Car Auction Guides

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his family are in the midst of an emotionally wrenching and deeply personal crisis. I feel sorry for them. I especially pity Sanford's four sons, caught up in a scandal they did nothing to create.

I'm willing to grant elected officials -- including those who hold the highest office in the land, the presidency -- a zone of privacy, as long as their personal peccadilloes don't interfere with the public's business. (Sanford seems to have violated that standard when he flew off to Argentina, secretly, without formally turning the state's business over to the lieutenant governor.) I don't expect politicians to be priests.

Among some constituencies, there is the naive view that a person's fitness for public office can be ascertained in his or her marital fidelity. But that simply isn't so. Life is too difficult and complex for such judgments.

Franklin Roosevelt, deemed one of the nation's best presidents, carried on a years-long affair with Lucy Mercer. By contrast, Richard Nixon is believed to have been the very soul of marital propriety, but he raped the Constitution.

Still, if politicians are going to get a zone of privacy and the respect accorded to full-grown adults, then they must be willing to offer that to others. Those who live in glass houses, etc., etc.

Unfortunately, Sanford belongs to that cadre of politicians, mostly hard-core Republicans, who have been unwilling to stay out of other folks' personal business. That group includes Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who admitted adultery earlier this month.

Like Ensign, Sanford opposes same-sex marriage, which opponents claim would undermine heterosexual marriage. (It's not at all clear how that's supposed to work. Did gay couples have something to do with Sanford's infidelity?)

Like Ensign, Sanford was a harsh critic of former President Bill Clinton. Then a congressman, Sanford called Clinton's conduct with Monica Lewinsky "reprehensible" and insisted that Clinton resign. He voted for impeachment, citing the need for "moral legitimacy."

Actually, I agree that Clinton's conduct was reprehensible. But Sanford joined his GOP colleagues in making Clinton's reckless behavior a national crisis by pushing impeachment, which distracted from far more important matters. While the president's personal behavior was appalling, it didn't affect the public's business.

And that's where the line should be drawn: Does the private behavior impinge on public performance? Does it jeopardize state affairs?

Jim McGreevey, former Democratic governor of New Jersey, was right to resign because his behavior was well over the line. McGreevy's public sin lay not in his same-sex love affair -- that's a personal matter -- but in putting his spectacularly unqualified lover on the public payroll. He gave a top state job in homeland security to a foreign national who couldn't even get a security clearance.

Eliot Spitzer, former Democratic governor of New York, needed to go because he not only hired a prostitute, an illegal act, but he had also prosecuted prostitution as the state's attorney general. That level of hypocrisy could hardly be tolerated.

Mark Foley, former GOP congressman from Florida, resigned after he was caught sending sexually suggestive e-mails to teenagers serving as congressional pages. Never mind that the middle-aged Foley was chasing young men. He deserved to be kicked out of office for inappropriate contact with youngsters, no matter their gender.

Issuing an abject apology last week, Sanford said he had resigned as head of the Republican Governors Association. He has likely put an end to any presidential aspirations, and he's imperiled his governorship, as well.

But Sanford may have learned a very valuable lesson (besides the pain caused by adultery): Stay out of other folks' private business. You've got enough to manage.

(Cynthia Tucker can be reached at cynthia@ajc.com.)

KABUL – Thousands of U.S. Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops moved into Taliban-infested villages with armor and helicopters early Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's revamped strategy to stabilize Afghanistan.
The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold in the southern part of the country and the world's largest opium poppy producing area.
The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested Helmand River Valley before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.
Dubbed Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," the military push was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to fight and clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces.
"Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.
Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.
The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008, but still half of much as are now in Iraq.
The Taliban who ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 and were ousted from power following a U.S.-led invasion, have made a violent comeback, wreaking havoc in much of the country's south and east forcing the United States to pour in the new troops.
Capt. Bill Pelletier, a spokesman for the Marines said the troops involved in the Thursday operation were sent in by a mixture of aircraft and ground transport under the cover of darkness.
The operation is aimed at putting pressure on insurgents, "and to show our commitment to the Afghan people that when we come in we are going to stay long enough to set up their own institutions," Pelletier said.
A roadside bomb wounded one of the Marines participating in the operation, but he was able to continue, while there were no reports of clashes in the operation's initial stage, he said.
Once on the ground, the troops will conduct meetings with local leaders, hear what their needs are, and act on them, Pelletier said.
"We do not want people of Helmand province to see us as an enemy, we want to protect them from the enemy," Pelletier said.
Reversing the insurgency's momentum has been one of the key components of the new U.S. strategy, and thousands of additional troops allow commanders to push and stay into areas where international and Afghan troops had no permanent presence before.
While Marine troops were the bulk of the force, recently arrived U.S. Army helicopters were also taking part in the operation in Helmand province.
In March, Obama unveiled his strategy for Afghanistan, seeking to defeat al-Qaida terrorists there and in Pakistan with a bigger force and a new commander. Taliban and other extremists, including those allied with al-Qaida, routinely cross the two nations' border in Afghanistan's remote south.
The governor of Helmand province predicted the operation would be "very effective."
"The security forces will build bases to provide security for the local people so that they can carry out every activity with this favorable background, and take their lives forward in peace," Gov. Gulab Mangal said in a Pentagon news release.

Obama's strategy aims to boost the size of the Afghan army from 80,000 to 134,000 troops by 2011 — and greatly increase training by U.S. troops accompanying them — so the Afghan military can defeat Taliban insurgents and take control of the war. The White House also is pushing forces to set clear goals for a war gone awry, to get the American people behind them, to provide more resources and to make a better case for international support.

There is no timetable for withdrawal, and the White House has not estimated how many billions of dollars its plan will cost.

__

Jakes contributed to this report from Washington.

ANNANDALE, Va. – President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job.
The president hugged her — she's a volunteer for his political operation — and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans.
"We are going to try to find ways to help you immediately," he told Smith as hundreds looked on at a community college forum — and countless others watched on television. But the nation's long-term needs require a greater emphasis on preventive care and "cost-effective care," he said.
Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic National Committee. She obtained her ticket through the White House.
The health care changes that Obama called for Wednesday would reshape the nation's medical landscape. He says he wants to cover nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, to persuade doctors to stress quality over quantity of care, to squeeze billions of dollars from spending.
But details on exactly how to do those things were generally lacking in his hour-long town hall forum before a friendly, hand-picked audience in a Washington suburb. The lingering questions underscore the tough negotiations awaiting Congress, the administration and dozens of special interest groups in the coming months. Lawmakers will return to debating the issue when they return from a one-week recess on Monday.
Some of Obama's questioners Wednesday were from friendly sources, including a member of the Service Employees International Union and a member of Health Care for America Now, which organized a Capitol Hill rally last week calling for an overhaul. White House aides selected other questions submitted by people on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Republicans said the event was a political sham designed to help Obama, not to inform the public.
"Americans are already skeptical about the cost and adverse impact of the president's health care plans," Republican National Committee spokesman Trevor Francis said. "Stacking the audience and preselecting questions may make for a good TV, but it's the wrong way to engage in a meaningful discussion about reforming health care."
Obama made no new proposals at the sometimes emotional event. But he vigorously defended his plans while fielding seven questions from the live audience at the forum and on the Internet.
The president would bar insurance companies from turning down applicants because of their "pre-existing conditions." He would establish health care exchanges that would spread the costs of treating patients such as Smith over a large number of people.
Obama called for shifting huge sums of money from current health care spending to new goals. About two-thirds of the overall new costs "will come from reallocating money that is already being spent in the health care system but isn't being spent wisely," he said.
He restated his pledge to cut $177 billion over the next decade from Medicare Advantage insurance plans. And he noted that doctors, hospitals, corporations and others have promised to decrease the annual rate of spending growth by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion over 10 years.
Such savings are not guaranteed, however, and many Republican lawmakers say Obama's plans will prove too costly.
"The biggest thing we can do to hold down costs is to change the incentives of a health care system that automatically equates expensive care with better care," the president said. He said the formula system drives up costs "but doesn't make you better."
Obama did not make specific recommendations for changing the incentive formulas.
One questioner said limits on awards from medical malpractice lawsuits would bring down health care costs.
Obama replied, "I don't like the idea of an artificial cap" on such awards for a patient's injuries. He also said there was little evidence that various states' efforts to limit such awards have uniformly brought down costs.

Obama said, however, that he is working with the American Medical Association to explore ways to reduce liability for doctors and hospitals "when they've done nothing wrong." He offered no specifics for a problem that has vexed the medical and legal industries for decades.

The president repeatedly said the current health care system is not acceptable and must be overhauled this year. He urged the audience, which included people following on Facebook and YouTube, to reject critics who say his plans are too costly or a step toward socialized medicine.

Obama said a government-run "single-payer" health care system works well in some countries. But it is not appropriate in the United States, he said, because so many people get insurance through their employers working with private companies.

Still, he again called for a government-run "public option" to compete with private insurers, a plan that many Republicans oppose.

A bank aggregates the activities of many borrowers and lenders. A bank accepts deposits from lenders, on which it pays the interest. The bank then lends these deposits to borrowers. Banks allow borrowers and lenders, of different sizes, to coordinate their activity. Banks are thus compensators of money flows in space.

Experimental finance aims to establish different market settings and environments to observe experimentally and provide a lens through which science can analyze agents' behavior and the resulting characteristics of trading flows, information diffusion and aggregation, price setting mechanisms, and returns processes.

Chicago Financial Advisors

Additionally some parents prefer the use of pacifiers to the child sucking their thumbs.

Infant mortality is the death of an infant in the first year of life. Infant mortality can be subdivided into neonatal death, referring to deaths in the first 27 days of life, and post-neonatal death, referring to deaths after 28 days of life. Major causes of infant mortality include dehydration, infection, congenital malformation, and SIDS.

Natural Baby

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Seeking depth at center, the Columbus Blue Jackets have signed free agent Samuel Pahlsson to a three-year contract.
Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson announced the move on Wednesday, the first day NHL teams could sign free agents from other clubs.
The 31-year-old Swede played for Anaheim and Chicago last season, totaling seven goals and 11 assists in 65 games.
Pahlsson has 54 goals and 92 assists in 557 career games. He made his NHL debut with Boston in 2000-2001.

MOSCOW (Reuters) –
Hopes are rising on both sides that President Barack Obama's visit to Moscow next week will produce a breakthrough in talks on cutting U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons and on helping Washington in Afghanistan.

Officially, neither side has made an announcement but diplomats believe Obama will agree with President Dmitry Medvedev on the outline of a deal to reduce the stocks of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 on each side.

"We are confident that we will secure an agreement committing both sides to cutting warheads to fewer than 1,700," one person close to the talks said.

Obama and Medvedev gave the go-ahead to talks on a new strategic arms treaty to replace START-1, which expires on December 5, when they met for the first time in London in April.

Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday that progress in the arms talks had been "beyond what was expected when we started."

By December, Ryabkov told the state-run RIA news agency, he expected a "solid document with a range of measures for testing and exchange of information...and real reductions in strategic offensive weapons."

Estimates of current nuclear stockpiles differ but according to the U.S.-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the start of 2009 the United States had around 2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads and Russia around 2,790.

Washington is also optimistic of securing Moscow's agreement to ship lethal military supplies to its troops in Afghanistan across Russian territory -- an urgent priority as existing supply lines across Pakistan become less safe.

Diplomats say the two agreements are likely to be the main fruits of Obama's July 6-8 trip to Russia and will be touted as evidence that both sides want to "press the reset button" -- to use Washington's phrase -- on their rocky relations of recent years.

Relations between Russia and the United States hit their lowest point since the end of the Cold War last summer over a war in U.S. ally and former Soviet republic Georgia.

Russia's decision to send troops and amour deep into neighboring Georgia in response to Tbilisi's attack on a Russian-supported rebel region angered Washington and led to a suspension of NATO cooperation with Moscow -- now lifted.

Both sides are now trying to put that behind them to make progress on nuclear disarmament and other areas -- such as strengthening efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons -- where they see a chance of relatively quick agreement.

HOST OF DIFFERENCES PERSIST

But analysts warn that any prospective deals could yet be torpedoed by a host of differences between Moscow and Washington.

The two sides are far apart on U.S. plans to station an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, something Russia says threatens its security.

In Washington, Michael McFaul, Obama's adviser on Russia, said the president would make clear that Washington sees enhanced missile defense as protection against "real threats" like Iran, not against Russia, and he would seek Moscow's cooperation in the program.

Moscow also dislikes U.S. aspirations to bring more former Soviet republics into NATO, an alliance Russia views as a hostile Cold War relic.

Russia's ruling elite still smarts at what it sees as U.S. moves to take advantage of its weakness in the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and is determined to bargain hard, despite a deep economic recession and continued problems in equipping and training its military.

"The biggest deliverable from the summit will be an agreement on the parameters of a START treaty," said Dmitry Trenin, head of the Moscow Carnegie Center think-tank, during an online conference ahead of Obama's visit.

"But START is not a big achievement. It will regulate adversarial relations but on its own it will not bring U.S.-Russia relations to a new level."

Moscow and Washington have already agreed in a 2002 treaty to cut their nuclear arsenals to 1,700-2,200 deployed nuclear warheads by 2012, so any further reduction agreed in principle next week is likely to be relatively small.

Asked if leaders would agree at the Moscow summit to cuts to as low as 1,500 warheads each, McFaul said it would be "way too early" to announce specific levels.

"My guess is we'll get around to concrete numbers right toward the end of negotiating a treaty," he told reporters in Washington.

Underlying all the talking next week will also be a gulf in expectations and attitudes between a popular U.S. administration with a big electoral mandate and a fearful, insular Kremlin leadership who see threats all around them.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, editing by Vicki Allen)

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency to address California's deficit and has ordered state offices closed three days a month to save cash.
The Legislature will have 45 days to send him a plan to balance the state's budget, which ended the fiscal year with a $24.3 billion deficit. The shortfall is expected to grow by $7 billion because the Legislature did not enact several stopgap measures Tuesday.
If lawmakers fail to act within the 45 days, they cannot adjourn or act on other bills until they solve the crisis.
The government shutdown will lead to a third furlough day each month for 235,000 state employees, bringing their total pay cut to about 14 percent.
California began its new budget year Wednesday without a balanced spending plan, which will force the controller to issue IOUs.

WASHINGTON – Mississippi's still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers.
It's time for the nation's annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there's little good news. In 31 states, more than one in four adults are obese, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
And obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year, and no state experienced a significant decline.
"The obesity epidemic clearly goes beyond being an individual problem," said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group.
It's a national crisis that "calls for a national strategy to combat obesity," added Robert Wood Johnson vice president Dr. James Marks. "The crest of the wave of obesity is still to crash."
While the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds — the oldest boomers — than among today's 65-and-beyond.
The report provides one of the first in-depth looks at obese boomers, and its implications are sobering. This first wave of aging boomers will mean a jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.
Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner. But more recent research instead suggests that better treatments are keeping them alive nearly as long — but they're much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese, Levi said.
"There isn't a magic bullet. We don't have a pill for it," said Levi. "It's not going to be solved in the doctor's office but in the community, where we change norms."
His group is pushing for health reform legislation to include community-level programs that help people make healthier choices — like building sidewalks so people can walk their neighborhoods instead of drive, and providing healthier school lunches to help fight the childhood obesity that turns into adult obesity. The pending House and Senate bills address obesity in different ways; one provision would particularly target baby boomers.
Many states have begun programs to try to tackle obesity, and there are hints of improvements, Marks said.
"We're still getting fatter, but maybe a little more slowly than before," he said: Last year's report found obesity rates rising in 37 states compared with 23 this time around.
He's encouraged that 19 states have implemented nutritional standards for school meals that are stricter than the federal government's; in 2004, just four states did. Some are requiring nutritional information for restaurant food, he added.
States "recognize the solutions will lie outside traditional medical care," Marks said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long said that nearly a third of Americans are obese. The Trust report uses somewhat more conservative CDC surveys for a closer state-by-state look. Among the findings:
_Mississippi had the highest rate of adult obesity, 32.5 percent, for the fifth year in a row.
_Three additional states now have adult obesity rates above 30 percent, including Alabama, 31.2 percent; West Virginia, 31.1 percent; and Tennessee, 30.2 percent.
_In 1991, no state had more than a 20 percent obesity rate. Today, the only state that doesn't is Colorado, at 18.9 percent.

_The South is the fattest region. The Northeast and West are slightly slimmer than the rest of the country.

_Mississippi also had the highest rate of overweight and obese children, at 44.4 percent in total. It's followed by Arkansas, 37.5 percent; and Georgia, 37.3 percent.

_Following Alabama, Michigan ranks No. 2 with fat boomers; 36 percent of its 55- to 64-year-olds are obese. Colorado has the lowest rate, 21.8 percent.

___

On the Net:

Trust for America's Health: http://healthyamericans.org/

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: http://www.rwjf.org/

Early computer sound chips had only simple tone and noise generators with few channels, imposing limitations on both the complexity of the sounds they could produce and the number of notes that could be played at once. In their desire to create a more complex arrangement than what the medium apparently allowed, composers developed creative approaches when developing their own electronic sounds and scores, employing a diversity of both methods of sound synthesis, such as pulse width modulation and wavetable synthesis, and compositional techniques, such as a liberal use of arpeggiation. The resultant chiptunes sometimes seem harsh or squeaky to the unaccustomed listener.

The June 2008 issue of Paste Magazine has an article on chiptune artist Jeremiah "Nullsleep" Johnson, and the included sampler CD features chiptune song "Local Hero" by Crazy Q.

Voice Cards

LOS OLIVOS, Calif. – Adoring fans and dozens of news crews poured into this bucolic town near Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch on Wednesday expecting to witness the finale to the story of the King of Pop — only to learn their hasty trips were unnecessary.
A large crowd of mourners set up camp outside Neverland's gates with lawn chairs and coolers of bottled water, while hotel rooms surrounding Jackson's estate sold out within minutes of the first — and eventually, erroneous — reports Tuesday that the pop icon might be buried there.
Residents of Los Olivos, who were plagued by reporters following Jackson's 2003 arrest on child molestation charges, once more had their lives upended by streams of TV vans and fans eager to mark the passing of a pop culture giant.
The excitement, however, appeared to be for nothing.
A Jackson family spokesman said in a statement Wednesday that a public memorial was being planned, but it would not be held at Neverland. No further details were provided.
Also Wednesday, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Jackson would likely be buried in Los Angeles, although the family could have a private memorial at Neverland after Jackson is buried. The source, who was not authorized to speak for the family and requested anonymity, told the AP that nothing is planned at least through Friday.
That news didn't dampen the enthusiasm of Jackson's die-hard fans, many of whom refused to believe that the family would bury their most famous son without acknowledging the fans who helped propel him to superstardom.
More than three dozen TV news trucks and several hundred cars parked outside the gates of Neverland and yellow police tape kept gawkers off the property of two private schools across the street.
The narrow, two-lane road lined with cattle ranches and oak-studded hills was nearly impassable to traffic and fans, forcing visitors to park more than a mile away and make the final pilgrimage to Neverland on foot.
In a scene reminiscent of a latter-day Graceland, many mourning fans placed notes and flowers and then departed, but about 100 settled in to wait. By noon, county officials had set up portable toilets and a large trash can, and California Highway Patrol officers were directing traffic. Officers also began placing no parking signs along the road.
Rosie Padron had roped off a spot just outside the gates of the sprawling ranch in hopes of being the first in line if the public was admitted. Padron and two friends were ready to wait overnight or longer and had set up lawn chairs and a photo montage of Jackson's career.
"I can't believe they wouldn't do something for his fans," said Padron, who also videotaped the events. "Michael loved his fans."
Without a Jackson-sanctioned memorial, at least one industrious promotions company hoped to appease fans with a weekend-long event hosted by a nearby, 1,000-acre private ranch. Promoter Releve Unlimited circulated fliers advertising three days of music and video tributes to Jackson, with a $40 parking fee and food and drink available from local vendors and wineries.
"We're going to have a safe environment so people aren't just standing by the side of the road," said Christine Souza, a spokeswoman for the company.
Inside the gates of the theme-park-style Neverland estate, at least two dozen workers could be seen placing fresh sod along the drive to the main house, mowing the lawn and doing maintenance on an ornate, iron-and-gold gate within the ranch.
The fountains were on and sprinklers had been set out to water the grass. Fresh flowers surrounded its train station.
A receptionist at KW Custom Iron, which had a crew at Neverland, said the company was not authorized to comment on what kind of work they were doing there. She declined to give her name.
Meanwhile, at Fess Parker's Wine Country Inn, rooms sold out within 20 minutes of the first media reports that Jackson would be buried — or at least memorialized — on the grounds of Neverland, said Jessica Larsen, the hotel's general manager.

"It was first media, and then after about an hour, the fans were calling in," she said. "There's been quite a few people calling, even internationally, and it's been hard for them" to learn the inn is fully booked.

Residents in Los Olivos, a laid-back town used to wine tourists, took the crush of fans and reporters in stride — especially after weathering a similar onslaught during Jackson's arrest, trial and eventual acquittal. More than 2,200 reporters camped out at the Santa Barbara County courthouse for the proceedings and dozens roamed the winding roads around Los Olivos during that time.

Rebecca Gomez, a local artist, was busy early Wednesday setting up an exhibition of her work that was scheduled to open later that day. She said she'd already noticed that the people arriving for this chapter in the Michael Jackson story seemed different than the ones who jammed the city when he was on trial four years ago.

"Whatever happens now is respectful instead of that other crowd we had the last time," she said.

____

Associated Press Writer Michael R. Blood reported from Los Angeles. AP Writers Gillian Flaccus, Anthony McCartney and Nekesa Mumbi Moody in Los Angeles and AP Photographer Chris Carlson in Los Olivos also contributed to this report.

ANNANDALE, Va. – President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job.
The president hugged her — she's a volunteer for his political operation — and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans.
"We are going to try to find ways to help you immediately," he told Smith as hundreds looked on at a community college forum — and countless others watched on television. But the nation's long-term needs require a greater emphasis on preventive care and "cost-effective care," he said.
Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic National Committee. She obtained her ticket through the White House.
The health care changes that Obama called for Wednesday would reshape the nation's medical landscape. He says he wants to cover nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, to persuade doctors to stress quality over quantity of care, to squeeze billions of dollars from spending.
But details on exactly how to do those things were generally lacking in his hour-long town hall forum before a friendly, hand-picked audience in a Washington suburb. The lingering questions underscore the tough negotiations awaiting Congress, the administration and dozens of special interest groups in the coming months. Lawmakers will return to debating the issue when they return from a one-week recess on Monday.
Some of Obama's questioners Wednesday were from friendly sources, including a member of the Service Employees International Union and a member of Health Care for America Now, which organized a Capitol Hill rally last week calling for an overhaul. White House aides selected other questions submitted by people on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Republicans said the event was a political sham designed to help Obama, not to inform the public.
"Americans are already skeptical about the cost and adverse impact of the president's health care plans," Republican National Committee spokesman Trevor Francis said. "Stacking the audience and preselecting questions may make for a good TV, but it's the wrong way to engage in a meaningful discussion about reforming health care."
Obama made no new proposals at the sometimes emotional event. But he vigorously defended his plans while fielding seven questions from the live audience at the forum and on the Internet.
The president would bar insurance companies from turning down applicants because of their "pre-existing conditions." He would establish health care exchanges that would spread the costs of treating patients such as Smith over a large number of people.
Obama called for shifting huge sums of money from current health care spending to new goals. About two-thirds of the overall new costs "will come from reallocating money that is already being spent in the health care system but isn't being spent wisely," he said.
He restated his pledge to cut $177 billion over the next decade from Medicare Advantage insurance plans. And he noted that doctors, hospitals, corporations and others have promised to decrease the annual rate of spending growth by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion over 10 years.
Such savings are not guaranteed, however, and many Republican lawmakers say Obama's plans will prove too costly.
"The biggest thing we can do to hold down costs is to change the incentives of a health care system that automatically equates expensive care with better care," the president said. He said the formula system drives up costs "but doesn't make you better."
Obama did not make specific recommendations for changing the incentive formulas.
One questioner said limits on awards from medical malpractice lawsuits would bring down health care costs.
Obama replied, "I don't like the idea of an artificial cap" on such awards for a patient's injuries. He also said there was little evidence that various states' efforts to limit such awards have uniformly brought down costs.

Obama said, however, that he is working with the American Medical Association to explore ways to reduce liability for doctors and hospitals "when they've done nothing wrong." He offered no specifics for a problem that has vexed the medical and legal industries for decades.

The president repeatedly said the current health care system is not acceptable and must be overhauled this year. He urged the audience, which included people following on Facebook and YouTube, to reject critics who say his plans are too costly or a step toward socialized medicine.

Obama said a government-run "single-payer" health care system works well in some countries. But it is not appropriate in the United States, he said, because so many people get insurance through their employers working with private companies.

Still, he again called for a government-run "public option" to compete with private insurers, a plan that many Republicans oppose.

NEW YORK – Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. plans to cut 1,400 jobs in the next few weeks, about 3 percent of the work force, as it faces a prolonged slump in advertising revenue.
Bob Dickey, head of the company's U.S. community publishing division, informed staff of the layoffs in a letter Wednesday. He told employees that "there have been some promising signs of a recovery, but the reality is the improvements are not broad-based and the economy continues to be fragile."
The majority of layoffs will come by July 9, he said.
The move follows a 10 percent cut at Gannett in 2008, which left the company with about 41,500 employees.
Gannett publishes USA Today, the largest newspaper by circulation in the U.S., along with dozens of other newspapers.
Dickey's memo did not mention USA Today, which is separate from the division he heads. A spokeswoman for Gannett did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Like the rest of its industry, the McLean, Va.-based company has seen advertising revenue wither in the face of the recession and competition from the Internet. Its publishing division reported a 34 percent drop in ad revenue in the first quarter, marking more than two straight years of declines.
Gannett has also tried saving money by requiring employees to take unpaid leave. Dickey said Wednesday there will be no more furloughs this year.
Freedom Communications Inc., publisher of The Orange Country Register and other newspapers, also announced cutbacks this week. The Irvine, Calif.-based company said Monday it will reduce pay across the board by 5 percent, beginning July 13.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Joe Mauer went 3-for-3, raising his average to .392 and backing pitcher Glen Perkins in the Minnesota Twins' 5-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday.
After walking in the first inning, Mauer stroked three consecutive singles, driving in one run and scoring another as the Twins completed a 6-3 trip. Mauer was walked intentionally in the eighth.
His average would lead the major leagues but his 240 plate appearances are eight shy of the 3.1 per game he needs to qualify.
Perkins (4-4) allowed one run for the second straight start, scattering 10 hits in seven innings.

Playa del Carmen (Xaman Ha' or Pláaya in Modern Maya) is a city on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, in the northeast of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The city is the seat of the Solidaridad municipality. In the 2005 census, the city had a population of about 100,383 people and it is rapidly growing in population. It is the third largest city in Quintana Roo, after Cancún and Chetumal.

Originally a small fishing town, tourism to Playa del Carmen began with the passenger ferry service to Cozumel, an island across the Cozumel Channel and world famous scuba diving destination. While passing through, many people realized that it was a nice place to relax away from the crowds of Cancún but with the same quality beaches and turquoise waters. Perhaps just as impressive as Cozumel, Playa del Carmen's coast offers good scuba diving opportunities, as well as cenote diving for the more adventurous.

Playa Del Carmen Villas

WIMBLEDON, England – Her 19th consecutive victory at the All England Club already wrapped up, Venus Williams grabbed a seat and watched younger sister Serena win easily to reach the semifinals, too.
Afterward, Venus and Mom, Oracene Price, strolled out of Centre Court arm-in-arm, chatting and laughing.
Sure is fun to be a Williams at Wimbledon.
Five-time champion Venus beat No. 11-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-1, 6-2, before two-time champion Serena defeated No. 8 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-2, 6-3, a pair of overwhelming performances Tuesday that moved the siblings closer to another all-in-the-family final at Wimbledon.
"They are both playing super-well. They're playing 'The Williams Way,'" their father, Richard Williams, said. "And when you're playing 'The Williams Way,' it's very difficult for anyone to touch you."
Particularly at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament, where a Williams has won seven of the past nine championships.
If No. 3 Venus gets by No. 1 Dinara Safina of Russia in Thursday's semifinals, and No. 2 Serena eliminates No. 4 Elena Dementieva of Russia, the siblings would meet Saturday in their second consecutive final at the All England Club and fourth overall.
It also would be the eighth all-Williams Grand Slam championship match; Serena leads 5-2.
"I would love it to be a Williams final," Venus said, "and so would she."
They are competitors, of course, but also form a team in many ways: The sisters are sharing a house during this tournament, practice with each other and have reached the women's doubles quarterfinals together.
"We've got it all figured out at this point," Venus said.
She is trying to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1991-93 to win three consecutive Wimbledon titles; Serena wants to add to the trophies she earned in 2002-03 by beating her sister in the finals.
At least one person has no doubt there will be a rematch Saturday.
"It will be. I'll go home because I can't watch," their dad said. "I think they both definitely make it to the final."
First things first. If the 19-year-old Azarenka and 20-year-old Radwanska represented up-and-coming opponents with little experience on the sport's grandest stages — neither has reached a Grand Slam semifinal — Safina and Dementieva are far more accustomed to playing significant matches.
On the other hand, they're not nearly as accustomed to winning them as the Williams sisters are, of course: Serena owns 10 major titles, Venus seven; Safina and Dementieva have zero.
Safina, who lost in the final at three of the previous five Grand Slam events, overcame 15 double-faults and wore down 41st-ranked Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1. Dementieva, twice a runner-up at major championships and a singles gold medalist at last year's Beijing Olympics, was never challenged by 43rd-ranked Francesca Schiavone of Italy and won their quarterfinal 6-2, 6-2.
Asked about her double-fault total, Safina replied with a smile: "15? I thought it was much more. Sometimes even I don't know what I'm doing with my serve."

As the younger sister of former No. 1 Marat Safin, who lost in the first round at what he vows was his last Wimbledon, Safina knows about sibling success. But after losing the French Open final a few weeks ago, she acknowledged cracking under the pressure of trying to win her first major.

Looking ahead to facing Venus, against whom she is 1-2, Safina said, "I cannot go on court thinking I lost already. No, definitely, I think I have a chance there."

Dementieva also sounded a brave tone, despite accumulating more unforced errors (18) than winners (13).

"I just want to see how tough I can be out there against her," said Dementieva, who lost to Venus in last year's Wimbledon semifinals and now takes on Serena. "Just looking for some good fight."

Radwanska and Azarenka failed to make things difficult for the Williams sisters, who were at their dominant best.

"Not perfect," Price said, "but pretty close." Radwanska was playing in her third Grand Slam quarterfinal, 27 fewer than Venus, and while she upset Maria Sharapova at the 2007 U.S. Open, a stunner of that magnitude never seemed a possibility Tuesday. Venus won the first five games and the last six, compiling a 29-6 edge in winners.

Pounding aces at up to 122 mph, Venus won 16 of 18 points on her serve in the first set on a steamy day, the temperature about 90 degrees and not a cloud overhead at Court 1.

"Her tennis is so powerful," Radwanska said. "Very hard to do anything."

It took all of 68 minutes, leaving Venus ample time to shower, change, do postmatch interviews and still make it into the guest box for Serena's match.

Azarenka hits the ball quite hard herself, letting out a grunt that sounds something like "Whoop!", but she couldn't keep up. She even felt compelled to clap after a couple of Serena's best strokes.

"She really showed the unbeatable Serena," Azarenka acknowledged.

Azarenka did break for a 3-2 lead in the second set, but Serena didn't let her win another game. When Serena smacked one last forehand winner, she jogged to the net, pumping her fists. Up in the stands, Venus stood and applauded.

"We definitely upped our level of game today," said Serena, who hit nine aces. "We had really tough opponents, so we had to."

On Thursday, two more opponents will try to slow a pair of sisters who began playing tennis twenty-something years ago in Compton, Calif., and have made the most famous grass courts in the world their personal playground.

One particular family will be hoping for an all-Williams final. One nation will be pulling for an all-Russian final.

Dementieva proposed a unique alternative, asking: "Can we play just two finals instead?"

___

AP freelance writer Sandra Harwitt contributed to this report.

Clockmakers developed their art in various ways. Building smaller clocks was a technical challenge, as was improving accuracy and reliability. Clocks could be impressive showpieces to demonstrate skilled craftsmanship, or less expensive, mass-produced items for domestic use. The escapement in particular was an important factor affecting the clock's accuracy, so many different mechanisms were tried. Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 1400s, although they are often erroneously credited to Nürnberg watchmaker Peter Henlein (or Henle, or Hele) around 1511. The earliest existing spring driven clock is the chamber clock given to Peter the Good, Duke of Burgundy, around 1430, now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Spring power presented clockmakers with a new problem; how to keep the clock movement running at a constant rate as the spring ran down. This resulted in the invention of the stackfreed and the fusee in the 1400s, and many other innovations, down to the invention of the modern going barrel in 1760.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished, particularly in the metalworking towns of Nuremberg and Augsburg, and in France, Blois. Some of the more basic table clocks have only one time-keeping hand, with the dial between the hour markers being divided into four equal parts making the clocks readable to the nearest 15 minutes. Other clocks were exhibitions of craftsmanship and skill, incorporating astronomical indicators and musical movements. The cross-beat escapement[citation needed] was developed in 1585 by Jost Burgi, who also developed the remontoire. Burgi's accurate clocks helped Tycho Brahe to observe astronomical events with much greater precision than before.

http://www.timeclockstx.com/

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
A North Korean ship tracked by the US Navy and suspected of transporting weapons or military know-how in violation of UN sanctions has turned around, a Pentagon official said.

The official declined to provide details, including where the Kang Nam 1 ship -- reportedly originally bound for Myanmar -- could now be headed, but news reports out of South Korea suggested the ship may be returning home two weeks after it set sail June 17.

A diplomatic source speaking on condition of anonymity told the Korea Herald that the ship was "near our waters," which could suggest that sanctions were having an effect on reclusive North Korea.

"If the ship is on its way back, it would mean that Resolution 1874 is taking effect and causing the North to retreat," Kim Tae-woo, vice president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, told the newspaper.

The Kang Nam 1 quickly drew the attention of the US military under new UN sanctions designed to punish Pyongyang over its May 25 underground nuclear test.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, confirmed Sunday that the United States was tracking the cargo ship.

"Obviously we're pursuing and following the progress of that ship very closely," she told the CBS network.

"I'm not going to get into our operational details or what we might actually do on the high seas, if anything, or what allies and partners in the region might do."

UN Security Council Resolution 1874, adopted in response to the May 25 nuclear test, calls for beefed up inspections of air, sea and land shipments going to and from North Korea, and an expanded arms embargo.

But a senior US lawmaker, Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, last week said the resolution had "serious limitations" because it rules out the use of military force to back up the searches.

WASHINGTON – A judge asked federal prosecutors in a major drug-dealing case Tuesday if they have a pattern of mishandling evidence after a second high-profile prosecution fell apart in his courtroom because of witness problems.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he saw similar prosecutorial mishandling in the dismissed corruption conviction against former Republican Sen. Ted Stevens this spring and now in the Justice Department's move to drop drug charges against Chinese-Mexican businessman Zhenli Ye Gon.
Ye Gon has been jailed for two years on charges of importing methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States. Authorities said they seized more than $205 million from his Mexico City mansion, which they called the largest drug-related cash seizure in history.
But since his arrest, prosecutors said one witness has recanted and another has refused to testify, and they have asked Sullivan to dismiss the case. Sullivan said he will throw out the indictment during a final hearing on July 30, when he'll also decide whether to allow prosecutors the option of charging Ye Gon again.
At the hearing, Ye Gon, wearing an orange-and-white striped jail jumpsuit, listened to a simultaneous translation as Sullivan criticized prosecutors for only revealing the witness problems last week even though they've known about them for at least six months.
He said the prosecution only belatedly revealed the witness problems, despite being required to do by Justice Department policy and the Constitution. Meanwhile, he said that without knowing of the problems he repeatedly delayed the trial at the prosecutors' request while Ye Gon was "essentially in solitary confinement" at a Washington jail.
"All of this raises legitimate questions about whether the government ever intended to abide by its constitutional obligations to provide that information to the defendant," Sullivan said.
Ye Gon has since been transferred to a federal lockup in Virginia. Mexico has requested that he be extradited to face organized crime, drug trafficking and weapons charges there.
Mexican officials say Ye Gon was involved in one of the Western hemisphere's largest networks for trafficking pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in methamphetamines. Ye Gon said the chemicals imported by his company, Unimed Pharm Chem de Mexico SA, were legitimate and intended for use in prescription drugs.
Sullivan has ordered a criminal investigation into handling of evidence in the Stevens case. Prosecutors admitted after a jury returned a guilty verdict that they did not turn over important witness statements that could have aided the former senator's defense.
Sullivan gave prosecutors 10 days to file a written response answering his concerns about their handling of the Ye Gon case. Among his concerns was how their conduct fit with Attorney General Eric Holder's statement after dismissing the charges against Stevens that prosecutors should be more concerned with justice than winning cases.
He also asked whether the Justice Department's approach is to withhold information from defendants in criminal prosecutions and then dismiss the cases if they get caught.
"That would be shocking," Sullivan said.
Paul O'Brien, chief of the Justice Department's narcotics section, disputed Sullivan's characterizations of the prosecution and said he hoped a written response will help "educate the court."
"I believe some of the characterizations may not be accurate," O'Brien said. Sullivan responded that he wasn't making any legal findings yet, but raising points for the prosecutors to address.

MORONI, Comoros – A Yemeni jetliner carrying 153 people crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday as it attempted to land amid severe turbulence and howling winds. Officials said a teenage girl was plucked from the sea, the only known survivor.
The crash in waters off this island nation came two years after aviation officials reported equipment faults with the plane, an aging Airbus 310 flying the last leg of a Yemenia airlines flight from Paris and Marseille to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes.
Most of the passengers were from Comoros, a former French colony. Sixty-six on board were French nationals.
Khaled el-Kaei, the head of Yemenia's public relations office, said a 14-year-old girl survived the crash, and Yemen's embassy in Washington issued a statement saying a young girl was taken to a hospital. It also said five bodies were recovered.
Sgt. Said Abdilai told Europe 1 radio that he rescued the girl after she was found bobbing in the water. She couldn't grasp the life ring rescuers threw to her, so he jumped into the sea, Abdilai said. He said rescuers gave the trembling girl warm water with sugar.
There were earlier statements from officials that a 5-year-old boy survived. El-Kaei said that was not known and the airline had lost contact with its office in Comoros because of bad weather.
Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader said the flight data recorder had not been found and it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash. But he said winds in excess of 40 miles per hour were pummeling the plane as it was landing in darkness in the early morning hours Tuesday.
Turbulence was believed to be a factor in the crash, Yemen's embassy in Washington said.
"The weather was very bad," Qader said, adding the windy conditions were hampering rescue efforts.
The Yemenia plane was the second Airbus to crash into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, killing all 228 people on board, as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Mohammed Moqbel, a Yemeni pilot who has flown to the Comoros, said the route can be difficult because of the geography and weather.
"The airport is also very poor in terms of equipment," said Moqbel. "They don't have advanced radars to guide planes."
The tragedy — and dwindling hopes that anyone else made it out alive — prompted an outcry in the Comoros, where residents complained of a lack of seat belts on Yemenia flights and planes so overcrowded that passengers had to stand in the aisles.
The Comoros, a former French colony of 700,000 people, is an archipelago of three main islands situated 1,800 miles south of Yemen, between Africa's southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar.
Gen. Bruno de Bourdoncle de Saint-Salvy, the senior commander for French forces in the southern Indian Ocean, said the Airbus 310 crashed in deep waters about nine miles north of the Comoran coast and 21 miles from the Moroni airport. Searchers encountered an oil slick at the site, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.
French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" in the plane's equipment during a 2007 inspection, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said on France's i-Tele television Tuesday. He did not elaborate
In Brussels, European Union Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks and was not on their blacklist. But he said a full investigation was being launched amid questions about why the passengers — who originated in Paris — were transferred on another jet in the Yemeni capital of San'a.
An Airbus statement said the plane that crashed went into service 19 years ago, and had accumulated 51,900 flight hours. It has been operated by Yemenia since 1999. Airbus said it was sending a team of specialists to the Comoros.

The A310-300 is a twin-engine widebody jet that can seat up to 220 passengers. There are 214 A310s in service worldwide, with 41 operators.

A crisis center was set up at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Many passengers were from the French city of Marseille, home to around 80,000 immigrant Comorans, more even than Comoros' capital of Moroni.

Yemenia has long been a target of criticism for the poor condition of its passenger cabins, with recent passenger complaints about missing or faulty seat belts.

Still, analysts have cautioned against equating the condition of the passenger cabin on any airline with the aircraft's maintenance records.

Yemenia airways has a solid safety record. In 2008 it passed the International Airline Transport Association's operational safety audit, a rigorous set of inspections considered an indication of high quality for any airline.

One problem that does crop up with older aircraft, particularly when a certain model has been discontinued, is the issue of fake replacement parts, experts said.

Airline companies sometimes unwittingly purchase fake parts, which are then put into aircraft by their maintenance crews. Despite rigorous international efforts to root out counterfeit spares in the past decade, they are still believed to be in circulation.

"Pirate spare parts remain a big maintenance problem in aviation," said Capt. Harry Eggerschwiler, chief of operations for the African Civil Aviation Authority. "This is true everywhere in the world and not just in (developing) countries."

Some French Comorans insisted their complaints about the airline's safety weren't heeded by authorities.

Zalifa Youssouf, a member of SOS Voyages, which seeks to improve passenger conditions and safety, told France's i-Tele television that the Comoran community had complained about the flight from San'a to Comoros.

She said the planes were dirty, frequently did not have safety belts and that flight attendants often did not speak French, just Arabic which passengers did not understand. "We felt we were in danger," Youssouf said.

Mohamed Ali, a Comoran who went to Yemenia's headquarters in Paris to try to get more information about the doomed flight, said complaints about safety went unheeded. "Some people stand the whole way to Moroni," he said.

In France, school vacations began this week and many on the plane were heading home to visit.

Christophe Prazuck, French military spokesman, said a patrol boat and reconnaissance ship were sent to the crash site as well as a military transport plane. The French were sending divers as well as medical personnel, he said.

Yemenia airline officials said the 11-member crew was made up of six Yemenis, including the pilot, two Moroccans, an Indonesian, an Ethiopian and a Filipino.

___

Al-Haj contributed to this report from San'a, Yemen. Associated Press writers Deborah Seward, Angela Charlton and Greg Keller in Paris, Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Yoann Guilloux in Saint-Denis de la Reunion, Reunion Island, contributed to this report.

The origins of the doctorate in particular dates back to the ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifttd ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system, which was equivalent to the Doctor of Laws qualification and was developed during the 9th century after the formation of the Madh'hab legal schools. To obtain a doctorate, a student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course" and at least ten years for a post-graduate course.

This timetable is only approximate, however, as students in accelerated programs can sometimes earn a bachelor's degree in three years or, on the other hand, a particular dissertation project might take four or more years to complete. In addition, a graduate may wait an indeterminate time between degrees before candidacy in the next level, or even an additional degree at a level already completed. Therefore, there is no time-limit on the accumulation of academic degrees.

Site

http://www.ccikids.org/Help/sponsor.html

Liquid Silver Supplement

Dietary minerals are the chemical elements required by living organisms, other than the four elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen present in common organic molecules. The term "mineral" is archaic, since the intent of the definition is to describe ions, not chemical compounds or actual minerals.

Some sources state that sixteen minerals are required to support human biochemical processes by serving structural and functional roles as well as electrolytes: The term "dietary minerals" does not include the fundamental elements of organic chemistry: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Also, sometimes a distinction is drawn between this category and micronutrients. Most of the essential minerals are of relatively low atomic weight:

The Nation -- The Minnesota Supreme Court has confirmed what everyone pretty much knew: The voters chose Democratic Farmer Labor Party challenger Al Franken over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in last fall's U.S. Senate election.

And while the election result was close, the court's decision was not.

The justices ruled 5-0 that: "Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled [under Minnesota law] to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota."

This should -- and, of course, the key word in this convoluted competition is still "should" -- settle the last contested congressional race of 2008.

Under Minnesota law,the court's decision gives Mr. Franken the right to occupy the seat that a series of recounts and official reviews confirmed was won by the satirist with a narrow but steady margin that ultimately expanded to 312 votes.

Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has delayed signing the certification of election that Franken needed to become the 60th Democratic member of the current Senate, has repeatedly suggested that he would abide by the decision of the state's highest court.

Even Coleman, whose dead-ender appeals have been funded by Republican donors from around the country as well as stipends from the campaign funds of sitting GOP senators, had indicated before the ruling that he would be disinclined to press his fight if he lost at the state Supreme Court level.

There are still "I"s to be dotted and "T"s to be crossed.

But it would appear likely that, by the time the Senate returns from its July 4 recess, Democrats will have a caucus that includes 58 party members and two independents (Vermonts's Bernie Sanders and Connecticut's Joe Lieberman) who sit with the majority.

That's the "magic" 60 that allows a majority party to avert filibusters and schedule votes on legislation and nominations.

With Republicans sticking to their "party of no" approach -- and maintaining remarkable unity -- the seating of Franken will have significance. It won't mean that the majority party can have its way with the Senate, as there will continue to be cases where individual Democrats break ranks. But it does mean that the will of the electorate -- which voted overwhelmingly in the last two electin cycles for a Democratic Congress -- will be at least somewhat more difficult for Rush Limbaugh's rejectionists to thwart.

Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home (and online) FREE.

2.2 Million homeowners may face foreclosure over the next couple of years. Many borrowers are stuck in these toxic adjustable rate mortgages and they cannot refinance out of them as their payments are going through the roof.

A Loan Modification (sometimes called a Loan Mod), is the altering of one or more of the characteristics of a loan and/or its terms.. Loan Mods are usually the result of the borrowers inability to make payments in the agreed upon time-frame or because the property is worth less than the borrower owes. This means that a Orange County homeowner has taken out a loan to purchase a property, or refinanced a cash out loan,$ and in not able to repay it in accordance to the pre-set schedule designed when the loan was taken out. They then fall behind on their payments and are faced with a few tough choices.... foreclosure, deed in lieu of title, short sale or loan modification. The only option of this list that does not force the Orange County homeowner to lose their home is the Loan Modification.

Modificaciones De Prestamos Oregon

VIAREGGIO, Italy – A freight train derailed and plowed into houses in a small Italian town, setting off an explosion and fire that killed at least 12 people — many as they slept in their homes — and injured at least 50, officials said Tuesday.
The 14-car train was traveling from the northern city of La Spezia to Pisa when a rear car derailed and crashed into a residential neighborhood beside the train station in the Tuscan seaside town of Viareggio just before midnight Monday.
A train car filled with liquefied natural gas exploded, collapsing five buildings and setting fire to a vast area. Homes crumbled or burned, killing residents as they slept.
The exact death toll was unclear as hundreds of rescuers searched through the rubble for survivors.
Guido Bertolaso, the chief of the Civil Protection Department, told reporters at the scene that 12 people had been killed, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies said. He said four people were missing.
Gennaro Tornatore, a spokesman for the firefighters, said 15 people had died, while an official with the hospital in Viareggio, Stefano Pasquinucci, said the death toll stood at 16.
Many of the injured suffered severe burns.
"We saw a ball of fire rising up to the sky," said witness Gianfranco Bini, who lives in a building overlooking the station. "We heard three big rumbles, like bombs. It looked like war had broken out."
His son, Gianni Bini, said he saw a truck driver running away on fire.
"This truck was passing by ... when it was hit by the heat wave and I saw the driver ablaze, getting off and walking away," he said.
Videos uploaded onto YouTube showed a huge plume of fire and smoke towering above Viareggio's low houses. An inferno raged through the night, consuming buildings and cars, while the sound of sirens and explosions pierced the air. TV images showed residents, their bodies blackened by the smoke, being carried away on stretchers.
Bertolaso called the accident one of Italy's worst railway tragedies. Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who was in Naples for a businessmen meeting, said he would go to Viareggio later Tuesday to take control of the situation.
It was the deadliest train accident since January 2005, when 17 people were killed in a head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train. The collision occurred in thick fog on a single track line near Bologna in northern Italy, and led to calls for improved train safety.
In Monday's overnight derailment, 10 buildings and dozens of cars were at least partially burned, firefighters said.
Officials said the death toll might increase as 300 firefighters and other rescue teams searched through the rubble.
The city of Lucca's top government official, Prefect Carmelo Aronica, told Italy's RAI state TV that at least 50 people were injured, with 35 hospitalized with severe burns. The ANSA news agency reported that three children were pulled alive from the rubble of their collapsed home shortly before daybreak Tuesday.
About 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes as a precaution, said Viareggio Mayor Luca Lunardini. Tents were set up around the town hall for about 200 people.
As the firefighters worked to contain the blaze, teams specialized in dealing with nuclear, biological and chemical threats were being brought in to prevent the other gas tanks from exploding. Officials said the fire was contained after several hours, but a smell of burning hung in the air.

"There are dozens and dozens of cars hit by the shock wave and collapsed houses," said firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari.

Some of the victims, including a child, were killed in their homes, said Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman for the nearby city of Lucca, which is in charge of the smaller town of Viareggio. Two drivers on the road alongside the tracks when the train derailed were also killed.

Others suffered severe burns and died at the hospital.

"The condition of the bodies is such that it will be very difficult to identify them," Gargiulo said.

A statement by Italy's state-run railways company said the first rail car was registered with the Polish company PKP, while the other 13 cars were registered with the Deutsche Bahn, the German railways. The cars were driven by a locomotive of the Italian railways Trenitalia.

The statement said the first car appeared to derail and explode, pulling another four cars with it. The cause was not immediately clear.

The train's two engineers were only lightly injured. While being questioned in the hospital, they said they felt an impact some 650 feet (200 meters) outside the station, shortly before the rear of the train flew off the tracks, Gargiulo said.

He told The Associated Press by telephone that the derailing may have been caused by damage to the tracks or by a problem with the train's braking system.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Most states have child abuse laws allowing some religious exemptions for parents who shun medicine for their sick children, but a few recent cases highlight thorny legal issues for parents following less-recognized faiths.
Existing laws have gradually accounted for more well-known and established faiths, such as Pentecostalism, Christian Science and Jehovah's Witnesses.
But recent cases in the news have judges and child care advocates dealing with parents who claim adherence to lesser-known faiths, such as the Minnesota family following an Internet-based group's American Indian beliefs, and an independent Oregon church that has been investigated in the past for the deaths of members' sick children.
Legal and religious scholars say it's becoming more difficult for courts to decide when to honor the religious beliefs of parents and when to order conventional medical treatment for extremely sick children.
The manslaughter trial of an Oregon couple who claim they were following their religious beliefs in the 2008 pneumonia death of their 1-year-old daughter began Monday. A state medical examiner has said she could have been treated with antibiotics.
Carl and Raylene Worthington are members of Followers of Christ Church, which was the focus of an investigation a decade ago after a series of child deaths that resulted in a change to Oregon's law limiting religious exemptions.
In Tennessee, Jacqueline Crank and her minister Ariel Sherman face child neglect charges in the death of her 15-year-old daughter, Jessica, who died in 2002 with a basketball-sized tumor on her shoulder. Prosecutors say based on Sherman's advice, the girl's mother relied on prayer instead of medicine.
Sherman has been accused of being a cult leader whose Universal Life Church is not a legitimate religion. He has denied such charges and says the church is Christian-based and embraces the Bible.
Believers in faith healing point to a Biblical verse in the Epistle of James, which describes how church elders should be called in to pray over the sick. There's no mention of doctors, and literalists interpret it to mean medical treatment should be eschewed over prayer.
Gregory P. Isaacs, an attorney for Crank, who's out on bond, argues that Tennessee's religious exemption law is untested and too vague.
"It really has a tremendous amount of problems," Isaacs said. "What is an organized religion and what is an ordained minister? What illnesses can you attempt to heal by faith? Those are the two pitfalls in the statute. That's not what's really clear."
Jim Dwyer, a William and Mary Law School professor who's written articles about and participated in litigation on the topic, said it's often more complicated for courts to discern cases with unaffiliated religions because judges and juries aren't as familiar with them and are skeptical of their legitimacy.
"The Supreme Court has adopted a very broad definition of religion," Dwyer said. "But ... you have to show sincere religious beliefs. Some judges might be skeptical of sincerity if it's something they've never heard of, if the person says, 'I don't belong to a certain church. I just have some beliefs that I saw on the Internet,' or 'In our own home, we've developed this set of beliefs.'"
Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, a pediatrician and co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University, says when treatment for an illness is very toxic and the prognosis is dire, courts tend to rule parents don't have to pursue medical treatment. If that's not the case, courts are likely to order the treatment.
"Until medicine became effective, there was no push to say we absolutely have to do medical treatment. There wasn't this notion of deference (to religion) until medicine began to work and to become institutionally powerful."
Besides the states that have religious exemption laws, five states — Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska and North Carolina — have repealed such laws.
Many of the exemption laws were enacted in the 1970s. Rita Swan, director of the Sioux City, Iowa-based advocacy group Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty, which lobbies states to repeal such laws, said that since 1975, there have been at least 274 known cases of U.S. children who have died after medical care was withheld on religious grounds.
She says the majority of such cases are still associated with established denominations like Pentecostalism, though "the Internet has opened up some more possibilities than it did before" and there have been some cases involving unaffiliated denominations.

At least two recent high-profile cases involve parents whose beliefs were drawn from Internet-based religious groups.

Authorities in Minnesota convinced a judge to force 13-year-old Daniel Hauser into chemotherapy, prompting his mother Colleen to skip a court hearing and — with her son in tow — go on the run for nearly a week in May.

They headed to Southern California, where they considered a trip into Mexico for alternative cancer treatments, before eventually returning to the Hausers' home in Sleepy Eye, Minn., about 100 miles southwest of the Twin Cities. The boy has since received chemotherapy treatments, which appear to be working.

The family prefers natural healing practices suggested by an Internet-based group called the Nemenhah Band, which says it follows American Indian beliefs.

In Wisconsin, a jury convicted Leilani Neumann, of Weston, Wis., of second-degree reckless homicide in May for failing to rush her 11-year-old daughter Madeline Kara Neumann to a doctor. She died of untreated diabetes in March 2008.

Prosecutors argued she killed the girl by ignoring obvious symptoms — she couldn't walk or talk and was believed to be in a coma — until it was too late. The mother testified she didn't realize her daughter was so ill and did all she could to help, in line with the family's belief in faith healing.

Neumann sought the spiritual assistance of the online evangelical Christian ministry Unleavened Bread Ministries.

In the wake of the Wisconsin case, Swan said legislators there are considering a bill that would repeal the state's religious exemption to its child abuse and neglect law.

"In the U.S. under the First Amendment, we're not supposed to be establishing religion or carving out any preferences for prestigious religions," Swan said. "The courts should not be giving any kind of deference to established denominations and making any distinctions."

___

On the Net:

Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty: http://www.childrenshealthcare.org/

This
story was updated at 1:10 p.m. EDT.

NASA on
Monday unveiled the nine Americans making up its newest class of astronaut
candidates, a group that will never fly on the space shuttle.

The six-man,
three-woman astronaut
class of 2009 is NASA's first batch of new spaceflying recruits in five
years. The candidates are expected to report to NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas, in August to begin two years of training.

"This is a
very talented and diverse group we've selected," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's
space operations chief, in a statement. "They will join our current astronauts
and play very important roles for NASA in the future."

NASA's
three aging space shuttles are due
to retire in 2010 after completing construction of the International Space Station.
The new astronaut candidates, therefore, will likely only train to fly aboard
the space station, Russian Soyuz vehicles, and NASA's shuttle replacement - the
Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its Ares rockets tapped to ferry spaceflyers
to orbit and back
to the moon by 2020. The 11 astronauts of NASA's 2004 class are all
expected to have flown once on a shuttle by the fleet's retirement next year,
NASA officials have said.

"In
addition to flying in space, astronauts participate in every aspect of human
spaceflight, sharing their expertise with engineers and managers across the
country," Gerstenmaier said.

The 2009
astronaut class is a relatively young group, with ages ranging from 30 to 43.
NASA selected the nine from a field of 3,500 applicants to make up the new
class, its 20th group since the original seven Mercury astronauts were unveiled
in 1959.

The group
is a mix of military and civilians that includes: a technical intelligence
officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), two NASA flight surgeons, a
space station flight controller, a sprint-running molecular biologist, as well
as two Navy test pilots, a U.S. Air Force test pilot and the special assistant
to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

"I
think this is a thrilling time to be part of the space program, and I feel very
fortunate to be starting as an astronaut candidate at this particular
time," said Kathleen Rubins, 30, the molecular biologist, in a NASA
interview.

 Here's
a brief look at NASA's new astronaut class:

Serena M. Aunon, 33, of League City, Texas; University
of Texas Medical Branch-Wyle flight surgeon for NASA's space shuttle,
International Space Station and Constellation programs; born in
Indianapolis, Ind. Aunon holds degrees from George Washington University,
the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and UTMB.
Jeanette J. Epps, 38, of Fairfax, Va.; technical
intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency; born in
Syracuse, N.Y. Epps holds degrees from LeMoyne College and the University
of Maryland.
Jack D. Fischer, Major U.S. Air Force, 35, of Reston,
Va.; test pilot; U.S. Air Force Strategic Policy intern (Joint Chiefs of
Staff) at the Pentagon; born in Boulder, Colo. Fischer is a graduate of
the U.S. Air Force Academy and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Michael S. Hopkins, Lt. Colonel U.S. Air Force, 40, of
Alexandria, Va.; special assistant to the Vice Chairman (Joint Chiefs of
Staff) at the Pentagon; born in Lebanon, Mo. Hopkins holds degrees from
the University of Illinois and Stanford University.
Kjell N. Lindgren, 36, of League City, Texas;
University of Texas Medical Branch-Wyle flight surgeon for NASA's Space
Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation Programs; born in
Taipei, Taiwan. Lindgren has degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy,
Colorado State University, University of Colorado, the University of
Minnesota, and UTMB.
Kathleen (Kate) Rubins, 30, of Cambridge, Mass.; born
in Farmington, Conn.; principal investigator and fellow, Whitehead
Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and conducts research trips to
the Congo. Rubins has degrees from the University of California-San Diego
and Stanford University.
Rubins is not the youngest person to
be selected for NASA's astronaut corps. Astronauts Sally Ride and Tammy
Jernigan were both 26 at the time of their selections in 1978 and 1985,
respectively.

Scott D. Tingle, Commander U.S. Navy, 43, of Hollywood,
Md.; born in Attleboro, Mass.; test pilot and Assistant Program Manager-Systems
Engineering at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Tingle holds degrees from
Southeastern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth) and Purdue University.
Mark T. Vande Hei, Lt. Colonel U.S. Army, 42, of El
Lago, Texas; born in Falls Church, Va.; flight controller for the
International Space Station at NASA's Johnson Space Center, as part of
U.S. Army NASA Detachment. Vande Hei is a graduate of Saint John's
University and Stanford University.
Gregory
R. (Reid) Wiseman, Lt. Commander U.S. Navy, 33, of Virginia Beach, Va.;
born in Baltimore; test pilot; Department Head, Strike Fighter Squadron
103, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, based out of Oceana, Va. Wiseman is a
graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Johns Hopkins University.
Currently,
there are about 85 active astronauts in NASA's
spaceflying ranks. The nine members of the 2009 class will join the
astronaut corps after their two-year training regime.

NASA
spokesperson Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters told SPACE.com that the nine NASA
recruits will be joined by new astronauts from Japan, Canada and Europe, who
will also train with them. In May, the Japanese and Canadian space agencies each
added two new astronauts to their small cadre of spaceflyers, while the
European Space Agency unveiled six new astronauts representing Denmark, France,
Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The new
astronauts are all expected to report for training duty in late August,
Cloutier-Lemasters said.

"We look
forward to working with them as we transcend from the shuttle to our future
exploration of space, and continue the important engineering and scientific
discoveries aboard the International Space Station," Gerstenmaier said.

Video
- The Original Seven: Mercury Astronauts Revealed
Video
- 50 Years of NASA: Part 1, Part
2
Video
- NASA's Constellation Journey Begins: Part 1, Part
2
 

Original Story: NASA Unveils Astronaut Class That Will Never Fly on ShuttleSPACE.com offers rich and compelling content about space science, travel and exploration as well as astronomy, technology, business news and more. The site boasts a variety of popular features including our space image of the day and other space pictures,space videos, Top 10s, Trivia, podcasts and Amazing Images submitted by our users. Join our community, sign up for our free newsletters and register for our RSS Feeds today!

BAGHDAD – Iraq's long-awaited licensing round to develop some of its massive oil reserves stumbled Tuesday as oil and gas companies dug in their heals, demanding more money for their efforts than the government was willing to pay.
International oil companies were submitting bids for six oil and two gas fields more than 30 years after Saddam Hussein nationalized the oil sector and expelled foreign firms. The televised process coincided with Iraq assuming formal control over its cities — a step toward ending the U.S. combat role in the country.
But by midday, only one field had been awarded and several others drew limited to no interest.
The government was hoping that the high-profile licensing round — televised to prove its transparency — would result in companies flooding in, bringing their expertise as the country looks to boost output of a resource whose sales bring in 90 percent of the government's revenues.
Some analysts have said companies may be unwilling to commit to major ventures in Iraq, opting to wait and see how the security situation develops after the U.S. pullout from urban areas.
Al-Maliki said at the start of the day's ceremony that the government would "offer security protection, offer all guarantees for their investments and offer all the facilities needed to ensure the success of this process."
Disputes over how much the companies would get for producing over a minimum output target cast a pall on a process heralded as offering Iraq the key to rebuilding an economy devastated by years of sanctions and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraq has about 115 billion barrels in crude — among the world's largest deposits — and the fields on offer account for roughly 43 billion barrels of those reserves.
Two consortiums submitted offers for the Rumaila oil field, which holds 17.8 billion barrels in crude reserves. British giant BP PLC and China's CNPC made up the first consortium, while U.S. giant Exxon Mobil and Malaysia's Petronas comprised the second.
Under the service contracts, the companies would be paid a per barrel fee for any crude they produce in excess of a minimum production target. The Exxon Mobil-led consortium requested $4.8 per barrel for production over the minimum and BP wanted $3.99 per barrel, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said. The ministry was willing to pay $2 per barrel.
BP agreed to match the ministry's price and won the contract for Rumaila, said al-Shahristani. Exxon Mobil had refused to revise its bid, he said.
No bids were offered on the second field on offer, Mansouria.
The field, located in the restive Diyala province, is an undeveloped gas field estimated to hold 3.3 trillion cubic feet of reserves with production potential of 330 million cubic feet a day. That province has weathered some of Iraq's worst violence.
Four consortiums submitted bids to develop the 4.1 billion barrel Zubair oil field. The groups were led by India's ONGC, China's CNPC, Italy's Eni and Exxon Mobil.
A consortium made up of ConocoPhillips and China's CNOOC Ltd. and Sinopec was the only bidder for the 2.4 billion barrel Bai Hassan field in the Kirkuk region in the north. But ConocoPhillips, which bid $26.7 per barrel for output over the minimum, refused to match the ministry's estimated per barrel payment of about $4, said al-Shahristani.
CNOOC led a consortium that was the only bidder for the Missan fields — three adjacent fields offered as one bloc. But the Chinese firm, which had bid $21.4 per barrel, refused to match the government's $2 per barrel price.
The Kirkuk field, with an estimated 8 billion barrels of reserves, also drew only one bidder.
The Shell-led group — which includes Sinopec, CNPC and Turkish Petroleum — offered a price of $7.89 per barrel while the government said it was willing to pay only $2 per barrel.
Officials had earlier said that any fields not agreed on would be re-offered in subsequent rounds. But al-Shahristani said the offers on Bai Hassan and Missan "will be taken to the Cabinet for further instructions."

The step appeared aimed at saving a bidding round that was already under fire by some in parliament. The lawmakers had argued that al-Shahristani's insistence on having the Cabinet approve the deals, instead of the parliament, would render the deals unconstitutional.

The political wrangling was largely an effort by the country's various political blocs to secure a stake in Iraq's oil fortunes.

But analysts have said the bickering could further unsettle international oil companies already worried about Iraq's lack of a new national oil law and the government's argument that deals struck independently with the semiautonomous Kurds in the north are illegal.

Rounding out the list of worries is Iraq's perennial security worries.

Al-Shahristani has borne much of the criticism, with some pointing to Iraq's inability to even reach its prewar production levels as evidence that he has failed. The minister, however, has insisted he was working for the country's best interest.

Iraqi officials have estimated that based on crude oil at $50 per barrel, the companies could earn around $16 billion in total. Iraq, meanwhile, would get over $1.7 trillion.

As part of the contracts, the companies have to provide so-called "soft-loan" signature bonuses to the government that total about $2.6 billion.

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
A U.S. federal jury returned a $1.67 billion verdict against Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N) in a patent suit brought by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) related to arthritis treatments, the drug companies said on Monday.

An Abbott spokesman said the company would appeal the verdict delivered in Marshall, Texas.

The case involves Humira, Abbott's newer blockbuster drug that blocks tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, and which competes with Johnson & Johnson's older blockbuster medication Remicade.

The company said in a statement it was pleased with the ruling, which showed its patent was "both valid and infringed." Remicade sales were $1.03 billion in Johnson & Johnson's first quarter.

Abbott spokesman Scott Stoffel told Reuters: "We're disappointed at this verdict, and we are confident in the merits of our case and that we will prevail on appeal."

Humira is a fully-human antibody, meaning it does not have any mouse components, Stoffel said. Remicade, on the other hand, is partly made from mouse DNA.

"Only when Humira was nearing its approval in 2002 did J&J amend the patent at issue in this litigation to claim it had discovered fully-human antibodies in 1994," Stoffel said.

"J&J acknowledged at trial that it did not start working on a fully human antibody until 1997 -- two years after Abbott discovered Humira and one year after Abbott filed its patent applications for Humira."

A spokeswoman for the Johnson & Johnson unit involved in the case, Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc, would not comment beyond the brief statement.

Schering-Plough Corp (SGP.N) has the overseas rights to Remicade. Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N) aims to buy Schering-Plough later this year, and to inherit those rights.

Johnson & Johnson, however, is battling Merck before an arbitrator, claiming it will gain overseas market rights to Remicade if Merck completes its acquisition of Schering-Plough.

Both Merck and Schering-Plough were not immediately available to comment on the implications of the jury's verdict.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson and Jonathan Spicer)