Tuesday, March 12, 2013

No "smoking gun" from last month's North Korean nuclear test

VIENNA (Reuters) - A month after North Korea's nuclear test, a monitoring agency said on Tuesday it was highly unlikely to find any "smoking gun" radioactive traces from the blast, potentially leaving key questions about the device unresolved.

The lack of this kind of scientific evidence may make it difficult to determine what fissile material was used in the isolated Asian state's third nuclear test, which was detected by seismic monitors.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which has a global network of monitoring stations designed to pick up radioactive traces emitted from tests, said it had yet to find any such signs.

"It is very unlikely that we will register anything at this point ... at this late stage," CTBTO spokeswoman Annika Thunborg said.

Thunborg did not give details, but the failure to detect radioactive traces could indicate that North Korea managed to prevent any such release from the February 12 underground explosion.

The test-ban treaty was negotiated in the 1990s but has not taken effect because some holders of nuclear technology have not yet ratified it, including the United States and China.

But the organization already monitors possible breaches, deploying more than 270 stations worldwide to look out for signs of atomic tests, including seismic waves and radioactive traces.

It can take weeks to pick up radioactive so-called noble gases, depending on the weather.

"We are confident that the system works very well," Thunborg said. A senior CTBTO official last month said the "smoking gun" of any nuclear test would be the detection of radionuclide traces.

One critical question is what kind of fissile material North Korea used in the latest test. In 2006 and 2009, it is believed to have used plutonium as the fissile core.

North Korea abandoned plutonium production in 2007, following international pressure, but later acknowledged that it had built facilities to produce enriched uranium, which can also be used in bombs if refined to a high degree.

Without the trace evidence, however, U.S. and allied officials have said it would be very difficult for outsiders to determine whether the latest test involved a plutonium or uranium core.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/no-smoking-gun-last-months-north-korean-nuclear-130839932.html

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Karzai: U.S., Taliban Conspiring To Keep Troops In Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan ? Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday accused the Taliban and the U.S. of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if most foreign troops leave ? an allegation the top American commander in Afghanistan rejected as "categorically false."

Karzai said two suicide bombings that killed 19 people on Saturday ? one outside the Afghan Defense Ministry and the other near a police checkpoint in eastern Khost province ? show the insurgent group is conducting attacks to demonstrate that international forces will still be needed to keep the peace after their current combat mission ends in 2014.

"The explosions in Kabul and Khost yesterday showed that they are at the service of America and at the service of this phrase: 2014. They are trying to frighten us into thinking that if the foreigners are not in Afghanistan, we would be facing these sorts of incidents," he said during a nationally televised speech about the state of Afghan women.

Karzai is known for making incendiary comments in his public speeches, a tactic that is often attributed to him trying to appeal to Taliban sympathizers or to gain leverage when he feels his international allies are ignoring his country's sovereignty. In previous speeches, he has threatened to join the Taliban and called his NATO allies occupiers who want to plunder Afghanistan's resources.

U.S. and NATO forces commander Gen. Joseph Dunford said Karzai had never expressed such views to him, but said it was understandable that tensions would arise as the coalition balances the need to complete its mission and the Afghans' move to exercise more sovereignty.

"We have fought too hard over the past 12 years, we have shed too much blood over the last 12 years, to ever think that violence or instability would be to our advantage," Dunford said.

Karzai also denounced the arrest of a university student Saturday by Afghan forces his aide said were working for the CIA. It was unclear why the student was detained.

Presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said in an interview with The Associated Press that the CIA freed the student after Karzai's staff intervened, but that Karzai wants the alleged Afghan raiders arrested. The president issued a decree on Sunday banning all international forces and the Afghans working with them from entering universities and schools without Afghan government permission.

The Karzai government's latest comments and actions come as it negotiates a pact with the U.S. for the long-term presence of American forces in Afghanistan and just days after an agreement to transfer a U.S. prison outside of Kabul to Afghan authority fell through. They also came during U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's first visit to Afghanistan since becoming the Pentagon chief, a trip made in part to meet with Karzai. Hours after Karzai's speech, their joint news conference was canceled by officials citing security concerns, though officials said the two men still planned to meet privately.

Karzai said in his speech that any foreign powers that want to keep troops in Afghanistan need to do so under conditions set forward by Afghanistan.

"We will tell them where we need them, and under which conditions. They must respect our laws. They must respect the national sovereignty of our country and must respect all our customs," Karzai said.

Karzai offered no proof of coordination, but said the Taliban and the United States were in "daily negotiations" in various foreign countries and noted that the United States has said that it no longer considers the insurgent group its enemy. The U.S. continues to fight against the Taliban and other militant groups, but has expressed its backing for formal peace talks with the Taliban to find a political resolution to the war.

Karzai said he did not believe the Taliban's claim that they launched Saturday's attacks to show they are still a potent force fighting the United States. "Yesterday's explosions, which the Taliban claimed, show that in reality they are saying they want the presence of foreigners in Afghanistan," Karzai said.

In the incident at the Kandahar university Saturday, presidential spokesman Faizi said the raiders fired shots as they grabbed student Abdul Qayoum, and blindfolded him before taking him for interrogation at a CIA post that Taliban leader Mullah Omar once used as a home.

The CIA could not be reached for comment.

The CIA has trained an Afghan counterterrorist force several thousand strong, known as the Counterterrorism Pursuit Team, which works mostly in insurgent strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan. U.S. officials say they work in concert with the Afghan intelligence service, but Karzai frequently complains he lacks oversight over their operations.

____

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Heidi Vogt contributed to this report from Kabul.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/10/karzai-taliban-us-afghanistan-2014_n_2847487.html

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Monday, March 11, 2013

MyVibe Automatically Prevents Your Phone from Vibrating on Tables

MyVibe Automatically Prevents Your Phone from Vibrating on TablesiOS (Jailbroken): If you're the type to place your iPhone on a table when you're not using it then you know how annoying and grating the sound of the vibrate is when it's on a flat surface. MyVibe automatically turns off the vibration any time the phone is on a flat surface.

MyVibe is pretty simple, but incredibly useful. When your device is on a flat surface, the vibration function is turned off so it doesn't make that annoying and grating sound on a table. You can set the sensitivity of MyVibe in a few different ways so that it doesn't accidentally turn on in your pocket. In my experience when the sensitivity was on high MyVibe wouldn't turn on when it was just sitting in my pocket. You can also enable an upside down silencer that turns on Do Not Disturb when the phone is face down so you don't receive notifications at all. If you leave your phone out on a table a lot, MyVibe is well worth checking out.

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/qC6s8JS_rUU/myvibe-automatically-prevents-your-phone-from-vibrating-on-tables

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Pig-headed? Chinese officials say not to worry about dead pigs in water supply

More than 2,800 pig carcasses were discovered in the?Huangpu River, which feeds Shanghai taps. Rivers are apparently a popular repository for swine that die of disease.

By Peter Ford,?Staff Writer / March 11, 2013

Workers look for dead pigs floating on the river Monday, March 11, 2013 on the outskirts of Shanghai, China.

Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Enlarge

Here?s a riddle for you: When is the discovery of 2,813 dead and rotting pigs in a major city?s water source not a public health problem?

Skip to next paragraph Peter Ford

Beijing Bureau Chief

Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.

Recent posts

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Answer: When the discovery is made in China.

The Shanghai water bureau, which oversees the water consumed in China?s largest city, was insisting on Monday that tap water derived from the Huangpu River met national standards despite the presence of the decomposing pigs.

All I can say is that I am glad I live in Beijing, not Shanghai.

Truly disgusting photographs of bloated porcine carcasses on a riverbank have appeared in many Chinese papers and websites, drawing attention to what seems ? believe it or not ? to be a relatively common occurrence.

When pigs die of disease, farmers who cannot be bothered to bury the animals just toss them into the nearest river.

Local residents of one pig-rearing village upstream from Shanghai told the national broadcaster China Central Television on Sunday that?disposing of dead pigs in the river was a common practice. ?After the pigs died of illness, [they] just dumped them in the river ? constantly. Every day,? one villager said.

?They are everywhere and they smell very bad,? the villager added.

Thousands of pigs in the Shanghai area have succumbed to epidemic disease in recent months, according to the Jiaxing Daily, a government-run paper in a hog-raising region southwest of Shanghai.

Last week the paper reported that more than 18,000 pigs had died since the beginning of the year in Zhulin, a village in the Jiaxing district. It was not immediately clear how many of them had been legally disposed of and how many had been thrown into the river.

But in a report last week, the paper quoted one pig farmer as saying that ?when things are busy,? he and his fellow farmers do not bother to call the local veterinary services to take the corpses away and just ?throw them away where we can.? In the summer, he added, the smell of rotting meat is sometimes so strong that villagers cannot open their windows.

More worryingly, the paper said, many readers had called the editorial desk?s hotline to report pig carcasses abandoned by the roadside or in water channels that had mysteriously lost their hind legs overnight.

?What if they were cooked in a restaurant?? the newspaper article wondered.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/ALsBh5c3GsA/Pig-headed-Chinese-officials-say-not-to-worry-about-dead-pigs-in-water-supply

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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba names new CEO

(AP) ? Alibaba Group, one of the world's biggest e-commerce companies, said Monday its executive vice president will succeed founder Jack Ma as chief executive.

Ma, 48, announced in January he was stepping down as CEO to make way for younger leaders. He stayed on as chairman.

Jonathan Lu Zhaoxi, a 13-year veteran of the company, will take over in May as CEO, said the company, based in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

"He is passionate about and familiar with the group's various businesses," said Ma in the announcement. "Not only has he contributed to building our culture and organization and developed many talented people, he also possesses a unique leadership style and charisma."

Ma, a former English teacher, founded Alibaba in 1999 to link Chinese suppliers with retailers abroad. It has expanded in consumer e-commerce with its Taobao and Tmall platforms, which are among the world's busiest online outlets.

Ma is part of a generation of Chinese Internet entrepreneurs who built successful businesses in e-commerce, entertainment, search and other fields. In addition to Ma, several others have become billionaires, including Robin Li of search giant Baidu and Ma Huateng of Tencent, an entertainment and Web portal company.

Lu, who joined Alibaba in 2000, was the founding president of its online payment service Alipay and worked in Taobao, the company said.

Alibaba announced a reorganization in January to transform its seven business units into 25 smaller divisions to compete more effectively in China's turbulent Internet market.

China has the world's biggest population of Internet users, with 564 million people online at the end of 2012, according to an industry group, the China Internet Network Information Center.

The country trails the United States and Japan in total e-commerce spending but is forecast by the Boston Consulting Group to take the No. 1 position by 2015.

___

Alibaba Group: www.alibaba.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-11-China-Alibaba/id-34eafa2fa21d40ed97119ccd8f6bab66

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Top contenders to be the next pope

Canadian Cardinals, Marc Ouellet, left and Thomas Christopher Collins are followed by tourists as they walk in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Saturday, March 9, 2013. The preliminaries over, Catholic cardinals are ready to get down to the real business of choosing a pope. And even without a front-runner, there are indications they will go into the conclave Tuesday with a good idea of their top picks. The conclave date was set Friday during a vote by the College of Cardinals, who have been meeting all week to discuss the church's problems and priorities, and the qualities the successor to Pope Benedict XVI must possess. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Canadian Cardinals, Marc Ouellet, left and Thomas Christopher Collins are followed by tourists as they walk in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Saturday, March 9, 2013. The preliminaries over, Catholic cardinals are ready to get down to the real business of choosing a pope. And even without a front-runner, there are indications they will go into the conclave Tuesday with a good idea of their top picks. The conclave date was set Friday during a vote by the College of Cardinals, who have been meeting all week to discuss the church's problems and priorities, and the qualities the successor to Pope Benedict XVI must possess. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo arrives for a meeting, at the Vatican, Monday, March 4, 2013. Cardinals from around the world have gathered inside the Vatican for their first round of meetings before the conclave to elect the next pope, amid scandals inside and out of the Vatican and the continued reverberations of Benedict XVI's decision to retire. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi arrives for a meeting at the Vatican, Friday, March 8, 2013. The last cardinal who will participate in the conclave to elect the next pope arrived in Rome on Thursday, meaning a date can now be set for the election. One U.S. cardinal said a decision on the start date is expected soon. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, center, is photographed by the media as he arrives for an afternoon meeting, at the Vatican, Friday, March 8, 2013. The Vatican says the conclave to elect a new pope will likely start in the first few days of next week. The Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters that cardinals will vote Friday afternoon on the start date of the conclave but said it was "likely" they would choose Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. The cardinals have been attending pre-conclave meetings to discuss the problems of the church and decide who among them is best suited to fix them as pope. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan waves to journalists as he arrives for a meeting, at the Vatican, Saturday, March 9, 2013. The preliminaries over, Catholic cardinals are ready to get down to the real business of choosing a pope. And even without a front-runner, there are indications they will go into the conclave Tuesday with a good idea of their top picks. The conclave date was set Friday during a vote by the College of Cardinals, who have been meeting all week to discuss the church's problems and priorities, and the qualities the successor to Pope Benedict XVI must possess. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

(AP) ? Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up repeatedly as strong contenders. Here is a look at who they are:

___

CARDINAL ANGELO SCOLA: Scola is seen as Italy's best chance at reclaiming the papacy, following back-to-back pontiffs from outside the country that had a lock on the job for centuries. He's also one of the top names among all of the papal contenders. Scola, 71, has commanded both the pulpits of Milan's Duomo as archbishop and Venice's St. Mark's Cathedral as patriarch, two extremely prestigious church positions that together gave the world five popes during the 20th century. Scola was widely viewed as a papal contender when Benedict was elected eight years ago. His promotion to Milan, Italy's largest and most influential diocese, has been seen as a tipping point in making him one of the leading papal candidates. He is known as a doctrinal conservative who is also at ease quoting Jack Kerouac and Cormac McCarthy.

___

CARDINAL ODILO SCHERER: Scherer is known for prolific tweeting, appearances on Brazil's most popular late-night talk show and squeezing into the subway for morning commutes. Brazil's best hope to supply the next pontiff is increasingly being touted as one of the top overall contenders. At the relatively young age of 63, he enthusiastically embraces all new methods for reaching believers, while staying true to a conservative line of Roman Catholic doctrine and hardline positions on social issues such as rejection of same-sex marriage. Scherer joined Twitter in 2011 and in his second tweet said: "If Jesus preached the gospel today, he would also use print media, radio, TV, the Internet and Twitter. Give Him a chance!" Scherer became the Sao Paulo archbishop in 2007 and was named a cardinal later the same year.

___

CARDINAL MARC OUELLET: Canada's Ouellet once said that being pope "would be a nightmare." He would know, having enjoyed the confidence of two popes as a top-ranked Vatican insider. His high-profile position as head of the Vatican's office for bishops, his conservative leanings, his years in Latin America and his work in Rome as president of a key commission for Latin America all make him a favorite to become the first pontiff from the Americas. But the qualities that make the 68-year-old popular in Latin America ? home to the world's biggest Catholic population ? and among the cardinals who elect the pope have contributed to his poor image in his native Quebec, where ironically he was perceived during his tenure as archbishop as an outsider parachuted in from Rome to reorder his liberal province along conservative lines.

___

CARDINAL PETER ERDO: Erdo is the son of a deeply religious couple who defied communist repression in Hungary to practice their faith. And if elected pope, the 60-year-old would be the second pontiff to come from eastern Europe ? following in the footsteps of the late John Paul II, a Pole who left a great legacy helping to topple communism. A cardinal since 2003, Erdo is an expert on canon law and distinguished university theologian who has also striven to forge close ties to the parish faithful. He is increasingly seen as a compromise candidate if cardinals are unable to rally around some of the more high-profile figures like Scola or Scherer.

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CARDINAL GIANFRANCO RAVASI: Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, is an erudite scholar with a modern touch ? just the combination some faithful see as ideal for reviving a church beset by scandal and a shrinking flock. The 70-year-old is also one of the favorites among Catholics who long to see a return to the tradition of Italian popes. The polyglot biblical scholar peppers speeches with references ranging from Aristotle to late British diva Amy Winehouse. Ravasi's foreign language prowess is reminiscent of that of the late globetrotting John Paul II: He tweets in English, chats in Italian and has impressed his audiences by switching to Hebrew and Arabic in some of his speeches.

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CARDINAL PETER TURKSON: Often cast as the social conscience of the church, Ghana's Turkson is viewed by many as the top African contender for pope. The 64-year-old head of the Vatican's peace and justice office was widely credited with helping to avert violence following contested Ghanaian elections. He has aggressively fought African poverty, while disappointing many by hewing to the church's conservative line on condom use amid Africa's AIDS epidemic. Turkson's reputation as a man of peace took a hit recently when he showed a virulently anti-Islamic video, a move now seen as hurting his papal prospects. Observers say those prospects sank further when he broke a taboo against public jockeying for the papacy ? saying the day after Benedict's resignation announcement that he's up for the job "if it's the will of God."

___

CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN: Dolan, the 63-year-old archbishop of New York, is an upbeat, affable defender of Catholic orthodoxy, and a well-known religious figure in the United States. He holds a job Pope John Paul II once called "archbishop of the capital of the world." His colleagues broke with protocol in 2010 and made him president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, instead of elevating the sitting vice president as expected. And during the 2012 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats competed over which national political convention the cardinal would bless. He did both. But scholars question whether his charisma and experience are enough for a real shot at succeeding Benedict.

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CARDINAL JORGE MARIO BERGOGLIO: Bergoglio, 76, has spent nearly his entire career at home in Argentina, overseeing churches and shoe-leather priests. The archbishop of Buenos Aires reportedly got the second-most votes after Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 papal election, and he has long specialized in the kind of pastoral work that some say is an essential skill for the next pope. In a lifetime of teaching and leading priests in Latin America, which has the largest share of the world's Catholics, Bergoglio has shown a keen political sensibility as well as the kind of self-effacing humility that fellow cardinals value highly. Bergoglio is known for modernizing an Argentine church that had been among the most conservative in Latin America.

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CARDINAL LEONARDO SANDRI: Leonardo Sandri, 69, is a Vatican insider who has run the day-to-day operations of the global church's vast bureaucracy and roamed the world as a papal diplomat. He left his native Argentina for Rome at 27 and never returned to live in his homeland. Initially trained as a canon lawyer, he reached the No. 3 spot in the church's hierarchy under Pope John Paul II, the zenith of a long career in the Vatican's diplomatic service ranging from Africa to Mexico to Washington. As substitute secretary of state for seven years, he essentially served as the pope's chief of staff. The jovial diplomat has been knighted in a dozen countries, and the church he is attached to as cardinal is Rome's exquisite, baroque San Carlo ai Catinari.

___

CARDINAL LUIS ANTONIO TAGLE: Asia's most prominent Roman Catholic leader knows how to reach the masses: He sings on stage, preaches on TV, brings churchgoers to laughter and tears with his homilies. And he's on Facebook. But the 55-year-old Filipino's best response against the tide of secularism, clergy sex abuse scandals and rival-faith competition could be his reputation for humility. His compassion for the poor and unassuming ways have impressed followers in his homeland, Asia's largest Catholic nation, and church leaders in the Vatican. Tagle's chances are considered remote, as many believe that Latin America or Africa ? with their faster-growing Catholic flocks ? would be more logical choices if the papal electors look beyond Europe.

___

CARDINAL CHRISTOPH SCHOENBORN: Schoenborn is a soft-spoken conservative who is ready to listen to those espousing reform. That profile could appeal to fellow cardinals looking to elect a pontiff with the widest-possible appeal to the world's 1 billion Catholics. His Austrian nationality may be his biggest disadvantage: Electors may be reluctant to choose another German speaker as a successor to Benedict. A man of low tolerance for the child abuse scandals roiling the church, Schoenborn, 68, himself was elevated to the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy after his predecessor resigned 18 years ago over accusations that he was a pedophile.

___

CARDINAL MALCOLM RANJITH: Benedict XVI picked the Sri Lankan Ranjith to return from Colombo to the Vatican to oversee the church's liturgy and rites in one of his first appointments as pope. The choice of Ranjith in 2005 rewarded a strong voice of tradition ? so rigid that some critics regard it even as backward-looking. Ranjith in 2010 was named Sri Lanka's second cardinal in history. There are many strikes against a Ranjith candidacy ? Sri Lanka, for example, has just 1.3 million Catholics, less than half the population of Rome. But the rising influence of the developing world, along with the 65-year-old's strong conservative credentials, helps keep his name in the mix of papal contenders.

___

CARDINAL ANDRES RODRIGUEZ MARADIAGA: To many, Maradiaga embodies the activist wing of the Roman Catholic Church as an outspoken campaigner of human rights, a watchdog on climate change and advocate of international debt relief for poor nations. Others, however, see the 70-year-old Honduran as a reactionary in the other direction: Described as sympathetic to a coup in his homeland and stirring accusations of anti-Semitism for remarks that some believe suggested Jewish interests encouraged extra media attention on church sex abuse scandals. Maradiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa, is among a handful of Latin American prelates considered to have a credible shot at the papacy.

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CARDINAL ANGELO BAGNASCO: The archbishop of Genoa, Bagnasco also is head of the powerful Italian bishops' conference. Both roles give him outsized influence in the conclave, where Italians represent the biggest national bloc, and could nudge ahead his papal chances if the conclave looks to return the papacy to Italian hands. At 70 years old, Bagnasco is seen as in the right age bracket for papal consideration. But his lack of international experience and exposure could be a major liability.

___

CARDINAL SEAN PATRICK O'MALLEY: As archbishop of Boston, O'Malley has faced the fallout from the church's abuse scandals for nearly a decade. The fact he is mentioned at all as a potential papal candidate is testament to his efforts to bring together an archdiocese at the forefront of the abuse disclosures. Like other American cardinals, the papal prospects for the 68-year-old O'Malley suffer because of the accepted belief that many papal electors oppose the risk of having U.S. global policies spill over, even indirectly, onto the Vatican's image. O'Malley is among the most Internet-savvy members of the conclave.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-10-Pope-Cardinals-Thumbnails/id-0de5379c0d9f4b5ba0c5cc462bbd7a04

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Sunday, March 10, 2013

Obama pokes fun at sequester at Gridiron dinner

At the annual Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner President Barack Obama joked about the sequester, Vice President Joe Biden, and Marco Rubio's sip of water.

By Associated Press / March 10, 2013

President Barack Obama walks with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, (r.), as they leave the Gridiron Dinner through a loading area at a hotel in Washington, Saturday.

Charles Dharapak/AP

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President Barack Obama had a ready excuse for anyone who didn't think he was funny enough at Saturday night's Gridiron dinner: "My joke writers have been placed on furlough."

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Always a target for humorous barbs, the president tossed out a few of his own during the Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner, an annual event that features political leaders, journalists and media executives poking fun at each other.

The so-called sequester that struck the federal budget this month drew another observation from Obama: "Of course, there's one thing in Washington that didn't get cut ? the length of this dinner. Yet more proof that the sequester makes no sense."

The ambitions of 70-year-old Vice President Joe Biden? "Just the other day, I had to take Joe aside and say, 'Joe, you are way too young to be the pope. You can't do it. You got to mature a little bit.'"

During a pause in his remarks, Obama took a long, slow sip of water and then said, "That, Marco Rubio, is how you take a sip of water."

Obama also mocked criticism from some quarters that he takes time off from his job. "We face major challenges. March in particular is going to be full of tough decisions. But I want to assure you, I have my top advisers working around the clock. After all, my March Madness bracket isn't going to fill itself out. And don't worry ? there is an entire team in the Situation Room as we speak, planning my next golf outing, right now at this moment."

The dinner was the organization's 128th since its founding in 1885. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar represented the Democrats while Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal cracked wise for the Republicans.

Klobuchar joked that Obama had aged in office. "His Secret Service name used to be 'Renegade,'" she said. "Now it's '50 Shades of Gray.'"

Jindal took a poke at Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, telling the audience that Romney had warned him that "47 percent of you can't take a joke." Referring to his own prospects for a presidential run, Jindal asked, "What chance does a skinny guy with a dark complexion have of being elected president?"

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/9JPCeDMdkmw/Obama-pokes-fun-at-sequester-at-Gridiron-dinner

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Virus and genes involved in causation of schizophrenia

Mar. 8, 2013 ? Viruses and genes interact in a way that may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia significantly. This happens already in the developing fetus.

An international team of scientists led by Aarhus University, Denmark, has made this discovery. As the first in the world, they scanned the entire genome of hundreds of sick and healthy people to see if there is an interaction between genes and a very common virus -- cytomegalovirus -- and to see whether the interaction influences the risk of developing schizophrenia.

And it does.

Women that have been infected by the virus -- and around 70 % has -- will have a statistically significant increased risk of giving birth to a child who later develops schizophrenia if the child also has the aforementioned gene variant. This variant is found in 15 percent. The risk is five times higher than usual, the researchers report in Molecular Psychiatry.

No cause for alarm

People infected with cytomegalovirus most often do not know it, as the infection by the virus, which belongs to the herpes virus family, is usually very mild. But the researchers stress that there is no cause for alarm -- even if both risk factors are present in mother and child, there may be a variety of other factors that prevents disease development in the child.

But as schizophrenia affects 1 per cent of the global population, this new knowledge is very important.

"In the longer term, the development of an effective vaccine against cytomegalovirus may help to prevent many cases of schizophrenia," says Professor of Medical Genetics at Aarhus University, Anders B?rglum.

"And our discovery emphasizes that mental disorders such as schizophrenia may arise in the context of an interaction between genes and biological environmental factors very early in life."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Aarhus University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. A D B?rglum, D Demontis, J Grove, J Pallesen, M V Hollegaard, C B Pedersen, A Hedemand, M Mattheisen, A Uitterlinden, M Nyegaard, T ?rntoft, C Wiuf, M Didriksen, M Nordentoft, M M N?then, M Rietschel, R A Ophoff, S Cichon, R H Yolken, D M Hougaard, P B Mortensen, O Mors. Genome-wide study of association and interaction with maternal cytomegalovirus infection suggests new schizophrenia loci. Molecular Psychiatry, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/mp.2013.2

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/~3/mM8Xglno6XA/130308111315.htm

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Saturday, March 9, 2013

SideCar Sues Austin Department Of Transportation To Legitimize Ride Sharing

sidecar logoThere?s a new wrinkle in SideCar?s ongoing battle with local authorities in Austin. Just a day after announcing that it?s offering free transportation to SXSW Interactive attendees, the ride-sharing startup has decided to take the city?s transportation department to court.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1VY1cS3tfuQ/

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BlackBerry Z10 coming to AT&T on March 22nd

In response to the increased attention and concern for America's rising rates of obesity and diabetes, the food industry has responded by creating what they often refer to as "better-for-you" foods. These include, among other things: bags of dried fruit slices, organic bars and cookies, yogurts, smoothies, vegetable crisps, and, of course, baked, not fried, potato chips. In turn, these items have begun to replace the more traditional junk food found in our children's school vending machines.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-z10-coming-t-march-22nd-142732126.html

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Israeli police, Palestinians clash at Jerusalem mosque

In response to the increased attention and concern for America's rising rates of obesity and diabetes, the food industry has responded by creating what they often refer to as "better-for-you" foods. These include, among other things: bags of dried fruit slices, organic bars and cookies, yogurts, smoothies, vegetable crisps, and, of course, baked, not fried, potato chips. In turn, these items have begun to replace the more traditional junk food found in our children's school vending machines.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/palestinians-clash-israeli-police-jerusalem-holy-113522088.html

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Friday, March 8, 2013

Scientists find more precise way to turn off genes, a major goal of treatments that target cancer

Mar. 7, 2013 ? Scientists at UC San Francisco have found a more precise way to turn off genes, a finding that will speed research discoveries and biotech advances and may eventually prove useful in reprogramming cells to regenerate organs and tissues.

The strategy borrows from the molecular toolbox of bacteria, using a protein employed by microbes to fight off viruses, according to the researchers, who describe the technique in the current issue of Cell.

Turning off genes is a major goal of treatments that target cancer and other diseases. In addition, the ability to turn genes off to learn more about how cells work is a key to unlocking the mysteries of biochemical pathways and interactions that drive normal development as well as disease progression.

"We've spent energy and effort to map the human genome, but we don't yet understand how the genetic blueprint leads to a human being, and how we can manipulate the genome to better understand and treat disease," said Wendell Lim, PhD, a senior author of the study. Lim is director of the UCSF Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator and professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology.

The new technology developed by the team of UCSF and UC Berkeley researchers is called CRISPR interference -- not to be confused with RNA interference, an already popular strategy for turning off protein production.

"CRISPR interference is a simple approach for selectively perturbing gene expression on a genome-wide scale," said Lei Stanley Qi, PhD, a UCSF Systems Biology Fellow who was the lead author of the Cell study. "This technology is an elegant way to search for any short DNA sequence in the genome, and to then control the expression of the gene where that sequence is located."

The technique will allow researchers to more easily and accurately trace patterns of gene activation and biochemical chains of events that take place within cells, Qi said, and will help scientists identify key proteins that normally control these events and that may go awry in disease.

CRISPR Interference vs. RNA Interference

Unlike conventional RNA interference techniques, CRISPR interference allows any number of individual genes to be silenced at the same time, Qi said. In addition, it acts more crisply, if you will, by not turning off untargeted genes the way RNA interference techniques do.

Gene switching by RNA interference was identified more than a decade ago, launching a new research field that has spawned a Nobel Prize and billion-dollar biotech firms. In January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its first approval of an injectable disease therapy based on a similar interference strategy, a drug to treat a rare form of high cholesterol.

RNA interference blocks the messenger RNA that drives protein protection based on the blueprint contained within a gene's DNA sequence. By preventing protein production, RNA interference may be used to get around the problem of difficult-to-target proteins, a frequent challenge in drug development.

But CRISPR interference acts one step earlier in the cell's protein manufacturing process. "The horse has already left the barn with RNA interference, in the sense that the RNA message already has been transcribed from DNA," said Jonathan Weissman, PhD, a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator and professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology, who is another senior author on the work. "With CRISPR interference, we can prevent the message from being written."

Implications for Regenerative Medicine

CRISPR -- an acronym for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats" -- is a system that bacteria use to defend themselves against viruses. CRISPR acts like a vaccine, incorporating bits of genes from viruses. Bacteria can reference this library of virus genes to recognize and attack viral invaders.

Qi and colleagues used a protein from this system, called Cas9, as a chassis into which they can insert any specific RNA partner molecule. The selected RNA serves as an adaptor that determines the target anywhere within the genome. "Targeting the machinery to new sites is extremely flexible and quick," Qi said.

The research team was able to get the system to work in mammalian cells as well as bacterial cells, and is working to improve its efficiency in mammalian cells, including human cells. The team aims to couple the Cas9 chassis to an enzyme that will enable the technology to turn genes on as well as off.

Such a versatile tool could prove valuable in efforts to reprogram cells for regenerative medicine. Lim's own lab is working on reprogramming immune cells to treat cancer.

"The idea is to reprogram cells to do the things we want them to do," Lim said. "We are still unlocking the secrets of the genome to harness the power of cellular reprogramming."

Additional UCSF co-authors of the Feb. 28 Cell study are postdoctoral fellows Matthew Larson, PhD, and Luke Gilbert, PhD. UC Berkeley co-authors are Adam Arkin, PhD, professor of bioengineering; and Jennifer Doudna, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Investigator and professor of biochemistry. All the study authors are members of QB3, the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, which is headquartered at UCSF Mission Bay.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Science Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - San Francisco. The original article was written by Jeffrey Norris.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Lei?S. Qi, Matthew?H. Larson, Luke?A. Gilbert, Jennifer?A. Doudna, Jonathan?S. Weissman, Adam?P. Arkin, Wendell?A. Lim. Repurposing CRISPR as an RNA-Guided Platform for Sequence-Specific Control of Gene Expression. Cell, 2013; 152 (5): 1173 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.02.022

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/genes/~3/fWzP4VyhFSU/130307190645.htm

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Saginaw police union tries to save jobs with new cost-savings plan

NBC25 Newsroom

The NBC25 Newsroom is a continuous news desk that keeps viewers connected to Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland.

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Source: http://www.minbcnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=869172

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Famed Apple columnist dumps iPhone for Android

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 5 (Reuters) - Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari stood up for specialist dribbler Neymar on Tuesday, saying the flamboyant forward's reputation for falling down easily was undeserved and exaggerated. "He gets fouled 10 times a match, and possibly one or two of those free kicks shouldn't be awarded, but then that is normal in football," Scolari told a news conference on Tuesday. "The coaches who criticise Neymar, who claim he falls over or simulates fouls, do that because it's an easy way out for them. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/famed-apple-columnist-dumps-iphone-android-154546558.html

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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Why Did Hugo Chávez Hate the United States So Much?

51608329 Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez gives a thumbs-up along with New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso before ringing the closing bell to end the trading day at the NYSE June 10, 1999.

Photo by HENNY RAY ABRAMS/AFP/Getty Images

Hugo Ch?vez, the Venezuelan president famous for anti-American rhetoric, died Tuesday. He referred to the United States as ?a bad person,? ?an assassin,? and ?a violent invader.? He wondered aloud whether the United States was responsible for a spate of cancer diagnoses among Latin American leftists. Perhaps most famously, Ch?vez called George W. Bush the devil and claimed the U.S. president left a sulfur smell around the U.N. speakers? podium. What did the United States do to make Hugo Ch?vez so mad?

It pushed free trade. No one knew quite what to make of Hugo Ch?vez when he rose to international prominence in 1998. A Venezuelan historian who resigned from Ch?vez?s constitutional reform commission told the Associated Press in 1999: ?One doesn?t know if Ch?vez is a fascist, a communist, an anarchist, a Peronist, a Fidelist. We just don?t know. Maybe he?s none of that, maybe he?s all of it.? The most common charge at the time was that Ch?vez was a potential dictator, and U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela John Maistos denied candidate Ch?vez a visa to visit the United States on those grounds. Nevertheless, after his election, there were some green shoots suggesting that Ch?vez and the United States could enjoy an amicable working relationship. Ch?vez vowed to leave U.S. investments intact. (He later reneged on that promise.) He personally charmed the editorial board of the Washington Post by rejecting ?irresponsible populism.? As impossible as it may seem today, Ch?vez wielded the ceremonial gavel at the New York Stock Exchange and threw the first pitch at a Yankees game in 1999.

The relationship between the United States and Ch?vez took a decisive turn at the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001. The Bush administration?s top priority was finalizing the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would have extended NAFTA throughout the Americas (excluding Cuba). Ch?vez was convinced the agreement would entrench disparities between the region?s wealthy and poor countries. He accused the Bush administration of bullying smaller neighbors and treating the free trade agreement as a certainty ?written on Moses?s tablets.? Although Ch?vez and Bush made weak attempts at reconciliation at the meeting?they told each other they wanted to be ?friends? on the summit?s final day?the meeting showed Ch?vez that his surest path to global significance was as an opponent of the United States. Ch?vez repeatedly claimed that the CIA was trying to assassinate him and that the United States attempted to oust him from office in 2002.

The fracturing of the relationship between Ch?vez and the United States bears a startling resemblance to the course of interactions between the United States and Fidel Castro, another cancer-stricken Latin American leftist leader. During the Cuban revolution, Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times wrote in adoring terms about the youthful crusader: ?Havana does not and cannot know that thousands of men and women are heart and soul with Fidel Castro.? After seizing power, Castro visited the United States and met with Vice President Richard Nixon, who thought Castro had strong leadership qualities despite being ?incredibly naive? about communism. The Cuban revolutionary even took the opportunity to visit Yankee Stadium. (Visiting Yankee stadium is a must-do for politicians from baseball-loving Latin America. Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, with whom the United States enjoys reasonably good relations, threw the first pitch at Yankee Stadium and rang the NYSE bell in 2009.) The U.S. bond with Cuba soured over economic issues, just like the U.S.-Venezuela relationship would several decades later. Castro nationalized the property of American companies and wealthy Cuban citizens early in his regime, putting him in conflict with the United States, which repeatedly tried to overthrow and assassinate Castro.

Got a question about today?s news? Ask the Explainer.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=b8695137ba19e0e6cf2a98861049b1e5

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Support cells found in human brain make mice smarter

Mar. 7, 2013 ? Glial cells -- a family of cells found in the human central nervous system and, until recently, considered mere "housekeepers" -- now appear to be essential to the unique complexity of the human brain. Scientists reached this conclusion after demonstrating that when transplanted into mice, these human cells could influence communication within the brain, allowing the animals to learn more rapidly.

The study, out today in the journal Cell Stem Cell, suggests that the evolution of a subset of glia called astrocytes -- which are larger and more complex in humans than other species -- may have been one of the key events that led to the higher cognitive functions that distinguish us from other species.

"This study indicates that glia are not only essential to neural transmission, but also suggest that the development of human cognition may reflect the evolution of human-specific glial form and function," said University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) neurologist Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., co-senior author of the study. "We believe that this is the first demonstration that human glia have unique functional advantages. This finding also provides us with a fundamentally new model to investigate a range of diseases in which these cells may play a role."

In recent years scientists have begun to understand and appreciate the role that glia cells -- and more specifically astrocytes -- play in brain function. Researchers at URMC have been pioneers in unlocking the secrets of astrocytes and demonstrating that they not only serve to support the neurons in the brain, but also communicate with neurons and each other.

"The role of the astrocyte is to provide the perfect environment for neural transmission," said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., co-senior author of the study and director, along with Goldman, of the URMC Center for Translational Neuromedicine. "As the same time, we've observed that as these cells have evolved in complexity, size, and diversity -- as they have in humans -- brain function becomes more and more complex."

Astrocytes are far more abundant, larger, and diverse in the human brain compared to other species. In humans, individual astrocytes project scores of fibers that can simultaneously connect with large numbers of neurons, and in particular their synapses, the points of communication where two adjoining neurons meet. As a result, individual human astrocytes can potentially coordinate the activity of thousands of synapses, far more than in mice.

It was this observation that suggested that human astrocytes might play a significant role in integrating and coordinating the more complex signaling activity found in human brains, and hence help regulate our higher cognitive functions. This in turn suggested that, when transplanted into mice, human glia may influence underlying patterns of neural activity.

"In a fundamental sense are we different from lower species," said Goldman. "Our advanced cognitive processing capabilities exist not only because of the size and complexity of our neural networks, but also because of the increase in functional capabilities and coordination afforded by human glia."

"I have always found the concept that the human brain is more capable because we have more complex neural networks to be a little too simple, because if you put the entire neural network and all of its activity together all you just end up with a super computer," said Nedergaard. "But human cognition is far more than just processing data, it is also [composed of] the coordination of emotion with memory that informs our higher abilities to abstract and learn."

The research team decided to determine if human glial cells might provide the human brain with unique capabilities by seeing what happened when these cells were allowed to co-exist with the normal nerve cells of mice. The scientists first isolated human glial progenitors -- the cells in the central nervous system that give rise to astrocytes -- from brain tissue. They then transplanted these cells into the brains of neonatal mice. As the mice matured, the human glial cells outcompeted the host's native glial cells, while at the same time leaving the existing neural network intact.

"The human glia cells essentially took over to the point where virtually all of the glial progenitor cells and a large proportion of the astrocytes in the mice were of human origin, and essentially developed and behaved as they would have in a person's brain," said Goldman.

The team then set out to examine the functional impact that these cells had on the animals' brains, specifically the speed and retention of signals between cells in the brain and its plasticity -- the ability of the brain to form new memories and learn new tasks.

They found that two important indicators of brain function drastically improved in the mice with human glia. First, when measuring a phenomenon called calcium wave -- the speed and distance at which a signal spreads within and among adjoining astrocytes in the brain -- the researchers noted that the speed of wave transmission in the transplanted mice was faster than normally observed in mice, and more similar to that of human brain tissue.

Second, the researchers also looked at long-term potentiation (LTP), a process that measures how long the neurons in the brain are affected by a brief electrical stimulation. LTP is considered one of the central molecular mechanism underlying learning and memory. In this test as well, the researchers found that the transplanted mice developed more rapid and sustained LTP, suggesting their improved learning capability.

On the basis of these findings, the team then evaluated the mice in a series of behavioral tasks designed to test memory and learning ability. They found that the transplanted mice were more rapid learners and both acquired new associations and performed a variety of tasks significantly faster than mice without the human glial cells.

"The bottom line is that these mice demonstrated an increase in plasticity and learning within their existing neural networks, essentially changing their functional capabilities," said Goldman. "This tells us that human glia have a species-specific role in intellectual capability and cognitive processing. While we've suspected for a while that this might be the case, this is really the first proof of this point."

The researchers believe that this animal model, which they call the human glial chimeric mouse, now provides the medical community with a new tool to understand and treat neurological disorders to which glial abnormalities contribute. This may be especially relevant for those neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases that appear more in humans than other species. In these disorders, the human-specific features of astrocytes may be of special importance to the disease process. Goldman, Nedergaard, and their colleagues are already using these mice to study a range of human neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders to which glial pathology may contribute.

Additional authors include Xiaoning Han, Michel Chen, Fushun Wang, Martha Windrem, Su Wang, Steven Shanz, Qiwu Xu, Nancy Ann Oberheim, Lane Bekar, Sarah Betstadt, and Takahiro Takano with URMC, and Alcino Silva with the University of California Los Angeles. The study was supported by the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mather Charitable Foundation, the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the National Institutes of Health.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Rochester Medical Center.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Han et al. Forebrain engraftment by human glial progenitor cells enhances synaptic plasticity and learning in adult mice. Cell Stem Cell, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2012.12.015

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/most_popular/~3/Fpk6N5gMpYs/130307145305.htm

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9 Ways Business Travelers Can Score Upgrades On The Fly ...

Four Points

This is the second of the six-part series called "Checking In." This series offers expert tips, tricks, and advice for savvy business travelers. "Checking In" is sponsored by Four Points.

These days, anyone with enough cash can buy their way into frequent flyer clubs, and points gurus are constantly broadcasting the secrets to gaming the rewards card system. ?

This is not a trend we should be thrilled about.?

"It's getting harder and harder to get all of these perks because there are so many 'elite' travelers," said George Hobica, founder of discount airfare site Airfarewatchdog.com.

For business travelers who are constantly passing from one cramped flight and hotel room to the next, the competition is especially fierce.

We've reached out to a few travel experts for their tips on the easiest ways you can still score travel upgrades.?

Get upgrades on flights by booking an economy ticket with a Y or B booking code. According to TravelNerd.com's Amy Lee, this special booking code is gold for fliers looking for an upgrade. "This means that the ticket will be full fare but you will receive a complimentary upgrade if there are open spots in the next class of service," Lee said. Just?request the upgrade when you book your ticket and then check your status 24 hours before your flight. Frequent flyers should hear about upgrades within 100 hours of their departure (based on status level).?

Give up your seat on a flight and kill them with kindness. When it comes to scoring upgrades, good manners could give you an edge over other grumpy flyers. "Once I volunteered to get bumped from a flight so a family could travel together," Lee said. "Not only did I receive a $500 flight voucher, but the gate agent upgraded me on the next flight. She did this because no one else would give up their seat and she realized that although I was inconvenienced, I was willing to help the traveling family."?

Dress nicely to give yourself an edge.?"When flights are oversold [in economy class], sometimes gate agents will pick people to upgrade based on whether they're dressed well, or if they were nice to someone when they checked in," Hobica said. Get ahead of the game by kindly telling the gate agent in advance that you hope they'll consider you if any upgrades are available. "They'd much rather?sell you an upgrade for $100 or $200 rather than give it away to a frequent flier," he said.?

Double up on rewards cards to reap more benefits. Lee clued us into the latest favorite travel hack out there. Since American Airlines and US Airways recently announced their merger, some travelers have signed up for both airlines' signature rewards cards (US Airways Premier World MasterCard and the Citi Select/AAdvantage American Express). With both of their signup bonus miles combined, travelers will be armed with as many as?70,000 miles that can be used together once the merger is complete.

Rent a car at the end of the day.?"By the end of the day, all the standard and compact vehicles have been rented out and you are more likely to receive a complimentary upgrade [to something more luxurious]," Lee said.

And if rental agencies won't upgrade for free, try negotiating. "Premium cars can cost an arm and a leg, but counter reps will negotiate much lower prices if they are available when you pick up your car," says Brian Kelly of ThePointsGuy.com. "Ask at check-in if you can upgrade to a higher category, and if they quote you a price, be sure to negotiate since they won?t start at their best price ... Being super nice also helps."

Save up your bonus miles to score upgrades on the cheap.?A number of airlines are selling miles with a big bonus attached (say, a purchase of 50,000 miles buys you an extra 50,000 miles at no cost). "Those miles can be used for upgrades from the lowest possible fare, and that's another thing to look for, especially if you're flying first class," Hobica said. "For example, you can upgrade the cheapest possible fare from New York To LA for about 17,000 miles right now."?

Ask for hotel upgrades when the front desk isn't busy.?Front desk clerks are known to be willing to upgrade customers when business is slow, but you're best bet is to ask them when there aren't a load of other people around. "I just did this," Hobica said. "I had been booked in a room near the elevator. I told them I was a light sleeper and asked for a room at the end of the hallway. The nice person behind the desk upgraded me to a better room at no charge." Hobica typically follows this script: "I know the hotel is not full today. Do you think you could upgrade me to a suite?"

And Clement Carey,?General Manager of The Kitano New York, says specifying room features is a nice gateway to a larger room. "Requesting a high floor or a specific view can garner an unexpected upgrade, if standard rooms with those features are sold out.? A reservation for a premium room type or package is more likely to get upgraded to a suite when occupancy is high. A discounted room rate is less apt to get an upgrade."

Don't shy away from airfare consolidators. Hobica recently helped a friend score a $6,000 business class ticket to London on Virgin Atlantic for $2,500. He did it by booking through an airfare consolidator site (Hobica likes http://planetamex.com/), which carry discounted first and business class international fares.?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/9-ways-business-travelers-can-score-upgrades-on-the-fly-2013-3

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Dow Hits All-Time High: What's Next for Lofty Stock ... - Yahoo! Finance

In the face of great skepticism and a laundry list of reasons why it shouldn't be happening, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) burst higher in early trading today, eclipsing the previous closing high of 14,164 set on October 9, 2007. As it stands, the DJIA is also trading above the record intraday high of 14,198.

While the Dow's move into all-time high territory was not entirely unexpected, it is nonetheless a momentous achievement. Of particular note is the fact that today's record comes just four days shy of what will be the index's 4th anniversary of its low, which was set almost 4,000 points ago on March 9, 2009.

As my co-host Jeff Macke and I discuss, the final leg of the blue chip benchmark's journey was a drive of almost unstoppable determination, that was able to overcome obstacle after obstacle that many feared would see it stumble before reaching the goal.

The unparalleled surge in the Industrials not only follows a similar high attained by the Dow Transports (^DJT), but confirms the "Dow Theory" -a widely followed bullish indicator dependent on both indexes setting new highs together.

Historically, these types of peaks have tended to be just that, a market top. For example, the previous record in October of 2007 was the culmination of a six-year, 75% rally that ultimately saw stocks cut in half over the ensuing 18 months. While that bear market, recession and financial crisis are still fresh in the minds of investors, what many traders have forgotten about is that the October '07 peak came a full eight months (and 20%) after the previous market peak (set in January 2000 dot-com era) had been toppled. The point is, these breakouts have the ability to run for a while and don't necessarily trigger an instant sell-0ff.

For now, the new record will usher in a moment of euphoria, a brief round of hand shakes, and a boatload of analysis as to which stocks and sectors will lead the way now and how much further this four-year old bull run can go.

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/dow-hits-time-high-next-lofty-stock-market-161851791.html

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Leaked Samsung Galaxy S IV images may finally reveal design

(Reuters) - Rory McIlroy has admitted he was wrong to withdraw from the Honda Classic last week, saying he now regretted his decision to stop playing. The world number one was heavily criticized after he quit the tournament midway through Friday's second round with what was initially a mysterious explanation. The Northern Irishman was playing badly and appeared certain to miss the cut when he shook hands with his playing partners after just eight holes. Before leaving the course, McIlroy told reporters he was in a "bad place mentally. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/leaked-samsung-galaxy-iv-images-may-finally-reveal-142537281.html

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Leaked Samsung Galaxy S IV images may finally reveal design

(Reuters) - Rory McIlroy has admitted he was wrong to withdraw from the Honda Classic last week, saying he now regretted his decision to stop playing. The world number one was heavily criticized after he quit the tournament midway through Friday's second round with what was initially a mysterious explanation. The Northern Irishman was playing badly and appeared certain to miss the cut when he shook hands with his playing partners after just eight holes. Before leaving the course, McIlroy told reporters he was in a "bad place mentally. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/leaked-samsung-galaxy-iv-images-may-finally-reveal-142537281.html

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