VP debate tees up closing issues for Romney, Obama

Vice President Joe Biden, center, and his wife Jill Biden, meet with Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., right, his wife Janna Ryan, left, and son Charlie Ryan, center, on stage after the vice presidential debate, at Centre College in Danville, Ky., Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Vice President Joe Biden, center, and his wife Jill Biden, meet with Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., right, his wife Janna Ryan, left, and son Charlie Ryan, center, on stage after the vice presidential debate, at Centre College in Danville, Ky., Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Remarking on the vice presidential debate, President Barack Obama tells reporters, "I think Joe Biden did great. I couldn't be prouder," as he returns to the White House in Washington after a day of campaign events in Miami, Thursday night, Oct. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Vice President Joe Biden answers a question during the vice presidential debate at Centre College, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin answers a question during the vice presidential debate at Centre College, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Supporters of Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, gather at the Holiday Inn Express in Janesville, Wis. to watch his debate with Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/The Janesville Gazette, Mark Kauzlarich)

DANVILLE, Ky. (AP) ? In a spirited debate that laid out stark choices, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan teed up pointed arguments on the economy, social policy and America's place in the world that President Barack Obama and GOP rival Mitt Romney now will drive forward into the campaign's final stretch.

With just 25 days to go in Campaign 2012 and throngs of people already voting, Obama and Romney will try to answer two questions that their running mates posed to the tens of millions of Americans who watched Thursday's hard-fought, 90-minute debate.

"Who do you trust?" Biden asked.

"Wouldn't it be nice to have a job-creator in the White House?" asked Ryan.

Biden, eager to make up for the president's lackluster performance in his first debate with Romney, played the aggressor throughout. And the president gave his running mate a quick thumbs up for delivering with the energy and feeling that he did not.

"His passion for making sure that the economy grows for the middle class came through so I'm really proud of him," Obama said after watching the debate aboard Air Force One on the way home after a day of campaigning in battleground Florida.

Ryan came back at the vice president with harsh talking points, a flurry of statistics and a sharp economic warning: In another Obama term, he said, "Watch out, middle class, the tax bill's coming to you."

Romney, who watched the debate at the end of a campaign day in North Carolina, got on the phone to Ryan immediately afterward to congratulate him. Ann Romney told a rally in the western Michigan town of Hudsonville on Friday that the debate showed why her husband chose Ryan as his running mate.

"What he saw in Paul was a level head, very smart. You can tell, it came through, the kind of character that this man has," Mrs. Romney said.

Attention now shifts to the two remaining debates between Obama and Romney: Tuesday's "town hall" style faceoff in Hempstead, N.Y., and a final showdown, over foreign policy, on Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla.

And the campaigns get right back into the thick of it on Friday, looking for ways large and small to shift more voters their direction in the small number of states whose electoral votes are still up for grabs: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Romney headed to Virginia and after was linking up with Ryan in Ohio. Biden and wife Jill will woo young voters at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Obama will spend a rare day in Washington, preparing for the next two debates and taking campaign contest winners out to eat.

With so little time left in the countdown to Nov. 6, "every day, every hour counts," said Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor who served as Obama's first White House chief of staff. "Everything counts."

The president has set aside a serious chunk of time for preparation after being faulted for underestimating the importance of his first debate with Romney. He'll be hunkered down in Williamsburg, Va., from Saturday until Tuesday rehearsing with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, acting as a proxy for Romney.

Romney's return to Ohio this weekend signals the importance of a state seen by both sides as decisive to the whole election. Obama holds the edge there, polls show.

Obama had to hope that Biden's solid showing on Thursday was enough to shift a campaign dynamic that has had the momentum moving Romney's way since the first debate. Romney, for his part, had to hope Ryan's performance would keep up the good karma for the GOP.

The running mates clearly sensed that the stakes were higher than usual for their faceoff, and both played hardball throughout, frequently interrupting one another and challenging one another's assertions.

On television's split screens, Biden's body language ? a montage of pained smiles, winces, head shakes and eye rolls ? often screamed incredulity when Ryan was speaking.

"I know you're under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground," Ryan shot back at Biden at one point, "but I think people would be better served if we don't keep interrupting each other."

In one of the night's lighter moments, Ryan helpfully provided a translation of one of Biden's putdowns.

"This is a bunch of stuff," Biden said of Ryan's dismissive characterization of the president's Iran policy.

"What does that mean, a bunch of stuff?" asked moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC News.

"It's Irish," Ryan offered.

"It is," Biden agreed, to laughter from the audience. "We Irish call it malarkey."

At another point, Ryan used Biden's own history of gaffes to explain away Romney's much-criticized comment dismissing the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes, a comment Biden brought up repeatedly after Obama had failed to mention it in his debate.

"I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way," Ryan said.

There were spirited exchanges on taxes, abortion, Medicare, Libya, and more. It may not have broken new ground, but the conversation gave viewers a clear illustration of the sharp choices before them come Election Day.

"In case you haven't noticed, we have strong disagreements," Biden said in his closing statement. And then he distilled the Democrats' campaign pitch into a simple bid to give anxious Americans "a little bit of peace of mind."

Ryan then spoke of the "big choice" in this election, and argued that Obama had had his chance and failed.

"This is not what a real recovery looks like," he said. "You deserve better."

For all the political back-and-forth during the past two months, the race essentially stands where it was in August, before the two national political conventions, with the two candidates running about even in national polls.

There's been no shortage of drama in between: the revelation of Romney's caught-on-tape comment about the 47 percent, Biden's remark that the middle class has been "buried" in the past four years, Obama's weak showing in the first debate, the ongoing tussle over the administration's handling of the attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi, Libya, and more.

With turnout critical, both campaigns are devoting considerable energy to ensuring that supporters are registered to vote and taking advantage of the early voting options available in many states. Nearly a million Americans already have voted.

The Democrats' monthlong "gotta vote" bus tour will be in Milwaukee on Friday, just in time to rev up supporters for the opening of Wisconsin's early voting season on Monday.

And both sides are keeping up the push for campaign contributions to keep the battleground-state airwaves full of political ads. Within a few hours of the debate, Romney, Obama and Biden all emailed supporters asking for more cash.

___

Benac reported from Washington.

___

Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-10-12-Presidential%20Campaign/id-9d87be87916d44c6a6ebad27a60f394b

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Like songbirds and people, mice can learn new tunes

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Scientists have found the first evidence that the ability to learn vocalizations, a capacity so far believed to be restricted to a handful of bird and mammal species like humans and dolphins, is shared by another species: mice. The new research, published Oct. 10 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Erich Jarvis and Gustavo Arriaga at Duke University and colleagues, shows for the first time that mice share certain behavioral and brain mechanisms involved in vocal learning with songbirds and humans and can learn new vocal patterns.

Most animals make sounds of some sort, but only a few have the capacity to modify the sequence and pitch of sounds to create songs and speech, collectively referred to as vocal learning. So far, only three groups of birds - parrots, hummingbirds and songbirds - and some mammalian species - humans, whales, dolphins, sea lions, bats and elephants - have shown the behaviors and brain circuits that are considered essential to the process of learned vocalization. Despite decades of research, scientists have yet to find evidence of these behavioral and neurological hallmarks in other species, including those closely related to vocal learners such as non-human primates.

Though the series of ultrasonic vocalizations referred to as mouse 'song' was previously known, this study provides the first evidence that mice can change at least one acoustic feature of these vocalizations based on their social exposure. When two male mice of different strains were housed together, the animals gradually learned to match the pitch of their songs to one another, suggesting a capacity for learning not previously known. The researchers state that this is a limited form of vocal learning, but do not know whether other more complex features, such as syntax and frequency modulation, could be learned.

The researchers found that mice can form some of the necessary connections between different brain regions and the vocal motor neurons to control the sounds they make, a feature so far found in song learning birds and humans. Though the connections are more limited in mice compared to humans or songbirds, Jarvis states, "This is an exciting find, as the presence of direct forebrain control over the vocal neurons may be one of the most critical aspects in the human evolution of speech."

According to the researchers, their discovery was made possible by using modern techniques not previously available. They also clarify that the connections in mice are much more primitive than in songbirds or humans, but they may reveal some of the intermediate steps in the process by which vocalization evolved in advanced vocal learners like songbirds and humans.

###

Arriaga G, Zhou EP, Jarvis ED (2012) Of Mice, Birds, and Men: The Mouse Ultrasonic Song System Has Some Features Similar to Humans and Song-Learning Birds. PLoS ONE 7(10): e46610. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046610

Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science 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/124410/Like_songbirds_and_people__mice_can_learn_new_tunes

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Kodak asks court to end retiree medical benefits

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Source: http://finance.blogrange.com/finance-news/kodak-asks-court-to-end-retiree-medical-benefits-2/

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Motherhood: Sweet Little Experiment | Skinny Mom | Tips for Moms ...

I was not prepared for motherhood.

Now don?t get me wrong, I did read a decent amount of books on pregnancy and whole birth. I attended prenatal classes and breastfeeding classes. But all in all, I think it?s pretty safe to say that nothing can really prepare you for motherhood besides motherhood itself. Yep, you gotta be in it to know it. In it to win it. Or?in it to navigate through a system of trial and error, ups and downs, jubilation and frustration, invigoration and exhaustion- the list goes on and on.

I think most parents experience some ineptitude when it comes to the reality of raising children. At the hospital, I remember feeling apprehensive to the fact that they were?allowing?Nick and I to take our 6lb. 12oz, baby girl home. Handing us this precious little angel and saying: She?s beautiful.?Good luck and goodbye.

The first thing I thought was:?Oh, Holy Lord. I have absolutely no idea what I?m doing.

Let me better explain myself. You see, when Ella was inside me, I had everything figured out. Her schedule, my schedule, sleep time, feed time, playtime, potty time. If I remember correctly, I think I even had a list of do?s and don?ts plastered on our kitchen wall. I was extremely organized and the house was really freaking clean. Nesting sure got the best of me in my ninth month! The nursery was stunning, but practical. We did every thing in neutral since we chose not to find out her sex. Tiny clothes were all neatly folded and put in their proper place. Piles of baby booties and teeny hats aligned perfectly on the shelf. I had every thingamabob baby item you could think of. Most of which I would come to find out would never get opened, let alone used. That?s okay though because they were a piece of the pregnancy puzzle and my puzzle was almost complete.?I reveled in the thought of perfection.

Then I had her. She was the most beautiful, innocent, precious soul. My heart was overflowing with love. Best of all, she was mine!?Then we took her home. And within an instant, all of my scheduling and planning and organizing pretty much went to hell.

Schedule? What schedule? This baby eats when she wants, sleeps when she wants, and poops?all of the time.

I was introduced to ?poop up the back.? Um hello, no one ever told me about that. Surprise! It?s disgusting.

Laundry piled up.

Diapers everywhere.

My breasts hanging out all day long.

Nursing. Nursing. Nursing. And nursing.

Pumping. Storing. Pumping. Storing.

Glass of wine.

Pumping. Dumping.

Changing. Rocking. Changing. Rocking.

I was in a constant fog. We were up all hours of the night for days and weeks and months on end.

Our first trip to the pediatrician?s office, and we left her diaper bag at home. Yeah, you heard that right. Not in the waiting room, not in the car. AT HOME. Who does that? The nurse was looking at us like we were two brainless idiots. I was looking at Nick thinking: How the hell could you forget the diaper bag??!! I had the baby. I remembered her.?

Oh motherhood. With its winding roads. You never really know what?s around the corner or behind door number one..or two..or three for that matter.?You never really know what to expect or what you?ll forget. What kind of baby you?ll have or what kind of mother you?ll be.

And thus begins our lifelong?

sweet?little?BIG experiment.

Source: http://skinnymom.com/2012/10/10/motherhood-sweet-little-experiment/

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UnitedHealth to buy most of Brazil's Amil for $4.9 billion

NEW YORK (Reuters) - UnitedHealth Group Inc will buy control of Amil Participacoes SA, Brazil's largest health insurer and hospital operator, for $4.9 billion, making a bold move into a fast-growing market as challenges mount for its U.S. business.

The Brazilian healthcare market has been bolstered by a growing middle class and is turning to managed care to meet demand. It is expected to grow twice as fast as the U.S. market, UnitedHealth Chief Executive Stephen Hemsley said during a conference call on Monday.

"It looks to us like the potential the U.S. market had 20 or more years ago," Hemsley said.

The purchase marks UnitedHealth's first foray to become a hospital owner and is one of the largest overseas acquisitions by a U.S. managed care company yet. For the moment, UnitedHealth is likely to stand alone overseas as competitors catch up at home, analysts said.

"United is by far the largest and most diversified player in the U.S., and so from a strategy point of view they are closer to this point than others," said David Windley, an analyst for Jefferies & Co.

Rival U.S. health insurers are busy managing their own recent deals, so are unlikely to try to expand, he said. In the past few years, the industry has seen a series of multibillion-dollar takeovers in its home market, including Aetna Inc's $5.6 billion buy of rival Coventry Health Care Inc and WellPoint Inc's planned $4.5 billion purchase of Amerigroup Corp.

Those deals aim to capitalize on expected growth in the U.S. government's Medicaid and Medicare programs for the poor and the elderly. But insurers are also under pressure in the nearer term as those programs cut reimbursement rates and competition grows among health plans serving employers.

UnitedHealth said it would buy a 90 percent stake in Amil. The deal price - 30.75 reais per Amil share - represents a premium of 22 percent. Amil shares were up 14 percent at 28.85 reais on the Sao Paulo stock exchange. UnitedHealth shares gained 0.9 percent to $57.65 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Amil founder and Chief Executive Edson Bueno and partner Dulce Pugliese will retain the remaining 10 percent stake in the company for at least five years. Their current stake is 70 percent.

Bueno will also buy $470 million worth of UnitedHealth shares, making him the single largest investor in the company.

A DIFFERENT MODEL OF SERVICE

Taking a controlling stake in Amil will add to a growing international business at UnitedHealth. The company has launched operations or struck alliances in Australia, the Middle East and the UK during the past two years.

Competitors also have some overseas business. Insurance provider Cigna Corp, for instance, bought a Belgian medical insurance and benefits company called Vanbreda International in 2010 and expanded in Turkey in 2011.

The deal also gives UnitedHealth a chance to test a different model of medical service: Amil offers insurance coverage and also runs hospitals and doctor facilities.

While some examples of this already exist in the United States, the largest insurers for the most part operate separately from networks of doctors and other healthcare providers.

"It's not something UnitedHealth has been willing to do here, but it gives them an opportunity to see how it works," said CRT Capital Group analyst Sheryl Skolnick.

Brazil's healthcare system consists of public and private plans, similar to the U.S. model. The number of Brazilians covered under private plans has grown more than 50 percent over the past 10 years to nearly 48 million people, roughly a quarter of the country's population.

Brazil's health insurance regulator, ANS, has expressed concern that this robust growth has not been accompanied by adequate investment. Last week, ANS blocked 38 providers from selling 301 plans for the next three months due to wait times for exams and surgery. An ANS statement said that included 14 plans offered by providers ASL and Excelsior, which Amil bought in 2010 to expand into Brazil's fast-growing northeast region.

Foreign investors have also become cautious due to government intervention in Brazil's private sector, including in telecommunications, utilities and healthcare.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval by ANS.

Amil has more than 5 million clients in Brazil and owns 22 hospitals and 50 clinics. It forecast revenues of $5 billion for 2012, up 15 percent from 2011. UnitedHealth had revenues of nearly $102 billion in 2011 and expects the deal to slightly increase its 2013 earnings per share.

The deal includes Brazilian tax benefits worth about $600 million, bringing the effective equity purchase price to about $4.3 billion, the companies said.

UnitedHealth also said it expects third-quarter net earnings of at least $1.45 per share. Analysts on average were expecting $1.25, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(Additional reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore, Debra Sherman in Chicago and Brad Haynes in Sao Paulo; Editing by Michele Gershberg, John Wallace and Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/unitedhealth-buys-90-percent-stake-brazils-amil-4-110257700--finance.html

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Libyan PM risks losing post if Cabinet rejected

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Video: Summer?s over: Canada blasts down arctic chill

>>> well be more than just frost on the pumpkin where you are tonight. we start this evening with a cold blast . a dramatic and practically overnight temperature swing has turned what had been an exceptionally mild fall for most of the country into a big chill that tonight is gripping roughly two-thirds of the nation. scores of low temperature records have been broken over the last 24 hours as the mercury went from the 70s and 80s in many places down into the 30s and 40s, even below freezing. we'll get the outlook for the week ahead in a moment, but we start with nbc's michelle frand frandsen here in new york . michelle, good evening.

>> good evening, lester . this freeze warning has brought a snap not only here in new york but to a good bit of the country. an arctic blast sweeping across much of the u.s. quickly wiped away the last remnants of summer. just yesterday there were 74 record low temperatures stretching from the northwest down to the southeast, from 37 degrees in st. louis, 31 in alabama and 5 below zero in northern wyoming. and tonight portions of the country are under frost and freeze advisories. an early start to the cold season in a year where extreme heat has dominated.

>> temperatures that we're seeing now are a good 10 to 30 degrees below average. now we have a trough or dip in the jet stream that's been dipping down and all that cold brimming around the antarctic has been coming down to the low 48.

>> temperatures brought snow. in the last week, the first snow of the season blanketed the region, coating areas of minnesota with more than a foot of snow. people bundled up, lining the route of the new york marathon, braving the elements.

>> it's not too bad, but these 90-year-old legs are just a little chilly right now.

>> fans also tried to brave the cold.

>> it feels a little colder than 45 degrees. my hands are freezing, but the rest of me is warm because i have on a lot of layers.

>> and the colder temperatures and even some rain couldn't

dampen a fall tradition: a visit to the pumpkin patch.

>> we would come rain or shine .

>> reporter: others grabbed a cup of warm apple cider , a taste of fall and winter all at once. as temperatures dipped, this cold spell is expected to lapse into the next week. what we don't know yet, let tster, is if this is a sign for a cold winter ahead.

>> we want to bring in meteorologist julie martin who is monitoring the big chill from weather channel headquarters. julie, good evening.

>> good evening, lester . a couple winter blasts are rolling in from the system. we'll see that system reaching the east tomorrow, touching places like virginia and the carolinas, those temperatures to be about 20 degrees below average. behind that, another system moo moves in, this one bringing snow to the northern plains and great lakes. we'll see cool air from that system affect the midwest and the interior northeast. a lot of very cool air plunging across the midwest, more unsettled weather midweek, rain and some snow possible on friday. lester , fall is here and so is an early taste of winter. lester ?

>> we'll dig out the gloves.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/49322746/

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