Retired FBI supervisor John Morris took the witness stand in the Whitey Bulger trial Thursday and Friday, describing conduct that could have landed him in jail if he hadn?t gotten an immunity deal.
By Mark Trumbull,?Staff writer / June 28, 2013
This 2011 booking photo provided by the US Marshals Service shows James "Whitey" Bulger, captured in Santa Monica, Calif., after 16 years on the run.
U.S. Marshals Service/AP/File
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Officially it is former crime boss James ?Whitey? Bulger who?s on trial, but this week a lot of incriminating evidence pointed in another direction: at Boston FBI agents whose job was to take down organized crime.
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Retired FBI supervisor John Morris was on the witness stand Thursday and Friday, describing behavior that could have landed him in jail if he hadn?t gotten an immunity deal for his willingness to testify.
Mr. Morris acknowledged that he accepted money and gifts from Mr. Bulger, that he helped to feed sensitive information to Bulger, and that he signed off on misleading reports about what information Bulger was sharing with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Bad behavior by the FBI doesn?t mean that Bulger is likely to win the ?not guilty? jury verdict that he hopes for. He's being tried on racketeering counts that include 19 alleged murders.
But the trial is opening a new window on a cautionary chapter in FBI history.
Four decades ago, in an era when the agency?s focus was on attacking Italian-American organized crime, its Boston office developed a cozy and corrupt relationship with the Irish-American crime group led by Bulger and a few colleagues.
The FBI listed Bulger and his partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, as top informants against other criminals. But Bulger?s handler, a former Morris subordinate named John Connolly, went from being lauded for his anti-Mafia successes to serving prison time as a convicted felon.
On Friday, Morris acknowledged that he panicked when Bulger and Mr. Flemmi were indicted in 1995 because he knew his acceptance of bribes from Bulger could be exposed.
"I was worried about whether I could be prosecuted," Morris said. "I certainly did not want my bad behavior known in any manner, shape, or form."
Mr. Connolly was convicted of tipping off Bulger to the 1995 indictment, which had prompted Bulger to flee Boston in what became a 16-year stint as a fugitive. Flemmi is in prison. Bulger was captured in 2011, while living in California, and is now immersed in a trial that could last through the summer.
Morris said he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors because he "wanted to set things straight" after taking actions he knew were wrong. He ended up testifying for the prosecution when Connolly was convicted of second-degree murder, in 2008.
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? The first week of George Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial closed Friday. At the start of the week, prosecutors and defense attorneys outlined their cases for the jury of six women. Then prosecutors began putting on their case.
Zimmerman is pleading not guilty. He has said he fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012 in self-defense.
Beginning Monday, prosecutors will continue presenting their case for a second week. They are likely to call forensic experts and other investigators before defense attorneys get a chance to put on their witnesses.
Here are five key moments from the past week.
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EXPLETIVES AND A KNOCK-KNOCK JOKE
Both came in opening statements. Prosecutor John Guy repeated words Zimmerman had uttered under his breath to a police dispatcher as he followed Martin. In the courtroom, jaws dropped and spectators looked around at one another. Defense attorney Don West began his statement with a knock-knock joke about the difficulty of picking a jury in the case. Even he admitted the joke sounded weird.
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RACHEL JEANTEL VS. DON WEST
Jeantel was on the phone with Martin moments before his confrontation with Zimmerman and is considered a key prosecution witnesses. She testified that Martin told her he was being followed by "a creepy-ass cracker." But it was her testy cross-examination exchanges with West that commanded the most attention. Each asked the other to repeat what they were saying many times. At one moment, Jeantel urged West to move on to his next question: "You can go. You can go." On her second day on the stand, she seemed more subdued. West asked her, "You feeling OK today? You seem different than yesterday."
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"GROUND AND POUND." Even though he was called Friday by the prosecution, John Good, a former neighbor of Zimmerman, gave testimony that seemed to bolster the defense contention that Martin was on top of Zimmerman in the fight. Good said he saw Martin straddling Zimmerman in manner similar to a mixed-martial art maneuver known as "ground and pound."
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911 CALLS
The 911 calls made by neighbors were repeatedly played for jurors. Neighbors asked police to respond as moans for help followed by a gunshot are heard. A series of neighbors testified about what they heard of the fight, and then prosecutors played corresponding 911 calls as witnesses sat on the stand. Some neighbors teared up as they heard their panicked voices.
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MARTIN'S PARENTS ON RACE
Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, Martin's parents, held a news conference Thursday in which their attorney said they didn't want race injected into the trial. Some reporters asked why the nation's most prominent black civil rights leaders had been invited to Sanford to demand Zimmerman's arrest if race wasn't an issue. But attorney Daryl Parks said at this stage of the case, it shouldn't be a factor.
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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP
Sarah Lane in American Ballet Theatre's Sleeping Beauty
Photo by Rosalie O'Connor
As one of American Ballet Theatre's top soloists, all-American Ballerina Sarah Lane occasionally gets the opportunity to dance in principal roles. For the first time in the last five years, Lane will once again be dancing the role of Aurora in ABT's Sleeping Beauty at the Met. With ABT's long roster of established stars and international guest artists who dance the principal roles, opportunities such as this can be much less frequent than young dancers like Lane would prefer.
Sarah Lane is married to fellow company member, Luis Rigaborda, and when they are not in New York, they frequently visit Rigaborda's native Spain. In person, Lane is disarmingly direct, humorous and without affectation. Her cheerful, engaging manner and personal accessibility is a large part of why this talented ballerina is so popular. We didn't really talk about that noisy controversy having to do with her role as Natalie Portman's dance double in the film, Black Swan. It's something that will probably follow her for the rest of her career but it isn't something that she thinks about. Lane is always looking ahead, never back. In a recent interview, she spoke of her return to the role of Aurora, her life as a dancer and expectations beyond.
So... getting any dance double work lately? Sarah Lane: No, thank God! (laughs) That little bit of extra money was nice, of course, but other than that, well, it was a cool experience looking back on it now. The part that came after wasn't so fun. Everyone loves drama.
How does it feel to be doing Sleeping Beauty again after five years? It's hard because my memories were of it feeling very natural because I had rehearsed it so much, at the point where I did it at the Met at least. I had rehearsed so much and it was so ingrained in me. It's one of the hardest ballets but I wasn't struggling with myself. I feel almost like I'm starting all over from the beginning and what I remember as feeling completely natural now feels unnatural. You build something and then you knock it all over and then you start from scratch -- it's sort of that feeling. I have to go into the studio with a sense of humor, sort of, and maybe be a little bit more critical of myself but not in a way that tears down my enthusiasm. Does it feel like a lot of pressure since you only get one performance of Sleeping Beauty? I am struggling with the fact that it feels like more pressure because I haven't done it in five years and I got some negative feedback about it in the past. I got some really amazing feedback initially and then all of a sudden I got some negative feedback that I didn't see coming. So I kind of had to deal with that and the whole underlying principle of criticism.
You mean about how people give it or how you receive it? I can't control how people give criticism but I can control how I accept it and how much of it I accept. That was a learning experience for me. Now I think I'm in a new place and I'm doing it for myself. When I was younger I don't think things fazed me as much because I hadn't been through as much. I am stronger now and I've learned a lot over these years of having to struggle through. It's what you go through as you grow and mature as an artist. All of those things make me a better dancer to do a better job this time around. I just don't want anything to take away from my enjoyment of the role.
One of the most important things for somebody in your position, doing principal roles, is the coaching on the mime parts, the acting part... so who do you go to now that Susan Jaffe is gone? Well, Irina Kolpakova. I've always loved Irina but she can't coach every single ballerina in the company.
How was it for you after Susan Jaffe left? That was really hard, actually. The reason why she was so good for me and for Isabella (Boylston) was that we really bonded with her and she was there when we really needed her at a time when we really had no one else to guide us. Sometimes you don't know if the little details really matter but she was there to call them out and it taught me to see those details. She showed me how to work in a more thoughtful way and artistically, she gave me so much and she improved a lot of things that I needed more work on. I continue to try and push myself on all those things we worked on and to remember them.
Do you ever go outside the company for help? Yes, I have in the past. I've worked with Alessandra Ferri and Amanda McKerrow. Isabelle Guerin coached me for Other Dances which I did for a freelance performance. I loved working with her. I got a lot out of it. There are male coaches, good coaches, but I think that a female coach is needed for certain roles like Sleeping Beauty.
The Rose Adagio and those balances... it's kind of a nightmare to have that be the first thing you have to do when you come on stage for Sleeping Beauty. I'm going to do my best and that's all that I can do. I don't want to psyche myself out about those difficult moments because the thing is, I could go out there and hit all of those balances but there could be nothing else there for the audience. I would rather work on all the fine details that I can to refine the role so that, if something goes wrong here or there, there's going to be more that I give. You just can't count on those technical things. You can work really hard and be strong but if something doesn't go right there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't change who you are as a dancer.
You'll be dancing with Daniil Simkin for this performance, how is that partnership? He's always great to work with, actually. He has a great personality and he's very easygoing which helps me a lot. Dancing with someone who tenses up and freaks out isn't helpful to me at all because of my own personality. I'm such a perfectionist and I get nervous before I go on stage. It's nice to work with someone like him because he's very calm. He has a great sense of humor and we laugh a lot.
Who did you look up to as a dance role model when you were a kid? Anyone who inspired you to say, I want to be like her? I didn't see a lot of performances from professional companies growing up and YouTube wasn't there yet. That probably would have helped me in my development as a dancer to be able to see professionals more often but I didn't know many dancers really. The first ballet I really saw was here at the Met when I was sixteen. It was Amanda McKerrow doing Giselle. She's always been a huge inspiration for me. I think she's a really beautiful and special artist. She has something that not everyone has. Also, of course, Susan Jaffe and Alessandra Ferri and Julie Kent. Also Paloma Herrera... her technique is flawless. What roles do you think are within your reach now that you would like to get the chance to do? I learned Copp?lia so I would like to have a shot at that. It's not that difficult and it's a fun role that's down my alley. Of course I would love to do Juliet. I almost got thrown into Romeo and Juliet in China because Hee Seo and Julie Kent were both injured. Hee ended up being fine but I did get to learn it and have rehearsals with James Whiteside. It would be nice to have a show and not just rehearse it. Those things I feel like I'm more than ready for.
Is it hard to be patient waiting for new roles? As I've gotten older I've come to see things in other ways and realize that maybe I wasn't really ready for this role or that... but now I feel that if they gave me a show of Romeo and Juliet I would really take it and there are so many things that I would do differently than when I was younger which are all for the better. I try to learn while I wait.
You and your husband, Luis, spend your summers in Spain after the Met season ends. What is that like and what do you do when you're off work and let everything go? It's really hard for me to relax at first. I go stir crazy. Even when I'm at home on the weekends I'll be thinking, I should be doing the dishes or walk the dogs or I should go get groceries, do the laundry, clean the baseboards... (laughs) I'm really anal sometimes. I like to clean and keep my apartment tidy. When I go to Spain it forces me to relax because Luis's mom is not even a typical Spanish mom, she's above and beyond that. She just does everything.
She's truly amazing and has inspired me as a wife and a mom and a woman. When I go there she won't let me lift a finger to do anything. Now I'm learning how to win the battles, slowly, you know. When I get there, I'm really able to chill and I know she likes to be able to take care of us. She loves having us there, but after a week of that I'm ready to go again. Two weeks off is too much for me. I can take one week off but the second week I have to do something like Pilates or Gyrokinesis at least. I love to wake up and get my body moving or I feel grumpy.
Are you thinking of starting a family? It's something that's important to me. Ballet is a short life and there are certain things you have to sacrifice for it but there's a point beyond which you shouldn't sacrifice. For me, it would be a lonely life after ballet if I didn't have a family.
What is Sarah Lane all about? I love what I do and it's really important to me. Every day, especially when I go on stage, I try to give more than just steps. When I'm performing, I try to give something of myself. Hopefully people see that and take it away with them. I want people to come to the ballet and be able to forget about their lives. I want them, for one moment, to get lost in the beauty that ballet can create.
Sarah Lane will be performing the role of Princess Aurora in American Ballet Theatre's Sleeping Beauty at the Metropolitan Opera House on July 3.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA has selected Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, to take over operations, maintenance and development of the space shuttle's idled landing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials said on Friday.
Terms of the agreement, which have not yet been finalized, were not disclosed, but Space Florida has made no secret about its desire to take over facilities no longer needed by NASA to develop a multi-user commercial spaceport, somewhat akin to an airport or seaport.
The state already has a lease for one of the space shuttle's processing hangars, and an agreement with Boeing to use the refurbished facility for its planned commercial space taxi.
The so-called CST-100 is one of three spaceships under development in partnership with NASA to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, a permanently staffed, $100 billion research outpost that flies about 250 miles above Earth.
NASA ended its 30-year space shuttle program in 2011, leaving Russia's Soyuz capsules as the sole means to transport crews to the station, a service that costs the United States more than $70 million per person. NASA hopes to buy rides commercially from a U.S. company by 2017.
The shuttle's retirement left the Kennedy Space Center loaded with equipment and facilities that are not needed in NASA's new human space initiative, which includes a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule for journeys to asteroids, the moon and other destinations beyond the space station's orbit.
Last year, NASA solicited proposals for agencies or companies to take over the shuttle landing facility and its 15,000-foot (4,572-meter) runway, one of the longest in the world.
Additional landing site infrastructure includes an aircraft parking ramp measuring 480 by 550 feet, a landing aids control building, a 90-foot (27-meter) wide shuttle tow way, an air traffic control tower and a 23,000-square-foot (2,137-square-meter) enclosure used by convoy vehicles that serviced the shuttles after landing.
In addition to shuttles returning from orbit, the runway is used by heavy transport aircraft, military cargo planes, T-38, Gulfstream G-2 and F-104 aircraft, and helicopters.
Space Florida would like that list to also include suborbital passenger ships, such as the two-seater Lynx space plane being developed by privately owned XCOR Aerospace, orbital vehicles like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's air-launched Stratolaunch Systems, and unmanned aircraft.
"We look forward to working with NASA and KSC leadership in the coming months to finalize the details of this transaction in a way that will provide the greatest benefit to incoming commercial aerospace businesses," Space Florida President Frank DiBello said in a statement.
Turning the shuttle landing facility over to a commercial operator will save NASA more than $2 million a year in operations and maintenance costs, documents posted on the agency's procurement website show.
The landing facility also includes a 50,000-square-foot (4,645-square-meter) hangar that Space Florida already owns. A commercial flight services company, Starfighters Aerospace, currently operates there.
NASA said it received five bids for the shuttle landing facility, including the winning one.
The announcement that Space Florida had been chosen was made by NASA administrator Charles Bolden who was in Florida for the opening of the shuttle Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Proposals to take over one of the shuttle's two launch pads are due on July 5.
When it isn't being fired at or around you, ammunition can be kind of beautiful. We've already seen the striking beauty of exploding bullets trapped in plexiglass, but photographer Sabine Pearlman found a different, but equally awesome bullet-photography approach: cutting them in half.
Her photo series AMMO, conisists of shots of the innards of over 900 different types of ammunition, showing not only how carefully engineered and unique every different kind of bullet is, but also just how damn pretty they are up close.
Of course, there are more themes at play here than just "pretty bullets." The work's official description puts it this way:
Pearlman?s photographs blur our preconceptions by humanizing the tools of the shooter, showing us their simplicity and aesthetic balance, their serene arrangement of part. Yet, Pearlman?s work also acts to disarm the shooter. Cloven in two and isolated from their context, they are rendered harmless. The viewer is forced to contemplate them as abstractions. composed of shapes and angles, flecks of color and texture, devoid of use.
But even with all that said, I just can't get over how some of the explosive material looks a whole hell of a lot like Cocoa Pebbles.
You can catch more of Sabine's work over on her Facebook page, or check out her portfolio over at her website.
Images ? Sabine Pearlman | Ammunition cross-sections from the series "AMMO"
When you first sign up for SwarmIQ (free), a Web-based RSS feed reader, it asks you to select a couple of "interests," an indication that it'll be more like a self-curated online magazine, along the lines of Flipboard for iPad or Pulse, than a true RSS reader. But the good news is, you can move forward with the signup process even if you select no interests. Phew! You can import a Google Reader OPML file, and, upon importing, SwarmIQ preserves your folder organization and feed order. It was at this point in testing SwarmIQ that I felt hopeful about its capabilities, but those dreams where promptly dashed by inconsistencies, broken functionality, and privacy concerns.
The first red flag was that all my Google Reader data that I imported appeared to have the same time and date stamps. They were all dated for the present time. I opened one particular blog post that I knew full well was quite old and saw that even though SwarmIQ dated it the day I set up the service, it was actually from 2011! You can see visual proof in the slideshow.
Likewise, Google Alerts data simply didn't import correctly. In fact, it didn't work at all in SwarmIQ, although it worked just fine two competing product, G2Reader and Feedly, PCMag's two Editors' Choices in this category.
On the plus side, SwarmIQ includes social sharing features, the kind Google Reader had, circa 2010, and which The Old Reader replicates to this day. Getting these features to work was problematic, too. I tried to look for friends and explore other users more generally in hopes of finding interesting people to follow, but figuring out where to go to do that proved difficult.
Diving into the settings, I noticed that my streams were "public" by default. That's a no-no in most security guidebooks. On the bright side, who knows if any users could find my public feeds, as I sure couldn't figure out how to see anyone else's.
As I tested SwarmIQ, even more problems became apparent. I'd read an item on my RSS feed list, switch back to the main view, and see that the very post I had just read was not marked as read. I'd hit the button "mark all as read" and immediately after, still see unread posts in my feed.
The list of problems goes on, and they're serious enough to warrant a warning to readers: If you're looking for a new RSS feed reader, SwarmIQ is not worth considering.
A new version of Android (4.3, and still called Jelly Bean) is already doing the testing rounds on Samsung's Galaxy S 4 and thanks to some porting work from SAMMobile, it's apparently working on both the Google Play and original iterations. We've caught a glance of Android 4.3 on LG's Nexus 4 already, but we're now getting a second look at a refreshed camera interface, some minor design tweaks (like more regular appearances of a share button) and, well, we're still perusing the gallery for more nuggets. If you know what you're doing (and don't fear voiding your warranty) you can find the files at the source -- early reports suggest that the GS4 is "fully working" on this early build. We'll update this post if we find anything else new, but early impressions suggest it's a relatively gentle upgrade from the existing mobile OS.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Two landmark Supreme Court rulings that bolster gay marriage rights don't remove all barriers to same-sex unions by a long shot. Where gay couples live still will have a lot to do with how they're treated.
Some questions and answers about Wednesday's court rulings:
Q: Can you boil down these two big rulings ? 104 pages in all ? to the basics?
A: In one case, the court said legally married gay couples are entitled to the same federal benefits available to straight couples. In the other, it cleared the way for gay marriages to resume in California, where voters banned them in 2008.
Q: What type of benefits are we talking about?
A: More than you'd expect. There are more than 1,000 federal laws in which marital status matters, covering everything from income and inheritance taxes to health benefits and pensions. In states where gay marriage is legal, same-sex couples may actually be looking forward to filing their income taxes next April ? married, filing jointly.
Q. Why does it matter where a gay couple lives?
A: Even with Wednesday's ruling, where legally married gay couples live still may affect the federal benefits they can obtain, at least for now. Social Security survivor benefits, for example, depend on where a couple is living when a spouse dies. If that happens in a state that bans or does not recognize the union, it's not for sure that the surviving spouse will be entitled to the payments. Immigration law, meanwhile, only looks at where people were married, not where they live. It's complicated.
Q: What does the U.S. marriage map look like right now?
A: It's a patchwork. Same-sex marriage is legal in 12 states and the District of Columbia ? representing 18 percent of the U.S. population. When gay marriage resumes in California, the figure will jump to 30 percent. Twenty-nine other states have constitutional amendments that ban gay marriage. Six states have laws that ban it. Two states neither allow gay marriage nor ban it.
Q: How many same-sex couples in the U.S. have been legally married?
A: The numbers are squishy. The Pew Research Center estimates there have been at least 71,000 legal marriages since 2004, when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize them, but says there are almost certainly more. The Williams Institute, a UCLA-based think tank, says approximately 114,000 couples are legally married and more than 108,000 are in civil unions or registered domestic partnerships. In California alone, 18,000 same-sex couples were married during the 142-day period when gay unions were legal there in 2008.
Q: What's all this talk about DOMA?
A: DOMA is the federal Defense of Marriage Act, enacted in 1996. The court on Wednesday struck down a section of that law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman for purposes of federal law. That's what had denied legally married gay couples access to a host of federal benefits and programs that are available to straight couples.
Q: Why all of the focus Wednesday on California?
A: The second case that the court addressed related to a 2008 state ballot proposition that added a ban on gay marriage to the California Constitution. The court didn't rule on the merits of that ballot proposal, but it left in place a trial court's declaration that the proposition is unconstitutional. That means same-sex weddings could resume in California in about a month, although a federal appeals court there said it may continue to bar gay marriages even longer if proponents of Proposition 8 ask for a rehearing.
Q: What more could the Supreme Court have done?
A: Tons. It could have given gay Americans the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. Instead, it sidestepped the looming question of whether banning gay marriage is unconstitutional.
Q: What's President Barack Obama's take on all of this?
A: He welcomed the ruling striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act and directed Attorney General Eric Holder to make sure federal laws are in sync with the ruling. (Obama, who endorsed gay marriage last year, broke with his Republican and Democratic predecessors and declined to defend the law in court.) Already, the Defense Department says it is beginning the process to extend health care, housing and other federal benefits to the same-sex spouses of members of the military.
Q: How does the public feel about gay marriage?
A: Public support has grown dramatically in the last few years, with a majority now favoring legal marriage for gay couples. There's even broader support for extending to gay couples the same legal rights and benefits that are available to married straight couples. An Associated Press-National Constitution Center poll last fall found 63 percent favored granting gay couples the same legal benefits straight couples had. And 53 percent favored legal recognition of same-sex marriages.
Q: What happens next?
A: Supporters of gay marriage will keep pressing to legalize same-sex unions in all 50 states. That means more battles in individual states, and more visits to the Supreme Court.
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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac
June 26, 2013 ? Scientists from the University of Sheffield have paved the way for new treatments for a common genetic disorder thanks to pioneering research on zebrafish -- an animal capable of mending its own heart.
Charcot Marie Tooth disease (CMT) is the most common genetic disorder affecting the nervous system. More than 20,000 people in the UK suffer from CMT, which typically causes progressive weakness and long-term pain in the feet, leading to walking difficulties. There is currently no cure for CMT.
A research project conducted at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) and the MRC Centre for Developmental and Biomedical Genetics (CDBG) by Dr Andrew Grierson and his team has revealed that zebrafish could hold the key to finding new therapeutic approaches to treat the condition.
Dr Grierson said: "We have studied zebrafish with a genetic defect that causes CMT in humans. The fish develop normally, but once they reach adulthood they start to develop difficulties swimming.
"By looking at the muscles of these fish we have discovered that the problem lies with the connections between motor neurons and muscle, which are known to be essential for walking in humans and also swimming in fish."
CMT represents a group of neurodegenerative disorders typically characterised by demyelination (CMT1), a process which causes damage to the myelin sheaths that surround our neurons, or distal axon degeneration (CMT2) of motor and sensory neurons. The distal axon is the terminal where neurotransmitter packages within neurons are docked.
The majority of CMT2 cases are caused by mutations in mitofusin 2 (MFN2), which is an essential gene encoding a protein responsible for fusion of the mitochondrial outer membrane. Mitochondria are known as the cellular power plants because they generate most of the supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used as a source of chemical energy.
Dr Grierson said: "Previous work on this disorder using mammalian models such as mice has been problematic, because the mitofusin genes are essential for embryonic development. Using zebrafish we were able to develop a model with an adult onset, progressive phenotype with predominant symptoms of motor dysfunction similar to CMT2.
"Motor neurons are the largest cells in our bodies, and as such they are highly dependent on a cellular transport system to deliver molecules through the long nerve cell processes which connect the spinal cord to our muscles. We already know that defects in the cellular transport system occur early in the development of diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Motor Neuron Disease and spastic paraplegia. Using our zebrafish model we have found that similar defects in transport are also a key part of the disease process in CMT."
Dr Grierson and his team are now seeking funding to identify new treatments for CMT using the zebrafish model. Because of their size and unique biology, zebrafish are ideal to be used in drug screens for the identification of new therapies for untreatable human conditions.
BEIJING (AP) ? Assailants attacked police and other people with knives and set fire to police cars in China's restive far-western region on Wednesday in violence that killed 27 people, one of the bloodiest incidents since unrest in the regional capital killed nearly 200 in 2009.
The early-morning violence ? described by state media as riots ? also left at least three people injured in a remote area of the Turkic-speaking Xinjiang region, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Police stations, a government building and a construction site were targeted in the attacks, it said.
Xinhua said the attackers stabbed victims and set fires, killing 17 people including nine police or security officials, before officers shot and killed 10 of the assailants in Lukqun, a township in Turpan prefecture. The agency cited officials with the region's Communist Party committee.
Xinjiang (shihn-jeeahng) is home to a large population of minority Muslim Uighurs (WEE'-gurs) but is ruled by China's Han ethnic majority. The region borders Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan and has been the scene of numerous violent incidents in recent years, including ethnic riots four years ago in Urumqi, the regional capital.
Xinhua did not provide details about the cause of the unrest and it was impossible to independently confirm the report. Information is tightly controlled in the region, which the Chinese government regards as highly sensitive and where it has imposed a heavy security presence to quell unrest. However, forces are spread thin across the vast territory and the response from authorities is often slow.
The United States said it was closely following the reports of violence, and it urged Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation and to provide due process and legal protections to those detained.
"We remain deeply concerned by the ongoing reports of discrimination and restrictions against Uighurs and Muslims in China," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington.
An official reached by phone at the press office of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, the region's police, said she had only seen news of the violence on the Internet and had no information. Other officials at the county's propaganda department and police said they also had no details. Calls to the region's government spokeswoman, Hou Hanmin, rang unanswered.
Though it remained unclear what caused Wednesday's violence, police stations, government offices and other symbols of Han Chinese authority have been targets of attacks in the past. The attack occurred at 6 a.m., when most residents would still be asleep.
The report said three assailants were seized, and that police pursued fleeing suspects, though it did not say how many. It said three people were injured by the unrest and were being treated.
The violence came two months after a deadly clash in a town near Kashgar, elsewhere in Xinjiang, killed 21 people, including 15 police officers and community workers.
An overseas Uighur activist said Wednesday's conflict was triggered by the Chinese government's "sustained repression and provocation" of the Uighur community.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, said residents he contacted in neighborhoods about 30 kilometers (18 miles) outside the township said the area has been sealed by "armed forces" and telephone services appeared to be irregular. A heavy security deployment and disruption of communications services also followed the 2009 Urumqi riots.
Dilxat Raxit urged the international community to pressure China to "stop imposing policies in Xinjiang that cause turmoil." Many Uighurs complain that Beijing imposes tight restrictions on their religious and cultural life, barring children and women from attending mosques and discouraging fasting during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which starts this year in early July.
Many Uighurs say they suffer discrimination in jobs and cannot obtain loans and passports.
The Chinese government says all ethnic groups are treated equally and point to billions of dollars in investment that has modernized Xinjiang, a strategically vital region with significant oil and gas deposits. Beijing often accuses overseas Uighur activists of orchestrating violent incidents and obscure militant groups sometimes take responsibility, with little or no evidence to prove claims on either side.
Duncan Innes-Ker, an analyst at Economist Intelligence Unit, said the latest unrest shows that the government needs a new strategy to resolve ethnic and religious tensions in Xinjiang.
"Its past efforts to address them with tight security and economic development have been a manifest failure," Innes-Ker said.
The township of Lukqun is about 250 kilometers (150 miles) southeast of Urumqi along the ancient Silk Road connecting China to Europe.
It is part of an area that includes Turpan, a tourist destination with distinctive Central Asian architecture.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.
Professional wrestling has always been filled with hulking masses of humanity, doing battle to establish their supremacy over the competition. However, some titans towered over even the biggest Superstars.
Monster tag team photos?|?Watch the titans demolish the opposition
Sometimes, these giants of the squared circle teamed up, resulting in complete devastation. Like the beasts that rise from the ocean in Guillermo Del Toro?s thriller ?Pacific Rim,? these gargantuan grapplers left nothing but destruction in their paths. The carnage they caused seemed like something out of a monster movie, but for their opponents, it was very, very real and extremely painful.
Witness the ruin caused by 10 monstrous tag teams that left other duos crushed beneath their humongous boots.
Holding signs with images of murdered Mississippi civil rights workers, demonstrators rally in front of the U.S.??
The Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act Monday, a cornerstone of the civil rights movement that helped dismantle decades of discriminatory voting restrictions in the South when it passed 60 years ago. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices dissenting.
The decision drastically scales back the federal government's power to reject state laws it believes discriminate against minority voters, which include some efforts to tighten identification requirements and limit early voting hours at the ballot box. A wave of such laws swept 30 states over the past few years, and the Obama administration has aggressively fought them in court.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, reauthorized by Congress in 2006, gives the federal government the ability to pre-emptively reject changes to election law in states and counties that have a history of discriminating against minority voters. The law covers nine states and portions of seven more, most of them in the South. The formula used to decide which states are subject to this special scrutiny (set out in Section 4 of the law) is based on decades-old voter turnout and registration data, the justices ruled, which is unfair to the states covered under it.
The Justice Department used Section 5 of the law to block voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina last year, and it also struck down early voting restrictions in five counties in Florida. (Minority voters are more likely than white voters to vote early in person.)
Court watchers predicted the decision, given the conservative justices' comments on the law during oral arguments and in other cases. Justices in the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, expressed reservations that the nine Southern states covered by the law still required the same degree of federal oversight that they did 60 years ago. "Voter turnout and registration rates [between blacks and whites] now approach parity," Roberts wrote in a decision in 2009. "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."
Another argument against Section 4's constitutionality was that it's unclear whether minority voters in Southern states are more likely to face discrimination at the polls than they are in other states. Voter ID laws, for example, have passed in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Because those states do not have a history of voter discrimination?and are not covered by the act?their voter ID laws did not have to first pass federal inspection. That said, Southern states covered under the act were much more likely to pass a voter ID law than other states. Seven of the nine states covered in full under the act adopted such a law, compared with 19 states overall.
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia regards the involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria's civil war as dangerous and believes the rebels must be offered military aid to defend themselves, the kingdom's foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a news conference with U.S. Secretary John Kerry in Jeddah, Prince Saud al-Faisal added that Saudi Arabia "cannot be silent" about Iranian intervention and called for a resolution to ban arms flows to the Syrian government.
"The kingdom calls for issuing an unequivocal international resolution to halt the provision of arms to the Syrian regime and states the illegitimacy of the regime," Prince Saud said.
Kerry has returned to the Middle East after a two-day visit to India, and will continue efforts to strengthen the Syrian opposition and revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
In Jeddah, Kerry is holding discussions with Prince Saud and Saudi Arabian intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who coordinates the kingdom's efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The discussions include Washington's plans for providing direct military support to General Salim Idriss of the Supreme Military Council, the military wing of Syria's main civilian opposition group.
Prince Saud said the world's top oil exporter "cannot be silent" at the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict and renewed calls to arm the opposition and bar weapons sales to President Bashar al-Assad.
"The most dangerous development is the foreign participation, represented by Hezbollah and other militias supported by the forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," said.
"There is no logic that allows Russia to publicly arm the Syrian regime and the foreign forces that support it," he added.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said he will arm the rebels but has not disclosed what type of assistance he will provide. Kerry is trying to ensure that the aid to the rebels is properly coordinated among the allies, in part out of concern that weapons could end up in the hands of extremist groups.
A meeting between Kerry and European and Arab counterparts in Doha last week agreed to increase support for Syria's rebels although there was no consensus among the foreign ministers over providing arms, with Germany and Italy strongly opposed to the move.
More than 93,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which began as a popular protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad but has descended into a civil war with sectarian overtones.
Nearly 1.7 million refugees have fled into neighboring countries, including Lebanon, where clashes between armed groups supporting opposing sides in Syria have fuelled fears of a lapse back into sectarian civil war.
Saudi Arabia has become more actively involved in the Syrian crisis in recent months, expanding the flow of weapons to the rebels to include anti-aircraft missiles.
(Reporting By Mahmoud Habboush and Lesley Wroughton, Editing by Angus McDowall and William Maclean)
Well, here we go. This is how it starts. Or how it ends. Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux's wedding plans are apparently on hold. So this is it. Here it is. Poor old Jennifer Aniston, the lonely old maid of the Southland, is about to lose love once again. Who knows what's happened. Perhaps she showed him too many of her mysterious curio rooms, full of jars of hair labeled "Vince" and "John" and "Brad. ...
Effect of use of vegetable fat on risk of death in men with prostate cancerPublic release date: 10-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Elizabeth Fernandez Elizabeth.Fernandez@ucsf.edu 415-514-1592 The JAMA Network Journals
Replacing carbohydrates and animal fat with vegetable fat may be associated with a lower risk of death in men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.
"Nearly 2.5 million men currently live with prostate cancer in the United States, yet little is known about the association between diet after diagnosis and prostate cancer progression and overall mortality," according to the study background.
Erin L. Richman, Sc.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues at UCSF examined fat intake after a diagnosis of prostate cancer in relation to lethal prostate cancer and all-cause mortality. The study included 4,577 men diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer between 1986 and 2010 who were enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Researchers noted 315 lethal prostate cancer events and 1,064 deaths during a median (midpoint) follow-up of 8.4 years. Replacing 10 percent of calories from carbohydrates with vegetable fat was associated with a 29 percent lower risk of lethal prostate cancer and a 26 percent lower risk of death from all-cause mortality, according to the study results.
"In this prospective analysis, vegetable fat intake after diagnosis was associated with a lower risk of lethal prostate cancer and all-cause mortality," the authors comment. The authors note oils and nuts were among the top sources of vegetable fats in the study population.
Crude rates of lethal prostate cancer (per 1,000 person-years) comparing the highest and lowest quintiles of fat intake were: 7.6 vs. 7.3 for saturated; 6.4 vs. 7.2 for monounsaturated; 5.8 vs. 8.2 for polyunsaturated; 8.7 vs. 6.1 for trans; 8.3 vs. 5.7 for animal; and 4.7 vs. 8.7 for vegetable fat. For all-cause mortality, crude death rates (per 1,000 person-years) comparing the highest and lowest quintiles of fat intake were: 28.4 vs. 21.4 for saturated; 20.0 vs. 23.7 for monounsaturated; 17.1 vs. 29.4 for polyunsaturated; 32.4 vs. 17.1 for trans; 32.0 vs. 17.2 for animal; and 15.4 vs. 32.7 for vegetable fat, according to the study results.
"Overall, our findings support counseling men with prostate cancer to follow a heart-healthy diet in which carbohydrate calories are replaced with unsaturated oils and nuts to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality. The potential benefit of vegetable fat consumption for prostate cancer-specific outcomes merits further research," the authors conclude.
###
(JAMA Intern Med. Published online June 10, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.6536. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor's Note: This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Commentary: Dietary Fat, Reduced Prostate Cancer Mortality
In an invited commentary, Stephen J. Freedland, M.D., of the Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., writes: "Using data from food frequency questionnaires completed every four years during follow-up, they found that men who consumed more vegetable fat had a lower risk of prostate cancer death."
"Thus, in the absence of randomized trial data, it is impossible to use these data as 'proof' that vegetable intake lowers prostate cancer risk, and the authors have carefully avoided such statements," Freedland continues.
"When counseling patients, I remind them that obesity is the only known modifiable risk factor linked with prostate cancer mortality to date. Thus, avoiding obesity is essential. Exactly how this should be done remains unclear, although the data by Richman et al suggest that substituting healthy foods (i.e. vegetable fats) for unhealthy foods (i.e. carbohydrates) may have a benefit. Determining whether this benefit is due to reduced consumption of carbohydrates or greater intake of vegetables will require future prospective randomized trials," Freedland concludes.
(JAMA Intern Med. Published online June 10, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.7744. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor's Note: This author is supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. An audio podcast with Drs. Richman and Freedland will be available on the JAMA Internal Medicine website when the embargo lifts.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Effect of use of vegetable fat on risk of death in men with prostate cancerPublic release date: 10-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Elizabeth Fernandez Elizabeth.Fernandez@ucsf.edu 415-514-1592 The JAMA Network Journals
Replacing carbohydrates and animal fat with vegetable fat may be associated with a lower risk of death in men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.
"Nearly 2.5 million men currently live with prostate cancer in the United States, yet little is known about the association between diet after diagnosis and prostate cancer progression and overall mortality," according to the study background.
Erin L. Richman, Sc.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues at UCSF examined fat intake after a diagnosis of prostate cancer in relation to lethal prostate cancer and all-cause mortality. The study included 4,577 men diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer between 1986 and 2010 who were enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Researchers noted 315 lethal prostate cancer events and 1,064 deaths during a median (midpoint) follow-up of 8.4 years. Replacing 10 percent of calories from carbohydrates with vegetable fat was associated with a 29 percent lower risk of lethal prostate cancer and a 26 percent lower risk of death from all-cause mortality, according to the study results.
"In this prospective analysis, vegetable fat intake after diagnosis was associated with a lower risk of lethal prostate cancer and all-cause mortality," the authors comment. The authors note oils and nuts were among the top sources of vegetable fats in the study population.
Crude rates of lethal prostate cancer (per 1,000 person-years) comparing the highest and lowest quintiles of fat intake were: 7.6 vs. 7.3 for saturated; 6.4 vs. 7.2 for monounsaturated; 5.8 vs. 8.2 for polyunsaturated; 8.7 vs. 6.1 for trans; 8.3 vs. 5.7 for animal; and 4.7 vs. 8.7 for vegetable fat. For all-cause mortality, crude death rates (per 1,000 person-years) comparing the highest and lowest quintiles of fat intake were: 28.4 vs. 21.4 for saturated; 20.0 vs. 23.7 for monounsaturated; 17.1 vs. 29.4 for polyunsaturated; 32.4 vs. 17.1 for trans; 32.0 vs. 17.2 for animal; and 15.4 vs. 32.7 for vegetable fat, according to the study results.
"Overall, our findings support counseling men with prostate cancer to follow a heart-healthy diet in which carbohydrate calories are replaced with unsaturated oils and nuts to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality. The potential benefit of vegetable fat consumption for prostate cancer-specific outcomes merits further research," the authors conclude.
###
(JAMA Intern Med. Published online June 10, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.6536. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor's Note: This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Commentary: Dietary Fat, Reduced Prostate Cancer Mortality
In an invited commentary, Stephen J. Freedland, M.D., of the Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., writes: "Using data from food frequency questionnaires completed every four years during follow-up, they found that men who consumed more vegetable fat had a lower risk of prostate cancer death."
"Thus, in the absence of randomized trial data, it is impossible to use these data as 'proof' that vegetable intake lowers prostate cancer risk, and the authors have carefully avoided such statements," Freedland continues.
"When counseling patients, I remind them that obesity is the only known modifiable risk factor linked with prostate cancer mortality to date. Thus, avoiding obesity is essential. Exactly how this should be done remains unclear, although the data by Richman et al suggest that substituting healthy foods (i.e. vegetable fats) for unhealthy foods (i.e. carbohydrates) may have a benefit. Determining whether this benefit is due to reduced consumption of carbohydrates or greater intake of vegetables will require future prospective randomized trials," Freedland concludes.
(JAMA Intern Med. Published online June 10, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.7744. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor's Note: This author is supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. An audio podcast with Drs. Richman and Freedland will be available on the JAMA Internal Medicine website when the embargo lifts.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If there's just one thing we've been begging Apple to steal from Android, it's been some kind of comprehensive settings page. Enter Control Center, a suite of settings just a swipe away.
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Public release date: 10-Jun-2013
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