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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. ? If Oscar buzz is any indicator, Hollywood is on the brink of making Academy Awards history. For the first time, silent films may bookend the best-picture category.
The first ever film ? and only non-talkie ? to win the motion picture academy's top prize was director William A. Wellman's high-flying 1927 drama "Wings," starring Clara Bow and Buddy Rogers.
Now, the 2011 silent film "The Artist" is gathering some serious award-season momentum as a best picture favorite at the 84th annual Oscar ceremony on Feb. 26. The silent-period Valentine from French director Michel Hazanavicius has won numerous honors, including best comedy or musical at Sunday's Golden Globes.
Meanwhile, in a touch of silent symmetry, an extensively restored version of "Wings" thrilled celebrities and regular folks alike this week at special screenings sponsored by the motion picture academy. And next week, the restored "Wings" will be released on DVD.
"I know my father would be clapping," said William Wellman Jr. at a Tuesday night VIP screening at the academy's Beverly Hills headquarters. The son of the "Wings" director is author of "The Man and His Wings: William A. Wellman and the Making of the First Best Picture."
The "Wings" screening also served as a kickoff for an academy exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of Paramount Pictures, which originally produced the World War I saga.
In reality, it's pure coincidence that the "Wings" restoration and DVD release come at the same time as "The Artist's" mounting recognition on the awards circuit.
Nevertheless, "there's such a nice tribute to the history of cinema in ("The Artist"), that I'm thrilled about it," noted Andrea Kalas, a Paramount archivist who oversaw the "Wings" restoration. "And the fact that `Wings' gets mentioned in its context doesn't upset me in the least."
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COLUMBIA, S.C. ? Thousands commemorating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday outside South Carolina's capitol heard a message that wouldn't have been out of place during the halcyon days of the civil rights movement a half-century ago: the need to protect all citizens' right to vote.
A similar tone was struck at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King preached from 1960 until his death. There and in South Carolina, speakers condemned the voter identification laws they said are meant to suppress black voter turnout.
For most of 13 years in South Carolina, the attention at the NAACP's annual rally has been on the Confederate flag that still waves outside the Statehouse. But on Monday, the civil rights group shifted the focus to laws requiring voters to show photo identification before they can cast ballots, which the group and many other critics say is especially discriminatory toward African-Americans and the poor.
South Carolina's new law was rejected last month by the U.S. Justice Department, but Gov. Nikki Haley vowed to fight the federal government in court. At least a half-dozen other states passed similar voter ID laws in 2011.
"This has been quite a faith-testing year. We have seen the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The shift in tactics was also noted by the keynote speaker, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Last month, Holder said the Justice Department was committed to fighting any laws that keep people from the ballot box. He told the crowd he was keenly aware he couldn't have become the nation's first African-American attorney general without the blood shed by King and other civil rights pioneers.
"The right to vote is not only the cornerstone of our governance, it is the lifeblood of our democracy. And no force has proved more powerful, or more integral to the success of the great American experiment, than efforts to expand the franchise," Holder said. "Let me be very, very clear ? the arc of American history has bent toward the inclusion, not the exclusion, of more of our fellow citizens in the electoral process. We must ensure that this continues."
Texas' new voter ID law is currently before the Justice Department, which reviews changes in voting laws in nine mostly Southern states because of their history of discriminatory voting practices. Other states that passed such laws in 2011 included Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Similar laws already were on the books in Georgia and Indiana, and they were approved by President George W. Bush's Justice Department. Indiana's law, passed in 2005, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008.
Critics have likened the laws to the poll taxes and tests used to prevent blacks from voting during the civil rights era. Supporters, many of whom are Republicans, say such laws are needed to prevent fraud.
"I signed a bill that would protect the integrity of our voting," Haley said in a statement welcoming Holder to South Carolina.
At the Atlanta church where King once preached, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock said some in America disrespect King's legacy by "cutting off those for whom he died and the principles for which he fought."
He called voter ID laws an affront to the memory of the civil rights leader.
"You cannot celebrate Dr. King on Monday, and undermine people's ability to vote on Super Tuesday," Warnock said.
The King Day rally in South Carolina took place in the shadow of Saturday's Republican presidential primary. State NAACP President Lonnie Randolph said people should vote any time they can, but said his group is nonpartisan. He said officials wouldn't encourage its members ? a generally Democratic voting bloc ? to disrupt the GOP's process of choosing its nominee because "we don't do the mean things."
Jealous made one of the few references to the GOP field during Monday's rally, saying he was tired of attacks on the movement, such as cuts to education funding.
"And I'm real tired of dealing with so-called leaders who talk out of one side of their mouth about celebrating the legacy of Dr. King and then do so much out the other side of their mouth to block everything the man stood, fought and died for," Jealous said.
The King Day rally in South Carolina was first held in 2000 to call for the Confederate flag to come down off the capitol dome, and has continued after state leaders decided instead to place the flag on a 30-foot pole on the Statehouse lawn near a monument to Confederate soldiers.
The flag was mentioned Monday ? North Carolina NAACP president the Rev. William Barber called it a "terrible, terroristic banner" ? but it was not the focus.
The Confederate flag and voter ID laws are all examples of how blacks cannot stop fighting for civil rights, said 39-year-old Llewlyn Walters of Columbia, whose grandmother watched King speak and whose mother told him stories of the civil rights movement as he grew up.
"People's hearts and minds change, but then they forget. The movement was great, but that one single generation couldn't stop all the discrimination in this country any more than one single dose of antibiotic can fight a disease," Walters said.
In Washington, President Barack Obama and his family commemorated the day by helping to build bookshelves in a local school's library. The president said there was no better way to celebrate King's life than to spend the day helping others.
Obama's attorney general ended his speech on a positive note, saying Americans can't forget the progress this nation has made. After all, the nation elected a black president just 40 years after King was assassinated.
"In the spirit of Dr. King, let us signal to the world that, in America today, the pursuit of a more perfect union lives on," Holder said. "The march toward the Promised Land goes on, and the belief not merely that we shall overcome, but that, as a nation, we will all come together, continues to push us forward."
___
Associated Press writers Jessica Gresko in Washington and Errin Haines in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 17, 2012) ? More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on Earth's surface began forming multicellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals. Just how that happened is a question that has eluded evolutionary biologists.
But scientists in the University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences have replicated that key step in the laboratory using natural selection and common brewer's yeast, which are single-celled organisms. The yeast "evolved" into multicellular clusters that work together cooperatively, reproduce and adapt to their environment -- in essence, precursors to life on Earth as it is today.
Their achievement is published in the January 16 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It all started about two years ago with a casual comment over coffee that bridging the famous multi-cellularity gap would be "just about the coolest thing we could do," recall postdoctoral researcher Will Ratcliff and associate professor Michael Travisano, both from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
So they decided to give it a try. Then came the big surprise. It wasn't actually that difficult. Using yeast cells, culture media and a centrifuge, it only took them one experiment conducted over about 60 days, says Travisano, who is senior author on the PNAS paper.
"I don't think anyone had ever tried it before," says lead author Ratcliff. "There aren't many scientists doing experimental evolution, and they're trying to answer questions about evolution, not recreate it."
Despite their modesty, the achievement has earned praise and admiration from evolutionary biologists around the world.
"To understand why the world is full of plants and animals, including humans, we need to know how one-celled organisms made the switch to living as a group, as multicelled organisms," said Sam Scheiner, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology. "This study is the first to experimentally observe that transition, providing a look at an event that took place hundreds of millions of years ago."
Funding for the research was obtained in February 2011, with coauthors R. Ford Denison and Mark Borrello, adjunct and associate professors, respectively, in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
Ratcliff and Travisano gave the scientific community a glimpse of their discovery at a conference last summer and have subsequently been invited to talk about it at other meetings. The PNAS article represents the first time full details about the research have been disclosed. "The article provides us with the first opportunity to show the breadth of evolutionary change that we've observed," Travisano says.
In essence, here's how the experiments worked. The two chose brewer's yeast or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast used since ancient times to make bread and beer, because it is abundant in nature and grows easily. They added it to a nutrient-rich culture media and allowed the cells to grow for a day in test tubes. Then they used a centrifuge to stratify the contents by weight. As the mixture settled, cell clusters landed on the bottom of the tubes faster because they are heavier. They removed the clusters, transferred them to fresh media, and grew them up again. Sixty cycles later, the clusters -- now hundreds of cells -- looked roughly like spherical snowflakes.
Analysis showed that the clusters were not just groups of random cells that adhered to each other, but related cells that remained attached following cell division. That was significant because it meant they were genetically similar, which promotes cooperation. When the clusters reached a critical size, some cells essentially committed suicide (apoptosis) to allow offspring to separate. The offspring reproduced only after they attained the size of their parents.
"A cluster alone isn't multiellular," Ratcliff said. "But when cells in a cluster cooperate, make sacrifices for the common good, and adapt to change, that's an evolutionary transition to multicellularity."
In order for multicellular organisms to form, most cells need to sacrifice their ability to reproduce, an altruistic action that favors the whole but not the individual, Ratcliff said. For example, all cells in the human body are essentially a support system that allows sperm and eggs to pass DNA along to the next generation. Thus, multicellularity is by its nature extremely cooperative. "Some of the best competitors in nature are those that engage in cooperation, and our experiment bears that out," said Travisano.
Evolutionary biologists have estimated that multicellularity evolved independently in about 25 groups. Travisano and Ratcliff wonder why it didn't evolve more often in nature, since it's not that difficult to recreate it in a lab. Considering that trillions of one-celled organisms lived on Earth for millions of years, it seems as if it should have, Ratcliff said.
Maybe that's a question they will answer in the future, using the fossil record for thousands of generations of their multicellular clusters, which is stored in a freezer in Travisano's lab. Since the frozen samples contain multiple lines that independently became multicellular, they can compare them to learn if similar or different mechanisms and genes were responsible in each case, Travisano said.
The research duo's next steps will be to look at the role of multicellularity in cancer, aging and other critical areas of biology.
"Our multicellular yeast are a valuable resource for investigating a wide variety of medically and biologically important topics," Travisano said. "Cancer was recently described as a fossil from the origin of multicellularity, which can be directly investigated with the yeast system. Similarly the origins of aging, development, and the evolution of complex morphologies are open to direct experimental investigation that would otherwise be difficult or impossible."
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NEW YORK (Reuters) ? More than four years after the United States fell into recession, many Americans have resorted to raiding their savings to get them through the stop-start economic recovery.
In an ominous sign for America's economic growth prospects, workers are paring back contributions to college funds and growing numbers are borrowing from their retirement accounts.
Some policymakers worry that a recent spike in credit card usage could mean that people, many of whom are struggling on incomes that have lagged inflation, are taking out new debt just to meet the costs of day-to-day living.
American households "have been spending recently in a way that did not seem in line with income growth. So somehow they've been doing that through perhaps additional credit card usage," Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said on Friday.
"If they saw future income and employment increasing strongly then that would be reasonable. But I don't see that. So I've been puzzled by this," he said.
After a few years of relative frugality, the amount of money that Americans are saving has fallen back to its lowest level since December 2007 when the recession began. The personal saving rate dipped in November to 3.5 percent, down from 5.1 percent a year earlier, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Jeff Fielkow, an executive vice president at a recycling company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, contributed less to retirement savings and significantly cut back on dining in restaurants and taking vacations in order to keep college savings on track for his two children. "We would love to save more," he said, "but we're doing the best we can."
There have been some signs of a quickening in U.S. economic growth recently after it emerged from recession in mid-2009.
Hiring was stronger than forecast in December and confidence among consumers rose to its highest level in eight months in January.
But many see a long, hard slog ahead and economic growth this year is not expected to be much more than 2.0 percent, barely up from 2011's growth pace.
The big risks include Europe's debt crisis as well as the shaky finances of many Americans, hit by a five-year decline in house prices and still high unemployment. U.S. consumers account for about two thirds of the country's economic output measured by total spending.
Retail sales rose at the weakest pace in seven months in December, according to data published last week.
Sales in 2012 are expected to grow at slower rate than last year, an industry group said on Monday. The National Retail Federation projected sales would rise 3.4 percent this year, compared with than 4.7 percent in 2011.
"When the stock market and the housing market were booming, we saw that a lot of people would take on more debt and save less. They felt the saving was being done for them," said Mark Vitner, managing director and senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.
"Today, the saving rate is falling out of necessity. Food and energy prices have risen and folks don't have as much money to spend on the things that they would like."
Just as Americans used to borrow against the value of their homes before the property crash, now many are taking out loans from their 401(k) retirement savings plans.
Almost a third of plan participants currently have a loan outstanding, according to an upcoming survey of 150,000 holders of 401(k)s by consulting firm Aon Hewitt.
"People are at a loss, and they are struggling," said Pam Hess, director of retirement research at consulting firm Aon Hewitt.
RAIDING THE RETIREMENT FUND
Loans taken from retirement savings accounts jumped 20 percent last year across all demographics, according to a survey to be published in March. Among lower earners they leapt by as much as 60 percent, said Aon Hewitt's Hess. The vast majority of borrowers, she said, need the money for essential expenses like bills, car repairs and college tuition.
The non-profit Employee Benefit Research Institute's (EBRI) annual retirement confidence survey hit a new low in 2011 with 27 percent of workers saying they're "not at all confident" they'll have enough for a comfortable retirement. Almost 15 percent expect to work until at least the age of 70, up from 11 percent in 2006.
New York real estate broker Leila Yusuf had been very conscientious about saving for retirement, typically socking away $5,000 to $10,000 a year. But her income slid by 30 percent in the last two years as the housing market hit the doldrums and she stopped making contributions.
"I couldn't afford to do it after four deals didn't go through," said Yusuf, 37. "I need money to live on."
In another sign of Americans struggling to make ends meet, EBRI found that more than 20 percent of those aged 50 or older changed their medical prescriptions to save money and almost as many had skipped or postponed doctor appointments for the same reason. Almost 28 percent reported having difficulty paying their monthly bills.
COLLEGE SAVINGS TAKE A HIT TOO
The amount of money Americans put aside for their children's college fees is taking a hit too. Assets in the popular state-managed college savings funds known as 529s dipped more than 10 percent in the third quarter of 2011. Estimated outflows were $354 million between July and September contrasted with inflows of $927 million in the same period of 2010, according to Financial Research Corp.
Indicative of the trend, contributions to the 529 plans managed by investment management firm Vanguard dropped 1.0 percent in 2011 after climbing 17 percent from 2009 to 2010. Parents of younger children are continuing to save, according to Vanguard, "but they may be concerned about the economy and market conditions and have cut back a little."
At the same time, college students are borrowing twice as much as they did a decade ago when adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board, and Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards.
Household borrowing on cards, car loans, student loans and other installment debt jumped almost 10 percent from October to November, according to the Federal Reserve, its biggest jump in a decade.
Welcomed by some as a sign of confidence in the economic recovery, others worried it was really a reflection of desperation.
"Apparent stronger consumption at year-end was associated with falling savings rates, compensating for stagnating income growth," Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said on January 11.
"I question whether this consumer spending momentum will be sustained without a pickup in income growth."
In a sign of concern among policymakers about the weak finances of many Americans, the Federal Reserve this month suggested an array of ways the U.S. government could help shore up the housing market.
House prices have fallen 33 percent from their 2006 peak, resulting in an estimated $7 trillion in household wealth losses and about 12 million homeowners are saddled with mortgages worth more than their properties.
Americans are steadily working off their overall debt levels, including their mortgages. Credit card balances, while little changed compared to a year ago, are down 18 percent from a peak in September 2008.
"It's not like it was a year or two ago when it really felt like a recession, and there was no job growth," said Scott Hoyt, a senior director of consumer economics at Moody's Analytics. "It's better than that and you can see that in the spending. But there's still no reason to go back to the free-spending days prior to the recession."
"Americans are still coming to terms with fact they're not going to earn as much income as they once thought and they are not going to have as much wealth," said Vitner at Wells Fargo. "They are now trying to work out how they are going to have to adjust their lifestyle to fit that."
(Additional reporting by Phil Wahba; Editing by William Schomberg)
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ROME ? "You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me?" the Coast Guard officer shouted as the captain of the grounded Costa Concordia sat safe in a life raft and frantic passengers struggled to escape after the ship rammed into a reef off the Tuscan coast.
"It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship.' Now I am in charge."
The dramatic recording made public Tuesday shows Capt. Francesco Schettino resisted orders to return to his ship to direct the evacuation, saying it was too dark and the ship was tipping perilously.
The exchange came to light as the death toll nearly doubled to 11 after divers pulled the bodies of four men and a woman, all wearing life vests, from the wreckage. Some two dozen people remain missing.
The Costa Concordia had more than 4,200 passengers and crew on board when it slammed into the reef Friday off the tiny island of Giglio after Schettino made an unauthorized maneuver from the ship's programmed course ? apparently to show off the luxury liner to the island's residents.
Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, the recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco makes clear he fled before all passengers were off ? and then defied De Falco's repeated orders to go back.
"Listen Schettino," De Falco can be heard shouting in the audio tape. "There are people trapped on board. ... You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?"
But Schettino resisted, saying the ship was listing and he was with his second-in-command in the lifeboat.
"I am here with the rescue boats. I am here. I am not going anywhere. I am here," he said. "I am here to coordinate the rescue."
"What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?" came the response.
Schettino said he was not refusing, but he still did not return to the ship, saying at one point: "Do you realize it is dark and here we can't see anything?"
De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"
The exchange also indicates that Schettino did not know anyone had died, with De Falco telling him at one point: "There are already bodies now, Schettino."
"How many bodies?" Schettino asks in a nervous tone.
"You are the one who has to tell me how many there are!" De Falco barks in response.
Schettino was finally heard on the tape agreeing to reboard. But the Coast Guard has said he never went back, and police arrested him on land several hours later.
The audio, first made available on the website of the Corriere della Sera newspaper and authenticated by the Coast Guard, was broadcast throughout the day on Italian television to a stunned nation.
Jailed since the accident, Schettino appeared Tuesday before a judge in Grosseto, where he was questioned for three hours. The judge ordered him held under house arrest, his lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, told reporters, and later Italian media said he had returned to his home near Naples.
Criminal charges including manslaughter and abandoning ship are expected to be filed by prosecutors in coming days. He faces 12 years in prison for the abandoning ship charge alone.
At the hearing, Leporatti said the captain gave his version of events, insisting that after the initial crash into the reefs he had maneuvered the ship close to shore in a way that "saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives."
The lawyer said urine and hair samples were taken from Schettino, apparently to determine if he might have consumed alcohol or used drugs before the accident.
Tanned and looking younger than his 52 years, Schettino has worked for 11 years for the ship's Italian operator, Costa Crociere SpA, achieving the rank of captain in 2006. He hails from Meta di Sorrento in the Naples area, which produces many of Italy's ferry and cruise boat captains. He attended the Nino Bixio merchant marine school near Sorrento.
The five bodies discovered Tuesday were adults in their 50s or 60s, each wearing the orange vests that passengers use, indicating they were not crew members, said a Coast Guard spokesman, Cmdr. Filippo Marini. Their nationalities were not immediately released.
They were discovered after Italian naval divers exploded holes in the hull of the grounded cruise ship, trying to speed up the search for the missing. Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TV 24 the holes would help divers enter the wreck more easily. "We are rushing against time," he said.
Before the grim finding, authorities had said 25 passengers and four crew members were missing. They include Americans Jerry and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake, Minn., as well as 14 Germans, six Italians, four French, a Hungarian, an Indian and a Peruvian.
Mediterranean waters in the area were relatively calm Tuesday with waves just a foot high, but they were expected to reach nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) Wednesday, according to meteorological forecasts.
A Dutch shipwreck salvage firm said it would take its engineers and divers two to four weeks to extract the 500,000 gallons of fuel aboard the ship. The safe removal of the fuel has become a priority second only to finding the missing, as the wreckage site lies in a maritime sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.
Preliminary phases of the fuel extraction could begin as early as Wednesday if approved by Italian officials, the company said.
Smit, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, said no fuel had leaked and the ship's tanks appeared intact. While there is a risk the ship could shift in larger waves, it has so far been relatively stable perched on top of rocks near Giglio's port.
Smit's operations manager, Kees van Essen, said the company was confident the fuel could safely be extracted using pumps and valves to vacuum the oil out to waiting tanks.
"But there are always environmental risks in these types of operations," he told reporters.
The company said any discussion about the fate of the ship ? whether it is removed in one piece or broken up ? would be decided by Costa Crociere and its insurance companies.
Miami-based Carnival Corp., which owns the Italian operator, estimated that preliminary losses from having the Concordia out of commission through 2012 would be between $85 million and $95 million, along with other costs. The company's share price slumped more than 16 percent Monday.
Carnival said its deductible on damage to the ship was approximately $30 million. In addition, the company faces a deductible of $10 million for third-party personal injury liability claims.
Carnival said other costs related to the grounding can't yet be determined.
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Indian doctors have reported the country's first cases of "totally drug-resistant tuberculosis," a long-feared and virtually untreatable form of the killer lung disease.
It's not the first time highly resistant cases like this have been seen. Since 2003, patients have been documented in Italy and Iran. It has mostly been limited to impoverished areas, and has not spread widely. But experts believe there could be many undocumented cases.
No one expects the Indian TB strains to rapidly spread elsewhere. The airborne disease is mainly transmitted through close personal contact and isn't nearly as contagious as the flu. Indeed, most of the cases of this kind of TB were not from person-to-person infection but were mutations that occurred in poorly treated patients.
What's more, there's a debate within the public health community about whether to even label TB infections as totally drug resistant. The World Health Organization hasn't accepted the term and still considers the cases to be what's now called extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR. However, Dr. Paul Nunn, a coordinator at the WHO's Stop TB Department in Geneva, said there is ample proof that these virtually untreatable cases do exist.
The Indian hospital that saw the initial cases tested a dozen medicines and none of them worked, a pretty comprehensive assessment. A TB expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they do appear to be totally resistant to available drugs.
"It is concerning," said Dr. Kenneth Castro, director of the CDC's Division of Tuberculosis Elimination. "Anytime we see something like this, we better get on top of it before it becomes a more widespread problem."
Ordinary TB is easily cured by taking antibiotics for six to nine months. However, if that treatment is interrupted or the dose is cut down, the stubborn bacteria battle back and mutate into a tougher strain that can no longer be killed by standard drugs. The disease becomes harder and more expensive to treat.
In India, doctors in Mumbai have reported a total of 12 patients who failed initial treatment and also didn't respond to the medicines tried next over an average of two to three years. Three have died. None of the others have been successfully treated.
The doctors detailed the first four cases in a letter to a U.S. medical journal last month, blaming private doctors for prescribing inappropriate drug plans that sparked greater resistance in three of those four patients.
"These three patients had received erratic, unsupervised second-line drugs, added individually and often in incorrect doses, from multiple private practitioners," wrote the doctors from P.D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Center in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
One of the doctors, Zarir Udwadia, in a phone interview, said there is little hope for the surviving nine patients, all poor slum dwellers living in the community. He said he has detected one case of a mother passing the strain to a daughter living in close quarters. One of the patients was also infected with HIV, which typically results in faster death.
Udwadia criticized the testing and treatment methods of the Indian government's TB program, which he says forces patients to turn to private doctors, many of whom do not understand how to properly treat TB or the risks of increasing drug resistance by prescribing the wrong drugs.
"It was a given that this would happen," Udwadia said. "They have had no help from the Indian TB system. They are the untouchables, so no one is making a fuss. They don't have the power to vocalize. There's going to be more family contacts. It's going to spread for sure."
India's Health Ministry did not respond to phone calls and written requests for comment Monday and last week.
Dr. Nata Menabde, WHO's representative in India, said a team of national experts started investigating the cases Monday. She said the government is also working to improve laboratory diagnostics to help find more drug-resistant cases, and discussions are ongoing to identify ways to regulate TB treatment in the private sector.
"Now there is a high urgency attached to these findings even though the knowledge about the existence of such cases is not new," she said. "The political momentum is right because it has attracted the top level of attention, given the seriousness of the matter."
Similar highly resistant cases have been noted before. In 2003, two Italian women died and there were 15 cases reported from Iran in 2009. That same year, The Associated Press reported on a case of a Peruvian teenager who was infected at home but diagnosed while visiting Florida. He was successfully treated for a year and a half with experimental high doses of medicines not typically used for TB, costing about $500,000.
Those resources are unthinkable in the developing world, where TB remains a menacing killer and where few hospitals can perform tests to find out which antibiotics might work.
"For there to be another report coming out from India is no surprise at all. Indeed, in a sense, it's surprising it's taken so long," said WHO's Nunn. This is "yet another alarm call for countries and others engaged in TB control to do their jobs properly."
Tuberculosis is an age-old scourge that lies dormant in an estimated 1 in 3 people. About 10 percent of those people eventually develop active TB, which kills roughly 2 million a year, according to WHO. Each victim infects an average of 10 to 15 others every year, typically through sneezing or coughing.
If a TB case is found to be resistant to the two most powerful anti-TB drugs, the patient is classified as having multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR). An even worse classification of TB ? one the WHO accepts ? is extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR), a form of the disease that was first reported in 2006 and is virtually resistant to all drugs.
An estimated 20 percent of the world's multi-drug-resistant cases are found in India, which is home to a quarter of all types of tuberculosis cases worldwide.
___
AP writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta and Muneeza Naqvi in New Delhi contributed to this report.
___
Online:
WHO statement: http://bit.ly/zhfbF5
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WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama and his family are marking Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with a volunteer service project at a local school.
The Obamas joined other volunteers Monday morning at the Browne Education Campus in the District of Columbia.
After greeting volunteers, the president and his family helped build bookshelves in the school's library.
This is the third year in a row the Obamas have participated in a service project on King's holiday. In brief remarks Monday, the president said there is no better way to celebrate King's life than to spend the day helping others.
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You could be forgiven for thinking that a Skype app was already be available for Windows Phone 7 devices, given that not only is it very popular, but also as the company is now owned by Microsoft. However, you?d be wrong, and a search of the Windows Marketplace still reveals nothing officially related to the VoIP service at all.
Any misunderstanding could also be connected to the talk of such an app arriving late last year too, however Windows Phone owners shouldn?t give up all hope, as during an interview at CES 2012 Skype?s vice president said they?re hard at work on a Windows Phone app right now, and that it?ll be ?coming soon.?
Of course, this particularly vague time-frame doesn?t really help, but thanks to some information discovered in some leaked internal documentation by winsupersite.com, it seems likely to be arriving in the first half of this year. Perhaps this will coincide with the release of Windows Phone Tango, the next version of the mobile OS, also rumored to coming around the same time.
Going back to the video interview with Skype?s VP Rick Osterloh, he also adds they?re integrating the service with other Microsoft products, including Xbox and Windows 8.
In the meantime, if you?re desperate to get at least part of the Skype experience on your Windows Phone, then the IM+ app offers access to Skype chat. Alternatively, there?s the cross-platform messenger service WhatsApp, or the Tango Video Call app too.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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Samsung Galaxy Note to ring Canada's Bell? The Android Market says so engt.co/wNg5bS #EngadgetCES 
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Many of ReadWriteWeb?s readers are old hands at Twitter, but the service gets thousands of new users every day. That includes a lot of folks who suddenly need to use Twitter as part of their job. If you?re just being introduced to the joys of Twitter (or introducing it to another user), here?s a short and friendly primer on what you need to know about using the site.
After posting ?10 Tips on Using Twitter Wisely? in December, I had a few notes from folks who said (basically) ?thanks for the tips, but I didn?t know all the jargon.?
Digging deeper, I realized that what seems obvious after using Twitter for several years isn?t so obvious to new users. Folks in the press, PR or marketing that are steeped in traditional media often get thrown into the Twitter/social media pool with little guidance. Whatever role you?re in, if you?re new to Twitter, read on.
Tech folks tend to love acronyms and jargon. At least, it must seem that way, given how much we use them. When you spend a lot of time in any community, you tend to internalize the jargon and forget that new folks may not know what the bleep you?re talking about. Tip to older tech folks: you can experience the same effect by simply skimming the current top 40 albums or listening to kids in their teens talking about their favorite music.
Page 2: Why 140 Characters, and Helpful Twitter Clients
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/wISriqWsfYU/a-beginners-guide-to-twitter.php
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| ? | 113-119 Franklin Street Belleville, NJ 07109 (973)799-5456 14.636963076733187 miles away |
BPP/FID4071
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'; $(this).parent().parent().append(rat_text); }, function() { $(this).parent().parent().children('div.s-layer').remove(); }); // Map setup if (maLength > 0) { var bounds = getBounds(); $('#map_canvas').gmap({'center': bounds.getCenter(), 'streetViewControl': false, 'mapTypeControl': false, 'maxZoom' : 16, 'callback': function() {populateMap();} }); if (pinCnt > 1) { $("#map_canvas").gmap('getMap').fitBounds(bounds); } else { $("#map_canvas").gmap('getMap').setZoom(16); } } else { $("#map_canvas").hide(); } // Logging controls // TODO - LOG proprietary actions? $(".bppSavingsTab a").click( function() {vp_omniLogPage("bpp:savings");} ); }); var mAddrs = new Array(); var mcounts = new Array(); mAddrs[0] = {lat: 40.780875, lng: -74.181057, dist: 14.619458272252654, addr: '113-119 Franklin Street, Belleville NJ 07109'}; mcounts[0]= {pinnumber: 1}; var maLength = mAddrs.length; function populateMap() { var map = $('#map_canvas').gmap('getMap'); var ctr = 0; $.each(mAddrs, function(index, value) { if (value) { new StyledMarker({styleIcon:new StyledIcon(StyledIconTypes.MARKER,{fore: 'ffffff', color: '1874CD', text: mcounts[ctr].pinnumber.toString()}), flat: true, position: new google.maps.LatLng(value.lat, value.lng), title: value.addr, map: map}); ctr++; } }); } function getBounds() { // Get the bounds of the mappable addresses var mapBounds = null; var mapFar = false; // Map addresses greater than radius if (mAddrs[0].dist > g_radius) { mapFar = true; } for (var i = 0; i g_radius) && !mapFar) { break; } pinCnt++; var coord = new google.maps.LatLng(mAddrs[i].lat, mAddrs[i].lng); if (mapBounds === null) { mapBounds = new google.maps.LatLngBounds(coord, coord); } else if (!mapBounds.contains(coord)) { mapBounds.extend(coord); } } } return mapBounds; } //LOG: Log content view var _vpContentViewArray = new Array(); //Create Slug Content View log data for the results list on the BPP page. This includes coupons and deals. _vpContentViewArray[0] = {czId:60, zmId:1077431} // Submit for logging. vp_logContentLoad(4, _vpContentViewArray);Source: http://www.valpak.com/coupons/display/BARBONES-SERVICE-CENTER/07067/1060854/1059162?vpref=rss
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Nancy Blanco and her husband Arturo Carreon comforted their two children, Ashley Carreon,12, and Josey Lynn Carreon,13, after being reunited with them at Dean Porter Park in Brownsville,Texas Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012. The park is across the street from Cummings Middle School. A 15 year-old student was shot and killed by Brownsville police at the school after he was seen brandishing a weapon inside the school. (AP Photo/The Brownsville Herald, Brad Doherty)
Nancy Blanco and her husband Arturo Carreon comforted their two children, Ashley Carreon,12, and Josey Lynn Carreon,13, after being reunited with them at Dean Porter Park in Brownsville,Texas Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012. The park is across the street from Cummings Middle School. A 15 year-old student was shot and killed by Brownsville police at the school after he was seen brandishing a weapon inside the school. (AP Photo/The Brownsville Herald, Brad Doherty)
A photo of the carbon dioxide powered pellet handgun 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was holding at the time he was shot by police at Cummings Middle School is shown during a news conference Wednesday morning, Jan. 4, 2012 in Brownsville, Texas. (AP Photo/The Brownsville Herald, Yvette Vela)
Brownsville city manager Charlie Cabler, left, holds up a photo of the carbon dioxide powered pellet handgun 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was holding at the time he was shot by police at Cummings Middle School as Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 in Brownsville, Texas. (AP Photo/The Brownsville Herald, Yvette Vela)
Parents walk toward Porter High School, Wednesday Jan. 4, 2012, in Brownsville Texas, where students from Cummings Middle School were waiting after a shooting. Police shot and killed an eighth-grade student Wednesday after he was seen brandishing a weapon inside the school. The officers shot the boy after he pointed the gun at them, Brownsville police detective J.J. Trevino told The Associated Press. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital. (AP Photo/The Brownsville Herald, Yvette Vela)
Jennifer Davila, left, tightly embraces her son Jordan as he is escorted into a park near Cummings Middle School, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, in Brownsville Texas, after a fatal shooting at the school Wednesday morning. Officers summoned to a locked-down Texas middle school on Wednesday shot and killed an eighth-grader after he ignored their order to drop a handgun he was brandishing and instead pointed it at them, police said. (AP Photo/The Brownsville Herald, Yvette Vela)
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) ? The parents of an eighth grader who was fatally shot by police inside his South Texas school are demanding to know why officers took lethal action, but police said the boy was brandishing ? and refused to drop ? what appeared to be a handgun.
The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing, police said late Wednesday, several hours after 15-year-old Jamie Gonzalez was repeatedly shot in a hallway at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville. No one else was injured.
"Why was so much excess force used on a minor?" the boy's father, Jaime Gonzalez Sr., told The Associated Press outside the family's home Wednesday night. "Three shots. Why not one that would bring him down?"
His mother, Noralva Gonzalez, showed off a photo on her phone of a beaming Jaime in his drum major uniform standing with his band instructors. Then she flipped threw three close-up photos she took of bullet wounds in her son's body, including one in the back of his head.
"What happened was an injustice," she said angrily. "I know that my son wasn't perfect, but he was a great kid."
Interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said the teen was pointing the weapon at officers and "had plenty of opportunities to lower the gun and listen to the officers' orders, and he didn't want to."
The chief said his officers had every right to do what they did to protect themselves and other students even though there weren't many others in the hallway at the time. Police said officers fired three shots.
Shortly before the confrontation, Jaime had walked into a classroom and punched a boy in the nose for no apparent reason, Rodriguez said. Police did not know why he pulled out the weapon, but "we think it looks like this was a way to bring attention to himself," Rodriguez said.
About 20 minutes elapsed between police receiving a call about an armed student and shots being fired, according to police and student accounts. Authorities declined to share what the boy said before he was shot.
The shooting happened during first period at the school in Brownsville, a city at Texas' southern tip just across the Mexican border. Teachers locked classroom doors and turned off lights, and some frightened students dove under their desks. They could hear police charge down the hallway and shout for Gonzalez to drop the weapon, followed by several shots.
Two officers fired three shots, hitting Gonzalez at least twice, police said.
David A. Dusenbury, a retired deputy police chief in Long Beach, Calif., who now consults on police tactics, said the officers were probably justified.
If the boy were raising the gun as if to fire at someone, "then it's unfortunate, but the officer certainly would have the right under the law to use deadly force."
A recording of police radio traffic posted on KGBT-TV's website indicates that officers responding to the school believed the teen had a handgun. An officer is heard describing the teen's clothes and appearance, saying he's "holding a handgun, black in color." The officer also said that from the front door, he could see the boy in the school's main office.
Less than two minutes later, someone yells over the radio "shots fired" and emergency crews are asked to respond. About two minutes later, someone asks where the boy was shot, prompting responses that he was shot in the chest and "from the back of the head."
Administrators said the school would be closed Thursday but students would be able to attend classes at a new elementary school that isn't being used.
Superintendent Carl Montoya remembered Gonzalez as "a very positive young man."
"He did music. He worked well with everybody. Just something unfortunately happened today that caused his behavior to go the way it went. So I don't know," he said Wednesday.
Gonzalez Sr. said he had no idea where his son got the gun or why he brought it to school, adding: "We wouldn't give him a gift like that."
He said he last saw his son around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, when the boy said goodbye before leaving to catch the bus to school. And he said nothing seemed amiss the night before when he, his wife and their son went out for nachos then went home and watched a movie.
Gonzalez Sr. was struggling to reconcile the day's events, saying his son seemed to be doing better in school and was always helpful around the neighborhood mowing neighbors' lawns, washing dogs and carrying his toolbox off to fix other kids' bikes.
Two dozen of his son's friends and classmates gathered in the dark street outside the family's home Wednesday night. Jaime's best friend, 16-year-old Star Rodriguez, said her favorite memory was when Jaime came to her party Dec. 29 and they danced and sang together.
"He was like a brother to me," she said.
___
Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd and Danny Robbins in Dallas, and Mike Graczyk in Houston contributed to this story.
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An old patent recently awarded to Microsoft may shed some light on the company?s future ambitions regarding the Xbox. The patent sums up an idea for a gaming console moving towards an entertainment center, rather than simply a gaming machine.
Back in January 2007, around the time when the Playstation 3 first came out, Microsoft was toying with an idea for a gaming console to pack a digital video recorder (DVR). The DVR application ?running alongside a television client component [would allow] users to record media content on the gaming console.?
The patent points out that the DVR application would integrate itself with the console menu, and would allow users to record media while gaming. Users could also record content while the console is turned off. Media content could mean TV programs, local or online gaming experiences, music, DVDs and more. Users would have the freedom to switch between various modes while recording.
The example in the patent highlights a gaming device with 60 GB of total space, and a plan to be able to adjust a slider to designate how much space a console would use for a DVR. Also, the patent specifies that the primary focus for the console would be gaming, and assurances would be taken into consideration to preserve the gaming experience.
Why would Microsoft bother with a DVR? The patent points out that, ?Gaming consoles provide a rich audio and visual experience that is underwritten by extensive computing resources. However, these computing resources are often times not leveraged for non-gaming uses?In short, it would be advantageous to provide systems, methods, computer readable media and the like that would allow for integrated gaming and media experience.?
Of course, every patent carries that grain of salt clause with it, though with the latest Xbox Dashboard upgrade pushing towards a better experience with streaming content, a recorder might not be such a far out idea.
Via Tom?s Guide
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This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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Graphic charts number of twin births per thousand births since 1985.
Graphic charts number of twin births per thousand births since 1985.
ATLANTA (AP) ? The number of twins born in the U.S. soared over the last three decades, mostly the result of test-tube babies and women waiting to have children until their 30s, when the chances of twins increase.
In 2009, 1 in every 30 babies born in the U.S. was a twin, an astounding increase over the 1 in 53 rate in 1980, according to a government report issued Wednesday.
"When people say it seems like you see more twins nowadays, they're right," said Joyce Martin, an epidemiologist who co-authored the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.
Some increase was expected as more women are delaying starting a family until they are over 30. For some unknown reason, mothers in their 30s are more likely to have twins than younger or older women. As much as a third of the increase can be attributed to that, Martin said.
The rest of the rise is due to fertility drugs and treatments.
"You have a double whammy going on. There are more older moms and more widespread use of fertility-enhancing therapies," Martin said.
Starting in the early 1980s, couples who had trouble conceiving began to benefit from medical advances like fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization and other procedures. These treatments became fairly widespread in the 1990s but are expensive, and availability and insurance coverage varies.
The twin birth rate rose by more than 2 percent a year, on average, from 1980 through 2004. It leveled off to less than 1 percent annually although the?rise from 2008 to 2009 was nearly 2 percent.
In 2009, twin rates increased in all 50 states, though the jumps were highest in lower New England, New Jersey and Hawaii. In Connecticut, twins now account for nearly 5 percent of births.
That's high. Nationally, 3.3 percent of all births were twins in 2009, up from 2 percent in 1980.
Over the last three decades, rates rose for white, black and Hispanic women, but the increases were not uniform. Rates doubled for whites, rose by half for blacks and by about a third for Hispanics. Historically, black moms have twins most often, but white moms have almost caught up.
"That's changed with infertility treatments," said Barbara Luke, a Michigan State University expert on twin births.
The greatest increase in twin rates was for women 40 and older. They are more likely to use fertility treatments and to have two embryos implanted during in vitro fertilization, whereas younger women are more likely to get just one.
About 7 percent of all births for women 40 and older were twins, compared to 5 percent of women in their late 30s and 2 percent of women age 24 or younger.
While a lot of attention is focused on the impact of fertility treatments, that's not the only factor. Before fertility treatments existed, about 2.5 percent of the babies born to women in their late 30s were twins, compared to under 2 percent for younger and older women. Some research has suggested women in that age group are more likely to produce multiple eggs in a cycle, increasing their chances of twins.
Clearly, there are more older moms. In recent years, more than a third of all births have been to women 30 and older, up from just one-fifth in 1980.
Take Victoria Jacobson. At 31, she gave birth to twin girls last April ? her first children. With no history of twins in her family, and no fertility drugs, it was a big surprise when she found out at six months pregnant.
"I cried, because I'm more of a realist. My husband laughed," said Jacobson, of Glen Ellyn, Ill. "They were not tears of joy. Maybe shock, more than anything."
Still, Jacobson doesn't find the new report on twin births surprising. A good friend had twins four months after Jacobson's girls were born. "I'm stopped at every corner and in every store" by mothers who also have twins, or who know of other twins, she says.
"I never knew how many twins were around until I got twins."
Are more twins good news? Some experts say the trend is worrisome, noting that multiple births are more dangerous for the mother and their babies. The infants tend to be born earlier, smaller and weaker, and require much more care.
Jacobsons' twins arrived a month early and were tiny, about 3 pounds each. They had to be cared for in a hospital intensive care unit, and one needed a ventilator at first to help her breathe.
At 8 months, they are still small, but healthy and doing fine. Still, they don't sleep through the night, and breastfeeding two and getting them on the same schedule hasn't been easy, she said.
Despite the challenges, she has this advice to other moms of twins: Don't "think about it as double trouble. It's still a double blessing."
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this report.
____
Online:
CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/
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AFP - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held a "positive" first face-to-face meeting in more than 15 months and agreed to meet again on Friday, but cautioned that full-blown talks were still some way off.
"The talks and atmosphere were positive," Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told reporters after Tuesday's talks in Amman between Israel's chief negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, his Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erakat and Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Shtayyeh.
Washington too welcomed what it described as a "positive development" after months of deadlock in peace talks over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal in 2010 to renew a freeze on most settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
Judeh, who hosted the meeting in the Jordanian capital, voiced cautious optimism. "The two sides expressed their commitment to a two-state solution. We do not want to raise the level of expectations, but at the same time we do not want to minimise the importance of this meeting," he said.
"The Palestinians submitted a paper on borders and security. The Israeli side received it, promising to study it and respond," he said.
A Palestinian official close to the talks told AFP that "the meeting on Tuesday... brought nothing new because the Israeli delegation did not bring up any new element during the discussions."
But "we agreed to have a second meeting on Friday in Amman under the auspices of the Quartet and in the presence of Jordan," he said, on condition of anonymity.
He was referring to the international Middle East Quartet that includes the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas had earlier said that the Palestinians were looking to find "the right foundation" to resume talks with Israel.
"We hope Jordanian efforts work," he was quoted as saying by Jordan's state-run Petra news agency.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Israel and the Palestinians to press ahead with peace efforts on the heels of their "promising" talks in Jordan.
Thanking the Jordanian authorities for facilitating the ground-breaking face-to-face, Ashton said: "I encourage Israel and the Palestinians to build on this promising first meeting and continue to work toward a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East."
"The EU remains fully committed to do all it can to contribute to the resolution of the conflict," she added in a statement.
Earlier this week, Israeli cabinet minister Dan Meridor said the fact that a meeting was taking place was "a positive development" but that it did not in itself constitute a return to direct talks.
Erakat made the same point in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio.
"This meeting will be devoted to discussing the possibility of making a breakthrough that could lead to the resumption of negotiations. Therefore, it will not mark the resumption of negotiations," he said on Monday.
Direct talks ground to a halt in September 2010, when an Israeli freeze on new West Bank settlement construction expired and Netanyahu declined to renew it.
"We will see what the Quartet's position will be in this meeting and if it is willing to seriously address the obstacles to the peace process and negotiations put by Israel," PLO secretary general Yasser Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine.
Abbas met with US envoy David Hale in Ramallah late on Monday and told him there would be no resumption of talks unless Israel froze settlement construction and accepted the 1967 borders as the basis for peace talks, a Palestinian official told AFP.
The Quartet has been trying to draw the two sides back to the negotiating table, asking them for comprehensive proposals on territory and security.
White House spokesman Jay Carney acknowledged the difficulties President Barack Obama faced in getting a resumption of talks.
"He is doing everything he can to bring them together at the table," Carney said.
"And this is obviously a challenging issue -- it has been so for a long time. But the president's very focused on doing what he can to make it happen."
Abed Rabbo said Washington wanted the talks to restart "without any preconditions or promises on settlement expansion.
"This does not fulfil the conditions for a resumption of negotiations nor does it enable any negotiations to succeed," he said.
The meeting sparked an angry reaction from the Islamist Hamas movement which has controlled the Gaza Strip since ousting Abbas's forces in 2007.
"Going to such a meeting is only betting on failure," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP on Monday.
Source: http://www.france24.com/en/20120104-israel-palestinians-hold-positive-talks
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