Springboarding off of an infamous USA Today infographic (and utilizing a handy Wild, Wild West conceit), finance oracle Whitney Johnson tried her darnedest to unravel the mystery about why female leaders are still a relative rarity in the wide world of investing. It's certainly a puzzle, because, although women are accounting for more of our college grads, are more often earning the bread in a household, and represent just about half of the entire labor force, the USA Today article that sparked Johnson's brief disquisition about ladies in finance found that a mere 22 percent of women are comfortable marionetting a household's purse strings, and a mere 12 percent are seasoned investors.
What's the haps with these numbers? There's no empirical proof to suggest that women suck at investing money anymore than dudes do, so why aren't women breaking through the finance world's glass brick ceiling? Despite the bevy of Old West metaphors at her disposal, Johnson seems initially stumped:
But the fact is that in the Wild West of investing, an Annie Oakley is rare - the realm of investing is still very much a dude ranch. While there may be 1 in 5 women for whom learning to invest is simply an exercise in sharp shooting, for the remaining 80%, I suspect it really is their first rodeo. According to the Bem Sex-Role inventory, society considers a woman to be feminine only within the context of a relationship or when she is giving something to someone. Project this image of the feminine ideal into the world of investing and the only "socially acceptable" roles for women are limited - perhaps doing due diligence as a "helper" or writing a check as a donor.
But lo! There's always an answer or, in this case, a theory masquerading as an answer ? Johnson shares a little morsel of insight about donations that she gleaned from a chat with one of the social entrepreneurs in Fast Company's "League of Extraordinary Women." This social entrepreneur decided to designate her business as a non-profit because, she found, women were much more willing to donate than to invest, which, according to Johnson, is highly "illogical," at least from a financial perspective. Where, then, does this strange upwelling of financial hysteria come from?
So how do we explain the high investing anxiety of four out of ten women? I suspect because, deep down, they fear it will bankrupt their femininity. But if women don't feel comfortable handling their own money, it's unlikely that they'll feel comfortable handling a P&L for their firm - and if you don't feel comfortable with P&L responsibility, you're not going to make it to the top ranks of management.
To be fair, Johnson is more eager to offer investment advice and encouragement than delve very deeply into her pseudo psycho-analytic explanation as to why nearly forty percent of women are anxious about making big financial decisions, but her reasoning, however offhand or casual, points to the very tall and sturdy gender ramparts that largely keep women from assuming positions of authority within America's towering financial fortress (see? we can all have fun with conceits). Maybe investing vis-?-vis donating is perceived as somehow masculine, but then again maybe women are just way more honest about how distressing big financial decisions can be. You'd have to be some kind of a senseless mule not to be intimidated by plunking down the yolk of your nest egg on the stock market and watching it skip merrily away like a ball on a roulette wheel.
It's Time We Had More Female Investors [Business Insider via Harvard Business Review]
Dial Corp.'s new lawsuit against News Corp. could set the stage for a full-scale mutiny among Rupert Murdoch's advertising clients, according to a prominent retail industry lawyer. Such a mutiny could cost News "hundreds of millions of dollars," the attorney speculates.
Daniel Low, of law firm Kotchen & Low, wrote in a blog post that he was surprised that all News Corp.'s clients who used its News America Marketing subsidiary for grocery coupon distribution haven't joined a suit against the company.
The suit, filed by Dial, alleges that News broke antitrust law with exclusionary contracts and practices that kept prices for its coupon clients artificially high for years. (Dial is owned by Henkel, which markets supermarket staples such as Loctite, Persil and Purex, in addition to Dial Soap.)
Dial makes a bunch of dramatic allegations, including:
News allegedly hacked into computers owned by a rival in-store advertising company, Floographics, to obtain customer lists.
News made large up-front payments to supermarkets to guarantee they would deal exclusively with News and not competitors.
News tore down rival advertisers' signs and ads when they saw them in stores who had signed such contracts.
? Low says:
It is surprising that the Dial lawsuit was brought only on behalf of Dial, and not as class action on behalf of all affected CPGs [consumer packaged goods companies].? Given the high litigation costs of a monopolization lawsuit, the hundreds of potential class members, and the hundreds of millions of dollars that could be at stake for CPGs, a class action seems to be a more efficient vehicle for resolving the claims.
Low's speculation isn't idle. News has already lost several rounds of litigation over its alleged antitrust activities in the grocery coupon business, and it has cost the company $656 million in settlements. Those settlement were with Floorgraphics, Valassis and Insignia Systems, all agencies that supply advertising services for coupons and groceries.
Among their clients, only Dial has weighed in publicly against News, seeking money back for alleged illegal high prices. But evidence emerged in the previous litigation that several other News clients were allegedly overcharged. Among them: Conagra, Pepsi, Smuckers, DelMonte, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Clorox, Kimberly-Clark, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer, Reckitt Benckiser, Dial, Quaker Oats, Church & Dwight, Unilever, Tyson, Hain Celestial, T. Marzetti, and Campbell's Soup.
Of those, the most angry client was undoubtedly former Sara Lee marketing executive Debra Lucidi, who once wrote an email describing her experience as a News America Marketing client. She said "it feels like they are raping us and they enjoy it" (click to enlarge):
Houston, we have another problemPublic release date: 31-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Michaud Mark_Michaud@urmc.rochester.edu 585-273-4790 University of Rochester Medical Center
Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain
As if space travel was not already filled with enough dangers, a new study out today in the journal PLOS ONE shows that cosmic radiation which would bombard astronauts on deep space missions to places like Mars could accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
"Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts," said M. Kerry O'Banion, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and the senior author of the study. "The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized. However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's disease."
While space is full of radiation, the earth's magnetic field generally protects the planet and people in low earth orbit from these particles. However, once astronauts leave orbit, they are exposed to constant shower of various radioactive particles. With appropriate warning, astronauts can be shielded from dangerous radiation associated with solar flares. But there are also other forms of cosmic radiation that, for all intents and purposes, cannot be effectively blocked.
Because this radiation exists in low levels, the longer an astronaut is in deep space, the greater the exposure. This is a concern for NASA as the agency is planning manned missions to a distant asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035. The round trip to the red planet, in particular, could take as long as three years.
For over 25 years, NASA has been funding research to determine the potential health risks of space travel in an effort to both develop countermeasures and determine whether or not the risks warranted sending men and women on extended missions in deep space.
Since that time, several studies have demonstrated the potential cancer, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal impact of galactic cosmic radiation. The study out today for the first time examines the potential impact of space radiation on neurodegeneration, in particular, the biological processes in the brain that contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease. O'Banion whose research focuses on how radiation affects the central nervous system and his team have been working with NASA for over eight years.
The researchers studied the impact of a particular form of radiation called high-mass, high-charged (HZE) particles. These particles which are propelled through space at very high speeds by the force of exploding stars come in many different forms. For this study the researcher chose iron particles. Unlikely hydrogen protons, which are produced by solar flares, the mass of HZE particles like iron, combined with their speed, enable them to penetrate solid objects such as the wall and protective shielding of a spacecraft.
"Because iron particles pack a bigger wallop it is extremely difficult from an engineering perspective to effectively shield against them," said O'Banion. "One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a six-foot block of lead or concrete."
A portion of the research was conducted at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. NASA located its research operation at Brookhaven to take advantage of the Lab's particle accelerators which by colliding matter together at very high speeds can reproduce the radioactive particles found in space.
The researchers specifically wanted to examine whether or not radiation exposure had the potential to accelerate the biological and cognitive indicators of Alzheimer's disease, particularly in individuals who may be predisposed to developing the disease. To accomplish this they chose study the impact on animal models of Alzheimer's disease. These particular models have been extensively studied and scientists understand the precise timeframe in which the disease progresses over time.
At Brookhaven, the animals were exposed to various doses of radiation, including levels comparable to what astronauts would be experience during a mission to Mars. Back in Rochester, a team of researchers including URMC graduate student Jonathan Cherry, who was first author on the paper evaluated the cognitive and biological impact of the exposure. The mice underwent a series of experiments during which they had to recall objects or specific locations. The researchers observed that mice exposed to radiation were far more likely to fail these tasks suggesting neurological impairment earlier than these symptoms would typically appear.
The brains of the mice also showed signs of vascular alterations and a greater than normal accumulation of beta amyloid, the protein "plaque" that accumulates in the brain and is one of the hallmarks of the disease.
"These findings clearly suggest that exposure to radiation in space has the potential to accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease," said O'Banion. "This is yet another factor that NASA, which is clearly concerned about the health risks to its astronauts, will need to take into account as it plans future missions."
###
Additional co-authors include Jacqueline Williams, Ph.D. and John Olschowka, Ph.D. with URMC and Bin Liu, Ph.D., Jeffrey Frost, and Cynthia Lemere, Ph.D. with Harvard Medical School. The study was funded by NASA.
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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.
Houston, we have another problemPublic release date: 31-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Michaud Mark_Michaud@urmc.rochester.edu 585-273-4790 University of Rochester Medical Center
Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain
As if space travel was not already filled with enough dangers, a new study out today in the journal PLOS ONE shows that cosmic radiation which would bombard astronauts on deep space missions to places like Mars could accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
"Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts," said M. Kerry O'Banion, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and the senior author of the study. "The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized. However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's disease."
While space is full of radiation, the earth's magnetic field generally protects the planet and people in low earth orbit from these particles. However, once astronauts leave orbit, they are exposed to constant shower of various radioactive particles. With appropriate warning, astronauts can be shielded from dangerous radiation associated with solar flares. But there are also other forms of cosmic radiation that, for all intents and purposes, cannot be effectively blocked.
Because this radiation exists in low levels, the longer an astronaut is in deep space, the greater the exposure. This is a concern for NASA as the agency is planning manned missions to a distant asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035. The round trip to the red planet, in particular, could take as long as three years.
For over 25 years, NASA has been funding research to determine the potential health risks of space travel in an effort to both develop countermeasures and determine whether or not the risks warranted sending men and women on extended missions in deep space.
Since that time, several studies have demonstrated the potential cancer, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal impact of galactic cosmic radiation. The study out today for the first time examines the potential impact of space radiation on neurodegeneration, in particular, the biological processes in the brain that contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease. O'Banion whose research focuses on how radiation affects the central nervous system and his team have been working with NASA for over eight years.
The researchers studied the impact of a particular form of radiation called high-mass, high-charged (HZE) particles. These particles which are propelled through space at very high speeds by the force of exploding stars come in many different forms. For this study the researcher chose iron particles. Unlikely hydrogen protons, which are produced by solar flares, the mass of HZE particles like iron, combined with their speed, enable them to penetrate solid objects such as the wall and protective shielding of a spacecraft.
"Because iron particles pack a bigger wallop it is extremely difficult from an engineering perspective to effectively shield against them," said O'Banion. "One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a six-foot block of lead or concrete."
A portion of the research was conducted at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. NASA located its research operation at Brookhaven to take advantage of the Lab's particle accelerators which by colliding matter together at very high speeds can reproduce the radioactive particles found in space.
The researchers specifically wanted to examine whether or not radiation exposure had the potential to accelerate the biological and cognitive indicators of Alzheimer's disease, particularly in individuals who may be predisposed to developing the disease. To accomplish this they chose study the impact on animal models of Alzheimer's disease. These particular models have been extensively studied and scientists understand the precise timeframe in which the disease progresses over time.
At Brookhaven, the animals were exposed to various doses of radiation, including levels comparable to what astronauts would be experience during a mission to Mars. Back in Rochester, a team of researchers including URMC graduate student Jonathan Cherry, who was first author on the paper evaluated the cognitive and biological impact of the exposure. The mice underwent a series of experiments during which they had to recall objects or specific locations. The researchers observed that mice exposed to radiation were far more likely to fail these tasks suggesting neurological impairment earlier than these symptoms would typically appear.
The brains of the mice also showed signs of vascular alterations and a greater than normal accumulation of beta amyloid, the protein "plaque" that accumulates in the brain and is one of the hallmarks of the disease.
"These findings clearly suggest that exposure to radiation in space has the potential to accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease," said O'Banion. "This is yet another factor that NASA, which is clearly concerned about the health risks to its astronauts, will need to take into account as it plans future missions."
###
Additional co-authors include Jacqueline Williams, Ph.D. and John Olschowka, Ph.D. with URMC and Bin Liu, Ph.D., Jeffrey Frost, and Cynthia Lemere, Ph.D. with Harvard Medical School. The study was funded by NASA.
[ | 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.
Alabama has a chance to make history in this year?s national-championship game, and with a victory over Notre Dame, Nick Saban would unquestionably become the greatest coach of the BCS Era.
The first BCS title game was played to cap off the 1998 season, and since then, there have been several great champions and coaches who have achieved remarkable success.
Bobby Bowden led Florida State to three consecutive title games between 1998 and 200. Larry Coker took Miami to two consecutive national-championship games in 2001 and 2002, while Pete Carroll did the same with USC in 2004 and 2005.
Bob Stoops has taken Oklahoma to college football?s marque contest three times, while Mack Brown has led Texas there twice.
But all have these coaches have one thing in common: They all have losses with a national title on the line. Saban does not.?
The only other coach in the BCS era to reach multiple national-championship games without losing is Urban Meyer, who won titles in 2006 and 2008. If there is any coach in nation whose r?sum? could hope to compare to Saban?s, it is Meyer.
After winning two national titles in three years, Meyer took a break from coaching to spend time with his family but returned to football this season with Ohio State. He led to Buckeyes to an undefeated season despite NCAA sanctions placed on the program.
Who is the BCS era's greatest coach?
Who is the BCS era's greatest coach?
Bobby Bowden
Pete Carroll
Urban Meyer
Nick Saban
Bob Stoops
Mack Brown
Other
Meyer is certainly on track to take Ohio State back to being a national contender, but as of now, his accomplishments would not come near Saban?s if Alabama wins on January 7.
The Alabama boss won his first national title with LSU during the 2003 season. After a brief stint in the NFL, he returned to the SEC to turn the Crimson Tide into a national powerhouse.
He has succeeded beyond anyone?s wildest expectations, and a victory would make Alabama the first team in BCS history to win three national titles. To make the feat even more impressive, it will be the school?s third championship in just four years.?
Saban is already the only coach to win a national championship at two different schools and to win three BCS titles. While he may already be the greatest coach in the BCS era, a win over Notre Dame would put his track record completely beyond comparison to any of his peers'.?
On Thursday, Geospace Technologies Corporation (GEOS) reported the receipt of an order from Dawson Geophysical Company (NASDAQ:DWSN) for 12,000 stations of its single-channel GSX wireless recording system, at a price of $13.2 million. Delivery should occur in the firm?s first quarter, which ends December 31, 2012. Geospace?designs and makes instruments and equipment employed by the oil and gas industry, in the purchase and processing of seismic data, as well as in reservoir characterization and monitoring activities.
Basic Energy Services (NYSE:BAS) sees its Hold reiterated at Jefferies, along with its $10 price target, as the analyst commented that ,??We lower BAS estimates for the fourth quarter and 2013 to reflect current operating weakness, including modestly more day rate pressure and concerns about at least first half activity in Permian and Mid-Con regions. Further, we lower 2014 earnings per share on conservatism, albeit we still assume a healthy recovery. We continue to prefer peers with stronger FCF profiles for 2013.?
Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide.??Check out our Wall St. Cheat Sheet Stock Picker Newsletter now>>
Lukoil Holdings (LUKOF.PK) will reduce its output in Iraq by 30 percent, subsequent to the Iraqi government deciding to limit output so as to prop up prices, according to?Andrey Kuzyaev,?president of Lukoil Overseas Holding in an interview, who?told state television Rossiya-24 on Wednesday that the firm now estimates that production at the West Qurna-2 oil field will reach 1.2 million barrels per day, rather than the 1.8 million barrels forecast in an initial estimate.
Hanwha SolarOne Co. (HSOL) said Thursday that it has reached an accord with the Bank of?Beijing?to access as much as ?approximately $475 million of credit during the next twelve-month period. Drawdowns of specific amounts depends upon approval procedures of the bank, including a review of specific project information, as needs be. Hanwha is a vertically integrated maker of silicon ingots, wafers and photovoltaic cells and modules in?China.
Don?t Miss: Is Europe Missing Out on an Economic Boon?
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NEW DELHI (AP) -- A young woman who died after being gang-raped and beaten on a bus in India's capital was cremated Sunday amid an outpouring of anger and grief by millions across the country demanding greater protection for women from sexual violence.
The cremation took place during a private ceremony in New Delhi soon after the woman's body arrived in the capital on a special Air India flight from Singapore, where she died at a hospital Saturday after being sent for medical treatment.
The tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, forcing them to keep quiet and discouraging them from going to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule. Police often refuse to accept complaints from rape victims, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts can drag on for years.
Security was tight, with no access to the public or media at the crematorium.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, were at the airport to receive the body and meet family members of the victim who were on the flight.
Hours after the victim died early Saturday, Indian police charged six men who had been arrested in connection with the attack with murder, adding to accusations that they beat and gang-raped the woman on a New Delhi bus on Dec. 16.
New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the six suspects face the death penalty if convicted, in a case that has triggered protests across India and raised questions about lax attitudes by police toward sexual crimes.
After 10 days at a hospital in New Delhi, the victim, who has not been identified, was taken Thursday to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specializes in multi-organ transplants, but her condition worsened, with her vital signs deteriorating.
Following her death, thousands of Indians lit candles, held prayer meetings and marched through various cities and towns, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, on Saturday night to express their grief and demand stronger protection for women and the death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.
But even as thousands mourned the rape victim's death and in a sign of how pervasive such crimes are, police in West Bengal state were investigating another suspected gang-rape and death.
In the latest case, the family of a woman said she and her husband were attacked by six men as they returned home after working at a brick factory.
They dragged the woman into a nearby farm after pouring acid into her husband's mouth, the family said.
The woman was found dead with multiple injuries, said police officer Bhaskar Mukherjee, adding he was waiting for an autopsy report.
No charges have been laid. Another police officer, Sugata Sen, said four men had been detained for questioning.
The alleged attack is similar to the Dec. 16 case, where the woman and a male friend, who also has not been identified, were on a bus after watching a film when they were attacked by six men who raped her. The men beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman's body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.
Dozens of protesters tried to break through a police cordon Sunday and march to the parliament building in the Indian capital, but were pushed back. The protesters, belonging to the student wing of main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, shouted anti-government slogans as they marched.
Hundreds of policemen have sealed off the high-security area, where the seat of India's government is located, in anticipation of more protests. The area is home to parliament, the president's palace, the prime minister's office and several ministries.
Gandhi assured the protesters in a statement that the rape victim's death "deepens our determination to battle the pervasive, the shameful social attitudes and mindset that allow men to rape and molest women and girls with such an impunity."
Attitudes by Indians toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen as provocative.
Meanwhile, a United Nations statement said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "offers his sincerest condolences" to the victim's family and "utterly condemns this brutal crime."
"Violence against women must never be accepted, never excused, never tolerated," the statement said. "Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected."
Ban urged the Indian government to take steps to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice, and to "strengthen critical services for rape victims," it said.
Not all commercial real estate investors are in a San Francisco, Washington, D.C., or New York state of mind. Premier assets in non-premier locations like Deptford Landing in Deptford, N.J., and The Shops at Moore in Oklahoma City, Okla., have moved up higher on buyers? radar. In two separate transactions totaling $103 million, UCR Investment Sales orchestrated the disposition of the retail properties, which feature an aggregate 777,000 square feet and full tenant rosters.
Acting on behalf of an affiliate of Cypress Equities Real Estate Investment and Sarofim Realty Advisors, UCR secured RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust as a buyer for the 517,000-square-foot Deptford Landing. Located roughly 10 miles south of Philadelphia, the four-year-old power center counts Sam?s Club and Walmart as anchors.
?It?s a really unique asset because it?s got everybody on a lease or a ground lease, including the big anchors,? David Disney, president of UCR, told Commercial Property Executive. ?Finding Sam?s Club and Walmart on leases on the same asset is fairly uncommon. Usually they shadow-anchor any center that they anchor; they like to own their own real estate. So these are exceptions to the rule, which made the property that much more attractive to the buyer.?
UCR represented an affiliate of Burk Collins & Co. in the sale of The Shops at Moore to Inland Real Estate Acquisitions Inc. The 260,000-square-foot power center was put up for grabs due to an entity-level bankruptcy. Also completed in 2008, the property sits just outside of Oklahoma City and offers a long list of anchor tenants that includes Ross Dress for Less, Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Office Depot and Hobby Lobby. Additionally, JCPenney is a shadow anchor.
?It?s got good-quality credit tenants and Oklahoma City has been fairly recession proof, so it?s been an attractive market for certain types of investors,? said Disney.
Deptford Landing and The Shops at Moore may not be able to claim locations in the most highly coveted markets, but they have the building quality, they have the solid tenants and they have the maximum occupancy level.
?The appetite for investors has clearly spread beyond primary markets into secondary markets, though Deptford is in a bit more of a primary market because it?s in the Philadelphia metro area,? Disney added. ?Investor appetite in many cases can be just as strong for high-quality core properties in secondary markets as it can be in primary markets, depending on the asset.?
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? An animal rights group will pay Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus $9.3 million to settle its part of a lawsuit stemming from claims the circus abused its elephants.
The circus company's owners announced the settlement with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on Friday. The animal rights group was one of several that in 2000 sued the circus' owner, Feld Entertainment Inc., claiming elephants were abused. Courts later found that the animal rights activists had paid a former Ringling employee to bring the lawsuit and that the man didn't have the right to sue the circus.
The Vienna, Va.-based Feld Entertainment then sued the animal rights groups, accusing them of conspiracy to harm its business other illegal acts. Friday's settlement covers only the ASPCA.
Steven Bridges, left, receives a wedding ring from Michael Snell, early Saturday at City Hall in Portland, Maine.
By NBC News wire services
PORTLAND, Maine - Gay and lesbian couples exchanged their vows early Saturday as Maine's new same-sex marriage law took effect a minute after midnight.
Among them were Steven Bridges and Michael Snell, who held a commitment ceremony six years ago but wanted to make their marriage official under state law.
"It's historic. We've waited our entire lives for this," said Bridges, a retail manager, who's been in a relationship with the Snell, a massage therapist, for nine years. Bridges, 42, and Snell, 53, wore lavender and purple carnations on black T-shirts with the words "Love is love."
With Snell's two adult daughters looking on, they exchanged their vows in the city clerk's office after getting the first marriage license issued to a same-sex couple in Portland. They said they'll hold another ceremony with friends this summer, after the weather warms up.
Voters approved gay marriage in November, making Maine and two other states the first to do so by popular vote. A law is already in effect in Washington state; Maryland's takes effect Tuesday.?
Nine of the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, have now legalized gay marriage. Another 31 states have passed constitutional amendments banning it.
In Portland, a half dozen couples huddled with friends and family in freezing temperatures outside the building before the doors to the city clerk's office were opened at 10 p.m. local time.
"We've been together for 30 years, and never thought that this country would allow marriages between gay couples," said Roberta Batt, 71, an antiques dealer and retired physician with silver hair and round eyeglasses. She planned to marry her longtime partner, Mary, who stood nearby.
"We're just very thankful to the people of Maine, and I hope the rest of the country goes the way this state has," she added.
Suzanne Blackburn and Joanie Kunian, of Portland, were among those in line to get their license at midnight, but they didn't plan to wed immediately. One of their grandchildren wanted them to get married on Valentine's Day.
"I don't think that we dared to dream too big until we had the governor's signature," Blackburn said. "That's why it's so important, because it feels real."
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In Bangor, the city clerk's office was planning to be open on Saturday from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. for residents to obtain marriage licenses. The Brunswick town clerk's office was set to be open from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday by appointment. As of midday on Friday, five same-sex couples had booked appointments, the office said.
Robert F. Bukaty / AP
Sarah Dowling, left, speaks Nov. 1 at a gay marriage rally, accompanied by her partner of 18 years, Linda Wolfe, and their daughter, Maya Dowling-Wolfe, in Portland, Maine. Dowling and Wolfe planned to marry after a law allowing same-sex marriage took effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
More lavish same-sex weddings are being booked starting in the spring at the On the Marsh Bistro in Kennebunk, said owner Denise Rubin.
"We support it wholeheartedly," she said. "We look forward to being part of a whole new wave of wonderful thinking."
The tide of public opinion has been shifting in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. In May, President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to say he believed same-sex couples should be allowed to get married.
A Pew Research Center survey from October found 49 percent of Americans favored allowing gay marriage, with 40 percent opposed. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review two challenges to federal and state laws that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Just a day after Washington became the latest state to allow gay couples to marry, the U.S. Supreme Court will take a serious look at same-sex marriage for the first time ever. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
The nation's highest court said this month it will review a case against a federal law that denies married same-sex couples the federal benefits that heterosexual couples receive. It also will look at a challenge to California's ban on gay marriage, known as Proposition 8, which voters narrowly approved in 2008.
Washington state's law legalizing same-sex unions took effect on Sunday, December 9, and Maryland's law takes effect on January 1, 2013.
This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.
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China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.
The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.
The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.
Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.
"Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities," the rules state.
The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users, something the government has said it is trying to encourage.
Li Fei, deputy head of parliament's legislative affairs committee, said the new rules did not mean people needed to worry about being unable to report corruption online. But he added a warning too.
"When people exercise their rights, including the right to use the Internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution, and not harm the legal rights of the state, society ... or other citizens," he told a news conference.
Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.
Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina's wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.
The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users.
"So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities. Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?" complained one user.
"We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom," wrote another.
The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumors, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.
Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sally Huang; Editing by Nick Macfie)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
Its very clear that Microsoft is trying to beat Apple to the Marriage of mobile and personal computing. The problem is I think their execution is not working relatively well. I agree that Win8 on a personal computing device looks to behave like a mobile device, and this causes en masse confusion. While I applaud Microsoft for their attempt to innovate something unique, I just dont think its working terribly well.
I would feel better, and I think a few others would say the same thing, if Microsoft were to focus on under the hood innovation (this made them known for things like Exchange and Active Directory, and although Active Directory is a real bastardization of LDAP and nothing new, it was something that made them popular). A total Security Redesign, the elimination of ActiveX and DCOM controls, a more decentralized order of operation (Im sure that MS could re-aquire the rights to Xenix its own version of Unix back in the day....yes....Microsoft owned a unix variant at one time, make no mistake about that), and overall stability improvements.
As it stands now constant redesigns to the desktop across all platforms that care about it are confusing users more and more. Microsoft redesigns, and it loses people (and Win8 may be the very release that drives users away from it and to alternatives like Apple and Unix variants -- Linux included). Apple is slowly trying to marry without actually doing it, the mobile device and the personal computing device, but without changing the entire desktop as a result. Gnome (the interface nazis of the linux world) attempted to do the same with Gnome 3.x, and that caused alot of fallout (Ive alwasy been an openbox user, so this didnt really affect me much).
From a point of focus, I think that what works is what needs to stay, and what doesnt work needs to be fixed. But then thats an opinion coming from an old war-torn Aspie network security engineer, and probably doesnt mean much to anyone. _________________ An Old NetSec Engineer. Diag 11/29.
A1: AS 299.80 A2: SPD features 301.20
GAF: 50 - 60 range.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Hewlett-Packard says the Justice Department is investigating the business software unit Autonomy after the computer maker said the business engaged in improper accounting before HP bought it.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday, HP said Justice officials had informed the company on Nov. 21 that they were opening an investigation. HP also said that it provided information to the SEC and the U.K. Serious Fraud Office related to "accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and misrepresentations at Autonomy."
Hewlett-Packard Co., which acquired Autonomy for $10 billion in 2011, took an $8.8 billion charge to reflect that the U.K. company isn't worth what it paid. HP says about $5 billion of that charge stemmed from improper accounting.
Autonomy founder Mike Lynch has said the allegations are false.
Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a new smart phone, tablet, or computer. Just look at the last few weeks' worth of print and TV adverts. It seems like everyone wants the latest technology to be able to send a cryptic message to friends, loved ones, and the rest of the wired world. E-communication -- this new-age form of communicating -- get its name from using electronic means to transmit messages. I've come to believe that the "e" in e-communication stands for "evasive." The excitement of being able to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime has morphed into an annoyance (think mobile user in the gym, restaurant, or elevator) or a means of electronic courage to communicate a message that in years past had to be face-to-face conversation. E-communication has enabled the evolution of a new breed of user -- one with little social skills or emotional intelligence. Let me share a couple of examples.
A few years ago, during my organization behavior class -- part of the evening MBA program for working adults, a student proudly proclaimed that she used email to let her husband know when and why she was upset with him. I was teaching the topic of assertive communication, extoling the virtues of -- and sharing frameworks and techniques for -- open, direct, assertive communication. My examples -- deciding whether to send food back at a restaurant, being "cut" while waiting in a queue and dealing with an absent or unproductive team member -- provoked engaged dialogue filled with personal examples of responses to similar situations and the reasons behind them. The general consensus was agreement that direct confrontation was often the best, if most difficult, approach. Yet, this female student was adamant that "her" chosen method worked. Hard to argue with the seemingly happily married student, so I segued to the next conversation with a "let's agree to disagree" or "just as there are different ways to lead, so too is the case for communication" type of statement.
Fast forward about five years. I'm Skyping with my daughter -- a freshman at a university on the East Coast -- and what I hear horrifies me. She tells me that the previous evening, one of her classmates came to her dorm room to study for an exam. He stayed until about midnight, and the entire time, her roommate, Lisa*, said nothing -- no mention of needing to sleep, no questions about when he might leave, not even facial expressions that could have interpreted as discontent with the situation. The next morning, another female student living on the same floor informed my daughter that "I don't know if you know this, but Lisa has been tweeting about you." My daughter looked up Lisa's tweets, and identified seven that were posted during or immediately following the 90 minute study visit. "Could you please go to the study lounge? That's what it's for. I am SO TIRED. I would like to sleep because I have a test tomorrow." "I would like to go to bed. But there is a strange guy in my room." "As much as I love my roommate, this is the second time she had someone over late. I need to sleep!" The last two: "GOOOOOOODBYEEEEEE PLEEEEASEEEEE" and "I was getting legit pissed off" suggest my daughter's roommate was quite angry, but, and this is key, said nothing. In fact, after reading these posts, my daughter started a conversation with Lisa, and it went something like this:
Her: "Hey, I'm really sorry Peter* stayed so late last night. I didn't think he was going to be here so long." Her roommate: "It's fine! No worries." Her: "Well, again, I'm sorry if our studying kept you up late." Her roommate: "It's no big deal. Don't worry about it."
Lisa had a right to ask my daughter to end the study session in their shared room, perhaps taking her into the hallway for privacy. Instead, by saying nothing directly to her, Lisa sent a different message: "have as many study sessions with friends in our room as you want.. .I don't mind." Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in sticky situations like this? Sure, we laugh about the co-workers in adjacent cubicles who email each other to see if they can go to lunch together. We frown over the texters who nearly plow into animate and inanimate objects -- which are clearly less important than the texts they're composing. And we are perturbed by others' lack of mobile phone etiquette. But when does "being connected" equate to "being socially inept?" How has using electronic forms of communication allowed us to abdicate responsibility for having direct, honest, and frank conversations when we need to? And worse, how do we respond to this phenomenon in ways that allow it to continue?
A few thoughts to start the conversation on how we might address this... What do you think? 1. Put yourself in the shoes of the recipient of the intended message. What method of delivery would you prefer? Easy or efficient doesn't always equate to effective. 2. Recognize that messages, posts, and emails have a semi-permanent life. Would you like this message printed, (re)posted, forwarded or even (re)tweeted? 3. Realize that most of us avoid doing things we think will be painful. But avoiding a tough conversation doesn't make the problem disappear; instead, it is likely to fester, create resentment, and become a silent wedge in a relationship. Practice the conversation first by writing it or role playing it with a trusted friend or colleague. Whether it's a public presentation or private conversation, a dry run helps increase comfort and confidence.
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Follow Suzanne de Janasz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SuzannedeJanasz
WASHINGTON (AP) ? When it comes to the nation's budget challenges, congressional leaders are fond of saying dismissively they don't want to kick the can down the road.
But now, a deadline hard ahead, even derided half-measures are uncertain as President Barack Obama and lawmakers struggle to avert across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that comprise an economy-threatening fiscal cliff.
Congressional officials said Wednesday they knew of no significant strides toward a compromise over a long Christmas weekend, and no negotiations have been set.
After conferring on a conference call, House Republican leaders said they remain ready for talks, urged the Senate to consider a House-passed bill that extends all existing tax cuts, but gave no hint they intend to call lawmakers back into session unless the Senate first passes legislation.
"The lines of communication remain open, and we will continue to work with our colleagues to avert the largest tax hike in American history, and to address the underlying problem, which is spending," the leadership said in a statement.
A short while later Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. countered that the House leadership should allow action on a Senate-passed bill that lets income tax rates rise only on incomes above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. The measure could "pass tomorrow" if put to a vote, he said.
The Senate is due in session Thursday, although the immediate agenda includes legislation setting the rules for government surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists abroad, including Americans, as well as a measure providing $60 billion for victims of Superstorm Sandy.
Obama decided to cut short his Hawaii vacation for an overnight flight expected to get him back to the White House on Thursday.
Apart from the cliff, other financial challenges loom for divided government, where political brinkmanship has become the norm. The Treasury disclosed during the day it would take accounting measures to avoid reaching the government's borrowing limit of $16.4 trillion by year's end. The changes will provide about two months of additional leeway.
Separately, spending authority for much of the government will expire on March 27, 2013.
After weeks of negotiations, the president urged lawmakers late last week to scale back their ambitions for avoiding the fiscal cliff and send him legislation preventing tax cuts on all but the highest-earning Americans and extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless. Longer, term, he said he still supports deficit cuts that were key to the earlier talks.
"Everybody's got to give a little bit in a sensible way," he said at the White House.
The House has no plans to convene, following last week's rebellion in which conservatives torpedoed Speaker John Boehner's legislation to prevent scheduled tax increases on most, while letting them take effect on million-dollar wage earners.
"How we get there, God only knows," the Ohio Republican said of efforts to protect the economy ? and taxpayers ? from the tax increases and spending cuts.
"Now is the time to show leadership, not kick the can down the road," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said a little over a week ago after Boehner announced he would shift his own focus from bipartisan talks to the approach that eventually was torpedoed by his own rank and file.
It's a phrase that political leaders use when they want to suggest others want to avoid tackling major problems, and one that Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and even Obama as well as Reid have used.
"We have a spending problem. We have to address it, And we're not going to address it by kicking the can down the road," the speaker said at a news conference late last week when he was asked about setting a vote on a plan that Democrats find acceptable.
Cantor recently used the same approach in challenging Obama to agree to savings from Medicare and other benefit programs. "This has to be a part of this agreement or else we just continue to dig the hole deeper, asking folks to allow us to kick the can down the road further and that we don't want to do," he said on Nov. 28.
In fact, it's a phrase that has been in use for over a year as Obama and Republicans jockey for position on pocketbook issues.
In July 2011, when he was struggling with Republicans over the threat of a first-ever government default, Obama said he had "heard reports that there may be some in Congress who want to do just enough to make sure that America avoids defaulting on our debt in the short term. But then wants to kick the can down the road when it comes to solving the larger problem, our deficit."
A few months later, an extension of a payroll tax cut was the issue, and Boehner was insisting on a year-long renewal rather than the temporary plan that passed the Senate with votes from lawmakers in both parties.
"How can you do tax policy for two months?" he asked on Dec. 18, 2011. "I believe that two months is just kicking the can down the road.
"The American people are tired of that."
At issue now is series of tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to kick in with the new year that economists caution could send the economy into a recession.
___
AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber contributed to this report.
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic have directly linked an enzyme to aggressive prostate cancer. They've also developed a compound that restricts the ability of the molecule to fuel metastases of this type of cancer.
The team from Mayo's Florida campus identified the first direct relationship between the enzyme known as PRSS3 to prostate cancer, according to Medical News Today. They published their results in Molecular Cancer Research.
The National Cancer Institute estimated that close to a quarter of a million men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, and around 28,000 of them wouldn't survive.
For years, medical professionals have relied on two types of screening for this disease: a digital rectal exam and the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test. However, the Mayo Clinic says using the PSA test is sometimes controversial, since it can provide false indicators and since there is no proof that it actually saves lives.
PRSS3, a protease, digests other molecules. The Mayo researchers concluded that activity associated with the enzyme alters the environment surrounding prostate cancer cells. They suspect that PRSS3 frees the cells from surrounding tissue, allowing them to become invasive and to spread cancer.
They haven't concluded that the enzyme is the only issue linked to aggressive prostate cancer, however. Instead, they suspect that PRSS3 might power a potentially lethal form of this cancer.
The researchers examined databases available to the public that contained information from clinical studies. After finding a link between early breast cancer and protease in earlier work, they sought to discover whether any other type of cancer expressed protease and at which stages of the disease.
They found a dramatic relationship between increases in PRSS3 expression and progression of aggressive prostate cancer. The scientists determined that protease expression played a critical role in prostate cancer metastasis in mice models and found a site for an inhibiting agent to shut down the expression. In mice in which PRSS3 was "shut off," the malignancy did not spread.
One outcome of the study is the possibility of testing prostate cancer patients for the molecule. Doctors could better determine patients at highest risk for an aggressive form of the disease. While the inhibitor utilized cannot be directly developed into a useful drug, it could provide a template for creating one.
My husband is among those who could eventually profit from this study. After two successive PSA tests with numbers that suddenly skyrocketed, he underwent painful biopsies that showed nothing amiss. Although his PSA numbers bounce, his urologist insists that he keep repeating the test.
With a family history of aggressive prostate cancer, my husband finds it hard to argue. Should he nix more PSA tests and eventually develop the illness, the link between the enzyme and prostate cancer provides some hope of a positive outcome.
Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela has been discharged from hospital where he received treatment for a lung infection and surgery to remove gallstones, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.
The 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who had spent nearly three weeks in hospital, was discharged to his Johannesburg home. He has been in frail health for several years.
"He will undergo home-based high care at his (Johannesburg) home until he recovers fully," the government said in a statement issued by the presidency.
"We request a continuation of the privacy consideration in order to allow for the best possible conditions for full recovery," it said, without offering further details.
Mandela has a history of lung problems dating back to when he contracted tuberculosis while in jail as a political prisoner. This was his longest stay in hospital since he was released from prison in 1990.
(Reporting by David Dolan, Peroshni Govender and Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Jon Hemming and Andrew Osborn)
A protester argues with police officers outside the Federation Council on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012. Several protesters were detained Wednesday morning outside the upper chamber of Russia's parliament as it prepared to vote on a controversial measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children. The poster held by the protester reads: ?Children get frozen in the Cold War.? (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
A protester argues with police officers outside the Federation Council on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012. Several protesters were detained Wednesday morning outside the upper chamber of Russia's parliament as it prepared to vote on a controversial measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children. The poster held by the protester reads: ?Children get frozen in the Cold War.? (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Russian police officers detain a protester outside the Federation Council Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012. Several protesters were detained Wednesday morning outside the upper chamber of Russia?s parliament which is set to vote on a measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
A demonstrator holds a poster reading "We are for Dima Yakovlev Bill" outside the Federation Council on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012. Several protesters were detained Wednesday morning outside the upper chamber of Russia's parliament as it prepared to vote on a controversial measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children. The bill is named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, presents a state award to famous Russian actor Konstantin Khabensky wearing a badge that reads "Children are outisde politics!" during an award ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012. The upper chamber of Russia's parliament on Wednesday unanimously voted in favor of a measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children. It now goes to President Vladimir Putin to sign or turn down. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press Service)
MOSCOW (AP) ? Defying a storm of domestic and international criticism, Russia moved toward finalizing a ban on Americans adopting Russian children, as Parliament's upper house voted unanimously Wednesday in favor of a measure that President Vladimir Putin has indicated he will sign into law.
The bill is widely seen as the Kremlin's retaliation against an American law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. It comes as Putin takes an increasingly confrontational attitude toward the West, brushing aside concerns about a crackdown on dissent and democratic freedoms.
Dozens of Russian children close to being adopted by American families now will almost certainly be blocked from leaving the country. The law also cuts off the main international adoption route for Russian children stuck in often dismal orphanages: Tens of thousands of Russian youngsters have been adopted in the U.S. in the past 20 years. There are about 740,000 children without parental care in Russia, according to UNICEF.
All 143 members of the Federation Council present voted to support the bill, which has sparked criticism from both the U.S. and Russian officials, activists and artists, who say it victimizes children by depriving them of the chance to escape the squalor of orphanage life. The vote comes days after Parliament's lower house overwhelmingly approved the ban.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday it regretted the Russian parliament's decision.
"Since 1992, American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, providing them with an opportunity to grow up in a family environment," spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement from Washington. "The bill passed by Russia's parliament would prevent many children from enjoying this opportunity ...
"It is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations," he said.
Seven people with posters protesting the bill were detained outside the Council before Wednesday's vote. "Children get frozen in the Cold War," one poster read. Some 60 people rallied in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city.
The bill is part of larger legislation by Putin-allied lawmakers retaliating against a recently signed U.S. law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. Although Putin has not explicitly committed to signing the bill, he strongly defended it in a press conference last week as "a sufficient response" to the new U.S. law.
Originally Russia's lawmakers cobbled together a more or less a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. law, providing for travel sanctions and the seizure of financial assets in Russia of Americans determined to have violated the rights of Russians.
But it was expanded to include the adoption measure and call for a ban on any organizations that are engaged in political activities if they receive funding from U.S. citizens or are determined to be a threat to Russia's interests.
Russian children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told the Interfax news agency that 46 children who were on the verge of being adopted by Americans would stay in Russia if the bill is approved ? despite court rulings in some of these cases authorizing the adoptions.
The ombudsman supported the bill, saying that foreign adoptions discourage Russians from adopting children. "A foreigner who has paid for an adoption always gets a priority compared to potential Russian adoptive parents," Astakhov was quoted as saying. "A great country like Russia cannot sell its children."
Russian law allows foreigners to adopt only if a Russian family has not expressed interest in a child being considered for adoption.
Some top government officials, including the foreign minister, have spoken flatly against the adoption law, arguing that the measure would be in violation of Russia's constitution and international obligations.
But Senator Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Council's foreign affairs committee, referred to the bill as "a natural and a long overdue response" to the U.S. legislation. "Children must be placed in Russian families, and this is a cornerstone issue for us," he said.
Margelov said that a bilateral Russian-U.S. agreement binds Russia to give notice of a halt to adoptions 12 months in advance. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that the president would consider the bill within the next two weeks.
The measure has become one of the most debated topics in Russia.
By Tuesday, more than 100,000 Russians had signed an online petition urging the Kremlin to scrap the bill.
Over the weekend, dozens of Muscovites placed toys and lit candles in front of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament after it approved the bill on Friday, but security guards promptly removed them. Opposition groups said they will rally against the bill on Jan. 13, and several popular artists publicly voiced their concern about the legislation.
While receiving a state award from Putin on Wednesday, film actor Konstantin Khabensky wore a badge saying "Children Are Beyond Politics." Veteran rock musician Andrey Makarevich called on Putin Monday to stop "killing children."
During a marathon Putin press conference Thursday, eight of the 60 questions the president answered focused on the bill. Responding angrily, Putin claimed that Americans routinely mistreat children from Russia.
The bill is named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. A Russian television report showed Yakovlev's blind grandmother who claimed that the U.S. family that adopted her grandson forged her signature on documents allowing them to take the boy outside Russia.
Russian lawmakers argue that by banning adoptions to the U.S. they would be protecting children and encouraging adoptions inside Russia.
In a measure of the virulent anti-U.S. sentiment that has gripped parts of Russian society, a few lawmakers went even further, claiming that some Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army.
Americans involved in adoption of Russian children find the new legislation upsetting.
Bill Blacquiere, president of New York City-based Bethany Christian Services, one of the largest adoption agencies in the U.S., said he hopes Putin won't sign the bill.
"It would be very sad for kids to grow up in orphanages," Blacquiere said. "And would hurt them socially, psychologically and mentally. We all know that caring for children in institutions is just not a very good thing."
Joyce Sterkel, who runs a Montana ranch for troubled children adopted abroad and has adopted three Russian children herself, said she is concerned for the estimated 700,000 children who live in state-run institutions in Russia.
"I would prefer that the Russians take care of their own children. I would prefer that people in the United States take care of their own children," Sterkel said Wednesday. "But if a suitable home cannot be found in that country, it seems reasonable that a child should be able to find a home outside."
___
Associated Press writers Matt Volz in Helena, Montana, and Libby Quaid in Washington, contributed to this report.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A confessed serial killer from Alaska who hid in plain sight and whose crimes went undetected for more than a decade, was ultimately caught after he gave in to his compulsions and struck close to home.
Israel Keyes, in jail since March for the kidnapping and murder of 18-year-old coffee stand server Samantha Koenig in Anchorage, Alaska, confessed to that and other violent crimes. Then guards found him dead on December 2 after he committed suicide by cutting his wrists and choking himself with a bed sheet. He was 34.
Keyes, a U.S. Army veteran, lived a quiet life in one of Anchorage's best neighborhoods, doing well-regarded handyman work for unsuspecting customers. He had been due to go on trial in March for Koenig's death, and investigators believe he killed eight to 11 people, if not more.
A picture of Keyes' double-life emerged from his own words -- authorities released excerpts from 40 hours of interviews with investigators to reporters -- and from interviews and news conferences given by investigators, who said they believed his confessions were sincere.
"Everything that he told them has been borne out," Lieutenant Dave Parker of the Anchorage Police Department said on Sunday.
Keyes admitted that he committed numerous killings, bank robberies and other crimes across the country. He admitted to plans for more killings. He admitted to several unreported crimes and acts of cruelty committed before he started killing people, including the rape of a teenager in Oregon in the late 1990s and torture of animals when he was a child.
His suicide ended the revelations and made him a rarity -- a confessed serial killer who was never convicted of murder.
"It gives us no pleasure to dismiss the charges against Mr. Keyes, but that's what the law requires," said Kevin Feldis, the assistant U.S. attorney leading the prosecution.
The criminal investigation will continue indefinitely, even if there is no prosecution, "because there will inevitably be many, many unknowns," Feldis said.
Keyes was caught in Texas in March with a debit card stolen from Koenig, whom he abducted from her coffee stand in February. Keyes admitted to kidnapping, raping and killing her, then dismembering her body and dumping her remains in an icy lake before traveling out of Alaska.
Once in custody, he also confessed to the 2011 killings of Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vermont, and the disposal of four bodies in Washington state and one in New York state.
Only three homicides have been definitively pinned to him -- those of Koenig and the Curriers -- in large part because Keyes could not identify victims by name.
His motivation was enjoyment, said Monique Doll, an Anchorage homicide detective who worked on the investigation. Throughout his months of jail interviews, Keyes was utterly unapologetic and remorseless, she said.
"Israel Keyes didn't kidnap and kill people because he was crazy. He didn't kidnap and kill people because his deity told him to or because he had a bad childhood. Israel Keyes did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it, much like an addict gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs," Doll told a news conference.
He also enjoyed staying under the radar, officials said. He targeted total strangers, avoiding anyone with any possible connection, traveling hundreds of miles to target random victims at secluded parks, trail heads and other remote locations.
He broke some of his own rules when he killed Koenig, abducting her at her workplace on a busy Anchorage street, where security cameras caught some of his actions, and killing her at his own house, officials said. Keyes admitted he considered merely robbing Koenig -- whom he did not know -- and instead gave in to his compulsions, Doll said.
"In prior cases, he had enough self-control to walk away from it," Doll said. "But with Samantha, he didn't."
Koenig's case dominated local news, and supporters raised a reward fund, held candlelight vigils and gave self-defense lessons to coffee stand servers.
Keyes got a thrill from following the news coverage, so long as his name was not linked to the case, investigators said. When he was identified by a Vermont television station in the summer as the suspect in the murder of the Curriers, he became so angry he stopped speaking to investigators for two months.
WHITE SUPREMACIST BACKGROUND
Keyes grew up in Washington state in a fundamentalist Christian family that, in the past, attended a white-supremacist, anti-Semitic church but later moved out of the region and became affiliated with other congregations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center civil rights group.
Keyes served in the U.S. Army for three years, including a brief stint in Egypt, and was discharged from Fort Lewis Army Base in Washington state in 2001. In his interviews, he said he was anxious for his military service to end so that he could start murdering people, Feldis said.
He moved to Alaska in 2007 and lived with his daughter and a girlfriend in Anchorage's Turnagain neighborhood, near many of the city's most prominent citizens, top attorneys and law-enforcement officials, operating a one-man contracting business.
"He was well-known in Anchorage as a really good handyman," said state Senator Hollis French, who lived around the corner from Keyes.
All the while, Keyes said in his interviews, he was "two different people."
"There's no one who knows me or who has ever known me, who knows anything about me, really," Keyes said in one of the interviews.
Keyes told authorities he almost killed a young couple and an Anchorage police officer at a beach overlook, about a month before killing the Curriers in Vermont.
Keyes said he was hiding in the park with a gun and a silencer and ready to ambush his victims; he wanted to test the silencer that he would later bring to the East Coast on his trip to kill the Curriers. He stopped when a second police officer arrived on the scene.
"It could have got ugly, but fortunately for the cop guy, his backup showed up," a chuckling Keyes said one interview. "I almost got myself into a lot of trouble on that one."
The silencer wound up in a stockpile of murder supplies that Keyes stashed in upstate New York, near a home he owned there. Keyes admitted to placing several such caches around the country, investigators said.
Officials have found two so far -- the New York stockpile and one in the Anchorage suburb of Eagle River that contained a shovel and bottles of liquid clog remover, material for concealing a body and speeding decomposition.
Until he was arrested, Keyes' plan was to leave Alaska this year and work as an itinerant contractor making repairs in hurricane-struck areas of the United States, Feldis said.
"That would allow him to move from place to place and commit murders," Feldis said.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Grant McCool)
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Public release date: 31-Dec-2012
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