40 still missing in deadly Canada rail crash, fire

The downtown core lays in ruins as fire fighters continue to water smoldering rubble Sunday, July 7, 2013, in Lac Megantic, Quebec, after a train derailed ignited tanker cars carrying crude oil. The runaway train derailed, causing explosions and fires that destroyed the downtown district. (AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS,Ryan Remiorz)

The downtown core lays in ruins as fire fighters continue to water smoldering rubble Sunday, July 7, 2013, in Lac Megantic, Quebec, after a train derailed ignited tanker cars carrying crude oil. The runaway train derailed, causing explosions and fires that destroyed the downtown district. (AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS,Ryan Remiorz)

Canadian Prime Minister Harper, right, surveys the scene Sunday, July 7, 2013, in Lac Megantic, Quebec, as firefighters continue to spray derailed tanker cars. A runaway train derailed Saturday causing explosions of railway cars carrying crude oil and destroyed part of the downtown area of Lac Megantic. (AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS, Paul Chiasson)

The downtown core lays in ruins as fire fighters continue to water smoldering rubble Sunday, July 7, 2013 in Lac Megantic, Quebec after a train derailed ignited tanker cars carrying crude oil. More bodies were recovered Sunday in the devastated town of Lac Megantic, raising the death toll to at least five after a runaway train derailed, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed the downtown district. With dozens of people reported missing, authorities feared they could find more bodies once they reached the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson)

Fire fighters continue to water smoldering rubble Sunday, July 7, 2013 in Lac Megantic, Quebec. A runaway train derailed Saturday igniting tanker cars carrying crude oil. (AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS,Ryan Remiorz)

Burnt buildings are seen following a train derailment causing explosions of railway cars carrying crude oil Sunday, July 7, 2013 in Lac Megantic, Quebec. Two more bodies were discovered overnight after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed in eastern Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a town's downtown center. The confirmed death toll is now three, and is expected to rise further. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (AP) ? About 40 people were still missing a day after a runaway train derailed in Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a busy downtown district and killed five people. Police said a higher death toll was inevitable, and authorities feared the number might soar once they're able to reach the hardest-hit areas. Worries remained over the status of two oil-filled train cars.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper compared the area to a war zone and said about 30 buildings were incinerated. Quebec provincial police Sgt. Beno?t Richard said only a small part of the devastated area had been searched Sunday, more than a day since the accident, because firefighters were making sure all fires were out.

The train's 72 oil-filled tanker cars somehow came loose early Saturday morning, sped downhill nearly seven miles (11 kilometers) into the town, derailed and began exploding one by one. At least five exploded.

The eruptions sent residents of Lac-Megantic scrambling through the streets under the intense heat of towering fireballs and a red glow that illuminated the night sky. The district is a popular area packed with bars that often bustles on summer weekend nights. Police said the first explosion tore through the town shortly after 1 a.m. local time. Fire then spread to several homes.

Two tanker cars were burning Sunday morning, and authorities were still worried about them Sunday evening. Local Fire Chief Denis Lauzon said firefighters were staying 500 feet (150 meters) from the tankers, which were being doused with water and foam to keep them from overheating.

"This is an unbelievable disaster," said Harper, who toured the town Sunday. "This is an enormous area, 30 buildings just completely destroyed, for all intents and purposes incinerated. There isn't a family that is not affected by this."

The growing number of trains carrying crude oil in Canada and the United States had raised concerns of a major derailment.

One death was confirmed Saturday. Police confirmed two people were found dead overnight and confirmed two more deaths Sunday afternoon. The charred remains were sent to Montreal for identification.

A coroner's spokeswoman said it may not be possible to recover some of the bodies because of the intensity of the blasts.

Locals were convinced the death toll was far higher than five. Anne-Julie Huot, 27, said at least five friends and about 20 acquaintances remained unaccounted for. She said she was lucky to be working that night, otherwise she likely would have been at a popular bar that was leveled in the blast.

"I have a friend who was smoking outside the bar when it happened, and she barely got away, so we can guess what happened to the people inside," Huot said. "It's like a nightmare. It's the worst thing I can imagine."

About a third of the community of 6,000 was forced out of their homes. The town is about 155 miles (250 kilometers) east of Montreal and just west of the Maine border.

Transportation Safety Board investigator Donald Ross said the black box of the locomotive has been recovered, but officials haven't been able to access much of the site.

Edward Burkhardt, the president and CEO of Rail World Inc., the parent company of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, said the train had been parked uphill of Lac-Megantic because the engineer had finished his run. The tanker cars somehow came loose.

"We've had a very good safety record for these 10 years," Burkhardt said. "Well, I think we've blown it here."

Joe McGonigle, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic's vice president of marketing, said the company believes the brakes were the cause.

"Somehow those brakes were released, and that's what is going to be investigated," McGonigle said in a telephone interview Sunday. "We're pretty comfortable saying it is the brakes. The train was parked, it was tied up. The brakes were secured. Somehow it got loose."

Lauzon, the fire chief, said firefighters in a nearby community were called to a locomotive blaze on the same train a few hours before the derailment. Lauzon said he could not provide additional details about that fire since it was in another jurisdiction. McGonigle confirmed the fire department showed up after the first engineer tied up and went to a local hotel. Someone later reported a fire.

"We know that one of our employees from our engineering department showed up at the same time to assist the fire department. Exactly what they did is being investigated so the engineer wasn't the last man to touch that train, we know that, but we're not sure what happened," McGonigle said.

McGonigle said there was no reason to suspect any criminal or terror-related activity.

The train's oil was being transported from North Dakota's Bakken oil region to a refinery in New Brunswick. Because of limited pipeline capacity in the Bakken region and in Canada, oil producers are increasingly using railroads to transport much of the oil to refineries.

The Canadian Railway Association recently estimated that as many as 140,000 carloads of crude oil will be shipped on Canada's tracks this year ? up from just 500 carloads in 2009. The Quebec disaster is the fourth freight train accident in Canada under investigation involving crude oil shipments since the beginning of the year.

Harper has called railroad transit "far more environmentally challenging" while trying to persuade the Obama administration to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Greenpeace Canada said Sunday that federal safety regulations haven't kept up with the enormous growth in the shipment of oil by rail.

"We think it is safe. We think we have a safe operation," McGonigle said of carrying oil by rail. "No matter what mode of transportation you are going to have incidents. That's been proven. This is an unfortunate incident."

___

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies and Charmaine Noronha contributed from Toronto.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-07-07-Canada-Oil%20Train%20Derailment/id-c5bc4dae946a486683b8c6f3dd7b7e13

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Seeking death penalty in Boston case? A long road

FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. If the Obama administration seeks the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it would face a long, difficult legal battle with uncertain prospects for success in a state that hasn?t seen an execution in nearly 70 years. Attorney General Eric Holder will have to decide several months before the start of any trial whether to seek death for Tsarnaev. It is the highest-profile death-penalty decision yet to come before Holder, who personally opposes the death penalty. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation, File)

FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. If the Obama administration seeks the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it would face a long, difficult legal battle with uncertain prospects for success in a state that hasn?t seen an execution in nearly 70 years. Attorney General Eric Holder will have to decide several months before the start of any trial whether to seek death for Tsarnaev. It is the highest-profile death-penalty decision yet to come before Holder, who personally opposes the death penalty. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation, File)

FILE This April 15, 2013 file photo shows medical workers aiding injured people at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon in Boston following an explosion. If the Obama administration seeks the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it would face a long, difficult legal battle with uncertain prospects for success in a state that hasn?t seen an execution in nearly 70 years. Attorney General Eric Holder will have to decide several months before the start of any trial whether to seek death for Tsarnaev. It is the highest-profile death-penalty decision yet to come before Holder, who personally opposes the death penalty. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

FILE - In this June 25, 2013 file photo, Attorney General Eric Holder leaves a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington. If the Obama administration seeks the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it would face a long, difficult legal battle with uncertain prospects for success in a state that hasn?t seen an execution in nearly 70 years. Attorney General Eric Holder will have to decide several months before the start of any trial whether to seek death for Tsarnaev. It is the highest-profile death-penalty decision yet to come before Holder, who personally opposes the death penalty. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? If the Obama administration tries for the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it could face a long, difficult legal battle in a state that hasn't seen an execution in nearly 70 years.

Attorney General Eric Holder will have to decide several months before the start of a trial ? if there is one ? whether to seek death for Tsarnaev. It is the highest-profile such decision yet to come before Holder, who personally opposes the death penalty.

He'll get plenty of advice.

"If you have the death penalty and don't use it in this kind of case where someone puts bombs down in crowds of civilians, then in what kind of case do you use it?" said Aitan D. Goelman, who was part of the legal team that prosecuted Oklahoma City bombing figures Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

In the past 4 ? years, the Justice Department has sought executions in several instances. But, in an indication of how protracted the process can be, none of the administration's cases has yet put anyone on death row.

Massachusetts abolished its own death penalty in 1984, but Tsarnaev is being prosecuted in federal court. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, only three people, including McVeigh, have been executed. Others have pending appeals.

In cases where federal juries have chosen between life and death, they have imposed twice as many life sentences as death sentences ? 144 to 73 ? according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, a two-decade-old group created by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

The jury pool for a case against Tsarnaev would come from a state that has rejected repeated efforts to reinstate the death penalty.

However, a former U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, Michael J. Sullivan, says viewing the state as opposed to the penalty is not entirely correct. Voters have supported reinstating the death penalty in non-binding referenda. And when Sullivan was U.S. attorney in Boston, his team of prosecutors won a death penalty verdict. That case is on appeal.

"I'm not suggesting there's strong interest in reinstating the death penalty in Massachusetts, but I think jurors in a federal case would be very thoughtful and under the right circumstances would vote in favor of the death penalty, said Sullivan.

Before the Justice Department decides to seek the death penalty, a case moves through three tiers of review by federal prosecutors.

"There's going to be a lot of push in that U.S. attorney's office in Boston to seek the death penalty in this case," predicts former prosecutor Johnny Sutton, who chaired a panel of 17 U.S. attorneys advising the attorney general on law enforcement issues during the George W. Bush administration. Sutton was U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas from 2001 to 2009.

On June 27, Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. attorney in Boston, said, "We will do everything that we can to pursue justice." Her comments followed the handing up of a 30-count indictment against Tsarnaev that included 17 charges carrying the death penalty or life imprisonment.

In Washington, federal prosecutors in a Capital Case Unit conduct their own analysis of death penalty cases. They advise the Attorney General's Review Committee on Capital Cases, which makes recommendations to the attorney general. Defense lawyers can weigh in, too.

Prosecutors seem to have strong evidence against Tsarnaev, but even if jurors agree that he was behind the explosions that killed three and injured more than 260, execution is far from guaranteed.

After a conviction, jurors must again be unanimous in their decision to impose the death penalty. In the terrorism case against Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, one juror declined to vote in favor of the death penalty, resulting in a life sentence.

In the Tsarnaev case, the decision could come down to whether the government can prove the attacks showed substantial planning and premeditation. The indictment against Tsarnaev contains extensive detail about his actions the day of the bombings and after, but contains a relatively small amount of information about prior weeks and months.

If Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's now-dead older brother, Tamerlan, was the planner and Dzhokhar played a lesser role, Dzhokhar's legal team could use that argument to his benefit. Another factor in Dzhokhar's favor: He had no prior criminal record. Tsarnaev also could benefit from what federal law calls "other factors," ? anything in the defendant's background, record or character that weighs against a death sentence.

"The most likely way for Tsarnaev to avoid the death penalty would be cooperating with the government ? helping investigators identify other bad actors, if any, in the deal," said Sutton. "But I think even if the defense plays the defendant as young, gullible and willing to cooperate" in the investigation, "what this defendant can really offer in the way of information is probably very limited."

Two widely publicized domestic terrorism cases from the past ? the Olympic Park bomber and the Unabomber ? ended when defense attorney Judy Clarke negotiated plea agreements with the government.

Clarke now represents Tsarnaev.

"Even though the government is not supposed to use the death penalty as a bargaining tool, the reality is that a lot more cases are announced as death penalties than actually result in a trial," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group.

In the 1990s, Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph carried out four bombings in Georgia and Alabama that killed two people and injured more than 120.

With jury selection underway, Rudolph admitted to all the bombings and received life in prison. As part of his deal, Rudolph led investigators to five hidden stashes of dynamite, three of which were relatively near populated areas.

Clarke also represented Theodore Kaczynski ? the man known as the Unabomber who set off 16 bombs that killed three people and injured 23 from 1978 to 1995.

As court proceedings began, Kaczynski attempted to hang himself. He demanded to act as his own lawyer. A psychiatrist said he was a paranoid schizophrenic. His lawyers argued that jurors should be told he was mentally ill.

Kaczynski argued with his own attorneys. He didn't want to be viewed as mentally ill, he said. In the end, the government and Kaczynski's lawyers cut a deal. On Jan. 22, 1998, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to all the government's charges in exchange for life imprisonment

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-07-09-US-Boston-Bombings-Death-Penalty/id-c0a82ef91184401aa21c46666aef577e

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Hamilton man burned in cooking oil accident

A man was flown by helicopter to a hospital Saturday after suffering serious burns in an accident involving hot cooking oil.

Hamilton firefighters said they were called to Grant Circle about 2:45 a.m.

Investigators said they were working to determine how the accident happened.

There was no fire inside the home.

The man's condition was not released.

Source: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/butler-county/hamilton-man-burned-in-cooking-oil-accident/-/13601510/20772276/-/14qwrws/-/index.html?absolute=true

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Egypt on edge ahead of more protests

CAIRO (AP) ? Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled Islamist president are holding rival sit-ins on the eve of what are expected to be massive opposition-led protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi's ouster.

The demonstrations early Saturday follow days of deadly clashes in a string of cities across the country that left at least seven people dead, including an American, and hundreds injured.

Cairo, which saw large pro- and anti-Morsi rallies on Friday, was uncharacteristically quiet Saturday despite the sit-ins as the city braced for more potentially violent opposition protests.

Opposition groups have vowed to bring out millions Sunday to force Morsi from office. The rallies are timed to coincide with the anniversary of Morsi's taking power as Egypt's first freely elected leader.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-edge-ahead-more-protests-105228905.html

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'Parrot dinosaur' walked on all fours, then graduated to two

New research suggests that Psittacosaurus, China's 'parrot dinosaur,' walked on four feet ? and then two feet.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 28, 2013

A Psittacosaurus skeleton is shown in the permanent collection of The Children?s Museum of Indianapolis.

Michelle Pemberton/Wikimedia Commons/Science Daily

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A baby in a dinosaur costume can do a laudable imitation of how a young dinosaur might have behaved.

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New research suggests that Psittacosaurus, the 'parrot dinosaur,' walked on four feet ? and then two feet ? some 100 million years ago in what is now China. It would have grown up much like the modern human, at first exploring its world on all fours, like a toddler, and then graduating to upright motion.

Qi Zhao, a Ph.D student at the University of Bristol and a researcher at the Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology in Beijing, studied a total of 16 fossil specimens ranging in from less than 1 year old to 10 years old. He found that the 1-year-old Psittacosaurus?specimens had long arms and short legs, meaning that the toddler dinosaur was biologically equipped to walk on all fours.

The arm bones showed continued growth in the dinosaurs between 1 and 3 years old, but the arm growth was dwarfed when the animal?s legs began to rapidly grow between 4 and 6 years old. At the age of 6, the Psittacosaurus?had legs twice as long as its arms and would have walked upright.?

That discovery, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications,?suggests not only that individual?Psittacosauruses went from four to two legs, but that the species had also evolved over time from four-legged adults to two-legged adults, adapting to environmental pressures.

?Having four-legged babies and juveniles suggests that at some time in their ancestry, both juveniles and adults were also four-legged, and Psittacosaurus and dinosaurs in general became secondarily bipedal,? said Mike Benton, a professor at the University of Bristol.

Measuring dinosaur growth is difficult, since enough samples are seldom available to track the species? development through its life cycle. Psittacosaurus, an herbivore distantly related to Triceratops, is a popular dinosaur for study, given the uniquely wide availability of viable fossils. The dinosaur?s genus includes between nine to 11 species, found in China, Mongolia, Russia, and Thailand.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/rf1Cm44IaeQ/Parrot-dinosaur-walked-on-all-fours-then-graduated-to-two

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Overweight causes heart failure: Large study with new method clarifies the association

June 25, 2013 ? An international research team led by Swedish scientists has used a new method to investigate obesity and overweight as a cause of cardiovascular disease. Strong association have been found previously, but it has not been clear whether it was overweight as such that was the cause, or if the overweight was just a marker of another underlying cause, as clinical trials with long-term follow-ups are difficult to implement.

A total of nearly 200,000 subjects were included in the researchers' study of the causality between obesity/overweight and diseases related to cardiovascular conditions and metabolism, which is being published for the first time in PLOS Medicine. The goal was to determine whether obesity as such is the actual cause of these diseases or whether obesity is simply a marker of something else in the subject's lifestyle that causes the disease.

"We knew already that obesity and cardiovascular disease often occur together. However, it has been hard to determine whether increased BMI as such is dangerous. In this study we found that individuals with gene variants that lead to increased body-mass index (BMI) also had an increased risk of heart failure and diabetes. The risk of developing diabetes was greater than was previously thought," says Tove Fall, a researcher at the Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, who coordinated the study together with researchers from the Karolinska Institutet and Oxford University.

These scientists studied whether a gene variant in the FTO gene, which regulates the appetite and thereby increases the individual's BMI, is also linked to a series of cardiovascular diseases and metabolism. The risk variant is common in the population, and each copy of the risk variant increases BMI by an average of 0.3-0.4 units. Since an individual's genome is not affected by lifestyle and social factors, but rather is established at conception, when the embryo randomly receives half of each parent's genome, the method is thus called "Mendelian randomization." To achieve reliable results a large study material was needed, and nearly 200,000 individuals from Europe and Australia participated.

"Epidemiological studies look for associations in large populations, but it is usually difficult to reliably determine cause and effect -- what we call causality. By using this new genetic method, Mendelian randomization, in our research, we can now confirm what many people have long believed, that increased BMI contributes to the development of heart failure. We also found that overweight causes increases in liver enzymes . This knowledge is important, as it strengthens the evidence that forceful societal measures need to be taken to counteract the epidemic of obesity and its consequences," says Erik Ingelsson, professor at the Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University.

The results show that an increase of one unit of BMI increases the risk of developing heart failure by an average of 20 per cent. Further, the study also confirms that obesity leads to higher insulin values, higher blood pressure, worse cholesterol values, increased inflammation markers, and increased risk of diabetes.

The present study was carried out within the framework of the major research consortium ENGAGE, which brings together more than 35 studies and more than 130 co-authors. The study was coordinated by Erik Ingelsson's research group in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet and Oxford University.

The study was funded by, among others, the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (ENGAGE), the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, and the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/x3-K-iv2mww/130625172248.htm

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Crazy Guy Threatened To Kill ?Soul Mate? Miranda Kerr

Crazy Guy Threatened To Kill “Soul Mate” Miranda Kerr

Model Miranda Kerr’s life was threatened by a a 52-year-old man named Steven C. Swanson, who made plans to travel to her Los Angeles home to kill her! Swanson called L.A. police to share his plans to “rescue” his “wife” and “soul mate” next month. Scary stuff! Swanson was was taken into custody after he ...

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Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/06/crazy-guy-threatened-to-kill-soul-mate-miranda-kerr/

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Religion plays irreplaceable role in society, Archbishop Lori says ...

This is a syndicated post from CNA Daily News. [Read the original article...]

Baltimore, Md., Jun 22, 2013 / 10:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Opening the 2013 Fortnight for Freedom, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore emphasized the unique contribution that religion brings to society, warning that it must be protected and allowed to flourish.

?Faith enriches public life not only by the magnitude of its services but by the qualities of mind and heart, by the values and virtues, it brings to the task,? said Archbishop Lori.

He warned that while religious organizations and individuals provide vital services for the common good, ?our government is taking from what belongs to God by state-sponsored attempts to force the Church to compromise her own teachings as the price to be paid for serving the wider community.?

Archbishop Lori, who chairs the U.S. Bishops? Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, delivered the homily at a June 21 Mass at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the nation?s oldest Cathedral, in downtown Baltimore, Md.

The cathedral was packed with members of the faithful who had come from both Maryland and from other states across the country to attend the opening Mass of the Fortnight for Freedom. They welcomed the archbishop?s homily with a standing ovation.

The Fortnight for Freedom ? currently in its second year ? is a two-week period of prayer, education and action for a greater respect for religious liberty both in the U.S. and abroad.

Growing threats to religious freedom prompted the U.S. bishops to call for the first Fortnight for Freedom last year. Among these threats is the upcoming Aug. 1 deadline when religious organizations must comply with the controversial HHS mandate, which requires employers to facilitate insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions, even if such cooperation violates their firmly-held religious beliefs.

Other religious liberty concerns raised in past months include attempts to redefine marriage and threats to freedom of religious activity in the realms of health care, humanitarian aid and immigration.

Archbishop Lori explained that ?the Church does not have two wings: a ?faith and worship? division on the one hand, and a ?service? division on the other.? Rather, he said, ?what we believe and how we worship gives rise to public service.?

Acts of service such as education, health care and aid to the poor are not a separate branch of the Catholic faith, he stressed, but ?these activities are part of our baptismal DNA as Catholic Christians.?

?No wonder we shudder, no wonder we react so strongly, when governmental authority tries to slice and dice our Church by separating in law and policy our houses of worship from our charitable, healthcare and educational institutions on the score that the latter are somehow less religious than our churches.?

In the attempt to impose various restrictions on faith-based action and belief, ?Caesar is taking from what belongs to God,? Archbishop Lori said.

In its infringements on religious freedom, ?our government is not only taking what belongs to God; it is also taking from what belongs to human dignity and the common good,? he continued.

?For by imperiling religious freedom, all human rights are put at risk.?

The archbishop explained that rights such as ?the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly ? are linked, and these rights are not granted to us by the State but by the Creator.?

Faith is a source of values that lead to deeds which benefit the common good, he stated.

?Through faith we understand that every person is called to share God?s life,? Archbishop Lori observed. ?Through faith we see more readily what a truly just and humane society should be and we receive the strength we need to build a true civilization of truth and love.?

Therefore, he stressed, religious belief benefits the public square ?not only by the sheer magnitude of the humanitarian services it offers but by its witness to Christ Jesus, its witness to those moral truths and values without which democracy cannot flourish.?

The archbishop also explained that the maintenance of religious freedom is important not only to Christians in America, but to all believers of all faiths across the entire globe.

?We continue to live in an age of martyrs ? when believers, not just Christians, are being persecuted for professing and practicing their faith ? when believers are tortured and killed because they are believers, in places like Iran, Iraq, China and Nigeria.?

?Let us keep the flame of faith and the flame of freedom burning brightly not only for our children and our children?s children,? Archbishop Lori entreated, ?but also for the sake of these persecuted believers who see in our form of government and in our great land a beacon of hope.?

(8)

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Source: http://www.dfwcatholic.org/religion-plays-irreplaceable-role-in-society-archbishop-lori-says-36708/.html

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Obama sees 'glimmers of functionality' in DC

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) ? President Barack Obama says he's starting to see some functionality in Washington but he's still not getting the cooperation he needs from Congress.

Obama tells Democratic donors that Democrats don't have a monopoly on wisdom. He says Democrats aren't overly ideological at the moment and don't think government can do everything. But he says Democrats do think government has a role to play.

Obama says the U.S. has everything going for it, but millions of people are still missing out on opportunity. He says the only way he can change that is if Americans elect members of Congress who share his optimism and are willing to compromise.

Obama spoke Thursday at a fundraiser for Senate Democrats' campaign committee at a private home. Donors paid between $2,500 and $32,400 to attend.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-sees-glimmers-functionality-dc-021507918.html

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Anthony Foxx in line for transportation post

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Monday will nominate Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx as his new transportation secretary, a White House official said Sunday.

If confirmed by the Senate, Foxx would replace outgoing Secretary Ray LaHood.

Foxx is Obama's first black nominee among the new Cabinet members appointed for the second term. The president faced criticism early in his second term for a lack of diversity among his nominees.

The official insisted on anonymity to avoid public discussion of the pick before the official announcement.

The official noted that Foxx has led efforts to improve his city's transit infrastructure to expand economic opportunity for businesses and workers. During Foxx's term as mayor, Charlotte has broken ground on several important transportation projects, including the Charlotte Streetcar Project to bring modern electric tram service to the city as well as a third parallel runway at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. The city has also moved to extend the LYNX light rail system to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the official said.

If confirmed by the Senate, Foxx would take over a department that has been at the center of Washington's debate over the impact of the so-called sequester cuts. The automatic cuts resulted in furloughs for air traffic controllers that helped cause delays at many airports.

Congress reached a deal last week to provide the Transportation Department flexibility that allowed it to end the air traffic controller furloughs.

Foxx, an attorney who has worked in several positions with the federal government, was first elected mayor in 2009. He raised his national profile last year when Charlotte played host to the Democratic Party's convention.

He also served as a member of the Charlotte City Council.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wh-anthony-foxx-line-transportation-post-211537174.html

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EPA methane report further divides fracking camps

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change?

Oil and gas drilling companies had pushed for the change, but there have been differing scientific estimates of the amount of methane that leaks from wells, pipelines and other facilities during production and delivery. Methane is the main component of natural gas.

The new EPA data is "kind of an earthquake" in the debate over drilling, said Michael Shellenberger, the president of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental group based in Oakland, Calif. "This is great news for anybody concerned about the climate and strong proof that existing technologies can be deployed to reduce methane leaks."

The scope of the EPA's revision was vast. In a mid-April report on greenhouse emissions, the agency now says that tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in an average annual decrease of 41.6 million metric tons of methane emissions from 1990 through 2010, or more than 850 million metric tons overall. That's about a 20 percent reduction from previous estimates. The agency converts the methane emissions into their equivalent in carbon dioxide, following standard scientific practice.

The EPA revisions came even though natural gas production has grown by nearly 40 percent since 1990. The industry has boomed in recent years, thanks to a stunning expansion of drilling in previously untapped areas because of the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which injects sand, water and chemicals to break apart rock and free the gas inside.

Experts on both sides of the debate say the leaks can be controlled by fixes such as better gaskets, maintenance and monitoring. Such fixes are also thought to be cost-effective, since the industry ends up with more product to sell.

"That is money going up into the air," said Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, adding he isn't surprised the EPA's new data show more widespread use of pollution control equipment. Pielke noted that the success of the pollution controls also means that the industry "probably can go further" in reducing leaks.

Representatives of the oil and gas industry said the EPA revisions show emissions from the fracking boom can be managed.

"The methane 'leak' claim just got a lot more difficult for opponents" of natural gas, noted Steve Everley, with Energy In Depth, an industry-funded group.

In a separate blog post, Everley predicted future reductions, too.

"As technologies continue to improve, it's hard to imagine those methane numbers going anywhere but down as we eagerly await the next installment of this EPA report," Everley wrote.

One leading environmentalist argued the EPA revisions don't change the bigger picture.

"We need a dramatic shift off carbon-based fuel: coal, oil and also gas," Bill McKibbern, the founder of 350.org, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "Natural gas provides at best a kind of fad diet, where a dangerously overweight patient loses a few pounds and then their weight stabilizes; instead, we need at this point a crash diet, difficult to do" but needed to limit the damage from climate change.

The EPA said it made the changes based on expert reviews and new data from several sources, including a report funded by the oil and gas industry. But the estimates aren't based on independent field tests of actual emissions, and some scientists said that's a problem.

Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor of ecology who led a 2011 methane leak study that is widely cited by critics of fracking, wrote in an email that "time will tell where the truth lies in all this, but I think EPA is wrong."

Howarth said other federal climate scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have published recent studies documenting massive methane leaks from natural gas operations in Colorado and other Western states.

Howarth wrote that the EPA seems "to be ignoring the published NOAA data in their latest efforts, and the bias on industry only pushing estimates downward ? never up ? is quite real. EPA badly needs a counter-acting force, such as outside independent review of their process."

The issue of methane leaks has caused a major split between environmental groups.

Since power plants that burn natural gas emit about half the amount of the greenhouse gases as coal-fired power, some say that the gas drilling boom has helped the U.S. become the only major industrialized country to significantly reduce greenhouse emissions. But others believe the methane leaks negate any benefits over coal, since methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas.

The new EPA figures still show natural gas operations as the leading source of methane emissions in the U.S., at about 145 million metric tons in 2011. The next biggest source was enteric fermentation, scientific jargon for belches from cows and other animals, at 137 million metric tons. Landfills were the third-biggest source, at 103 million metric tons.

But the EPA estimates that all the sources of methane combined still account for only 9 percent of greenhouse gases, even taking into account methane's more potent heat-trapping.

The EPA said it is still seeking more data and feedback on the issue of methane leaks, so the report may change again in the future.

The EPA revisions have international implications, too. The agency says the new report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, was submitted to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change by an April 15 deadline.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/epa-methane-report-further-divides-161201451.html

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Austerity is hurting our health, say researchers

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) - Austerity is having a devastating effect on health in Europe and North America, driving suicide, depression and infectious diseases and reducing access to medicines and care, researchers said on Monday.

Detailing a decade of research, Oxford University political economist David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, an assistant professor of medicine and an epidemiologist at Stanford University, said their findings show austerity is seriously bad for health.

In a book to be published this week, the researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression have been diagnosed during what they call the "Great Recession" and its accompanying austerity across Europe and North America.

In Greece, moves like cutting HIV prevention budgets have coincided with rates of the AIDS-causing virus rising by more than 200 percent since 2011 - driven in part by increasing drug abuse in the context of a 50 percent youth unemployment rate.

Greece also experienced its first malaria outbreak in decades following budget cuts to mosquito-spraying programs.

And more than five million Americans have lost access to healthcare during the latest recession, they argue, while in Britain, some 10,000 families have been pushed into homelessness by the government's austerity budget.

"Our politicians need to take into account the serious - and in some cases profound - health consequences of economic choices," said David Stuckler, a senior researcher at Oxford University and co-author The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills

"The harms we have found include HIV and malaria outbreaks, shortages of essential medicines, lost healthcare access, and an avoidable epidemic of alcohol abuse, depression and suicide," he said in a statement. "Austerity is having a devastating effect."

Previous studies by Stuckler published in journals such as The Lancet and the British Medical Journal have linked rising suicide rates in some parts of Europe to biting austerity measures, and found HIV epidemics to be spreading amid cutbacks in services to vulnerable people.

But Stuckler and Basu said negative public health effects are not inevitable, even during the worst economic disasters.

Using data from the Great Depression of the 1930s, to post-communist Russia and from some examples of the current economic downturn, they say financial crises can be prevented from becoming epidemics - if governments respond effectively.

As an example, they say, Sweden's active labor market programs helped the numbers of suicides to fall there during its recession, a big rise in unemployment. Neighboring countries with no such programs saw large increases in suicides.

And during the 1930s depression in the United States, each extra $100 of relief spending from the American New Deal led to about 20 fewer deaths per 1,000 births, four fewer suicides per 100,000 people and 18 fewer pneumonia deaths per 100,000 people.

"Ultimately what we show is that worsening health is not an inevitable consequence of economic recessions. It's a political choice," Basu said in the statement.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/austerity-hurting-health-researchers-231119361.html

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Exclusive - Boston bomb suspects' father abandons plan to return to U.S.

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION IN NORTH CAUCASUS, Russia (Reuters) - The father of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects has abandoned plans to travel to the United States to bury one son and help in the defense of the other, he told Reuters on Sunday in an interview in southern Russia.

Anzor Tsarnaev said he believed he would not be allowed to see his surviving son Dzohkhar, who was captured and has been charged in connection with the April 15 bomb blasts that killed three people and wounded 264.

"I am not going back to the United States. For now I am here. I am ill," Tsarnaev said. He agreed to the face-to-face interview on condition that his location in the North Caucasus, a string of mainly Muslim provinces in southern Russia, not be disclosed.

"Unfortunately I can't help my child in any way. I am in touch with Dzhokhar's and my own lawyers. They told me they would let me know (what to do)," he said.

Tsarnaev had said in the North Caucasus province of Dagestan on Thursday that he planned to travel to the United States to see Dzkhokhar and bury his elder son, Tamerlan, who was shot dead by police in a firefight four days after the bombings.

(Reporting by Maria Golovnina; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-boston-bomb-suspects-father-abandons-plan-return-160819875.html

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Sprint announces Q1 2013 results: 1.5 million iPhones sold

Sprint has announced their Q1 2013 financial results and in addition to a lot of other, sometimes weirdly acronym'd, numbers, out of 5 million smartphones sold, 1.5 million were iPhones.

Eighty-six percent of quarterly Sprint platform postpaid handset sales were smartphones, including more than 1.5 million iPhones sold during the quarter. Forty-three percent of iPhone sales were to new customers, a rate that continues to outperform larger competitors.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse:

This is a transformative year for Sprint and we?ve gotten off to a good start. Record Sprint platform service revenue and subscriber levels fueled our performance. We achieved significant Adjusted OIBDA* growth while investing heavily to improve our network, expanding our 4G LTE footprint and offering customers the best smartphones with truly unlimited data plans.

The iPhone representing 30% of smartphone sales isn't as dominating a number as we've seen from AT&T and Verizon, but then again, Sprint isn't AT&T or Verizon.

Now that T-Mobile is in the mix, it'll be interesting to see what, if anything, happens to Sprint's share of iPhones going forward.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/UeeBn0KKDUI/story01.htm

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Video: Best Buy's Samsung Experience Shops

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Wowza! Gwyneth Shows Major Skin in a See-Through Dress

The actress rocks a daring look at the Iron Man 3 premiere! Plus, check out more pics of your favorite stars on the scene.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/star-snapshots-celebrity-photo-gallery-2012/1-b-450006?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Astar-snapshots-celebrity-photo-gallery-2012-450006

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Bush approval ratings rebound days before library opening (Washington Bureau)

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Will George W. Bush Ever Get Historians on His Side?

Nearly 60 percent of the historians and political scientists in a 2006 Siena College survey rated George W. Bush?s presidency a failure -- an unscientific sampling that echoed public dismay over Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war. Adding insult to injury, two-thirds of the 744 respondents said he did not have a realistic chance of improving his standing.

Bush?s presidential library, being dedicated Thursday at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is the first step toward trying to prove their prediction wrong. It?s only fitting that the man who coined the word ?decider? would feature a ?Decision Points Theater? designed, the library website says, to ?take the visitor ?inside? the decision-making process? as his administration dealt with the 9/11 attacks, Iraq, Katrina, and failing banks.

Visitors may come away with more appreciation for the difficult choices Bush faced, and perhaps remember what they liked about him as a man and a politician. But his place in presidential history is another matter, one judged purely on his record and legacy. And Bush is not faring well by those measures.

The former Texas governor was rated one of the nation?s five worst presidents?39^th of 43?in a Siena College ranking by 238 presidential scholars in 2010. He was a marginally better 36^th in a 2009 C-SPAN ranking by 64 students of the presidency.

There is precedent for presidents to rise in historic esteem, usually after someone writes a biography based on new information or fresh thinking, or weak successors make them look smart by comparison. This group is led by Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Eisenhower, for instance, was No. 8 in the C-SPAN survey and No. 7 in a 2012 Newsweek ranking by 10 historians, and has been in Siena?s top 10 since 1994. Yet in 1962, 18 months after his term ended, a panel of 75 historians rated Eisenhower toward the bottom of the average/mediocre category, below even Herbert Hoover. ?By and large these 12 believed in negative government, in self-subordination to legislative power,? historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote in The New York Times. ?They were content to let well enough alone or, when not, were unwilling to fight for their programs or inept at doing so.?

Views of Eisenhower began to change 20 years later with the publication of The Hidden Hand Presidency, by Fred Greenstein. The Journal of Politics called it ?an important corrective? to dismissive views of Eisenhower?s leadership skills. Jim Newton, author of the 2012 book Eisenhower: The White House Years, says people had the impression that Eisenhower was ?captive? to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles?yet declassified documents show Eisenhower was in touch with Dulles three to four times a day and very much guiding U.S. foreign policy.

?He was a much more active leader of his administration than people understood at the time,? Newton told National Journal. ?People regarded him as genial and affable, a sort of grandfatherly figure. They did not appreciate what a shrewd, calculating president he was.?

Likewise, ?Truman has made a huge comeback,? says Robert Dallek, who wrote a short 2008 Truman biography for a series on American presidents. Truman?s standing was substantially aided by Merle Miller?s Plain Speaking, an oral biography published in 1974, and Truman, David McCullough?s epic 1992 ?valentine,? as Dallek put it in an interview (his book was one-fifth the length of McCullough?s 1,117-page opus).

Truman?s successors also contributed to recognition of his strengths. His straight-shooter quality could hardly have been a greater contrast to Richard Nixon. He also is credited with a containment policy that, except for his intervention in Korea, avoided war in the quest to defeat Communism. Instead, through the Marshall Plan and NATO, he helped Europe become a strong U.S. partner and ally.

Bush and Lyndon Johnson rejected containment when they made ill-advised decisions to pour troops into Iraq and Vietnam. That has made Truman look all the wiser, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Eisenhower's advisers repeatedly urged him to go to war or take covert action in Indochina, Germany, Iran, Guatemala and Indonesia, Newton said, but he resisted the pressure. ?You can think of Eisenhower?s geopolitical military record as almost the opposite of Bush. He was extremely reluctant to commit American forces to battle,? he said. Eisenhower's legacies instead include building an interstate highway system that helped fuel the middle class and economic expansion.

It is possible that documents and archives will reveal Bush in a more positive light, but there?s no getting around the fact that his decisions on Iraq and on fiscal policy have led to huge problems. He not only committed U.S. forces in Afghanistan after 9/11, his decision to invade Iraq kicked off a 10-year war of choice that has destabilized the Middle East and drained the United States of blood, treasure, and the will to intervene abroad. He cut taxes across the board and borrowed money to pay for the wars as well as a new prescription-drug program for seniors. That led to a ballooning deficit and debt, and left the country ill-positioned to deal with the Great Recession that set in toward the end of his term.

It?s not that there weren?t accomplishments during the Bush era. He receives deserved praise for his international drive to fight AIDS, and his controversial No Child Left Behind Act institutionalized the overdue concept of accountability in U.S. education. The even more controversial legal and military methods he adopted to fight terrorists have been largely validated by the Obama administration, which has in many cases continued their use. And he was a pioneer in pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, a worthy cause that has now been revived.

But all of that is overshadowed by the deficits, the economic collapse, and, above all, Iraq. ?Ultimately, what will drive how he?s viewed is how the Iraq experiment turns out,? says Bruce Buchanan, a presidential scholar and longtime Bush-watcher at the University of Texas-Austin. ?The mismanagement of Iraq will always be there, but it will fade if Iraq turns into a flower of democracy.?

Even if that mirage becomes reality years or decades from now,? the fact that Bush chose to invade Iraq will weigh heavily on historians as they rank him against the many presidents, from John Adams (who rejected his party?s calls to declare war on France) to Truman and Eisenhower, who tried to avoid rather than start wars.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/george-w-bush-ever-historians-side-050010958--politics.html

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iDuo2Go Charge and Sync Cable for iPad, iPhone, and iPad with USB 3.0 SD card reader review

The iDuo2Go Charge and Sync Cable for iPod, iPhone, and iPad with USB 3.0 SD Card Reader from Atech Flash Technology is a surprisingly useful if simple bit of mobile gear. It’s a USB 3.0 SD card reader, or an iPhone/iPad 30-pin sync/charge cable. Why bring two things on your next trip when one will [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/04/23/iduo2go-charge-and-sync-cable-for-ipad-iphone-and-ipad-with-usb-3-0-sd-card-reader-review/

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In Rhode Island, every Republican state senator backs gay marriage (Washington Post)

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Change diet, exercise habits at same time for best results, study says

Apr. 21, 2013 ? Most people know that the way to stay healthy is to exercise and eat right, but millions of Americans struggle to meet those goals, or even decide which to change first.

Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that focusing on changing exercise and diet at the same time gives a bigger boost than tackling them sequentially. They also found that focusing on changing diet first -- an approach that many weight-loss programs advocate -- may actually interfere with establishing a consistent exercise routine.

Their findings were published online April 21in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

"It may be particularly useful to start both at the same time," said Abby King, PhD, lead author of the study and a professor of health research and policy and of medicine. "If you need to start with one, consider starting with physical activity first."

The few published studies on how to introduce more than one shift in healthy habits report conflicting findings -- and few have looked at exercise and dietary change together. In examining the issue, the researchers also wanted to study people who specifically complained that the demands of their schedules didn't give them enough time to make healthy dietary and exercise choices. The reasoning was that if successful programs could be developed for these time-strapped individuals, they would likely work for others, as well.

Researchers split 200 initially inactive participants, ages 45 and older and with suboptimal diets, into four different groups. Each group received a different kind of telephone coaching. The first group learned to make changes to diet and exercise at the same time. The second group learned to make dietary changes first and didn't try changing their exercise habits until a few months later. The third group reversed that order and learned to change exercise habits before adding healthy dietary advice. The fourth group, for comparison, did not make any dietary or exercise changes, but was taught stress-management techniques. Researchers tracked participants' progress in all four groups for a year.

Despite the challenge of making multiple changes to their already-busy routines at once, those who began changing diet and exercise habits at the same time were most likely to meet national guidelines for exercise -- 150 minutes per week -- and nutrition: five to nine servings of fruit and vegetables daily, and keeping calories from saturated fats at 10 percent or less of their total intake.

Those who started with exercise first did a good job of meeting both the exercise and diet goals, though not quite as good as those who focused on diet and exercise simultaneously.

The participants who started with diet first did a good job meeting the dietary goals but didn't meet their exercise goals. King, who also is a senior researcher at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, speculates this is because changing diet and introducing exercise both have unique challenges. "With dietary habits, you have no choice; you have to eat," she said. "You don't have to find extra time to eat because it's already in your schedule. So the focus is more on substituting the right kinds of food to eat."

But, she said, finding time for exercise if you already have a busy schedule can be challenging. She pointed out that even the most successful group, those receiving the two behavioral health programs simultaneously, lagged behind in meeting the physical activity goal at first, though over the course of a year were eventually able to meet it.

King credits the way health educators explained the dietary and exercise advice to participants for their overall success and the study's high retention rate. They met with participants in person just once at the beginning of the one-year period. After that, they called once a month, spending as little as 10 to 15 minutes -- and no more than 40 minutes -- providing advice and support for diet and exercise.

For the participants, whose schedules and stressful lives had previously interfered with making healthy lifestyle choices, this approach worked, King said. She said that telephoning participants was a convenient and flexible way to provide personalized information. "These health behaviors aren't things that we change over a six-week period and then our job is done," she said. "They're things that people grapple with their whole lives, so to develop 'touches' of advice and support in a cost-efficient way is becoming more and more important."

Participants in this study were not actively trying to lose weight, just trying to develop healthy habits. King's next step is to test the same sequential-versus-simultaneous approaches among people who are trying to lose weight.

Other Stanford authors of the study include senior research scholar Cynthia Castro, PhD; statistical analyst David Ahn, PhD; and former postdoctoral scholars Matthew Buman, PhD, and Eric Hekler, PhD, (who are both now at Arizona State University) and Guido Urizar, PhD (now at Cal State Long Beach).

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging (grant R01AG21010) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (grant 5T32HL007034).

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center. The original article was written by Rina Shaikh-Lesko.

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. King AC et al. Behavioral Impacts of Sequentially versus Simultaneously Delivered Dietary Plus Physical Activity Interventions: the CALM Trial. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 2013 DOI: 10.1007/s12160-013-9501-y

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/nutrition/~3/gooWPdOXUec/130422101300.htm

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Richie Havens, RIP (Powerlineblog)

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