8:11 PM : When?s the fighting start? 8:17 PM : Really good answer there. 8:18 PM : Mittdignation! 8:19 PM : Is Newt actually managing to use logic and understatement this time? That?s total newtjitsu. 8:22 PM : Okay, this may be a problem for Mitt. He just said he hadn?t seen this ad about Gingrich allegedly attacking the Spanish language and doubted it was his. ( Here?s the ad .) Well, it?s his ad and actually have the ?I approve this message? tag at the end.
Read the original: Florida Debate Live Blogging Pt.1
Russian authorities are investigating whether demonstrations in favor of “clean elections” by Lego figures, stuffed dolls and other toys in the Siberian city of Barnaul this month are legal, according to reports.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that the toy demonstrations occurred on Jan. 7 and 14 in response to Barnaul police dispersing two protests by people in December over the country’s parliamentary election results.
“While the authorities restrict our constitutional rights of freedom of peaceful assembly, the rights of toys have so far been untouched,” Andrei Teslenko, a protest organizer, wrote in a post on popular social network Vkontankte, RIA Novosti said.
The so-called “nano meeting” included dolls, stuffed animals, South Park figurines and Lego men, some holding miniature placards reading “I’m for clean elections” and “A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin,” according to reports.
However, local police believe the demonstration may be breaking the law and have asked prosecutors to investigate.
“In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event,” deputy Barnaul police chief Andrei Mulintsev said at a press conference this week, according to The Guardian newspaper.
Prosecutor Sergei Kirei spoke to RIA Novosti by phone, saying, “People are not stupid … The figurines did not come there by themselves. They did not write the placards on their own.”
He added that they toys were “agitation material.”
Teslenko, one of the organizers, said the police investigation to “launch a trial against toys” was “absurd,” RIA Novosti said.
This new “Blue Marble” image of Earth was produced by the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite: Suomi NPP. The composite image was assembled from image data captured from a number of swaths of Earth’s surface on Jan. 4. The NPP satellite was renamed “Suomi NPP” on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin, who is considered the father of satellite meteorology.
NASA’s “Blue Marble” image is one of the best-known high-resolution pictures of our planet. It’s even included as one of the default images for Apple’s iPhone. Now NASA has released a brand-new “Blue Marble 2012,” based on image data from the VIIRS instrument aboard Suomi NPP, the most recently launched Earth-observing satellite.
The Suomi spacecraft was known as the NPOESS Preparatory Project, or NPP, when it was launched last October. This week it was renamed the Suomi NPP ? or Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership ? to honor the late Verner. E. Suomi, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who became known as the father of satellite meteorology. The $1.5 billion mission is a partnership involving NASA as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Air Force.
Suomi is the first of a new generation of satellites that will provide data for climate research as well as weather prediction. It carries five instruments on board, and the biggest and most important of the five is the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite, or VIIRS. This composite image was built up from swaths of surface image data collected on Jan. 4.
To learn more about Suomi, check out the mission’s website. For a huge 8,000-by-8,000-pixel version of Blue Marble 2012, go to the NASA Goddard Photo and Video Flickr gallery. And for a daily dose of Earth imagery, including more pictures from VIIRS, click on over to NASA’s Earth Observatory.
MADISON, Wis.?? A University of Wisconsin student alleged that an athletic department official grabbed his crotch at an alcohol-fueled party during the football team’s trip to the Rose Bowl, according to an independent report released by the school on its website on Tuesday night.
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The report said the student alleged former senior associate athletic director John Chadima put his hand down the student’s pants at the end of a party in Chadima’s suite at a Los Angeles hotel on Dec. 31.
The student ? identified only as John Doe in the report ? said he was “shocked and frightened” and slapped Chadima’s hand away.
Chadima was put on administrative leave on Jan. 6 and resigned the same day. He previously had issued an apology for a “lapse in judgment,” and issued another statement through his attorney Tuesday.
“I make no excuses and have come to the realization that over the past few months, alcohol had controlled and consumed my life,” Chadima said. “I am taking steps to correct that problem in my life at this time. I will take full responsibility for my lack of judgment and actions that evening.”
The Wisconsin State Journal reported the statement added that Chadima was “deeply saddened” by the report.
“It is certainly not reflective of the type of person I am, my lifestyle, my management style or my faith or beliefs,” he wrote according to the newspaper.
The school’s independent report said its findings were based on interviews with 23 people including students and professional staff ? but they were “not able to arrange an interview” with Badgers football coach Bret Bielema.
Three student employees of the athletic department declined to be interviewed.
The report also reviewed information from Chadima’s office computer and school-issued cellphone.
Chadima declined to speak with the panel.
‘Just joking around’
The report said Chadima hosted a bowl game party for staff and student employees for at least the past four years. The most recent party began Dec. 30 and lasted into the early morning hours of Dec. 31, at Chadima’s hotel suite. According to the report, Chadima provided “alcohol, beer and mixers” and guests were invited to serve themselves. Some of the guests were under age 21.
Sometime between 1:30 a.m. and 2 a.m., the alleged victim was leaving along with the last few people left at the party when he said Chadima asked him to “stay here and have a drink with me.” The alleged victim said he and Chadima both had several more drinks and “probably were intoxicated,” but were coherent and in control of their physical movements.
According to the report, Chadima then said he thought the student was gay, and said some of the other student employees thought he was gay. The student said it made him “uncomfortable and defensive.”
The student then said Chadima reached over and removed the student’s belt, putting his hands inside the student’s pants and touching his genitals. The student said he slapped Chadima’s hand away and swore at him.
At that point, the student said Chadima said he thought the student liked it, asking “What are you going to do about it?”
The student said he quickly left the room, and Chadima seemed to want to gloss over the incident as “just joking around.”
The report said the student then went to the hotel room of his immediate supervisor, whose name is redacted in the report, and related the incident. The student said at the time he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize the team’s Rose Bowl preparations.
Athletic staffer asks for ‘forgiveness’
The student then told a consistent version of the story to three fellow student employees. The report said the student was “pleased and satisfied” with the supportive response he received from the supervisor and fellow students.
The student traveled on the team charter flight back to Madison on Jan. 3.
According to the report, the two unidentified officials called UW police lieutenant Jason Whitney on the morning of Jan. 4; Whitney had traveled with the team to the Rose Bowl.
In a meeting that afternoon, Whitney presented a Dec. 13, 2011, memo from UW-Madison police department chief Susan Riseling which emphasized that any employee witnessing or receiving a report about a sexual assault is required to report it to the Dean of Students office. According to the report, Whitney emphasized the importance of acting promptly.
But the report said the unidentified officials felt “uneasy” about reporting the incident without alerting officials in the athletic department. They described the incident to Holly Weber, the athletic department’s human relations director.
Weber said she would discuss it with senior university legal counsel John Dowling, and asked them to wait until she got back to them to contact the dean. That meeting happened Jan. 6, where the unnamed officials who called Whitney were told to stop the athletic department’s investigation of the incident and that the chancellor’s office would decide how to proceed.
According to the report, the chancellor and Athletic Director Barry Alvarez determined Chadima would be placed on administrative leave. The chancellor decided to appoint a committee to conduct the investigation.
Chadima did not specifically address any of the report’s allegations in his statement.
“I have learned a very hard lesson through this process, am paying a difficult price for my actions, and I hope that a lesson can somehow be learned by all from this situation,” he said. “I also hope that my apologies will be accepted, and forgiveness given.”
The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama used his last State of the Union speech before the November election to paint himself as the champion of the middle class, by demanding higher taxes for millionaires and tight reins on Wall Street.
Taking advantage of a huge national platform to make the case for his re-election, Obama on Tuesday defiantly defended his record after three years in office and laid blame for many of the country’s woes at the feet of banks and what he called an out-of-touch Congress.
He proposed sweeping changes in the tax code and new remedies for the U.S. housing crisis, setting as a central campaign theme a populist call for greater economic fairness.
He mentioned taxes 34 times and jobs 32 times during his hour-long speech, emphasizing the two issues at the heart of this year’s presidential campaign.
While the biggest proposals in Obama’s speech are considered unlikely to gain traction in a deeply divided Congress, the White House believes the president can tap into voters’ resentment over the financial industry’s abuses and Washington’s dysfunction.
But even as he called for a “return to American values of fair play and shared responsibility,” Obama seemed to put no blame on himself for a still-fragile economic recovery and high unemployment that could trip up his re-election bid.
With polls showing most Americans disapprove of his economic leadership, he still faces the stiff challenge of convincing them that the candidate who was swept into the White House in 2008 promising hope and change now deserves another term.
Standing before a joint session of Congress, Obama unleashed a partisan attack over taxes and vowed no return to “the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules.”
“Washington should stop subsiding millionaires,” Obama declared as he proposed a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate on those who earn a million dollars or more.
Obama said he would ask his attorney general to establish a special financial crimes unit to prosecute those parties charged with breaking the law, and whose fraud contributed to the 2007-2009 financial crisis that plunged the United States into recession.
Obama’s message could resonate in the 2012 campaign following the release of tax records by Mitt Romney, a potential Republican rival and one of the wealthiest men ever to run for the White House. He pays a lower effective tax rate than many top wage-earners.
A new proposal outlined by Obama to ease the way for more American homeowners to get mortgage relief – and to pay for the plan with a fee on banks blamed for helping create the housing crisis – also struck a populist note.
Democrats have hammered Republicans in Congress for supporting tax breaks that favor the wealthy. Republicans staunchly oppose tax hikes, even on the richest Americans, arguing they would hurt a fragile economic recovery.
“No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others,” Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said in the Republican response to Obama.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top congressional Republican, insisted the election would be a referendum on the president’s “failed” policies.
The U.S. unemployment rate was 8.5 percent in December. No president in the modern era has won re-election with the rate that high.
CHEERS AND SILENCE
Obama’s rhetoric and his audience’s response was more overtly partisan than last year when both sides sought a tone of
civility in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on Democratic Arizona lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords.
In the most emotional moment of the evening, Obama warmly embraced Giffords as he made his way to the podium. The congresswoman, who has made a remarkable recovery after being shot in the head, announced on Sunday she was retiring from Congress.
The response to Giffords was one of the few moments of bipartisan enthusiasm in a Congress riven by antagonism.
Democrats rose en mass to cheer, and Republicans stayed seated in stony silence, when Obama vowed to “oppose obstruction with action.” But both sides applauded when Obama called for developing all domestic energy sources.
Obama used the speech to revive his call to rewrite the tax code to adopt the so-called “Buffett rule,” named after the billionaire Warren Buffett, who says it is unfair that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Those making more than $1 million a year would pay an effective tax rate of at least 30 percent and their tax deductions would be eliminated.
To underscore his point, Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, was seated in the first lady’s box in the House of Representatives for Obama’s address.
Obama will shift into full campaign mode on a three-day tour starting on Wednesday to Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan, all election battleground states.
In his speech, Obama also rolled out proposed corporate tax reforms, including a minimum rate on companies’ overseas profits and a tax credit for moving jobs back home.
Taking aim at China – an election-year target of Republicans and Democrats alike over its currency and trade practices – Obama proposed creation of a new trade enforcement unit within the federal government.
Promising what amounts to a peace dividend, Obama also proposed using half of the “savings” from ending the war in Iraq and winding down in Afghanistan to pay down U.S. debt, with the other half going to fixing decaying roads and railways.
Addressing the housing crisis, Obama said he would send to Congress a proposal to allow more Americans to take out new and cheaper mortgages as long as they are current on their payments, savings that would amount to $3,000 per household each year. The depressed housing market continues to drag on the economy.
(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis, Alister Bull, Samson Reiny, Margaret Chadbourn, Editing by Ross Colvin and Eric Beech)
NEW ORLEANS ? The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board says it may use some of the $30 million it received from BP PLC after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill to buy naming rights for the New Orleans Arena, where the NBA’s Hornets play.
Executive director Ewell Smith said Tuesday the promotional value would be part of a campaign to restore confidence in Gulf seafood. Many seafood grounds were closed during the spill.
Smith said the campaign could include setting up Louisiana seafood vendor booths at other NBA arenas around the country.
He said the board has spoken with the Hornets and is awaiting more information. The arena is state-owned. A deal, he said, could come within 90 days.
The naming rights proposal was first reported in The Courier of Houma.
Public release date: 25-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Bock or John McGrath bockr@mail.nih.gov 301-496-5133 NIH/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Animal fat diet before conception may increase risk for pregnancy related condition
Women who consumed a diet high in animal fat and cholesterol before pregnancy were at higher risk for gestational diabetes than women whose diets were lower in animal fat and cholesterol, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University.
Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes seen during pregnancy. Gestational diabetes increases the risk for certain pregnancy complications and health problems in the newborn.
Women whose diets were high in total fat or other kinds of fatsbut not in animal fat or cholesteroldid not have an increased risk.
Moreover, the increased risk for gestational diabetes seen with animal fat and cholesterol appeared to be independent of other, dietary and non-dietary, risk factors for gestational diabetes. For example, exercise is known to reduce the risk of gestational diabetes. Among women who exercised, however, those who consumed higher amounts of animal fat and cholesterol had a higher risk than those whose diets were lower in these types of fat.
“Our findings indicate that women who reduce the proportion of animal fat and cholesterol in their diets before pregnancy may lower their risk for gestational diabetes during pregnancy,” said senior author Cuilin Zhang, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of the Epidemiology Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of three NIH institutes supporting the study.
The researchers concluded that changing the source of 5 percent of dietary calories from animal fat to plant-derived sources could decrease a woman’s risk for gestational diabetes by 7 percent.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture website, ChooseMyPlate.gov, contains information on healthy eating for children and adults, as well as health and nutrition information for pregnant and breast feeding women.
First author Katherine Bowers, Ph.D., conducted the research with NICHD colleagues Dr. Zhang and Edwina Yeung, Ph.D., and with Deirdre K. Tobias and Frank B. Hu, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of Harvard University, in Boston.
Their findings appear online in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The research was also funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
The researchers utilized information from more than 13,000 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II. The women were 22 to 45 years old when they enrolled in the study. Every two years they responded to questions on their general health, pregnancy status, and lifestyle habits, such as consuming alcohol or smoking. In addition, every four years they completed a comprehensive survey about the kinds of food and drink they consumed.
About 6 percent of the participants reported having been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. The researchers calculated the amount of animal fat in participants’ diets as a percentage of total calories and divided participants into five groups, or quintiles, based on those percentages. Then the researchers compared the risk for developing gestational diabetes for each group. Women in the highest quintile of intake had almost double the risk for gestational diabetes compared to women in the lowest quintile.
They also observed that women in the highest quintile for cholesterol consumption were 45 percent more likely to develop gestational diabetes than were women in the lowest quintile.
“This is the largest study to date of the effects of a pre-pregnancy diet on gestational diabetes,” Dr. Bowers said. “Additional research may lead to increased understanding of how a mother’s diet before and during pregnancy influences her metabolism during pregnancy, which may have important implications for the baby’s health at birth and later in life.”
###
About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute’s website at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery into Health
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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.
Public release date: 25-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Bock or John McGrath bockr@mail.nih.gov 301-496-5133 NIH/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Animal fat diet before conception may increase risk for pregnancy related condition
Women who consumed a diet high in animal fat and cholesterol before pregnancy were at higher risk for gestational diabetes than women whose diets were lower in animal fat and cholesterol, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University.
Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes seen during pregnancy. Gestational diabetes increases the risk for certain pregnancy complications and health problems in the newborn.
Women whose diets were high in total fat or other kinds of fatsbut not in animal fat or cholesteroldid not have an increased risk.
Moreover, the increased risk for gestational diabetes seen with animal fat and cholesterol appeared to be independent of other, dietary and non-dietary, risk factors for gestational diabetes. For example, exercise is known to reduce the risk of gestational diabetes. Among women who exercised, however, those who consumed higher amounts of animal fat and cholesterol had a higher risk than those whose diets were lower in these types of fat.
“Our findings indicate that women who reduce the proportion of animal fat and cholesterol in their diets before pregnancy may lower their risk for gestational diabetes during pregnancy,” said senior author Cuilin Zhang, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of the Epidemiology Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of three NIH institutes supporting the study.
The researchers concluded that changing the source of 5 percent of dietary calories from animal fat to plant-derived sources could decrease a woman’s risk for gestational diabetes by 7 percent.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture website, ChooseMyPlate.gov, contains information on healthy eating for children and adults, as well as health and nutrition information for pregnant and breast feeding women.
First author Katherine Bowers, Ph.D., conducted the research with NICHD colleagues Dr. Zhang and Edwina Yeung, Ph.D., and with Deirdre K. Tobias and Frank B. Hu, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of Harvard University, in Boston.
Their findings appear online in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The research was also funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
The researchers utilized information from more than 13,000 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II. The women were 22 to 45 years old when they enrolled in the study. Every two years they responded to questions on their general health, pregnancy status, and lifestyle habits, such as consuming alcohol or smoking. In addition, every four years they completed a comprehensive survey about the kinds of food and drink they consumed.
About 6 percent of the participants reported having been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. The researchers calculated the amount of animal fat in participants’ diets as a percentage of total calories and divided participants into five groups, or quintiles, based on those percentages. Then the researchers compared the risk for developing gestational diabetes for each group. Women in the highest quintile of intake had almost double the risk for gestational diabetes compared to women in the lowest quintile.
They also observed that women in the highest quintile for cholesterol consumption were 45 percent more likely to develop gestational diabetes than were women in the lowest quintile.
“This is the largest study to date of the effects of a pre-pregnancy diet on gestational diabetes,” Dr. Bowers said. “Additional research may lead to increased understanding of how a mother’s diet before and during pregnancy influences her metabolism during pregnancy, which may have important implications for the baby’s health at birth and later in life.”
###
About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute’s website at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery into Health
[ | 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.
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) ? The publicist for comedian and “30 Rock” cast member Tracy Morgan says the actor suffered from a combination of exhaustion and altitude when he collapsed at the Sundance Film Festival in the U.S.
Publicist Lewis Kay says Morgan is grateful to the Park City Medical Center for its care after he collapsed Sunday. Park City’s elevation is 7,000 feet (2,133 meters).
Morgan was escorted from the Creative Coalition Spotlight Awards ceremony.
Kay says hospital officials report no drugs or alcohol were found in Morgan’s system.
Morgan is attending Sundance in connection with the comedy film “Predisposed,” one of the films at the festival, in which he plays a drug dealer named Sprinkles.
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Public release date: 25-Jan-2012
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