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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Detroit?s Default May Spark U.S. Death Spiral of Debt
Source: CP
Debt is deadly, and it?s made even worse with rising interest rates that can prevent you from eliminating the load. What happens with rising interest rates is that more of the payments go toward the interest and less to the principal. In fact, it?s what I call a death spiral of debt that worsens as rates move higher.
When individuals face excessive debt, often the solution is to reduce spending and adhere to a strict repayment program.
When corporations face excessive debt, they tend to streamline; but they must be careful when they do so, because any cost-cutting could impact the company?s growth. What generally happens is more debt or credit is issued.
But when governments build up massive debt loads, there is no definitive solution, and it becomes problematic. The?national debt?is estimated to reach $17.55 trillion by the end of this year, while the country?s total debt, including federal, state, and municipal debt,?is earmarked at $20.54 trillion. (Source: USGovernmentDebt.us, June 18, 2013.)
Congress and Obama must resolve the national debt limit.
Take a look at the chart below of the national debt from 1970 to today (blue bars), and the projected national debt to 2018 (red bars). What?s made clear from this chart is not only the steady buildup of national debt but the rate of the buildup since early 2000, especially following the Great Recession in 2008. It?s obvious that the national debt is spiraling out of control.
Chart courtesy of www.USGovernmentSpending.com
Despite the popular adage ?a picture is worth a thousand words,? this chart of the national debt can be defined by one word: debt.
That?s why the?Federal Reserve?and the U.S. government must deal with the country?s massive national debt load?and how it?s getting out of hand.
But not only is the national debt an issue, the debt buildup at the state and municipal level is also a major concern. By the end of this year, the debt amassed by the state governments is estimated to reach $1.19 trillion. (Source: Ibid.)
What?s alarming is that the municipal, state, and federal governments will inevitably be subject to a cash crunch when yields and interest rates ratchet higher.
As I recently mentioned in these pages, we?re seeing debt issues in many states that are vulnerable to rising interest rates, and not only with the federal debt.
Recall that California and its municipalities have accumulated a debt load of about $848 billion,?which could eventually be eclipsed by $1.1 trillion, according to The California Public Policy Center. (Source: ?Report: California?s Actual Debt At Least $848B; Could Pass $1.1T,? CBS web site, May 1, 2013.)
And then this past Monday, we found out that the city of Detroit, which has been ravaged by decades of slow growth and major population decline, has run out of money after defaulting on roughly $2.5 billion in unsecured debt. The city is trying to convince its creditors to accept $0.10 on the dollar to eliminate this debt. (Source: Williams, C., ?Emergency manager: Detroit won?t pay $2.5B it owes,? Associated Press, June 14, 2013.)
But the problem won?t stop there, because Detroit will need new funds to survive, and based on the city?s default and low credit rating, the cost of the loan would likely be significant.
So, while the stock market rises to new records and new millionaires surface each day, the real problem will be when rates move higher and debt payments become unmanageable.
I would start to take some profits off the table, or move funds into more defensive sectors.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blacklistednews/hKxa/~3/ewG5HpUJrc8/M.html
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Phoenix, Las Vegas bake in scorching heat
DEATH VALLEY, Calif. (AP) ? Scorching heat blistered the Southwest on Saturday, where highs between 115 and 120 degrees were recorded for parts of Arizona, Nevada and California.
Forecasters said temperatures in sunbaked Las Vegas shot up to 115 degrees on Saturday afternoon, two degrees short of the city's all-time record.
Phoenix hit 119 degrees by mid-afternoon, breaking the record for June 29 that was set in 1994. And large swaths of California sweltered under extreme heat warnings, which are expected to last into Tuesday night ? and maybe even longer.
The forecast for Death Valley called for 128 degrees Saturday, but it was 3 degrees shy of that, according to unofficial reports from the National Weather Service. Death Valley's record high of 134 degrees, set a century ago, stands as the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.
A couple hours south in Baker, the temperature peaked at an unofficial 117 degrees in the road tripper's oasis in the Mojave Desert on Interstate 15. The strip of gas stations and restaurants between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is known by travelers for the giant thermometer that often notes temperatures in the triple digits.
At the Mad Greek restaurant there, a waitress called out orders for "Chocolate shake! Strawberry shake!" while the temperature hovered at 112 degrees during the lunch rush.
In Southern California, Riverside saw 105 degrees, and Palm Springs reached 122 degrees. At Lancaster Fox Field in Los Angeles County, temperatures reached 111, a record.
To make matters worse, National Weather Service meteorologists John Dumas said cooling ocean breezes haven't been traveling far enough inland overnight to fan Southern California's overheated valleys and deserts.
Burbank set a record overnight low with temperatures dipping to 74 degrees overnight, much warmer than the previous record of 68 degrees for Saturday's early hours.
In Northern California, temperatures Saturday reached the upper 90s in San Jose. Farther north, triple-digit temps were reached in downtown Sacramento on Saturday, according to the weather service.
Authorities say a man died and another was hospitalized in serious condition Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas fire and rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski says paramedics responded to a home with no air conditioning and found an elderly man dead. He says while the man had medical issues, paramedics thought his condition was aggravated by the heat.
Paramedics say another elderly man was on a long trip in his car when the air conditioning went out. Paramedics say he taken to the hospital in serious condition with heat stroke after he stopped in Las Vegas.
Cooling stations were set up to shelter the homeless and elderly people who can't afford to run their air conditioners. In Phoenix, Joe Arpaio, the famously hard-nosed sheriff who runs a tent jail, planned to distribute ice cream and cold towels to inmates this weekend.
Officials said personnel were added to the Border Patrol's search-and-rescue unit because of the danger to people trying to slip across the Mexican border. At least seven people have been found dead in the last week in Arizona after falling victim to the brutal desert heat.
Temperatures are also expected to soar across Utah and into Wyoming and Idaho, with triple-digit heat forecast for the Boise area. Cities in Washington state that are better known for cool, rainy weather should break the 90s next week.
The heat was so punishing that rangers took up positions at trailheads at Lake Mead in Nevada to persuade people not to hike. Zookeepers in Phoenix hosed down the elephants and fed tigers frozen fish snacks. Dogs were at risk of burning their paws on scorched pavement, and airlines kept close watch on the heat for fear that it could cause flights to be delayed.
___
Skoloff reported from Phoenix. Also contributing were Robert Jablon and Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Los Angeles, Julie Jacobson and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas, Martin Griffith in Reno, Nev., Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, Cristina Silva and Bob Christie in Phoenix, and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/phoenix-las-vegas-bake-scorching-heat-202602575.html
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Extreme temperatures in the West trigger health concerns
Heat warnings or advisories are posted in parts of eight western states with temperatures of 120 degrees not out of the question for parts of California, Nevada and Arizona into next week. Residents are advised to protect themselves and their pets. The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.
By Tracy Jarrett, NBC News
A sizzling heat wave sent temperatures soaring and records tumbling in Western states on Saturday, leading to one suspected heat-related death and prompting officials to urge people to stay inside and take extra precautions.
Las Vegas' McCarran airport tied a record for the day at 115 degrees, and at a National Weather Service office in the southwest section of the city the thermometer spiked up to 118 degrees. In Death Valley, Calif., it was 124 degrees.?
A Las Vegas Fire & Rescue crew responded to a report of an elderly man in cardiac arrest at residence without air conditioning on Saturday. When paramedics arrived, they found the man was dead, NBC station KSNV reported. The man, who was not identified, did have medical issues but paramedics characterized his death as heat-related.
Another elderly man whose car air conditioner went out while on a road trip fell sick, stopped and called 911. He was admitted to the hospital and reported in serious condition.?
It was so hot in Nevada that rangers at Lake Mead persuaded tourists not to hike, according to the National Park Service, which posted the warning on its Facebook page.
In Phoenix, the temperature rose to 119 degrees?? the fourth hottest day in recorded history in the desert city.
Two cities in Texas ??San Antonio (108 degrees) and Houston (107 degrees)???set all-time highs for the month of June.
?Where it is hot now it it?ll stay hot,? said Weather Channel meteorologist Mark Ressler.
Several records were also set in California, with Palm Springs hitting 122 degrees, beating the previous high from 1994, according to the National Weather Service.
While some states such as Colorado and New Mexico may be beginning to cool, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana will continue to experience all-time temperature highs at least for the next two weeks, Ressler said.
?The ridge doesn?t completely go away in the next 2 weeks, so temperatures will come down somewhat but there?s no time soon where it will turn into the east coast where they are experiencing below average? temperatures, ? he said.
?The heat will stay west and there will be no great break in heat anytime soon.?
Such extreme weather was causing health concerns. On Friday, 200 people were treated for heat problems at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, where it was 115 degrees.
Dr. Kein Reilly with University of Arizona Department of Emergency Medicine told NBC News Tucson affiliate KVOA that Arizona residents should stay inside and drink plenty of water.
"If you get dizzy or light headed those are some signs of dehydration. If you become confused that's a real warning sign. That's someone who needs to come into the emergency department," Reilly said.
Julie Jacobson / AP
From left, Subrina Madrid, Sarah Hudak, Jennifer, Shackelford, all of North Las Vegas, Nev., sit in the shallow waters along Boulder Beach at Lake Mead, Saturday, June 29, 2013 near Boulder City, Nevada. The three planned to spend the day at the lake to escape the heat in Las Vegas.
Cooling stations were set up to shelter the homeless as well as elderly people who can't afford to run their air conditioners,? Phoenix, Ariz, Sheriff Joe Arpaio told NBC News affiliate KSNV.
Keeping people cool is not the only concern in the heat.
?If it?s hot for you it?s hot for your pet, and ultimately we are their voice so we are responsible for them. Use common sense,? said Bretta Nelson, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Humane Society.
Nelson suggests keeping your pets indoors and making sure they are hydrated. If you need to take your pet for a walk keep it quick, said Nelson. She also suggests foot booties for hot cement.
?It?s important to understand pets have to have shelter shade plenty of drinking water and if they don?t they can result in animal cruelty charges,? she said.
The same rules apply for people.
?As much as possible have constant water available and also stay inside in air conditioning those are two things I would suggest,? said Ressler.
Ressler said record highs are expected over the next few days, and record highs this time of year mean, ?it is extremely hot.?
NBC News' Jeff Black contributed to this report.
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Obama: I don't need 'photo op' with Mandela
President Obama is heading to South Africa from Senegal as part of his African tour, where Nelson Mandela's daughter says he might visit Mandela if doctors approve. NBC's Keir Simmons reports.
By Stacey Klein and Ian Johnston, NBC News
Barack Obama said Friday that he did not need a ?photo op? with Nelson Mandela, saying the ?last thing? he wanted to do was be intrusive at a time when the anti-apartheid icon?s family are concerned about his health.
However, the president did not rule out a meeting with Mandela, whose ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela said Friday had made a ?great improvement? compared to a few days ago.
On Tuesday, Mandela's daughter Zindzi said that her father ?opened his eyes and gave me a smile? when she told him Obama was coming.
Speaking about her ex-husband Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela says, 'From what he was a few days ago, there is great improvement' in the former South African president's condition.
Speaking on Air Force One as he flew to South Africa from Senegal, Obama said that ?we?ll see what the situation is when we land.?
?I don't need photo op," he said. "The last thing I want to do is be intrusive at a time when the family is concerned? with Mandela?s condition.
He said the main message he wanted to deliver was ?profound gratitude? for Mandela?s leadership and to say that ?the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with him, his family and his country.?
This message could be delivered to his family and not directly to Mandela, the president said.
On Thursday, Obama said he had already had the "privilege of meeting Madiba [Mandela's clan name] and speaking to him."
"And he's a personal hero, but I don't think I'm unique in that regard," Obama added. "If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages."
Madikizela-Mandela, speaking outside Mandela's former home in the Johannesburg township of Soweto, said her ex-husband seemed to be getting better.
?I?m not a doctor but I can say that from what he was a few days ago there is great improvement," she said.
When asked by NBC News Special Correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault?whether the family would welcome a visit by Obama, Zindzi Mandela said Thursday she wasn't aware of any formal request. However, she added that decision would be left with doctors treating the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Ahead of his arrival in Johannesburg on Friday, an anti-Obama protest was held not far from the hospital where Mandela is being treated with one demonstrator claiming the U.S. president had been a ?disappointment.?
Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters
Protesters protest the visit of President Barack Obama in Pretoria Friday. One said he viewed Obama as a "disappointment" and thought Nelson Mandela would too.
Reuters reported that nearly 1,000 trade unionists, Muslim activists, South African Communist Party members and others marched to the U.S. Embassy where they burned a U.S. flag, calling Obama's foreign policy ?arrogant and oppressive.?
"We had expectations of America's first black president. Knowing Africa's history, we expected more,? Khomotso Makola, a 19-year-old law student, told Reuters. He said Obama was a ?disappointment, I think Mandela too would be disappointed and feel let down.?
South African critics of Obama have focused in particular on his support for U.S. drone strikes overseas, which they say have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and his failure to deliver on a pledge to close the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba housing terrorism suspects.
However, Nigerian painter Sanusi Olatunji, 31, had brought portraits of both Mandela and Obama to add to a growing number of flowers, tribute notes and gifts outside the hospital.
?These are the two great men of my lifetime,? he told Reuters. ?To me, Mandela is a prophet who brought peace and opportunity. He made it possible for a black man like me to live in a country that was only for whites.?
/
View images of civil rights leader Nelson Mandela, who went from anti-apartheid activist to prisoner to South Africa's first black president.
In the latest statement on Mandela?s condition, South African President Jacob Zuma said the 94-year-old was ?much better? on Thursday than he had been the previous night. "The medical team continues to do a sterling job," he added.
A statement issued by Zuma?s office said he and Obama would hold ?crucial bilateral talks that will take forward relations between the two countries? on Saturday.
?South Africa values its warm and mutually beneficial relationship with the United States immensely. This is a significant visit which will take political, economic and people to people relations between the two countries to a higher level, while also enhancing cooperation between U.S. and the African continent at large,? it said.
The statement noted Obama?s visit was being made as South Africa prepares to celebrate ?20 years of freedom? ? 1994 saw the first elections in the country in which all its citizens were eligible to vote. Mandela voted for the first time in his life in that year and was elected the country?s first black president, serving until 1999.
?South Africa greatly appreciates the solidarity provided by the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the United States during the struggle for liberation,? the statement said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Related:
This story was originally published on Fri Jun 28, 2013 5:05 AM EDT
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Student debt stalemate will hammer millions of undergrads
Your money 
7 hours ago
Chitose Suzuki / AP file
Boston College students walk across the college campus in Boston, March 29, 2005.
Time is running out for Congress to act. And low-income college students will pay a high price if a deal can't be reached by Monday's deadline.
Interest rates on many new subsidized Stafford loans will skyrocket?from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent?on Monday, unless the Senate reaches a compromise.
The likelihood of that happening dimmed Friday as Congress recessed for the Independence Day holiday week.
Read More: Senate Can't Save Student Loan Rates
Most in Congress agree loan rates should to stay lower than 6.8 percent, at least for the subsidized Stafford loans used by the country's lowest-income students. But they're stuck on how to get there.
Republicans want to let the rates fluctuate with the markets every year and use the proceeds for deficit reduction. Democrats say that's unreasonable and want to cap how fast rates can rise.
Existing loan rates will not change and rates on new unsubsidized Stafford and PLUS loans also will remain the same.
Congress could come to an agreement later this summer to lower rates, but that may be unlikely.
"It is possible for them to make a retroactive change, but only if the loans have not yet been disbursed," says Mark Kantrowitz, senior vice president and publisher of Edvisors.com. "So they could make a retroactive change if the US Department of Education delays the disbursement. But I doubt Congress will reach an agreement after July 1, as they are still too far apart."
More than 7 million undergraduates receive subsidized Stafford loans, for which the federal government pays the interest while the students are enrolled in school.
But the nation's student debt crisis affects so many more.
More than 38 million Americans have student loan debt, totaling nearly $1 trillion, a staggering number that has quadrupled in 10 years and keeps rising. Student loan debt now surpasses credit card and auto loan debt in this country?and it's only expected to get worse before it gets better.
"I see the debate about interest rates as a distraction from the real problem, which is the amount of debt," said Kantrowitz, who is also founder of FinAid.org, a leading website on financial aid for college and graduate students and their families.
"Each year the average cost of graduation goes up by about $1,000 or more. And having less expensive debt is going not going to make much of a difference if the total amount owed keeps on going up."
A study done this spring by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that the share of 25-year-olds with student debt has increased from just 25 percent in 2003 to 43 percent in 2012. The average student loan balance among those 25-year-olds with student debt grew by 91 percent over that time, from $10,649 in 2003 to $20,326 in 2012.
The amount of debt has risen as tuition, room, board, fees and other college expenses have soared. The cost of attending college has risen about 4 percent in the past year alone?and has far outpaced the rate of inflation in recent years.
Total charges for a full-time undergraduate at an in-state public college rose from $17,136 in 2011-2012 to $17,860 in 2012-2013, according to the College Board. Private college costs for one year totaled $39,518 in the past year, up from $37,971 the previous academic year.
"Grants are not keeping pace with the increases in college costs," Kantrowitz said. "When grants are relatively stagnant or even going down that causes students to borrow more."
But many families don't plan or try to calculate the total cost of attendance for a student's college and graduate studies?and that may be at the crux of the student debt crisis.
Sallie Mae CEO Jack Remondi said poor planning exacerbates a borrower's burden, regardless of the rate on the loan. Sallie Mae is the largest provider of private student loans.
"If you overborrow, whether the rate is 4 percent or 7 percent, you're still going to encounter difficulties," Remondi said. "A plan that takes into consideration what your income potential is going to be when you graduate and what that debt burden is going to be is critical."
Unfortunately, many students and parents have failed College Planning 101.
Less than a third of low-income parents said they knew how they would pay for their child's college education before they enrolled, according to a Sallie Mae study. Only 37 percent of middle-income families had a plan. Among high-income families, only slightly more than half said they had a plan to pay for college before their children enrolled.
Yet this critical lesson can significantly cut borrowing costs: As long as your total student debt at graduation is less than your annual income, you should be able to pay back your student loans in 10 years or less, Kantrowitz said.
Keeping that formula in mind when choosing a college, graduate school and course of study can help students significantly cut borrowing costs.
?By CNBC's Sharon Epperson. Follow her on Twitter @sharon_epperson.
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British Muslims urged to denounce sex crimes in forceful sermon
By Costas Pitas
LONDON (Reuters) - Muslims across Britain heard a sermon on Friday urging them to help prevent a recurrence of recent high-profile crimes such as organised child rape and the gruesome murder of a soldier in London, which have put their community in the spotlight.
Congregations in around 500 mosques heard the sermon arguing that Muslims must speak out following the conviction of men of Pakistani and east African origin on Thursday for running a child sex ring in the city of Oxford.
The case, where seven men were convicted of offences including child rape or sexual activity with children, followed others in Derby, Rochdale and Telford in which Muslim men, usually from Pakistani and South Asian backgrounds, were found guilty of 'grooming', or luring children into sex rings.
The murder of soldier Lee Rigby outside London's Woolwich barracks last month, which is being treated as terrorism, has prompted a series of demonstrations against Islam and a rise in islamophobic attacks, including suspected arson at an Islamic centre in London.
"The combination of publicity from a number of these cases hitting the headlines in a short space of time and the fallout from the Woolwich case will create a major challenge for the Muslim community," the sermon read.
"With so many individuals from a Muslim background involved in such crimes, we have a responsibility to condemn this," congregations heard, as they were encouraged to take action to prevent such acts.
Prime Minister David Cameron had called the Woolwich attack "a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country".
The Muslim Council of Britain, which represents Britain's nearly 3 million Muslims, sent out the sermon in conjunction with a group that campaigns against street grooming.
"We wholeheartedly condemn the disgraceful actions of those involved in these cases and welcome the convictions in the cases that have been through the courts," the sermon said.
"We wish to show our support for the (victims) of this terrible crime, many of whom are innocent children, and we wish to affirm that Islam as a religion of mercy and compassion places a strong obligation on safeguarding and protecting the weak and vulnerable from (oppression) and abuse, particularly of women and children."
Ansar Ali, spokesman for the Together Against Grooming project, said the sermon was unprecedented.
"We have brought together mosques and imams from all over the UK, irrespective of differences, to collectively deliver a hard-hitting sermon," he said.
"We are united in our stand against sexual grooming and, as Muslims, we are leading the effort to rid society of this crime."
(Reporting By Costas Pitas; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/british-muslims-urged-denounce-sex-crimes-forceful-sermon-163346380.html
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
Rolocule?s Motion Tennis iOS game brings Wii-like gaming to your Apple TV [video]
One of the products with biggest potential in Apple?s inventory is the Apple TV. It may look like a little square box capable of doing nothing but stream, but with a couple of tweaks it can be transformed in to a device which not only replaces your traditional set-top box, but also your games console.
AirPlay is yet to be fully adopted by games developers, but having played the likes of Real Racing 2, there?s definitely scope for that to change. Rolocule, and Indian developer, has seen the promise shown by Apple TV and released a game called Motion Tennis.
The company in question developed a technology called Rolomotion which uses your iPhone or iPod touch?s gyroscope sensor to detect motion and ? through AirPlay ? transform your device in to a handheld motion controller, like the Wii. Check out the video below, it shows the technology being used on a game called Motion Tennis:
What?s amazing is that this game is available right now on the App Store. It?ll set you back $7.99 (?5.49 UK) and is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 6.0 or later. May seem like an obvious point, but, I have to make it clear: You need an Apple TV to get this to work, so don?t download if you don?t.
Tip of the hat to iDownloadBlog for spotting the game.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TodaysIphone/~3/evdTI3wrQm4/
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BET kicks off live music festival with Beyonce ahead of awards
By Piya Sinha-Roy
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer Beyonce will kick off the first BET three-day music festival on Friday, ahead of the BET awards this weekend, as the network hopes to attract more fans to music and comedy by black artists.
The annual BET awards, now in its 13th year, celebrate black musicians, actors and athletes across a variety of categories spanning music, film and sport. It is televised on the cable TV network BET, Black Entertainment Television, part of Viacom Inc.
The BET Experience is the first weekend music festival to be hosted by a television network, BET said in a statement.
Stephen Hill, president of music programming and special events at BET Networks, said the music festival aims to give fans a more inclusive experience.
"What we noticed through the years was that people would come out. They had tickets to the awards and they'd come for the weekend ... and people came just to be in the atmosphere of the awards, even if they didn't have tickets," Hill said.
Male artists lead this year's BET awards nominees with R&B singer Drake landing 12 nominations, followed by rappers Kendrick Lamar and 2 Chainz with eight nominations each, and rapper A$AP Rocky with five.
Rapper Jay Z, singer Justin Timberlake and R&B crooner Miguel picked up four nominations each, while Rihanna led the female artists with three nominations. Beyonce and Nicki Minaj scored one nod each.
Film nominees include Jaden Smith, Oscar-nominated newcomer Quvenzhane Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry and Kerry Washington.
Olympic gymnast Gabrielle Douglas, tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, and basketball star Kevin Durant are among the sports nominees.
Ahead of Sunday's awards ceremony in downtown Los Angeles, the network will host numerous events at the L.A. Live collection of venues ranging from small clubs holding a few hundred people to the Nokia Theater, which can host an audience of more than 2,000.
BET said it is expecting about 100,000 people to attend events during the festival, which will include film screenings, comedy concerts, celebrity appearances and musical performances.
Snoop Dogg, Miguel, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole are among the top-billed performers at the BET Experience. Tickets start at $49 for individual performances to almost $4,000 for an all-access package.
Hill said he hopes the variety of artists and performances will entice fans.
"People have encouraged other people to sample more music from different genres, different eras. Festivals are catered to that," Hill said.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Lisa Shumaker)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bet-kicks-off-live-music-festival-beyonce-ahead-223623504.html
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Five Favorite Films with Elijah Wood
Everybody's favorite Hobbit is back on screen, but Elijah Wood isn't looking to form any fellowships. The star of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and TV's Wilfred -- currently in its third season -- plays serial killer and scalp enthusiast Frank Zito in a fine, first-person perspective remake of the 1980 thriller Maniac. We've seen Wood as Kevin the cannibal in Sin City, but this time we dive into the mind of a realistic, mentally-tortured, psychopathic killer, and it's bloody and disturbing. What isn't disturbing, however, is Wood's list of Five Favorite Films, which I had the recent pleasure of collecting from him. Polite and charming, Mr. Wood presented his list after being put on the spot and deliberating acutely.
Harvey
(Henry Koster, 1950; 83% Tomatometer)
Harvey is one of my all-time favorite films. This movie I saw when I was younger and I feel like it struck a chord with me, then, probably primarily because of Jimmy Stewart's performance and the kind of magic that is this character that he refers to that we don't see as an audience. But I think... I loved it and I've watched it many times since, and it's a movie that has gotten more profound for me as I've gotten older, and I feel I've gotten different things out of it every time. It's a movie whose construct is kind of up for interpretation, I think. You could easily make an argument that his character of Elwood Dowd is a drunk, for instance, and, you know, Harvey is a manifestation of that. You could say he's a man who has given up on reality and, therefore, he's happier, and Harvey is a manifestation of that. It's such a beautiful film and there's such humanity in the film and there's something so enlightened -- regardless of what is actually genuinely going on with Elwood's character -- there's something so enlightened about him that everyone else is actually more insane than he is, and that always really struck a chord with me.
Like, say, Wilfred?
Oh man, most certainly! [laughing] Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. That's not lost on me. I remember when I read Wilfred for the first time I was, like, wow, this is like Harvey. Incredible.
I imagine that helped draw you to it.
Oh, totally. Totally, yeah.
Delicatessen
(Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1991; 88% Tomatometer)
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a filmmaker that I've since followed, you know, throughout his career and I think he's one of my favorites and a kind of, you know, a very distinctive voice in France, but that film still I think is probably my favorite of his. I feel like he kind of almost returned to form a little bit with Micmacs. Micmacs really reminded me of Delicatessen in terms of its vibe. But Delicatessen is just, there's a great amount of comedy to it, the characters are so bizarre and so well-drawn. The world is so strange, it's not totally relatable. It's very funny. It's very dark. I remember when I saw that movie, I'd never seen anything like it. And I think by the time I saw Delicatessen for the first time, City of Lost Children had already come and gone. But Delicatessen was the first thing that I'd seen. And , you know, from an art direction standpoint, I think I was also so unbelievably impressed, because it was him and his partner, and I can't remember his partner's name who was also kind of like his art director.
Marc Caro?
That's it! That's it. Yeah, that's it. And their collaboration yielded such incredible results. City of Lost Children being another perfect example of that. The stuff of dreams and nightmares melded together -- really exciting cinema.
L?on. Or, as it's known in the United States, The Professional. But in France it's called L?on. It's so weird because for years I'd always called it The Professional and then for some reason it switched in my mind. I mean, that movie was an amazing blend of an international eye within the context of an American... That movie still feels extremely international, certainly with its lead actor but also the way that it was shot and made. But at the heart of that film is this incredible relationship between a cold blooded killer and a young girl. And it's still so effective and so powerful. I think one of my favorite sequences in the film was when the two of them are kind of like, it's like this beautiful montage of their relationship as they're, like, cleaning the apartment and these sort of things that they're doing together, this really adorable, emotional relationship. And it's all cut to "Venus as a Boy" by Bj?rk. It's such a great sequence and there's such whimsy to their connection. And of course the movie goes into a really dark and awfully sort of tragic place, you know, and it's really about a man whose sole purpose in life is to be cold and calculated, but it's all about this girl finding his humanity. It's just such a beautiful film.
Oh, oh, Night of the Hunter. That's just a film that... It was actually recommended to me by Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson's wife. I think it's her favorite film of all time. I'd never really seen anything like it because it's kind of a film noir set in the South. The story, it's about a family who are terrorized by a con-man. Robert Mitchum was an incredible actor -- the original Cape Fear is another incredible performance by him -- but it's such a slimy performance in this film. He's such a great manipulator and tells tall tales. And it's famous because he's got these tattoos on his knuckles of "love" and "hate" and it actually is a conduit for a really great story that he repeats throughout the film. The cinematography's incredible; it's just like all blacks and whites and hard shadows and lots of silhouettes along the river. It's just a stunning, a stunning film! It's really good. Talking about these movies makes me want to see these movies again. [laughing] They're so good!
Easily one of my favorite kind of genre/exploitation films. Japanese film. Have you seen the film?
Not yet.
F*** man. It's incredible. It's great. It's, I dunno, it's harrowing and it's also deeply funny, extremely entertaining. It's about a not-too-distant time in the future of Japan in which kids have become unruly in classrooms. A lot of violence has broken out, and as a result of the sheer number of children and the problem being as large as it is, they create this Battle Royale Act -- it's a government act -- in which various classes are chosen at random via a lottery to be sent off to an island wherein, once they arrive, they are briefed and they're all given a bag and a weapon and told to disperse into the wilds of this island. And they also are all wearing necklaces that will explode if they try and remove them.
Kind of like The Hunger Games.
Well, there's certainly a lot of similarities. I don't know if the author of Hunger Games was inspired but it certainly seems like it would be. So they go out and the object of the game is they all have to kill each other. The last man standing, or the last, you know, child standing wins and gets to leave. That's kind of the premise of the film. And the movie literally counts down as each person is killed off and it's just... Man, it's great. And I think there's real, real commentary in it as well. I think there are certain things the filmmaker wanted to say; it's not just pure exploitation. It tries to get to the heart of what these kids' experience is and, ultimately, humanity vs. survival, and what those things mean and having to let go of your humanity if you want to survive. And some people, some of the kids refuse to, and you just sort of see where the chips fall with some of these people in a scenario like that. But it's wonderful. Wonderful film. It's great.
Maniac opens in limited release this week.
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927760/news/1927760/
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Wedding banquet turns to funeral in Ras Al Khaimah
Submit Your Photo Of Dubai
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Video: 2013 So Far: Housing, Jobs & Interest Rates
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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/52346313/
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101st seeking to save 'Band of Brothers' regiment
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- The 101st Airborne Division is trying to save its illustrious 506th Infantry Regiment, whose origins date to World War II's fabled "Band of Brothers," from deactivation under the Army's massive restructuring.
The Army announced this week that at least 12 combat brigades nationwide are to be eliminated by 2017 under sweeping military reductions, among them the 4th Brigade Combat Team at Fort Campbell, Ky.
The long-term reorganization seeks to reduce the Army's size from a high of about 570,000 members at the peak of the Iraq war to 490,000 to shrink spending and reflect the country's current military needs as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end.
The brigade traces its lineage to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, created in 1942.
The 506th was among several parachute regiments created to sneak behind enemy lines in the war. Nicknamed "Currahee," which is a Native American Cherokee term for "stands alone," the regiment parachuted into Normandy during the D-Day invasion in 1944. The regiment raced to liberate Europe amid bouts of fierce fighting in Bastogne, Belgium and then overran Hitler's famed "Eagle's Nest" in Germany.
The "Band of Brothers" book by historian Stephen Ambrose and the subsequent HBO miniseries about the men of Easy Company won national acclaim, propelling the unit to wide fame among the public. The 2001 miniseries was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and followed the soldiers from paratrooper training through D-Day and the end of the war.
Brig. Gen. Mark Stammer, acting senior commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said the division wants to preserve the regiment's two battalions, along with its flags and its historical legacy.
He said during a news conference on Thursday at the post on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line that the regiment's battalions should be transferred to two of the division's three remaining infantry brigades.
The Army's restructuring plan also calls for adding an additional battalion, which is between 600-800 soldiers, to its remaining infantry and armor brigades. Adding the battalion was a recommendation from commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan who said it would beef up the fighting capabilities of the brigades when they go to war.
If Washington's defense and budget planners approve of such a plan, he said "the 506th will live, but it will just live in another brigade combat team."
Following World War II, the regiment was deactivated and reactivated a number of times in its history and moved to other locations as the Army reorganized in the post-war era.
The 506th deployed to the Vietnam War for four years, winning a presidential unit citation for their actions in the A Shau Valley. The regiment's soldiers served in Iraq for a 2004-2005 stint before the regiment returned to Iraq from late 2005 through 2007 in Baghdad as the new 4th Brigade Combat Team under the 101st Airborne Division. The 4th Brigade is currently on its third deployment to Afghanistan.
John O'Brien, the installation historian at Fort Campbell, said the regimental flag with its battle streamers carries the history of the unit, marking the battles and campaigns from World War II to recent times. If the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment were moved to a new unit, that regimental flag would continue to fly, he said.
"History, heritage and values ... those things provide the glue that holds the unit together," O'Brien said. "You can imagine how powerful it is to say, 'I am member of the Band of Brothers.'"
Jim Martin is one of the few surviving World War II veterans from the original 506th regiment. At 92, he just returned from a trip to Europe to visit locations, including the coast of France, where he and fellow soldiers fought.
Martin, who lives near Dayton, Ohio, said the Army command needs to exercise care when it makes changes to special units such as the 506th. "If you disband them, you're not going to get them back very easily."
He said the regiment's original commander, Col. Robert Sink, wanted his soldiers to stay together from their initial basic training through paratrooper training and on into combat to build trust among the soldiers. Although he admits he's not one for emotion, he worried that splitting up the regiment's battalions would be disruptive for the soldiers.
"The problem with doing that is you lose the unit cohesiveness," he said. "Anytime you move around or change, you lose that."
Joe Alexander, 67, of Lenoir City, Tenn., who was a second lieutenant in the regiment during the Vietnam War, said while he understands that the Army needs to cut down its size, but he was hoping they would be spared when the Army spread the brigade cuts throughout the country.
"We are competitive and we all want our regiments to be saved," he said. "But it does seem like they could have picked another one that had less of a history."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/101st-seeking-save-band-brothers-153450261.html
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'I Defied The Odds'
This is a teen-written article from our friends at Teenink.com.
I can't complain. I can't complain because I'm alive and walking, and that's more than was expected, honestly.
There's something strange about being a sixteen-year-old stroke survivor. I had the stroke when I was three weeks old, so people seem to think that it would have little bearing on my life now. And honestly, even the title ?stroke survivor? feels weird to me. I don't remember being anything but the kid who had a stroke, so is there really a stroke-survivor title, or is that just a part of me?
At sixteen, I am partially-blind, and I had trouble walking even at eight. Being a kid it was almost impossible for me to actually understand; I didn't grasp the idea of not being able to run and play with other kids, and I didn't get why gravity seemed to constantly be pulling me to the ground and bruising my hands and tearing my clothes. Then I resigned myself to sitting on the steps while other kids played. Most of my time was spent reading a book or watching the sky.
The bright side to being somebody who spent every recess tearing through books and being as much of a philosopher as you can be even at six is that you learned things.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, the fact that I couldn't walk also meant physical therapy. The unfortunate part came from my parents' decision to put me in a full-body sport, in other words, dance. I can't even begin to explain how disastrous this decision was, but predictably a girl who can barely walk can't walk any more easily when her movements are choreographed and she is wearing a pair of steel-toed tap shoes.
The fortunate part came later. When I was nine, they opted out of dance for gymnastics, and that is when my life changed. Girls with streamlined figures pirouetted on their hands, flew and flipped and twirled with a blatant disregard for gravity, swung bar-to-bar like circus performers, and then took their beautiful flips and tumbles and twirls and put them on a four-foot-high, four-inch-wide beam. They ran at vaults with the intensity of creatures pursuing their prey, and then in an instant catapulted themselves into the air. They were superhuman.
Finally I felt determined. I felt ?determined just like I'd felt determined to run with the kids on the playground. But it was even more intense than that: I truly, genuinely, felt like I needed this. I needed to be superhuman. I worked harder than the other kids, and still got fewer results. You can't tumble until you can run, and you can't run until you can walk.
That's just the obvious progression of things. But somehow, I got through it. There were some advantages to my situation, I'd fallen so much that I was extremely pain-tolerant, and unlike the others I felt like I had something huge to gain. I got through conditioning workouts without complaining. I listened to every criticism. I shied away from sympathy. I learned to walk. Then to run. Then to tumble.
Last year I attained my peak. After all that time, I reached one of the highest levels of gymnastics. This meant that I'd earned the right to travel and compete, and even wore an expensive leotard, matching my teammates and was looked up to by the young kids.
Although it wasn't my first year competing, it was the most intense. I knew it might be my last, too; my body had learned the sport, but my heart was growing tired of it. You can only be so committed before your heart gives way, and I'd given up too much of mine at the start. My goal was met and surpassed: I was walking. Screw that, I was flying!
The final and greatest ?opportunities were to compete in Hawaii, and to compete one last time in a State Championship. I took third all-around in Hawaii, and took first on beam at State. The girl who couldn't walk took first on beam. Pigs can fly and the blind can see and I cannot only walk but also win beam.
After a summer of aggravation, I quit. I hardly felt like I'd won anything anymore. I was done flying. They'd given me the ability to leave. I was grateful and amazed, but I was ready to go.
I am sixteen years old. I am partially blind, and I had trouble walking when I was eight. I will never be like everyone else. My left side is weaker than my right, and I walk with a limp even after all of my training. I forget things constantly, and part of me wonders if this is from my stroke. I don't tell most of my friends I had a stroke; they might never look at me the same way again.
But here's the reality: I can't complain. I had a stroke, but I defied the odds. I proved every doctor wrong, and I did it with style.
Also on HuffPost:
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/i-defied-the-odds_n_3518119.html
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Scientists view 'protein origami' to help understand, prevent certain diseases
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Public release date: 28-Jun-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Kathleen Phillips
ka-phillips@tamu.edu
979-845-2872
Texas A&M AgriLife Communications
COLLEGE STATION -- Scientists using sophisticated imaging techniques have observed a molecular protein folding process that may help medical researchers understand and treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's and cancer.
The study, reported this month in the journal Cell, verifies a process that scientists knew existed but with a mechanism they had never been able to observe, according to Dr. Hays Rye, Texas A&M AgriLife Research biochemist.
"This is a step in the direction of understanding how to modulate systems to prevent diseases like Alzheimer's. We needed to understand the cell's folding machines and how they interact with each other in a complicated network," said Rye, who also is associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M.
Rye explained that individual amino acids get linked together like beads on a string as a protein is made in the cell.
"But that linear sequence of amino acids is not functional," he explained. "It's like an origami structure that has to fold up into a three-dimensional shape to do what it has to do."
Rye said researchers have been trying to understand this process for more than 50 years, but in a living cell the process is complicated by the presence of many proteins in a concentrated environment.
"The constraints on getting that protein to fold up into a good 'origami' structure are a lot more demanding," he said. "So, there are special protein machines, known as molecular chaperones, in the cell that help proteins fold."
But how the molecular chaperones help protein fold when it isn't folding well by itself has been the nagging question for researchers.
"Molecular chaperones are like little machines, because they have levers and gears and power sources. They go through turning over cycles and just sort of buzz along inside a cell, driving a protein folding reaction every few seconds," Rye said.
The many chemical reactions that are essential to life rely on the exact three-dimensional shape of folded proteins, he said. In the cell, enzymes, for example, are specialized proteins that help speed biological processes along by binding molecules and bringing them together in just the right way.
"They are bound together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle," Rye explained. "And the proteins -- those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami -- are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules and do those chemical reactions.
"If that doesn't happen -- if the protein doesn't get folded up right -- the chemical reaction can't be done. And if it's essential, the cell dies because it can't convert food into power needed to build the other structures in the cell that are needed. Chemical reactions are the structural underpinning of how cells are put together, and all of that depends on the proteins being folded in the right way."
When a protein doesn't fold or folds incorrectly it turns into an "aggregate," which Rye described as "white goo that looks kind of like a mayonnaise, like crud in the test tube.
"You're dead; the cell dies," he said.
Over the past 20 years, he said, researchers have linked that aggregation process "pretty convincingly" to the development of diseases -- Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's disease, to name a few. There's evidence that diabetes and cancer also are linked to protein folding disorders.
"One of the main roles for the molecular chaperones is preventing those protein misfolding events that lead to aggregation and not letting a cell get poisoned by badly folded or aggregated proteins," he said.
Rye's team focused on a key molecular chaperone -- the HSP60.
"They're called HSP for 'heat shock protein' because when the cell is stressed with heat, the proteins get unstable and start to fall apart and unfold," Rye said. "The cell is built to respond by making more of the chaperones to try and fix the problem.
"This particular chaperone takes unfolded protein and goes through a chemical reaction to bind the unfolded protein and literally puts it inside a little 'box,'" Rye said.
He added that the mystery had long been how the folding worked because, while researchers could see evidence of that happening, no one had ever seen precisely how it happened.
Rye and the team zeroed in on a chemically modified mutant that in other experiments had seemed to stall at an important step in the process that the "machine" goes through to start the folding action. This clued the researchers that this stalling might make it easier to watch.
They then used cryo-electron microscopy to capture hundreds of thousands of images of the process at very high resolutions which allowed them to reconstruct from two-dimensional flat images a three-dimensional model. A highly sophisticated computer algorithm aligns the images and classifies them in subcategories.
"If you have enough of them you can actually reconstruct and view a structure as a three-dimensional model," Rye said.
What the team saw was this: The HSP60 chaperone is designed to recognize proteins that are not folded from the ones that are. It binds them and then has a separate co-chaperone that puts a "lid" on top of the box to keep the folding intermediate in the box. They could see the box move, and parts of the molecule moved to peel the chaperone box away from the bound protein or "gift" in the box. But the bound protein was kept inside the package where it could then initiate a folding reaction. They saw tiny tentacles, "like a little octopus in the bottom of the box rising up and grabbing hold of the substrate protein and helping hold it inside the cavity."
"The first thing we saw was a large amount of an unfolded protein inside of this cavity," he said. "Even though we knew from lots and lots of other studies that it had to go in there, nobody had ever seen it like this before. We can also see the non-native protein interacting with parts of the box that no one had ever seen before. It was exciting to see all of this for the first time. I think we got a glimpse of a protein in the process of folding, which we actually can compare to other structures."
"By understanding the mechanism of these machines, the hope is that one of the things we can learn to do is turn them up or turn them off when we need to, like for a patient who has one of the protein folding diseases," he said.
Rye collaborated on the research with Dong-Hua Chen and Wah Chiu at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Damian Madan and Zohn Lin at Princeton University, Jeremy Weaver at Texas A&M and Gunnar Schrder at the Institute of Complex Systems in Germany.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 28-Jun-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Kathleen Phillips
ka-phillips@tamu.edu
979-845-2872
Texas A&M AgriLife Communications
COLLEGE STATION -- Scientists using sophisticated imaging techniques have observed a molecular protein folding process that may help medical researchers understand and treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's and cancer.
The study, reported this month in the journal Cell, verifies a process that scientists knew existed but with a mechanism they had never been able to observe, according to Dr. Hays Rye, Texas A&M AgriLife Research biochemist.
"This is a step in the direction of understanding how to modulate systems to prevent diseases like Alzheimer's. We needed to understand the cell's folding machines and how they interact with each other in a complicated network," said Rye, who also is associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M.
Rye explained that individual amino acids get linked together like beads on a string as a protein is made in the cell.
"But that linear sequence of amino acids is not functional," he explained. "It's like an origami structure that has to fold up into a three-dimensional shape to do what it has to do."
Rye said researchers have been trying to understand this process for more than 50 years, but in a living cell the process is complicated by the presence of many proteins in a concentrated environment.
"The constraints on getting that protein to fold up into a good 'origami' structure are a lot more demanding," he said. "So, there are special protein machines, known as molecular chaperones, in the cell that help proteins fold."
But how the molecular chaperones help protein fold when it isn't folding well by itself has been the nagging question for researchers.
"Molecular chaperones are like little machines, because they have levers and gears and power sources. They go through turning over cycles and just sort of buzz along inside a cell, driving a protein folding reaction every few seconds," Rye said.
The many chemical reactions that are essential to life rely on the exact three-dimensional shape of folded proteins, he said. In the cell, enzymes, for example, are specialized proteins that help speed biological processes along by binding molecules and bringing them together in just the right way.
"They are bound together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle," Rye explained. "And the proteins -- those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami -- are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules and do those chemical reactions.
"If that doesn't happen -- if the protein doesn't get folded up right -- the chemical reaction can't be done. And if it's essential, the cell dies because it can't convert food into power needed to build the other structures in the cell that are needed. Chemical reactions are the structural underpinning of how cells are put together, and all of that depends on the proteins being folded in the right way."
When a protein doesn't fold or folds incorrectly it turns into an "aggregate," which Rye described as "white goo that looks kind of like a mayonnaise, like crud in the test tube.
"You're dead; the cell dies," he said.
Over the past 20 years, he said, researchers have linked that aggregation process "pretty convincingly" to the development of diseases -- Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's disease, to name a few. There's evidence that diabetes and cancer also are linked to protein folding disorders.
"One of the main roles for the molecular chaperones is preventing those protein misfolding events that lead to aggregation and not letting a cell get poisoned by badly folded or aggregated proteins," he said.
Rye's team focused on a key molecular chaperone -- the HSP60.
"They're called HSP for 'heat shock protein' because when the cell is stressed with heat, the proteins get unstable and start to fall apart and unfold," Rye said. "The cell is built to respond by making more of the chaperones to try and fix the problem.
"This particular chaperone takes unfolded protein and goes through a chemical reaction to bind the unfolded protein and literally puts it inside a little 'box,'" Rye said.
He added that the mystery had long been how the folding worked because, while researchers could see evidence of that happening, no one had ever seen precisely how it happened.
Rye and the team zeroed in on a chemically modified mutant that in other experiments had seemed to stall at an important step in the process that the "machine" goes through to start the folding action. This clued the researchers that this stalling might make it easier to watch.
They then used cryo-electron microscopy to capture hundreds of thousands of images of the process at very high resolutions which allowed them to reconstruct from two-dimensional flat images a three-dimensional model. A highly sophisticated computer algorithm aligns the images and classifies them in subcategories.
"If you have enough of them you can actually reconstruct and view a structure as a three-dimensional model," Rye said.
What the team saw was this: The HSP60 chaperone is designed to recognize proteins that are not folded from the ones that are. It binds them and then has a separate co-chaperone that puts a "lid" on top of the box to keep the folding intermediate in the box. They could see the box move, and parts of the molecule moved to peel the chaperone box away from the bound protein or "gift" in the box. But the bound protein was kept inside the package where it could then initiate a folding reaction. They saw tiny tentacles, "like a little octopus in the bottom of the box rising up and grabbing hold of the substrate protein and helping hold it inside the cavity."
"The first thing we saw was a large amount of an unfolded protein inside of this cavity," he said. "Even though we knew from lots and lots of other studies that it had to go in there, nobody had ever seen it like this before. We can also see the non-native protein interacting with parts of the box that no one had ever seen before. It was exciting to see all of this for the first time. I think we got a glimpse of a protein in the process of folding, which we actually can compare to other structures."
"By understanding the mechanism of these machines, the hope is that one of the things we can learn to do is turn them up or turn them off when we need to, like for a patient who has one of the protein folding diseases," he said.
Rye collaborated on the research with Dong-Hua Chen and Wah Chiu at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Damian Madan and Zohn Lin at Princeton University, Jeremy Weaver at Texas A&M and Gunnar Schrder at the Institute of Complex Systems in Germany.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/taac-sv062813.php
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Feds sue ex-NJ governor Corzine over MF Global failure
mf-global 
21 hours ago
JONATHAN ERNST / Reuters
Former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine testifies before a House Financial Services Committee Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on the collapse of MF Global, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in this December 15, 2011 file photo.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is suing former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine for failure to supervise at the defunct firm.
In a statement, the regulator said it seeks to ban the former governor of New Jersey from working in the futures industry for his alleged role in the firm's bankruptcy 18 months ago.
The suit also targets the former treasurer of the company, Edith O'Brien, and alleges that MF Global misused funds prior to its collapse. The CFTC is asking for a $100 million penalty against the company.
MF Global collapsed in October 2011 under the weight of aggressive bets on sovereign debt, thin capital and questionable disclosures to investors. Customers were left reeling after it was revealed that more than $1 billion of their money could not be found.
Corzine is charged with violating his legal obligations to diligently supervise. O'Brien is charged with aiding and abetting the firm's misuse of customer funds.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Legal Perspective on Liability in the Internet Law Vista - Inforrm's Blog
In the early 1990s, the proliferation of information available on the Internet and the growth of Internet-related businesses produced new challenges for the distribution and dissemination of information. As legal issues arise from widespread use of search engines, governments react by attempting to regulate the Internet sector.
The search engine operators? growing market power and ability to control access to information trigger new legal concerns encompassing data protection, trademark and copyright infringement consumer protection, competition law, and free speech.
Both search engines and Internet-related businesses are influential factors shaping policies and laws in emerging market economies. Turkey, as an emerging market economy, is particularly concerned with search engine liability in the development of Internet laws.
Search engines are unmistakably Internet-based operations. Internet-based laws for content providers, hosting providers, and online business operators, however, can be challenging to apply to search engines. Search engines are distinct from these other operations in both objective and technology, which requires courts and legislatures to address legal issues related to search engines from a different perspective. The following cases and regulations demonstrate the pervasive search engine issues transcending jurisdictional boundaries.
American courts have addressed a significant number of claims against search engines and have developed extensive jurisprudence on search engine liability, particularly related to intellectual property disputes and defamation.
Perfect 10 v. Google involved an intellectual property conflict over a search engine?s capacity to assemble, organize, store, access, and display intellectual-property-protected ?content.? The plaintiff, Perfect 10, published a magazine and operated a subscription website; it registered the images it used with the United States Copyright Office. The court while analyzing available precedents, clearly distinguished between ?display? and ?inline linking? which refers to use of a linked object, often an image, from one site by a web page belonging to a second site. The court held that Google did not infringe Perfect 10?s right to distribution since infringement required ?actual dissemination? of the copyrighted material rather than simply facilitating access.
In Field v. Google, Blake Field filed a copyright infringement claim against Google Inc. for allowing Internet users to access copies of 51 of his registered works, which violated Field?s exclusive right to reproduce copies and distribute copies of those works. The court held in favor of Google, noting that
?If Google copies or distributes Field?s copyrighted works by allowing access to them through ?cached? links; Google?s conduct is fair use of those works as a matter of law.?
Courts in the United Kingdom addressed Internet law related to search engines similar to the United States. In 2009, Metropolitan International Schools Limited brought a defamation case against Designtechnica Corporation, Google UK Limited, and Google Inc ([2011] WLR 1743). The case provided a rational basis for apportioning liability for online actions, and serves as a foundation for future cases addressing Internet activity and search engines. The court held that a search engine is ?a different kind of Internet intermediary? which prevented the search engine from exercising complete control over the search terms and search results, making it a facilitator rather than a publisher. ?Mr Justice Eady clearly stated that the significance of notification to the proprietor of a search engine merits attention and in that regard, Google was not in a position to ?take down? the offending words in the way that Metropolitan could have done.
In civil law countries, court decisions relating to search engines do not retain the same authority as in common law countries. There are, however, a few notable court decisions in Europe that demonstrate a comprehensive appreciation for the limits of search engine liability. In Palomo v. Google Inc., Spain?s Court of First Instance heard a complaint regarding search result hyperlinks to websites with defamatory content. The court rejected the claim and held that the search engine was not liable for disseminating third party content. The court?s rationale was that the search engine was unaware that the linked content was defamatory.
The legal framework regulating Internet law in Turkey is not as developed as other jurisdictions.
The growing number of Internet related issues, however, requires Turkey to evaluate its existing laws and address legal liability issues regarding search engine conduct. The Information and Communications Technologies Authority is the regulatory body addressing Internet-based issues under Law No. 5651 on the Regulation of Broadcasts via Internet and Prevention of Crimes Committed Through Such Broadcasts (?Law No. 5651?). Law No. 5651?s purpose is to regulate the obligations and responsibilities of content providers, hosting providers, access providers, and mass use providers.
The position of search engines is questionable within the various categories of Internet actors enumerated under Law No. 5651. Attempts to categorize search engines as content providers, hosting providers, or access providers fail to incorporate the nuances of search engine functions. An ?access provider? provides a user with access to the Internet. A ?content provider? creates, amends, or provides information and data to Internet users. A ?hosting provider? operates the system that contains services and content. Based on the key terms defined in Law No. 5651, however, search engines do not fall within the scope of an ?access provider,? a ?hosting provider,? or a ?content provider.?
Problems ensue when legal authorities apply legal rules that are not developed to address and fulfill content removal requests. Websites and their content listed among search results are created by and uploaded by third parties; websites are owned by third parties, not the search engine operator, which makes it legally and technically impossible for search engine operators to interfere with the content. The relevant content must be removed from the original website for the content to avoid the search engine?s algorithmic formulae. The impossibility and illegality, however, does not prevent claims from being filed for non-removal of certain content from search engine results.
Another recurring issue includes requests to ban specific word searches and remove particular content from a search result. Search engine operators can neither prohibit users from using specific search terms, nor can they remove the search results related to these search terms. The existing legal rules for content and host providers are typically suggested to clarify boundaries for search engine liability, since the liability of these Internet actors is clearer.
Under Turkish law a ?content provider is responsible for any kind of content it presents on the Internet? but it is not responsible for the content of third party links unless the content provider indicates its intent to provide access to the specific third party content. Law No. 5651 establishes that the content provider is responsible for content broadcasted on the Internet rather than the hosting provider. This provision should be extended to content listed among the search engine results. Since the legislature is not holding the hosting provider responsible for uploaded content, it should not be legally possible to hold a search engine operator liable for listing live content and providing organized information to users. Even if it was legally and technically possible to remove live content from search engine results, it would not be ?deleted? from the Internet because it would still be broadcast on the relevant website. Criminal and civil liability would rest with the content provider under the scope of Law No. 5651.
However, Turkish courts in practice have nevertheless held Google liable, as a search engine operator, for removing live contents appearing on its search results. The line of thought adopted by the Turkish judges was that the respective content appearing among Google?s search term results was violating the complainant?s personal rights and was accessible; hence the courts ordered that such content be removed by Google from its search results. This line of reasoning may be criticized for equating a search engine?s obligations with those of the content providers? and hosting providers?, as Law No. 5651 clearly states that any person who claims that his rights are violated due to content shall apply to the content provider, or to the hosting provider in cases where the content provider is not found, for removal of such content.
Although no specific regulation exists for content removal from search engine results, Law No. 5651 establishes a procedure for content removal by a content provider or host provider that could be applied to search engines. Search engine operators could potentially be liable for content removed from the original website but still appearing among search results under Article 9 of Law No. 5651.
Another topic of interest that is increasingly coming to the fore to mold how liability may or may not be attributed to search engines for online content is that of search-term suggestions. Search-term suggestion (or the ?Keyword Suggestion Tool? as Google phrases) is a function of a search engine whereby a word, phrase or a website name, when typed to the search engine?s search bar, presents a list of keywords and phrases that the relevant search engine most closely relates them to the typed search-term due to frequency of search or popularity of search of the relevant term.
A 2010 decision of the Turkish criminal court of peace provides an important precedent in regards to how Turkish courts should interpret and apply the provisions of Law No. 5651 in terms of search term suggestions, in Turkey?s nascent Internet law framework. The court held that Google cannot be held responsible for search-term suggestions appearing on its search engine when the search term ?recep konuk corruption? and ?recep konuk?s corruptions? appear. The court reasoned that what is being requested for removal is the search term suggestions and not content as understood by Law No. 5651. The court premised its reasoning as follows:
?The removal of content which is reached through these search results can be requested from the content provider in accordance with the Law No. 5651. ? [T]he obligations of the access providers are within the context of Article 6 and the request should be made to the access provider.?
Although directing the request to the access provider is not the correct procedure, the court issued an interesting decision which might be used as supporting precedent in similar removal requests for search term suggestions, as the court grants that search terms suggestions are not considered content as understood under Law No. 5651.
The role and status of search engines might continue to raise legal concerns for emerging markets, such as Turkey, considering that there is an insufficient amount of case law to shed light into how legislation is interpreted by judicial authorities. This is in part due to the young age of the Internet legislation that is in force, and also due to the lack of judicial know-how concerning matters pertaining to the Internet law vista.
The first step to eliminate such legal concerns would be the recognition that search engine operators are not responsible for the content appearing among search results. This entails a parallel understanding that search engine operators, such as Google, cannot be held responsible for unlawful content that is broadcasted on the Internet, by third parties, when such content is still live. On the other hand, search engine operators may face the risk of being held liable for unlawful content which has been already removed by the content providers, but is still appearing among a particular search engine result. Depending on various court practices, this may impose upon search engine providers the duty to take the necessary technical and legal precautions to remove such content from appearing among their search results when these contents are not live. Second, legal definitions that clearly define and set the boundaries for what types of providers are held responsible for the content broadcasted on the Internet are necessary for the letter of the law to converge with the spirit of the law. Defining search engine operators separate from content and hosting providers is an opportunity for emerging markets to harmonize with courts across the globe in recognizing that search engines are an ?intermediary? to the information on the Internet.
G?nen? G?rkaynak is a partner at ELIG, Attorneys at Law, Istanbul
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