Man linked to Ohio St. scandal sentenced to prison (AP)

COLUMBUS, Ohio ? A federal judge handed down a three-year sentence Wednesday to the tattoo parlor owner whose purchase of Ohio State University football memorabilia triggered a far-reaching football scandal and an ongoing NCAA investigation.

But U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost found that Edward Rife didn't have the ability to pay a $10,000 fine following his conviction earlier this year on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

Rife, 31, had asked for leniency, saying previous convictions for assault and forgery occurred several years ago and didn't suggest he was likely to commit future crimes.

Rife, owner of Fine Line Ink Tattoos and Body Piercings on the west side of Columbus, tearfully apologized to his family and friends for his actions.

He said he's had to sell his house, move his daughters, ages 6 and 11, to different schools because of taunts they've received and is currently separated from his wife.

"I know what I did was wrong and I regret it every day," he said. "I never plan on doing anything wrong again."

Rife's conviction for dealing hundreds of pounds of marijuana was not all that different from other drug cases that often come before Frost. But the fact that Rife's actions inadvertently caused upheavals at Ohio State created intense interest in the case.

Frost made it clear he didn't care about the Ohio State connection.

"This is about drugs. This is not about trinkets," Frost said.

"I don't care about trinkets, I don't care about Ohio State, I don't care about the players," Frost said. "I care about the drugs."

Frost said he took into consideration the many letters of support he had received on Rife's behalf and said Rife was different from many other drug defendants.

He also told Rife that while he had sympathy for his family, he had little sympathy for Rife as the source of their ills.

"This is a terrible offense," Frost said. "There's no getting around it."

Even prosecutors seemed sympathetic toward Rife, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Kelley telling Frost he didn't know what punishment Rife could receive that would be worse "than what he's already gone through."

Prosecutors alleged that in addition to Rife's tattoo parlor, he had a lucrative side business selling hundreds of pounds of marijuana in Columbus, a second job that federal prosecutors say allowed him to pay $21,500 for a luxury SUV.

In December, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor and four other Ohio State players were found to have received cash and discounted tattoos from Rife in exchange for signed Buckeye memorabilia and championship rings.

All were permitted by the NCAA to play in the Buckeyes' 31-26 victory over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, with their five-game suspensions to begin with the first game of the 2011 season. Another player, Jordan Whiting, was suspended for one game.

After the team returned from New Orleans, investigators found that coach Jim Tressel had learned in April 2010 about the players' involvement with Rife.

Rife had met with Christopher Cicero, a local attorney and former Ohio State walk-on player, that month to discuss his case but never hired Cicero. Cicero sent Tressel emails detailing the improper benefits, and the two ended up trading a dozen emails on the subject.

Tressel had signed an NCAA compliance form in September saying he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by athletes. His contract, in addition to NCAA rules, specified that he had to tell his superiors or compliance department about any potential NCAA rules violations.

Tressel, who won a national championship and seven Big Ten titles at Ohio State, resigned May 30. Pryor also left Ohio State.

Three people testified in favor of Rife on Wednesday, including a woman who said she'd taken him in as a boy when he was homeless and begging on the street.

A friend, Sean Abbott, said Rife often took him into his house when he was homeless and always cared for him.

After Abbott finished speaking, Frost, laughing, said he had to ask Abbott where he got the Ohio State jersey he was wearing.

"I bought this one from Wal-Mart," Abbott said.

Rife's lawyer, Stephen Palmer, said his client had been wrongly portrayed as the villain behind Ohio State's woes and that people hadn't seen his human side.

"It's been crushing," Palmer said. "He's not just an ugly mug shot as we've seen in the news."

In June, Rife pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 200 pounds of marijuana.

Rife has forfeited $50,000 in drug proceeds, but was allowed to keep the memorabilia found in his suburban Columbus home. Those include Big Ten championship rings, gold pants pendants, autographed items and parts of football uniforms.

IRS criminal investigators have said they couldn't determine whether Rife had used drug profits to buy the memorabilia.

The IRS said investigators learned of Rife's drug dealing while probing a major marijuana and cocaine operation in central Ohio.

Kelley said there was no evidence Ohio State players were involved in the marijuana operation.

___

Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached at http://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111026/ap_on_sp_ot/us_ohio_st_parlor_owner

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Daily Desired: Make Your Apple Products Shimmer Like Carbon Fiber [Desired]

From an aesthetic point of view, draping Apple products in carbon fiber is a staggeringly obvious idea. Staggeringly expensive, too—Apple's never gotten past a concept. But if you can't have carbon fiber iProducts, here's the next best thing. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/hQmLImpzWa8/

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Judge blocks Fla.'s new welfare drug testing law (AP)

ORLANDO, Fla. ? A federal judge temporarily blocked Florida's new law that requires welfare applicants to pass a drug test before receiving the benefits on Monday, saying it may violate the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Judge Mary Scriven's ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Navy veteran and single father who sought the benefits while finishing his college degree, but refused to take the test.

The judge said there was a good chance plaintiff Luis Lebron would succeed in his challenge to the law based on the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches. The drug test can reveal a host of private medical facts about the individual, Scriven wrote, adding that she found it "troubling" that the drug tests are not kept confidential like medical records. The results can also be shared with law enforcement officers and a drug abuse hotline.

"This potential interception of positive drug tests by law enforcement implicates a `far more substantial' invasion of privacy than in ordinary civil drug testing cases," Scriven said.

The law's proponents include Gov. Rick Scott, who said during his campaign the measure would save $77 million. It's unclear how he arrived at those figures.

"Drug testing welfare recipients is just a common-sense way to ensure that welfare dollars are used to help children and get parents back to work," said Jackie Schutz, a spokeswoman for Scott. "The governor obviously disagrees with the decision and he will evaluate his options regarding when to appeal."

Earlier this year, Scott also ordered drug testing of new state workers and spot checks of existing state employees under him. But testing was suspended after the American Civil Liberties Union also challenged that policy in a separate lawsuit.

Nearly 1,600 applicants have refused to take the test since testing began in mid-July, but they aren't required to say why. Thirty-two applicants failed the test and more than 7,000 have passed, according to the Department of Children and Families. The majority of positives were for marijuana.

Supporters say applicants skipped the test because they knew they would have tested positive for drugs. Applicants must pay $25 to $35 for the test and are reimbursed by the state if they pass. It's unclear if the state has saved money.

Under the Temporary Assistance For Needy Families program, the state gives $180 a month for one person or $364 for a family of four.

Those who test positive for drugs are ineligible for the cash assistance for one year, though passing a drug course can cut that period in half. If they fail a second time, they are ineligible for three years.

Lebron, who is the sole caretaker of his 4-year-old son, said he's "happy that the judge stood up for me and my rights and said the state can't act without a reason or suspicion."

The ACLU says Florida was the first to enact such a law since Michigan tried more than a decade ago. Michigan's random drug testing program for welfare recipients lasted five weeks in 1999 before it was halted by a judge, kicking off a four-year legal battle that ended with an appeals court ruling it unconstitutional.

___

Kennedy reported from Miami.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_re_us/us_welfare_drug_testing

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Jackson doctor's defense case expected to start

Dr. Conrad Murray sits in a courtroom during his involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

Dr. Conrad Murray sits in a courtroom during his involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

In this Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011, photo, J. Michael Flanagan, a defense attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray, looks on during Murray's involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. Attorneys for the doctor charged in Michael Jackson?s death are expected to begin their case on Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, after they finish grilling a key prosecution expert. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

Anesthesiology expert Dr. Steven Shafer holds an intravenous line as he is cross examined by Ed Chernoff, a defense attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray, background right, during Murray's involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

Ed Chernoff, left, a defense attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray, holds up an intravenous line as he cross examines anesthesiology expert Dr. Steven Shafer, background right, during Dr. Conrad Murray's involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Defense attorneys for the doctor charged in Michael Jackson's death are expected to begin calling witnesses in their case Monday after they finish grilling a key prosecution expert.

The defense case will be Dr. Conrad Murray's opportunity to counter four weeks of damaging testimony about him from 33 prosecution witnesses who have cast him as an inept, distracted and opportunistic doctor who repeatedly broke legal, ethical and professional guidelines.

The defense case is expected to comprise of 15 witnesses, although Murray's attorneys have not publicly revealed whether they will call the Houston-based cardiologist to testify on his own behalf. Jurors have heard from the doctor through a more than two-hour interview with police, and it seems unlikely that Murray's attorneys would subject their client to what would be blistering questioning from prosecutors.

Monday will begin with lead defense attorney Ed Chernoff questioning Dr. Steven Shafer, the prosecution's final witness and an expert in the anesthetic propofol, which Murray had been giving Jackson as a sleep aid. Chernoff's questioning on Friday challenged Shafer's conclusions and comments he had made about colleague Dr. Paul White, who will testify for the defense team.

So far, Shafer has not retreated from his position that Murray is solely responsible for Jackson's death and that the cardiologist committed 17 egregious violations of medical practices that each could have either led to Jackson's serious injury or death.

After Shafer is done testifying, Murray's attorneys will likely ask a judge to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter case against the cardiologist. Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor will rule on the oral motion immediately and if he rejects it, the defense case will begin.

Defense attorneys have said they will call police detectives who prosecutors did not call, several character witnesses, White and possibly other experts. They expect their case will last through Thursday.

Murray has pleaded not guilty, and faces up to four years behind bars and the loss of his medical license if convicted.

The defense will have its work cut out for them to try to sway jurors to acquit Murray.

"He will have to change the landscape here and show some reasonable doubt, said Marcellus McRae, a former federal prosecutor and trial attorney who has been following the case closely. "The question is will this be enough."

McRae said calling Shafer as the prosecution's final witness was a master stroke.

"Brick by evidentiary brick, Shafer has built a wall of scientific reasons for the jury to conclude that Dr. Murray was criminally negligent," he said. "It allows the prosecution to tell the jury that their case is built on science rather than shifting theories."

Out of sight of the jury, the defense's theory has shifted in recent months from arguing that Jackson swallowed propofol and gave himself the fatal dose and more recently that the singer had swallowed several pills of the sedative lorazepam, which led to his death.

They may also argue that Jackson somehow gave himself a shot of propofol after Murray left the room, killing him quickly.

Prosecutors have sought to discredit all those theories through Shafer, who himself drank propofol before the trial in an attempt to confirm that it wouldn't induce sedation or other ill effects. He called the amount of lorazepam in Jackson's stomach "trivial" and last week said the only possible explanation for Jackson's death based on the evidence was that Murray put the singer on IV drip of propofol and left the room after the singer appeared to be asleep.

This week, it will be the defense's turn to either offer alternate theories or somehow pick apart the prosecution's case.

___

AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report.

___

McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-10-24-Michael%20Jackson-Doctor/id-4a11a768e2274cd891fa92cec358fccb

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Dan Morain: Big changes are coming to the Capitol (Sacramento Bee)

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

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No reports yet of debris from falling satellite

Undated artist rendering provided by EADS Astrium shows the scientific satellite Rosat. The German Aerospace Center said the retired satellite is hurtling toward the atmosphere and pieces could crash into the earth as early as Friday. Spokesman Andreas Schuetz told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011 that most of the satellite named ROSAT, which is about the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry. (AP Photo/EADS Astrium)

Undated artist rendering provided by EADS Astrium shows the scientific satellite Rosat. The German Aerospace Center said the retired satellite is hurtling toward the atmosphere and pieces could crash into the earth as early as Friday. Spokesman Andreas Schuetz told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011 that most of the satellite named ROSAT, which is about the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry. (AP Photo/EADS Astrium)

BERLIN (AP) ? Scientists were trying to establish how and where a defunct German research satellite returned to the Earth Sunday, after warning that some parts might survive re-entry and crash at up to 280 mph (450 kph).

There was no immediate solid evidence to determine above which continent or country the ROSAT scientific research satellite entered the atmosphere, said Andreas Schuetz, spokesman for the German Aerospace Center.

Most parts of the minivan-sized satellite were expected to burn up, but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons (1.7 metric tons) could crash.

Scientists were no longer able to communicate with the dead satellite and it must have traveled about 12,500 miles (20,000 kilometers) in the final 30 minutes before entering the atmosphere, Schuetz said.

Schuetz said it could take days to determine exactly where pieces of the satellite had fallen, but that the agency had not received any reports that it had hit any populated areas.

"We have no such information," he said Sunday.

Scientists said hours before the re-entry into the atmosphere that the satellite was not expected to hit over Europe, Africa or Australia. According to a precalculated path it could have been above Asia, possibly China, at the time of its re-entry, but Schuetz said he could not confirm that.

The 2.69-ton (2.4 metric ton) scientific ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990 and retired in 1999 after being used for research on black holes and neutron stars and performing the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope.

The largest single fragment of ROSAT that could hit into the earth is the telescope's heat-resistant mirror.

During its mission, the satellite orbited about 370 miles (600 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, but since its decommissioning it has lost altitude, circling at a distance of only 205 miles (330 kilometers) above ground in June for example, the agency said.

Even in the last days, the satellite still circled the planet every 90 minutes, making it hard to predict where on Earth it would eventually come down.

A dead NASA satellite fell into the southern Pacific Ocean last month, causing no damage, despite fears it would hit a populated area and cause damage or kill people.

Experts believe about two dozen metal pieces from the bus-sized satellite fell over a 500-mile (800 kilometer) span.

The German space agency puts the odds of somebody somewhere on Earth being hurt by its satellite at one in 2,000 ? a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the NASA satellite. But any one individual's odds of being struck are one in 14 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.

___

Online:

The German space agency on ROSAT: http://bit.ly/papMAA

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-23-Falling-Satellite/id-c62f4f246d2546d2be3a81cca4abf745

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Social Security raise welcomed in tough economy

Cancer survivors Richard and Carol Birch stand on their front porch in Geneva, Ill. Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011. The Birches have lived in their home for forty years, have driven the same car for nearly twenty-five years, and never lived above their wage. Medicare is a drain on their finances and they say the new Social Security raise won't help much. (AP Photo/Robert Ray)

Cancer survivors Richard and Carol Birch stand on their front porch in Geneva, Ill. Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011. The Birches have lived in their home for forty years, have driven the same car for nearly twenty-five years, and never lived above their wage. Medicare is a drain on their finances and they say the new Social Security raise won't help much. (AP Photo/Robert Ray)

Cancer survivors Richard and Carol Birch stand on their front porch in Geneva, Ill. Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011. The Birches have lived in their home for forty years, have driven the same car for nearly twenty-five years, and never lived above their wage. Medicare is a drain on their finances and they say the new Social Security raise won't help much. (AP Photo/Robert Ray)

Retiree Joseph Visintainer plops down on the floor of the coffee shop of his local senior center to greet a visiting dachshund dog Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle. For some, the just-announced increase in Social Security checks amounts to an extra meal out, a little more cash for clothes or a new pair of shoes, some added comfort in retirement. But it's crucial for others. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Joseph Visintainer waves at other retirees as he sits in the coffee shop of his local senior center Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle. For some, the just-announced increase in Social Security checks amounts to an extra meal out, a little more cash for clothes or a new pair of shoes, some added comfort in retirement. But it's crucial for others. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Grace Keesling, 76, stretches during an exercise class at her local senior center Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle. Keesling says that the just-announced increase in Social Security checks, while welcome, may well be off-set by increased health care costs. Keesling has been retired for 22 years. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? For some, the just-announced increase in Social Security checks amounts to an extra meal out, a little more cash for clothes or a new pair of shoes, some added comfort in retirement. For Elizabeth Davis, it's a crucial boost to the only thing keeping her afloat.

The 71-year-old Miami woman grew up picking cotton on her family's South Carolina farm, raised four children and has worked all her life, even now at a preschool. She is divorced, and her small 401k account "went down the drain," she said. So she counts the days to the third Wednesday of each month, when her $668 Social Security check arrives, and she is able to pay her bills.

"I could live a little better," she said of the 3.6 percent raise announced this week, the first in two years. "I don't have anything to look forward to until that check every month."

The reaction the cost-of-living adjustment has garnered illuminates the divide between the rich and poor among America's oldest residents. Social Security represents a staggering share of income for lower- and middle-class seniors ? made evident just this week in a new government report ? and for whom any increase can make a world of difference. For upper-income seniors, it's simply a nice plus.

Starting in January, 55 million Social Security recipients will get increases averaging $39 a month, or about $467 a year. In December, more than 8 million people who receive Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for the poor, will get increases averaging $18 a month, or about $216 a year.

Davis felt the effects of no raise the past two years. Her only other income is a small stipend for her work that averages about $232 a month. She's been using her credit card more and building debt. She's already trimmed as much as she can ? from cutting her cable plan to limiting her phone usage to keeping the air conditioning off. She owns her home, but taxes, insurance, utilities and groceries eat up nearly all her income. As those costs rise, there was no wiggle room.

In Seattle, Joseph C. Visintainer, 63, lives alone with his cat in a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development complex, where rent is kept affordable. The retired restaurant worker said he keeps his expenses low in part by taking the bus instead of driving, and eating TV dinners instead of buying meat. Visintainer lives off Social Security and keeps some investments just for emergencies.

"I have to watch what I spend. I don't go out a lot like I used to," he said. "If I get an increase, I'll say thank you."

For John Bowker, 81, a retired executive, it's simply a little something extra. He and his wife, Linda, a retired computer programmer, live in the sprawling southwest Florida retirement community of Sun City Center, largely off their savings and investments. But a raise in Social Security adds some padding.

"We can do a little more on our weekends," Bowker said. "We'll feel a little less squeamish about going out and spending 40 or 50 bucks a month for a meal."

For many of the Bowkers' neighbors, though, it's different. He said some have even had trouble coming up with the modest $256-a-year dues residents of Sun City Center must pay on top of their mortgage or rent. Across the income spectrum, though, he said he hears wide acknowledgement from his neighbors that seniors are better off with Social Security.

"Even for us rock-red Republicans," he said, "this is one of the government programs that we would hurt very badly if it were not available to us."

The government formally announced the raise Wednesday, two days after the Government Accountability Office put out a report on income security among seniors that shed light on just how crucial Social Security payouts are.

The report found that household income rose 5 percent from 2007 to 2009 for those 65 and up, even though it fell 6 percent for those aged 55 to 64 who are just shy of retirement. Likewise, poverty rates increased among the younger demographic but decreased among those 65 and older. Many cite Social Security as a key factor.

Frank Chicoine, 80, of Stuart, Fla., receives a pension from his years working at a utility company, but that check's amount is fixed, never rising. The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is the only raise he gets.

Medicare premiums cost him and his wife nearly $200 a month, and their supplemental health insurance is another $600 a month. His homeowner's premium went up by $600 to $2,000 this year as insurers have been granted hefty rate hikes. All his expenses seem to keep going up.

"I consider myself one of the lucky ones," he said. "But if I lost that $1,700 or $1,800 a month, it would change my life."

Chicoine isn't alone in seeing his income eaten up by higher medical costs. As much as one-quarter of the raises to Social Security beneficiaries could be wiped out by higher Medicare premiums, according to projections. Those premiums, for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits, could be announced as early as next week.

Richard Birch, 84, and his 72-year-old wife, Carol, said they spend thousands of dollars a year on medical treatments and roughly $300 a month on prescription medications after each survived bouts with cancer. They said their Social Security raise would likely be eaten up by the Medicare increases, so the couple will continue to live frugally as they've done for years.

The Birches have lived in their Geneva, Ill., home outside Chicago for 40 years and have driven the same car for 25 years. Despite earning a pension in addition to Social Security, they've changed many of their habits since the economic downturn.

"We think twice about driving places because of the price of gas, we don't buy clothes and we almost never go out to eat or have steak at home any longer," Carol Birch said with a smile and shrug.

The report from the GAO this week showed that among the bottom fifth of people 65 and older, Social Security comprised 83 percent of income. For the middle tier, it made up 64 percent. Among the most well-off, it represented less than 20 percent of their income.

The annual cost-of-living adjustment is tied to an inflation measure released Wednesday. The measure, which was adopted in the 1970s, produced no raises in 2010 or 2011 because inflation was too low. Those were the first two years without such a raise since automatic increases were enacted in 1975. Social Security recipients did, however, receive a one-time $250 payment from the economic stimulus package passed in 2009.

Doris Miller, 79, lives in the Tulsa, Okla., suburb of Broken Arrow and takes seven prescription medications every day for high blood pressure, arthritis and asthma. She also is recovering from a back injury. To pay for them, she's been charging all her prescriptions at the end of each month on credit cards and puts off seeing her doctor because she's afraid he will give her a new prescription to pay for.

She said she is worried that she could be close to maxing out some of those credit cards. With the cost of living increase, Miller hopes she can afford to pay cash for at least some of the drugs.

"Anything helps when you haven't had (an increase) in two years," she said.

___

Associated Press writer Justin Juozapavicius in Tulsa, Okla., Manuel Valdes in Seattle and videojournalist Robert Ray in Chicago contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-21-Social%20Security-COLA/id-d916b428d17b43a78049cf20206a39cf

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Analysis: Russia not ready to cover China rare earths gap

By Alfred Kueppers

MOSCOW |
Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:54am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) ? Russia, with as much as a third of the world?s rare earth deposits, will take at least a decade to develop them and step into the breach that has been created since China chopped supply of the metals to the rest of the world.

China controls about 95 percent of the market for the 17 elements in demand by manufacturers of everything from hybrid autos to wind power stations and has cut its export quota by about 40 percent in the past two years, sending prices soaring.

Australian and U.S. firms have been quick to launch new mines and restart mothballed operations, with projects scheduled to go online as early as the end of this year.

Russian deposits, while ranked third-largest globally, are largely undeveloped. Output remains limited to one Soviet-era plant in the Murmansk region.

?I would say if they start now you would see that at the end of this decade they could be producing,? said Jack Lifton, founder of the industry consultancy Technology Metals Research.

?We are not looking for production to happen anytime soon.?

Estimates of the size of Russia?s deposits vary widely, with local geologists putting its share of the planet?s supply at almost 30 percent, while the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has reported that Russia and its former Soviet neighbors hold 19 million tonnes of reserves, or about 14 percent of the total.

?I think Russia certainly has potential. It has a number of rare earth occurrences. However, they have not been converted into reserves,? said Colorado School of Mines professor of mineral economics Rod Eggert, explaining that the reserves are known to exist with a high degree of certainty and also commercially feasible to extract.

German industry is eager to tap Russia?s resources. During a visit to Hanover in July, President Dmitry Medvedev said his country could become a key supplier to Europe?s largest economy.

Alexander Rahr of Germany?s Council on Foreign Relations said the Federation of German Industry has since set up a research center on the issue, though no deals have been signed.

Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp?s Kazakh joint-venture SARECO is also considering possible projects in Yakutia, a remote autonomous republic in the Russian Far East.

No details were available from Sumitomo on the possible timeframe for projects in Russia as it has yet to commit to any specific developments.

RUSSIAN RESOURCES

Excluding smaller quantities of rare earths produced as by-products by major miners such as Norilsk Nickel, Russia has only one active mine, Lovozersky GOK. Its loparite concentrate holds light rare earths such as lanthanum and cerium.

According to the company?s website, it expects to mine 12,000 tonnes of concentrate this year, up from 11,000 tonnes last year.

Lovozersky ships the concentrate to the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant in the Urals, which exported 1,466 tonnes of oxides last year to U.S. Molycorp?s plant in Silmet, Estonia and Kazakhstan?s Ulba Metallurgical Plant for processing.

The Tomtor deposit in Yakutia is the highlight of Russia?s untapped reserves.

?It is a super giant, located on the territory of the Russian Federation,? said Alexander Samonov of Russia?s Institute of Geology of Ore Deposits, Petrography, Mineralogy, and Geochemistry.

He said the field holds 150 million tonnes of ores with a rare earth concentration of 12 percent and large amounts of the light rare earths cerium and samarium.

In a recent report, analysts at Ernst Young said experts consider concentrations above 10 percent to be very good.

Unfortunately, the critical demand is for certain heavy rare earths used by the renewables sector in magnets, said Michael Nestour, metals and mining director at Ernst Young.

?If you look at light rare earths, in 2013 there won?t be any shortage in that market space, assuming the most advanced exploration projects start producing as planned,? he said. ?And in 2016-2017 the heavy rare earth shortage ends.?

Still, prices for light rare earths such as lanthanum, used in petroleum-cracking catalysts and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, continue to soar.

In a recent Reuters interview, Silmet Chief Executive David O?Brock said lanthanum spot prices were $130-$140 per kilogram, up from $35 in 2010 and $0.85 in 1999.

INVESTMENT CASE

Russia was one of many nations that stayed out of the market because until recently prices were low and demand from makers of products such as smart phones and wind power stations had yet to boom, said Ernst Young?s Nestour.

?Demand was a thimble and supply was a bucket,? he said.

Analysts say that in order for Russia to increase rare earth exports, local firms would have to enter into partnerships with end-users to guarantee investment and demand.

?They need to link with companies manufacturing permanent magnets, windfarm companies, the automotive sector,? Nestour said.

?There are also other sectors such as metallurgical alloys, defense or nuclear sectors, electric cars, low emission diodes, and there is potential in the magnetic refrigeration space.?

He also said that while no detailed cost estimates had been carried out for Tomtor, a processing facility alone would cost $100 million to $300 million.

Lifton added that the cost of building the infrastructure will be considerable. ?I have heard very good things about Tomtor, the problem I have is that it gets to be 50-below there in winter,? he said.

?Many mines in Canada get as cold as Tomtor, but they are much closer to rail and shipping links.?

(Additional reporting by David Mardiste in Tallinn and Yuko Inoue in Tokyo, editing by Jane Baird)

Article source: Source

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Tags: climate change, ecofriendly, environment, global warning, green

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Is Sonnen falling back in the contender line? Camp Silva is now a fan of Bisping

The jockeying continues between Chael Sonnen and Anderson Silva's camp. Will Sonnen's WWE-style call-out be rewarded or will Silva's manager Ed Soares successfully lobby UFC management that the brash American shouldn't be next?

Last week, Soares told HDNet's "Inside MMA" that Sonnen needs to go to the back of the line of middleweight contenders before he gets another title shot. Who's in that line?

Soares said he's never thought much of Michael Bisping in the past, but now the Brit should be in the mix for a title shot.

[...] People talk about Chael and Brian Stann, and sometimes people are focused on the TUF show. But I think Bisping could be a good opportunity. GSP could be a good opportunity," Soares told Sherdog.com.

That doesn't mean Soares is against Silva facing Sonnen.

"There's a lot of great opportunities, and I do think the Chael fight could potentially sell. It could be a big seller. I think it could be a huge pay-per-view. So I see all angles of it, but I'm just expressing what Anderson has talked to me about. That's how he feels."

Sonnen says all of this is irrelevant. He believes Silva is ducking him, but pointed out to Jim Rome that it's not the champ or his manager who make the fights.

"Whether he wants to do it or not, we're gonna do it. Dana will make him ... Anderson doesn't pick the fights and his manager, that keeps getting air time, darn sure doesn't have anything to do with it," Sonnen said (9:45 mark). "Dana White will decide, and if Dana says yes, then we're fighting and if Dana says no, then we're not. That's end of it.? I don't argue with Dana. I don't need Anderson's opinion, I'll slap him in the face the next time I see him."

Does Bisping deserve a shot? He's certainly going to get some steam building as Season 14 of "The Ultimate Fighter" unfolds. The problem is timing.

Can the UFC wait until early December to schedule the next Silva fight? Bisping and fellow coach Jason Miller meet at the TUF 14 Finale on Dec. 3 in Las Vegas.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Is-Sonnen-falling-back-in-the-contender-line-Ca?urn=mma-wp8421

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Blackhawk Network Buys Gift Card Marketplace Cardpool

Y-combinator-backed gift card marketplace Cardpool has been acquired by Blackhawk Network, a subsidiary of Safeway and one of the largest distributors of gift cards in the world. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Cardpool, which launched in 2010, buys people?s unwanted gift cards, and sells gift cards at large discounts. They judge the buyback and selling amount by how desirable the cards are. For example, you can sell a BestBuy?s gift card, which is highly desirable, to CardPool for 90 percent of its value. And on CardPool?s site, you can find a Best Buy gift card for 5 percent off its original value. On the other hand, 1-800-Flowers? gift cards, which are not as popular as Best Buy?s cards, are discounted by 30 percent on the site.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Xs1fJ5XK4GM/

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Medvedev says Russia must avoid stagnation (AP)

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AP - President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday rejected claims that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's imminent return to the presidency would further strengthen authoritarian trends in Russia and take the country back to its Soviet past.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111019/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_medvedev

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Scientist pleads guilty to stealing trade secrets (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS ? A Canadian scientist pleaded guilty to economic espionage and theft for sending U.S. trade secrets on a pesticide and a new food product to China and Germany, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Kexue Huang, 46, entered the pleas in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis. He faces a possible maximum prison sentence of 25 years.

Chinese-born Huang was indicted in June 2010 and charged under the Economic Espionage Act, which was passed in 1996 after the U.S. determined other countries were spying on private businesses. His was the eighth case nationwide under the 15-year-old law.

Huang from 2007 to 2010 delivered trade secrets on an organic pesticide he helped develop at Dow AgroSciences in Indiana to persons in Germany and China and used the stolen materials to conduct unauthorized research with the intent to help foreign universities linked to China, the Justice Department said in a news release.

After joining Minnetonka, Minn.-based Cargill Inc. in March 2008, Huang stole a key component to make a new food product and gave it to a student at Hunan Normal University in China, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

The total loss from the charges Huang pleaded guilty to came to $17 million, but Justice Department spokesman Tim Horty said Huang was responsible for a total of $300 million in losses.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said "Huang used his insider status at two of America's largest agricultural companies to steal valuable trade secrets for use in his native China."

"We cannot allow U.S. citizens or foreign nationals to hand sensitive business information over to competitors in other countries. ... These crimes present a danger to the U.S. economy and jeopardize our nation's leadership in innovation," Breuer said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111018/ap_on_re_us/us_economic_espionage

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RIM offers $100 worth of apps for free to make up for BlackBerry downtime (Yahoo! News)

After issuing an apology, RIM now offers several free apps as compensation for service disruption

If you've been affected by the recent BlackBerry outage, it's understandable to still be pretty irked about it in spite of RIM's public apology. Unfortunately, if you're expecting a refund to make up for the loss of services that spanned not hours but days, it seems like you're not getting any. Instead, what you get is a suite of premium apps originally worth $100 offered free of charge.

Starting October 19, you'll be able to download 12 premium apps from BlackBerry App World for free where they will stay available for the next four weeks. RIM is rolling out more premium apps in the coming months that you can get at no cost until December 31. The initial list of 12 apps includes SIMS 3, song identifier Shazam Encore, and Siri-like virtual assistant Vlingo Plus.

BlackBerry's disruption of services affected users deeply as some of the smartphone's key features like?BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) were rendered useless for as long as three days. Offering complimentary premium apps is part of the company's plans to get some of its user base trust back. RIM's founder Mike Lazaridis says, "We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience. We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence. We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again."

[Image credit: Ian Lamont]

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

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Rains slow Kenyan army hunt for Somali militants

FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 file photo, al-Shabab fighters display weapons as they conduct military exercises in northern Mogadishu, Somalia. Kenyan military forces moved into southern Somalia on Sunday, an official and residents said, a day after top Kenyan defence officials said the country has the right to defend itself after a rash of militant kidnappings of Europeans inside Kenya. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, File)

FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 file photo, al-Shabab fighters display weapons as they conduct military exercises in northern Mogadishu, Somalia. Kenyan military forces moved into southern Somalia on Sunday, an official and residents said, a day after top Kenyan defence officials said the country has the right to defend itself after a rash of militant kidnappings of Europeans inside Kenya. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, File)

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) ? A push by Kenyan ground forces toward a strategic Somali town has been slowed by heavy rain, a military spokesman said Tuesday, as Kenya's defense and foreign ministers arrived in Mogadishu for talks.

Kenyan troops and pro-Somali government forces are heading toward the town of Afmadow, a crossroads town just north of the port city of Kismayo, where the militant group al-Shabab is entrenched.

Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir said Kenyan forces were at the Somali town of Qoqani, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Afmadow. Residents of Afmadow on Monday reported that al-Shabab fighters were leaving as the troops approached, though Chirchir said progress has been slowed by rain.

"Our troops are heading to Afmadow now, and we expect to capture it either today or tomorrow," Abdinasir Serar, a commander with the pro-government Ras Kamboni militia told The Associated Press by phone from Qoqani.

In Mogadishu, Kenya's ministers of defense and foreign affairs were to meet with the leaders of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, said government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman.

Kenyan forces moved en masse into Somalia over the weekend, following a declaration on Saturday by Kenyan leaders that the country had the right to defend itself. Osman said previously that Kenyan troops were not needed in Somalia's south.

Somali gunmen over the last six weeks have kidnapped four Europeans and killed a fifth inside Kenya. Al-Shabab on Monday denied involvement in the abductions, and warned Kenya of terrorist attacks on its soil unless its forces retreat.

Though Kenya said the kidnapping attacks were the catalyst for the invasion, there are indications the push into Somalia has been in the works for some time. Military analysts say it is highly unlikely Kenya could organize such a complex military operation so quickly in response to the kidnappings.

The Kenyan invasion comes at a time when al-Shabab has been weakened by famine in its strongholds, has been pushed from the capital of Mogadishu by African Union troops and finds itself increasingly challenged by clan militias.

Kenya moved two battalions of about 800 troops each across the border in two locations, a Nairobi-based official said. Tanks, helicopters and artillery have also been deployed. The invasion is the most significant foreign deployment of the Kenyan military since independence from Britain in 1963.

Al-Shabab threatened on Monday to bring down Nairobi skyscrapers and referenced the July 2010 bomb attacks they masterminded in Kampala, Uganda, that killed 76 people. Al-Shabab said the attacks were retaliation for Uganda's troops contributions to the African Union peacekeeping force in Mogadishu.

"Remember what happened in Uganda's capital," Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, an al-Shabab spokesman, said Monday.

Kenya's final objective remains unclear. It has spent the last two years pushing for a buffer zone between it and troubled Somalia. Kenyan forces trained and equipped the so-called Jubaland militia of more than 2,000 Somalis and have frequently said they want to take Kismayo, a port city whose customs revenues are the insurgency's biggest cash cow.

Al-Shabab's key line of defense for Kismayo is in front of the Juba river. There are only three bridges across it strong enough to take the movement of vehicles.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed from Nairobi, Kenya.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-18-AF-Somalia-Kenya/id-d73b6f3924074129a9ea18fcef1e4294

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Can taking calcium with other minerals help prevent Bowel Cancer?

ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2011) ? Bowel cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in developed countries but occurs much less frequently in the developing world. A high fat diet, particularly high in saturated fat, can increase a person's risk of developing bowel cancer. In addition to the high content of saturated fat, the 'typical' Western diet contains only low levels of calcium and other minerals.

Using his ?157,973 grant from the Association for International Cancer Research (AICR) which has its headquarters in St Andrews, Professor James Varani and his team at the University of Michigan, in the USA, are investigating whether calcium in conjunction with other trace minerals might be more effective in preventing bowel cancer than calcium alone.

Dr Varani explained: "Previous studies have suggested that an increased intake of calcium can reduce the growth of precancerous polyps in the bowel. We are expanding on these findings and investigating whether increasing the levels of calcium, in conjunction with other important minerals, can help prevent the development of bowel cancer more than treating with calcium alone."

"The link between diet and cancer is a difficult topic to research as we all eat such a wide variety of foods in lots of different amounts. We know that a diet low in fibre but high in red and processed meats like sausages increases the risk of bowel cancer.

"Fruit and vegetables give us most of our fibre, vitamins and minerals and in general a diet rich in fruit and vegetables seems to be associated with a lower risk of bowel cancer. However, many people do not eat the recommended '5-a day' when it comes to fruit and vegetables and the 'typical' Western diet contains only low levels of calcium and other minerals."

Dr Lara Bennett, AICR's Scientific Communications Manager said: "If these findings do indeed show that higher levels of calcium and additional trace minerals are able to prevent bowel cancer then consuming foods high in calcium like milk could be another easy way to help reduce your risk of bowel cancer. Limiting the amount of alcohol you drink and the amount of red and processed meant in your diet, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, taking regular moderate exercise and not smoking also helps reduce your risk.

"Each year around 1.24 million new cases of bowel cancer are diagnosed and 90% of these will survive the disease for more than five years if diagnosed at the earliest stage. Despite this high survival rate it sadly still kills more than 600,000 people, more than half of which are in the more developed countries in the world. In the UK alone, around 110 new cases are diagnosed each day and it is the third most common cancer after breast and lung.

"In England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland a national bowel cancer screening programme is in place and if 60% of those invited to take part did so, deaths from bowel cancer in the UK over the next 20 years could be cut by up to 20,000."

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Association for International Cancer Research, via AlphaGalileo.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111018092153.htm

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[OOC] Border Line

I am going to make a character right now!!

Excuses are like assholes, everybodys got one :P

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US to play France in soccer exhibition on Nov 11

/

updated 5:28 p.m. ET Oct. 14, 2011

CHICAGO - The U.S. soccer team will play an exhibition at France on Nov. 11, the first meeting between the nations in 32 years.

The game was announced on Friday and will be played at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, outside Paris, the site of the 1998 World Cup final. The U.S., 1-3-1 under new coach Jurgen Klinsmann, also plans to play in Europe on Nov. 15, the last FIFA fixture date of the year.

The nations played twice in 1979, with France winning 6-0 at East Rutherford, N.J., on May 2 and 3-0 in Paris on Oct. 10.

France is preparing for next year's European Championship, and the U.S. is getting ready for the start of World Cup qualifying in June.

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

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LeBron's team helps Man City

??Manchester City defeated Aston Villa and overtook rival Manchester United at the top of the Premier League after the defending champions were held to a 1-1 draw at LeBron James' Liverpool.

Nightmare Rooney

No one could have predicted the brilliant but flawed gem of England would become such a disappointment and liability.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44909132/ns/sports-soccer/

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SEC asks companies to disclose cyber attacks (Reuters)

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? U.S. securities regulators formally asked public companies for the first time to disclose cyber attacks against them, following a rash of high-profile Internet crimes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines on Thursday that laid out the kind of information companies should disclose, such as cyber events that could lead to financial losses.

Senator John Rockefeller had asked the SEC to issue guidelines amid concern that it was becoming hard for investors to assess security risks if companies failed to mention data breaches in their public filings.

"Intellectual property worth billions of dollars has been stolen by cyber criminals, and investors have been kept completely in the dark. This guidance changes everything," Rockefeller said in a statement.

"It will allow the market to evaluate companies in part based on their ability to keep their networks secure. We want an informed market and informed consumers, and this is how we do it," Rockefeller said in a statement.

There is a growing sense of urgency about cyber security following breaches at Google Inc, Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier, Citigroup, the International Monetary Fund and others.

Tom Kellermann, chief technology officer of security firm AirPatrol Corp, said that the SEC guidance tells companies to report cyber attacks and disclose steps to remediate problems.

"They must also incorporate cyber events into their material risk reports," said Kellermann, who has advised U.S. President Obama on cyber policy.

The SEC gets into specifics, telling companies what type of data they might need to provide investors.

"Examples of estimates that may be affected by cyber incidents include estimates of warranty liability, allowances for product returns, capitalized software costs, inventory, litigation, and deferred revenue," it says.

(The document can be accessed on the SEC's website: www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/guidance/cfguidance-topic2.htm )

A report out earlier this month found that U.S. banks are losing ground in the battle to combat credit and debit card fraud because they balk at the expense of higher security. Globally, however, security is improving in the payment industry, according to data from The Nilson Report, a California trade publication.

There is some hope of U.S. legislation to address the problem, although the House of Representatives appears more interested in tackling it piecemeal while the Senate is opting for a more far-reaching approach.

Most of the concern has been focused on critical facilities like nuclear power, electricity, chemical and water treatment plants.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Gary Hill, Bob Burgdorfer and Carol Bishopric)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/security/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111014/wr_nm/us_sec_cyberattacks

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'Don't do it': 911 call captures Montana shooting (AP)

HELENA, Mont. ? A 911 call captured two women's voices saying, "Don't do it," and, "You took my husband," before gunshots rang out in a shooting that left a man and a woman dead in a Helena apartment, according to court documents filed Friday.

The documents provided new details into the Thursday morning slayings of Joseph Andrew Gable, 48, and Sunday Cooley Bennett, 50, at Gable's home. Gable's estranged wife, Michelle Coller Gable, appeared in court Friday on two counts of deliberate homicide.

The shooting happened just two days after Joseph Gable filed for divorce from his wife of 25 years and three weeks after he attempted to obtain a protection order from her after she came to Helena from her home in Maryland. District Judge Dorothy McCarter denied that request, writing in her order, "No personal danger or threat involved."

Just after 6 a.m. Thursday, a woman called 911 from the apartment and said a man was being shot by his wife, and the wife was going to shoot the caller, too, according to an affidavit by Helena police Lt. Corey Livesay.

The 911 recording captured the sound of gunshots, then the woman who called 911 could be heard saying, "Don't shoot me, you b----," and, "Don't do it," according to the affidavit.

A second female voice said, "You took my husband," then gunshots were heard once more.

Responding officers found a woman in the apartment's doorway who said her husband had been shot and she needed help, Livesay wrote. The officers heard groaning and saw an injured man lying across the doorway. They dragged him away and laid him on a sidewalk because he was unable to move, according to the documents and interviews with neighbors.

The man told officers, "My wife shot me," and, "Sunday is in the basement."

Inside, they found a dead woman near a staircase with an apparent gunshot wound to her chest, Livesay wrote. They also found two handguns and spent ammunition.

Joseph Gable died from his gunshot wounds at a hospital later that morning. His wife was treated for an undisclosed injury and released into police custody.

Michelle Gable, handcuffed and in an orange jail jumpsuit, made a brief court appearance Friday to hear the charges against her. The 48-year-old told Justice of the Peace Michael Swingley that she understood the charges and that she had requested a public defender.

Swingley set bail at $250,000, which is $50,000 more than prosecutors recommended. Gable's next hearing was scheduled for Oct. 28.

Police did not release any information about Bennett, other than to say she had recently moved to Helena from Texas. Her relationship to Joseph Gable was not immediately clear.

A white vehicle with Texas plates registered to Robert and Sunday Bennett was parked in Gable's driveway the morning of the shooting, police said.

Two phone numbers listed for Sunday Cooley Bennett in Rosenberg, Texas, were disconnected.

On Sept. 20, Joseph Gable sought a temporary protection order from his wife, saying that he and his Michelle Gable were separated but that she had shown up in Helena from her home in Clinton, Md.

He alleged that his wife was stalking him and then confronted him at his apartment while he was trying to change the locks. He said she threw a laptop computer down the stairs, tried to block him from leaving the apartment and prevented him from driving away because her rental car was parked behind his vehicle.

"She has been out of Montana on the East Coast in Maryland for over two years, came back unannounced and is trying to disrupt my life anyway she can, apparently," he wrote in court documents.

He said his wife didn't have any firearms that he knew of, but he accused her of intimidation and holding him against his will, along with stalking. He asked that McCarter order Michelle Gable to stay at least 1,500 feet away from his home or office. McCarter denied the request the next day.

Joseph Gabler, in his petition to dissolve his marriage, said the pair had been married in 1986 at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, and that they have no children. He wrote that he is a computer support specialist and that he worked for the Montana Department of Transportation.

He said the reason for the divorce is that "there is serious marital discord" and "no reasonable prospect of reconciliation."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111014/ap_on_re_us/us_helena_shooting

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Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

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Day of Reckoning Has Arrived For Commercial Real Estate Lenders ...

For Immediate Release: October 11, 2011

Day of Reckoning Has Arrived For Commercial Real Estate Lenders

SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.?A collapse of the commercial real estate sector will be catastrophic to financial institutions and the economy so lenders must act now to avoid such a financial debacle, says A. Barry Cappello, nationally renowned attorney specializing in lender liability law.

?With the exception of prime properties in large cities such as Los Angeles and New York, commercial real estate has been an unmitigated disaster,? says Cappello, managing partner in the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Cappello & No?l and author of Lender Liability. ?TARP helped banks survive the housing mortgage meltdown. That money won?t be there when commercial loans start to fall apart, which we?re already seeing.?

Unlike residential housing borrowers, commercial borrowers can have tens of millions of dollars tied up in a single property. ?Banks are beginning to foreclose on commercial properties, but that is the absolutely wrong way out,? says Cappello.

Cappello suggests that instead of foreclosing, lenders should renegotiate interest rates and principal or even arrange short sales with borrowers. ?These are unique times and they call for creative action,? says Cappello. ?Banks need to be flexible. This is especially true when lender liability is an issue. When banks become nervous, and we are in very nervous times, some lenders overreach and breach their loan agreements with their borrowers?whether the borrowers are behind in their loan payments or not. History shows that whenever the economy is hurting, there are always a percentage of lenders who behave badly and literally drive a borrower into default.?

Cappello cautions, ?Unless lenders are willing to work with their commercial borrowers, they may be faced with unmanageable REO portfolios as well as protracted multi-million-dollar lender liability litigation. Commercial borrowers will fight to keep ownership of their property. If there are violations of due process in the foreclosure procedure or illegal banking practices, you can be sure commercial borrowers will seek legal redress.?

Do not expect a commercial real estate disaster to drag on like the housing fiasco. ?Banks can?t count on another government bailout. They?re on their own when it comes to commercial loans,? says Cappello. ?It?s in their best interest to work out financing solutions with their commercial borrowers. If they don?t, some banks simply won?t survive and they will drag the economy down with them.?

###

Source: http://cappellonoel.com/day-of-reckoning-has-arrived-for-commercial-real-estate-lenders/

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Decoded DNA Reveals Details Of Black Death Germ

Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Victims of the plague are consigned to a communal burial during the Plague of London in 1665.

Scientists have used DNA lurking inside the teeth of medieval Black Death victims to figure out the entire genetic code of the deadly bacterium that swept across Europe more than 600 years ago, killing an estimated half of the population.

The researchers didn't find any genetic feature that could explain why the plague was so virulent, according to a report just published in the journal Nature.

"There is no smoking gun, so to speak, to say, 'Aha, we've found the one mutation which caused this tremendous virulence and now we know why it killed 50 million people.' We don't see that," says biological anthropologist Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, who was on the research team.

?

He says the most likely explanation for the plague's devastation is that this rodent-infecting bacterium changed and struck humans for the first time right when the population of Europe was dealing with a cooling climate, poor crop production and filthy, crowded conditions.

Plus, people back then had no access to modern antibiotics and were likely weakened by other infections as well.

Poinar says the ancient Black Death DNA looks so similar to Yersinia pestis that still infects people today that researchers believe the medieval strain must be the ancestor of all modern strains.

That suggests this particular disease probably wasn't around centuries earlier and couldn't have caused the Plague of Justinian, another famous epidemic that devastated the Eastern Roman Empire in 541-542.

"More likely is that it was caused by another pathogen altogether that we haven't really considered yet," says Poinar.

In the past, other research groups have produced conflicting results when they've tried to detect Black Death bacteria in skeletal remains using less sensitive genetic tools. Some experts have argued that the famous plague might have been caused by a different disease, such as an Ebola-like virus.

This study used a newer, more robust genetic technique to fish out small bits of the ancient DNA from the dried powdery pulp hidden inside teeth taken from a Black Death cemetery in London.

"This is really the first ancient complete genome from skeletonized remains," says Poinar, who notes that scientists have sequenced the genes of the deadly 1918 flu virus, but that was from preserved tissue samples.

The Natural History Museum of Denmark's Thomas Gilbert is one of the scientists who tried to find plague DNA in Black Death victims in the past without success. He says the new technique used in this study is exciting and the analysis is compelling. "It's a great result. It looks very, very convincing," Gilbert says. "There's no reason why the data shouldn't be real."

But even if this has firmly established that plague bacteria caused the Black Death, Gilbert thinks the calculations that rule out its presence during the Justinian plague are open to question.

"I'm not completely convinced by that," says Gilbert. "The only way to find out what caused the Justinian plague is to do the same analysis on the Justinian samples, and I guess that's going to be the next attempt."

He says other groups have been working to use this same technique to probe for other diseases of historical interest. "What was unique about this paper is that they basically finished first and they did it on plague," says Gilbert. "But I know for example, people are doing it on tuberculosis, and people are doing it on all sorts of other things."

He says the insights that come from these studies will be of interest not only from a historical perspective, but also to help scientists understand how deadly epidemics have emerged in the past so that they can get ready for what might come in the future.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/10/13/141276449/decoded-dna-reveals-details-of-black-death-germ?ft=1&f=1007

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