3 Taliban bombs target Pakistani politicians

PARACHINAR, Pakistan (AP) ? Taliban bombs targeting politicians in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday killed 11 people, the latest in a series of attacks meant to disrupt next month's parliamentary election, police said.

The wave of political violence has killed at least 60 people in recent weeks, and many of the attacks have been directed at candidates from secular parties opposed to the Taliban. That has raised concern the violence could benefit hard-line Islamic candidates and others who are more sympathetic to the Taliban because they are able to campaign more freely without fear of being of being attacked.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the three attacks, plus two others against secular parties in the southern port city of Karachi on Saturday that killed four people and wounded over 40.

"We are against all politicians who are going to become part of any secular, democratic government," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The first bomb on Sunday ripped through the campaign office of Syed Noor Akbar on the outskirts of Kohat city, killing six people and wounding 10, police officer Mujtaba Hussain said.

A second bomb targeted the office of another candidate, Nasir Khan Afridi, in the suburbs of Peshawar city. That attack killed three people and wounded 12, police officer Saifur Rehman said.

The politicians were not in their offices at the time of the blasts. They are both running as independent candidates for parliament to represent constituencies in Pakistan's rugged tribal region along the Afghan border, the main sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants in the country.

Many politicians running in the May 11 election from the tribal region have their offices located elsewhere and find it hard to campaign in their constituencies because of the danger. The two who were attacked Sunday are considered to hold relatively progressive views compared to the deeply conservative Islamic beliefs of many in the tribal region.

The third attack occurred in the town of Swabi, where a bomb went off during a small rally held by the Awami National Party, which has been repeatedly targeted by the Taliban. The blast killed two people and wounded five, said police officer Farooq Khan. The two candidates targeted in the attack, Ameer Rehman and Haji Rehman, were not hurt.

The Pakistani Taliban have been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years that has killed thousands of civilians and security personnel. The group's goal is to oust Pakistan's democratic government and implement a system based on Islamic law.

In mid-March, the Taliban threatened attacks against three secular parties that have earned the militants' ire by supporting military operations against them in the northwest: the Awami National Party, the Muttahida Quami Movement and the Pakistan People's Party. The Taliban have carried out at least 20 attacks against politicians and campaign workers since then, mostly from these three parties.

The violence has forced the parties to close dozens of campaign offices and has prevented them from holding large political rallies that are normally the hallmark of Pakistani elections. Many of the candidates have had to find ways to campaign from a distance, relying more on social media, advertisements and even short documentaries to rally support.

That has put these candidates at a disadvantage, and many have complained the militant violence amounts to vote rigging.

Candidates from Islamic parties and others who have advocated negotiating peace with the militants rather than fighting them have been able to campaign with much less fear of being attacked.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N party, held a rally with several thousand people in the northern town of Murree on Sunday without incident. Many analysts predict Sharif's party will come out on top in the parliamentary election.

The Taliban issued a statement earlier this year requesting that Sharif and the heads of the country's two largest Islamic parties mediate peace negotiations. Sharif declined but said he was a supporter of the talks.

The parties that have been targeted by the Taliban also support peace negotiations with the militants, but only if they lay down their weapons and accept the constitution first ? conditions the militant group has rejected.

____

Associated Press Writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-taliban-bombs-target-pakistani-politicians-172732748.html

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Old standards greet fans on Jazz Fest's 2nd day

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? At 101 years old, New Orleans jazz trumpeter Lionel Ferbos opened one of 12 stages on the second day of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Billy Joel brought the crowds and ended Day 2.

Couples danced and some sang along to old jazz standards such as "Back Home In Indiana" and "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" on Saturday.

Ferbos is believed to be the oldest actively working musician in the city. He performs regularly at the Palm Court Jazz Club in the French Quarter.

"He epitomizes New Orleans," said New Orleans resident Medora Monigold, a Jazz Fest veteran and fan of Ferbos. "In a day where the elders are not respected, he reminds us that wisdom and talent can exist at any age."

Monigold enjoyed a plate of seafood casserole and fried green tomatoes as she tapped her foot to the music.

Maryruth Senechal, of Hartford, Conn., said Ferbos was excellent. She said she catches his shows often at the Palm Court but prefers his performances at Jazz Fest.

"Here, I can dance and second-line. I love the old traditional brass band jazz," she said.

Senechal and her husband, Jean-Guy, have attended Jazz Fest 14 times and spend most of the festival at the jazz tent, where other acts for the day included trumpeter and singer Wendell Brunious and singer-pianist Tim Laughlin.

Brunious brought couples to their feet as he sang "I Will Never Be the Same" and "Big Chief," an upbeat number commonly performed at Mardi Gras that had many in the crowd dancing and hoisting umbrellas in the tradition known as second line. He closed his set with the New Orleans favorite "When the Saints Go Marching In."

On one of the bigger stages, the brass band Bonerama jammed before a crowd of thousands under sunny skies and a gentle breeze that broke through the warm temperatures.

"The sky is smiling upon us," said Quint Davis, the festival's producer. "We do it rain or shine, but we reach the spirit and zenith when in the sunshine."

Davis said Friday's opening day saw bigger crowds than last year.

That trend seemed to continue Saturday as thousands packed the grass spaces in front of the festival's largest stage to hear the day's final performer, Joel, who opened his set with "Movin' Out." He told the crowd that New York hurt with New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. "After Hurricane Sandy, we're taking inspiration from you guys," he said as the crowd cheered in response.

He also did his classics, "Only the Good Die Young" and "Piano Man."

On a nearby stage, neo-soul singer Jill Scott dazzled fans, singing several of her hits including "It's Love," ''The Way," ''So In Love," and "Quick."

New Orleans native Darnie Williams described herself as Scott's No. 1 fan.

"She's just awesome," she said of Scott in between dancing and singing along with her. "She's just a true soul sister. She's real and her music is so soulful, much like Aretha and Gladys Knight."

Jazz Fest continues through Sunday and then resumes May 2-5. Festival-goers will be treated to traditional jazz, rock 'n roll, Cajun, gospel, blues, hip-hop, funk and zydeco.

Second-weekend headliners include Hall and Oates, Fleetwood Mac, Little Big Town, Aaron Neville and Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews.

___

Associated Press writer Stacey Plaisance in New Orleans contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-27-Music-Jazz%20Fest/id-953b6e61009a4364b2574b345b34516b

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Wall Street vs. sanity: Painting a clearer picture of AAPL

In the few days that have passed since Apple?s latest quarterly results, people can?t seem to stop writing about the so-called stalled growth and ?margin collapse? that hit the company. Ok, the term ?collapse? is excessively stupid (you know who you are, stop it). Apple?s revenue is still growing, but profitability is down year over year. The profit decline is due to undeniably lower gross margin. But what does that mean?

If you look at a the last 5 quarters and put it in graph form, it looks ugly. It looks scary. It makes you wonder why anyone would own the stock. And looking at 5 quarters is a pretty typical thing to do on Wall Street. People think of this as a longer term view of things, as crazy as that sounds. Apple just reported Q2, so looking at 5 quarters means you see Q2 from last year on the left, and Q2 from this year on the right.

Newsflash: Looking at a year over year comparison in isolation doesn?t paint a very clear picture of what?s really happening. And because Wall Street suffers from attention deficit disorder, it needs to form rapid-fire decisions on things.

Most analysts do not publish long term performance charts in their reports. I don?t know why, but it?s true. Sure, they all have the data in their models. They probably all have long term charts built in Excel, but they don?t get published.

Well, I?m publishing the one I keep in my model.

This chart goes back to Q3 2007, which is the first quarter of iPhone shipments. I could have gone back further, but I don?t think it would be as relevant because the business truly has changed ever since iOS was built.

So in blue we have a line graph representing revenue. You can see that it took a while for the iPhone to make a massive impact on the overall revenue, but in 2010 things just started to rocket upwards.

Then in the last two years, you can see that the holiday quarter has stood out as massively important. There have been two such holiday quarters so far, and they define the new peaks for revenue. In other words, Apple revenue has become much more seasonal. This means the quarters in between the seasonal peaks are less important. They are not unimportant. They are just less important.

Think of it this way. When you watch a storm build in the ocean, you can see each wave becoming bigger, crashing harder onto the beach. It doesn?t make a lot of sense to evaluate each wave on it?s way down. It makes a lot more sense to think about how high each wave crest goes. And right now, Wall Street is looking at a falling wave. Revenue could easily rocket higher again. China Mobile deal? Potentially a less expensive iPhone? Continued growth of the iPad, where sales nearly doubled year-over-year?

Now let?s look at gross margin, because this is what really has Wall Street bothered. I showed margin on the green bar chart, because somehow it just seemed easier to look at in bar format.

Apple had gross margin above 40% for 8 quarters since the iPhone launch. And a full 6 of these quarters were consecutive, from the March 2011 through to June 2012 quarter. For rear-view-mirror observers, it?s horrible to see that the gross margin peak happened in March 2012, which is the year ago quarter relative to this week?s earnings report.

But Apple does not have a history of margins above 40%. The mid to high 30% range is much more common, and it seems the company is moving back into that zone. Yes, the iPhone has higher margin than the Mac or even iPad. And that?s great. But I think we all realize that Apple can?t continue to gain global market share with a product that is out of reach for most global consumers.

So Apple has done the smart thing. They?ve taken more aggressive action on the iPhone 4 in places like China. It?s quite obvious that this makes the year-over-year margin comparison look like a case of Apple failure. But if you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, the margin moves really don?t look that shocking. If anything, it?s shocking to see how bloody high they climbed in the first place. This seems more sustainable.

And what if Apple had been more aggressive on pricing in the first place? The margin never would have climbed so high, and last year?s Q2 quarter never would have been as insanely profitable as it was. And we?d be looking at the most recent Q2 result saying, ?Wow, Apple keeps growing. Amazing!?

The stock market is all about comparisons. And unfortunately, the comparisons are fairly short term in nature. But even the ?fast moving? (I use that term loosely) technology sector requires a longer time frame for analysis. Apple did not build its iOS empire in a year, or even two years. Android did not grow to dominate the scene in a couple of years either. BlackBerry did not collapse in a year (and it?s potential comeback will not take one year). Things still move a lot more slowly than we all seem to think.

Apple is growing quite nicely. And if gross margin normalizes here, which seems reasonable, then next year we?ll be looking at a growth stock again. Everyone will forget about the supposed gross margin ?collapse? that we apparently just witnessed.

Since I happen to have my DSLR camera beside me right now, this metaphor seems appropriate. You don?t need to constantly take pictures with your telephoto lens set to 300mm. Sometimes the wide angle shot is better, and provides more context.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/rk0vY0YNftM/story01.htm

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Bieber Jumps on the Onesie Wagon! What Is This Trend?

Justin Bieber hasn’t only gotten in on the hair-shaving trend -- he's also now a fan of onesies! While on tour in Sweden, the 19-year-old pop star was spotted wearing a red one-piece outfit, and his friend Lil Za was next to him wearing a matching white onesie.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/what-celebrities-wearing-onesies/1-a-534466?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Awhat-celebrities-wearing-onesies-534466

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Google releases Glass kernel GPL source, lets developers have at it

While our own Tim Stevens is currently adapting to life through Google Glass, developers are going beyond scratching the surface to fiddle with what's inside. Hot on the heels of Jay Freeman rooting Glass, devs will be pleased to know Google's throwing 'em a bone to by publicly releasing the kernel source. Interestingly, Karthik's Geek Center spotted info within the file that points to Glass potentially being equipped for NFC support. If you're up for tinkering, you'll find the temporary location of the tar.zx file itself at the source link.

Filed under: Misc, Robots, Wearables, Software, Google

Comments

Via: Karthik's Geek Center

Source: Google

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/27/google-releases-glass-kernel-gpl-source/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Mamma Mia! Bookie offers odds on ABBA reunion

(Ends first round) NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - Selections in the first roundof the 2013 NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday (picknumber, NFL team, player, position, college): 1-Kansas City, Eric Fisher, offensive tackle, Central Michigan 2-Jacksonville, Luke Joeckel, offensive tackle, Texas A&M 3-Miami (from Oakland), Dion Jordan, defensive tackle, Oregon 4-Philadelphia, Lane Johnson, offensive tackle, Oklahoma 5-Detroit, Ezekiel Ansah, defensive end, Brigham Young 6-Cleveland, Barkevious Mingo, linebacker, LSU 7-Arizona, Jonathan Cooper, guard, North Carolina 8-St. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mamma-mia-bookie-offers-odds-abba-reunion-155645171.html

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Revisiting Benjamin Graham, the father of alternative investing ...

Throughout?Benjamin Graham?s life and through his seminal 1934 book,?Securities Analysis,?the accepted father of value investing taught his loyal followers (including Warren Buffet) that the value of a company?s shares was tied to the fundamentals of that company rather than whatever the market was prepared to pay for its shares on any given day.

Alternative ETFs head for the mainstream

The switch to ETFs may not happen overnight, but it is underway in a powerful fashion, and momentum in that direction should only rise. Read more.

The basic theory was that, over the long run, the true value of a security would be revealed through its price, and value investors would therefore profit through their practice of fundamental analysis. But for years, a debate has persisted between value investors and the followers of modern portfolio theory as to whether the market is, essentially, efficient, and whether it is possible for individual investors to beat the market on a consistent basis by capitalizing on purported inefficiencies.

Like most observers, I have always believed Mr. Graham would have been strongly in the ?you can beat the market? camp. Recently, however, I have learned that his views on the matter were far more nuanced. In fact, Mr. Graham was an early adopter of the concept of alternative investing: garnering higher risk-adjusted returns than the market by doing things differently, rather than following the crowd.

On Nov. 15, 1963, (notably only a week before the assassination of President Kennedy), Graham delivered a speech in San Francisco with the evergreen title, ?Securities in an Insecure World.? It?s a fascinating read. I expected to find the basic theories described above, albeit in more than the standard 140 characters that defines our modern knowledge base. Instead, I found evidence of a man who was a pragmatist and a thinker, whose views are equally as applicable to today?s capital markets as they were 50 years ago.

At the top of the speech, Mr. Graham described the challenges faced by 1963 market participants. If one were to replace the phrase ?atomic war? with ?terrorism,? these thoughts might just as well have been uttered last week rather than last century:

?In the field of financial security, as limited to the problems of investment policy, I would say there are three kinds of threats or dangers that investors should recognize as possibly existing at the present time,? he wrote. ?One of them would be the threat from atomic war; the second would be the threat from inflation; and the third would be the threat from severe market fluctuations up and down, and of course primarily down.?

Mr. Graham had no ?just add water? solutions to these serious and permanent concerns, but his admonitions to investors about addressing them were particularly insightful and prophetic.

With respect to atomic war and inflation, he pointed out that investors had historically dismissed larger issues over which they had no control, and would likely to continue this head-in-the-sand approach.

Regarding market fluctuations, he was careful to point out that assuming the markets must always go up and that a rising market was a sign of further increases were both fallacious ? a truth borne out in the infamous 1966-1982 secular bear market, in which investors saw virtually no returns.

He was bold enough to assert that ?a large advance in the stock market is basically a sign for caution and not a reason for confidence,? finally concluding that ?investors as well as speculators must be prepared in their thinking and in their policy for wide price movements in either direction. They should not be taken in by soothing statements that a real investor doesn?t have to worry about the fluctuations of the stock market.?

Turning to the specific question of whether investors ought to engage in specific security selection rather than buying broadly diversified low-cost mutual funds (the precursors of today?s exchange-traded funds), Mr. Graham was very clear:

?For obvious reasons it is impossible for investors as whole, and therefore for the average investor or speculator, to do better than the general market. The reason is that you are the general market and you can?t do better than yourselves. I do believe it is possible for a minority of investors to get significantly better results than the average. Two conditions are necessary for that,? he wrote.

?One is that they must follow some sound principles of selection which are related to the value of the securities and not to their market price action. The other is that their method of operation much be basically different than that of the majority of security buyers. They have to cut themselves off from the general public and put themselves into a special category.?

Rather than continuing with a diatribe on the importance of fundamental analysis in order to separate one?s self from the market at large, Mr. Graham then touched on a theme that put him squarely in what most observers would classify as the modern portfolio camp.

Diversification between stocks and bonds, he asserted, was the true source of excess returns compared to the market. Specifically, he said the relative allocation to stocks and bonds should be between 25% and 75% one way or the other, commenting that ?any such variations should be clearly based on value considerations, which would lead [the investor] to own more common stocks when the market seems low in relation to value and less? when the market seems high in relation to value?.

In other words, he was very closely espousing what today is called dynamic (or tactical) asset allocation ? a moving allocation among multiple asset classes or investment strategies that depends not on specific security selection but rather on macro principles.

The fact that he referenced only stocks and bonds is, I would posit, more a function of the times than Graham?s particular favour for those specific asset classes. If he were making the same speech today, I am confident he would include numerous other asset classes (whether currencies, commodities or real estate, all available through cheap, liquid and broadly diversified ETFs) and promote tactical allocation among them based on a fundamental view of their relative value over time.

Dynamic asset allocation is considered pretty cutting edge, even in 2013. Only in the past few years have individual and institutional investors begun to subscribe to the notion that a high percentage of investors? returns are the result of asset allocation, not security selection.

Because, by definition, dynamic asset allocation is quite different from strategic asset allocation (such as a classic static 60/40 portfolio of stocks and bonds), its use is considered to be part of an increasing trend towards alternative investing.

And so it turns out that a man at the very heart of traditional investing was, once we take the time to read what he had to say in his own words, a very early adopter of some very modern ideas. Benjamin Graham: the father of alternative investing. Has a nice ring to it.

David Kaufman is president of Westcourt Capital Corp., a portfolio manager specializing in traditional and alternative asset classes and investment strategies. He can be contacted at?drk@westcourtcapital.com

Source: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/04/26/benjamin-graham-revisited/

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Police: Boston suspects planned to attack New York

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, left, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg hold a news conference, Thursday, April, 25, 2013 in New York. The two say the Boston Marathon bombing suspects intended to blow up their remaining explosives in Times Square. They said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told Boston investigators from his hospital bed that he and his brother had discussed going to New York to detonate their remaining explosives. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, left, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg hold a news conference, Thursday, April, 25, 2013 in New York. The two say the Boston Marathon bombing suspects intended to blow up their remaining explosives in Times Square. They said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told Boston investigators from his hospital bed that he and his brother had discussed going to New York to detonate their remaining explosives. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, left, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg hold a news conference, Thursday, April, 25, 2013 in New York. The two say the Boston Marathon bombing suspects intended to blow up their remaining explosives in Times Square. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly arrive for a news conference, Thursday, April, 25, 2013 in New York. The two say the Boston Marathon bombing suspects intended to blow up their remaining explosives in Times Square. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

NEW YORK (AP) ? The Boston Marathon bombers were headed for New York to blow up their remaining explosives in Times Square before they were intercepted by police in a blazing gunbattle, officials said Thursday.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed that he and his older brother decided on the spur of the moment last Thursday night to drive to New York and launch an attack. In their stolen SUV they had five pipe bombs and a pressure-cooker explosive like the ones that blew up at the marathon, Kelly said.

The plan fell apart when the Tsarnaev brothers got into a shootout just outside Boston that left Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead, Kelly said.

"We don't know if we would have been able to stop the terrorists had they arrived here from Boston," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "We're just thankful that we didn't have to find out that answer."

Dzhokhar, 19, is charged with carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260, and he could get the death penalty.

Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz in Boston, would not comment on whether authorities plan to add charges based on alleged plan to attack New York.

Investigators and lawmakers briefed by the FBI have said that the Tsarnaev brothers ? ethnic Chechens from Russia who had lived in the U.S. for about a decade ? were motivated by anger over the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Based on the younger man's interrogation and other evidence, authorities have said it appears so far that the Muslim brothers were radicalized via jihadi material on the Internet instead of by any direct contact with terrorist organizations, but they have said it is still an open question.

Dzhokhar was interrogated in his hospital room over a period of 16 hours without being read his constitutional rights. He immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney's office entered the room and gave him his Miranda warning, according to a U.S. law enforcement official and others briefed on the interrogation.

Tamerlan had come under scrutiny from the FBI, the CIA and Russian intelligence well before the Boston attack. The CIA had added Tamerlan's name to a terrorist database 18 months ago, after Russian intelligence flagged him as a possible Muslim radical, said officials close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

That disclosure is certain to raise questions on Capitol Hill over whether the Obama administration missed an opportunity to thwart the Boston attack.

Kelly, citing interrogations carried out by the task force investigating the Boston Marathon attack, said that days after the bombing, the Tsarnaev brothers "planned to travel to Manhattan to detonate their remaining explosives in Times Square."

"They discussed this while driving around in a Mercedes SUV that they hijacked after they shot and killed the officer at MIT," the police commissioner said. "That plan, however, fell apart when they realized that the vehicle they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station."

The driver escaped and called police, Kelly said. That set off the gunbattle and manhunt that ended a day later with Dzhokhar captured and 26-year-old Tamerlan dead.

A day earlier, Kelly said that Tsarnaev had talked about coming to New York "to party" after the attack and that there wasn't evidence of a plot against the city. But Kelly said a later interview with the suspect turned up the information.

"He was a lot more lucid and gave more detail in the second interrogation," Kelly said. He and the mayor were briefed on the information Wednesday night by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Kelly said there was no evidence New York was still a target. But in a show of force, police cruisers with blinking red lights were lined up in the middle of Times Square on Thursday afternoon, and uniformed officers stood shoulder to shoulder.

"Why are they standing like that? This is supposed to make me feel safer?" asked Elisabeth Bennecib, a tourist and legal consultant from Toulouse, France. "It makes me feel more anxious, like something bad is about to happen."

Above the square, an electronic news ticker announced that the Boston Marathon suspects' next target might have been Times Square.

In 2010, Times Square was targeted with a car bomb that never went off. Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad had planted a bomb in an SUV, but street vendors noticed smoke and it was disabled. Shahzad was arrested as he tried to leave the country and was sentenced to life in prison.

Meanwhile, the Tsarnaev brothers' father said Thursday that he is leaving Russia for the U.S. in the next day or two, but their mother said she was still thinking it over.

Anzor Tsarnaev has expressed a desire to go to the U.S. to find out what happened with his sons, defend his hospitalized son and, if possible, bring his older son's body back to Russia for burial.

Their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who was charged with shoplifting in the U.S. last summer, said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested, but was still deciding whether to go.

___

Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-25-Boston%20Marathon-Explosions/id-b520d2a020484eddb141537d1f163eef

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Gretchen Rossi Engagement Ring: First Look!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/gretchen-rossi-engagement-ring-first-look/

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Recipe for low-cost, biomass-derived catalyst for hydrogen production

Apr. 24, 2013 ? In a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Energy & Environmental Science, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory describe details of a low-cost, stable, effective catalyst that could replace costly platinum in the production of hydrogen. The catalyst, made from renewable soybeans and abundant molybdenum metal, produces hydrogen in an environmentally friendly, cost-effective manner, potentially increasing the use of this clean energy source.

The research has already garnered widespread recognition for Shilpa and Shweta Iyer, twin-sister high school students who contributed to the research as part of an internship under the guidance of Brookhaven chemist Wei-Fu Chen, supported by projects led by James Muckerman, Etsuko Fujita, and Kotaro Sasaki.

"This paper reports the 'hard science' from what started as the Iyer twins' research project and has resulted in the best-performing, non-noble-metal-containing hydrogen evolution catalyst yet known -- even better than bulk platinum metal," Muckerman said.

The project branches off from the Brookhaven group's research into using sunlight to develop alternative fuels. Their ultimate goal is to find ways to use solar energy -- either directly or via electricity generated by solar cells -- to convert the end products of hydrocarbon combustion, water and carbon dioxide, back into a carbon-based fuel. Dubbed "artificial photosynthesis," this process mimics how plants convert those same ingredients to energy in the form of sugars. One key step is splitting water, or water electrolysis.

"By splitting liquid water (H₂O) into hydrogen and oxygen, the hydrogen can be regenerated as a gas (H₂) and used directly as fuel," Sasaki explained. "We sought to fabricate a commercially viable catalyst from earth-abundant materials for application in water electrolysis, and the outcome is indeed superb."

." ..the best-performing, non-noble-metal-containing hydrogen evolution catalyst yet known..."

This form of hydrogen production could help the scientists achieve their ultimate goal.

"A very promising route to making a carbon-containing fuel is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide (or carbon monoxide) using solar-produced hydrogen," said Fujita, who leads the artificial photosynthesis group in the Brookhaven Chemistry Department.

But with platinum as the main ingredient in the most effective water-splitting catalysts, the process is currently too costly to be economically viable.

Comsewogue High School students Shweta and Shilpa Iyer entered the lab as the search for a cost-effective replacement was on.

The Brookhaven team had already identified some promising leads with experiments demonstrating the potential effectiveness of low-cost molybdenum paired with carbon, as well as the use of nitrogen to confer some resistance to the corrosive, acidic environment required in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis cells. But these two approaches had not yet been tried together.

The students set out to identify plentiful and inexpensive sources of carbon and nitrogen, and test ways to combine them with a molybdenum salt.

"The students became excited about using familiar materials from their everyday lives to meet a real-world energy challenge," Chen recounted. The team tested a wide variety of sources of biomass -- leaves, stems, flowers, seeds, and legumes -- with particular interest in those with high protein content because the amino acids that make up proteins are a rich source of nitrogen. High-protein soybeans turned out to be the best.

To make the catalyst the team ground the soybeans into a powder, mixed the powder with ammonium molybdate in water, then dried and heated the samples in the presence of inert argon gas. "A subsequent high temperature treatment (carburization) induced a reaction between molybdenum and the carbon and nitrogen components of the soybeans to produce molybdenum carbides and molybdenum nitrides," Chen explained. "The process is simple, economical, and environmentally friendly."

Electrochemical tests of the separate ingredients showed that molybdenum carbide is effective for converting H₂O to H₂, but not stable in acidic solution, while molybdenum nitride is corrosion-resistant but not efficient for hydrogen production. A nanostructured hybrid of these two materials, however, remained active and stable even after 500 hours of testing in a highly acidic environment.

"We attribute the high activity of the molybdenum-soy catalyst (MoSoy) to the synergistic effect between the molybdenum-carbide phase and the molybdenum-nitride phase in the composite material," Chen said.

Structural and chemical studies of the new catalyst conducted at Brookhaven's National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) are also reported in the paper, and provide further details underlying the high performance of this new catalyst.

"The presence of nitrogen and carbon atoms in the vicinity of the catalytic molybdenum center facilitates the production of hydrogen from water," Muckerman said.

The scientists also tested the MoSoy catalyst anchored on sheets of graphene -- an approach that has proven effective for enhancing catalyst performance in electrochemical devices such as batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, and water electrolyzers. Using a high-resolution transmission microscope in Brookhven's Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, the scientists were able to observe the anchored MoSoy nanocrystals on 2D graphene sheets.

The graphene-anchored MoSoy catalyst surpassed the performance of pure platinum metal. Though not quite as active as commercially available platinum catalysts, the high performance of graphene-anchored MoSoy was extremely encouraging to the scientific team.

"The direct growth of anchored MoSoy nanocrystals on graphene sheets may enhance the formation of strongly coupled hybrid materials with intimate, seamless electron transfer pathways, thus accelerating the electron transfer rate for the chemical desorption of hydrogen from the catalyst, further reducing the energy required for the reaction to take place," Sasaki said.

The scientists are conducting additional studies to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the interaction at the catalyst-graphene interface, and exploring ways to further improve its performance.

In the paper, the authors -- including the two high-school students -- conclude: "This study unambiguously provides evidence that a cheap and earth-abundant transition metal such as molybdenum can be turned into an active catalyst by the controlled solid-state reaction with soybeans?The preparation of the MoSoy catalyst is simple and can be easily scaled up. Its long-term durability and ultra-low capital cost satisfy the prerequisites for its application in the construction of large-scale devices. These findings thus open up new prospects for combining inexpensive biomass and transition metals?to produce catalysts for electro-catalytic reactions."

Additional collaborators in this research were Chiu-Hui Wang and Yimei Zhu of Brookhaven Lab.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Wei-Fu Chen, Shilpa Iyer, Shweta Iyer, Kotaro Sasaki, Chiu-Hui Wang, Yimei Zhu, James T. Muckerman, Etsuko Fujita. Biomass-Derived Electrocatalytic Composites for Hydrogen Evolution. Energy & Environmental Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1039/C3EE40596F

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/z7rfSFKmS_U/130424103132.htm

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Bangladesh building collapse: Is the country's reputation among the injured?

Following the collapse of a garment factory building on Wednesday morning in Bangladesh, physicians at nearby hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of people needing attention. It appears factory owners ignored a warning not to let workers into the building when a crack was noticed on Tuesday.?

By Serajul Quadir,?Reuters, Ruma Paul,?Reuters / April 24, 2013

Relatives mourn a victim at the site where an eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed in Savar, Bangladesh, Wednesday. The building collapsed Wednesday morning, killing dozens of people and trapping many more in the rubble, officials said.

AP Photo/ A.M. Ahad

Enlarge

An eight-story building that housed garment factories and shops collapsed in Bangladesh?on Wednesday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring more than a thousand, officials said.

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One fireman told Reuters about 2,000 people were in the Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (20 miles) outside Dhaka, when its upper floors slammed onto those below. An official at a control room set up to provide information said 96 people were confirmed dead and more than 1,000 injured.?The Daily Star, a leading Bangladeshi newspaper, put that number at 106.

At the site of the collapsed?Rana Plaza building, a frantic effort was underway to find and rescue victims. Television reports showed young women workers, some apparently semi-conscious, being pulled out by firefighters and troops.

Doctors at local hospitals said they were unable to cope with the number of victims brought in.

The building collapse, which follows a November fire at the?Tazreen Fashion factory?on the outskirts of Dhaka that killed 112 people, has compounded concerns about worker safety and low wages in Bangladesh.

The two major incidents, and a third in January that killed seven people, could taint Bangladesh's reputation as a source of low-cost products and services and call attention to Western retailers and other companies that obtain products from the country. But industry people and worker's groups in the United States say the lure of cheap manufacturing costs will keep retailers and buyers turning to Bangladesh.

Edward Hertzman, a sourcing agent based in New York who also publishes the trade magazine Sourcing Journal says pressure from U.S. retailers to keep a lid on costs continues to foster unsafe conditions.?Hertzaman's clients include clothing manufacturers and retailers like PacSun, Oxford Industries Lucky,?Buffalo.

Following the Tazreen fire, giant U.S. retailer?Wal-Mart?Stores Inc. said it would take measures to alleviate safety concerns, while?Gap Inc.?announced a four-step fire-safety program.

"It is going to take much more than retailers issuing press releases or paying compensation to victims," Hertzman said. "They're going to have to stop beating up the factories and start paying higher prices."

Entry level wages in these factories start at 14 cents an hour, said?Charles Kernaghan, with the?The Institute?for Global Labour and Human Rights. The non-profit works with factory workers in Bangladesh?and other parts of the world to help better working standards.

"The companies will stay in Bangladesh?despite all the problems...In?China, a comparable wage would be at least $1 an hour," Kernaghan said.

Hertzman, whose trade publication has offices in Bangladesh, said?New Wave Bottoms Limited?occupied the second floor,?Phantom Apparels Ltd?on the third floor,?Phantom Tack Ltd?on the fourth floor and?Ethar Textile Ltd?on the fifth.

U.S. children's clothing retailer Children's Place said that while New Wave had manufactured clothes for the company in the past, it hadn't at the time of the accident.

The New Wave website listed 27 main buyers, including firms from Britain,?Denmark,?France,?Germany,?Spain,?Ireland,?Canada?and the?United States.

Cracks in building?

"I was at work on the third floor, and then suddenly I heard a deafening sound, but couldn't understand what was happening. I ran and was hit by something on my head," said factory worker Zohra Begum.

Mohammad Asaduzzaman, who was in charge of the area's police station, said factory owners appeared to have ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after a crack was detected in the block on Tuesday. Kernaghan, of the The?Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights?said the owner "sweet talked them into working, and assured them there was no danger."

Bangladesh, which employs about 3.6 million people in the garment industry, is the second-largest apparel exporting country in the world. But it has also gained a reputation for political red tape, worker strikes and poor working standards in its many garment factories, where factory owners have been accused by non-profits and unions of exploiting workers.

Annisul Huq, former president of the Bangladesh?Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told Reuters that the BGMEA noticed the cracks on the?Rana Plaza?Tuesday and asked the owner to take corrective steps.

"The owner should not have used the factory while the cracks had developed, but it was a day of 'hartal' yesterday and he probably got no engineers to look at it," Huq said.

Hartals, or strikes, have been a persistent problem in the country, creating uncertainties in the supply chain and bottlenecks for business operations.

In March, The?American Federation Of Labor?& Congress Of Industrial Organizations filed a petition before the United States Trade Representative to remove Bangladesh?from the list of eligible beneficiary developing countries. "The government of Bangladesh?continues to fail to take steps to afford internationally recognized worker rights," the AFL-CIO said.?

Ghosts of Tazreen?

In November, the Tazreen accident raised questions about how much control Western brands have over their supply chains for clothes sourced from Bangladesh.

A?Wal-Mart?supplier had subcontracted work to the Tazreen factory without authorisation. Since then,?Wal-Mart?has said it is trying to get a better handle on its supply chain and to monitor safety at factories that produce its goods.

The?Bangladeshi government?subsequently confirmed workers' complaints about unsafe conditions, and also said the factory owner and supervisors prevented staff from leaving the premises after a fire alarm sounded.

Wal-Mart?said Wednesday it still could not determine whether a factory in the building that collapsed was producing goods for the company.

Hertzman, the textiles broker, said the Tazreen fire has prompted his clients to pressure agents in the factories to be more accountable for safety.

"I've had two clients in the past two months who have said they need to go and inspect the factories in Bangladesh?before placing orders for private label goods made for major usa retailers," said Hertzman.

He did not want to name the clients, but said one of them supplies apparel to Costco and the other supplies young men's clothes for retailers like Ross Stores, Sears and Macy's

"Bangladesh?is the longest lead-time country and a difficult country to work in, so the only way it becomes competitive is by offering the lowest (cost). That's the Catch-22," he said.

"If the factories want to raise prices to make up for rising wages and costs, the buyers say, 'Oh why do we want to go to Bangladesh?if I could go to?China,?Vietnam,?Latin America?etc for a similar price?"

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/M_LZg8QjLLA/Bangladesh-building-collapse-Is-the-country-s-reputation-among-the-injured

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Illinois River flood waters begin to recede

PEORIA HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) ? Floodwaters began a slow, inch-by-inch retreat Wednesday in inundated Peoria, Ill., offering hope to residents who watched helplessly as the Illinois River reached a 70-year high and swamped their homes and businesses.

In downtown Peoria, tens of thousands of white and yellow sandbags stacked 3 feet high lined blocks of the scenic riverfront, holding back waters that already had surrounded the visitors' center and restaurants in the 114-year-old former train depot. Across the street, smaller sandbag walls blocked riverside pedestrian access to the headquarters of heavy equipment maker Caterpillar and the city's arts and culture museum.

The flood will take its toll economically on Peoria, but authorities watching the receding waters expressed relief that, so far, no lives have been lost.

Elsewhere, there were no reports of other significant Midwestern population centers in peril, but officials were urging caution because of predictions that waterways will remain high through early May and sustain pressure on earthen levees.

Concerns persist along the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri, where smaller levees had been overtopped or breached, especially in Lincoln and Pike counties. But sandbag levees in the unprotected towns of Clarksville, Mo., and Dutchtown, Mo., were holding ahead of expected crests later in the week.

Officials in Peoria said the Illinois River finally crested Tuesday at 29.35 feet, eclipsing a 70-year record.

Because the water made numerous roads around the city impassable, firefighters had been especially concerned about being able to battle blazes since the water made numerous roads around the area impassable.

Their closest call came late Tuesday when an above-ground gasoline storage tank at a former boat repair business broke loose, raising concerns of potential disaster if it got swept south into downtown Peoria.

Peoria Heights Fire Chief Greg Walters and others managed to lasso it and wrangle it to shore.

"That's the only real issue we've had at this point," Walters said. "We're fortunate in that respect. I'm feeling blessed. Fingers crossed."

Blair Pumphrey also hoped for good luck, but he wasn't so fortunate. On Wednesday, he was moving out of his small, brick rental home ? its basement flooded to the rafters and the garage swamped. His backyard resembled a lake, with an occasional goose swimming by.

A small wall of sandbags he put up with friends days earlier held off the river for a time, but it proved futile.

"Once the basement started leaking, there was no stopping it," said Pumphrey, 29, an electrician and member of the Illinois Air National Guard. "Then when the river came around the front, there was nothing I could do."

Among those still in their homes was Mark Reatherford. The 52-year-old unemployed baker has lived for decades in his split-level, which has a view of a small park and the Illinois River. By Tuesday afternoon, as a chilly rain fell, the river had rolled over the park and reached Reatherford's home, creating a 3-foot-deep mess in the basement.

He cleared out the basement furniture and was hoping the main floor would stay dry. But he hadn't dismissed the idea of abandoning his home in Peoria Heights, about 150 miles southwest of Chicago.

"You can't get a better view than what we've got here," he said, acknowledging "I'm getting too old to deal with this."

Nearby, retired Caterpillar crane operator Roland Gudat spent much of Tuesday afternoon on his porch swing, marveling at the river, which had swamped houses down the street but largely spared his home of 46 years. The 73-year-old said he had pumped from his basement hundreds of gallons of water that had seeped up from the saturated ground.

Gudat remarked that he'd never seen the river so high, but nonetheless could not tolerate the gawkers that were using neighborhood driveways to turn around.

"I told them this isn't a damn cul-de-sac," he said. Gudat and his neighbors placed saw horses in their driveways, forcing sightseers to reverse back down the road.

"If they knock those saw horses over, I'm gonna turn their keys off and call the cops. Don't come here and bug people in misery," he said.

In southwestern Indiana, floodgates have been installed to keep the Wabash River from overrunning Vincennes, which was founded in 1732. Some strategic spots in the state's oldest town have been reinforced with sandbags. The weather service projected a crest on Saturday about 12 feet above flood stage, the highest in nearly 70 years.

The Grand River at Grand Rapids, Mich., which reached record levels recently has receded about 2 feet. Weather officials said it was expected to fall below flood stage Thursday, but it was unclear when the hundreds of people evacuated could return to their homes.

___

Salter reported from St. Louis. Associated Press writer Don Babwin in Chicago contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cautious-relief-peoria-water-levels-fall-163335218.html

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Mysterious hot spots observed in a cool red supergiant

Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
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Contact: Aeron Haworth
aeron.haworth@manchester.ac.uk
44-161-275-8387
University of Manchester

Astronomers have released a new image of the outer atmosphere of Betelgeuse one of the nearest red supergiants to Earth revealing the detailed structure of the matter being thrown off the star.

The new image, taken by the e-MERLIN radio telescope array operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, also shows regions of surprisingly hot gas in the star's outer atmosphere and a cooler arc of gas weighing almost as much as the Earth.

Betelgeuse is easily visible to the unaided eye as the bright, red star on the shoulder of Orion the Hunter. The star itself is huge 1,000 times larger than our Sun but at a distance of about 650 light years it still appears as a tiny dot in the sky, so special techniques combining telescopes in arrays are required to see details of the star and the region around it.

The new e-MERLIN image of Betelgeuse published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows its atmosphere extends out to five times the size of the visual surface of the star. It reveals two hot spots within the outer atmosphere and a faint arc of cool gas even farther out beyond the radio surface of the star.

The hot spots are separated by roughly half the visual diameter of the star and have a temperature of about 4,000-5,000 Kelvin, much higher than the average temperature of the radio surface of the star (about 1,200 Kelvin) and even higher than the visual surface (3,600 Kelvin). The arc of cool gas lies almost 7.4 billion kilometres away from the star about the same distance as the farthest Pluto gets from the Sun. It is estimated to have a mass almost two thirds that of the Earth and a temperature of about 150 Kelvin.

Lead author Dr Anita Richards, from The University of Manchester, said that it was not yet clear why the hot spots are so hot. She said: "One possibility is that shock waves, caused either by the star pulsating or by convection in its outer layers, are compressing and heating the gas. Another is that the outer atmosphere is patchy and we are seeing through to hotter regions within. The arc of cool gas is thought to be the result of a period of increased mass loss from the star at some point in the last century but its relationship to structures like the hot spots, which lie much closer in, within the star's outer atmosphere, is unknown."

The mechanism by which supergiant stars like Betelgeuse lose matter into space is not well understood despite its key role in the lifecycle of matter, enriching the interstellar material from which future stars and planets will form. Detailed high-resolution studies of the regions around massive stars like the ones presented here are essential to improving our understanding.

Dr Richards, who is based in Manchester's School of Physics and Astronomy, added: "Betelgeuse produces a wind equivalent to losing the mass of the Earth every three years, enriched with the chemicals that will go into the next generation of star and planet formation. The full detail of how these cool, evolved stars launch their winds is one of the remaining big questions in stellar astronomy.

"This is the first direct image showing hot spots so far from the centre of the star. We are continuing radio and microwave observations to help decide which mechanisms are most important in driving the stellar wind and producing these hot spots. This won't just tell us how the elements that form the building blocks of life are being returned to space, it will also help determine how long it is before Betelgeuse explodes as a supernova."

Future observations planned with e-MERLIN and other arrays, including ALMA and VLA, will test whether the hotspots vary in concert due to pulsation, or show more complex variability due to convection. If it is possible to measure a rotation speed this will identify in which layer of the star they originate.

###

Notes for editors:

The new Betelgeuse image and a copy of the paper that accompanies it, entitled 'e-MERLIN resolves Betelgeuse at wavelength 5 cm: hotspots at 5R*,' are available on request.

e-MERLIN, the UK's national radio astronomy facility, is operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory by The University of Manchester on behalf of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Its power lies in its combination of the sharpness of view afforded by telescope separations of up to 217km, and its ability to detect very faint signals resulting from the array's high bandwidth optical fibre connections. By connecting seven large radio telescopes, stretching from Cambridge to Cheshire (including the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank), e-MERLIN is able to produce images with the same detail as the Hubble Space Telescope but at radio rather than visible wavelengths. The signals from the telescopes are brought to Jodrell Bank on a dedicated optical fibre network whose high bandwidth allows the detection of very faint sources of radio emission. At Jodrell Bank 210 Gb of data arrive from the seven telescopes each second. These signals are combined in the correlator, a specialised supercomputer which carries out one thousand million million operations per second. For the signals from each telescope to be accurately combined, they must be synchronised at the level of a few million millionths of a second. The application of these fibre technologies and signal synchronisation techniques have led to e-MERLIN being designated as a pathfinder for what is planned to be the world's largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Aeron Haworth
aeron.haworth@manchester.ac.uk
44-161-275-8387
University of Manchester

Astronomers have released a new image of the outer atmosphere of Betelgeuse one of the nearest red supergiants to Earth revealing the detailed structure of the matter being thrown off the star.

The new image, taken by the e-MERLIN radio telescope array operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, also shows regions of surprisingly hot gas in the star's outer atmosphere and a cooler arc of gas weighing almost as much as the Earth.

Betelgeuse is easily visible to the unaided eye as the bright, red star on the shoulder of Orion the Hunter. The star itself is huge 1,000 times larger than our Sun but at a distance of about 650 light years it still appears as a tiny dot in the sky, so special techniques combining telescopes in arrays are required to see details of the star and the region around it.

The new e-MERLIN image of Betelgeuse published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows its atmosphere extends out to five times the size of the visual surface of the star. It reveals two hot spots within the outer atmosphere and a faint arc of cool gas even farther out beyond the radio surface of the star.

The hot spots are separated by roughly half the visual diameter of the star and have a temperature of about 4,000-5,000 Kelvin, much higher than the average temperature of the radio surface of the star (about 1,200 Kelvin) and even higher than the visual surface (3,600 Kelvin). The arc of cool gas lies almost 7.4 billion kilometres away from the star about the same distance as the farthest Pluto gets from the Sun. It is estimated to have a mass almost two thirds that of the Earth and a temperature of about 150 Kelvin.

Lead author Dr Anita Richards, from The University of Manchester, said that it was not yet clear why the hot spots are so hot. She said: "One possibility is that shock waves, caused either by the star pulsating or by convection in its outer layers, are compressing and heating the gas. Another is that the outer atmosphere is patchy and we are seeing through to hotter regions within. The arc of cool gas is thought to be the result of a period of increased mass loss from the star at some point in the last century but its relationship to structures like the hot spots, which lie much closer in, within the star's outer atmosphere, is unknown."

The mechanism by which supergiant stars like Betelgeuse lose matter into space is not well understood despite its key role in the lifecycle of matter, enriching the interstellar material from which future stars and planets will form. Detailed high-resolution studies of the regions around massive stars like the ones presented here are essential to improving our understanding.

Dr Richards, who is based in Manchester's School of Physics and Astronomy, added: "Betelgeuse produces a wind equivalent to losing the mass of the Earth every three years, enriched with the chemicals that will go into the next generation of star and planet formation. The full detail of how these cool, evolved stars launch their winds is one of the remaining big questions in stellar astronomy.

"This is the first direct image showing hot spots so far from the centre of the star. We are continuing radio and microwave observations to help decide which mechanisms are most important in driving the stellar wind and producing these hot spots. This won't just tell us how the elements that form the building blocks of life are being returned to space, it will also help determine how long it is before Betelgeuse explodes as a supernova."

Future observations planned with e-MERLIN and other arrays, including ALMA and VLA, will test whether the hotspots vary in concert due to pulsation, or show more complex variability due to convection. If it is possible to measure a rotation speed this will identify in which layer of the star they originate.

###

Notes for editors:

The new Betelgeuse image and a copy of the paper that accompanies it, entitled 'e-MERLIN resolves Betelgeuse at wavelength 5 cm: hotspots at 5R*,' are available on request.

e-MERLIN, the UK's national radio astronomy facility, is operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory by The University of Manchester on behalf of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Its power lies in its combination of the sharpness of view afforded by telescope separations of up to 217km, and its ability to detect very faint signals resulting from the array's high bandwidth optical fibre connections. By connecting seven large radio telescopes, stretching from Cambridge to Cheshire (including the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank), e-MERLIN is able to produce images with the same detail as the Hubble Space Telescope but at radio rather than visible wavelengths. The signals from the telescopes are brought to Jodrell Bank on a dedicated optical fibre network whose high bandwidth allows the detection of very faint sources of radio emission. At Jodrell Bank 210 Gb of data arrive from the seven telescopes each second. These signals are combined in the correlator, a specialised supercomputer which carries out one thousand million million operations per second. For the signals from each telescope to be accurately combined, they must be synchronised at the level of a few million millionths of a second. The application of these fibre technologies and signal synchronisation techniques have led to e-MERLIN being designated as a pathfinder for what is planned to be the world's largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uom-mhs042313.php

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Gale Announces National Geographic Kids | Cengage Learning

First Resource Focused on Younger Audiences Joins National Geographic Virtual Library

Farmington Hills, Mich., April 23, 2013 ? Gale, part of Cengage Learning and a leading publisher of research and reference resources for libraries, schools and businesses, today announced the launch of National Geographic Kids, the fourth resource in the National Geographic Virtual Library product line. This new resource contains material appropriate for younger audiences, and boasts unique content that is not duplicated in other available National Geographic Virtual Library products.

?National Geographic magazine is loved and recognized by all audiences and ages, even though the content is often more accessible for advanced learners,? said Frank Menchaca, senior vice president, global product management, research, school & professional, Cengage Learning. ?With the launch of National Geographic Kids, we?re able to offer content and navigation that is age appropriate and is supportive of curriculum and learning standards adopted by many states nationwide.?

National Geographic Kids includes the complete issues of National Geographic Kids magazine from 2009-present, 500 downloadable images, and 200 National Geographic Kids books, including reference books as well as nonfiction books on history, biography, science and technology and the National Geographic Readers, which cover wildlife, pets, nature and other topics. The interface also contains user-friendly design elements, which makes finding content more intuitive for younger audiences. National Geographic Kids is also accessible via the National Geographic Virtual Library interface, allowing for easy access and reference with the other resources in the product line. ?

The content in National Geographic Kids supports the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The books included in National Geographic Kids provide elementary and middle school students with opportunities to practice the foundational reading skills required to achieve fluency and comprehension. The CCSS also encourage students to gain an understanding of other cultures, and the National Geographic series Countries of the World and Holidays Around the World assist with that. National Geographic Kids also offers students an opportunity to engage with complex text ? the English Language Arts CCSS emphasize the need to provide all students with consistent opportunities to confront and comprehend grade?level complex text. In addition, National Geographic Kids provides high-quality informational texts suitable for primary, upper elementary and middle school English language arts, social studies and science classrooms.

?We?re excited to have this content digital and searchable for students to help support them in their learning endeavors,? said Julie Agnone, vice president, editorial operations, National Geographic Kids Publishing and Media. ?Additionally, we?re interested to see how teachers, including students working toward their teaching certification, use National Geographic Kids with their curriculum development.?

Customers have the option to purchase or subscribe to National Geographic Kids as a stand-alone product or coupled with the full National Geographic Virtual Library line. For more information on National Geographic Virtual Library or to request a trial, please visit http://www.gale.cengage.com/ngvl/ or contact Kristina Massari at kristina.massari@cengage.com.

About Cengage Learning and Gale

Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, software and services company, empowering educators and driving learner engagement through personalized services and course-driven digital solutions that bridge from the library to the classroom. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, serves the world?s information and education needs through its vast and dynamic content pools, which are used by students and consumers in their libraries, schools and on the Internet. It is best known for the accuracy, breadth and convenience of its data, addressing all types of information needs ? from homework help to health questions to business profiles ? in a variety of formats. For more information, visit www.cengage.com or www.gale.cengage.com.

Source: http://news.cengage.com/school/gale-announces-national-geographic-kids/

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Appeal by doctor claims errors in Jackson trial

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Eighteen months after his involuntary manslaughter conviction, Michael Jackson's doctor on Monday appealed his case, claiming there were multiple legal errors at his trial.

A lawyer for Dr. Conrad Murray argued in the 230-page appellate brief that there was insufficient proof that Jackson died of an overdose of the anesthetic propofol administered by Murray.

The appeal also reiterated an often-stated defense claim that Jackson may have administered the overdose to himself.

The pop superstar died on June 25, 2009, days before he was to leave for England to perform in his ill-fated "This is It" concert. Witnesses said Murray had been giving him propofol as a sleep aid, a purpose for which it was not intended.

Attorney Valerie Wass said that because of Jackson's great fame, his doctor was used as an example by the judge who sentenced him to the highest term for involuntary manslaughter. She suggested that even if his conviction is upheld, his four-year sentence should be reduced.

Murray is eligible for release in October after serving half his sentence.

Murray's two-month trial in 2011 drew wide media coverage, and Wass argued that the judge should have excluded TV cameras from the courtroom and granted a motion to sequester jurors to keep them insulated from publicity.

"The unprecedented fame of the alleged victim combined with the pervasiveness of modern media rendered it impossible for appellant to receive a fair trial with a non-sequestered jury in a case that was televised and streamed live around the world," the appeal said.

Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor had denied the defense motion, saying jurors who are sequestered often feel like prisoners and it interferes with their decision-making process. He instructed jurors daily to avoid publicity, and there was no indication that they violated the order.

The appeal also challenged the prosecution theory that Jackson was hooked up to an IV drip of propofol and left alone in his bedroom by Murray.

It called that scenario "absurd, improbable and unbelievable," and provided an exhaustive reprise of scientific testimony about Jackson's death. Murray told police he gave the singer an extremely small dose of propofol, a fact contradicted by scientists who reconstructed the events preceding the death.

Wass contended that one defense attorney, Michael Flanagan, failed to adequately cross-examine a scientist who testified to that issue. She said he and other lawyers also waited too long to ask for examination of residue in a propofol bottle found in Jackson's room, Their motion was filed 11 days after conviction and was denied.

The appeal faulted the judge for refusing to admit as evidence some of Jackson's previous medical records, his contract with concert promoter AEG, and his financial documents.

"The trial court abused its discretion by excluding all evidence of Jackson's financial condition, including lawsuits pending against him because such evidence was relevant to establish Jackson's state of mind on the day he died, which may have explained his conduct that morning and supported the defense theory of the case," the appeal said.

The attorney general's office, representing the prosecution, has 30 days to respond to the appeal. Wass then has another 20 days for her response.

She said the outcome of the appellate case could have some impact on pending medical board proceedings for Murray in Texas and California. The boards will decide whether to revoke Murray's license to practice medicine in the two states.

Meanwhile, Murray may be summoned to testify in a civil lawsuit filed against AEG by Jackson's mother, Katherine. Jury selection in that case is currently underway. She claims the concert promoter was negligent in hiring Murray to care for the singer.

.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/appeal-doctor-claims-errors-jackson-trial-205744427.html

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Pennsylvania Online Gambling Bill A Work in Progress | Online ...

April 23, 2013

After several months of hemming and hawing, Pennsylvania state Rep. Tina Davis finally dropped her online gambling bill on Monday. House Bill 1235 (read it here) has been referred to the state Assembly Committee on Gaming Oversight for further study.

HB 1235 envisions allowing the state?s slot machine licensees to offer online slots, poker cash games and tournaments plus table games as deemed appropriate by the state Gaming Control Board. The only games that appear to be explicitly off limits are lottery games offered by the Pennsylvania State Lottery, bingo, pari-mutuel betting, keno and ?small games of chance.? Davis had originally proposed introducing a poker- and blackjack-only bill, so this would represent a significant expansion, although there is much about Davis? bill that has yet to be set in stone by the Board.

Licensees would pay a one-time non-refundable authorization fee of $5m. Licenses would be valid for three year terms and cost $500k to renew. License applications would be approved or rejected within 90 days of receipt. Once up and running, licensees would pay taxes based on 28% of gross gaming revenue on a weekly basis. This is a far cry from Davis? original proposal to charge $16.5m for a license and a 45% tax on GGR.

There doesn?t appear to be any specific ?bad actor? language in the bill?s 89 pages, although tech companies looking to partner with the state?s slots licensees will have to apply to the Board for internet gaming supplier licenses (the criteria for which has yet to be finalized).

The bill is explicitly intrastate, but would permit interstate compacts provided they are deemed to be not inconsistent with federal law or the law of any other jurisdiction ? ?including any foreign jurisdiction? ? in which an out-of-state gambler is located. However, HB 1235 would defer to the provisions of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). While HB 1235 limits participation to residents within the state?s borders, it also reflects the argument that international online gambling companies have long made in their dealings with US players, namely, that the actual wagering is considered to have taken place in whatever county the server is located, ?regardless of the registered player?s location within this Commonwealth.?

Davis? support for the state?s licensed casinos is evident in the fact that online accounts would have to be established in person at a licensee?s land-based gaming facility and online players would have to hold ?an active players? club membership which was applied for and issued at the slot machine licensee?s licensed facility.? A slots licensee that is granted an internet gaming certificate would have to guarantee that the number of slots and tables games at its land-based facility would not be permanently reduced following the launch of its online product. The licensee would have the right ?at any time with or without cause, to suspend or close any internet gaming account at its sole discretion.?

The state plans to use 55% of the taxes it collects to reduce property taxes for the elderly and a further 30% for providing free or reduced transit fares for the elderly. The remaining 15% would go to the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development Fund (whose fan base, it must be said, are skewing more and more elderly every day).

The possibility of mobile wagering is not explicitly stated in the bill, although the bill does insist that ?access to and the conduct of internet gambling activities will not occur in locations adjacent or in close proximity to historic sights, battlefields, churches and schools.? So for the moment, at least, best keep your iPhone in your pocket at Gettysburg.

Source: http://calvinayre.com/2013/04/23/business/pennsylvania-online-gambling-bill-still-very-much-a-work-in-progress/

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