Circumcision not only protects against HIV in heterosexual men, but it also helps prevent two other sexually transmitted infections, a large new study found. Circumcised males reduced their risk of infection with HPV, or human papillomavirus, by 35 percent and herpes by 28 percent. However, researchers found circumcision had no effect on the transmission of syphilis.
Landmark studies from three African countries including Uganda previously found circumcision lowered men's chance of catching the AIDS virus by up to 60 percent. The new study stems from the Uganda research and looked at protection against three other STDs. The findings are reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine
"Evidence now strongly suggests that circumcision offers an important prevention opportunity and should be widely available," Drs. Matthew Golden and Judith Wasserheit of the University of Washington wrote in an accompanying editorial.
Worldwide, only about 30 percent of men are circumcised. The figure is higher in the United States, where about 79 percent of men are circumcised, according to surveys by the National Center for Health Statistics.
An international team of researchers who conducted the study said circumcision, the surgical removal of the foreskin from the penis, should be an accepted method to reduce sexually transmitted infections among heterosexuals.
"It must be emphasized that protection was only partial, and it is critical to promote the practice of safe sex," they wrote.
HPV can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. Herpes greatly increases the chances of infection with HIV.
The American Academy of Pediatrics previously said there was not enough evidence to recommend routine circumcision of infants. The doctor's group is reviewing its position based on recent studies. About 2,800 herpes cases in newborns occur in the U.S. every year transmitted from mothers to infants that can lead to disability or death.
The latest research involved 3,393 HIV-negative heterosexual adolescent boys and men from Uganda who were part of the original HIV study. About half were randomly selected to undergo circumcision right away while the rest had the procedure 2 years later. All had physical exams and were offered voluntary HIV counseling and condoms.
After two years, herpes infection was detected in 114 circumcised men compared with 153 uncircumcised men. HPV was detected in 42 circumcised men compared with 80 uncircumcised men. There was no significant difference between the two groups on rate of syphilis infections. The researchers considered condom use, number of sex partners and other factors to calculate the risk reductions.
Why circumcision may reduce the risk of infection is not entirely known. But researchers think cells in the foreskin of the penis may be susceptible to HPV and the herpes virus.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. It was conducted by the Rakai Health Sciences Program and Makerere University in Uganda, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a division of the National Institutes of Health.
The results were similar to two recent studies from South Africa that found circumcision reduced HPV and herpes by up to a third.
Researchers plan to study whether circumcision reduces the spread of HPV to female sex partners.
'American Idol' drills down to 9 contestants
LOS ANGELES – Michael Sarver got a crude awakening Thursday night from his "American Idol" life.
The 27-year-old oil rig worker from Jasper, Texas, made his final plea by belting out "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," but it just wasn't slick enough for the judges to overrule the votes of viewers.
Sarver was also in the bottom two last week, and put on a consensus weak performance in Wednesday night's performance round. Even sugary-sweet Paula Abdul chimed in, comparing the 27-year-old oil rig worker from Jasper, Texas, to an old-school Vegas lounge act.
His unrefined reprisal of the Temptations classic didn't appear to tempt the judges to spend their one-time save of a low-vote getter. The four got their heads together for a moment, then Simon Cowell told the married father of two children: "Michael, you're going home. Sorry."
Matt Giraud, 23, of Kalamazoo, Mich., was the other bottom vote-getter, despite the judges' positive appraisal of his "Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye.
Stevie Wonder kept the Motown mojo of this week's show going by singing a medley of his songs, energizing both the contestants — who were dancing and grooving along — and audience.
The nine contestants who remain on the Fox network's singing competition are Allison Iraheta, Adam Lambert, Anoop Desai, Danny Gokey, Kris Allen, Lil Rounds, Matt Giraud, Megan Corkrey and Scott MacIntyre.
Fox pushed this week's "American Idol" broadcasts back a day to steer clear of President Obama's prime-time news conference on Tuesday night.
The 27-year-old oil rig worker from Jasper, Texas, made his final plea by belting out "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," but it just wasn't slick enough for the judges to overrule the votes of viewers.
Sarver was also in the bottom two last week, and put on a consensus weak performance in Wednesday night's performance round. Even sugary-sweet Paula Abdul chimed in, comparing the 27-year-old oil rig worker from Jasper, Texas, to an old-school Vegas lounge act.
His unrefined reprisal of the Temptations classic didn't appear to tempt the judges to spend their one-time save of a low-vote getter. The four got their heads together for a moment, then Simon Cowell told the married father of two children: "Michael, you're going home. Sorry."
Matt Giraud, 23, of Kalamazoo, Mich., was the other bottom vote-getter, despite the judges' positive appraisal of his "Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye.
Stevie Wonder kept the Motown mojo of this week's show going by singing a medley of his songs, energizing both the contestants — who were dancing and grooving along — and audience.
The nine contestants who remain on the Fox network's singing competition are Allison Iraheta, Adam Lambert, Anoop Desai, Danny Gokey, Kris Allen, Lil Rounds, Matt Giraud, Megan Corkrey and Scott MacIntyre.
Fox pushed this week's "American Idol" broadcasts back a day to steer clear of President Obama's prime-time news conference on Tuesday night.
Virgin eyes 150Mb broadband speed
Virgin Media will offer 100 to 150Mbps broadband speeds up to two years before BT completes its rival fibre network.
"We have an opportunity with our network to provide significantly higher speeds," Virgin Media's chief executive Neil Berkett told BBC News.
BT has said its fibre network will hit the first crop of UK cities by early 2010 and will be complete by 2012.
Virgin currently offers a top speed of 50Mbps while BT is pledging 40 to 60Mb.
Mr Berkett said its fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) network was capable of supporting up to 200Mbps but roll out of higher speeds was a "function of timing".
He said: "When we look at the market I don't see us getting the returns right now for 100 or 150Mbps.
See what applications work at different speeds
"As we work with application providers, and content providers... there will be a natural point where we upgrade from 10, 20 and 50Mbps to something more.
"If BT were to meet the time frame they have suggested - of finishing by 2012 - I would see us as having much, much faster upstream speed, running at a minimum of 100Mbps downstream and possibly more. You can see a real opportunity there."
Faster speeds
Mr Berkett said he would be surprised if Virgin Media did not start the roll out of faster speeds next year.
BT has said it will deploy FTTC technology at 29 exchanges across the UK in the coming 9 to 12 months.
The network will offer speeds of up to 40Mbps - and potentially 60Mbps - to 500,000 homes and businesses.
Areas of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Greater Manchester will be able to access the fibre network, which will be opened up on a wholesale basis to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who can then offer various broadband packages to customers.
Virgin Media says its network reaches half of all homes in the UK. The technology has a theoretical limit of 200Mbps downsteam speeds.
Mr Berkett said the firm had not ruled out the possibility of opening its own network to other ISPs.
He said: "We had this conversation with a bunch of investors recently. Our position is 'Let's prove the market'.
"Wholesaling is not off our agenda but right now it is not a priority for us."
He added: "Who knows, by the time BT have rolled out their next generation network we may be in position to explore wholesale."
"We have an opportunity with our network to provide significantly higher speeds," Virgin Media's chief executive Neil Berkett told BBC News.
BT has said its fibre network will hit the first crop of UK cities by early 2010 and will be complete by 2012.
Virgin currently offers a top speed of 50Mbps while BT is pledging 40 to 60Mb.
Mr Berkett said its fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) network was capable of supporting up to 200Mbps but roll out of higher speeds was a "function of timing".
He said: "When we look at the market I don't see us getting the returns right now for 100 or 150Mbps.
See what applications work at different speeds
"As we work with application providers, and content providers... there will be a natural point where we upgrade from 10, 20 and 50Mbps to something more.
"If BT were to meet the time frame they have suggested - of finishing by 2012 - I would see us as having much, much faster upstream speed, running at a minimum of 100Mbps downstream and possibly more. You can see a real opportunity there."
Faster speeds
Mr Berkett said he would be surprised if Virgin Media did not start the roll out of faster speeds next year.
BT has said it will deploy FTTC technology at 29 exchanges across the UK in the coming 9 to 12 months.
The network will offer speeds of up to 40Mbps - and potentially 60Mbps - to 500,000 homes and businesses.
Areas of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Greater Manchester will be able to access the fibre network, which will be opened up on a wholesale basis to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who can then offer various broadband packages to customers.
Virgin Media says its network reaches half of all homes in the UK. The technology has a theoretical limit of 200Mbps downsteam speeds.
Mr Berkett said the firm had not ruled out the possibility of opening its own network to other ISPs.
He said: "We had this conversation with a bunch of investors recently. Our position is 'Let's prove the market'.
"Wholesaling is not off our agenda but right now it is not a priority for us."
He added: "Who knows, by the time BT have rolled out their next generation network we may be in position to explore wholesale."
President Obama said he is confronting the credit crisis on all fronts and seeing signs of progress in the US economy.
"We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience," he said in his second White House press conference.
In a bid to quell public fury over corporate bonuses, and criticism about his massive budget plan, he outlined the actions he was taking to fight the financial meltdown.
"We've put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this crisis on all fronts," he said.
"It's a strategy to create jobs, to help responsible home-owners, to restart lending, and to grow our economy over the long-term. And we are beginning to see signs of progress."
The President has clearly decided to turn this moment of crisis into a moment of opportunity. No more bubble and bust! No more borrow and spend.Jon-Christopher Bua - Sky News Political Analyst
Mr Obama has faced a backlash over AIG's payment of $165m in executive bonuses after the insurance giant was bailed-out with $180bn of taxpayers' cash.
He was forced to repeatedly condemn the bonuses, while trying to fend off calls for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's resignation for his handling of the affair.
Questioned about why he waited before slamming the AIG bonuses, he said: "It took us a couple of days - because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."
He stressed the importance for a consolidated approach to the world recession, but said he did not see the need for a global currency.
The objectives of next month's G20 summit in London, he said, would be to boost jobs and avoid protectionism.
This was an articulate performance by the President, and part of the offensive that's paid off over the past week...Sky's Adam Boulton
Sky's political editor Adam Boulton said Mr Obama's speech showed an increasing optimism and confidence that America is now moving in the right direction.
"This was an articulate performance by the President, and part of the offensive that's paid off over the past week of reassuring the American people that he knows what he's doing and why he's doing it," he added.
Anger over AIG bonuses
Mr Obama's comments come in a week in which his administration announced its latest measures to kick-start the US economy.
Low-interest loans and up to $100bn (£69bn) of bail-out money will be used to entice private investors into buying up $500bn (£345bn) of toxic assets.
By taking the bad debts off the banks' books, it is hoped it will encourage liquidity and get banks lending again.
In a bid to quell public fury over corporate bonuses, and criticism about his massive budget plan, he outlined the actions he was taking to fight the financial meltdown.
"We've put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this crisis on all fronts," he said.
"It's a strategy to create jobs, to help responsible home-owners, to restart lending, and to grow our economy over the long-term. And we are beginning to see signs of progress."
The President has clearly decided to turn this moment of crisis into a moment of opportunity. No more bubble and bust! No more borrow and spend.Jon-Christopher Bua - Sky News Political Analyst
Mr Obama has faced a backlash over AIG's payment of $165m in executive bonuses after the insurance giant was bailed-out with $180bn of taxpayers' cash.
He was forced to repeatedly condemn the bonuses, while trying to fend off calls for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's resignation for his handling of the affair.
Questioned about why he waited before slamming the AIG bonuses, he said: "It took us a couple of days - because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."
He stressed the importance for a consolidated approach to the world recession, but said he did not see the need for a global currency.
The objectives of next month's G20 summit in London, he said, would be to boost jobs and avoid protectionism.
This was an articulate performance by the President, and part of the offensive that's paid off over the past week...Sky's Adam Boulton
Sky's political editor Adam Boulton said Mr Obama's speech showed an increasing optimism and confidence that America is now moving in the right direction.
"This was an articulate performance by the President, and part of the offensive that's paid off over the past week of reassuring the American people that he knows what he's doing and why he's doing it," he added.
Anger over AIG bonuses
Mr Obama's comments come in a week in which his administration announced its latest measures to kick-start the US economy.
Low-interest loans and up to $100bn (£69bn) of bail-out money will be used to entice private investors into buying up $500bn (£345bn) of toxic assets.
By taking the bad debts off the banks' books, it is hoped it will encourage liquidity and get banks lending again.
Skype becomes largest long distance phone firm
SKYPE HAS BECOME the largest long-distance phone company according to new data from a market research outfit.
TeleGeography's stats show international voice traffic is on the up and up with cross-border telephone traffic growing some 14 per cent in 2007 and a further 12 per cent in 2008. Since those stats are really a bit meaningless, let us put it another way: 384 billion minutes of cross territory talk time.
You might think 384 billion minutes of foreign calls would be lucrative for the telcos, but you would be wrong. And that's why telcos hate Skype. The Voip company has forced call prices down so low that revenues for international calling have had their pants pulled down round their ankles.
Skype's international traffic has skyrocketed, with TeleGeography estimating that the firm's cross-border traffic grew approximately 41 per cent in 2008, to some 33 billion minutes – that's about eight per cent of all combined international telephone and Skype traffic.
Analyst Stephan Beckert noted Skype's traffic growth had been remarkable, adding "Only five years after its launch, Skype has emerged as the largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world."
But whereas Skype does offer free IP calls (cross border or not), the firm does charge for its Skype-Out service, although admittedly much less than most telcos. The firm's paid service apparently billed for 8.4 billion minutes in 2008.
It seems that talk is cheap nowadays. Literally.
TeleGeography's stats show international voice traffic is on the up and up with cross-border telephone traffic growing some 14 per cent in 2007 and a further 12 per cent in 2008. Since those stats are really a bit meaningless, let us put it another way: 384 billion minutes of cross territory talk time.
You might think 384 billion minutes of foreign calls would be lucrative for the telcos, but you would be wrong. And that's why telcos hate Skype. The Voip company has forced call prices down so low that revenues for international calling have had their pants pulled down round their ankles.
Skype's international traffic has skyrocketed, with TeleGeography estimating that the firm's cross-border traffic grew approximately 41 per cent in 2008, to some 33 billion minutes – that's about eight per cent of all combined international telephone and Skype traffic.
Analyst Stephan Beckert noted Skype's traffic growth had been remarkable, adding "Only five years after its launch, Skype has emerged as the largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world."
But whereas Skype does offer free IP calls (cross border or not), the firm does charge for its Skype-Out service, although admittedly much less than most telcos. The firm's paid service apparently billed for 8.4 billion minutes in 2008.
It seems that talk is cheap nowadays. Literally.
Facebook's redesign: Time to listen to users?
It wouldn't be at all surprising if Facebook's response to the bad vibes elicited its latest redesign were straight out of the 1970 comic war movie "Kelly's Heroes." To wit, we give you just one of the refrains from Donald Sutherland's tanker/proto-hippie character, Oddball:
How happy can CEO Mark Zuckerberg be with the griping by users over the latest Facebook redesign?
Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves...Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
Hopeful, positive comments from Facebook users have been awfully hard to come by in recent days since the powerhouse social-networking site pushed out a redesign that seems inspired, at least in part, by the up-and-coming Twitter service. To pick just one newly voiced opinion from the company's "Vote on the new Facebook layout" app, which seems in keeping with consensus among the 624,665 comments there so far: "this one is really confusing... the home page look like every one is kinda takin to you!!!!! the previous one was really nice... would feel better if it was changed to the previous version..."
The negativity has continued into the weekend, fueled in part by a Valleywag item alleging that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent an e-mail to employees suggesting that it's folly for a disruptive company to listen to its customers.
Writes Dare Obasanjo, using the Gawker post as a starting point:
When your application becomes an integral part of your customers lives and identities, it is almost expected that they protest any major changes to the user experience. The problem is that you may eventually become jaded about negative feedback because you assume that for the most part the protests are simply people's natural resistance to change...
Somewhere along the line, it seems the folks at Facebook didn't internalize this fundamental difference in the social context that differentiates user to user relationships on Twitter versus Facebook. This to me is a big mistake.
But some folks are trying to find a silver lining.
Over at VentureBeat, Eric Eldon and MG Siegler offer an in-depth appraisal of the redesign, and lay out their share of criticism--including paying more attention to how users might might react:
From here, Facebook needs to figure out what might be worth bringing back from the old feed, like items about your friends making new friends, events, profile picture changes, etc.
Perhaps most importantly though, Facebook needs to do a better job easing users into this redesign. If it wants people to do their own filtering using lists, it needs to make sure they know how. That's why above the feed filters, there should be two options: One to show you the news feed after the redesign, and one "legacy feed" below to show you just the core Facebook elements that were previously in the news feed prior to the redesign. In effect, this would be the "training" mechanism described above, and again, is critical before the real flood of information starts coming in through Facebook Connect.
Implementation issues aside, Eldon and Siegler write, "the overall idea behind it is the right one." Beyond that, they say,
Facebook should listen to its users in some regards - but if every company only listened to its users, there would be no innovation. If the changes made are ultimately for the better, as Facebook clearly believes, then it needs to suck it up and get through this growing pain. And so do its users.
High-profile blogger Robert Scoble definitely seems to be in the tough-love camp when it comes to users' gripes:
Anyway, all those who are saying the new design sucks should NOT be listened to. Yeah, I know a lot of people are going to get mad at me for saying that. After all, how can a blogger say to not listen to the masses? Easy: I've seen the advice the masses are giving and most of it isn't very good for Facebook's business interests...
Zuckerberg is not listening to you because you don't get how Facebook is going to make billions.
We've reached out to the folks at Facebook for comment on the purported Zuckerberg missive and, just in general, for how they're reacting to users' boos. No response yet, but we'll let you know if we do hear anything back on this first springtime Sunday afternoon.
Update 1:34 p.m PDT: Several readers have objected that this story makes it seem like everyone hates the Facebook redesign, which wasn't the intent. Facebook has 175 million users, a number that's vastly greater than the 600,000-plus comments on the company's "Vote on the new Facebook layout" application.
One person in the comments section below offers this positive assessment: "I actually find the new design more pleasing. It is more functional and manageable. I can select what I want to view instead of everything as a hodgepodge on one page. all they need now is the ability to make my feeds as rss and watch other walls as rss. It is a more advanced design. Probably best for advanced users."
Still, among those who've voiced their opinion on the redesign, the sentiment has largely been somewhere on the side of disappointment.
How happy can CEO Mark Zuckerberg be with the griping by users over the latest Facebook redesign?
Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves...Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
Hopeful, positive comments from Facebook users have been awfully hard to come by in recent days since the powerhouse social-networking site pushed out a redesign that seems inspired, at least in part, by the up-and-coming Twitter service. To pick just one newly voiced opinion from the company's "Vote on the new Facebook layout" app, which seems in keeping with consensus among the 624,665 comments there so far: "this one is really confusing... the home page look like every one is kinda takin to you!!!!! the previous one was really nice... would feel better if it was changed to the previous version..."
The negativity has continued into the weekend, fueled in part by a Valleywag item alleging that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent an e-mail to employees suggesting that it's folly for a disruptive company to listen to its customers.
Writes Dare Obasanjo, using the Gawker post as a starting point:
When your application becomes an integral part of your customers lives and identities, it is almost expected that they protest any major changes to the user experience. The problem is that you may eventually become jaded about negative feedback because you assume that for the most part the protests are simply people's natural resistance to change...
Somewhere along the line, it seems the folks at Facebook didn't internalize this fundamental difference in the social context that differentiates user to user relationships on Twitter versus Facebook. This to me is a big mistake.
But some folks are trying to find a silver lining.
Over at VentureBeat, Eric Eldon and MG Siegler offer an in-depth appraisal of the redesign, and lay out their share of criticism--including paying more attention to how users might might react:
From here, Facebook needs to figure out what might be worth bringing back from the old feed, like items about your friends making new friends, events, profile picture changes, etc.
Perhaps most importantly though, Facebook needs to do a better job easing users into this redesign. If it wants people to do their own filtering using lists, it needs to make sure they know how. That's why above the feed filters, there should be two options: One to show you the news feed after the redesign, and one "legacy feed" below to show you just the core Facebook elements that were previously in the news feed prior to the redesign. In effect, this would be the "training" mechanism described above, and again, is critical before the real flood of information starts coming in through Facebook Connect.
Implementation issues aside, Eldon and Siegler write, "the overall idea behind it is the right one." Beyond that, they say,
Facebook should listen to its users in some regards - but if every company only listened to its users, there would be no innovation. If the changes made are ultimately for the better, as Facebook clearly believes, then it needs to suck it up and get through this growing pain. And so do its users.
High-profile blogger Robert Scoble definitely seems to be in the tough-love camp when it comes to users' gripes:
Anyway, all those who are saying the new design sucks should NOT be listened to. Yeah, I know a lot of people are going to get mad at me for saying that. After all, how can a blogger say to not listen to the masses? Easy: I've seen the advice the masses are giving and most of it isn't very good for Facebook's business interests...
Zuckerberg is not listening to you because you don't get how Facebook is going to make billions.
We've reached out to the folks at Facebook for comment on the purported Zuckerberg missive and, just in general, for how they're reacting to users' boos. No response yet, but we'll let you know if we do hear anything back on this first springtime Sunday afternoon.
Update 1:34 p.m PDT: Several readers have objected that this story makes it seem like everyone hates the Facebook redesign, which wasn't the intent. Facebook has 175 million users, a number that's vastly greater than the 600,000-plus comments on the company's "Vote on the new Facebook layout" application.
One person in the comments section below offers this positive assessment: "I actually find the new design more pleasing. It is more functional and manageable. I can select what I want to view instead of everything as a hodgepodge on one page. all they need now is the ability to make my feeds as rss and watch other walls as rss. It is a more advanced design. Probably best for advanced users."
Still, among those who've voiced their opinion on the redesign, the sentiment has largely been somewhere on the side of disappointment.
Manchester United Boss Ferguson Still Fuming Over Rooney Red Card Decision
Fergie looks to be doing his best to bite his tongue as he doesn't want to land his young charge in even more hot water... Derek Wanner
23 Mar 2009 02:36:00
Photo Gallery
Zoom
Manchester United Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is still aggrieved by referee Phil Dowd's decision to send off Wayne Rooney during the dying minutes of their shock defeat away to Fulham on Saturday.With just two minutes of regulation time remaining and Man United 2-0 down, their fiery frontman was shown his second yellow card for dissent and for throwing away the ball, albeit in precisely the direction it needed to go but with no small amount of venom."The ball was thrown to where the free kick was being taken - did it hit the referee? No," Ferguson fumed on MUTV."But there's no point talking about the referee - we didn't play well enough in the first half and that's why we lost."At this point the United manager will be secretly hoping that Rooney escapes with 'just' the one-game ban. According to News of the World, the England striker's petulant reaction to the red card, during which he berated the referee before storming off the field and punching the corner flag on the way out for good measure, is likely to earn him a three-match suspension.In this case, Rooney would not only miss the coming game against Aston Villa, but also the following ones against Sunderland and Everton, all of which are potentially pivotal to United's ever more difficult title defence.
23 Mar 2009 02:36:00
Photo Gallery
Zoom
Manchester United Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is still aggrieved by referee Phil Dowd's decision to send off Wayne Rooney during the dying minutes of their shock defeat away to Fulham on Saturday.With just two minutes of regulation time remaining and Man United 2-0 down, their fiery frontman was shown his second yellow card for dissent and for throwing away the ball, albeit in precisely the direction it needed to go but with no small amount of venom."The ball was thrown to where the free kick was being taken - did it hit the referee? No," Ferguson fumed on MUTV."But there's no point talking about the referee - we didn't play well enough in the first half and that's why we lost."At this point the United manager will be secretly hoping that Rooney escapes with 'just' the one-game ban. According to News of the World, the England striker's petulant reaction to the red card, during which he berated the referee before storming off the field and punching the corner flag on the way out for good measure, is likely to earn him a three-match suspension.In this case, Rooney would not only miss the coming game against Aston Villa, but also the following ones against Sunderland and Everton, all of which are potentially pivotal to United's ever more difficult title defence.
As climate changes, is water the new oil?
If water is the new oil, is blue the new green?
Translation: if water is now the kind of precious commodity that oil became in the 20th century, can delivery of clean water to those who need it be the same sort of powerful force as the environmental movement in an age of climate change?
Translation: if water is now the kind of precious commodity that oil became in the 20th century, can delivery of clean water to those who need it be the same sort of powerful force as the environmental movement in an age of climate change?
Lady Gaga tops British pop charts again
LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. glam diva Lady Gaga took top spot in Britain's singles pop charts Sunday, emulating the success of her debut release.
The 23-year-old New Yorker's "Poker Face" jumped three places to replace the Comic Relief charity single "Islands in the Stream" at the top, the Official UK Charts Company said. Lady Gaga hit No. 1 earlier this year with her Grammy-nominated single "Just Dance."
Flo Rida's "Right Round" featuring Kesha held at No. 2, ahead of "Islands in the Stream," a reworking of the 1980s Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers hit, featuring Welsh singer Tom Jones and the song's co-writer Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees.
British girl group The Saturdays slipped one to No. 4 with "Just Can't Get Enough" while American country-pop singer Taylor Swift remained at No. 5 with "Love Story."
In the album charts, Ronan Keating, a member of Irish boy band Boyzone, debuted at No. 1 with his latest solo release "Songs For My Mother."
Annie Lennox stayed second with "The Collection" while American rockers Kings of Leon climbed back to third with "Only By The Night" which has now enjoyed 26 weeks in the charts.
The 23-year-old New Yorker's "Poker Face" jumped three places to replace the Comic Relief charity single "Islands in the Stream" at the top, the Official UK Charts Company said. Lady Gaga hit No. 1 earlier this year with her Grammy-nominated single "Just Dance."
Flo Rida's "Right Round" featuring Kesha held at No. 2, ahead of "Islands in the Stream," a reworking of the 1980s Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers hit, featuring Welsh singer Tom Jones and the song's co-writer Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees.
British girl group The Saturdays slipped one to No. 4 with "Just Can't Get Enough" while American country-pop singer Taylor Swift remained at No. 5 with "Love Story."
In the album charts, Ronan Keating, a member of Irish boy band Boyzone, debuted at No. 1 with his latest solo release "Songs For My Mother."
Annie Lennox stayed second with "The Collection" while American rockers Kings of Leon climbed back to third with "Only By The Night" which has now enjoyed 26 weeks in the charts.
More of mentally ill being treated at Missouri nursing homes
JEFFERSON CITY The number of people with mental illnesses living in Missouri nursing homes is growing at the third-fastest clip in the country.
Federal data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid prepared for The Associated Press show that more than 4,400 people with mental illnesses stayed in Missouri nursing homes last year. Across the U.S., more mentally ill adults are being cared for in nursing homes, but few states have experienced the rapid growth of Missouri.
Missouri’s nursing home population of mentally ill adults between the ages of 22 and 64 is the eighth highest in the country. It has increased by 76 percent since 2002 — a growth rate that falls behind only Nevada and Utah and that dwarfs the overall national increase of 41 percent.
In Kansas, the number of younger mentally ill patients in nursing homes increased 30 percent from 2002 to more than 1,600 in 2008. Its growth rate ranked 38th in the country.
Younger mentally ill people now make up more than 9 percent of the nation’s nearly 1.4 million nursing home residents, up from 6 percent in 2002.
They are 8.8 percent of the nursing home population in Kansas, up from 6 percent in 2002. Kansas’ overall nursing home population declined even as the number of younger mentally ill patients rose.
Missouri’s increase has prompted state officials responsible for regulating nursing homes to study whether it’s appropriate to care for the mentally ill in nursing homes. A main concern is whether a nursing home is the least restrictive living arrangement for someone with a mental illness.
Kit Wagar, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said the agency isn’t aware of any problems caused by housing the elderly and the mentally ill in the same facilities. Wagar said most complaints have been from someone who is mentally ill and doesn’t like living in a nursing home.
Jon Dolan, executive director of the Missouri Health Care Association that represents nursing homes, said care in such facilities is less costly than a stay at a hospital and that nursing homes can safely help an underserved mentally ill population.
“My providers are branching out, and I think it’s great when I see providers that are welcoming these toughest cases,” he said.
Dolan said Missouri nursing homes use common sense, such as creating separate wings for geriatric residents and mentally ill residents.
Wagar said it’s up to individual providers to determine how to group and bunk their residents.
“The homes that are involved with these younger clients have done a decent job of integrating them into it,” he said.
To be accepted into a Missouri nursing home, a prospective resident must pass through a series of screenings that include psychological testing and a determination on whether the person needs skilled nursing.
Dolan said about a dozen Missouri nursing homes are specialty facilities that have nearly as many mentally ill as elderly residents.
The increasing use of nursing homes to house those with mental illnesses comes as two Arlington, Va.-based groups have released reports critical of Missouri’s mental health care system.
The Treatment Advocacy Center found in a 2008 report that Missouri has what the group called a “serious” shortage in beds for mental health treatment based on data from 2005. That study found that Missouri has 21.5 beds per 100,000 people, which was the 15th-best ratio in the country. But the group also said that states should have at least 50 beds per 100,000 people.
Earlier this month, the National Alliance on Mental Illness gave Missouri a “C” for its care of the mentally ill. The group warned that mental health care has worsened and cited lack of treatment space as a main concern.
The Department of Mental Health operates 11 psychiatric facilities, which includes long-term care, acute psychiatric care and children’s psychiatric hospitals. The facilities have 1,483 beds, and in February, the average population was 1,430.
Federal data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid prepared for The Associated Press show that more than 4,400 people with mental illnesses stayed in Missouri nursing homes last year. Across the U.S., more mentally ill adults are being cared for in nursing homes, but few states have experienced the rapid growth of Missouri.
Missouri’s nursing home population of mentally ill adults between the ages of 22 and 64 is the eighth highest in the country. It has increased by 76 percent since 2002 — a growth rate that falls behind only Nevada and Utah and that dwarfs the overall national increase of 41 percent.
In Kansas, the number of younger mentally ill patients in nursing homes increased 30 percent from 2002 to more than 1,600 in 2008. Its growth rate ranked 38th in the country.
Younger mentally ill people now make up more than 9 percent of the nation’s nearly 1.4 million nursing home residents, up from 6 percent in 2002.
They are 8.8 percent of the nursing home population in Kansas, up from 6 percent in 2002. Kansas’ overall nursing home population declined even as the number of younger mentally ill patients rose.
Missouri’s increase has prompted state officials responsible for regulating nursing homes to study whether it’s appropriate to care for the mentally ill in nursing homes. A main concern is whether a nursing home is the least restrictive living arrangement for someone with a mental illness.
Kit Wagar, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said the agency isn’t aware of any problems caused by housing the elderly and the mentally ill in the same facilities. Wagar said most complaints have been from someone who is mentally ill and doesn’t like living in a nursing home.
Jon Dolan, executive director of the Missouri Health Care Association that represents nursing homes, said care in such facilities is less costly than a stay at a hospital and that nursing homes can safely help an underserved mentally ill population.
“My providers are branching out, and I think it’s great when I see providers that are welcoming these toughest cases,” he said.
Dolan said Missouri nursing homes use common sense, such as creating separate wings for geriatric residents and mentally ill residents.
Wagar said it’s up to individual providers to determine how to group and bunk their residents.
“The homes that are involved with these younger clients have done a decent job of integrating them into it,” he said.
To be accepted into a Missouri nursing home, a prospective resident must pass through a series of screenings that include psychological testing and a determination on whether the person needs skilled nursing.
Dolan said about a dozen Missouri nursing homes are specialty facilities that have nearly as many mentally ill as elderly residents.
The increasing use of nursing homes to house those with mental illnesses comes as two Arlington, Va.-based groups have released reports critical of Missouri’s mental health care system.
The Treatment Advocacy Center found in a 2008 report that Missouri has what the group called a “serious” shortage in beds for mental health treatment based on data from 2005. That study found that Missouri has 21.5 beds per 100,000 people, which was the 15th-best ratio in the country. But the group also said that states should have at least 50 beds per 100,000 people.
Earlier this month, the National Alliance on Mental Illness gave Missouri a “C” for its care of the mentally ill. The group warned that mental health care has worsened and cited lack of treatment space as a main concern.
The Department of Mental Health operates 11 psychiatric facilities, which includes long-term care, acute psychiatric care and children’s psychiatric hospitals. The facilities have 1,483 beds, and in February, the average population was 1,430.
President Obama is new 'King of all Media,' with Leno, ESPN, GQ
He's been on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine and GQ, too. His NCAA basketball picks are posted on ESPN.com. His presidential "radio" addresses are linked on the Internet.His "town hall" meetings get wall-to-wall cable news coverage. And last week, he made White House history by yukking it up on late-night TV with Jay Leno.
Meet the new King of All Media, President Obama, who has taken the traditional bully pulpit of the presidency and turned it into something else.
Call it the "fully pulpit" - where no form of media is left unexploited.
"I think [Republican] John McCain was right - he is bigger than Britney Spears," said Lesley Jane Seymour, editor in chief of More magazine, one of the first lifestyle magazines to put Michelle Obama on its cover (October 2008). "And I think he is very, very smart."
"The Washington talking heads are probably mad because he is stepping over them and talking directly to the American people," added Seymour of Obama's multimedia assault. "But he's a rock star, and we have not had a rock star presidency in a long time. Since Kennedy, really."
This Tuesday, Obama will transcend rock-stardom when he kicks TV's top-rated "American Idol" out of its 8 p.m. time slot (for the second time this year) so Fox can join the major networks airing Obama's prime-time press conference.
Presidents, of course, have long commanded enormous media attention, but most of it has emanated from the so-called traditional media - the major networks, newspapers and cable TV talk fests.
Obama - along with his fashionable wife, Michelle, and young daughters, Sasha and Malia - has drawn the steady gaze of the celebrity press as well, from People magazine to US Weekly to, yes, Leno.
Not that everyone approves. Republicans have accused Obama of cheapening the presidency and ignoring his responsibilities at a time of profound economic distress.
"The President seems everywhere and nowhere, not fully focused on the matters at hand," sniffed conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a onetime speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. "He's trying to keep up with the news cycle with less and less to say."
Many experts say Obama is simply trying to exploit his place within a celebrity-obsessed culture, while recognizing that there is more to media strategy these days than tending to the White House press corps.
As Obama said on Friday, "The more I can break out of the bubble, the better off I am."
Not that there aren't risks, say others, who caution that too much talk about White House pooches and college b-ball could undercut Obama's "brand," which most regard as a serious-minded, post-partisan approach to big problems.
"I think there is a balance, and he has walked it appropriately," said Raphael Bemporad, a founding partner of marketing firm BBMG. "But there are times for final four brackets, and there are times for deeper and more profound policy conversations."
Facebook and the downsides of software as a service
The tizzy created by Facebook's page design changes point out some valuable lessons that we should keep in mind as we head more into a SaaS and cloud-based world.
1. Choosing when to change
There are lots of differences between how shrink-wrapped applications and software as a service (SaaS) work, but one of them is that customers of shrink-wrapped software choose when, and if, they upgrade. They kick the tires to look around at the changes beforehand, download a trial, poll other users, wait for the .1 rev and the kinks to get worked out.
With SaaS, changes get pushed out without those wait-and-see possibilities. Facebook is discovering that this can lead to unpleasant surprises for customers, who have no say in whether they want to adopt them right then.
When something is embedded into the flow of everyday life in the way that Facebook (or Twitter) is for many people, any change, whether it's ultimately better or worse, is going to cause complaint. People get used to patterns of doing things. Even when you change their work-arounds sometimes they don't like it.
2. Conversation is a double-edged sword
Having said that, on the flip side, SaaS is more responsive when there is feedback. It can turn around updates based on input more quickly, and obviously more universally. But do this too often and you whiplash your users with multiple changes that set and unset particular features, preferences, design decisions, and so on.
Facebook is going to have to tread carefully in the coming weeks as it decides how to respond to the considerable complaining about the new layout. Facebook is quite different than most "applications" because there are such a variety of ways that people use it, and the experiences that each user has are going to be quite different. (All the more so because of the openness of the platform.) That makes it hard to design for, and all the more important to check one's assumptions at the door about what people want to do with it, and what features will support those needs.
On a more macro scale, Facebook (and SaaS in general) are emblematic of the more two-way relationship that now exists between companies and customers. The real-time nature of the conversation, and with something like Facebook the ability of customers to vocalize and organize, is a precursor to what the majority of companies will have to deal with in the future. As the "Cluetrain Manifesto" presciently argued, all markets are going to be more conversational in the future.
3. Don't design by committee
But that doesn't mean everything should turn into design by (user) committee, or tyranny of the majority. That's not how excellent products get made. There has to be a balance between responding to feedback, and recognizing when you see possibilities that your users, for the time being, do not. Your job as a designer and a company is to create capabilities on their behalf, and not just implement exactly what users ask for. (Not in a high-handed way; users' needs and best interests should always be the focus.)
(It so happens that we had a very lively e-mail thread running around the frog offices about this exact topic recently. Do you stick to the vision or respond to feedback by changing the vision? The answer: "It depends." Not very satisfactory perhaps, but unfortunately basically true. There are well-known examples of hits and flops based on both approaches.)
Watch what happens...
We should all be watching very carefully how Facebook acts in the coming weeks as it responds to the conversation. It will undoubtedly provide lessons for the future for all of us.
Adam Richardson is the director of product strategy at frog design, where he guides strategy engagements for frog's international roster of clients, envisioning and creating new products, consumer electronics, and digital experiences. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network.
Topics:
Design,
Innovation,
Digital
Tags:
facebook,
saas,
software as a service,
web 2.0,
user experience
Share:
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
cnet_news406:http://news.cnet.com/8301-13641_3-10201715-44.html
Yahoo! Buzz
Recent posts from Matter/Anti-Matter
Facebook and the downsides of software as a service
SXSW conversations: some quick thoughts on the past, present, and future of Twitter
Is your brand vulnerable?
AIG, a space shuttle disaster, and creeping risk
@SXSW: foursquare and the future of direct(ed) messaging
Business, Ethics, Barcelona: Doing Good When You're Not Doing So Well
LIFT09: The future in permanent beta
Healthcare innovation: The files are IN the computer!
1. Choosing when to change
There are lots of differences between how shrink-wrapped applications and software as a service (SaaS) work, but one of them is that customers of shrink-wrapped software choose when, and if, they upgrade. They kick the tires to look around at the changes beforehand, download a trial, poll other users, wait for the .1 rev and the kinks to get worked out.
With SaaS, changes get pushed out without those wait-and-see possibilities. Facebook is discovering that this can lead to unpleasant surprises for customers, who have no say in whether they want to adopt them right then.
When something is embedded into the flow of everyday life in the way that Facebook (or Twitter) is for many people, any change, whether it's ultimately better or worse, is going to cause complaint. People get used to patterns of doing things. Even when you change their work-arounds sometimes they don't like it.
2. Conversation is a double-edged sword
Having said that, on the flip side, SaaS is more responsive when there is feedback. It can turn around updates based on input more quickly, and obviously more universally. But do this too often and you whiplash your users with multiple changes that set and unset particular features, preferences, design decisions, and so on.
Facebook is going to have to tread carefully in the coming weeks as it decides how to respond to the considerable complaining about the new layout. Facebook is quite different than most "applications" because there are such a variety of ways that people use it, and the experiences that each user has are going to be quite different. (All the more so because of the openness of the platform.) That makes it hard to design for, and all the more important to check one's assumptions at the door about what people want to do with it, and what features will support those needs.
On a more macro scale, Facebook (and SaaS in general) are emblematic of the more two-way relationship that now exists between companies and customers. The real-time nature of the conversation, and with something like Facebook the ability of customers to vocalize and organize, is a precursor to what the majority of companies will have to deal with in the future. As the "Cluetrain Manifesto" presciently argued, all markets are going to be more conversational in the future.
3. Don't design by committee
But that doesn't mean everything should turn into design by (user) committee, or tyranny of the majority. That's not how excellent products get made. There has to be a balance between responding to feedback, and recognizing when you see possibilities that your users, for the time being, do not. Your job as a designer and a company is to create capabilities on their behalf, and not just implement exactly what users ask for. (Not in a high-handed way; users' needs and best interests should always be the focus.)
(It so happens that we had a very lively e-mail thread running around the frog offices about this exact topic recently. Do you stick to the vision or respond to feedback by changing the vision? The answer: "It depends." Not very satisfactory perhaps, but unfortunately basically true. There are well-known examples of hits and flops based on both approaches.)
Watch what happens...
We should all be watching very carefully how Facebook acts in the coming weeks as it responds to the conversation. It will undoubtedly provide lessons for the future for all of us.
Adam Richardson is the director of product strategy at frog design, where he guides strategy engagements for frog's international roster of clients, envisioning and creating new products, consumer electronics, and digital experiences. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network.
Topics:
Design,
Innovation,
Digital
Tags:
facebook,
saas,
software as a service,
web 2.0,
user experience
Share:
Digg
Del.icio.us
cnet_news406:http://news.cnet.com/8301-13641_3-10201715-44.html
Yahoo! Buzz
Recent posts from Matter/Anti-Matter
Facebook and the downsides of software as a service
SXSW conversations: some quick thoughts on the past, present, and future of Twitter
Is your brand vulnerable?
AIG, a space shuttle disaster, and creeping risk
@SXSW: foursquare and the future of direct(ed) messaging
Business, Ethics, Barcelona: Doing Good When You're Not Doing So Well
LIFT09: The future in permanent beta
Healthcare innovation: The files are IN the computer!
Manchester Utd 1 Liverpool 4: Benitez issues a quick guide on the way to defeat United
After watching his fast Spanish striker expose the weaknesses he had identified in Manchester United's defence, the 'fat Spanish waiter' was understandably satisfied.
It was Rafa Benitez, after all, who dismissed Arsene Wenger's declaration that United had become 'untouchable'. Benitez who insisted four weeks ago that the champions of England, Europe and the world were not the invincibles Arsenal's manager would have us think.
United's heaviest defeat at Old Trafford in 17 years was quite a way for Benitez to prove his point and now he only hopes that others, Wenger included, will copy the blueprint of his tactical masterplan.
If Liverpool are to have any hope of catching United, they need the teams still due at Old Trafford to follow the example of Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard and use a deadly combination of pace, power and skill to unlock Sir Alex Ferguson's record-breaking back line. As well, that is, as unsettle United's midfield with someone as destructive as Javier Mascherano.
Manchester Utd 1 Liverpool 4: Benitez issues a quick guide on the way to defeat United
By Matt Lawton Last updated at 1:56 AM on 16th March 2009
Comments (5)
Add to My Stories
After watching his fast Spanish striker expose the weaknesses he had identified in Manchester United's defence, the 'fat Spanish waiter' was understandably satisfied.
It was Rafa Benitez, after all, who dismissed Arsene Wenger's declaration that United had become 'untouchable'. Benitez who insisted four weeks ago that the champions of England, Europe and the world were not the invincibles Arsenal's manager would have us think.
Kop that: Rafa Benitez masterminds a stunning victory over Manchester United.
United's heaviest defeat at Old Trafford in 17 years was quite a way for Benitez to prove his point and now he only hopes that others, Wenger included, will copy the blueprint of his tactical masterplan.
If Liverpool are to have any hope of catching United, they need the teams still due at Old Trafford to follow the example of Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard and use a deadly combination of pace, power and skill to unlock Sir Alex Ferguson's record-breaking back line. As well, that is, as unsettle United's midfield with someone as destructive as Javier Mascherano.
More...
Manchester United 1 Liverpool 4: All the action as it unfolded
United legend Charlton says Liverpool defeat could prove to be a blessing
MANCHESTER UNITED FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET
LIVERPOOL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET
Until Saturday, United were unbeaten at home in the Barclays Premier League this season, having conceded just five goals. Teams were turning up convinced they had no hope of securing even a point. But United are not impenetrable, no team is, and Benitez is now urging others to take note.
In Liverpool's favour is the fact that there is pace in abundance in the teams that United still have to host between now and the end of the season. Aston Villa are at their best when they get the ball out to their wingers and so are Tottenham, while Manchester City and Arsenal also have quick players capable of terrorising Nemanja Vidic and Co.
Top man: Fernando Torres celebrates after hitting the first of Liverpool's four goals.
'I think United have weaknesses,' said Benitez. 'They have quality, a lot of quality in attack, that is the main thing that they have. They are strong in defence because they have plenty of possession. But when they don't have the ball and you move the ball quickly and play behind the defenders, you know you can beat them. We knew that they are really good at playing between the lines with penetrating passes.
'So we needed to stop these passes and put the midfielders under pressure every time they were going to receive the ball; and after that try to play simple and go forward quickly, because it's an offensive team and they are always high.'
Before this encounter, Vidic was a contender for Footballer of the Year. But the manner in which he was terrorised by Torres before receiving a straight red card for his professional foul on Gerrard has probably ruined any chance of that.
Benitez saw something in Vidic that he knew Torres could exploit. 'That was one of the ideas,' he said. 'We knew that maybe with Fernando's movement we could create problems for the defenders.'
Holding court in an Old Trafford press auditorium Ferguson has long refused to appear in after Premier League matches, Benitez was in his element. He had endured the Spanish waiter taunts from United fans and soaked up insults from Ferguson. 'Disturbed' and 'ridiculous' was how Ferguson described him after that outburst in January, adding last Friday that he will need to read 'Freud' to understand his rival. I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Benitez turned a 5 point lead to a 4 point deficit having played a game more than Utd in a little under 5 weeks (some genius). Yes they have had two fantastic wins in the last week, but you don't win leagues without consistancy and Liverpool haven't shown any off that since 1990. Would they swap that result for Utd's postion? yes of course they would If I was a Utd fan i would be a lot more worried about Chelsea than Liverpool. Semi final off FA, 2nd in PL and in the QF of the CL and all their big players are back. Benitez shoudl also learn to be quiet as Utd and Chelsea play 24 hours before Liverpool at the weekend and if they win there will be a lot of pressure on a 3rd place Liverpool to beat a team that haven't won for a while and are pushing for fourth spot. And we all know what happens to Liverpool on occassions like that..................
Click to rate Rating (0)
- Anon, Sussex, 16/3/2009 08:01
Being a loyal Everton supporter and true blue, I still have great desire for Liverpool to do well and Saturday showed me that they still have what it takes. Gerrard captained his team with all that would be expected of any manager because all the talk on the training ground and in the dressing room means nothing if the on field general doesn't keep the players in check. Gerrard did that and Liverpool did to United what they don't like, that is took the game to them and when they had the ball they moved it perfectly. Most teams go to Old Trafford wondering how many are going to be scored against them but Liverpool didn't which took United out of there comfort zone. A lesson was given to all other teams visiting Old Trafford or playing Manchester United. That lesson being don't be taken for granted. Well done Liverpool, and that from a True Blue must be a compliment.
It was Rafa Benitez, after all, who dismissed Arsene Wenger's declaration that United had become 'untouchable'. Benitez who insisted four weeks ago that the champions of England, Europe and the world were not the invincibles Arsenal's manager would have us think.
United's heaviest defeat at Old Trafford in 17 years was quite a way for Benitez to prove his point and now he only hopes that others, Wenger included, will copy the blueprint of his tactical masterplan.
If Liverpool are to have any hope of catching United, they need the teams still due at Old Trafford to follow the example of Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard and use a deadly combination of pace, power and skill to unlock Sir Alex Ferguson's record-breaking back line. As well, that is, as unsettle United's midfield with someone as destructive as Javier Mascherano.
Manchester Utd 1 Liverpool 4: Benitez issues a quick guide on the way to defeat United
By Matt Lawton Last updated at 1:56 AM on 16th March 2009
Comments (5)
Add to My Stories
After watching his fast Spanish striker expose the weaknesses he had identified in Manchester United's defence, the 'fat Spanish waiter' was understandably satisfied.
It was Rafa Benitez, after all, who dismissed Arsene Wenger's declaration that United had become 'untouchable'. Benitez who insisted four weeks ago that the champions of England, Europe and the world were not the invincibles Arsenal's manager would have us think.
Kop that: Rafa Benitez masterminds a stunning victory over Manchester United.
United's heaviest defeat at Old Trafford in 17 years was quite a way for Benitez to prove his point and now he only hopes that others, Wenger included, will copy the blueprint of his tactical masterplan.
If Liverpool are to have any hope of catching United, they need the teams still due at Old Trafford to follow the example of Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard and use a deadly combination of pace, power and skill to unlock Sir Alex Ferguson's record-breaking back line. As well, that is, as unsettle United's midfield with someone as destructive as Javier Mascherano.
More...
Manchester United 1 Liverpool 4: All the action as it unfolded
United legend Charlton says Liverpool defeat could prove to be a blessing
MANCHESTER UNITED FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET
LIVERPOOL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET
Until Saturday, United were unbeaten at home in the Barclays Premier League this season, having conceded just five goals. Teams were turning up convinced they had no hope of securing even a point. But United are not impenetrable, no team is, and Benitez is now urging others to take note.
In Liverpool's favour is the fact that there is pace in abundance in the teams that United still have to host between now and the end of the season. Aston Villa are at their best when they get the ball out to their wingers and so are Tottenham, while Manchester City and Arsenal also have quick players capable of terrorising Nemanja Vidic and Co.
Top man: Fernando Torres celebrates after hitting the first of Liverpool's four goals.
'I think United have weaknesses,' said Benitez. 'They have quality, a lot of quality in attack, that is the main thing that they have. They are strong in defence because they have plenty of possession. But when they don't have the ball and you move the ball quickly and play behind the defenders, you know you can beat them. We knew that they are really good at playing between the lines with penetrating passes.
'So we needed to stop these passes and put the midfielders under pressure every time they were going to receive the ball; and after that try to play simple and go forward quickly, because it's an offensive team and they are always high.'
Before this encounter, Vidic was a contender for Footballer of the Year. But the manner in which he was terrorised by Torres before receiving a straight red card for his professional foul on Gerrard has probably ruined any chance of that.
Benitez saw something in Vidic that he knew Torres could exploit. 'That was one of the ideas,' he said. 'We knew that maybe with Fernando's movement we could create problems for the defenders.'
Holding court in an Old Trafford press auditorium Ferguson has long refused to appear in after Premier League matches, Benitez was in his element. He had endured the Spanish waiter taunts from United fans and soaked up insults from Ferguson. 'Disturbed' and 'ridiculous' was how Ferguson described him after that outburst in January, adding last Friday that he will need to read 'Freud' to understand his rival. I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Benitez turned a 5 point lead to a 4 point deficit having played a game more than Utd in a little under 5 weeks (some genius). Yes they have had two fantastic wins in the last week, but you don't win leagues without consistancy and Liverpool haven't shown any off that since 1990. Would they swap that result for Utd's postion? yes of course they would If I was a Utd fan i would be a lot more worried about Chelsea than Liverpool. Semi final off FA, 2nd in PL and in the QF of the CL and all their big players are back. Benitez shoudl also learn to be quiet as Utd and Chelsea play 24 hours before Liverpool at the weekend and if they win there will be a lot of pressure on a 3rd place Liverpool to beat a team that haven't won for a while and are pushing for fourth spot. And we all know what happens to Liverpool on occassions like that..................
Click to rate Rating (0)
- Anon, Sussex, 16/3/2009 08:01
Being a loyal Everton supporter and true blue, I still have great desire for Liverpool to do well and Saturday showed me that they still have what it takes. Gerrard captained his team with all that would be expected of any manager because all the talk on the training ground and in the dressing room means nothing if the on field general doesn't keep the players in check. Gerrard did that and Liverpool did to United what they don't like, that is took the game to them and when they had the ball they moved it perfectly. Most teams go to Old Trafford wondering how many are going to be scored against them but Liverpool didn't which took United out of there comfort zone. A lesson was given to all other teams visiting Old Trafford or playing Manchester United. That lesson being don't be taken for granted. Well done Liverpool, and that from a True Blue must be a compliment.
Tupac's mother files cross-suit over film project
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Tupac Shakur's mother is firing back at independent production company Morgan Creek over the right to make a biopic about the late rapper.
In a $10 million cross-complaint set to be filed Monday morning, Afeni Shakur's Amaru Entertainment claims that Morgan Creek, CEO James Robinson and others tried to strong-arm a deal for Tupac movie rights, then sabotaged the project when Amaru attempted to set it up elsewhere.
"Instead of negotiating in good faith with (Amaru), they sought to obtain the rights by concocting a nonexistent 'agreement' and engaging in heavy-handed threats, coercion and intimidation to interfere with and ultimately destroy the film project," Amaru claims.
Morgan Creek first filed a lawsuit last month in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that Amaru, which controls the Tupac estate, backed out of a completed deal to sell life rights for a biopic about the slain rapper-actor.
The company, headed by Robinson and former Creative Artists Agency agent Rick Nicita, said it received a final term sheet in December detailing everything that would be required to reach an agreement. The proposal was accepted by Morgan Creek executives in late January, but Amaru has refused to honor it, the complaint alleged.
Now Amaru is seeking a court declaration that there never was a deal. Morgan Creek allegedly was one of several suitors for the project, among them Paramount, Fox Searchlight, Kennedy/Marshall and Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment. The cross-complaint says key details of a deal, including an executive producer credit for Afeni Shakur, were not worked out with Morgan Creek and that she hadn't even seen the proposed contract. Instead, Amaru's counteroffer was to be the basis for further negotiation, according to the filing.
But days after "Notorious," a biopic about Tupac rival Biggie Smalls, grossed more than $20 million in its opening weekend January 16-18, Morgan Creek executives allegedly arranged a conference call with an Amaru attorney to "accept" the counteroffer and began telling other studios and producers that Morgan Creek owned rights to the project.
"This was a sleazy and illegal ploy to coerce (Amaru) into a deal," says the cross-complaint, which demands millions in damages for derailing talks with potential studios and producers.
Morgan Creek and its attorney Patricia Glaser declined to comment.
Also named in the cross-complaint are Morgan Creek legal executive Don Hardison and consultant LT Hutton. Nicita is not named personally.
The legal move is not unexpected. At the time of the Morgan Creek filing, Amaru and its lawyer Skip Miller told The Hollywood Reporter that they promised to countersue for "millions" in damages.
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)
In a $10 million cross-complaint set to be filed Monday morning, Afeni Shakur's Amaru Entertainment claims that Morgan Creek, CEO James Robinson and others tried to strong-arm a deal for Tupac movie rights, then sabotaged the project when Amaru attempted to set it up elsewhere.
"Instead of negotiating in good faith with (Amaru), they sought to obtain the rights by concocting a nonexistent 'agreement' and engaging in heavy-handed threats, coercion and intimidation to interfere with and ultimately destroy the film project," Amaru claims.
Morgan Creek first filed a lawsuit last month in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that Amaru, which controls the Tupac estate, backed out of a completed deal to sell life rights for a biopic about the slain rapper-actor.
The company, headed by Robinson and former Creative Artists Agency agent Rick Nicita, said it received a final term sheet in December detailing everything that would be required to reach an agreement. The proposal was accepted by Morgan Creek executives in late January, but Amaru has refused to honor it, the complaint alleged.
Now Amaru is seeking a court declaration that there never was a deal. Morgan Creek allegedly was one of several suitors for the project, among them Paramount, Fox Searchlight, Kennedy/Marshall and Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment. The cross-complaint says key details of a deal, including an executive producer credit for Afeni Shakur, were not worked out with Morgan Creek and that she hadn't even seen the proposed contract. Instead, Amaru's counteroffer was to be the basis for further negotiation, according to the filing.
But days after "Notorious," a biopic about Tupac rival Biggie Smalls, grossed more than $20 million in its opening weekend January 16-18, Morgan Creek executives allegedly arranged a conference call with an Amaru attorney to "accept" the counteroffer and began telling other studios and producers that Morgan Creek owned rights to the project.
"This was a sleazy and illegal ploy to coerce (Amaru) into a deal," says the cross-complaint, which demands millions in damages for derailing talks with potential studios and producers.
Morgan Creek and its attorney Patricia Glaser declined to comment.
Also named in the cross-complaint are Morgan Creek legal executive Don Hardison and consultant LT Hutton. Nicita is not named personally.
The legal move is not unexpected. At the time of the Morgan Creek filing, Amaru and its lawyer Skip Miller told The Hollywood Reporter that they promised to countersue for "millions" in damages.
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)
Arsenal 4 Blackburn 0: Gloves are off as Arshavin acclimatises
Arsenal 4 Blackburn 0: Gloves are off as Arshavin acclimatises
By Simon Cass Last updated at 9:53 PM on 15th March 2009
Comments (2)
Add to My Stories
HAVE YOUR SAY: WILL ARSENAL HOLD ONTO FOURTH?
Midway through the first half of this thumping win for Arsenal, Andrey Arshavin removed his gloves and chucked them in the direction of the home dug-out.
It proved to be the precursor to a display which demonstrated that the hugely talented Russian is well on his way to acclimatising to life in the capital in more ways than one.
True, Arshavin's presence had already forced Blackburn defender Andre Ooijer to put the ball past his own keeper with the game less than two minutes old.
Tongues wagging: Andrey Arshavin enjoys scoring his spectacular first goal for Arsenal (below)
But, while clearly overjoyed at having helped his side to a morale-boosting start after three successive goalless draws at home, Arshavin had no hesitation in wagging a finger, gloves still on, towards his team-mates.
More...
Arsenal 4 Blackburn 0: How the action unfolded
Have your say: Will Arsenal hold onto fourth?
ARSENAL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WEB
BLACKBURN ROVERS FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WEB
His honesty was duly rewarded. The skill needed to fashion his first goal for his new club was a far more fitting way for Arshavin to open his Arsenal account than a scrambled, goalline affair.
Collecting the ball in acres of space on the left, a quick shimmy was enough to leave Danny Simpson chasing shadows. As everyone expected a pass, Arshavin opted instead to smash the ball over Paul Robinson and into the roof of the net from the tightest of angles.
Given his arrival at Arsenal coincided with the Russian off-season, it is little wonder Arshavin has needed time to get up to speed. Fitness, of course, was an issue, but so too was the need to put down roots in his new home.
Winning friends: Two-goal Emmanuel Eboue turned from zero to hero after converting a penalty to win over his Emirates critics
'It's not so easy,' admitted Arshavin of his transition to a new life away from mother Russia, before adding with a smile: 'I was alone, but my wife came two days ago. Maybe she gave me power for this match.'
The arrival of wife Yulia may well have been a case of From Russia with Love. But Arshavin is no love-sick softie - the fact that his wonderful second-half effort was scored in oversized boots after having had four stitches in a gash on his foot demonstrated as much.
Arsene Wenger was purring because his decision to break with tradition by splashing out on a 28-year-old is showing every sign of being a success. The coach paid tribute to Arshavin's toughness.
'There was no question that he wouldn't play in the second half,' said Wenger, praising Arshavin's decision to soldier on with the foot injury.
'He's not a soft boy at all. He's never in the medical room. He's a tough boy.
'He has had to have a real pre-season because in Russia they had stopped. People saw a guy, when he first came, having had 10 days' training.
'I think he is a man of challenges. To leave St Petersburg where he was the star and to come to England at 28 years of age and to say, "OK, I want to start it all again", you need character.'
HAVE YOUR SAY: WILL ARSENAL HOLD ONTO FOURTH?
Off target: Young Danish striker Nicklas Bendtner endured a frustrating afternoon for Arsenal after spurning a host of goal-begging chances
Character is also a quality Emmanuel Eboue has needed to rely upon of late, while yet another frustrating afternoon in front of goal for Nicklas Bendtner means the Danish striker is also going to have to dig deep.
But the fact Eboue came off the bench to score, before having the nerve to demand the late penalty which completed the rout, bodes well for the Ivory Coast international who had come dangerously close to losing the support of Arsenal fans.
'Bendtner will win over the fans, I'm not worried about that,' insisted Wenger. 'I was more worried about Eboue.
'I am pleased that he has started to score goals because he looked to us - and certainly to you as well - that he will never score goals. If he had not scored the first goal and had not scored last week against Burnley, he would certainly not have taken the penalty, which shows the importance of confidence.'
Keeping the confidence levels high is the task for Blackburn boss Sam Allardyce. But having guided his side to four wins and five draws from his 12 games since moving to Ewood Park, Allardyce seems confident his players can brush off the loss.
Strictly x-rated: Controversial Rovers striker El-Hadji Diouf (L) is booked by referee Phil Dowd following his reckless challenge on Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia
'We have to accept this defeat on the chin,' said Allardyce, who was more concerned at further additions to his long casualty list, having lost skipper Ryan Nelson before the game and Gael Givet and in-form Stephen Warnock during it.
'We can overcome this defeat,' added Allardyce. 'But the more important thing is about us overcoming the injured players.'
Had referee Phil Dowd been less lenient, Allardyce could also have been without El Hadji Diouf for three games after a late, high-footed challenge on Manuel Almunia. Blackburn, sitting one point above the relegation zone, cannot afford to lose Diouf.
Arsenal's need for a player of Arshavin's quality was there for all to see.
His arrival may have come too late as far as a title challenge is concerned - while he is also cup-tied in the Champions League - but with Arshavin in their side it seems Arsenal's gloves are off at last.
By Simon Cass Last updated at 9:53 PM on 15th March 2009
Comments (2)
Add to My Stories
HAVE YOUR SAY: WILL ARSENAL HOLD ONTO FOURTH?
Midway through the first half of this thumping win for Arsenal, Andrey Arshavin removed his gloves and chucked them in the direction of the home dug-out.
It proved to be the precursor to a display which demonstrated that the hugely talented Russian is well on his way to acclimatising to life in the capital in more ways than one.
True, Arshavin's presence had already forced Blackburn defender Andre Ooijer to put the ball past his own keeper with the game less than two minutes old.
Tongues wagging: Andrey Arshavin enjoys scoring his spectacular first goal for Arsenal (below)
But, while clearly overjoyed at having helped his side to a morale-boosting start after three successive goalless draws at home, Arshavin had no hesitation in wagging a finger, gloves still on, towards his team-mates.
More...
Arsenal 4 Blackburn 0: How the action unfolded
Have your say: Will Arsenal hold onto fourth?
ARSENAL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WEB
BLACKBURN ROVERS FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WEB
His honesty was duly rewarded. The skill needed to fashion his first goal for his new club was a far more fitting way for Arshavin to open his Arsenal account than a scrambled, goalline affair.
Collecting the ball in acres of space on the left, a quick shimmy was enough to leave Danny Simpson chasing shadows. As everyone expected a pass, Arshavin opted instead to smash the ball over Paul Robinson and into the roof of the net from the tightest of angles.
Given his arrival at Arsenal coincided with the Russian off-season, it is little wonder Arshavin has needed time to get up to speed. Fitness, of course, was an issue, but so too was the need to put down roots in his new home.
Winning friends: Two-goal Emmanuel Eboue turned from zero to hero after converting a penalty to win over his Emirates critics
'It's not so easy,' admitted Arshavin of his transition to a new life away from mother Russia, before adding with a smile: 'I was alone, but my wife came two days ago. Maybe she gave me power for this match.'
The arrival of wife Yulia may well have been a case of From Russia with Love. But Arshavin is no love-sick softie - the fact that his wonderful second-half effort was scored in oversized boots after having had four stitches in a gash on his foot demonstrated as much.
Arsene Wenger was purring because his decision to break with tradition by splashing out on a 28-year-old is showing every sign of being a success. The coach paid tribute to Arshavin's toughness.
'There was no question that he wouldn't play in the second half,' said Wenger, praising Arshavin's decision to soldier on with the foot injury.
'He's not a soft boy at all. He's never in the medical room. He's a tough boy.
'He has had to have a real pre-season because in Russia they had stopped. People saw a guy, when he first came, having had 10 days' training.
'I think he is a man of challenges. To leave St Petersburg where he was the star and to come to England at 28 years of age and to say, "OK, I want to start it all again", you need character.'
HAVE YOUR SAY: WILL ARSENAL HOLD ONTO FOURTH?
Off target: Young Danish striker Nicklas Bendtner endured a frustrating afternoon for Arsenal after spurning a host of goal-begging chances
Character is also a quality Emmanuel Eboue has needed to rely upon of late, while yet another frustrating afternoon in front of goal for Nicklas Bendtner means the Danish striker is also going to have to dig deep.
But the fact Eboue came off the bench to score, before having the nerve to demand the late penalty which completed the rout, bodes well for the Ivory Coast international who had come dangerously close to losing the support of Arsenal fans.
'Bendtner will win over the fans, I'm not worried about that,' insisted Wenger. 'I was more worried about Eboue.
'I am pleased that he has started to score goals because he looked to us - and certainly to you as well - that he will never score goals. If he had not scored the first goal and had not scored last week against Burnley, he would certainly not have taken the penalty, which shows the importance of confidence.'
Keeping the confidence levels high is the task for Blackburn boss Sam Allardyce. But having guided his side to four wins and five draws from his 12 games since moving to Ewood Park, Allardyce seems confident his players can brush off the loss.
Strictly x-rated: Controversial Rovers striker El-Hadji Diouf (L) is booked by referee Phil Dowd following his reckless challenge on Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia
'We have to accept this defeat on the chin,' said Allardyce, who was more concerned at further additions to his long casualty list, having lost skipper Ryan Nelson before the game and Gael Givet and in-form Stephen Warnock during it.
'We can overcome this defeat,' added Allardyce. 'But the more important thing is about us overcoming the injured players.'
Had referee Phil Dowd been less lenient, Allardyce could also have been without El Hadji Diouf for three games after a late, high-footed challenge on Manuel Almunia. Blackburn, sitting one point above the relegation zone, cannot afford to lose Diouf.
Arsenal's need for a player of Arshavin's quality was there for all to see.
His arrival may have come too late as far as a title challenge is concerned - while he is also cup-tied in the Champions League - but with Arshavin in their side it seems Arsenal's gloves are off at last.
Traffic Triples Heart Attack Risk
Whether you drive, take the bus, or bicycle, being in heavy traffic triples your risk of heart attack within one hour.
Air pollution from car fumes is the likely culprit, suggest Annette Peters, PhD, and colleagues at the Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Center, Munich, Germany.
In a previous study, Peters and colleagues found that a sizeable proportion of heart attacks -- about 8% -- could be attributed to being in traffic.
To follow up, the researchers interviewed 1,454 people who survived heart attacks. In the hour before their heart attack, many of the survivors had been in heavy traffic.
Analysis of the data showed that these heart-attack-vulnerable people were 3.2 times more likely to suffer a heart attack if they'd been in heavy traffic in the previous hour.
"One potential factor could be the exhaust and air pollution coming from other cars," Peters says in a news release. "But we can't exclude the synergy between stress and air pollution that could tip the balance."
Making it less likely that stress was involved was the fact that patients didn't have to be driving; the risk was the same whether they were driving or taking the bus.
Traffic appeared to be five times more dangerous to women than to men in the study, although the relatively small number of women in the study (325) may have made this calculation less accurate.
To nail down the true culprit, Peters and colleagues are working with University of Rochester researchers to determine exactly what it is about traffic that raises heart attack risk.
In that study, 120 healthy volunteers are driving to work and running errands wearing heart monitors, while other instruments measure their exposure to air pollution and to noise. The data and findings from this trial are not yet available.
Peters reported the current findings at this week's American Heart Association (AHA) meeting in Palm Harbor, Fla.
Air pollution from car fumes is the likely culprit, suggest Annette Peters, PhD, and colleagues at the Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Center, Munich, Germany.
In a previous study, Peters and colleagues found that a sizeable proportion of heart attacks -- about 8% -- could be attributed to being in traffic.
To follow up, the researchers interviewed 1,454 people who survived heart attacks. In the hour before their heart attack, many of the survivors had been in heavy traffic.
Analysis of the data showed that these heart-attack-vulnerable people were 3.2 times more likely to suffer a heart attack if they'd been in heavy traffic in the previous hour.
"One potential factor could be the exhaust and air pollution coming from other cars," Peters says in a news release. "But we can't exclude the synergy between stress and air pollution that could tip the balance."
Making it less likely that stress was involved was the fact that patients didn't have to be driving; the risk was the same whether they were driving or taking the bus.
Traffic appeared to be five times more dangerous to women than to men in the study, although the relatively small number of women in the study (325) may have made this calculation less accurate.
To nail down the true culprit, Peters and colleagues are working with University of Rochester researchers to determine exactly what it is about traffic that raises heart attack risk.
In that study, 120 healthy volunteers are driving to work and running errands wearing heart monitors, while other instruments measure their exposure to air pollution and to noise. The data and findings from this trial are not yet available.
Peters reported the current findings at this week's American Heart Association (AHA) meeting in Palm Harbor, Fla.
Possible therapy takes bite out of peanut allergy
A handful of children once severely allergic to peanuts now can munch them without worry. Scientists retrained their bodies to tolerate peanuts by feeding them tiny amounts of the very food that endangered them.
Don't try this on your own. Doctors monitored youngsters closely in case they needed rescue, and there's no way to dice a peanut as small as the treatment doses required.
But it's the first evidence that life-threatening peanut allergies one day may be cured. Immune system tests show no sign of remaining allergy in five children, and others can withstand amounts that once would have left them wheezing or worse, researchers reported Sunday.
Are the five cured? Doctors at Duke University Medical Center and Arkansas Children's Hospital must track them years longer to be sure.
"We're optimistic that they have lost their peanut allergy," said lead researcher Dr. Wesley Burks, Duke's allergy chief. "We've not seen this before medically. We'll have to see what happens to them."
More rigorous research is under way to confirm the pilot study, released at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. If it pans out, the approach could mark a major advance for an allergy that afflicts 1.8 million Americans.
For parents of these little allergy pioneers, that means no more fear that something as simple as sharing a friend's cookie at school could mean a race to the emergency room.
"It's such a burden lifted off your shoulder to realize you don't have to worry about your child eating a peanut and ending up really sick," said Rhonda Cassada of Hillsborough, N.C., whose 7-year-old son Ryan has been labeled allergy-free for two years and counting.
It's a big change for a child who couldn't tolerate one-sixth of a peanut when he entered the study at age 2 1/2. By age 5, Ryan could eat a whopping 15 at a time with no sign of a reaction.
Not that Ryan grew to like peanuts. "They smell bad," he said matter-of-factly.
Millions of Americans have food allergies. Peanut allergy is considered the most dangerous, with life-threatening reactions possible from trace amounts. It accounts for most of the 30,000 emergency-room visits and up to 200 deaths attributed to food allergies each year. Although some children outgrow peanut allergy, that's rare among the severely affected.
There's no way to avoid a reaction other than avoiding peanuts. Those allergy shots that help people allergic to pollen and other environmental triggers reduce or eliminate symptoms — by getting used to small amounts of the allergen — are too risky for food allergies.
Enter oral immunotherapy. Twenty-nine severely allergic children spent a day in the hospital swallowing minuscule but slowly increasing doses of a specially prepared peanut flour, until they had a reaction. The child went home with a daily dose just under that reactive amount, usually equivalent to 1/1,000th of a peanut.
After eight to 10 months of gradual dose increases, most can eat the peanut-flour equivalent of 15 peanuts daily, said Burks, who two years ago began reporting these signs of desensitization as long as children took their daily medicine.
Sunday's report takes the next big step. Nine children who'd taken daily therapy for 2 1/2 years were given a series of peanut challenges. Four in the initial study — and a fifth who finished testing last week — could stop treatment and avoid peanuts for an entire month and still have no reaction the next time they ate 15 whole peanuts. Immune-system changes suggest they're truly allergy-free, Burks said.
Scientists call that tolerance — meaning their immune systems didn't forget and go bad again — and it's a first for food allergy treatment, said Dr. Marshall Plaut of the National Institutes of Health.
"Anything that would enable kids to eat peanuts would be a major advance," Plaut said, cautioning that more study is needed. But "this paper, if it's correct, takes it to the next level. ... That is potentially very exciting."
Arkansas Children's Hospital has begun randomly assigning youngsters to eat either peanut flour or a dummy flour. The study is still under way but after the first year, the treated group ate the equivalent of 15 peanuts with no symptoms while the placebo group suffered symptoms to the equivalent of a single peanut, Burks said.
The treatment remains experimental, Burks stresses, although he hopes it will be ready for prime time in a few years.
And he isn't taking chances with the first five allergy-free kids. They're under orders to eat the equivalent of a tablespoon of peanut butter a day to keep their bodies used to the allergen.
Ryan Cassada says his mom sometimes "hides them in things so she can force me to eat it." Peanut butter cookies are OK, he says, just not straight peanut butter.
The battle is a small price, his mother said: "As much as I can get into him is fine with me. It's huge knowing he won't have a reaction."
Don't try this on your own. Doctors monitored youngsters closely in case they needed rescue, and there's no way to dice a peanut as small as the treatment doses required.
But it's the first evidence that life-threatening peanut allergies one day may be cured. Immune system tests show no sign of remaining allergy in five children, and others can withstand amounts that once would have left them wheezing or worse, researchers reported Sunday.
Are the five cured? Doctors at Duke University Medical Center and Arkansas Children's Hospital must track them years longer to be sure.
"We're optimistic that they have lost their peanut allergy," said lead researcher Dr. Wesley Burks, Duke's allergy chief. "We've not seen this before medically. We'll have to see what happens to them."
More rigorous research is under way to confirm the pilot study, released at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. If it pans out, the approach could mark a major advance for an allergy that afflicts 1.8 million Americans.
For parents of these little allergy pioneers, that means no more fear that something as simple as sharing a friend's cookie at school could mean a race to the emergency room.
"It's such a burden lifted off your shoulder to realize you don't have to worry about your child eating a peanut and ending up really sick," said Rhonda Cassada of Hillsborough, N.C., whose 7-year-old son Ryan has been labeled allergy-free for two years and counting.
It's a big change for a child who couldn't tolerate one-sixth of a peanut when he entered the study at age 2 1/2. By age 5, Ryan could eat a whopping 15 at a time with no sign of a reaction.
Not that Ryan grew to like peanuts. "They smell bad," he said matter-of-factly.
Millions of Americans have food allergies. Peanut allergy is considered the most dangerous, with life-threatening reactions possible from trace amounts. It accounts for most of the 30,000 emergency-room visits and up to 200 deaths attributed to food allergies each year. Although some children outgrow peanut allergy, that's rare among the severely affected.
There's no way to avoid a reaction other than avoiding peanuts. Those allergy shots that help people allergic to pollen and other environmental triggers reduce or eliminate symptoms — by getting used to small amounts of the allergen — are too risky for food allergies.
Enter oral immunotherapy. Twenty-nine severely allergic children spent a day in the hospital swallowing minuscule but slowly increasing doses of a specially prepared peanut flour, until they had a reaction. The child went home with a daily dose just under that reactive amount, usually equivalent to 1/1,000th of a peanut.
After eight to 10 months of gradual dose increases, most can eat the peanut-flour equivalent of 15 peanuts daily, said Burks, who two years ago began reporting these signs of desensitization as long as children took their daily medicine.
Sunday's report takes the next big step. Nine children who'd taken daily therapy for 2 1/2 years were given a series of peanut challenges. Four in the initial study — and a fifth who finished testing last week — could stop treatment and avoid peanuts for an entire month and still have no reaction the next time they ate 15 whole peanuts. Immune-system changes suggest they're truly allergy-free, Burks said.
Scientists call that tolerance — meaning their immune systems didn't forget and go bad again — and it's a first for food allergy treatment, said Dr. Marshall Plaut of the National Institutes of Health.
"Anything that would enable kids to eat peanuts would be a major advance," Plaut said, cautioning that more study is needed. But "this paper, if it's correct, takes it to the next level. ... That is potentially very exciting."
Arkansas Children's Hospital has begun randomly assigning youngsters to eat either peanut flour or a dummy flour. The study is still under way but after the first year, the treated group ate the equivalent of 15 peanuts with no symptoms while the placebo group suffered symptoms to the equivalent of a single peanut, Burks said.
The treatment remains experimental, Burks stresses, although he hopes it will be ready for prime time in a few years.
And he isn't taking chances with the first five allergy-free kids. They're under orders to eat the equivalent of a tablespoon of peanut butter a day to keep their bodies used to the allergen.
Ryan Cassada says his mom sometimes "hides them in things so she can force me to eat it." Peanut butter cookies are OK, he says, just not straight peanut butter.
The battle is a small price, his mother said: "As much as I can get into him is fine with me. It's huge knowing he won't have a reaction."
Gospel singer BeBe Winans accused of assaulting ex
Gospel singer BeBe Winans has been charged with misdemeanor domestic assault after a dispute with his ex-wife in Nashville.An arrest warrant filed Wednesday says 46-year-old Benjamin "BeBe" Winans (WHY'-nans) got into argument with his ex-wife about their children at her home on Feb 13.The warrant says Debra Winans told authorities Benjamin Winans pushed her to the ground.He was released from the Davidson County jail Thursday after posting $1,000 bond.Winans says in a statement that "the allegations are inconsistent with my character."Winans is a judge on BET's television show "Sunday Best." The four-time Grammy award-winner has recorded gospel albums with his sister CeCe Winans.
Obama expected to kill key Bush EPA program
The Obama administration intends to close an EPA program heavily promoted by the Bush Administration that rewards voluntary pollution controls by hundreds of corporations with reduced environmental inspections and less stringent regulation, according to EPA sources and internal emails.
EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson is expected to sign a memo terminating the Performance Track program, possibly as early as this week, senior EPA officials said Saturday.
Performance Track offers regulatory perks to corporations that pledge to save energy and reduce pollution. Entry into Performance Track, EPA's premier voluntary "Green Club," is supposed to be reserved for companies with sterling environmental records, but has been denounced by environmentalists as a public relations charade.
EPA's decision to close Performance Track comes three months after an Inquirer investigation found the program lauded companies with suspect environmental records, spent millions on recruiting and publicity and failed to independently confirm members' environmental pledges. The program became so desperate to find new members, The Inquirer found, that it turned to gift shops and post offices to pad its numbers.
A senior EPA official said Saturday in an interview the Inquirer's findings played a role in Jackson's decision.
The Inquirer's investigation of Performance Track came as part of a four-part series, published in December, on the Bush administration's subversion of the EPA, the federal agency charged with safeguarding human health and the environment.
The Inquirer found the Bush administration's antiregulatory bent drove down funding, regulation and employee morale as senior political appointees censored the agency's own scientific findings in ways that consistently benefited corporations.
The series detailed how the Bush Administration circumvented Congress to rewrite air pollution rules to benefit business, and how a conservative-leaning court later declared a dozen of those rules illegal, invoking unusually caustic language. The Inquirer analysis also found that in nearly 50 pollution lawsuits filed in Washington, the EPA settled 80 percent of those brought by industry, compared to just 15 percent of those filed by environmental groups.
Inquirer reporters investigated plants across the country as part of its investigation of Performance Track.
Voluntary programs, such as Performance Track, and partnerships between EPA and corporations can work, said the senior EPA official, who was involved in the decision to kill the program.
But, the official added, "this one wasn't doing what it was created to do." Ultimately, the official said, Performance Track benefited business more than the environment.
Although the Performance Track program is small, it was symbolic because it represented a big part of Bush's environmental strategy. Top Bush officials promoted Performance Track to fight global warming by encouraging companies to reduce greenhouse gases, rather than forcing them to do so.
During the Bush years, the program doubled its corporate membership to 548 and increased its budget fourfold to $4.7 million.
Critics, however, said the program did little more than burnish green images for corporations.
"Performance Track is Exhibit A for why voluntary environmental programs will never be as effective as strong laws, faithfully enforced," said John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Performance Track now joins eight years of failed Bush administration voluntary global warming approaches as mistakes we must not repeat."
EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson is expected to sign a memo terminating the Performance Track program, possibly as early as this week, senior EPA officials said Saturday.
Performance Track offers regulatory perks to corporations that pledge to save energy and reduce pollution. Entry into Performance Track, EPA's premier voluntary "Green Club," is supposed to be reserved for companies with sterling environmental records, but has been denounced by environmentalists as a public relations charade.
EPA's decision to close Performance Track comes three months after an Inquirer investigation found the program lauded companies with suspect environmental records, spent millions on recruiting and publicity and failed to independently confirm members' environmental pledges. The program became so desperate to find new members, The Inquirer found, that it turned to gift shops and post offices to pad its numbers.
A senior EPA official said Saturday in an interview the Inquirer's findings played a role in Jackson's decision.
The Inquirer's investigation of Performance Track came as part of a four-part series, published in December, on the Bush administration's subversion of the EPA, the federal agency charged with safeguarding human health and the environment.
The Inquirer found the Bush administration's antiregulatory bent drove down funding, regulation and employee morale as senior political appointees censored the agency's own scientific findings in ways that consistently benefited corporations.
The series detailed how the Bush Administration circumvented Congress to rewrite air pollution rules to benefit business, and how a conservative-leaning court later declared a dozen of those rules illegal, invoking unusually caustic language. The Inquirer analysis also found that in nearly 50 pollution lawsuits filed in Washington, the EPA settled 80 percent of those brought by industry, compared to just 15 percent of those filed by environmental groups.
Inquirer reporters investigated plants across the country as part of its investigation of Performance Track.
Voluntary programs, such as Performance Track, and partnerships between EPA and corporations can work, said the senior EPA official, who was involved in the decision to kill the program.
But, the official added, "this one wasn't doing what it was created to do." Ultimately, the official said, Performance Track benefited business more than the environment.
Although the Performance Track program is small, it was symbolic because it represented a big part of Bush's environmental strategy. Top Bush officials promoted Performance Track to fight global warming by encouraging companies to reduce greenhouse gases, rather than forcing them to do so.
During the Bush years, the program doubled its corporate membership to 548 and increased its budget fourfold to $4.7 million.
Critics, however, said the program did little more than burnish green images for corporations.
"Performance Track is Exhibit A for why voluntary environmental programs will never be as effective as strong laws, faithfully enforced," said John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Performance Track now joins eight years of failed Bush administration voluntary global warming approaches as mistakes we must not repeat."
Friday the 13th ???
Watch out for black cats, avoid mirrors and ladders and, by all means, don't spill the salt.
As most people probably already realize, today is Friday the 13th, a date commonly associated with bad luck.
For the next several hours, millions of superstitious individuals across the country will hold their breath anticipating misfortune. Others will avoid leaving the house altogether, refusing to drive, shop or work on the ill-fated day.
But whether you're a true triskaidekaphobe (a person with an irrational fear of Friday the 13th, also called a paraskevidekatriaphobe) or just mildly suspicious, it's probably a good idea to know just where your trepidation comes from.
Though it's hard to pinpoint the exact origins of any superstition, several Internet sites are devoted to the history of the Friday the 13th legend. And most list the same possible origins of the rumoured curse. One of the more lucid sites is David Emery's urbanlegends.about.
According to a biography on the Web site, Emery is a freelance journalist, as well as a staff writer for both a TV sitcom and a satirical newspaper. He has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Portland (Or.) State University and completed graduate studies in philosophy and the classics at the University of Texas at Austin. He apparently has a particular interest in modern folklore and founded urbanlegends.about.com to "debunk, deconstruct and discuss the most popular tall tales and hoaxes in circulation."
While the Web site explores everything from e-mail hoaxes to dubious quotes, three pages are devoted to the history of Friday the 13th.
According to the site, the superstition is derived from myths about both Fridays and the number 13.
Fridays, for example, are hailed as a particularly significant day in the Christian tradition. Obviously, there is Good Friday, the day Jesus Christ was crucified. But according to Christian lore, Adam and Eve also supposedly ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday, the Great Flood started on a Friday, the builders of the Tower of Babel were tongue-tied on a Friday and the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday.
Of course, the Bible doesn't specifically note many these events occurring on Fridays, and Emery explains some of the tradition may have stemmed from the fact that pre-Christian pagan cultures hailed Friday as holy days. The word "Friday" is, in fact, derived from a Norse deity who was worshipped on the sixth day of the week and who represented marriage and fertility. Fridays in the early Norse culture were associated with love and considered a good day for weddings.
Over time, however, mythology transformed the Norse fertility goddess into a witch, and Fridays became an unholy Sabbath. Incidentally, the goddess' sacred animal was a cat, which may explain the legendary connection between witches and cats, as well as the superstition about black cats heralding bad luck.
In addition to the legendary significance of Fridays, the sixth day of the week also was execution day in ancient Rome and later Hangman's Day in Britain, according the Emery's Web site.
The number 13 also has mythological and religious symbolism.
Both the Hindus and Vikings reportedly had a myth in which 12 gods were invited to a gathering and Loki, the god of mischief, crashed the party and incited a riot. Tradition in both cultures holds that 13 people at a dinner party is bad luck and will end in the death of the party-goers.
Following in that vein, the Last Supper in Christian tradition hosted 13 people and one betrayed Christ, resulting in the crucifixion.
The number 13 also has been associated with death in other cultures. The ancient Egyptians, for example, believed life unfolded in 12 stages, and the 13th stage was death. The Egyptians considered death a part of their ultimate journey and looked forward to the spiritual transformation ‹ thus 13 was not an unlucky number in their culture ‹ but like so many others, the tradition warped through time and cultures, eventually associating the number 13 with a more negative and fearful interpretation of death, Emery writes.
Finally, Emery suggests the number 13 may have an unlucky connotation because of its association with the lunar calendar (there are 13 lunar cycles in a year) and with femininity (women have 13 menstrual cycles in a year).
Then, there's the event that ties the two superstitions together.
"Though it's clear that superstitions associating Fridays and the number 13 with misfortune date back to the ancient times, some sources assign the precise origin of the black spot on the day itself, Friday the 13th, to a specific historical event," adds Emery.
It was on Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, that France's King Philip IV had the Knights Templar rounded up for torture and execution. The Knights Templar were an order of warriors within the Roman Catholic Church who banded together to protect Christian travellers visiting Jerusalem in the centuries after the Crusades. The Knights eventually became a rich, powerful ‹ and allegedly corrupt order within the church and were executed for heresy.
So, who knows?
The date may be forever cursed by one event that occurred nearly 700 years ago, or by a series of cosmic coincidences.
Or it may be a figment of human beings' collective imaginations.
As most people probably already realize, today is Friday the 13th, a date commonly associated with bad luck.
For the next several hours, millions of superstitious individuals across the country will hold their breath anticipating misfortune. Others will avoid leaving the house altogether, refusing to drive, shop or work on the ill-fated day.
But whether you're a true triskaidekaphobe (a person with an irrational fear of Friday the 13th, also called a paraskevidekatriaphobe) or just mildly suspicious, it's probably a good idea to know just where your trepidation comes from.
Though it's hard to pinpoint the exact origins of any superstition, several Internet sites are devoted to the history of the Friday the 13th legend. And most list the same possible origins of the rumoured curse. One of the more lucid sites is David Emery's urbanlegends.about.
According to a biography on the Web site, Emery is a freelance journalist, as well as a staff writer for both a TV sitcom and a satirical newspaper. He has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Portland (Or.) State University and completed graduate studies in philosophy and the classics at the University of Texas at Austin. He apparently has a particular interest in modern folklore and founded urbanlegends.about.com to "debunk, deconstruct and discuss the most popular tall tales and hoaxes in circulation."
While the Web site explores everything from e-mail hoaxes to dubious quotes, three pages are devoted to the history of Friday the 13th.
According to the site, the superstition is derived from myths about both Fridays and the number 13.
Fridays, for example, are hailed as a particularly significant day in the Christian tradition. Obviously, there is Good Friday, the day Jesus Christ was crucified. But according to Christian lore, Adam and Eve also supposedly ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday, the Great Flood started on a Friday, the builders of the Tower of Babel were tongue-tied on a Friday and the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday.
Of course, the Bible doesn't specifically note many these events occurring on Fridays, and Emery explains some of the tradition may have stemmed from the fact that pre-Christian pagan cultures hailed Friday as holy days. The word "Friday" is, in fact, derived from a Norse deity who was worshipped on the sixth day of the week and who represented marriage and fertility. Fridays in the early Norse culture were associated with love and considered a good day for weddings.
Over time, however, mythology transformed the Norse fertility goddess into a witch, and Fridays became an unholy Sabbath. Incidentally, the goddess' sacred animal was a cat, which may explain the legendary connection between witches and cats, as well as the superstition about black cats heralding bad luck.
In addition to the legendary significance of Fridays, the sixth day of the week also was execution day in ancient Rome and later Hangman's Day in Britain, according the Emery's Web site.
The number 13 also has mythological and religious symbolism.
Both the Hindus and Vikings reportedly had a myth in which 12 gods were invited to a gathering and Loki, the god of mischief, crashed the party and incited a riot. Tradition in both cultures holds that 13 people at a dinner party is bad luck and will end in the death of the party-goers.
Following in that vein, the Last Supper in Christian tradition hosted 13 people and one betrayed Christ, resulting in the crucifixion.
The number 13 also has been associated with death in other cultures. The ancient Egyptians, for example, believed life unfolded in 12 stages, and the 13th stage was death. The Egyptians considered death a part of their ultimate journey and looked forward to the spiritual transformation ‹ thus 13 was not an unlucky number in their culture ‹ but like so many others, the tradition warped through time and cultures, eventually associating the number 13 with a more negative and fearful interpretation of death, Emery writes.
Finally, Emery suggests the number 13 may have an unlucky connotation because of its association with the lunar calendar (there are 13 lunar cycles in a year) and with femininity (women have 13 menstrual cycles in a year).
Then, there's the event that ties the two superstitions together.
"Though it's clear that superstitions associating Fridays and the number 13 with misfortune date back to the ancient times, some sources assign the precise origin of the black spot on the day itself, Friday the 13th, to a specific historical event," adds Emery.
It was on Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, that France's King Philip IV had the Knights Templar rounded up for torture and execution. The Knights Templar were an order of warriors within the Roman Catholic Church who banded together to protect Christian travellers visiting Jerusalem in the centuries after the Crusades. The Knights eventually became a rich, powerful ‹ and allegedly corrupt order within the church and were executed for heresy.
So, who knows?
The date may be forever cursed by one event that occurred nearly 700 years ago, or by a series of cosmic coincidences.
Or it may be a figment of human beings' collective imaginations.
Jose Mourinho accused of punching fan
A football supporter claims Jose Mourinho gave him a special one – by punching him in the face after the Champions League defeat at Manchester United.
The United fan says the Inter Milan boss lashed out as he taunted him by singing: “Bye bye Mourinho.”
Officers are investigating the alleged assault, which is said to have taken place as Mourinho was boarding the team coach at Old Trafford on Wednesday night. But the Italian giants yesterday denied anything had happened and insisted Mourinho had “a very calm post-game experience”.
The supporter, who has not been named, comes from East Anglia.
Police have asked the club for CCTV footage. If detectives decide an assault did take place they may interview the charismatic Portuguese manager, who is a favourite to take over at Old Trafford when Sir Alex Ferguson retires.
Inter said ex-Chelsea boss Mourinho gave several interviews after the 2-0 defeat. He then went into Sir Alex’s office to say goodbye before chatting to Inter’s TV channel.
The alleged attack is said to have happened seconds after Mourinho finished speaking and headed towards the team bus.
Mourinho, who describes himself as the Special One, yesterday held a post-match training session near Milan. He did not comment on the allegation.
The United fan says the Inter Milan boss lashed out as he taunted him by singing: “Bye bye Mourinho.”
Officers are investigating the alleged assault, which is said to have taken place as Mourinho was boarding the team coach at Old Trafford on Wednesday night. But the Italian giants yesterday denied anything had happened and insisted Mourinho had “a very calm post-game experience”.
The supporter, who has not been named, comes from East Anglia.
Police have asked the club for CCTV footage. If detectives decide an assault did take place they may interview the charismatic Portuguese manager, who is a favourite to take over at Old Trafford when Sir Alex Ferguson retires.
Inter said ex-Chelsea boss Mourinho gave several interviews after the 2-0 defeat. He then went into Sir Alex’s office to say goodbye before chatting to Inter’s TV channel.
The alleged attack is said to have happened seconds after Mourinho finished speaking and headed towards the team bus.
Mourinho, who describes himself as the Special One, yesterday held a post-match training session near Milan. He did not comment on the allegation.
T.I. "Porn Star" Producer Talks Grand Hustle Success
As Grand Hustle has developed star producers ranging from the veteran DJ Toomp to Danja to Drumma Boy, another face and sound might be next. Jackson, Mississippi's Cordale "Lil C" Quinn might be just 21, but he's got more stripes under his belt than many older colleagues. Most recently, Lil C produced the Pop-fused "Porn Star" for T.I.'s [click to read] Paper Trail [click to read].
However, as far back as 2005, Lil C was locking down major placements, like "My Hood," the final single from Young Jeezy's debut. "From high school, I was just hustlin' beats. Instead of being in the streets," C told HipHopDX late last week. "I was doing the music thing. I started sellin' beats to different dudes that was rappin' in high school - maybe they or their parents had money; I used to sell beats from $500 to [1,000]. It helped pay the bills and shit like that."
Although "My Hood" might've been a single, Lil C found his biggest success to date producing Yung Dro's 2006 hit "Shoulder Lean." According the then-teenage producer, it was an instant single. "It didn't take Tip but like 15 minutes to hear the beat and [place it as a single]. That's when the [Grand Hustle] chemistry started, right there."
The chemistry did follow. "After 'My Hood,' I was coming back and forth from Jackson to Atlanta with a friend of mine. I met Jason Geter, which is T.I.'s manager. That's like my right-hand man. I moved to Atlanta, made this home. It took a year, that's when I hooked up with him [and worked on] the Yung Dro album - had like four tracks on his first album [Best Thang Smokin'] [click to read]."
Being part of one of the fastest-growing, most respected labels and families in Hip Hop has elevated C's profile. "I was always doing my own thing, workin' with other artists from different [cities] like Dallas, New York, Cali. When I got with [Grand Hustle], it just made me certified."
After hits with front-runners T.I. and Yung Dro, Lil C is now connecting with more recent and younger Grand Hustle artists. "Working with Yung L.A. has been a crazy experience. B.o.B. [click here], same thing, he's a wonderful artist. I just talked to him today. I got a banger on [his album] too. Yung Dro, 8Ball & MJG - that's two of my favorite artists right there, since 'Space Age.' It's just crazy to work with legends," said the 21 year-old.
Of his most recent hit, "Porn Star," the producer said he looked at T.I.'s previous catalogue for inspiration. "When I made that record, I knew we had to come up with a big song for the females. I thought about it...Tip being Tip, he's always gonna have the 'Let's Get Away' - the 'Why You Wanna' on the album, so I had to give him somethin' - I had to step it up. [Laughs]"
Although Lil C would not disclose artists, the Mississippi native says he hopes to take his abilities to the Pop genre next, and has work lined up for 2009.
However, as far back as 2005, Lil C was locking down major placements, like "My Hood," the final single from Young Jeezy's debut. "From high school, I was just hustlin' beats. Instead of being in the streets," C told HipHopDX late last week. "I was doing the music thing. I started sellin' beats to different dudes that was rappin' in high school - maybe they or their parents had money; I used to sell beats from $500 to [1,000]. It helped pay the bills and shit like that."
Although "My Hood" might've been a single, Lil C found his biggest success to date producing Yung Dro's 2006 hit "Shoulder Lean." According the then-teenage producer, it was an instant single. "It didn't take Tip but like 15 minutes to hear the beat and [place it as a single]. That's when the [Grand Hustle] chemistry started, right there."
The chemistry did follow. "After 'My Hood,' I was coming back and forth from Jackson to Atlanta with a friend of mine. I met Jason Geter, which is T.I.'s manager. That's like my right-hand man. I moved to Atlanta, made this home. It took a year, that's when I hooked up with him [and worked on] the Yung Dro album - had like four tracks on his first album [Best Thang Smokin'] [click to read]."
Being part of one of the fastest-growing, most respected labels and families in Hip Hop has elevated C's profile. "I was always doing my own thing, workin' with other artists from different [cities] like Dallas, New York, Cali. When I got with [Grand Hustle], it just made me certified."
After hits with front-runners T.I. and Yung Dro, Lil C is now connecting with more recent and younger Grand Hustle artists. "Working with Yung L.A. has been a crazy experience. B.o.B. [click here], same thing, he's a wonderful artist. I just talked to him today. I got a banger on [his album] too. Yung Dro, 8Ball & MJG - that's two of my favorite artists right there, since 'Space Age.' It's just crazy to work with legends," said the 21 year-old.
Of his most recent hit, "Porn Star," the producer said he looked at T.I.'s previous catalogue for inspiration. "When I made that record, I knew we had to come up with a big song for the females. I thought about it...Tip being Tip, he's always gonna have the 'Let's Get Away' - the 'Why You Wanna' on the album, so I had to give him somethin' - I had to step it up. [Laughs]"
Although Lil C would not disclose artists, the Mississippi native says he hopes to take his abilities to the Pop genre next, and has work lined up for 2009.
BBC team exposes cyber crime risk
The BBC has now warned users that their PCs are infected, and advised them on how to make their systems more secure.
Concerted attack
Click managed to acquire its own low-value botnet - the name given to a network of hijacked computers - after visiting chatrooms on the internet.
The programme did not access any personal information on the infected PCs.
If this exercise had been done with criminal intent it would be breaking the law.
But our purpose was to demonstrate botnets' collective power when in the hands of criminals.
Click ordered its PCs to send out spam to two specific test e-mail addresses set up by the programme.
Cyber gangs use botnets to support crimes such as fraud and theft
Within hours, the inboxes started to fill up with thousands of junk messages.
But a botnet can also be used to launch a concerted attack on commercial websites to take them out of action.
Hefty ransom
By prior agreement, Click launched a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on a backup site owned by security company Prevx.
Click then ordered its slave PCs to bombard its target site with requests for access to make it inaccessible.
Amazingly, it took only 60 machines to overload the site's bandwidth.
DDoS attacks are used by extortionists who threaten to knock a site offline unless a hefty ransom is paid.
Jacques Erasmus from Prevx said that high-traffic websites with big revenues are a "massive target" for this kind of attack.
"Cyber criminals are getting into contact with websites and threatening them with DDoS attacks.
"The loss of trade is very substantial so a lot of these websites just pay-up to avoid it," he explained.
Evolving threat
Click has now destroyed its botnet, and no longer controls any hijacked machines.
However, the owners of unprotected PCs have been made aware that they are vulnerable to future attacks.
How a botnet works
In graphics
In addition, Click advised them on what steps to take to make their systems more secure. Most computers have protection systems that need to be switched on and kept updated to protect them against the evolving threat from hackers.
Machines can be compromised simply by visiting an infected web page or opening an e-mail containing a virus as an attachment.
'Very professional'
Hackers exploit unprotected computers for valuable data such as banking and credit card details.
Criminals use botnets to send out thousands of spam messages, store stolen data, and fraud.
For instance, "phishing" e-mails which attempt to trick people into revealing their bank details are often routed through a botnet.
Users are normally unaware that their PCs are being controlled remotely by cyber criminals because there are almost no symptoms.
Greg Day from security firm McAfee explained that the people who control botnets are "very skilled professionals."
"We've seen this move from what used to be a hobbyist bit of fun into something now that is very professional," he said.
Hackers are keen to recruit new PCs to a botnet to create a resource that they sell or hire out to other cyber criminals.
But some networks of hijacked computers are of "much more value" than others, according to Mr Erasmus.
"Computers from the US and the UK go for about $350 to $400 (£254-£290) for 1,000 because they've got much more financial details, like online banking passwords and credit cards details," he said.
Concerted attack
Click managed to acquire its own low-value botnet - the name given to a network of hijacked computers - after visiting chatrooms on the internet.
The programme did not access any personal information on the infected PCs.
If this exercise had been done with criminal intent it would be breaking the law.
But our purpose was to demonstrate botnets' collective power when in the hands of criminals.
Click ordered its PCs to send out spam to two specific test e-mail addresses set up by the programme.
Cyber gangs use botnets to support crimes such as fraud and theft
Within hours, the inboxes started to fill up with thousands of junk messages.
But a botnet can also be used to launch a concerted attack on commercial websites to take them out of action.
Hefty ransom
By prior agreement, Click launched a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on a backup site owned by security company Prevx.
Click then ordered its slave PCs to bombard its target site with requests for access to make it inaccessible.
Amazingly, it took only 60 machines to overload the site's bandwidth.
DDoS attacks are used by extortionists who threaten to knock a site offline unless a hefty ransom is paid.
Jacques Erasmus from Prevx said that high-traffic websites with big revenues are a "massive target" for this kind of attack.
"Cyber criminals are getting into contact with websites and threatening them with DDoS attacks.
"The loss of trade is very substantial so a lot of these websites just pay-up to avoid it," he explained.
Evolving threat
Click has now destroyed its botnet, and no longer controls any hijacked machines.
However, the owners of unprotected PCs have been made aware that they are vulnerable to future attacks.
How a botnet works
In graphics
In addition, Click advised them on what steps to take to make their systems more secure. Most computers have protection systems that need to be switched on and kept updated to protect them against the evolving threat from hackers.
Machines can be compromised simply by visiting an infected web page or opening an e-mail containing a virus as an attachment.
'Very professional'
Hackers exploit unprotected computers for valuable data such as banking and credit card details.
Criminals use botnets to send out thousands of spam messages, store stolen data, and fraud.
For instance, "phishing" e-mails which attempt to trick people into revealing their bank details are often routed through a botnet.
Users are normally unaware that their PCs are being controlled remotely by cyber criminals because there are almost no symptoms.
Greg Day from security firm McAfee explained that the people who control botnets are "very skilled professionals."
"We've seen this move from what used to be a hobbyist bit of fun into something now that is very professional," he said.
Hackers are keen to recruit new PCs to a botnet to create a resource that they sell or hire out to other cyber criminals.
But some networks of hijacked computers are of "much more value" than others, according to Mr Erasmus.
"Computers from the US and the UK go for about $350 to $400 (£254-£290) for 1,000 because they've got much more financial details, like online banking passwords and credit cards details," he said.
Michelle Obama visits 'All American' 82nd Airbourne sans Barack for first solo trip as First Lady
Michelle Obama went to the home base of the "All American" 82nd Airborne Division Thursday to begin fulfilling her First Lady pledge to be advocate-in-chief for military families.
"Our soldiers and their families have done their duty - and they do it without complaint," she said. "And we as a grateful nation must do ours - do everything in our power to honor them by supporting them."
On her first solo official venture outside Washington, Obama swept into the "Iron Mike" mess hall at historic Fort Bragg in North Carolina to cheers and applause.
She also met privately with more than 20 families on the base.
Obama later huddled with four toddlers who were making "Thank You" notes for wounded soldiers. And she read from Dr. Seuss' "The Cat in the Hat" to pre-schoolers at the Prager Child Development Center on the sprawling post.
The First Lady gently teased a youngster with a pink bow in her hair: "What are you all dressed up for? You have a special guest or something?"
Obama said she was also concerned with the struggling families of the National Guard and reserves.
"I encourage everyone out there, within the sound of my voice, to reach out on your own - through schools, PTA, Little L agues, churches, workplaces - and find out if there's a soldier or a soldier's family right there in the community who needs a little extra support," she said.
During the presidential campaign, Obama met frequently with military wives near military bases and pledged to define her role as First Lady as an advocate for the troops and their families.
Since the election, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has encouraged Obama to visit bases and press for increased benefits and child care.
At Bragg, Sgt. 1st Class Ashlyn Lewis, 31, of Indianapolis, told the Associated Press that Obama's visit underlined the pressing need for ensuring "that the people that are coming home are getting the proper medical care."
The Veterans for America group praised Obama's commitment to military families, saying that mulitiple tours in combat zones "are shredding our military's readiness and straining even the bonds of marriage among military families."
"Our soldiers and their families have done their duty - and they do it without complaint," she said. "And we as a grateful nation must do ours - do everything in our power to honor them by supporting them."
On her first solo official venture outside Washington, Obama swept into the "Iron Mike" mess hall at historic Fort Bragg in North Carolina to cheers and applause.
She also met privately with more than 20 families on the base.
Obama later huddled with four toddlers who were making "Thank You" notes for wounded soldiers. And she read from Dr. Seuss' "The Cat in the Hat" to pre-schoolers at the Prager Child Development Center on the sprawling post.
The First Lady gently teased a youngster with a pink bow in her hair: "What are you all dressed up for? You have a special guest or something?"
Obama said she was also concerned with the struggling families of the National Guard and reserves.
"I encourage everyone out there, within the sound of my voice, to reach out on your own - through schools, PTA, Little L agues, churches, workplaces - and find out if there's a soldier or a soldier's family right there in the community who needs a little extra support," she said.
During the presidential campaign, Obama met frequently with military wives near military bases and pledged to define her role as First Lady as an advocate for the troops and their families.
Since the election, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has encouraged Obama to visit bases and press for increased benefits and child care.
At Bragg, Sgt. 1st Class Ashlyn Lewis, 31, of Indianapolis, told the Associated Press that Obama's visit underlined the pressing need for ensuring "that the people that are coming home are getting the proper medical care."
The Veterans for America group praised Obama's commitment to military families, saying that mulitiple tours in combat zones "are shredding our military's readiness and straining even the bonds of marriage among military families."
Growing pollution leads to "global dimming": study
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Visibility on clear days has declined in much of the world since the 1970s thanks to a rise in airborne pollutants, scientists said on Thursday.
They described a "global dimming" in particular over south and east Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, while visibility remained relatively stable over North America and improved over Europe, the researchers said.
Aerosols, tiny particles or liquid droplets belched into the air by the burning of fossil fuels and other sources, are responsible for the dimming, the researchers said.
"Aerosols are going up over a lot of the world, especially Asia," Robert Dickinson of the University of Texas, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.
Dickinson and two University of Maryland researchers tracked measurements of visibility -- the distance someone can see on clear days -- taken from 1973 to 2007 at 3,250 meteorological stations worldwide.
Aerosols like soot, dust and sulfur dioxide particles all harmed visibility, they said in the journal Science.
The researchers used recent satellite data to confirm that the visibility measurements from the meteorological stations were a good indicator of aerosol concentrations in the air.
The aerosols from burning coal, industrial processes and the burning of tropical forests can influence the climate and be a detriment to health, the researchers said.
Other pollutants such as carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases are transparent and do not affect visibility.
The data will help researchers understand long-term changes in air pollution and how these are associated with climate change, said Kaicun Wang of the University of Maryland.
"This study provides basic information for future climate studies," Wang said in a telephone interview.
The scientists blamed increased industrial activity in places like China and India for some of the decreased visibility, while they said air quality regulations in Europe helped improve visibility there since the mid-1980s.
The aerosols can have variable cooling and heating effects on surface temperatures, reflecting light back into space and reducing solar radiation at the Earth's surface or absorbing solar radiation and heating the atmosphere, they added.
They described a "global dimming" in particular over south and east Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, while visibility remained relatively stable over North America and improved over Europe, the researchers said.
Aerosols, tiny particles or liquid droplets belched into the air by the burning of fossil fuels and other sources, are responsible for the dimming, the researchers said.
"Aerosols are going up over a lot of the world, especially Asia," Robert Dickinson of the University of Texas, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.
Dickinson and two University of Maryland researchers tracked measurements of visibility -- the distance someone can see on clear days -- taken from 1973 to 2007 at 3,250 meteorological stations worldwide.
Aerosols like soot, dust and sulfur dioxide particles all harmed visibility, they said in the journal Science.
The researchers used recent satellite data to confirm that the visibility measurements from the meteorological stations were a good indicator of aerosol concentrations in the air.
The aerosols from burning coal, industrial processes and the burning of tropical forests can influence the climate and be a detriment to health, the researchers said.
Other pollutants such as carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases are transparent and do not affect visibility.
The data will help researchers understand long-term changes in air pollution and how these are associated with climate change, said Kaicun Wang of the University of Maryland.
"This study provides basic information for future climate studies," Wang said in a telephone interview.
The scientists blamed increased industrial activity in places like China and India for some of the decreased visibility, while they said air quality regulations in Europe helped improve visibility there since the mid-1980s.
The aerosols can have variable cooling and heating effects on surface temperatures, reflecting light back into space and reducing solar radiation at the Earth's surface or absorbing solar radiation and heating the atmosphere, they added.
Google introduces phone services
Google has strengthened its mobile services with the debut of a service called Voice that could be a challenge to Skype and other phone firms.
It lets customers make cheap international calls and gives them a speech-to-text feature for voicemail.
The services are available thanks to Google's acquisition of phone firm GrandCentral which gives users a lifelong universal phone number.
"This could be big. Google is seen as disruptive," said analyst Jon Arnold.
"They are a wild card in telecoms and wireless but this is Google and they are very smart at what they do.
"The core of Google's business is search and for a long time the industry was concerned about the GrandCentral acquisition. What was the fit? What was the motivation? It will be interesting to see where they ultimately go with this," said Mr Arnold, principal of analyst firm J Arnold & Associates.
Table stakes
Google Voice is the first major update to GrandCentral, which Google bought for an undisclosed sum, thought to be $50m (£36m) in 2007.
The service gives subscribers one number that lets them route all their phones through - home, office and mobile.
Users also get a single voicemail account regardless of which phone messages are left on.
Skype says it expects to double its revenue to over $1billion in 2011
Google Voice is the latest attempt by the company to reach out beyond online search and advertising.
Domestic calls will be free but international calls will require users to set up a Google Checkout account. Calls to landlines in the UK will cost 2 cents per minute.
EBay's Skype offers free domestic and international calls made over the internet from one computer to another, but there is a charge to landlines and mobile phones.
Skype president Josh Silverman told analysts and investors that "chat and voice will become table stakes". He also revealed that the company is adding 350,000 new users a day and is on track to do more than 100 billion calling minutes in 2009 alone.
Google does not view the service as a threat to Skype or other telecom companies any more than its Google Talk offering, which lets users chat over the internet for free.
"This is about allowing your existing phone to work better," said Craig Walker, now group product manager for real time communications at Google and co-founder of GrandCentral.
"It's not that we are replacing your phone, we are giving [it] the ability to work better," he said.
He declined to say how many users had signed up. Google Voice is currently only available to former GrandCentral users.
"Chore"
Google Voice also allows all voice messages to be turned into text which will then be sent either through an e-mail or an sms.
"Voicemail can be a pretty negative experience for a lot of people," said Mr Walker.
"Now it's about putting the user in control. We will transcribe voicemails and convert it into text and put it in your inbox so that it's searchable and you will always have a record of that voicemail.
"Voicemail need no longer be the chore it has been in the past," he declared.
Mr Walker demonstrated its search capabilities by displaying the 1,000 or so voicemails he had accumulated while testing the system over the past few months.
By typing "pool man" in a search box, he located an old voicemail from December 2008. Returned results were in both text and audio form.
"I would never have been able to find that number. The phone company deletes everything for you after a couple of weeks and the scrap of paper I wrote the number on is long gone. This feature makes your voicemail a pretty powerful tool," said Mr Walker.
Opportunity
Google boss Eric Schmidt said he viewed mobile as the next big opportunity.
At the recent Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco, Mr Schmidt said he believed mobile search revenues would over take those on a PC within a few years
"The fact of the matter is that mobile devices are going to be the majority of the way that people get information," he said.
A report in February by the Kelsey Group suggested that "about 20% of U.S. cell phone subscribers are on the mobile web right now and only about 5.2 million are doing searches".
Mr Arnold said that if Google perfected its speech-to-text feature to other languages, all bets were off.
"This could be very powerful given the globalisation of markets. Language is another barrier and when you break that down, the world of communications opens up and globally this has exciting opportunities," he said.
It lets customers make cheap international calls and gives them a speech-to-text feature for voicemail.
The services are available thanks to Google's acquisition of phone firm GrandCentral which gives users a lifelong universal phone number.
"This could be big. Google is seen as disruptive," said analyst Jon Arnold.
"They are a wild card in telecoms and wireless but this is Google and they are very smart at what they do.
"The core of Google's business is search and for a long time the industry was concerned about the GrandCentral acquisition. What was the fit? What was the motivation? It will be interesting to see where they ultimately go with this," said Mr Arnold, principal of analyst firm J Arnold & Associates.
Table stakes
Google Voice is the first major update to GrandCentral, which Google bought for an undisclosed sum, thought to be $50m (£36m) in 2007.
The service gives subscribers one number that lets them route all their phones through - home, office and mobile.
Users also get a single voicemail account regardless of which phone messages are left on.
Skype says it expects to double its revenue to over $1billion in 2011
Google Voice is the latest attempt by the company to reach out beyond online search and advertising.
Domestic calls will be free but international calls will require users to set up a Google Checkout account. Calls to landlines in the UK will cost 2 cents per minute.
EBay's Skype offers free domestic and international calls made over the internet from one computer to another, but there is a charge to landlines and mobile phones.
Skype president Josh Silverman told analysts and investors that "chat and voice will become table stakes". He also revealed that the company is adding 350,000 new users a day and is on track to do more than 100 billion calling minutes in 2009 alone.
Google does not view the service as a threat to Skype or other telecom companies any more than its Google Talk offering, which lets users chat over the internet for free.
"This is about allowing your existing phone to work better," said Craig Walker, now group product manager for real time communications at Google and co-founder of GrandCentral.
"It's not that we are replacing your phone, we are giving [it] the ability to work better," he said.
He declined to say how many users had signed up. Google Voice is currently only available to former GrandCentral users.
"Chore"
Google Voice also allows all voice messages to be turned into text which will then be sent either through an e-mail or an sms.
"Voicemail can be a pretty negative experience for a lot of people," said Mr Walker.
"Now it's about putting the user in control. We will transcribe voicemails and convert it into text and put it in your inbox so that it's searchable and you will always have a record of that voicemail.
"Voicemail need no longer be the chore it has been in the past," he declared.
Mr Walker demonstrated its search capabilities by displaying the 1,000 or so voicemails he had accumulated while testing the system over the past few months.
By typing "pool man" in a search box, he located an old voicemail from December 2008. Returned results were in both text and audio form.
"I would never have been able to find that number. The phone company deletes everything for you after a couple of weeks and the scrap of paper I wrote the number on is long gone. This feature makes your voicemail a pretty powerful tool," said Mr Walker.
Opportunity
Google boss Eric Schmidt said he viewed mobile as the next big opportunity.
At the recent Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco, Mr Schmidt said he believed mobile search revenues would over take those on a PC within a few years
"The fact of the matter is that mobile devices are going to be the majority of the way that people get information," he said.
A report in February by the Kelsey Group suggested that "about 20% of U.S. cell phone subscribers are on the mobile web right now and only about 5.2 million are doing searches".
Mr Arnold said that if Google perfected its speech-to-text feature to other languages, all bets were off.
"This could be very powerful given the globalisation of markets. Language is another barrier and when you break that down, the world of communications opens up and globally this has exciting opportunities," he said.
Wangari Maathai calls on armies to join the Billion Tree Campaign
The world's armies and UN peacekeepers around the globe should join the Billion Tree Campaign as it strives to reach its target of 7 billion trees planted by the end of 2009, according to Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai.
Speaking during the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)'s Governing Council meeting, Wangari Maathai, who is the co-patron of the Billion Tree Campaign, appealed to Heads of State around the world.
"Imagine all soldiers marching for the planet," the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate said.
"While the armies of the world are waiting to fight an enemy that comes with a gun, we have another enemy, an unseen enemy, an enemy that is destroying our environment," she added. "The enemy that takes away our topsoil, takes away our waters, destroys our forests, destroys the air we breathe, clears the forest."
"This is the unseen enemy and it cannot be fought with a gun ? this enemy can be fought with a tree," Wangari Maathai said. "So you can imagine how wonderful it would be if every soldier on this planet started seeing himself and herself as a soldier for the planet ? holding a gun on one side and a tree seedling on the other, to fight this unseen enemy which is actually more dangerous to us than the other enemy."
Her words come as a growing number of governments, communities and people around the world join the Billion Tree Campaign. The campaign, which is under the patronage of Wangari Maathai and His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, has now catalyzed the planting of 2.6 billion trees in 165 countries around the world, far exceeding its original target.
On 22 February, Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez personally planted the 40 millionth tree in Lima, concluding the country's National Tree Campaign of Afforestation and Reforestation. Peru plans to plant another 60 million trees by 2010.
So far, the roll of honour of the countries where the biggest number of trees have been planted is headed by Ethiopia (700 million trees), Mexico (470 million trees) and Turkey (400 million trees).
Speaking during the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)'s Governing Council meeting, Wangari Maathai, who is the co-patron of the Billion Tree Campaign, appealed to Heads of State around the world.
"Imagine all soldiers marching for the planet," the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate said.
"While the armies of the world are waiting to fight an enemy that comes with a gun, we have another enemy, an unseen enemy, an enemy that is destroying our environment," she added. "The enemy that takes away our topsoil, takes away our waters, destroys our forests, destroys the air we breathe, clears the forest."
"This is the unseen enemy and it cannot be fought with a gun ? this enemy can be fought with a tree," Wangari Maathai said. "So you can imagine how wonderful it would be if every soldier on this planet started seeing himself and herself as a soldier for the planet ? holding a gun on one side and a tree seedling on the other, to fight this unseen enemy which is actually more dangerous to us than the other enemy."
Her words come as a growing number of governments, communities and people around the world join the Billion Tree Campaign. The campaign, which is under the patronage of Wangari Maathai and His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, has now catalyzed the planting of 2.6 billion trees in 165 countries around the world, far exceeding its original target.
On 22 February, Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez personally planted the 40 millionth tree in Lima, concluding the country's National Tree Campaign of Afforestation and Reforestation. Peru plans to plant another 60 million trees by 2010.
So far, the roll of honour of the countries where the biggest number of trees have been planted is headed by Ethiopia (700 million trees), Mexico (470 million trees) and Turkey (400 million trees).
Men's Sex Lives May Suffer as Waistlines Expand
The more obese a man, the greater his hormonal changes and the worse his sex life, a new study finds.
On the up side, the study's authors found that gastric bypass surgery can help reverse those ills.
"Previous studies have found that obesity is correlated to lower sperm count and can be associated with infertility, but we wanted to know if obesity was biologically associated with an unsatisfying sex life, and if so, could it be reversible," the study's lead author, Dr. Ahmad Hammoud, of the University of Utah, said in an Endocrine Society news release. "Our results show that the answer to both questions may be yes."
The researchers checked the weight, body mass index (BMI) and reproductive hormone levels of 64 obese men at the start of the study and again two years later, after some of them had what's known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. The participants also filled out questionnaires about the quality of their lives.
"In our study population, we found that lower testosterone levels and diminished ratings for sexual quality of life were correlated with increased BMI," Hammoud said. "Subjects who lost weight through bariatric surgery experienced a reduction in estradiol [hormone] levels, an increase in testosterone levels and an increase in ratings of sexual quality of life."
The study will appear in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
The findings highlight a link between sexual quality of life and hormonal measures independent from weight, Hammoud said. He added that further studies are needed to determine a cause-and-effect relationship.
More information
On the up side, the study's authors found that gastric bypass surgery can help reverse those ills.
"Previous studies have found that obesity is correlated to lower sperm count and can be associated with infertility, but we wanted to know if obesity was biologically associated with an unsatisfying sex life, and if so, could it be reversible," the study's lead author, Dr. Ahmad Hammoud, of the University of Utah, said in an Endocrine Society news release. "Our results show that the answer to both questions may be yes."
The researchers checked the weight, body mass index (BMI) and reproductive hormone levels of 64 obese men at the start of the study and again two years later, after some of them had what's known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. The participants also filled out questionnaires about the quality of their lives.
"In our study population, we found that lower testosterone levels and diminished ratings for sexual quality of life were correlated with increased BMI," Hammoud said. "Subjects who lost weight through bariatric surgery experienced a reduction in estradiol [hormone] levels, an increase in testosterone levels and an increase in ratings of sexual quality of life."
The study will appear in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
The findings highlight a link between sexual quality of life and hormonal measures independent from weight, Hammoud said. He added that further studies are needed to determine a cause-and-effect relationship.
More information
YouTube blocks UK users from watching music videos
Google Inc. said Monday it will block U.K. users from watching music videos on its popular video-sharing site YouTube after negotiations with Britain's music royalty-collecting body broke down.
Google said it would begin blocking British users starting Monday night. The Internet titan said it knew the move would cause "significant disappointment."
But it said its hand was forced by PRS for Music, which it said is asking for royalties that would cause Google to lose money every time a video was played on YouTube.
"Our previous license from PRS for Music has expired, and we've been unable so far to come to an agreement to renew it on terms that are economically sustainable for us," Google said in a statement. Until a solution is found, it added, "we will be blocking premium music videos in the UK that have been supplied or claimed by record labels."
PRS for Music, which collects money on behalf of writers and publishers worldwide, said it was outraged by Google's move.
"Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing," the group said in a statement.
Neither group revealed how much money is at stake in their negotiations.
YouTube has become an increasingly popular destination for record labels squeezed by declining sales for compact discs. The Web site has deals with three of the four major record labels but some rights-holders have balked at their cut of the advertising revenue.
In December, Warner Music pulled all of its music from YouTube, saying the payments it received did not fairly compensate the label or its artists and songwriters.
It was not clear how long the music videos would stay blocked. Both PRS for Music and Google said they hoped their dispute could be resolved quickly.
The video Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love," licensed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment U.K. Ltd., which has garnered more than 83 million hits, was still visible from the U.K. late Monday.
Google said it would begin blocking British users starting Monday night. The Internet titan said it knew the move would cause "significant disappointment."
But it said its hand was forced by PRS for Music, which it said is asking for royalties that would cause Google to lose money every time a video was played on YouTube.
"Our previous license from PRS for Music has expired, and we've been unable so far to come to an agreement to renew it on terms that are economically sustainable for us," Google said in a statement. Until a solution is found, it added, "we will be blocking premium music videos in the UK that have been supplied or claimed by record labels."
PRS for Music, which collects money on behalf of writers and publishers worldwide, said it was outraged by Google's move.
"Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing," the group said in a statement.
Neither group revealed how much money is at stake in their negotiations.
YouTube has become an increasingly popular destination for record labels squeezed by declining sales for compact discs. The Web site has deals with three of the four major record labels but some rights-holders have balked at their cut of the advertising revenue.
In December, Warner Music pulled all of its music from YouTube, saying the payments it received did not fairly compensate the label or its artists and songwriters.
It was not clear how long the music videos would stay blocked. Both PRS for Music and Google said they hoped their dispute could be resolved quickly.
The video Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love," licensed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment U.K. Ltd., which has garnered more than 83 million hits, was still visible from the U.K. late Monday.
Mugabe attends Susan Tsvangirai memorial service
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe spoke at a memorial service Tuesday for the wife of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who was killed last week in a car wreck.
Morgan Tsvangirai addresses mourners Monday at his house in Harare soon after his return from Botswana.
"We are doing our best that we create a conducive environment and tell our supporters that the issue of violence must end," he said.
Hundreds of people gathered at the Glamis Stadium in the capital, Harare, for Tuesday's memorial service for Susan Tsvangirai. The funeral will take place Wednesday in Tsvangirai's rural village of Buhera, south of the capital.
Marriam Garwe said she traveled 200 kilometers (124 miles) to attend Tuesday's service.
"I want to pay my last respects to Mrs. Tsvangirai," said Garwe, 43, who is from Mutoko. "I am sad that she died before Mr. Tsvangirai is the president."
Morgan Tsvangirai, a leading opposition figure, recently joined a power-sharing government with Mugabe after last year's bloody election campaign.
Members of Tsvangirai's political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, initially said the prime minister believed Friday's crash that killed his wife was an assassination attempt.
Tsvangirai, who was hurt in the wreck, dismissed those assertions Monday.
"When something like that happens there is speculation, but I want to assure you, if it was foul play it is one in a thousand," he said after returning home from neighboring Botswana. "It was an accident that took her life."
Don't Miss
Tsvangirai rules out foul play in fatal crash
Magistrate arrested in Zimbabwe; activists freed
Attorney: Release of Mugabe opponent unlikely
Mugabe has made an effort to show his sympathy and support for Tsvangirai, his political rival. He visited the prime minister in the hospital and has said the government will provide a state-assisted funeral for Susan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai has long been a leading opposition figure in Zimbabwe, but he joined a coalition government with Mugabe last month. That seemed to resolve an impasse created by a disputed presidential election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai last year.
Tsvangirai received the most votes in the March 2008 election, but he fell short of the 50 percent required to avoid a runoff. He withdrew as a candidate in the runoff, citing political violence and intimidation targeting his supporters.
Negotiations between the two sides culminated in the power-sharing agreement that was implemented just weeks ago.
Questions about the wreck surfaced shortly after it happened Friday on a busy two-lane highway between Tsvangirai's hometown of Buhera and Harare.
The secretary-general of Tsvangirai's party, Tendai Biti, said police should have provided better security for Tsvangirai. The wreck might not have happened, he said, if a police escort been on hand.
A former U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Tom McDonald, said the wreck raised suspicion.
"I'm skeptical about any motor vehicle accident in Zimbabwe involving an opposition figure," said McDonald, who was ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1997 to 2001.
"President Mugabe has a history of strange car accidents when someone, lo and behold, dies -- it's sort of his M.O. of how they get rid of people they don't like."
McDonald, however, was quick to add that traffic accidents are common in Zimbabwe. The highway on which Tsvangirai was traveling is a two-lane road on which tractor-trailers are common, he said. Vehicles in the country are often in bad shape and many drivers are inexperienced, he said.
"It's certainly plausible that this was just one of those tragic things," he said.
Morgan Tsvangirai addresses mourners Monday at his house in Harare soon after his return from Botswana.
"We are doing our best that we create a conducive environment and tell our supporters that the issue of violence must end," he said.
Hundreds of people gathered at the Glamis Stadium in the capital, Harare, for Tuesday's memorial service for Susan Tsvangirai. The funeral will take place Wednesday in Tsvangirai's rural village of Buhera, south of the capital.
Marriam Garwe said she traveled 200 kilometers (124 miles) to attend Tuesday's service.
"I want to pay my last respects to Mrs. Tsvangirai," said Garwe, 43, who is from Mutoko. "I am sad that she died before Mr. Tsvangirai is the president."
Morgan Tsvangirai, a leading opposition figure, recently joined a power-sharing government with Mugabe after last year's bloody election campaign.
Members of Tsvangirai's political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, initially said the prime minister believed Friday's crash that killed his wife was an assassination attempt.
Tsvangirai, who was hurt in the wreck, dismissed those assertions Monday.
"When something like that happens there is speculation, but I want to assure you, if it was foul play it is one in a thousand," he said after returning home from neighboring Botswana. "It was an accident that took her life."
Don't Miss
Tsvangirai rules out foul play in fatal crash
Magistrate arrested in Zimbabwe; activists freed
Attorney: Release of Mugabe opponent unlikely
Mugabe has made an effort to show his sympathy and support for Tsvangirai, his political rival. He visited the prime minister in the hospital and has said the government will provide a state-assisted funeral for Susan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai has long been a leading opposition figure in Zimbabwe, but he joined a coalition government with Mugabe last month. That seemed to resolve an impasse created by a disputed presidential election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai last year.
Tsvangirai received the most votes in the March 2008 election, but he fell short of the 50 percent required to avoid a runoff. He withdrew as a candidate in the runoff, citing political violence and intimidation targeting his supporters.
Negotiations between the two sides culminated in the power-sharing agreement that was implemented just weeks ago.
Questions about the wreck surfaced shortly after it happened Friday on a busy two-lane highway between Tsvangirai's hometown of Buhera and Harare.
The secretary-general of Tsvangirai's party, Tendai Biti, said police should have provided better security for Tsvangirai. The wreck might not have happened, he said, if a police escort been on hand.
A former U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Tom McDonald, said the wreck raised suspicion.
"I'm skeptical about any motor vehicle accident in Zimbabwe involving an opposition figure," said McDonald, who was ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1997 to 2001.
"President Mugabe has a history of strange car accidents when someone, lo and behold, dies -- it's sort of his M.O. of how they get rid of people they don't like."
McDonald, however, was quick to add that traffic accidents are common in Zimbabwe. The highway on which Tsvangirai was traveling is a two-lane road on which tractor-trailers are common, he said. Vehicles in the country are often in bad shape and many drivers are inexperienced, he said.
"It's certainly plausible that this was just one of those tragic things," he said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)