criticized by some lawmakers, sets the stage for a new struggle between President Barack Obama's administration and Congress over how much the Pentagon should spend on national security as the country tries to curb its trillion-dollar budget deficits.
"Make no mistake, the savings that we are proposing will impact all 50 states and many districts, congressional districts across America," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told a news conference at the Pentagon on Thursday.
"This will be a test of whether reducing the deficit is about talk or action."
Panetta, previewing a budget to be made public February 13, said he would ask for a $525 billion base budget for the 2013 fiscal year, the first time since before the September 11, 2001, attacks that the Pentagon has asked for less than the previous year. That compares with $531 billion approved this year.
Panetta said he would seek $88.4 billion to support overseas combat operations, primarily in Afghanistan, down from $115 billion in 2012 largely due to the end of the war in Iraq and the withdrawal of U.S. forces there at the end of last year.
Congress ultimately controls the Pentagon's purse strings and regularly intervenes to change the size and detail of military spending as it sees fit. The Defense Department's budget accounts for about 20 percent of total federal spending.
Republican lawmakers who oversee military affairs on Capitol Hill sharply criticized the plan.
Senator John McCain said it "ignored the lessons of history" by imposing massive cuts on the military, and Representative Buck McKeon said it reflected "Obama's vision of an America that is weakened, not strengthened, by our men and women in uniform."
MORE CUTS TO COME?
The 2013 budget is Panetta's first as defense secretary and is the first to take into account the Budget Control Act passed by Congress in August that requires the Pentagon to cut $487 billion in projected spending over the next decade.
The budget plan does not take into account an additional $600 billion in defense cuts that could be required after Congress failed to pass a compromise agreement to cut government spending by $1.2 trillion. The Pentagon could face cuts of another $50 billion a year, starting in 2013, unless Congress changes the law.
Panetta said he hoped once lawmakers understood the sacrifice involved in reducing the defense budget by almost a half a trillion dollars, they would make sure to avoid another $500 billion in additional cuts that would "inflict severe damage to our national defense for generations."
The budget begins to flesh out a new military strategy announced by the Pentagon earlier this month that calls for a shift in focus from the ground wars of the past decade towards efforts to preserve stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.
"To ensure an agile and ready force, we made a conscious choice not to maintain more force structure than we could afford to properly train and equip," Panetta said.
The budget plan would provide new challenges for the Pentagon's top suppliers, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. The Arca index of defense stocks closed Thursday down 0.7 percent.
The plan retains but slows the purchase of weapons like Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's largest procurement program, as well as submarines, amphibious assault ships and other vessels. It would retain a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers.
The Pentagon would boost its emphasis on special operations forces like those who carried out the raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden last year and rescued two aid workers this week from kidnappers in Somalia.
It would also increase its emphasis on cyber operations, expand its work on drone aircraft, go ahead with a long-range bomber and proceed with other weapons that would allow it to project power from a greater distance.
Those capabilities are needed as countries like Iran and China develop arms that could threaten U.S. aircraft carriers in international waters near their shores.
General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned against "parsing through each cut, each change, to look for a winner or loser," saying the plan should be judged for how it adapts the military to a changing security environment.
While the cuts announced on Thursday would affect all major defense contractors, consultant Loren Thompson said shipbuilders would be hit particularly hard because of the plan to cut 16 vessels from the total planned for the next five years.
The plans could affect work flow at Huntington Ingalls' shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Newport News, Virginia.
The size of the active-duty Army would be trimmed to 490,000 over five years from its wartime peak of 570,000 in 2010 and the size of the Marine Corps would fall to 182,000 from its high of about 202,000.
Military pay increases would begin to slow after two more years of growth, and fees would be increased on healthcare benefits for military retirees, those who served more than 20 years, both above and below the age of 65.
In addition, the Pentagon would:
- Delay development of a new ballistic missile submarine by two years.
- Eliminate six of the Air Force's tactical-air fighter squadrons and retire or divest 130 aircraft used for moving troops and equipment.
- Retire seven Navy cruisers and two smaller amphibious ships early, postpone the purchase of a big-deck amphibious ship by one year and postpone the planned purchase of a number of other vessels for several years.
- Eliminate two Army heavy brigades stationed in Europe and compensate by rotating U.S. based units into the region for training and exercises.
- Study the possibility of further reducing the size of U.S. nuclear arsenal.
- Begin a new round of talks on closing bases made unnecessary by the smaller force.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
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Most commodities rallied for a second day Thursday on the latest signs that the U.S. economy is building momentum.
Investors were encouraged by an increase in orders for long-lasting manufactured goods. But a primary driver of the rally was the Federal Reserve's announcement Wednesday that it will keep interest rates near zero until 2014 to aid the economic recovery.
The policy is expected to cause the dollar to weaken against other currencies. Commodities are priced in dollars so a weaker dollar makes them cheaper for investors who use other currencies.
Metals, wheat, beans and most energy products rose. Natural gas fell 4.2 percent.
The Commerce Department said orders for products expected to last at least three years rose 3 percent in December. That could mean stronger demand for materials used to manufacture products, including copper, platinum and palladium.
In addition, the department said its index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.4 percent last month, compared with a 0.2 percent increase in November.
However, the U.S. economy still faces challenges related to Europe's debt crisis and slower growth in Asia. The Federal Reserve expects the U.S. economic recovery to continue at a slow pace.
Country Hedging LLC analyst Sterling Smith said the central bank's policy will prompt investors to step up their search for ways to make profits because low-interest rates typically push bond yields lower. That should benefit commodities.
"It appears if we can avoid any major financial hiccups, we could be looking at a strong (commodities) market for throughout the balance of the year," he said.
In metals trading, gold for February delivery rose $26.60 to finish at $1,726.70 an ounce. April platinum increased $37.20 to end at $1,616.80 an ounce.
In March metals contracts, silver rose 62.2 cents to $33.743 an ounce, copper increased 7.2 cents to $3.9015 per pound and palladium ended up $1.10 at $694.45 an ounce.
Benchmark oil increased 30 cents to end at $99.70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil rose 3.42 cents to finish at $3.0446 per gallon, gasoline futures rose 1.34 cents to $2.8508 per gallon and natural gas fell 11.5 cents to $2.654 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In March agriculture contracts, wheat rose 12.25 cents to end at $6.535 per bushel, corn was unchanged at $6.345 per bushel and soybeans increased 9.25 cents to $12.2275 per bushel.
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HARARE, Zimbabwe ? More teachers in Zimbabwe on Tuesday joined a national strike in which government workers are seeking to double their salaries.
Their action on the strike's second day, and the absence of more staff from government offices, began to disrupt routine services in the southern African nation.
Main schools in Harare sent pupils home early Tuesday as teachers heeded the call by labor leaders. They are demanding the lowest monthly salaries of $250 are raised to $538 to meet the minimum needs of an average family of five.
Zimbabwe Prime Minister's Morgan Tsvangirai's party, in charge of the labor and finance ministries in the nation's shaky coalition, said in a statement Tuesday it cannot meet the demands of 235,000 government employees without increased revenue from diamond mining controlled by the President Robert Mugabe's party.
The former opposition Movement for Democratic Change of Tsvangirai, a former labor leader, said it wanted to pay "a living wage" to ensure government facilities and departments provided viable services.
"It is possible to raise the funds if diamond revenues are remitted to the treasury" controlled by Finance Minister Tendai Biti, it said.
In his 2011 year-end budget statement, Biti said mining groups in the controversy-mired diamond fields of eastern Zimbabwe pledged to pay $600 million into state coffers this year. But possible profits from diamonds were far higher, he said.
Tsvangirai's party said Tuesday Mugabe's ZANU-PF party "continues to hold back on those national resources that should benefit all Zimbabweans."
Mugabe's party has denied hoarding revenues from diamonds. Human rights groups accuse the party and military chiefs of involvement in illicit diamond trade and rights violations and killings in eastern Zimbabwe, the recently discovered site of one of the world's largest alluvial diamond deposits.
The Apex Council, the umbrella body of public service labor groups, said in a statement the momentum of the five-day strike was building and its leaders were picketing schools and government offices where there were "pockets of resistance."
"The strike will demonstrate the seriousness and resolve workers can take on bread and butter issues," it said.
Lines of people seeking government services formed Tuesday at undermanned government offices that remained open. Nurses stayed at their posts awaiting a decision on strike action from their labor group, the Zimbabwe Nurses Association, health department officials said.
The militant Progressive Teachers Union, the second largest teachers' organization, said it had lost faith in the coalition that had failed to act against "workers who subsist on corruption." They were against the strike and kept some services running. In a statement Tuesday, it said politicians were using the teachers' plight for "sheer grandstanding" to score political points.
"No political party has been sympathetic to government employees ... at one time we were made to believe that the selling of diamonds shall neatly dress our wretched lives," the statement said.
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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is touting President Barack Obama's call for legislation banning insider trading by members of Congress as a personal victory, having authored the Senate bill to stop such unscrupulous activity. But Brown is studiously ignoring a similar ethics reform Obama pushed during Tuesday's State of the Union speech -- perhaps because Brown himself has run afoul of it.
"Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress; I will sign it tomorrow," Obama pledged in his speech, an opening that Brown then used to press the president on his bill.
"My insider trading bill is on [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid?s] desk right now. Tell him to get it out," Brown told Obama during a post-speech handshake, according to the Boston Globe. Obama appeared to agree: "I'm going to tell him. I?m going to tell him to get it done."
After the State of the Union, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters that he would send the STOCK Act to the Senate floor this year. "Well, I think people should have enough sense not to do it [insider trading] without legislation, but I will support legislation," he said.
Brown's proposed bill would limit stock trading by members of Congress to prevent abuses in which lawmakers profit from their own legislative favors or access to nonpublic economic information.
But during the State of the Union, Obama also called to "limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact." And this kind of ownership would still be legal under the STOCK Act. Brown's bill focuses narrowly on information gained by members of Congress during hearings and meetings, but does not prevent them from holding long-term investments in companies that may benefit from their legislative actions. So long as lawmakers don't sell their holdings while in office, however, they're in the clear.
Brown himself performed major legislative favors for big banks during the final round of debate over 2010's Wall Street reform bill. According to Brown's latest personal financial disclosure form, the Massachusetts Republican owns up to $50,000 of Bank of America stock. As the financial overhaul approached passage, Brown was the deciding vote determining whether the bill would clear a filibuster in the Senate. He used that position to leverage several changes to the bill that helped large financial institutions, carving out an exemption to the Volcker Rule that allows big banks to continue placing risky bets in the securities markets with taxpayer money, provided they do so through private equity firms and hedge funds. Brown also saved Bank of America and others billions of dollars in up-front costs by axing a plan that would have required them to pay into an emergency fund to cover the costs of big bank failures.
Sen. Brown's office did not respond to requests for comment from The Huffington Post.
Faced with a Democratic challenge for his seat from consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, Brown has repeatedly attempted to cast himself as a financial reformer. During Tuesday night's speech, he literally stood up for consumer protection as the sole Republican to rise and applaud Obama's mention of Richard Cordray, the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB was the brainchild of Warren, who set up the nascent agency before running for Senate.
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IRL: the Kindle Touch, a repurposed Army bag and a non-user replaceable laptop battery originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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In this photo provided by Barrett-Jackson, the white hearse used to transport President John F. Kennedy's body following his assassination in Dallas is shown at auction Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 in Scottsdale, Ariz. It sold for $160,000 to a collector and real estate developer from Boulder, Colo.(AP Photo/ Barrett-Jackson)??
In this photo provided by Barrett-Jackson, the white hearse used to transport President John F. Kennedy's body following his assassination in Dallas is shown at auction Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 in Scottsdale, Ariz. It sold for $160,000 to a collector and real estate developer from Boulder, Colo.(AP Photo/ Barrett-Jackson)??
In this photo provided by Barrett-Jackson, the white hearse used to transport President John F. Kennedy's body following his assassination in Dallas is shown at auction Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 in Scottsdale, Ariz. It sold for $160,000 to a collector and real estate developer from Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/ Barrett-Jackson)??
DALLAS (AP) ? The man who paid $176,000 for the white hearse used to transport President John F. Kennedy's body following his assassination in Dallas plans to include it in his collection of about 400 cars in Colorado.
Stephen Tebo, a collector and real estate developer from Boulder, bought the hearse Saturday that was being offered by Barrett-Jackson Auction Co. of Scottsdale, Ariz. It sold for a bid of $160,000, plus a $16,000 buyer's premium.
The 1964 Cadillac hearse carried Kennedy's body as well as first lady Jacqueline Kennedy from Parkland Memorial Hospital to Air Force One at Dallas' Love Field for the flight back to Washington on Nov. 22, 1963, according to the auction company.
"It was a solemn duty that it had taking him from the hospital where he was pronounced dead to Air Force One," said Craig Jackson, CEO and chairman of the auction company. "I think everybody in the world remembers watching the hearse leave the hospital, heading toward Air Force One. It just sort of sunk into everybody that he's gone."
The hearse had been on display at a funeral home directors' convention in Dallas in October 1963, the auction company said. After the convention, O'Neal Funeral Home of Dallas bought the hearse. It was that funeral home that was called upon to transport the president's body.
In the late 1960s, the hearse was bought by Arrdeen Vaughan, a Texas man who owns funeral homes and a funeral vehicle business. He kept it in a private collection for more than four decades before selling it to the person who eventually put it up for auction.
Tebo said he plans to turn his car collection into a museum, hopefully in five to 10 years. The collection in Longmont, just outside of Boulder, is not currently open to the public, but Tebo does open it up four times a year to different nonprofit groups to help them raise money.
Other cars in his collection include a 1965 Rolls Royce custom made for John Lennon, a taxi used in the TV show "Seinfeld" and a jeep Frank Sinatra used on his ranch.
Tebo said he had expected the hearse would sell for anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million, so he wasn't planning on bidding. But he jumped it when he saw the bids weren't likely to go that high. As a collector, he said he tries to buy significant vehicles when possible.
Tebo said he wanted the hearse because of its historical significance.
"We remember specifically seeing the hearse leaving the hospital and driving very, very slowing to Air Force One and loading the casket on Air Force One. It was just an incredibly dramatic time in our lives," Tebo said.
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A group of five captive dolphins in France have been recorded making whale-like noises late at night ? despite the fact that they have only heard whale sounds as recordings during their daytime dolphin shows.
If the sounds are confirmed to be mimicking whales, it would be the first example of dolphins "saving up" a sound to practice later. And since the whale sounds are only uttered at night, it's possible the whale sounds are a dolphin version of sleep-talking.
The dolphins, all of whom were born in captivity, have never had the opportunity to hear a whale sing except on the soundtrack to their daily shows at the French aquatic park Planete Sauvage. Amid music, bird cries and other marine sounds, that 21-minute soundtrack features a couple of minutes of whale song.
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Itsy bitsy particles with a built-in charge could provide a big boost to the efficiency of solar cells, according to researchers aiming to take their innovation to market.
The dolphins have never been heard mimicking that whale song during or after shows, but when researchers recorded all of the dolphin vocalizations for nine days and eight nights between November 2008 and May 2009, they heard 25 instances of dolphin sounds never heard before. Though rare ? about 1 percent of all the dolphin noises recorded ? the sounds sounded strikingly like whale calls. These strange sounds occurred only at night during dolphin "rest periods," mostly between midnight and 3 a.m.
To make sure they weren't hearing things, the researchers played slowed-down and regular-speed audio of the calls to 20 volunteers, along with regular dolphin whistles, slowed-down dolphin whistles, and real whale songs. They found that the volunteers correctly identified dolphin whistles as dolphin whistles and whale song as whale song 88 percent to 99 percent of the time. But 72 percent of the time, the listeners misconstrued the dolphin's whale-like whistles as real whale song.
Dolphins, like birds, are known copy-cats, but their mimicry has always been confined to the time right after hearing an odd sound, at least as far as anyone knew. The Planete Sauvage dolphins, however, only make the whale sounds at night, most likely when they're sleeping or at least resting. This suggests that they could be rehearsing their daily shows in their minds at night, the researchers reported online in the journal Frontiers in Comparative Psychology Dec. 29, 2011.? It's possible the dolphins are even asleep as they make the whale-like noises, meaning they are essentially sleep-talking in "whale."
The recordings are "the first report of mimicries of sounds heard during special events produced by dolphins in a resting/sleeping context," the researchers wrote in the journal. "This finding opens very large perspectives for future investigations on dolphin learning processes and 'mental representations.'"
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
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Cuba said last month it would release 2,900 prisoners ahead of the pope's visit this spring, but US prisoner Alan Gross is not to be one of them.?
The phrase ?exercise in futility? can easily be applied to the United States' half-century old embargo of Cuba. But lately there is an even more disconcerting trend among US policymakers, which can best be described as conducting our fruitless policy toward Cuba with ?eyes wide shut.?
Skip to next paragraphHow else to describe the recent?comments?from senior USAID and State Department officials in response to a blistering - and vital -?critique?of US taxpayer-funded democracy programming in Cuba?
The critique was published in?The Miami Herald?by Fulton Armstrong, a former senior staff member to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry. USAID's Mark Feierstein and State's Michael Posner responded to the criticism, which they have the right and responsibility to do, but their response is another disappointing indication that this administration remains inexplicably committed to a policy of willful ignorance when it comes to Cuba.
Exactly why is an insider battle over US programs in Cuba being waged outside, on the pages of The Miami Herald? At the heart of this debate is the continuing imprisonment of an American citizen, Alan Gross, who was working on an USAID subcontract when Cuban authorities apprehended him two years ago, and after a long investigation, convicted him of crimes against the Cuban state.
Armstrong and other critics of the USAID program point out that it amounts to a semi-covert regime change program that should never be carried out by an aid agency?and that it ill-equipped Gross for the risk he was taking. The program is?authorized under the 1996?Helms-Burton Act?which seeks to help hasten a ?transition? in?Cuba.
It's not that Cuba is a dangerous place for Americans ? on the contrary, it's one of the safest places we could visit. But when an American visits Cuba five times in one year on a tourist visa, but actually on a US government subcontract and with high-tech communications equipment in tow, he isn't just violating Cuban immigration law, he's violating its national security laws as well. That's because when the US Passed the Helms-Burton Act the Cuban government, which viewed the Act as a threat to its national security, responded with a law of its own which criminalized dissemination or receipt of materials or funds, or taking direction from, the US Government under Helms-Burton.
It's not clear whether Mr. Gross, who has said he was ?duped? (by whom he hasn't said), was adequately warned about this law. Judy Gross, Alan Gross's wife, has said that her husband at one point wanted to inform Cuban authorities of his work but that his employer, Development Alternatives Inc., told him not to, and that even if he were picked up, he'd be questioned and then released. If true, they were wrong.
Ordinarily, the State Department?warns all American?travelers abroad, ?when you are in a foreign country, you are subject to its laws.? (Whether we like them or not.) But, in the defense of USAID's Cuba program, and with an American citizen's freedom on the line, Feierstein and Posner are forced to break from this most obvious truism. They continue to insist that Mr. Gross broke no law in Cuba, intimating that we can ignore Cuban law, and to demand Gross's release as if the Cubans are actually listening. But he did, we can't, and they're not.
It's one thing for US officials, surrounded by unsatisfiable critics on all sides, to quietly grumble about Armstrong's tough and public critique of a program that doesn't work but can't be dumped. But it's intellectually dishonest ? and diplomatically counterproductive to achieving Gross's release ? to come strutting out with a defense that so willfully ignores reality.
Bottomline, don't travel to Cuba on a tourist visa unless you're actually a tourist, and definitely don't accept a US government contract to work in Cuba.
--- Anya Landau French blogs for?The Havana Note,? a project of the "US-Cuba Policy Initiative,? directed by Ms. Landau French, at the?New America Foundation/American Strategy Program.
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KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) ? The Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for coordinated bomb attacks on security forces in the north Nigerian city of Kano that killed seven people late Friday.
The attacks prompted the government to announce a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the city of more than 10 million people.
Kano, like other cities in the north, has been plagued by an insurgency led by Boko Haram, which is blamed for scores of bombings and shootings, aimed mainly at government targets, that are growing in scale and sophistication.
A spokesman for Boko Haram contacted reporters in the northeast city of Maiduguri, where the sect is based, to claim responsibility for the attacks. A letter was also dropped around Kano, which appeared to be from the group.
The letter, written in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria, said the attacks were retribution for police arrests and killings of members of the sect.
"At the moment, seven casualties have been confirmed from different locations of the attacks," police media officer Olusola Amore said in a statement.
The statement said the police "are doing their best to bring the situation under control ... (we are) appealing to members of the public to come forward with information on the identity and location of these hoodlums."
The police said eight buildings were attacked, including police headquarters, three police stations, the headquarters of the secret services and the immigration head office.
Witnesses said smoke billowed from the police headquarters after the blast blew out its windows, wrecked its roof and triggered a blaze that firefighters struggled to control.
Boko Haram became active around 2003 and is concentrated in the northern states of Yobe, Kano, Bauchi, Borno and Kaduna.
Boko Haram, a Hausa term meaning "Western education is sinful," is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
The sect originally said it wanted sharia, Islamic law, to be applied more widely across Africa's most populous nation but its aims have changed. Recent messages from its leaders have said it is attacking anyone who opposes it, at present mainly police, government and Christian groups.
A bomb attack on a Catholic church just outside the capital Abuja on Christmas Day, claimed by Boko Haram, killed 37 people and wounded 57.
The main suspect in that attack, Kabiru Sokoto, escaped from police custody within 24 hours of his arrest, and police have offered a 50 million naira ($309,600) reward for information leading to his recapture.
Police arrested him Tuesday and he escaped when their vehicle came under fire as they were taking him from police headquarters to his house in Abaji, just outside Abuja, to conduct a search there.
Last August a suicide bomber blew up the U.N. Nigeria headquarters in Abuja, killing at least 24 people.
There were two explosions in the southern state of Bayelsa in the oil-producing Niger Delta late Friday but no one was killed. Local police said the attacks were not linked to Boko Haram.
Bayelsa, the home state of President Goodluck Jonathan, is holding a governorship election next month. Troops have been deployed in the state in recent weeks to stem any political unrest.
(Additional reporting by Felix Onuah, Segun Owen and Austin Ekeinde; Writing by Joe Brock; editing by Tim Pearce)
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A house burns just south of the Old 395 Gas Station Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 in Washoe Valley, Nev. Winds gusting up to 82 mph pushed a fast-moving brush fire south of Reno out of control on Thursday as it burned several homes, threatened dozens more and forced more than 4,000 people to evacuate their neighborhoods. (AP Photo/The Reno Gazette-Journal, Liz Margerum) NEVADA APPEAL OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES
A house burns just south of the Old 395 Gas Station Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 in Washoe Valley, Nev. Winds gusting up to 82 mph pushed a fast-moving brush fire south of Reno out of control on Thursday as it burned several homes, threatened dozens more and forced more than 4,000 people to evacuate their neighborhoods. (AP Photo/The Reno Gazette-Journal, Liz Margerum) NEVADA APPEAL OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES
Firefighters battle a fast-moving brush fire burns in Pleasant Valley, south of Reno, Nev., on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. Winds gusting up to 82 mph pushed a fast-moving brush fire through a valley south of Reno on Thursday, burning several homes, threatening dozens more and forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate their neighborhoods. (AP Photo/Cathleen Allison)
The ruins of a home in Pleasant Valley, south of Reno, Nev. smolders as firefighters battle a wind-driven brush fire on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. Winds gusting up to 82 mph pushed a fast-moving brush fire south of Reno out of control on Thursday as it burned several homes, threatened dozens more and forced more than 4,000 people to evacuate their neighborhoods. (AP Photo/Cathleen Allison)
The ruins of a home in Pleasant Valley, south of Reno, Nev. smolders as firefighters battle a wind-driven brush fire on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. Winds gusting up to 82 mph pushed a fast-moving brush fire south of Reno out of control on Thursday as it burned several homes, threatened dozens more and forced more than 4,000 people to evacuate their neighborhoods. (AP Photo/Cathleen Allison)
Firefighters wait for water before attacking an outbuilding adjacent to a home Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 in Pleasant Valley, Nev. Winds gusting up to 82 mph pushed a fast-moving brush fire south of Reno out of control on Thursday as it burned several homes, threatened dozens more and forced more than 4,000 people to evacuate their neighborhoods. (AP Photo/The Reno Gazette-Journal, Tim Dunn)
RENO, Nev. (AP) ? An "extremely remorseful" elderly man admitted Friday he accidentally started a brush fire that exploded into a wall of flames and destroyed 29 homes when he improperly discarded fireplace ashes at his home south of town, fire officials said.
Reno Fire Chief Michael Hernandez told reporters that investigators determined the cause of the blaze that burned nearly 3,200 acres and forced the evacuation of up to 10,000 people at the fire's peak Thursday evening.
"He came forward on his own accord," Hernandez said.
"He has given statements to our investigators as well as law enforcement officers. He is extremely remorseful," he said.
Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley the case will be forwarded to the district attorney for consideration of formal charges. In addition to the potential for charges as serious as felony arson, the man could be ordered to pay the cost of fighting the fire, which already totals $690,000, authorities said.
Washoe County Manager Katy Singlaub said she expects costs to rise into the millions of dollars.
Investigators had tracked the origin of the fire to a location in East Lake on the north end of the Washoe Valley, where the man lives.
Hernandez said he couldn't comment more other than to say the man was elderly.
Hernandez also confirmed a 93-year-old woman had been found dead in a home that had suffered fire damage Thursday but they have not confirmed the cause of death.
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BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) ? Around 200 protesters frustrated with the pace of reforms in Libya stormed the grounds of the country's transitional government headquarters on Saturday to demand a meeting with the nation's interim leaders.
Residents in Benghazi, where the uprising against longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi broke out in February, have been protesting for nearly two weeks, demanding transparency and justice from the country's new leaders.
Some have pitched tents outside the NTC's headquarters to protest a set of election laws they say were drafted by the interim leaders without consulting the public. The NTC is expected to pass the packet of laws that will determine how elections for a transitional parliament will be held. The council only took into account public suggestions through an online survey.
The NTC's handling of the draft laws has sparked criticism that the council is not living up to its democratic ideals.
Last week, NTC official Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga was assaulted in Benghazi by protesters angry at what they said is the NTC's lack of transparency.
On Saturday, the demonstrators used hand grenades to blow off the gates surrounding the compound housing the NTC's headquarters and banged on the building's doors. They shouted through windows at NTC members who could be seen pacing inside the building.
"The election laws have not been approved by thousands of Libyans and do not honor those who died for our freedom," said Tamer al-Jahani, a lawyer taking part in the protest. "We don't want to replace one tyrant with another."
Some protesters were demanding more rights for fighters wounded during the civil war.
Protester Ahmed Boras accused the NTC of sidelining anti-Gadhafi fighters.
"It seems to us that these people are no different than Gadhafi and they only speak the language of force," he said.
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Jennifer Lopez and dancer Casper Smart have faced criticism over their 18-year age difference since going public with their relationship in November, and now, they?re defending their romance on Twitter.
?Age, status, n opinions of others are irrelevant,? Smart, 24, tweeted on Wednesday. ?Our hearts are endless and our souls infinite ?.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Celebrity May-December Romances
?Our ages are mere reminders of the hours logged on this earth and the precious time remaining,? he added. ?We should all honor our time here by indulging our passion and dreams. So, close your ears and open your hearts; Love and be happy!?
It was a strange group of 38 that made it through, but by the end of the hour, a couple of legitimate contenders emerged f...
Smart's ladylove must?ve liked what she read, as she re-Tweeted all of her beau?s philosophic Tweets to her 4.3 million followers.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: She?s Still Just Jenny From The Block! Hot Shots Of Jennifer Lopez!
As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, Lopez?s soon-to-be ex-husband, Marc Anthony, is also reportedly dating a 24-year-old ? Venezuelan model Shannon de Lima.
Anthony, 43, tweeted a photo of the beauty in early January with the caption, ?To Shannon, my statue of Liberty. Kisses baby,? in Spanish.
He also posted a photo on his Facebook page of himself, embracing and kissing the model.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Jennifer Lopez?s Loves Over The Years: On-Screen & Off!
Copyright 2012 by NBC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46060142/ns/today-entertainment/
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NEW YORK ? Greed on Wall Street set a new record, federal authorities said Wednesday as they unveiled a massive insider trading case charging a hedge fund co-founder with engineering a trade that earned a staggering $53 million in profits.
The illegal trade ? the largest transaction ever prosecuted in Manhattan ? was part of a $78 million scheme involving at least seven financial industry professionals, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference.
"Today's charges illustrate something that should disturb all of us: They show that insider trading activity in recent times has, indeed, been rampant and routine and that this criminal behavior was known, encouraged and exploited by authority figures in several investment funds," Bharara said.
Of the $78 million, nearly $62 million was earned through tips provided by a Dell Inc. employee to a former Dell worker who spread the information among his friends at at least five investment houses, including three hedge funds. Bharara called it "a stunning portrait of organized corruption on a broad scale" and said it raised to 63 the number of people arrested in a government crackdown on insider trading. So far, there have been 56 convictions.
"Each wave of charges and arrests seems to produce leads to lead us to the next phase," said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk.
She said the arrests were not the last in a 4-year-old probe dubbed Operation Perfect Hedge.
"If you are engaged in insider trading, what distinguishes you from the dozens who have been charged is not that you haven't been caught; it's that you haven't been caught yet," she said.
Bharara called the seven men arrested in the latest crackdown part of "a criminal club whose purpose was profit and whose members regularly bartered lucrative inside information.
"It was a club where everyone scratched everyone else's back," he said. Court documents, he added, "paint a stunning portrait of organized corruption on a broad scale."
The criminal complaint in U.S. District Court in Manhattan charged four of the men with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud, among other charges. Three analysts charged in the other documents have already pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the government.
The insider trading plot was noteworthy for its size. Last month, hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam began serving an 11-year prison term ? the longest ever given in an insider trading case ? for a scheme that prosecutors said produced as much as $75 million in profits on dozens of trades over a multi-year period. That prosecution resulted in more than two dozen convictions and led to a spinoff probe that produced even more arrests.
Bharara said the case he announced Wednesday was comparable to the one brought against Rajaratnam, of Sri Lanka. He highlighted its size, saying the co-conspirators netted more than $61.8 million in illegal profits based on trades of a single stock from 2008 through 2009. The Securities and Exchange Commission said the profits, combined with $15.7 million earned on trades involving Nvidia Corp., reached nearly $78 million.
SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said it was disturbing that the case involved high level executives at "some of the largest and most sophisticated hedge funds in the country."
He said there was nothing wrong with fast-trading hedge funds but they are already characterized by a lack of transparency and can pose a "grave threat to the integrity of the markets and the level playing field that is the foundation of those markets" when they use their considerable market power to influence those who possess inside information.
The SEC said the case involved closely associated hedge fund traders at Stamford, Conn.-based Diamondback Capital Management LLC and Greenwich, Conn.-based Level Global Investors LP.
Anthony Chiasson, a co-founder at former hedge fund group Level Global Investors, was among four men arrested Wednesday. He surrendered to the FBI in New York, where he lives.
In court papers, he was credited with a starring role in the securities fraud. Authorities said a hedge fund analyst fed Chiasson inside information about an upcoming announcement of Dell's earnings for the first and second quarters of 2008, allowing Chiasson and others at his hedge fund to make approximately $57 million in illegal profits through trades. Inside information about Dell earnings resulted in $3.8 million in illegal profits at another hedge fund and $1 million in illegal profits at a third hedge fund, the complaint said. The Dell inside information also allowed an investment firm to avoid losses of approximately $78,000, authorities said.
Bail for Chiasson was set at $2.5 million after Assistant U.S. Attorney David S. Leibowitz told a magistrate judge at Chiasson's initial court appearance in Manhattan that the allegations against him were "staggering" and, if successfully proved, could result in a prison sentence of at least 10 years. He said the $53 million Chiasson earned for his hedge fund by shorting Dell stock on early word that its earnings would disappoint was the largest illegal trade ever cited in a criminal case in federal court in Manhattan.
Leibowitz said it took Rajaratnam six years and dozens of trades to accumulate the $70 million in profits alleged by the government in his case. The prosecutor requested a $5 million bail, saying Chiasson was worth at least $40 million and had earned as much as $11 million in a year at his hedge fund.
Chiasson's lawyer, Gregory Morvillo, said his client knew the government was after him when agents raided his office 14 months ago and looked forward to defending himself.
"He didn't do anything wrong, and he wants an opportunity to clear his name," Morvillo said.
Jon Horvath, an analyst at Sigma Capital Management, an affiliate of hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors in Manhattan, was arrested at his New York City home while Todd Newman, a hedge fund portfolio manager, was arrested in Needham, Mass. Analyst Danny Kuo, of San Marino, Calif. also was arrested.
Among those who have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and securities fraud and are cooperating in the case was Sandeep Goyal, of Princeton, N.J., who worked from the summer of 2006 through May 2007 for Dell at its corporate headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, and obtained inside information from employees of Dell after he began working as an associate analyst for a global asset management firm in Manhattan, court papers said.
According to court papers, Goyal benefited from his relationship with a co-conspirator who worked in Dell's investor relations department from March 2007 through March 2009 and in its corporate development office from March 2009 through April 2010. Authorities said a hedge fund with $4 billion in assets in 2009 paid Goyal about $175,000 for providing insider information about Dell.
Another cooperator was identified as Jesse Tortora, of Pembroke Pines, Fla. The SEC said Goyal tipped Tortora who then tipped several others, leading to insider trades on behalf of the Diamondback and Level Global hedge funds.
The third cooperator was identified as Spyridon (Sam) Adondakis, a Level Global analyst. The SEC said he tipped Chiasson, his manager. Adondakis also lived in New York City.
"These are not low-level employees succumbing to temptation by seizing a chance opportunity," Khuzami said. "These are sophisticated players who built a corrupt network to systematically and methodically obtain and exploit illegal inside information again and again at the expense of law-abiding investors and the integrity of the markets."
FBI agent David Makol said in court papers that the government built its case through information provided by the three cooperators, consensually recorded conversations, court-authorized wiretaps, telephone records, trading records, electronic communications, documents provided by a cooperator and other documents obtained from two hedge funds. The hedge funds were not identified in court papers.
Messages seeking comment left with lawyers for the other defendants were not immediately returned.
In a letter to investors, Diamondback Advisors co-chief investment officers Richard Schimel and Larry Sapanski called the actions by prosecutors and the SEC "an important step towards putting this matter behind us."
The company has fully cooperated with authorities since learning of the inquiry and believed the "fruits of that cooperation" were reflected in the charges announced Wednesday, they said. Newman was placed on leave immediately after the Nov. 22, 2010, search, and Tortora resigned from the firm in April 2010, they added.
___
Associated Press writers Mark Pratt in Boston and Marcy Gordon in Washington contributed to this report.
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