Former UBS trader pleads not guilty in UK court

LONDON (AP) ? A former UBS trader arrested in London on charges of fraud linked with unauthorized trades that cost the Swiss bank more than $2bn pleaded not guilty Monday to the charges against him.

Kweku Adoboli, 31, pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and two of false accounting between 2008 and September 2011 at London's Southwark Crown Court.

The trader was arrested on Sept. 14 after on charges of committing fraud that cost the bank over $2 billion.

The incident pushed then-CEO Oswald Gruebel to resign and damaged the bank's efforts to clean up its image after being involved in a United States tax evasion investigation and sustaining huge losses on subprime mortgages during the financial crisis.

City watchdog the Financial Services Authority and its Swiss counterpart have launched an investigation into why UBS failed to spot allegedly fraudulent trading.

Adoboli's case was delayed last year after he replaced his former lawyers at Kingsley Napley law firm with a new team from Bark & Co., which specializes in fraud cases. McCreath set a provisional trial date for September 3 and remanded Adoboli in custody. He said he was willing to hear an application for bail.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-30-EU-UBS-Trading-Scandal/id-e580abd378594b359ebcf1f8e5f8ae0b

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PHOTOS: The Weinstein Company and Dewar?s Post-SAG Private Party

Last night at Hollywood hideaway hotel Chateau Marmont, The Weinstein Company along with Dewar?s hosted a private cocktail party after the SAG Awards to celebrate their nominees and the evening?s winners. At the event, celebrities including the casts of?Glee?and?Modern Family,?Michelle Williams, Meryl Streep, Sofia Vegara, Busy Phillips, Rumer Willis, Dianna Agron, Julie Bowen, Jesse Tyler [...]

Source: http://www.celebritymound.com/photos-the-weinstein-company-and-dewars-post-sag-private-party/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=photos-the-weinstein-company-and-dewars-post-sag-private-party

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Abigail Noble: Impact Investing: How Do We Harness The Hype?

There is a lot of hype about impact investing. Investors speak of a 1 trillion USD sized market. Social enterprises reposition their business model and restructure their financial model to attract, absorb and grow through investor capital. Despite the enthusiasm, the actual volume of impact investment transactions remains minimal at best. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship took this week at Davos to convene several important discussions about how to harness the hype and create results that are both practical and impactful.

On Tuesday, before the Annual Meeting began, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship hosted a private discussion on the possible future scenarios for impact investing. The participants were asked to map out what the space could ideally look like in 2030, and work backwards to identify the constraints and facilitating factors for this ideal state. The intimate discussion, which included a handful social entrepreneurs and several mainstream investors who are just entering the space, was moderated by Professor Johanna Mair, Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation and Editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Later in the week, the Schwab Foundation and the investors community of the World Economic Forum co-hosted a gathering that brought together some 30 CEOs, CFOs and Chief Investment Officers of the world`s most powerful private equity, venture capital, and investment management firms with 20 leading social entrepreneurs, as well as important players in the field including foreign investment authorities, pension funds and leading business professors. In an interactive and dynamic simulation, they were challenged to build a concrete investment case comprising both an economic and ESG (environmental, social, governance) bottom line. This exercise helped build empathy and a spirit of collaboration among the diverse participant group. The ensuring dialogue created actionable next steps and helped defuse some of the hype around the impact investment class.

Discussions like these are critical to help investors and social entrepreneurs start speaking the same language. Financial institutions like UBS, which recently launched at $100 million impact investment fund, have already made large commitments to the field. However, there is still a dearth of information for newer investors on how to navigate the impact investing sector.

For this reason the Schwab Foundation partnered with Credit Suisse to produce the report Investing for impact: how social entrepreneurship is redefining the meaning of return. Contributors include Jed Emerson, Cathy Clark, and Acumen Fund's Brian Trelstad and Rob Katz. The investment profiles of five social enterprises in the Schwab Foundation network are featured in the report. Working in sectors as diverse as health care, education, and job creation, these organizations are united by their innovative yet pragmatic approaches to solving social problems. They are:

? Felipe Vergara of Lumni in the US and Latin America; investment funds would be used to set up a Chile Fund to finance the university education of low-income students
? Asher Hasan of Naya Jeevan in Pakistan; equity and grant funding would underwrite a new initiative to provide health insurance to workers making less than $6 a day
? Patrick Shofield of The Indalo Project in South Africa; grants and low-interest loans would be used to establish twelve new craft producer groups
? Bam Aquino of Hapinoy in the Philippines; investment funds would allow Hapinoy to expand its model to less developed islands in the archipelago
? Kyle Zimmer of First Book; a loan will finance expansion of their services to reach 35,000 children in Mumbai, India.

The social enterprise sector is on the cusp of achieving significant scale and impact, thanks in no small part to the recent influx of investment capital. But to ensure the capital remains a tool to build the sector and not the other way round, investors must take the longer view, get comfortable assuming greater levels of risk, and be willing to deploy a mix of financial tools most suitable for social enterprises' needs. And take heart: you are laying the foundations for a new economy.

?

Follow Abigail Noble on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ab_noble

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abigail-noble/impact-investing-how-do-w_b_1240237.html

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OSF Finance Request4Funds Forms Nov-Dec2011 (LINKS ...

Below you will find the LINKS to ALL the Request4Funds(R4Fs) Forms OSF Finance has in their possession.
I digitized the actual paper forms that have been submitted and created PDFs (4 of them) in order to comply with the upload file size limit this WordPress blog stipulates. From these forms & through dialogue during our Finance meetings, a list of CommonlyApprovedRequests (CARs) is being compiled. That list should be ready for publication sometime next week.

Thanks for your patience.
OSF Finance

R4Fs #6-28
R4Fs #29-62
R4Fs #63-103
R4fs #103a-112

Source: http://occupysf.org/2012/01/28/osf-finance-request4funds-forms-nov-dec2011-links/

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In Their Own Words (talking-points-memo)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192712964?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Stricken ship passengers ponder compensation (AP)

BERLIN ? Herbert Greszuk was at the bar on the fifth deck of the Costa Concordia when the ill-fated luxury liner hit a reef.

Unable to get back to his second-deck cabin after the emergency signal came, he made it to a lifeboat with only the clothes on his back ? leaving behind everything he had with him for the cruise, including his tuxedo, camera, jewelry, euro400 ($520) in cash, credit cards, identity papers and even his dentures.

The 62-year-old, who runs a small flower shop and cafe in the western German town of Recklinghausen, counts himself lucky to have escaped the ship after it capsized Jan. 13, leaving at least 16 dead and 16 still missing.

But, he estimates that he lost at least euro10,000 ($13,000) in goods alone. He's only one of the 4,200 passengers and crew who were on board and will likely want compensation, and material loss just scratches the surface. There's the ruined holiday, physical and mental trauma, and payments to families of the dead, among other things, in an incident many believe was preventable.

"It's about accountability, " Greszuk told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his cafe. "Something like this must not be allowed to happen again. So many people died; it's simply inexcusable."

In Rome on Thursday, representatives of ship operator Costa Crociere SpA met with consumer activists to discuss a blanket compensation deal for some 3,206 people from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the ship hit the reef.

The offer would consider the price of the ticket, costs incurred in getting home after the disaster, the cost of items lost aboard the ship as well as damages for the ruined vacation and trauma resulting from the accident, said Furio Truzzi of the consumer group Assoutenti.

It would not apply to the hundreds of crew on the ship, the roughly 100 cases of people injured or the families who lost loved ones.

"We are working for a collective transaction to come up with a value for damages," Truzzi said. "Each passenger can decide if this proposal is satisfactory. If it is not, they are free to react through a lawyer."

Truzzi said it was premature to discuss exact amounts of compensation. He said it would be an average and that any passenger who deemed his or her losses greater than the offer was free to counter the proposal.

He said Assoutenti would work separately on a proposal for those who lost loved ones in the disaster and was open to working with crew members.

The ship ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio after the captain, Francesco Schettino, veered from his approved course. Costa Crociere's chief executive, Pier Luigi Foschi, has said Schettino didn't have approval to change the course and was going too fast ? 16 knots ? to be so close to shore.

Schettino is under house arrest, facing accusations of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all passengers were evacuated.

Although it is still early and talk of compensation is ongoing, lawsuits are expected to be filed in Germany, Italy, the United States and elsewhere. In France, the Justice Ministry said that complaints filed by French people have been brought together by the Paris prosecutors' office. It said 462 French passengers were aboard ? four were killed and two remain missing.

Attorney Hans Reinhardt, who represents Greszuk and a dozen other German survivors, said passengers did sign liability wavers ? a common requirement for cruises ? but that he considers them void under the circumstances.

"You do not sign off on a disaster situation, what you sign there is for normal daily situations like if there is a little storm or high water or something like that," he said. "This was such a large failure by the captain and by Costa that you can sign whatever you want but you will still get your money."

Depending upon their individual situations, he said he is seeking between euro10,000 ($13,000) and euro50,000 ($65,700) for his clients and would wait for three months to see if Costa would settle before taking the matter to court.

Though the cruise company is Italian, Costa's parent company is Miami-based Carnival Corp. and Reinhardt said he was trying to determine which could be held responsible for the incident. If it's Carnival, he said he would pursue his case in the U.S., where damages awarded tend to be higher than in Germany.

The company also faces the question of compensation for crew members who have lost their jobs because of the accident, not to mention the costs of salvaging the ship and of a possible environmental disaster if the unused fuel cannot be safely removed.

Salvage experts worked Thursday so they could begin pumping tons of fuel off the ship starting Saturday to avert an environmental catastrophe. The stricken ship lies in pristine waters that are prime fishing grounds and part of a protected area for dolphins and whales.

German reinsurers Hannover Re AG and Munich Re AG, two of the world's largest, both said this week that liability claims from the fatal capsizing could run in the triple-digit millions of euros. Swiss Re, the other reinsurance powerhouse, said Thursday it was still too early to even guess what it might cost.

Reinsurers offer backup policies to companies writing primary insurance policies, which helps spread the risk around so the system can handle large losses from disasters.

Carnival has said it has liability insurance, though with a $10 million deductible. Of the so-called "hull insurance," which covers damage to the ship, Carnival is responsible for the first $30 million in damage, while the rest is covered by a network of insurers led by XL Group.

Carnival also said it expects to lose $85 million to $95 million in bookings on the ship that have had to be canceled.

Meantime, Greszuk said he has been trying to piece together his life ? getting a new driver's license, credit cards, passport and other identity documents ? but is feeling abandoned by those responsible for his plight.

"I feel so lost and alone," he said. "Nobody is helping us out. Neither Costa nor the travel agency have contacted me ? do you know how that feels? I called the travel agency and they said it's not our problem any more, call Costa. I called Costa and they said they'd get back to me, but as of today, I haven't heard a word."

______

Colleen Barry reported from Milan, Italy. Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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Md. man caught in sting pleads guilty in bomb plot (AP)

BALTIMORE ? A Maryland man pleaded guilty Thursday to trying to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a military recruiting center in suburban Baltimore, saying he was motivated by what he saw as an American war on Islam.

Antonio Martinez entered the plea to the charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against federal property. The plot to bomb the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Catonsville in December 2010 was foiled by an FBI sting.

The 22-year-old had also faced a charge of trying to kill U.S. officers and employees, but prosecutors agreed to drop the second charge at sentencing. The deal calls for a 25-year prison term.

Martinez wore a burgundy jumpsuit and his hair in two braids in court, and he smiled and hugged his defense attorney. The U.S. citizen born who was born abroad preferred to be called Muhammad Hussain after his conversion to Islam and signed the plea using both names.

Public records are unclear about when Martinez, who was born to a Nicaraguan father and an African-American mother, moved to Maryland, but he attended Laurel High School in Prince George's County, a Washington suburb. The former part-time construction worker said in court Thursday that he finished 10th grade.

In the plea agreement, Martinez acknowledges that he wanted to pursue jihad to the United States "to send a message that all American soldiers would be killed so long as the country continued its `war' against Islam."

An FBI informant first communicated with Martinez on Facebook after seeing public posts "espousing his extremist views" and recognizing him from a mosque he attended, according to court documents. The documents say Martinez later told the informant of his ideas for attacking military-linked sites and said all he thought about was jihad.

Authorities say Martinez' ideas ranged from a bombing and armed attack to burning the building down. He told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to make jihadist activities his profession, dedicating his life to the cause, according to the plea.

Martinez decided on a car bomb after a discussion with the undercover agent because "using a bomb would allow him to commit further acts here and overseas," prosecutor Christine Manuelian said.

The informant and the undercover agent gave Martinez repeated opportunities to back out, but he insisted he was committed, even after expressing reservations after a Somali-born teenager was arrested in Oregon in a similar sting, according to court documents.

Just days before the planned attack, Martinez told the informant that he was "ready ... happy, anxious, just ready." Asked if he felt like someone was pushing him, Martinez replied, "I came to you about this, brother," according to the plea.

On the way to the recruiting center, Martinez had the informant record a video statement in which he said he and others would continue the fight until those who waged a war on Islam stopped, according to the plea. He then armed the fake bomb on his own, parked the SUV in front of building and went to vantage point and waited to press the button until the undercover agent told him there were several soldiers in the building, Manuelian said. He was arrested within seconds, she said.

After his arrest, Martinez confessed that the attack was his idea, he wanted to be a martyr and he had expected an explosion that would level the front of the building, according to the plea.

After the hearing, FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard McFeely thanked members of the Muslim community for reaching out to law enforcement and identifying a threat.

The case illustrates the Department of Justice's approach since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, trying to stop catch suspects before they can carry out schemes while protecting liberties, according to U.S. Attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/usmilitary/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_us/us_recruiting_center_bomb_plot

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Bernanke opening the door to the Fed a bit wider (AP)

WASHINGTON ? What's next ? cameras in the Federal Reserve's meetings?

Don't count on it.

But it's anyone's guess how far the Fed will go in its mission to be more publicly open ? beyond having the chairman hold now-quarterly news conferences and its latest gesture: forecasting where its members think interest rates are headed.

Under Ben Bernanke, the Fed has also sent more frequent clues about the economy's health. Bernanke has sat for TV interviews and held town-hall-style meetings, too.

It's all amounted to a radical makeover for an agency that used to rank about as high as the CIA in its mystery.

For decades, everyone pretty much agreed: The Fed had to shroud itself in secrecy to properly perform its mission: Control prices and maximize employment.

The Fed chairmanship was seen as the second-most-powerful post in government after the presidency. Telegraphing decisions or opening them to public view? Not part of the job description.

"You didn't tell people anything," said David Wyss, an economist who worked at the Fed when Arthur Burns was chairman in the 1970s.

So obscure were the Fed's operations that a late-1980's book called "Secrets of the Temple" tantalized readers with the prospect of prying its door open a bit. The chairman then, Paul Volcker, wasn't operating any differently from his predecessors since the Fed's creation in 1913.

Things began to change under his successor, Alan Greenspan, who served for 18 years until 2006. Gradually, sometimes grudgingly, the Fed emerged from hiding.

The first big shift came in 1994. Greenspan's policy-setting panel issued the first-ever announcement of a change in its benchmark interest rate, called the federal funds rate.

Until then, the Fed had said nothing when it changed the funds rate. That's the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans. It's also a benchmark rate for consumer and business loans. When the Fed cuts that rate, it tries to spur borrowing and spending. When it raises it, it aims to slow growth and stem inflation.

Wall Street firms had to assign people to scrutinize the Fed's daily bond-market operations for any move in the funds rate. These Fed-watchers would make guesses based on announcements by the New York Federal Reserve Bank of how much in Treasury securities it bought or sold in a given day. (The New York Fed handles the Federal Reserve's Treasury operations.)

Transcripts show Greenspan had to twist some arms inside the Fed's policy panel to gain approval for that first announcement. Greenspan suggested it would help investors: Because five years had passed with no increase in the funds rate, he argued, a heads-up that credit was about to be tightened would prepare them.

Years later, at a conference, Greenspan explained further.

"Simply put," he said in his less-than-simple style, "financial markets work more efficiently when their participants do not have to waste effort inferring the stance of monetary policy from diffuse signals generated in the day-to-day implementation of policy."

Still, some of his colleagues clung to the Fed's secretive ways. That first statement in 1994 was opaque, even for the Fed: The central bank, it said, would "increase slightly the degree of pressure on reserve positions."

The Fed gave no target for the funds rate. Its four sentences offered scant guidance.

At first, it didn't release a statement after every meeting ? only if a decision had been made to change the funds rate.

Those early statements don't much resemble those the Fed now issues after every meeting, whether or not it adjusts rates. These days, those statements update the Fed's views on the economy. And they specify its target for the funds rate.

Under Bernanke, who took over in 2006, the Fed's moves to openness have accelerated. A core goal has been to signal any imminent rate increase or decrease. For two years, the Fed said it expected to keep rates at current record lows for "an extended period." In August, it refined its horizon: It said it planned to keep rates super-low "at least through mid-2013."

On Wednesday, the Fed went further: For the first time, it signaled when committee members expect the first rate increase. The information suggested no increase is likely before late 2014 at the earliest. It also showed that 11 of 17 members see no increase until at least 2015.

Also under Bernanke, the Fed updates its forecasts for the economy four times a year, instead of twice. And it does more than toss out a statement. Bernanke now holds news conferences quarterly, each time the Fed updates its economic forecasts, as it did Wednesday.

The latest changes would have pleased and surprised the late Henry B. Gonzalez. In the early 1990s, as head of the House Banking Committee, Gonzalez sparred with the Fed over its secrecy. After years of prodding, Gonzalez scored a victory in 1995, when Greenspan's Fed agreed to start releasing transcripts of its meetings once five years have passed.

That deal marked a compromise. The Fed didn't want to release full transcripts. It preferred to stick with the heavily edited minutes that are issued three weeks after each meeting. Full transcripts, many officials felt, could dampen the free-wheeling discussions deemed essential for proper Fed decision-making.

Gonzalez had high hopes. He wanted transcripts ? and videotapes ? within two months of each Fed meeting. Gonzalez, who died in 2000, lost that argument.

Yet his broader mission endures. And at this point, who knows where it ends?

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? Martin Crutsinger has covered the Federal Reserve for The Associated Press since 1984.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_bi_ge/us_federal_reserve_transparency

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Report: Man spends 2 years in solitary after DWI arrest

A man in New Mexico has been awarded $22 million after being tossed in solitary confinement for 2 years following a DWI arrest. KOB-TV's Marissa Torres reports.

?

By Elizabeth Chuck, msnbc.com

A New Mexico man who?said he was?forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.

Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, then thrown in jail for two years, reported NBC station KOB.com Tuesday night. He was in solitary at Dona Ana County Jail for his entire sentence and basically forgotten about and never given a trial, he told?KOB.com.

"'[Prison officials were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," he said. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing?at all,?to get me any help."

Slevin's toenails started curling around his foot because they were so long, he told KOB.com. He said he made countless requests from day?one to see a doctor to get medication for his depression, but wasn't allowed to see one until only a few weeks before his release. He had numerous health problems, including his dental issues, he said.

He said he never saw a judge during his time in confinement. His lawsuit, he said, "has never been about the money. I've always wanted this to make a statement."

The $22 million settlement, awarded by a federal jury on Tuesday, is one of the largest prisoner civil rights settlements in?U.S. history,?according to KOB.com.

"I wanted people to know that there are?people at The Dona Ana County Jail that?are doing things like this to people and getting away with it," Slevin, who now suffers from PTSD and believes he will have to take medication for life as a result, said. "Why they did what they did, I have no idea."

Neither the county nor Slevin's attorney returned phone calls from msnbc.com, but Slevin's attorney, Matt Coyte, told KOB.com, "I have never been with or seen a braver man who stood up to these guys for what they did to him ... [This case] It affects everybody and it's not good for this country. It's not good for Mr. Slevin for sure and it's not good for this country. It has to stop."

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10233835-report-man-spends-2-years-in-solitary-after-dwi-arrest

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Does High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have the same effect on the body as other conventional sweeteners?

Does High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have the same effect on the body as other conventional sweeteners?

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

With growing concern that excessive levels of fructose may pose a great health risk ? causing high blood pressure, kidney disease and diabetes ? researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, along with their colleagues at the University of Florida, set out to see if two common sweeteners in western diets differ in their effects on the body in the first few hours after ingestion. The study, recently published in the journal Metabolism, took a closer look at high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and table sugar (sucrose) and was led by Dr MyPhuong Le (now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado) and Dr Julie Johnson, a Professor of Pharmacogenomics at the University of Florida.

Both HFCS and sucrose have historically been considered to have nearly identical effects on the body. But this study finds that indeed there is a difference between the two. They found that the makeup of the sugars resulted in differences in how much fructose was absorbed into the circulation, and which could have potential impact on one's health. Sucrose is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose that is bonded together as a disaccharide (complex carbohydrate) and HFCS is a mixture of free fructose (55%) and free glucose (45%). It's the difference in fructose amount that appears to create the ill health effects on the body.

Their study was conducted at the University of Florida, where they evaluated 40 men and women who were given 24 ounces of HFCS- or sugar-sweetened soft drinks. Careful measurements showed that the HFCS sweetened soft drinks resulted in significantly higher fructose levels than the sugar-sweetened drinks. Fructose is also known to increase uric acid levels that have been implicated in blood pressure, and the HFCS-sweetened drinks also resulted in a higher uric acid level and a 3 mm Hg greater rise in systolic blood pressure.

Dr Richard Johnson, a coauthor in the study and Chief of the Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension at the University of Colorado, commented "Although both sweeteners are often considered the same in terms of their biological effects, this study demonstrates that there are subtle differences. Soft drinks containing HFCS result in slightly higher blood levels of fructose than sucrose-sweetened drinks, "said Johnson. "The next step is for new studies to address whether the long-term effects of these two sweeteners are different."

###

University of Colorado Denver: http://www.ucdenver.edu

Thanks to University of Colorado Denver for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 41 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116980/Does_High_fructose_corn_syrup__HFCS__have_the_same_effect_on_the_body_as_other_conventional_sweeteners_

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New 'Hunger Games' Still: Effie, Peeta & Katniss Prepare For Tribute Parade (PHOTOS)

www.celebuzz.com:

As the countdown continues until Hunger Games hits theaters, a new movie still has been released on the Capitol Couture site.

Read the whole story: www.celebuzz.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/new-hunger-games-still-effie-tribute-parade_n_1229869.html

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UN rights chief says US must close Guantanamo (AP)

GENEVA ? The U.N. human rights chief says the U.S. government must close the Guantanamo Bay prison as President Barack Obama promised a year ago.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, says "the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained ? indefinitely ? in clear breach of international law."

Obama pledged to shutter the U.S. Naval Base prison in Cuba in his annual address to Congress last year.

Pillay said Monday ? ahead of Obama's next annual speech Tuesday ? that she is deeply disappointed the U.S. government "has instead entrenched a system of arbitrary detention."

Pillay said she also is "disturbed at the failure to ensure accountability for serious human rights violations, including torture, that took place."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_re_eu/eu_un_guantanamo

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Degree Overview: Online Communications Degree ? MTC ? Medical ...

Learn all about the online communications degree, including its benefits, possible programs offered and more.

The market for experts and leaders in communication is increasingly expanding, and its growth is expected to continue in many years.
Do you know what you can do with a communications degree?

A communications degree can prepare you for a variety of career opportunities, whether you plan on an ambitious job in the business field or an education profession, this degree allows you to work at your own time, at the comfort of your home.

When studying online communication studies, you will learn and experience new things, such as strategies for a successful communication, which can be applied immediately when you work.
You?ll also learn to communicate changes, strategies for conflict resolution, and how to gain commitment and reduce resistance.
In addition, you will experience the latest technologies as well as their purpose in the communication setting.

Many online communications degree programs center on the general curriculum in the communication field.
This usually focuses on professional and business applications.
Communications programs are developed for students who desire to obtain an undergraduate education in this field, earning a bachelor?s or associate?s degree.

Online communication programs are usually available as an undergraduate course for interested students.
An Internet curriculum, for instance, is designed for an associate?s degree in communication after almost two years of coursework.
The more popular option is the bachelor?s degree since the online setting lets students choose and attend their classes only when they are available.

There are online communications degree programs that are designed for graduate students who have already completed an undergraduate program and want to pursue further education.
Plenty of masters in communication programs are designed for specialized forms of communications.
These include graphic design, networking and other similar technology classes designed for those interested in computer technology.

Most people take a masters degree in communication since a doctorate is more demanding if taken through an Internet curriculum.
The postgraduate requirement needed may include a great amount of research and submission of a dissertation or thesis that should be presented and defended.
Take note that only a few schools offer online programs for postgraduate communication degree, hence this curriculum may be hard to find.

Some fields of research or types of communication can be the focus of other programs, particularly those at vocational or technical schools.
For instance, network communications may involve various computer systems and the establishment of networks so they are able to communicate and share data.
This type of communication degree does not center on human expressions and interactions but covers data transmission protocols and technologies used for communication.

When choosing the online program that fits you, start by choosing an associate degree, bachelor?s degree or a professional certification.
Whatever program you choose, the coursework should focus not only on theory but on practical application as well.
In addition, you may pursue an area of concentration for your degree and among the available specializations are human resources, public relations, conflict management, technical writing, organizational communication, educational leadership and administration, and more.

One unique advantage of many online degree programs in communications is the option to speed up your coursework and earn the degree fast.
It allows you to make use of your credentials immediately in the work setting.
Getting a communications degree online gives you the skills, knowledge, experience and expertise that communication experts need today.

The constant evolution of technological advances has opened up the market for every communications major.
An online communications degree allows working professionals to obtain the training they need without going to a campus.
Furthermore, online classes are becoming increasingly well-known at all educational levels.

Source: http://www.medicaltourismchina.org/education/degree-overview-online-communications-degree/

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Apple Just Incentivized Every College Kid To Get An iPad. As For High Schoolers?

As I watched Apple's iBooks event in New York City last week, my mind began to race about the?ramifications?of such?announcements. Everyone had a pretty good idea for weeks (or months if you read the Steve Jobs biography) that textbooks would be a focal point for Apple, but there wasn't much thought given to what this would mean. During the event itself, I just kept thinking, "wow, Apple just incentivized every college student to get an iPad". Except, they didn't. Not yet.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/m8YhsPrGJl4/

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New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer? (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease.

All three newly identified areas "contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research," said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with about 1 million new cases annually worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths a year.

Scientists conducting genome-wide association studies -- research that looks at the association between genetic factors and disease to pinpoint possible causes -- had already identified 22 breast cancer susceptibility loci. Locus is the physical location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome.

"The three [newly identified] loci take the number of common susceptibility loci from 22 to 25," said Easton.

However, the three new susceptibility loci might explain only about 0.7 percent of the familial risks of breast cancer, bringing the total contribution to about 9 percent, the researchers said.

Michael Melner, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said this current research adds some important new clues to existing evidence, but he agreed that the number of cases likely associated with these three variants is probably low.

"So the total impact in terms of patients would be fairly small," Melner said.

The study is published online Jan. 22 in Nature Genetics.

To find the new clues, Easton's team worked with genetic information on about 57,000 breast cancer patients and 58,000 healthy women obtained from two genome-wide association studies.

The investigators zeroed in on 72 different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP -- pronounced "snip" -- is a change in which a single base in the DNA differs from the usual base. The human genome has millions of SNPs, some linked with disease, while others are normal variations.

The researchers focused on three SNPs -- on chromosomes 12p11, 12q24 and 21q21.

Easton's team found that the variant on the 12p11 chromosome is linked with both estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (which needs estrogen to grow) and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. The other two variants are only linked with ER-positive cancers, they said.

One of the newly identified variants is in an area with a gene that has a role in the development of mammary glands and bones. Easton said it was already known that mammary gland development in puberty is an important period in terms of determining later cancer risk. "But these are the first susceptibility genes to be shown to be involved in this process," he said.

One of the other SNPs is in an area that can affect estrogen receptor signaling, the researchers found.

Melner, noting some of the research is "fine tuning" of other work, said in his view the new understanding of the signaling pathways and their genetic links is the most important finding.

"When you delineate a pathway, you bring up new potential targets for therapy," he said. "The more targets you have, you open up the potential for having multiple drugs and attacking a cancer more easily, without it becoming more resistant."

Overall, Melner added, the results underscore the complexity of the different mechanisms involved in breast cancer development.

More information

For more about the genetics of breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120123/hl_hsn/newgeneticcluestobreastcancer

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Kenny G & Wife Lyndie Benson-Gorelick Split After 20 Years

Kenny G & Wife Lyndie Benson-Gorelick Split After 20 Years

Saxophonist Kenny G’s wife of 20 years, Balynda “Lyndie” Benson-Gorelick, has filed for a legal separation in court papers dated January 9, 2012. Kenny G [...]

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stupidcelebrities/~3/Bbss-H-Hg1k/

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Pele: Messi's not me

updated 1:55 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2012

PARIS - Pele thinks Lionel Messi still needs to improve at international level before he can be considered the greatest soccer player ever and needs to score more goals to come close to matching the Brazilian great.

The 24-year-old Messi already has won three straight FIFA Player of the Year awards.

"When Messi's scored 1,283 goals like me, when he's won three World Cups, we'll talk about it," Pele told Le Monde. "Football changes. Records are there to be broken, but it will be hard to break mine.

"People always ask me: 'When is the new Pele going to be born?' Never. My father and mother have closed the factory."

Although many observers consider Pele or Diego Maradona to be the greatest ever, Messi's form for Barcelona has him being mentioned in the same group.

Messi scored 55 goals in 2011 for Barcelona and already has 213 in 300 games for the club, 22 shy of Cesar Rodriguez's team record for goals. Messi is the club's leading scorer in the Champions League, scoring in victories over Manchester United in the 2009 and 2011 finals.

"I like Messi a lot, he's a great player," Pele replied when asked who his favorite current player is. "Technically, we're practically at the same level."

But Pele was also quick to point out that Messi has not scored at the same rate for Argentina in big tournaments. Messi failed to score in both the 2010 World Cup and Copa America last year, and has a modest tally of 19 goals in 67 international matches.

"He's a great player for Barcelona, but when he plays for Argentina he doesn't have the same success," Pele said.

Pele also feels he may have had more natural ability than Messi.

"No one knew which foot I was going to shoot with, I was two-footed. I also scored a lot of goals with my head," Pele said.

However, Pele knows that the debate over who is the world's greatest ever player will always divide opinion.

"Some people will say Beethoven couldn't play the piano. Others will say Michelangelo couldn't paint and that Pele couldn't play football," he said. "But we all received a gift from God."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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More newsChristian Hartmann / Reuters

Pele: Messi's not me

Pele thinks Lionel Messi still needs to improve at international level before he can be considered the greatest soccer player ever and needs to score more goals to come close to matching the Brazilian great.

Robert Cianflone / Getty Images

Loyalty

David Beckham considered other offers but decided nothing was better than his adopted home with the L.A. Galaxy.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46073608/ns/sports-soccer/

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Pacific Northwest storm causes flooding and outages (Reuters)

SEATTLE/PORTLAND (Reuters) ? A deadly ice storm and heavy rains swept across the Pacific Northwest on Thursday, leading to flooding and evacuations in Oregon and heightening the misery of residents in Washington state struggling with power outages and treacherous roads since an earlier record snowfall.

The governors of Washington and Oregon declared emergencies in their states, and the storm was blamed for at least three deaths, including those of a 20-month-old boy and his mother in Oregon who police said were sitting in a car that was surrounded with flood waters and swept into a rain-swollen creek.

In Seattle, which normally sees mild temperatures and wet weather but not heavy snow, the storm has resulted in airport and school closures, car crashes, downed trees and lost power. Overall, some 275,000 customers across the state were without power, officials said.

Nicknamed "Snowmageddon," the storm walloped Seattle and other parts of Washington with snow on Tuesday night and later developed into icy rains that downed power lines and made driving treacherous. To the south in Oregon, residents were dealing with heavy downpours and flooding.

On an icy stretch of Interstate 90 in Washington near the town of Cle Elum, about 80 miles inland from Seattle, six semi-trailer trucks were involved in a chain-reaction collision that snarled traffic on the state's major thoroughfare through the Cascade Range of mountains, said Washington State Patrol spokesman Kandi Patrick.

Amtrak said in a statement on Thursday that it had suspended its Cascades train service because of downed trees and debris scattered on tracks.

The emergency proclamation by Washington Governor Chris Gregoire allows for the activation of the Washington National Guard if needed, but the governor has not asked for the guard to assist, said her spokeswoman Karina Shagren.

Record-setting daily snowfall of 6.8 inches was measured early Thursday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, shattering the previous record of 2.9 inches in 1954, said meteorologist Dan DePodwin of AccuWeather.com.

The airport had to conduct de-icing operations, and at one point all runways were shut, Sea-Tac spokeswoman Charla Skaggs.

Seattle officials in the afternoon urged area residents to get home before dark because of icy road conditions.

SEATTLE SCHOOLS CLOSED

The roughly 100 public schools in Seattle were all closed on Thursday for the second day in a row, and they would be closed on Friday as well, said Lesley Rogers, a spokeswoman for Seattle Public Schools.

"It's the ice, we have really steep hills in Seattle, and all our buses are equipped with chains on their tires but if we can't get the buses safely up and down the hills that's a problem," Rogers said.

Schools in other parts of the state were also closed, according to statements on a number of school district websites.

The largest share of the 275,000 customers without power are in King County, which includes Seattle, said Rob Harper, spokesman for the state Emergency Operations Center. Pierce and Thurston counties in southwest Washington state was also hard hit with a combined 75,000 customers without power, he said.

Near Issaquah, a suburb of Seattle, a 60-year-old man was killed on Thursday when a snow-laden tree fell on him as he drove an all-terrain vehicle, said King County sheriff's spokeswoman Sergeant Cindi West.

Sixty miles south of Portland in Albany, Oregon, rescuers on Thursday recovered the body of Aiden McLaughlin, the toddler who was killed the night before when the car he was in was swept from a grocery store parking lot into a creek, the city's police department said in a statement.

Family members of Catherine McLaughlin, 18, who was in the car with her son, found her body in the creek on Thursday and it was recovered by authorities, police said. Two other occupants in the car both survived and were taken to hospitals.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service at Mount Rainier called an elite team of 10 searchers to find two separate overdue parties, with a total of four people missing since earlier this week, the Park Service said in a statement.

The storm and related worries about avalanches heightened the urgency to find the four missing hikers and campers, but freezing rain made it difficult to deploy a search helicopter, the Park Service said.

In Oregon, Governor John Kitzhaber's declaration of emergency mentioned hard-hit Marion, Coos, Benton and Lincoln counties, but not the more heavily populated Portland area.

In Portland, 3.4 inches of rain and snow has fallen since the storm began on Tuesday, said Andy Mussoline, meteorologist with AccuWeather.com.

Other areas received higher amounts of precipitation, with Silverton, 35 miles south of Portland, receiving 8.8 inches, Mussoline said.

Marion County emergency officials asked residents in the town of Turner, with a population of about 1,900, to evacuate to higher ground, the local sheriff's office said in a statement. About 50 families were evacuated earlier in the day.

About 20 people were evacuated overnight and Thursday in the tiny town of Scio, about 75 miles south of Portland, said City Manager Ginger Griffith. Scio, with a population of 840, had waist deep water in some neighborhoods, she said.

(Additional reporting by Teresa Carson in Portland: Writing By Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Paul Thomasch and Dan Burns)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/us_nm/us_weather

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Murdoch pays Jude Law $200K over phone hacking

LONDON?? Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper company on Thursday agreed to pay actor Jude Law 130,000 pounds (about $200,000) to settle claims against the News of the World and The Sun tabloids.

News Group Newspapers (NGN) accepted that 16 articles about Law published in the now-defunct News of the World tabloid between 2003 and 2006 had been obtained by phone hacking, and that the actor had also been placed under "repeated and sustained physical surveillance."

The company also admitted that articles in The Sun tabloid misused Law's private information but did not give further details.

Video: Piers Morgan grilled at UK hacking probe (on this page)

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The agreement with the actor was among 36 cases the company said Thursday it would be settling, including soccer player Ashley Cole and former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

They are among dozens of people who were suing News Group Newspapers after their mobile phone voicemails were allegedly hacked by the now-shuttered News of the World tabloid. Other cases settled include those of former government ministers Chris Bryant and Tessa Jowell, ex-model Abi Titmuss and Sara Payne, who is the mother of a murdered girl.

Actress Sienna Miller had reached an earlier settlement with the company.

In a statement that could further damage the company's reputation, lawyers for victims who have reached settlements said the agreements were based on News Group Newspapers acknowledging senior executives tried to hide evidence.

"News Group has agreed to compensation being assessed on the basis that senior employees and directors of NGN knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence," the statement said.

Video: Celebrities testify in phone-hacking hearing (on this page)

In all, Murdoch's company was facing 60 hacking lawsuits. The settlements were made public at a court hearing in London on Thursday, although financial details were not disclosed.

Mark Lewis, a lawyer for many of the phone hacking victims, said in an email that the fight against Murdoch's empire was not over.

"While congratulations are due to those (lawyers) and clients who have settled their cases, it is important that we don't get carried away into thinking that the war is over," Lewis said. "Fewer than 1 percent of the people who were hacked have settled their cases. There are many more cases in the pipeline. ... This is too early to celebrate, we're not even at the end of the beginning."

News International set up a compensation scheme in November to deal with phone-hacking claims, moving to contain the consequences of a scandal that has rocked the company, the British press, police and the political establishment.

It has already received more than 60 claims and police say there are almost 6,000 potential victims.

Video: Hugh Grant blasts tabloids at hearings (on this page)

Lawyers for the victims said they had obtained documents from News International that revealed its attempts to destroy evidence, partly thanks to the fact that the 12 solicitors' firms involved had joined forces to work together.

"As a result, documents relating to the nature and scale of the conspiracy, a cover up and the destruction of evidence/email archives by News Group have now been disclosed to the claimants," their statement said.

"In the face of this overwhelming evidence, the 'rogue reporter' position has disintegrated and the range, scale and extent of phone-hacking has become clear."

News International had for years claimed that any hacking was the work of a single, "rogue" reporter, who was jailed for the offence in 2007. Last year, it admitted the problem was more widespread and paid compensation to several victims.

In July, after it emerged that the voicemail of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, later found dead, had been hacked by the News of the World, News Corp took the drastic step of shutting down the 168-year-old tabloid.

The scandal forced the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman, a former News of the World editor. British police were accused of failing to properly investigate the affair and top police officials resigned.

Criminal probes are now under way into the phone hacking and allegations of payoffs to police. Cameron launched a judge-led inquiry into Britain's press ethics. News Corp was forced to scrap plans to take full control of Britain's highly profitable satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

Hearings in the first cases of victims who have not settled are set to begin on February 13.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46053202/ns/world_news-europe/

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[OOC] --Dollhouse-->

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A Brief History of Clocks

Image:

In Brief

• Devices for measuring time have been around for at least 5,000 years and today are essential for coordinating the operation of everything from cell phones to power-distribution grids.
• The earliest mechanical clocks, invented just before 1300, told time by striking a bell.
• By the early 1500s inventors had developed spring-driven mechanical clocks that were small enough to be portable.
• Modern quartz and atomic clocks have made it possible to keep extremely accurate time, which has opened the door to new applications.

Humankind?s efforts to tell time have helped drive the evolution of our technology and science throughout history. The need to gauge the divisions of the day and night led the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans to create sundials, water clocks and other early chronometric tools. Western Europeans adopted these tech?nologies, but by the 13th century, demand for a dependable timekeeping instrument led medieval artisans to invent the mechanical clock. Although this new device satisfied the requirements of monastic and urban communities, it was too inaccurate and unreliable for scientific application until the pendulum was employed to govern its operation. The precision timekeepers that were subsequently developed resolved the critical problem of finding a ship?s position at sea and went on to play key roles in the industrial revolution and the advance of Western civilization.

Today highly accurate timekeeping instruments set the beat for most of our electronic devices. Nearly all computers, for example, contain a quartz-crystal clock to regulate their operation. Moreover, not only do time signals beamed down from Global Positioning System satellites calibrate the functions of precision navigation equipment, they do so as well for cell phones, instant stock-trading systems and nationwide power-distribution grids. So integral have these time-based technologies become to our day-to-day lives that we recognize our dependency on them only when they fail to work.

Reckoning Dates
According to archaeological evidence, the Babylonians, Egyptians and other early civilizations began to measure time at least 5,000 years ago, introducing calendars to organize and coordinate communal activities and public events, to schedule the shipment of goods and, in particular, to regulate cycles of planting and harvesting. They based their calendars on three natural cycles: the solar day, marked by the successive periods of light and darkness as the earth rotates on its axis; the lunar month, following the phases of the moon as it orbits the earth; and the solar year, defined by the changing seasons that accompany our planet?s revolution around the sun.

Before the invention of artificial light, the moon had greater social impact. And, for those living near the equator in particular, its waxing and waning was more conspicuous than the passing of the seasons. Hence, the calendars developed at the lower latitudes were influenced more by the lunar cycle than by the solar year. In more northern climes, however, where seasonal agriculture was important, the solar year became more crucial. As the Roman Empire expanded northward, it organized its calendar for the most part around the solar year. Today?s Gregorian calendar derives from the Babylonian, Egyptian, Jewish and Roman calendars.

The Egyptians formulated a civil calendar having 12 months of 30 days, with five days added to approximate the solar year. Each period of 10 days was marked by the appearance of special star groups (constellations) called decans. At the rise of the star Sirius just before sunrise, which occurred around the all-important annual flooding of the Nile, 12 decans could be seen spanning the heavens. The cosmic significance the Egyptians placed in the 12 decans led them to develop a system in which each interval of darkness (and later, each interval of daylight) was divided into a dozen equal parts. These periods became known as temporal hours because their duration varied according to the changing length of days and nights with the passing of the seasons. Summer hours were long, winter ones short; only at the spring and autumn equinoxes were the hours of daylight and darkness equal. Temporal hours, which were adopted by the Greeks and then the Romans (who spread them throughout Europe), remained in use for more than 2,500 years.

Ingenious inventors devised sundials, which indicate time by the length or direction of the sun?s shadow, to track temporal hours during the day. The sundial?s nocturnal counterpart, the water clock, was designed to measure temporal hours at night. One of the first water clocks was a basin with a small hole near the bottom through which the water dripped out. The falling water level denoted the passing hour as it dipped below hour lines inscribed on the inner surface. Although these devices performed satisfactorily around the Mediterranean, they could not always be depended on in the cloudy and often freezing weather of northern Europe.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=c47171a5e69b2f9b3ee5a19af6fce5f2

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