Syrian, Hezbollah troops fight rebels in key town

BEIRUT (AP) ? Backed by elite troops of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, Syrian government forces fought rebels in a strategic opposition-held Syrian town near the Lebanese border for the third straight day Tuesday.

Lebanese security officials said fighting between Syrian troops and rebels over the town of Qusair had spread to the village of Hit, on the Syrian side near the border with Lebanon. Two opposition fighters were killed and several others wounded, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army regulations.

The Syrian conflict also spilled into Lebanon as factions supporting opposing sides in Syria's civil war fought in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. The National News Agency said one person was killed and two others, including a Syrian citizen, were wounded in the clashes. Earlier in the day, six people were wounded in another border area close to Qusair after Syrian shells landed on the Lebanese side, the Lebanese officials said.

Qusair, which had been in rebel hands for more than a year, has been the target of a government offensive in recent weeks, with the surrounding countryside engulfed in fighting as regime troops backed by Hezbollah fighters seized nearby villages and closed in. On Sunday, Assad's forces pushed deep inside the town, taking control of more than 60 percent of it, according to a Syrian official.

At least 31 fighters from the Hezbollah group, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, have been killed in the struggle for the town of Qusair since Sunday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The group, which relies on a wide network of activists on the ground in Syria, said at least 68 rebels and 9 army soldiers were also killed in fighting on Sunday and Monday. There were no reports of casualties in Tuesday's fighting in the area.

The government has not confirmed the soldiers' deaths because Damascus does not publicly acknowledge its own losses in the civil war. Now in its third year, the conflict has claimed more than 70,000 lives.

UNICEF said it was "extremely concerned" about the safety of civilians in Qusair. In a statement Tuesday, the UN child protection agency said up to 20,000 civilians, many of them women and children, could be trapped there by the fighting.

In recent days, hundreds of families have fled into Lebanon, while many others have sought shelter in safer parts of Syria, UNICEF said, adding that it and other aid agencies are providing much needed humanitarian assistance including food, clothes, water and hygiene kits to many of those who have been displaced.

The fighting in Qusair reflects the importance both sides attach to the area.

The town of about 40,000 residents lies along a strategic land corridor linking Damascus with the Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. For the rebels, who like the town are predominantly Sunni, the area has served as a conduit for shipments of weapons and supplies smuggled from Lebanon to the opposition inside Syria.

Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite movement, is heavily invested in the survival of the Damascus regime and is known to have sent fighters to aid government forces. The group's growing role in the conflict next door points to the deeply sectarian nature of the war in Syria, in which a rebellion driven by the country's Sunni majority seeks to overthrow a regime dominated by the Alawite minority.

Hezbollah's growing role in the Syrian war has raised tensions considerably in Lebanon and strengthened concerns of the conflict spilling over the country's volatile border.

The Observatory also reported clashes and shelling elsewhere on Tuesday, including in the north, where the opposition holds large swathes of territory and whole neighborhoods inside Aleppo, Syria's largest city. In Aleppo province, clashes were concentrated around the Kweiras and Mannagh military air bases, the Observatory said.

In Damascus province, three people were killed and 24 others were wounded in mortar attacks on the town of Mleiha, near the capital, state-run SANA news agency said. The report said "terrorist groups" operating near Damascus, the seat of Assad's government, were behind the attacks that also caused significant material damage.

The Syrian government refers to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad's regime as terrorists and Islamic extremists that are part of a foreign-backed conspiracy against the country.

Also Tuesday, Syria said it destroyed an Israeli vehicle that crossed the cease-fire line in the Golan Heights overnight. The Israeli military however said gunfire from Syria had merely hit an Israeli patrol, damaging a vehicle and prompting its troops to fire back.

Sporadic fire from Syria has occasionally hit the Israeli-controlled area, a strategic plateau Israel captured in the 1967 war. Israel assumes most of the incidents are accidental but its forces have responded on several occasions. Tuesday's incident, however, was the first time the Syrian army acknowledged firing at Israeli troops across the frontier.

____

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-hezbollah-troops-fight-rebels-key-town-143614280.html

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Former IRS commissioner heads to Hill amid scandal

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Lawmakers are getting their first chance to question the former head of the Internal Revenue Service, the man who ran the agency when agents were improperly targeting tea party groups.

Some of the questions on Tuesday will be direct: What did you know, and when did you know it?

They also want to know why former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman didn't tell Congress that agents had been singling out conservative political groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status ? even after he was briefed.

Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, left the IRS in November when his five-year term ended. He could prove to be a significant player in a scandal that has driven the Obama administration to distraction. Shulman is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into the matter.

On Monday, the White House revealed that chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior presidential advisers knew in late April that an upcoming inspector general's report was likely to find that IRS employees had inappropriately targeted conservative political groups.

The White House says McDonough and the other advisers did not tell President Barack Obama about the impending report, leaving him to learn the results from news reports on May 10. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama was comfortable with the fact that "some matters are not appropriate to convey to him, and this is one of them."

A Treasury official also disclosed Monday that the department told the White House twice in late April about IRS plans to address the targeting publicly, including during congressional testimony and a possible speech by Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. White House deputy chief of staff Mark Childress and Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson were in communication on the matter, as were lawyers at the White House and Treasury.

However, the official said Treasury did not tell the White House about Lerner's eventual decision to apologize for the targeting at a conference on May 10. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity.

The IRS is an independent agency within the Treasury Department. Because of that independent status, the official said Treasury deferred to the IRS in its decision about how to make the targeting public.

A new poll by the Pew Research Center says 42 percent of adults think the Obama administration was involved in targeting conservative groups. Thirty-one percent said the decision was made by IRS employees, while the rest said they didn't know.

On Monday, the panel's top two members raised questions about the agency's rationale for why agents targeted conservative groups in the first place. IRS officials have said the agency was facing a large increase in the number of applications for tax-exempt status, so agents adopted inappropriate shortcuts to identify groups that may be involved in political activity.

But at the time when agents started targeting conservative groups, the number of applications was relatively flat, according to a report by the agency's inspector general.

Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican, sent a letter to the agency Monday, asking for an explanation. The letter included 41 separate requests for information. They gave the IRS until May 31 to respond.

The two senators said the IRS had not been forthcoming about the issue in the past.

"Targeting applicants for tax-exempt status using political labels threatens to undermine the public's trust in the IRS," Baucus and Hatch wrote. "Lack of candor in advising the Senate of this practice is equally troubling."

For more than a year, from 2011 through the 2012 election, members of Congress repeatedly asked Shulman about complaints from tea party groups that they were being harassed by the IRS.

Shulman's responses, usually relayed by a deputy, did not acknowledge that agents had ever targeted tea party groups for special scrutiny. At a congressional hearing March 22, 2012, Shulman was adamant in his denials.

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman said at the House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.

The IRS has said Shulman did not know about the targeting at the time of the hearing.

The agency's inspector general says he told Shulman on May 30, 2012, that his office was auditing the way applications for tax-exempt status were being handled, in part because of complaints from conservative groups. However, the inspector general, J. Russell George, said he did not reveal the results of his investigation.

George was also testifying at Tuesday's hearing. So was Steven Miller, who took over as acting commissioner in November, when Shulman's term expired. Last week, Obama forced Miller to resign.

George issued a report last week blaming ineffective management for allowing agents to inappropriately target conservative groups for more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 elections.

The agents were trying to determine whether the groups were engaged in political activity. Certain tax-exempt groups are allowed to engage in politics, but politics cannot be their primary mission. It is up to the IRS to make the determination, so agents are supposed to look for clues when reviewing applications for tax-exempt status.

In March 2010, agents starting singling out groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriots" on their applications. By August 2010, it was part of the written criteria for identifying groups that required more scrutiny, according to George's report.

Agents did not flag similar progressive or liberal labels, though some liberal groups received additional scrutiny because their applications were singled out for other reasons, the report said.

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-21-US-IRS-Political-Groups/id-c31a2618e53c4e70a4af95a51b8b7b7b

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AcelRX post-op pain treatment meets late-stage study goal

(Reuters) - AcelRX Pharmaceuticals Inc said its experimental treatment for post-operative pain met its main goal in a late-stage trial of patients who had undergone knee or hip replacement surgery, sending its shares up 15 percent.

AcelRX said its Sufentanil NanoTab PCA System showed a decrease in pain intensity, compared with a placebo, as measured on a clinical scale 48 hours after surgery.

In the last of three late-stage trials, the drug-device combination also significantly reduced pain compared with a placebo 24 hours and 72 hours after surgery, the company said.

AcelRX said it remained on track to file a marketing approval application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the third quarter.

The NanoTab treatment is designed to allow patients to self-administer sufentanil, a generic painkiller that is currently delivered intravenously or through a spinal injection.

AcelRX said that adverse events, including nausea, reported in the trial were "generally mild or moderate".

The trial enrolled 426 adult patients for the treatment of moderate to severe acute pain.

The therapy had shown in the two previous late-stage trials that it was at least as effective as the standard of care in treating post-operative pain and was significantly better than a placebo.

AcelRX's shares were up 7 percent at $6.95 in morning trade on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting By Vrinda Manocha in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Robin Paxton)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/acelrx-drug-device-meets-main-goal-stage-study-121201935.html

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Jamie Dimon under pressure ahead of investor vote

NEW YORK (AP) ? Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of the country's biggest bank, faces a key test this week: His shareholders are voting on whether to let him keep both jobs.

It's been just more than a year since his bank, JPMorgan Chase, revealed a surprise trading loss that tarnished its usually stellar reputation in Washington and on Wall Street, and what a difference it has made. Shareholder groups are calling for the bank to strip him of his chairman job, a move that would be a bruising referendum against a man who's normally chieftain even among other big-bank CEOs. They're also lobbying to kick out multiple long-time board members, saying they should have done more to detect or prevent the trading loss.

In all, it's a powerful reminder of how fortunes can quickly shift in the banking industry, and how banks, supposedly chastened by the financial crisis, are still stumbling through regulatory and legal crises.

On Tuesday, at the bank's annual meeting in Tampa, Fla., union group AFSCME, the New York City Comptroller's Office and other fund managers will ask bank shareholders to approve a proposal asking JPMorgan to split the roles of chairman and CEO, and to give the chairman job to someone who isn't a bank employee. The underlying idea is to install stricter checks and balances against Dimon and other top bank executives.

A similar measure got 40 percent approval at last year's meeting, which was held just days after the bank announced the so-called London whale loss. In the previous six annual meetings where Dimon has been both chairman and CEO, shareholders have been asked about separating the roles four times, and last year marked the highest level of votes in favor of the idea. In 2007 and 2008, only about 15 percent of shareholders voted for similar measures.

"Even a Master of the Universe can be swallowed by a London whale," said AFSCME president Lee Saunders. The loss is nicknamed for the location of the trader who made the outsized bets on complex debt securities that went wrong, eventually losing the bank $6 billion.

Both Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, two influential firms that give advice to big shareholders, are recommending that the jobs be split. Glass Lewis is also recommending getting rid of six of the 10 independent board members, and ISS recommends booting three.

The board has defended Dimon. It says that keeping him in both jobs is its "most effective leadership model." It's an arrangement that they are used to: Six of the 10 independent board members are or have been the simultaneous chairman and CEO of other businesses. Lee Raymond, who is No. 2 on the board behind Dimon, is the retired chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil.

The board also points out that JPMorgan has done well under Dimon, who guided it through the financial crisis and nursed it to emerge as one of the strongest banks in the country. It says it meets regularly without him and has taken steps to clean up the practices that caused the trading loss, including cutting Dimon's 2012 pay ? down 19 percent to $18.7 million, according to Associated Press formulas for executive compensation, though the bank calculates that it cut his pay by half.

At an investor conference in February, Dimon dismissed the groups lobbying to separate the jobs as "all the union investors," and called the debate "a sideshow." He also said that he wouldn't have gone to Bank One, a troubled Chicago bank that he took over and turned around in the early 2000s, if the bank hadn't given him the leeway to be both chairman and CEO. "Troubled company, big turnaround, divided board?" he said. "Not me. Life is too short."

It's not clear what would happen if shareholders vote to take away Dimon's chairman job. The proposal is non-binding, so technically the bank doesn't have to follow it. In 2009, shareholders at Bank of America voted to split the jobs, and the bank took away the chairman title from chairman and CEO Ken Lewis. Later that year, he resigned from the bank entirely.

Last year, shareholders at just four U.S. companies voted to split chairman and CEO roles, according to ISS. So far this year, shareholders at only one company, department store chain Kohl's, have voted to separate the jobs.

At a public company, the board is essentially supposed to be the boss of the CEO, hiring and firing him and reining him in from risky practices that could hurt shareholders. Shareholder activists say that if the CEO is also running the board, then the board can hardly police him. Many companies argue that the CEO knows the company better than anyone and is best equipped to run the board as well.

Dimon, 57, a native of Queens and grandson of a Greek immigrant, is an essential player in banking's world order. During a time of increased public anger against the industry, and as some of his peers tried to fly under the radar, he was outspoken, defending big paydays for bankers and criticizing some of the government's proposed new rules for the industry. He was President Obama's confidante in the banking industry, and then the banking leader with the guts and credibility to challenge him.

"He's obviously a brilliant executive," said Brandon Rees, acting director of the investment office at the AFL-CIO, a union group that supports splitting the roles. "But it's a rare quality for brilliance to be accompanied by lack of hubris."

Not everyone thinks that getting rid of Dimon would be best for shareholders. CLSA analyst Mike Mayo predicts that the stock would plunge 10 percent, noting there's no obvious successor. Nomura analyst Glenn Schorr, writing to clients last week after a meeting with Dimon, said he found it "fascinating" that investors were considering "shrinking the role of one of the best managers there's ever been in the business."

What everyone agrees on is this: From a public relations perspective, it's been a tough year at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Many of Dimon's highest-level executives have departed, including co-chief operating officer Frank Bisignano, who left in April to become CEO of payment processor First Data. The bank is also under extra scrutiny from regulators who are examining not only the trading loss but also the bank's foreclosure practices, its controls for preventing money laundering and other areas.

"Let me be perfectly clear: These problems were our fault, and it is our job to fix them," Dimon wrote in the annual letter to shareholders this year. "In fact, I feel terrible that we let our regulators down."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jamie-dimon-under-pressure-ahead-investor-vote-193125233.html

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'Star Trek Into Darkness' Spoiler Special: Burning Questions Answered

Co-writer Damon Lindelof exclusively addresses the mysteries surrounding the blockbuster.
By Josh Horowitz

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1707650/star-trek-into-darkness-spoiler-special-burning-questions-answered.jhtml

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Mobile Miscellany: week of May 13th, 2013

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a new handset from Sony to the US and UK, updates to Nokia Creative Suite and three new (and very inexpensive) smartphones from Blu Products. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of May 13th, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Sony

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/18/mobile-miscellany/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Communication Satellites For Telecommunications Purposes Media ...

A communication satellite is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purpose of telecommunications. Modern communication satellites use a selection of orbits including geostationary orbits, other elliptical orbits and low earth orbits. For fixed point-to-point services, communications satellites provide a microwave radio relay technology to that of submarine communication cables. They are also used for mobile applications such as communications to ships, vehicles, planes and hand-held devices, and for TV and radio broadcasting, which application of other technologies.

The first satellite was the Soviet Sputnik 1, which was lunched into orbit on October 4, 1957, and was equipped with an on-board radio-transmitter that had two working frequencies only. The first American satellite to relay communications was Project SCORE in 1958, which used tape recorders to forward and store recorded data such as voice messages. Interestingly it was used to send a Christmas greeting to the world from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. NASA also launched an Echo satellite in 1960; the 100-foot aluminized PET film balloon served as a passive reflector for radio communications.

Telstar was the first active direct relay communications satellite. Belonging to AT&T as a part of a multi-national agreement between AT&T, Bell Telephone Laboratories, NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National Post Office to develop satellite communications, it was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962, which was the first privately sponsored space launch. Telstar was placed in an elliptical orbit soon after. An immediate forerunner of the geostationary satellites was Hughes? Syncom 2, it was launched on July 26, 1963. Syncom 2 revolved around the earth once per day at steady speed, but because it still had north-south motion, special equipment was needed to track it because of its capabilities.

The geostationary orbit is useful for communications applications because ground based antennas, which must be directed toward the satellite, can operate effectively without the need for expensive equipment to track the satellite?s motion. Especially for applications that require a large number of ground antennas, which could be anything such as on demand by Comcast or by direct TV, the savings in ground equipment can more than justify the extra cost and onboard difficulty of lifting a satellite into the relatively high geostationary orbit.

The perception of the geostationary communications satellite was first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke. In October 1945 Clarke published an article titled ?Extra-terrestrial Relays? in the British magazine Wireless World. The article described the fundamentals behind the deployment of artificial satellites in geostationary orbits for the purpose of relaying radio signals. Thus Arthur C. Clarke is often quoted as being the inventor of the communications satellite.

The first legitimate geostationary satellite launched in orbit was the Syncom 3, launched on August 19, 1964. It was used that same year to relay experimental television coverage on the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan to the United States, the first television transmission sent over the Pacific Ocean.

Shortly after Syncom 3, Intelsat I, aka Early Bird, was launched on April 6, 1965. It was the first geostationary satellite for telecommunications over the Atlantic Ocean. On November 9, 1972,'s first geostationary satellite serving the continent, Anik A1, was launched by Telesat Canada, with the United States following suit with the launch of Westar 1 by Western Union on April 13, 1974.

On December 19, 1974, the first geostationary communications satellite in the world to be three-axis stabilized was launched, which was called the Franco-German Symphonie. After the launches of Telstar, Syncom 3, Early Bird, Anik A1, and Westar 1, RCA Americom launched what they called the Satcom 1 in 1975. It was Satcom 1 that was instrumental in helping early cable TV channels such as TBS, HBO, ABC Family, and The Weather Channel become successful and working properly, because these channels distributed their programming to all of the local cable TV stations and distribution centers using the satellite. As well, it was the first satellite used by broadcast television networks in the United States, like ABC, NBC, and CBS, to distribute programming to their local affiliate stations. Satcom 1 was widely used because it had twice the communications ability of the opposing Westar 1 in America, which had 24 transponders as opposed to the previous 12 of Westar 1, resulting in lower transponder-usage costs. Satellites in later decades tended to have even higher transponder numbers because of the competitors and the advances of technology in the future.

By 2000, Hughes Space and Communications, which is now called Boeing Satellite Development Center, had built nearly 40 percent of the more than one hundred satellites in service worldwide today. Other major satellite manufacturers include Space Systems/Loral, Orbital Sciences Corporation with the STAR Bus series, Indian Space Research Organization, and many more, with the Spacebus series capabilities, and EADS Astrium A Low Earth Orbit, or LEO, is normally a circular orbit about 400 kilometers above the earth?s surface and, in the same way, a period of about 90 minutes. Because of their low altitude, these satellites are only able to be seen from within a radius of about 1000 kilometers from the point of sub-satellite. Also, satellites in low earth orbit change their position relative to the ground position quickly and effectively. So even for local applications, a large number of satellites are needed if the mission requires uninterrupted connectivity. Low earth orbiting satellites are less expensive to launch into orbit than geostationary satellites, due to proximity to the ground, don't require as high signal strength. Therefore there is a trade off between the number of satellites and their cost. In addition, there are important differences in the onboard and ground equipment needed to support the two types of missions.

A group of satellites working in concert is known as a satellite constellation. Two of the constellations, intended to provide satellite phone services, mainly to remote areas. The Iridium system has 66 satellites. Another LEO satellite constellation known as Teledesic, with backing from Microsoft entrepreneur Paul Allen, was to have over 840 satellites. This was later scaled back to 288 and ultimately ended up only launching one test satellite. It is also possible to offer irregular coverage using a low Earth orbit satellite capable of storing data received while passing over one part of Earth and transmitting it later while passing over another part. This will be the case with the CASCADE system of Canada?s CASSIOPE communications satellite.

The first and historically most important application for communication satellites was in intercontinental long distance telephony. The fixed Public Switched Telephone Network relays telephone calls from land line telephones to an earth station, where they are then transmitted to a geostationary satellite. The downlink follows an analogous path. Improvements in submarine communications cables, through the use of fiber-optics, caused some decline in the use of satellites for fixed telephony in the late 20th century, but they still serve remote islands such as Ascension Island, Saint Helena, Diego Garcia, and Easter Island, where no submarine cables are in service. There are also regions of some continents and countries where landline telecommunications are rare to nonexistent, for example, large regions of South America, Africa, Canada, China, Russia, and Australia. Satellite communications also provide connection to the edges of Antarctica and Greenland.

Satellite phones connect directly to a constellation of either geostationary or low-earth-orbit satellites. Calls are then forwarded to a satellite teleport connected to the Public Switched Telephone Network or to another satellite phone system. Television became the main market, its demand for simultaneous delivery of relatively few signals of large bandwidth to many receivers being a more precise match for the capabilities of geosynchronous comsats. Two satellite types are used for North American television and radio: Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), and Fixed Service Satellite (FSS) The definitions of FSS and DBS satellites outside of North America, especially in Europe, are a bit more ambiguous. Most satellites used for direct-to-home television in Europe have the same high power output as Direct Broadcast Satellite -class satellites in North America, but use the same linear polarization as Fixed Service Satellite -class satellites. Examples of these are the Astra, Eutelsat, and Hotbird spacecraft in orbit over the European continent. Because of this, the terms FSS and DBS are more so used throughout North America, and are uncommon in Europe. A direct broadcast satellite is a communications satellite that transmits to small DBS satellite dishes. Direct Broadcast Satellite technology is used for DTH-oriented (Direct-To-Home) satellite TV services, such as DirecTV and DISH Network in the United States

Operating at lower frequency and lower power than Direct Broadcast Satellite, FSS satellites require a much larger dish for reception (3 to 8 feet (1 to 2.5m) in diameter for Ku band, and 12 feet (3.6m) or larger for C band. They use linear polarization for each of the transponders' RF input and output, which is different to circular polarization used by Direct Broadcast Satellite satellites, but this is a minor technical difference that users don't notice. Fixed Service Satellite technology was also originally used for Direct-To-Home satellite TV from the late 1970s to the early 1990s in the United States in the form of TVRO (TeleVision Receive Only) receivers and dishes. It was also used in its Ku band form for the now-defunct Primestar satellite TV service.

Satellites for communication have now been launched that have transponders in the Ka band, such as DirecTV's SPACEWAY-1 satellite. NASA as well has launched experimental satellites using the Ka band recently. Initially available for broadcast to stationary TV receivers, by 2004 popular mobile direct broadcast applications made their appearance with that arrival of two satellite radio systems in the United States: Sirius and XM Satellite Radio Holdings. Some manufacturers have also introduced special antennas for mobile reception of Direct Broadcast Satellite television. Using GPS technology as a reference, these antennas automatically re-aim to the satellite no matter where or how the vehicle, which is where the antenna is mounted on, is situated. These mobile satellite antennas are popular with some recreational vehicle owners. Such mobile Direct Broadcast Satellite antennas are also used by Jet Blue Airways for DirecTV, which passengers can view on-board on LCD screens mounted in the seats.

Satellite radio offers audio services in some countries, notably the United States. Mobile services allow listeners to roam a continent, listening to the same audio programming anywhere. A satellite radio or subscription radio is a digital radio signal that is broadcast by a communications satellite, which covers a much wider geographical range than terrestrial radio signals. Satellite radio offers a meaningful alternative to ground-based radio services in some countries, notably the United States. Mobile services, such as Sirius, XM, and Worldspace, allow listeners to roam across an entire continent, listening to the same audio programming anywhere they go. Other services, such as Music Choice satellite-delivered content, require a fixed-location receiver and a dish antenna. In all cases, the antenna must have a clear view to the satellites. In areas where tall buildings, bridges, or even parking garages obscure the signal, repeaters can be placed to make the signal available to listeners. Radio services are usually provided by commercial ventures and are subscription-based. The various services are proprietary signals, requiring specialized hardware for decoding and playback. Providers usually carry a variety of news, weather, sports, and music channels, with the music channels generally being commercial-free and very popular for some. In areas with a relatively high population density, it is easier and less expensive to reach the bulk of the population. Thus in the UK and some other countries, the contemporary evolution of radio services is focused on Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) services or HD Radio, rather than satellite radio. Communications satellites are used for military communications applications, such as Global Command and Control Systems. Examples of military systems that use communication satellites are the MILSTAR, the DSCS, and the FLTSATCOM of the United States, NATO satellites, United Kingdom satellites, and satellites of the former Soviet Union. Many military satellites operate in the X-band, and some also use UHF radio links, while MILSTAR also utilizes Ka band.

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Soccer-Donovan expects to be left out of U.S. World Cup squad

May 15 (Reuters) - Post positions for the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes, to be run at Pimlico on Saturday (Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds) 1. Orb, Joel Rosario, Shug McGaughey, even 2. Goldencents, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill, 8-1 3. Titletown Five, Julien Leparoux, D. Wayne Lukas, 30-1 4. Departing, Brian Hernandez, Al Stall, 6-1 5. Mylute, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss, 5-1 6. Oxbow, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas, 15-1 7. Will Take Charge, Mike Smith, D. Wayne Lukas, 12-1 8. Govenor Charlie, Martin Garcia, Bob Baffert, 12-1 9. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/soccer-donovan-expects-left-u-world-cup-squad-174350869.html

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Cholesterol-lowering drug may reduce exercise benefits for obese adults

May 15, 2013 ? Statins, the most widely prescribed drugs worldwide, are often suggested to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease in individuals with obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome, which is a combination of medical disorders including excess body fat and/or high levels of blood pressure, blood sugar and/or cholesterol. However, University of Missouri researchers found that simvastatin, a generic type of statin previously sold under the brand name "Zocor," hindered the positive effects of exercise for obese and overweight adults.

"Fitness has proven to be the most significant predictor of longevity and health because it protects people from a variety of chronic diseases," said John Thyfault, an associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at MU. "Daily physical activity is needed to maintain or improve fitness, and thus improve health outcomes. However, if patients start exercising and taking statins at the same time, it seems that statins block the ability of exercise to improve their fitness levels."

Thyfault says many cardiologists want to prescribe statins to all patients over a certain age regardless of whether they have metabolic syndrome; the drugs also are recommended for people with Type 2 diabetes. He recommends that cardiologists more closely weigh the benefits and risks of statins given this new data about their effect on exercise training.

"Statins have only been used for about 15-20 years, so we don't know what the long-term effects of statins will be on aerobic fitness and overall health," Thyfault said. "If the drugs cause complications with improving or maintaining fitness, not everyone should be prescribed statins."

Thyfault and his colleagues measured cardiorespiratory fitness in 37 previously sedentary, obese individuals ages 25-59 with low fitness levels. The participants followed the same exercise regimen on the MU campus for 12 weeks; 18 of the 37 people also took 40 mg of simvastatin daily.

Statins significantly affected participants' exercise outcomes. Participants in the exercise-only group increased their cardiorespiratory fitness by an average of 10 percent compared to a 1.5 percent increase among participants also prescribed statins. Additionally, skeletal muscle mitochondrial content, the site where muscle cells turn oxygen into energy, decreased by 4.5 percent in the group taking statins while the exercise-only group had a 13 percent increase, a normal response following exercise training.

Thyfault suggests that future research determine whether lower doses of simvastatin or other types of statins similarly affect people's exercise outcomes and thus their risk for diseases such as Type 2 diabetes. Starting a statin regimen after exercising and obtaining a higher fitness level may reduce the drugs' effects on fitness, he says.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Missouri-Columbia. The original article was written by Kate McIntyre.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Catherine R. Mikus, Leryn J. Boyle, Sarah J. Borengasser, Douglas J. Oberlin, Scott P. Naples, Justin Fletcher, Grace M. Meers, Meghan Ruebel, M. Harold Laughlin, Kevin C. Dellsperger, Paul J. Fadel, John P. Thyfault. Simvastatin impairs exercise training adaptations. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2013.02.074

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/HGgePthEP6g/130515151945.htm

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Embracing the Void

Sensory deprivation is as close as you can get to a drug-induced experience without the drugs.

lllustration by Robert Neubecker

How did I end up naked in a stranger?s apartment?floating in a saltwater tub, surrounded by darkness and silence?realizing that for the first time in my life I had achieved total mindfulness?

Let?s begin our story in 1961, when Peter Suedfeld was a first-year psychology graduate student at Princeton. Another scholar in the department was running a ?sensory deprivation? study that offered $20 to volunteer subjects. Suedfeld wanted the cash, so he agreed to be shut inside a pitch-black, soundproofed room for 24 hours, with only a bit of sustenance and a toilet to keep him company.

He couldn?t handle it. ?I was nervous, and I got itchy and jumpy,? he says now. So he left early. He wasn?t the only one. Many subjects panicked, and some even reported they?d had hallucinations.

Though (or perhaps because) he?d gotten spooked, Suedfeld became intrigued by isolation chambers. Sensory deprivation was a sexy field of study in the ?50s and ?60s, and Suedfeld began to organize chamber experiments of his own. Soon enough, he became aware of another isolation technique. A man named John C. Lilly?first at the Naval Institute, later at the National Institute of Mental Health?had pioneered the use of an immersion water tank. In early trials, the subject was completely submerged, wearing a breathing mask, with an air hose connected to a pump. In a later iteration, the subject simply floated in saltwater, on his back, in a coffin-like tank that was completely dark and silent.

Lilly became a cultish, Timothy Leary-like figure as his experiments grew more outlandish. He made attempts to communicate with animals (later dramatized in the Mike Nichols film The Day of the Dolphin) and became famously fond of entering his flotation tanks only after he?d dosed himself with powerful hallucinogens (later dramatized in the Ken Russell film Altered States). Suedfeld met Lilly and was impressed with his tanks?but not his methods. ?He started out as a straight scientist,? says Suedfeld. ?But he got into taking drugs and thought he?d made contact with some sphere of consciousness beyond the normal. Thought he?d had conversations with Shakespeare and such. We didn?t see eye to eye on how the tanks should be used. I always ran standard experiments with control groups and data and objective tests.?

I had long ago seen Altered States, in which William Hurt devolves into a glowing, primordial beast after he indulges in a little too much tank time. But until I read a trend story about floating in the Wall Street Journal this February, I?d never realized it was possible to float in a non-scientific setting. Nor had it occurred to me that anyone would want to. I was suddenly intrigued: What could sensory deprivation do for me?

There are only a few places to float in New York City. I first tried La Casa, a day spa near Union Square, which features a tank in large part because co-owner Jane Goldman loves to float. On a weekday morning, I climbed the stairs to La Casa, took off all my clothes, and, after showering, stepped into a large tub inside an enclosed chamber. I slid the blackout door closed behind me, eased down into the water, and touched a button that switched off the lights. I was floating in total darkness and silence. The saturation of Epsom salts in the water made me unnaturally buoyant?my face, stomach, and knees an archipelago of islands amid the tub?s ocean.

For what must have been the first 15 minutes, I wondered what I was doing there. I thought about my plans for that evening, stories I was working on, whether there was any food in the fridge back at my apartment. I felt bored. I felt silly. Like Peter Suedfeld in that chamber in Princeton, I even got jumpy. I had a brief urge to stand up, water dripping everywhere, and walk out.

Then a transformation began. If you?ve ever taken psychedelic mushrooms (and come on, who hasn?t?) you might recall a certain feeling that arises as the drugs take hold. ?Something is happening, something is happening,? your body says to your brain, with mild urgency. I got a feeling akin to that while floating. My brain went a little haywire. When the storm passed, I found myself in a new and unfamiliar state of mind.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=31a5de8a88f884fb53d143d38c99a689

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Interactive: Where to buy a gun in Chicago

By Chris Wilson

Jump to the interactive map of firearm ads in the Chicago region below.

At one point last January, Brad Dixon says he was entertaining so many offers for his collection of assault rifles, shotguns and ammunition that he was getting a new text message every 10 minutes.

Dixon, a 26-year-old volunteer firefighter in Mebane, N.C., is a prolific user of ArmsList.com, the premier website for private sales and trades of firearms. During a recent surge in demand for rifles and high-capacity magazines, Dixon was able to sell his AR-15s for $1,300 or more apiece, garnering profits of hundreds or even thousands of dollars on each sale. (Dixon assembled some of the weapons himself, and sold others unused in the original box.) During the height of a recent run on AR-15s and extended clips, driven by a fear that Washington might ban them, a government issue 30-round magazine for this military-style rifle, normally about $12, could go for $45?bullets not included.

?I?ll be honest, I?ve used the gun scare to sell my gun collection,? Dixon says. He was careful to specify that collecting guns is a hobby, not an occupation, lest he get in trouble for not having a federal license to sell firearms.

The AR-15 is an extremely potent assault weapon similar to the M16, the rifle widely used by the U.S. military. It comes in many varieties and names, including the Bushmaster XM15, one of the weapons that Newtown, Conn., shooter Adam Lanza used, and the Smith & Wesson M&P15, favored by Aurora, Colo., gunman James E. Holmes.

The AR-15 is not merely the preferred firearm of mass murderers. It is by far the most popular gun sold on ArmsList.com as well.

After the New York Times ran a long story on ArmsList.com last month that included an analysis of 170,000 ads on the site posted over a three-month period, I decided to gather my own data on the site in the spirit of independent replication. Over the past three weeks, I was able to download and analyze 235,000 ads posted over the past five months that were still active on the site between mid-April and early May.

As the Times noted, it can be difficult to know exactly how many of these postings represent unique weapons. While all ads are anonymous?the people who post ads do not even have a public username?I was able to approximate the number of unique people posting to the site using a ?Listings by this user? feature that links posts by the same person. Even when counting only one gun per user, I was able to collect data on 54,000 handguns, rifles and shotguns advertised for sale or trade on ArmsList.com this year. Many more ads were posted for ammunition, accessories, and other ballistic accouterments.

That data led both to people like Dixon, the most frequent user of the site in my database, and to a bird's eye view of the online gun market in America.

Of the weapon advertisements that Yahoo News analyzed, 5,700 were advertised as AR-15s. Another 800 were advertised as a brand-name variety of the rifle. (ArmsList.com does not neatly categorize weapons by model and make, so in most cases this information was extracted from the text of the posts using a simple, hand-built pattern recognition program. I have open-sourced all of the code I wrote to gather and analyze the data.)

The AK-47, perhaps the most recognized assault rifle in the world, is the second most-popular gun with at least 1,200 models for sale online in the past year. All told, 19,200 handguns, 27,300 rifles, and 7,462 shotguns were listed for sale or trade on ArmsList.com at some point in the past three weeks.

Armslist.com is the largest of several major online markets for guns, ammunition and accessories. These sites operate like gun shows without the folding tables and $3 admission fees. Like Craigslist, ArmsList.com exists only to connect sellers to buyers, and does not play a role in mediating the transactions. Neither this hands-off treatment of transactions, nor the twelve-point Terms of Use Agreement that all new users must actively agree to, have protected it from legal scrutiny. Nowhere is that scrutiny more intense than in Chicago.

Guns and the Great Lakes

At least two recent murders have been linked to weapons purchased on ArmsList.com: Those committed by Radcliffe Haughton, who shot and killed his wife, two other women, and himself at a spa outside Milwaukee in October 2012, and Demetry Smirnov, a Russian immigrant who stalked and murdered a 36-year-old Chicago woman named Jitka Vesel after she rebuffed his romantic overtures. Neither man was legally entitled to purchase a firearm in the United States at the time; Haughton had a restraining order placed against him and Smirnov was not a citizen.

Smirnov pled guilty to the crime and is serving a life sentence. The man who sold him the .40-caliber handgun he used to shoot Vesel a dozen times, Benedict Ladera, received a one-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the illegal sale of a firearm to an out-of-state resident.

In fact, the Lake Michigan region, including Chicago and Milwaukee, was among the most active territories for ArmsList.com sellers and buyers during the period Yahoo News studied. In the past four months, at least 1,300 handguns were advertised for sale or trade within 150 miles of Chicago, where there have been more than 100 homicides already in 2013. There were 1,700 rifles advertised as well. Over 400 people in this same radius posted wanted ads for handguns.

The following map charts the number of ArmsList.com postings by both sellers and would-be buyers in the region since mid-April:

It is far from clear that there is any causal chain between ArmsList.com activity and violent crime beyond the two murders linked to the site?or that ArmsList.com is any more culpable for selling weapons linked to murders than any of the other means by which criminals can buy a gun. That question is quite literally on trial in Cook County, Ill., Circuit Court, where the family of Smirnov?s victim is now suing ArmsList.com, alleging that the site facilitates unlawful interstate gun sales because it has "designed its site to not require the input of any verifiable identification by buyers or sellers, such as a driver?s license number, to demonstrate residency in a particular state." The case is ongoing.

At the present time, the odds that Congress will pass any sort of expansion on background checks for online gun purchases, much less a ban on assault weapons, appear very long. Barring such an action, sites like ArmsList.com are free to operate with the freedom of a gun show and the namelessness of the Internet.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/armslist-data-1300-handguns-in-chicago-interactive-183156282.html

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Electronics comes to paper: Paper, being light and foldable, works well for electrically conducting structures

May 15, 2013 ? Paper, being a light and foldable raw material, is a cost-efficient and simple means of generating electrically conducting structures.

Paper is becoming a high-tech material. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm have created targeted conductive structures on paper using a method that is quite simple: with a conventional inkjet printer, they printed a catalyst on a sheet of paper and then heated it. The printed areas on the paper were thereby converted into conductive graphite. Being an inexpensive, light and flexible raw material, paper is therefore highly suitable for electronic components in everyday objects.

Cost-efficient and flexible microchips are opening up applications in the electronics sector for which silicon chips are too expensive or difficult to make, and for which RFID chips, now available on a widespread basis, simply do not suffice: clothes, for instance, that monitor bodily functions, flexible screens, or labels that give more information about a product then can be printed on the packaging.

Although many scientists around the world are successfully developing flexible chips, they have been forced to almost always rely on plastics as the carrier and, in some cases, use polymers and other organic molecules as conductive components. These materials may meet many requirements; however, they are all, without exception, sensitive to heat. "Their processing cannot be integrated into the usual production of electronics, because temperatures in production can reach over 400 degrees Celsius," says Cristina Giordano, who leads a working group at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and as now come up with an alternative solution.

Paper electronics enables three-dimensional conductive structures

Carbon electronics, which Giordano and her colleagues create from paper, can withstand temperatures of around 800 degrees Celsius during production in an oxygen-free environment, and would not have a negative impact on established processes. And that is not the only trump card of paper-based electronics. The light and inexpensive material can be processed very easily, even into three-dimensional conductive structures.

The Potsdam-based researchers convert the cellulose of the paper into graphite with iron nitrate serving as the catalyst. "Using a commercial inkjet printer, we print a solution of the catalyst in a fine pattern on a sheet of paper," says Stefan Glatzel, who is responsible for bringing electronics to paper in his doctoral thesis. If the researchers then heat the sheets that were printed with a catalyst to 800 degrees Celsius in a nitrogen atmosphere, the cellulose will continue to release water until all that remains is pure carbon. Whereas an electrically conducting mixture of regularly structured carbon sheets of graphite and iron carbide forms in the printed areas, the non-printed areas are left behind as carbon without a regular structure, and they are less conductive.

That actual, precisely formed conducting paths are created in this way was demonstrated by the researchers in a simple experiment: First, they printed the catalyst on a sheet of paper in the pattern of Minerva, the subtle symbol of the Max Planck Society. The printed pattern was then converted into graphite. They then used the graphite Minerva as a cathode, which was electrolytically coated with copper. The metal was only deposited on the lines sketched by the printer.

An origami crane dressed in copper

In another experiment, the team in Potsdam demonstrated how three-dimensional, conductive structures can be created using their method. For this experiment, the team folded a sheet of paper into an origami crane. This was then immersed in the catalyst and baked into graphite. "The three-dimensional form was completely retained, but consisted entirely of conductive carbon after the process," says Stefan Glatzel. He demonstrated this again by electrolytically coating the origami bird with copper. The entire crane subsequently had a copper sheen.

Finally, the actual process of the catalytic conversion was illustrated by the Max Planck scientists. Using a transmission electron microscope, they made a film of the process, observing how the catalyst journeyed through the paper in the form of nano droplets of an iron-carbon molten mixture, leaving graphite in its wake. This aspect, too, might be interesting for possible applications of the process. The better the understanding of chemists when it comes to what actually happens during the process, the better they can control the reaction. And this does not only apply to the production of paper electronics, but also to the manufacture of carbon nanotubes, where iron has been used as a catalyst for quite some time already.

Graphene structures from thin paper

This video of the graphite formation gave the researchers a comprehensive insight into catalytic conversion. Starting from these results, they are now trying to end a dispute over the mechanism behind the conversion. Some of their colleagues assume that the reaction takes place in a solid state. "Our study, however, shows that molten metal, or a so-called eutectic, is formed," says Giordano. "We observed something interesting here, as iron itself does not melt until temperatures of about 1500 degrees are reached."

Why the mixture of iron and carbon melts at relatively low temperatures is now being examined more closely by Giordano and her team. It may be possible to use this effect in other areas. Moreover, the researchers intend to further explore the potential of paper electronics. Here, they do not just want to exploit the magnetic properties of the material, which are a result of the iron carbide. By reducing the paper strength and subtly controlling the process, they also want to create conducting paths from graphene; by "graphene," they are referring to one of the carbon sheets that are stacked on top of each other in the graphite. "We will also combine graphite with other materials," explains Giordano. The inkjet printer makes this possible -- it is from the printer's cartridges that iron nitrate solutions, as well as solutions from other metal salts or dispersions containing metal particles finely distributed in water can be brought to paper.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/arqoaEuLVx4/130515085214.htm

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FDA approves Roche diagnostic for gene mutation in lung cancer

May 13 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $5,849,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $3,388,064 3. Kevin Streelman $2,572,989 4. Billy Horschel $2,567,891 5. Matt Kuchar $2,493,387 6. Phil Mickelson $2,220,280 7. Adam Scott (Australia) $2,207,683 8. D.A. Points $2,019,702 9. Steve Stricker $1,977,140 10. Graeme McDowell $1,910,654 11. Jason Day $1,802,797 12. Webb Simpson $1,759,015 13. Dustin Johnson $1,748,907 14. Hunter Mahan $1,682,939 15. Charles Howell III $1,561,988 16. Russell Henley $1,546,638 17. Martin Laird $1,531,950 18. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fda-approves-roche-diagnostic-gene-mutation-lung-cancer-211300633.html

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Hospitals promote screenings that experts say many people do not need

Link Information - Click to View

Hospitals promote screenings that experts say many people do not need
Hospitals hoping to attract patients and build goodwill are teaming up with medical-screening companies to promote tests they say might prevent deadly strokes or heart disease. What their promotions don?t say is that an influential government panel recommends against many of the tests for people without symptoms or risk factors.

Source: Washington Post
Posted on: Tuesday, May 14, 2013, 9:00am
Views: 34

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128247/Hospitals_promote_screenings_that_experts_say_many_people_do_not_need

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France approves major labor reform package

PARIS (AP) ? France's parliament has passed a package of significant labor reforms Tuesday that the government hopes will help halt rising unemployment and jumpstart the country's stagnant economy.

The bill is one of President Francois Hollande's signature pieces of legislation designed to overhaul the country's notoriously hidebound labor market. It includes measures such as making it easier for workers to change jobs and for companies to fire employees.

Hollande, who is struggling in the polls, hopes the law will help bring down France's 10.6 percent unemployment rate and get the economy moving again. The country's gross domestic product hasn't risen significantly in a year, and France may have already fallen into another recession. GDP contracted 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, and data released this week could show it fell again in the first quarter.

While France's economy has so far not suffered the same decline of its recession-hit neighbors, such as Spain and Italy, it also hasn't made the same efforts at reform.

The law "is a very good step in a very good direction but it has to just be the first," says Elie Cohen, an economist has advised Hollande.

"We need a second, a third a fourth and a fifth step."

The Senate easily passed a final version of the law Tuesday. The National Assembly had already approved it.

Here's a look at some of the measures in the law and what more needs to be done to shake up France's labor market:

MORE FLEXIBILITY FOR EMPLOYERS

One of the main measures of the bill allows companies to temporarily cut workers' salaries or hours during times of economic difficulty. This measure takes its inspiration from Germany, where furloughs have been credited with allowing companies to weather difficult times without resorting to massive layoffs. The government is hoping this will stem the tide of job losses that have been piling up in France; companies may find it easier to put workers on temporary leave rather than go through the notoriously onerous firing procedures.

LESS UNCERTAINTY IN FIRING

There is another measure that aims to simplify the firing process. Layoffs in France are often challenged in courts and the cases can take years to resolve. Many companies cite the threat of lengthy court action ? even more than any financial cost ? as the most difficult part of doing business in France. The law shortens the time that employees have to contest a layoff and also lays out a scheme for severance pay. The government hopes this will help employees and companies reach agreement faster in contentious layoffs.

WORKER MOBILITY

Several measures are also aimed at making it less daunting for employees to change jobs. French contracts are known for the tremendous protections they afford workers and as those benefits increase, the longer an employee stays with a company. While it is frequently noted that these contracts make employers reluctant to hire, they can also make employees more likely to stay put in stable jobs. When no one moves, it becomes harder for the unemployed to find work.

Among the measures introduced are credits for training that follow employees throughout their career, regardless of where they work, and the right to take a leave of absence to work at another company. The law will also require all companies to offer and partially pay for supplemental health insurance. Only some jobs currently offer that.

The law also reforms unemployment insurance, so that someone out of work doesn't risk foregoing significant benefits when taking a job that might pay less than previous work or end up only being temporary. Under the new law, workers will be able to essentially put benefits on hold when they take temporary work, instead of seeing their benefits recalculated each time.

WHAT MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE?

While Hollande's law gets the ball rolling, a lot more needs to be done to really crack open the French labor market. For instance, France has laws prohibiting many shops from opening on Sundays.

Workers protested those restrictions on Tuesday, saying they'd like to work Sundays because they get paid double. Meanwhile, companies say they're losing out to online merchants by not opening seven days a week. Economists say such restrictions cost France tremendous amounts of revenue, especially from tourists.

There's more. French labor contracts are still too complicated and too stringent, many economists say. Access to many jobs, like driving a taxi, is still restricted by special licenses and Byzantine rules. The paperwork necessary to start a business is onerous.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/france-approves-major-labor-reform-package-160144959.html

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Yahoo to ramp up marketing to woo younger users, says CFO

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc plans to ramp up advertising and marketing efforts as it seeks to break its reliance on an "aging demographic" and become more relevant among young adults, the company's finance chief said on Tuesday.

The struggling Web portal's brand will be more visible on outdoor billboards and at sporting events, among other places, as it seeks to woo 18-to-34-year-olds and get the word out about new products, CFO Ken Goldman said at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom conference in Boston on Tuesday.

"Part of it is going to be just visibility again in making ourselves cool, which we got away from for a couple of years," said Goldman.

He noted that the efforts will require spending to advertise across various mediums. Goldman gave no specifics on budget or expenditures.

Yahoo is trying to reverse a multi-year decline in revenue and user engagement on its website, amid competition from new social networking and mobile websites such as Facebook Inc and Twitter, and from search giant Google Inc.

"One of our challenges is we have had an aging demographic, if you will," said Goldman.

Marissa Mayer, who became Yahoo's chief executive in July, was one of Google's earliest employees and is respected in technology circles for her online product-design expertise. Since taking over, Mayer has launched new versions of key products, such as Yahoo's Web email and its Flickr photo sharing service, and acquired several small start-up companies.

Yahoo shares have surged roughly 70 percent since Mayer took over, though analysts say much of the rise is due to stock buybacks and the growing value of Yahoo's Asian assets.

Goldman hinted that Yahoo could buy back more shares once its current stock repurchase authorization is completed. He added, however, that any future buybacks would depend on the stock price.

"I do like the idea of buying back stock," he said. "So I don't necessarily suggest at all that the fact that we've got a little bit more to go on the existing purchase does not mean that we would not go beyond that and buy more."

Goldman said the company continues to explore the best course of action for its 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan, including everything from working with the company more closely to potentially selling the stake. He described Yahoo's 2012 sale of half of its 40 percent stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba Group as "unfortunate" and a result of Yahoo's unstable situation at the time.

Shares of Yahoo were up 1.4 percent at $26.75 on the Nasdaq at midday on Tuesday.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-ramp-marketing-woo-younger-users-says-cfo-161028265.html

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NYPD officer tries to help cat in tree, gets stuck

NEW YORK (AP) ? Authorities say a New York police officer who went after a cat stuck in a tree got caught himself and needed a little help getting back down to the ground.

The Fire Department of New York says it happened Monday afternoon in Queens.

A call came in that a man attempting to get a cat out of a tree had gotten stuck. Fire department personnel used a bucket ladder to get the man and the cat down.

The fire department says the man is a police officer.

The New York Police Department has no comment.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-05-13-Cop%20In%20A%20Tree/id-3519a2660de3465c9c636035e4aaa0d0

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Amtrak's new locomotives usher in new era

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Amtrak has unveiled at a plant in California the first of 70 new locomotives, marking what the national passenger railroad service said it hopes will be a new era of better reliability, streamlined maintenance and more energy efficiency.

On a broader scale, the new engines displayed Monday could well be viewed as emblematic of the improving financial health of Amtrak, which has long been dependent on subsidies from an often reluctant Congress.

More than 31 million passengers rode Amtrak in the 2012 fiscal year, generating a record $2.02 billion in ticket revenue. Amtrak said it will be able to pay back a $466 million federal loan for the locomotives over 25 years using net profits from the Northeast Corridor line, where ridership hit a record high last year for the ninth time in 10 years.

"The new Amtrak locomotives will help power the economic future of the Northeast region, provide more reliable and efficient service for passengers and support the rebirth of rail manufacturing in America," Amtrak President Joseph Boardman said in a statement. "Built on the West Coast for service in the Northeast with suppliers from many states, businesses and workers from across the country are helping to modernize the locomotive fleet of America's Railroad."

Robert Puentes, a senior fellow in the Brooking Institution's metropolitan policy program, said Amtrak isn't the same organization it was a few years ago, relying on federal handouts.

"Even though Washington is mired in debt and dysfunction, Amtrak is reinventing itself," Puentes said.

The new engines will be used on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston and on Keystone Corridor trains that run between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa. Three were unveiled Monday before being sent out for testing. The first is due to go into service by this fall, and all 70 are expected to be in service by 2016.

Amtrak awarded the contract in 2010 to Munich-based Siemens AG, which has made a big investment in the American rail industry over the last decade. The company makes about one of every three light-rail vehicles in North America and is building light-rail vehicles for Minneapolis, Houston and San Diego at the Sacramento plant where Amtrak's locomotives are being produced.

Among the improvements in the new locomotives are computers that can diagnose problems in real time and take corrective action and a braking system capable of generating 100 percent of the energy it uses back to the electric grid, similar to the way a hybrid automobile's motor acts as a generator when braking, according to Michael Cahill, CEO for Siemens Rail Systems. That could produce energy savings of up to $300 million over 20 years, the company estimates.

The locomotives also feature crumple zones, which are basically cages built onto the front end of the train that can absorb impact from a collision. The new models will be the first in North America to use them, in compliance with new federal safety guidelines, Cahill said.

The locomotives, called Amtrak Cities Sprinters, are based on Siemens' latest European electric locomotive and will replace Amtrak equipment that has been in service for 20 to 30 years and has logged an average of 3.5 million miles.

Simply having the same type of locomotive in operation should cut costs, Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm said. Amtrak now uses three locomotive models, requiring slightly different maintenance, parts and training.

"Now, we will have one model, one inventory and one training program, and all that will help efficiency," Kulm said.

About 750 people are employed at Siemens' Sacramento plant. The locomotive project also involves Siemens plants in Columbus, Ohio, Richland, Miss., and Alpharetta, Ga.

The ripple effect spreads farther. As a condition of the Department of Transportation loan, the majority of the products and materials used to build the locomotives must be made in the U.S. As a result, some lighting parts are coming from Connecticut, the driver's seat from Wisconsin, insulation from Indiana, electronics from Texas and hydraulic parts from California. In all, 70 suppliers in 23 states are providing components, Siemens said.

Amtrak must still seek federal funding for a long list of planned and ongoing improvements, including replacing sections of pre-World War II electrical systems on the Northeast Corridor that cause regular disruptions. The fact that Amtrak has reduced its debt by 60 percent over the last 10 years and its federal operating subsidy to 12 percent could make it an easier sell.

"Ten years ago we were in a tougher spot," Boardman, the Amtrak president, said last week. "Now Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor is in a much healthier position. We're trying to maximize that, to the extent we can, to pay for what we should pay for on the Northeast Corridor."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amtrak-unveils-locomotives-replace-aging-174941862.html

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Report: Samsung Will Roll Out 5G by 2020, Promising 1Gbps

Korea's Yonhap News Agency is reporting that Samsung is busy testing the future of mobile internet connections?and it's set to be lightning fast.

The news agency describes recent tests by Samsung of a 5G platform that should be available by 2020. The prototype 5G devices use radios with 64 antenna elements, which have so far been capable of providing downloads at a blistering 1Gbps.

It's not the first time we've heard of 5G?and nor is 1Gbps the absolute top limit of what the technology can achieve?but it is a significant way-marker which suggests that it's very much on its way. The only problem will be how quickly you chew through that data allowance. [Yohap News via EvLeaks via Engadget]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/report-samsung-will-roll-out-5g-by-2020-promising-1gb-504307438

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