Of note: newegg has it with a $75 newegg gift card for $399.99 with free shipping.
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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Bundle w/ $100 Microsoft credit for $400 + free shipping
Microsoft Store still offers its Microsoft Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Holiday Bundle with a $100 Microsoft Store Credit for $399.99 with free shipping. Assuming you use the credit, that's tied with our mention from a week ago and the lowest total price we could find by $81, outside of the deal below. Sales tax is added where applicable. The Holiday Bundle includes the Microsoft Xbox 360 Slim console with a 250GB hard drive and wireless controller, headset, the Kinect accessory, Kinect Adventures, Carnival Games: Monkey See Monkey Do for Kinect, and three months of Xbox LIVE Gold membership.
All eyes on German renewable energy efforts (AP)
FELDHEIM, Germany ? This tiny village of 37 gray homes and farm buildings clustered along the main road in a wind-swept corner of rural eastern Germany seems an unlikely place for a revolution.
Yet environmentalists, experts and politicians from El Salvador to Japan to South Africa have flocked here in the past year to learn how Feldheim, a village of just 145 people, is already putting into practice Germany's vision of a future powered entirely by renewable energy.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's government passed legislation in June setting the country on course to generate a third of its power through renewable sources ? such as wind, solar, geothermal and bioenergy ? within a decade, reaching 80 percent by 2050, while creating jobs, increasing energy security and reducing harmful emissions.
The goals are among the world's most ambitious, and expensive, and other industrialized nations from the U.S. to Japan are watching to see whether transforming into a nation powered by renewable energy sources can really work.
"Germany can't afford to fail, because the whole world is looking at the German model and asking, can Germany move us to new business models, new infrastructure?," said Jeremy Rifkin, a U.S. economist who has advised the European Union and Merkel.
In June, the nation passed the 20 percent mark for drawing electric power from a mix of wind, solar and other renewables. That compares with about 9 percent in the United States or Japan ? both of which rely heavily on hydroelectric power, an energy source that has long been used.
Expanding renewables depends on the right mix of resources, as well as government subsidies and investment incentive ? and a willingness by taxpayers to shoulder their share of the burden. Germans currently pay a 3.5 euro cent per kilowatt-hour tax, roughly euro157 ($205) per year for a typical family of four, to support research and investment in and subsidize the production and consumption of energy from renewable sources.
That allows for homeowners who install solar panels on their rooftops, or communities like Feldheim that build their own biogas plants, to be paid above-market prices for selling back to the grid, to ensure that their investment at least breaks even.
Critics, like the Institute for Energy Research, based in Washington, D.C., maintain such tariffs put an unfair burden of expanding renewables squarely on the taxpayer. At the same time, to make renewable energy work on the larger scale, Germany will have to pour billions into infrastructure, including updating its grid.
Key to success of the transformation will be getting the nation's powerful industries on board, to drive innovation in technology and create jobs. According to the Environment Ministry, overall investment in renewable energy production equipment more than doubled to euro29.4 billion ($38.44 billion) in 2011. Solid growth in the sector is projected through the next decade.
Some 370,000 people in Germany now have jobs in the renewable sector, more than double the number in 2004, a point used as proof that tax payers' investment is paying off.
Feldheim has zero unemployment ? despite its tiny size ? compared with roughly 30 percent in other villages in the economically depressed state of Brandenburg, which views investments in renewables as a ticket for a brighter future. Most residents work in the plant that produces biogas ? fuel made by the breakdown of organic material such as plants or food waste ? or maintain the wind and solar parks that provide the village's electricity.
"The energy revolution is already taking place right here," says Werner Frohwitter, spokesman for the Energiequelle company that helped set up and run Feldheim's energy concept.
But it's not only in the country. Earlier this month in Berlin, officials unveiled a prototype of a self-sustaining, energy-efficient home, built from recycled materials and complete with electric vehicles that can be charged in its garage.
The aim of the prototype home is to produce twice as much energy as is used by a family of four ? chosen from a willing pool of volunteers who will be selected to live in the home for 15 months ? through a combination of solar photovoltaics and energy management technology, in order to show the technology already exists to allow people to be energy self-sufficient.
"We want to show people that already today it is possible to live completely from renewable energy," said German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer as the project, dubbed "Efficiency House Plus," was unveiled. The house is part of a wider euro1.2 million ($1.57 million) project investing in energy-efficient buildings.
"The Efficiency House Plus will set standards that can be adopted by the majority in the short term," Ramsauer told The Associated Press. "The basic principle is that the house produces more energy than needed to live. The extra energy is then used to charge electric-powered cars and bicycles or sold back to the public grid."
Germany's four leading car makers are also participating in the project with BMW AG, Daimler AG, Volkswagen AG and Opel, which is part of Buick's parent company, General Motors Co., each making an E-car for use by in the home.
Such strong cooperation between Germany's industrial sector coupled with a political landscape that emphasizes stability and a heightened public ecological sensibility makes Germany fertile ground to lead the way in the transformation from a post-carbon economy to one run on renewable energy.
"Germany has the most robust industrial economy per capita. When you talk about industrial revolution, that's Germany. It's German technology, it's German IT, it's German commutation," said Rifkin, who outlines what he calls the "The Third Industrial Revolution," in a newly released book of the same title that explains how the economies in the future could swap fossil fuels for renewable energies and still maintain growth.
Robert Pottmann, an asset manager with Munich Re, one of the world's biggest reinsurers, says the company seeks to invest about euro2.5 billion ($3.27 billion) in the next few years in renewable energy assets such as "wind farms, solar projects or maybe new electricity grids."
Alan Simpson, an independent energy and climate adviser from Britain who visited Feldheim as part of a wider tour of Germany last month to see what the renewable revolution looks like up close said it was inspiring to view what is being accomplished on the ground.
"It's great to think about Germany delivering on everything that we are being told in Great Britain is impossible," Simpson said.
Amid the excitement, there is also an awareness of the real need for the German experiment to succeed.
"If Germany can't pull this off," said Rifkin. "We don't have a plan B."
___
Associated Press writer Juergen Baetz contributed to this story from Berlin.
___
On the Internet:
Feldheim: http://www.neue-energien-forum-feldheim.de/
German Renewable Energy Agency: http://www.unendlich-viel-energie.de/en/homepage.html
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Browns QB Colt McCoy still out with concussion
FILE - This Dec. 8, 2011 file photo shows trainers tending to Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy (12) after he was hit by Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker James Harrison in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game in Pittsburgh. In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, 23 of 44 NFL players said they would try to hide a brain injury rather than leave a game. In addition, more than two-thirds of the group AP talked to wants independent neurologists on sidelines during games. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
FILE - This Dec. 8, 2011 file photo shows trainers tending to Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy (12) after he was hit by Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker James Harrison in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game in Pittsburgh. In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, 23 of 44 NFL players said they would try to hide a brain injury rather than leave a game. In addition, more than two-thirds of the group AP talked to wants independent neurologists on sidelines during games. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
FILE - This Dec. 8, 2011 file photo shows trainers tending to Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy after he was hit by Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker James Harrison in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game in Pittsburgh. In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, 23 of 44 NFL players said they would try to hide a brain injury rather than leave a game. In addition, more than two-thirds of the group AP talked to wants independent neurologists on sidelines during games. (AP Photo/Don Wright, File)
BEREA, Ohio (AP) ? Browns quarterback Colt McCoy's season appears over, finished by the infamous hit from Steelers linebacker James Harrison three weeks ago.
McCoy still has not been cleared by team doctors to practice after sustaining a concussion on Dec. 8, and will likely miss the season finale Sunday against Pittsburgh.
Browns coach Pat Shurmur said Wednesday that McCoy is "much better" and has increased his physical activity.
However, the second-year QB has not yet passed the necessary medical tests to return to the field. McCoy has not practiced or played since being leveled on an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit by Harrison, who was suspended one game without pay for the vicious blow.
Shurmur said McCoy took part in team meetings and is at the team's facility and "taking care of what he needs to do to get back healthy."
Shurmur did not provide specifics on what symptoms McCoy is still experiencing. Shurmur said McCoy is tested daily but did not give any details on what assessments the team gives players with concussions.
"He needs to be medically cleared before he can practice or play and that hasn't happened," Shurmur said. "He's not passing it, so whatever that means, until it's passed he can't play and it's pretty cut and dry."
Seneca Wallace, who has started Cleveland's past two games, is expected to start this third straight game this week against Harrison and the Steelers.
"He's taking all the (practice) reps and the longer it goes in the week there's a darn good shot he'll be the starter."
McCoy has not spoken to the media since after the game in Pittsburgh 20 days ago.
Shurmur does not expect his team to retaliate against Harrison, who has given three Browns players concussions in the past two years.
"We coach our players play fast and physical, between the snap the whistle," he said. "We teach our guys to play by the rules and quite frequently if you do things outside the rules you get penalized. Beyond that I think it detracts from what you're trying to get done."
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Golf4Beginners: That's nice! RT @LAndrewsGolf: @Golf4beginners said you are a gr8 #golf tweeter & now I am following you @Northern_Golfer @AmericanGolfer
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Video: Will Nelson retirement mean another GOP Senate seat?
As North Korea mourns, its neighbor shrugs
As one journalist put it, it said how much we all knew about North Korea that for the better part of Wednesday morning, most of the world remained in the dark about just when ? if at all? ? the state funeral for Kim Jong Il had begun.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45799903#45799903
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Preventive care: It's free, except when it's not
In this photo taken Dec. 2, 2011, Bill Dunphy poses for a photo in Phoenix. Dunphy, a 61-year-old small business owner, thought his colonoscopy would be free under the nation's year-old health care law. But when the doctor removed two non-cancerous polyps, turning a preventive screening into a diagnostic procedure, it allowed his insurance company to bill him $1,100. "That's bait and switch," Dunphy said. "If it isn't fraud, it's immoral." (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
In this photo taken Dec. 2, 2011, Bill Dunphy poses for a photo in Phoenix. Dunphy, a 61-year-old small business owner, thought his colonoscopy would be free under the nation's year-old health care law. But when the doctor removed two non-cancerous polyps, turning a preventive screening into a diagnostic procedure, it allowed his insurance company to bill him $1,100. "That's bait and switch," Dunphy said. "If it isn't fraud, it's immoral." (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
In this photo taken Dec. 2, 2011, Bill Dunphy poses for a photo in Phoenix. Dunphy, a 61-year-old small business owner, thought his colonoscopy would be free under the nation's year-old health care law. But when the doctor removed two non-cancerous polyps, turning a preventive screening into a diagnostic procedure, it allowed his insurance company to bill him $1,100. "That's bait and switch," Dunphy said. "If it isn't fraud, it's immoral." (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
In this photo taken Dec. 2, 2011, Bill Dunphy poses for a photo in Phoenix. Dunphy, a 61-year-old small business owner, thought his colonoscopy would be free under the nation's year-old health care law. But when the doctor removed two non-cancerous polyps, turning a preventive screening into a diagnostic procedure, it allowed his insurance company to bill him $1,100. "That's bait and switch," Dunphy said. "If it isn't fraud, it's immoral." (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
In this photo taken Dec. 2, 2011, Bill Dunphy poses for a photo in Phoenix. Dunphy, a 61-year-old small business owner, thought his colonoscopy would be free under the nation's year-old health care law. But when the doctor removed two non-cancerous polyps, turning a preventive screening into a diagnostic procedure, it allowed his insurance company to bill him $1,100. "That's bait and switch," Dunphy said. "If it isn't fraud, it's immoral." (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
CHICAGO (AP) ? Bill Dunphy thought his colonoscopy would be free.
His insurance company told him it would be covered 100 percent, with no copayment from him and no charge against his deductible. The nation's 1-year-old health law requires most insurance plans to cover all costs for preventive care including colon cancer screening. So Dunphy had the procedure in April.
Then the bill arrived: $1,100.
Dunphy, a 61-year-old Phoenix small business owner, angrily paid it out of his own pocket because of what some prevention advocates call a loophole. His doctor removed two noncancerous polyps during the colonoscopy. So while Dunphy was sedated, his preventive screening turned into a diagnostic procedure. That allowed his insurance company to bill him.
Like many Americans, Dunphy has a high-deductible insurance plan. He hadn't spent his deductible yet. So, on top of his $400 monthly premium, he had to pay the bill.
"That's bait and switch," Dunphy said. "If it isn't fraud, it's immoral."
President Barack Obama's health overhaul encourages prevention by requiring most insurance plans to pay for preventive care. On the plus side, more than 22 million Medicare patients and many more Americans with private insurance have received one or more free covered preventive services this year. From cancer screenings to flu shots, many services no longer cost patients money.
But there are confusing exceptions. As Dunphy found out, colonoscopies can go from free to pricey while the patient is under anesthesia.
Breast cancer screenings can cause confusion too. In Florida, Tampa Bay-area small business owner Dawn Thomas, 50, went for a screening mammogram. But she was told by hospital staff that her mammogram would be a diagnostic test ? not preventive screening ? because a previous mammogram had found something suspicious. (It turned out to be nothing.)
Knowing that would cost her $700, and knowing her doctor had ordered a screening mammogram, Thomas stood her ground.
"Either I get a screening today or I'm putting my clothes back on and I'm leaving," she remembers telling the hospital staff. It worked. Her mammogram was counted as preventive and she got it for free.
"A lot of women ... are getting labeled with that diagnostic code and having to pay year after year for that," Thomas said. "It's a loophole so insurance companies don't have to pay for it."
For parents with several children, costs can pile up with unexpected copays for kids needing shots. Even when copays are inexpensive, they can blemish a patient-doctor relationship. Robin Brassner of Jersey City, N.J., expected her doctor visit to be free. All she wanted was a flu shot. But the doctor charged her a $20 copay.
"He said no one really comes in for just a flu shot. They inevitably mention another ailment, so he charges," Brassner said. As a new patient, she didn't want to start the relationship by complaining, but she left feeling irritated. "Next time, I'll be a little more assertive about it," she said.
How confused are doctors?
"Extremely," said Cheryl Gregg Fahrenholz, an Ohio consultant who works with physicians. It's common for doctors to deal with 200 different insurance plans. And some older plans are exempt.
Should insurance now pay for aspirin? Aspirin to prevent heart disease and stroke is one of the covered services for older patients. But it's unclear whether insurers are supposed to pay only for doctors to tell older patients about aspirin ? or whether they're supposed to pay for the aspirin itself, said Dr. Jason Spangler, chief medical officer for the nonpartisan Partnership for Prevention.
Stop-smoking interventions are also supposed to be free. "But what does that mean?" Spangler asked. "Does it mean counseling? Nicotine replacement therapy? What about drugs (that can help smokers quit) like Wellbutrin or Chantix? That hasn't been clearly laid out."
But the greatest source of confusion is colonoscopies, a test for the nation's second leading cancer killer. Doctors use a thin, flexible tube to scan the colon and they can remove precancerous growths called polyps at the same time. The test gets credit for lowering colorectal cancer rates. It's one of several colon cancer screening methods highly recommended for adults ages 50 to 75.
But when a doctor screens and treats at the same time, the patient could get a surprise bill.
"It erodes a trust relationship the patients may have had with their doctors," said Dr. Joel Brill of the American Gastroenterological Association. "We get blamed. And it's not our fault,"
Cindy Holtzman, an insurance agent in Marietta, Ga., is telling clients to check with their insurance plans before a colonoscopy so they know what to expect.
"You could wake up with a $2,000 bill because they find that little bitty polyp," Holtzman said.
Doctors and prevention advocates are asking Congress to revise the law to waive patient costs ? including Medicare copays, which can run up to $230 ? for a screening colonoscopy where polyps are removed. The American Gastroenterological Association and the American Cancer Society are pushing Congress fix the problem because of the confusion it's causing for patients and doctors.
At least one state is taking action. After complaints piled up in Oregon, insurance regulators now are working with doctors and insurers to make sure patients aren't getting surprise charges when polyps are removed.
Florida's consumer services office also reports complaints about colonoscopies and other preventive care. California insurance broker Bonnie Milani said she's lost count of the complaints she's had about bills clients have received for preventive services.
"'Confusion' is not the word I'd apply to the medical offices producing the bills," Milani said. "The word that comes to mind for me ain't nearly so nice."
When it's working as intended, the new health law encourages more patients to get preventive care. Dr. Yul Ejnes, a Rhode Island physician, said he's personally told patients with high deductible plans about the benefit. They weren't planning to schedule a colonoscopy until they heard it would be free, Ejnes said.
If too many patients get surprise bills, however, that advantage could be lost, said Stephen Finan of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. He said it will take federal or state legislation to fix the colonoscopy loophole.
Dunphy, the Phoenix businessman, recalled how he felt when he got his colonoscopy bill, like something "underhanded" was going on.
"It's the intent of the law is to cover this stuff," Dunphy said. "It really made me angry."
___
AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/CarlaKJohnson
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
jephjacques: Wow, twitter's iPad app is almost impressively shitty. Switching to Tweetcaster, which seems less so.
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Mexican army: 'El Chapo' security head arrested (AP)
MEXICO CITY ? The Mexican army announced Sunday that it had captured the head of security for Sinaloa drug cartel head Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of the world's most wanted men.
The suspect, who was not identified by name, was captured in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan and will be presented to the media Monday morning, the army said.
Guzman, Mexico's top drug lord, is one of the world's richest men, and has eluded authorities by moving around and hiding since his 2001 escape from prison in a laundry truck.
The army said the man they had arrested also ran cartel activities in Durango and southern Chihuahua state, and was responsible for carrying out secret burials of cartel victims, kidnapping, extortion and arson. They did not say if the arrest moved the military closer to capturing Guzman, an arrest that would be seen as a major victory for the government of President Felipe Calderon.
Guzman is worth more than $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which has listed him among the "World's Most Powerful People." He has a $7 million bounty on his head, and thousands of law enforcement agents from the U.S. and other countries working on capturing him.
His cartel controls cocaine trafficking on the Mexican border with California and has moved eastward to the corridor between the Mexican state of Sonora, which borders Arizona.
Separately, Mexican soldiers discovered 13 bodies in an abandoned truck Sunday along with a message that they were killed in a war between rival drug cartels in the eastern state of Veracruz, officials said.
The bodies were found in Tamaulipas state, a few hundred yards (meters) from its border with Veracruz, according to the Tamaulipas attorney general's office. The office said that 10 of the bodies had been decapitated.
The area has been the scene of bloody battles between the Gulf and Zetas cartels, and a pair of banners alluding to a rivalry were found in the truck, the statement from the attorney-general's office said.
On Friday, the attorney general's office in Veracruz said it had found 10 bodies in a different area along the border with Tamaulipas after receiving a tip.
On Thursday, three U.S. citizens traveling to spend the holidays with their relatives in Mexico were among those killed in a spree of shooting attacks on buses. In the spree, a group of gunmen attacked three buses in Veracruz, killing a total of seven passengers.
The Americans killed were a mother and her two daughters who were returning to visit relatives in the region.
The five gunmen who allegedly carried out the attacks were later shot to death by soldiers.
Earlier, the gunmen also killed four people in the nearby town of El Higo, Veracruz.
Local police in Veracruz have become so corrupt that on Wednesday the government decided to dissolve the entire force in the state's largest city, also known as Veracruz, and sent the Navy in to patrol. Some 800 police officers and 300 administrative employees were laid off.
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
In China, a daring few challenge one-child limit (AP)
ZHUJI, China ? Seven months pregnant, Wu Weiping sneaked out early in the morning carrying a shoulder bag with some clothes, her laptop and a knife.
"It's good for me I wasn't caught, but it's lucky for them too," said Wu, 35, who feared that family planning officials were going to drag her to the hospital for a forced abortion. "I was going to fight to the death if they found me."
With her escape, Wu joined an increasingly defiant community of parents in China who have risked their jobs, savings and physical safety to have a forbidden second child.
Though their numbers are small, they represent changing ideas about individual rights. While violators in the past tended to be rural families who skirted the birth limits in relative obscurity, many today are urbanites like Wu who frame their defiance in overtly political terms, arguing that the government has no right to dictate how many children they have.
Using Internet chat rooms and blogs, a few have begun airing their demands for a more liberal family planning policy and are hoping others will follow their lead. Several have gotten their stories into the tightly controlled media, an indication that their perspectives have resonance with the public.
After finding out his wife was expecting a second child, Liu Lianwen set up an online discussion group called "Free Birth" to swap information about the one-child policy and how to get around it. In less than six months, it has attracted nearly 200 members.
"We are idealists," said the 37-year-old engineer from central China, whose daughter was born Oct. 18. "We want to change the attitudes of people around us by changing ourselves."
Freed of the social controls imposed during the doctrinaire era of communist rule, Chinese today are free to choose where they live and work and whom they marry. But when it comes to having kids, the state says the majority must stop at one. Hefty fines for violators and rising economic pressures have helped compel most to abide by the limit. Many provinces claim near perfect compliance.
It's impossible to know how many children have been born in violation of the one-child policy, but Zhai Zhenwu, director of Renmin University's School of Sociology and Population in Beijing, estimates that less than one percent of the 16 million babies born each year are "out of plan."
Liu thinks his fellow citizens have been brainwashed. "They all feel it's glorious to have a small family," he said. "Thirty years of family planning propaganda have changed the way the majority of Chinese think about having children."
The reluctance to procreate is also an issue of growing concern for demographers, who worry that the policy combined with a rising cost of living has brought the fertility rate down too sharply and too fast. Though still the world's largest nation with 1.3 billion people, China's population growth has slowed considerably.
"The worry for China is not population growth ? it's rapid population aging and young people not wanting to have children," said Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, a joint U.S.-China academic research center in Beijing.
Wang sees a looming disaster as the baby boom generation of the 1960s heads into retirement and old age. China's labor force, sharply reduced by the one-child policy, will struggle to support them.
He argues that the government should allow everyone at least two children. He thinks many Chinese would still stop at one because of concerns about being able to afford to raise more than that.
Penalties for violators are harsh. Those caught must pay a "social compensation fee," which can be four to nine times a family's annual income, depending on the province and the whim of the local family planning bureau. Parents with government jobs can also lose their posts or get demoted, and their "out of plan" children are denied education and health benefits.
Those without government posts have less to worry about. If they can afford the steep fee and don't mind losing benefits, there's little to stop them from having another child. There's popular anger over this favoring of the wealthy but not much that ordinary people can do about it, since the policy is set behind closed doors by the communist leadership in Beijing.
In 2007, officials in coastal Zhejiang province threatened to start naming and shaming well-off families who had extra kids, but the campaign never got off the ground, possibly because it threatened to tarnish the reputations of too many well-connected people.
Hardest hit by the rules are urban middle class parents with Communist Party posts, teaching positions or jobs at state-run industries.
Li Yongan was ordered to pay 240,000 yuan ($37,500) after his son was born in 2007 as he already had a 13-year-old daughter. After refusing to pay the fee, Li was denied a household registration permit for his son, forcing him to pay three times more for kindergarten.
He was also barred from his job teaching physics at a state-run university in Beijing. "I never regret my second child, but I have been living with depression and anger for years," said Li, who struggles to make ends meet as a freelance chess teacher.
Of course, there are surreptitious, though not foolproof, ways to evade punishment: paying a bribe or falsifying documents so that, for instance, a second child is registered as the twin of an older sibling. Or, sometimes second babies are registered to childless relatives or rural families that are allowed to have a second child but haven't done so.
Wu, the woman who made the early morning escape, said she never intended to flout the one-child rule. She had resorted to fertility treatments to conceive her first child ? a daughter nicknamed Le Le, or Happy ? so she was stunned when a doctor told her she was expecting again in August, 2008.
The news triggered a monthlong "cold war" with her husband, Wu said. Silent dinners, cold shoulders. She wanted to keep the baby. He didn't. After a few weeks, he came around, she explained with a satisfied smile.
But family planning officials insisted on an abortion. The principal at her school also pressured her to end the pregnancy.
Desperate, she went online for answers ? and was led astray.
At her home on the outskirts of Zhuji, a textile hub a few hours south of Shanghai, the energetic former high school teacher recounted how she divorced her husband, then married her cousin the next day, all in an attempt to evade the rules.
The soap-opera-like subterfuge was meant to take advantage of a loophole that allows divorced parents to have a second child if their new spouse is a first-time parent.
Wu had helped raise her cousin, who is 25 and 10 years younger than her, and when she asked if he would marry her to help save the baby, he agreed.
The divorce, on Sept. 27, 2008 involved signing a document and posing for a photo. It was over in just a few minutes. The next day's marriage was similarly swift.
"I remember I was very happy that day," Wu said holding the marriage certificate with a glued-on snapshot of the cousins. "Because I thought I'd figured out a way to save my baby."
But her problem wasn't over. When the newlyweds applied for a birth permit, officials informed them conception had to take place after marriage. They were told to abort the baby, then try again. Wu was back to square one.
A popular option that was out of reach for Wu economically is to have the baby elsewhere, where the limits don't apply. Some better-off Chinese go to Hong Kong, where private agencies charge mainland mothers hundreds of thousands of yuan (tens of thousands of dollars) for transport, lodging, and medical costs.
The number giving birth in Hong Kong reached 40,000 last year, prompting the territory to cap the number of beds in public hospitals they are allowed from 2012. However, parents of kids born abroad face the bureaucratic hurdles of foreigners, having to pay premiums for school and other services.
In the end, Wu also fled, but not as far as Hong Kong. Three months from her due date, she kissed her baby daughter goodbye, telling her she was going on vacation, and hopped an early morning train to nearby Hangzhou. There she switched to another train bound for Shanghai, hoping the roundabout route would throw off anyone trying to tail her.
In Shanghai, Wu used a friend's ID to rent a one-room apartment with shared bathroom and kitchen. It was tiny and not cheap for her, 700 yuan a month (US$107), but it was across from a hospital that allowed her to register without a government-issued birth permission slip and it had an Internet connection.
Wu had never used email, so her husband ? the real one ? set up a password-protected online journal that he titled "yixiaobb," or 'one tiny baby.' She posted to the journal up to nine times a day, describing where she was living without ever revealing her exact location. She prefaced every entry with a capital M for mother, and added a number to mark how many messages she wrote in a day. Using the same journal, her husband wrote to her, coding his messages with an F.
It felt like an invisible tether linking Wu to her husband. He didn't know where she was, but knew she was OK. Shortly before her due date, she asked him to come to Shanghai, and he was present for the birth of their son.
More than two years later, she and her former husband, the father to both her children, have yet to remarry ? hoping it will legally shield him from any future punishment.
The marriage with her cousin was easily dissolved after they discovered it was never valid, because marriages between first cousins is illegal in China.
Wu was fired from her job as a public school teacher because of the baby and her ex-husband, who is also a teacher, was demoted to a freelance position at his school. Though told she has been assessed a 120,740 yuan ($18,575) social compensation fee, Wu has refused to pay.
Enforcers of the family planning limits showed up at their house in July, and again in November, threatening legal action. Wu is afraid their property might be confiscated or that she or husband might end up in detention, but she doesn't want to pay the fine because she doesn't believe she's done anything wrong.
"I don't think I've committed any crime," she said. "A crime is something that hurts other people or society or that infringes on other people's rights. I don't think having a baby is any kind of crime."
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Smallest-ever exoplanets found, one step closer to Earth-twin
These planets, while roughly the size of our planet Earth, are circling very close to their star, giving them fiery temperatures that are most likely too hot to support life, researchers said.
This story was updated at 1:54 p.m. ET.
Skip to next paragraphTwo planets orbiting a star 950 light-years from Earth are the smallest, most Earth-size alien worlds known, astronomers announced today (Dec. 20). One of the planets is actually smaller than Earth, scientists say.
These planets, while roughly the size of our planet Earth, are circling very close to their star, giving them fiery temperatures that are most likely too hot to support life, researchers said. The discovery, however, brings scientists one step closer to finding a?true twin of Earth?that may be habitable.
"We've crossed a threshold: For the first time, we've been able to detect planets smaller than the Earth around another star," lead researcher Fran?ois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., told SPACE.com. "We proved that Earth-size planets exist around other stars like the sun, and most importantly, we proved that humanity is able to detect them. It's the beginning of an era."
To discover the new planets, Fressin and his colleagues used?NASA's Kepler space telescope, which noticed the tiny dips in the parent star's brightness when the planets passed in front of it, blocking some of its light (this is called the transit method). The researchers then used ground-based observatories to confirm that the planets actually exist by measuring minute wobbles in the star's position caused by gravitational tugs from its planets.
"These two new planets are the first genuinely?Earth-sized?worlds that have been found orbiting a sunlike star," University of California, Santa Cruz astronomer Greg Laughlin, who was not involved in the new study, said in an email to SPACE.com. "For the past two decades, it has been clear that astronomers would eventually reach this goal, and so it's fantastic to learn that the detection has now been achieved." [Gallery: Smallest Alien Planets Ever Seen]
Chances for life
The two Earth-size planets are among five alien worlds orbiting a star called Kepler-20 that is of the same class (G-type) as our sun, and is slightly cooler.
Two of the star system's planets, Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are 0.87 times and 1.03 times the width of Earth, respectively, making them the smallest exoplanets yet known. They also appear to be rocky, and have masses less than 1.7 and 3 times Earth's mass, respectively. Scientists think that they are composed mainly of silicates and iron, much like the Earth, though they lack our planet's atmsophere.
Kepler-20e makes a circle around its star once every 6.1 days at a distance of 4.7 million miles (7.6 million kilometers) ? almost 20 times closer than Earth, which orbits the sun at around 93 million miles (150 million km).
The planet's sibling, Kepler-20f, makes a full orbit every 19.6 days, at a distance of 10.3 million miles (16.6 million km). Both planets circle closer to their star than Mercury does to the sun. [Infographic: Earth-Size Alien Planets Explained]
These snuggly orbits around their star give the newfound planets steamy temperatures of about 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit (760 degrees Celsius) and 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius) ? way too warm to support liquid water, and probably life, researchers said.
Fressin said the chance of life on either of these planets is "negligible," though the researchers can't exclude the possibility that they used to be habitable in the past, when they might have been farther from their star. There is also a slim chance that there are habitable regions on the planets in spots between their day and night sides (the planets orbit with one half constantly facing their star and the other half always in dark). But astronomers aren't holding out hope.
"The chances of liquid water and life as we know it on Kepler-20e and f are zero," Laughlin said.
Flip-flopped planets
The planetary system around Kepler-20 is an unusual one.
For one thing, scientists say the rocky planets can't have formed in their current locations.
"There's not enough rocky material that close to the host star to form five planets," Fressin said. "They didn't form here; they probably formed farther from their star and migrated in."
Furthermore, the five planets are in an odd order, with the rocky worlds alternating with their gaseous, Neptune-size siblings. That's quite different from most solar systems, including our own, which keeps the rocky terrestrial worlds in close to the sun, with the gas giants farther out.
"The architecture of that solar system is crazy," science team member David Charbonneau of Harvard University said during a Tuesday telecon announcing the finding. "This is the first time that we've seen anything like this."
Scientists will likely have to revise their theories of how planets form to fully understand the Kepler-20 system.
"How did that form?" Fressin said. "I think it's a puzzle the theorists will have to try to explain."
The star's other planets are called Kepler-20b, 20c, and 20d. Their diameters are 15,000 miles (24,000 km), 24,600 miles (40,000 km), and 22,000 miles (35,000 km), respectively, and they orbit Kepler-20 once every 3.7, 10.9, and 77.6 days.
The largest of these, Kepler-20d, weighs a little under 20 times Earth's mass, while Kepler-20c is 16.1 times as heavy as Earth, and Kepler-20b is 8.7 times our planet's mass.
Evolving effort
Scientists say finding the smallest exoplanets yet represents a significant milestone in the fast-evolving effort to learn about planets beyond the solar system.
The first alien planet was discovered in 1996, and the first planet found through the transit method came just 11 years ago. Both of those planets were roughly the size of Jupiter.
"I think we're living in special times," Fressin said. "This was unfeasible 10 years ago, and just with the quality of detectors and the quality of the treatment is it possible now."
The total tally of?known alien planets is above 700. Kepler alone has discovered 28 definite alien planets, and 2,326 planet candidates, since its launch in March 2009.
Earlier this month, the Kepler team announced another landmark find, the?first planet known to occupy the habitable zone?around its star where liquid water, and perhaps life, could exist.
That planet, called Kepler-22b, is about 2.4 times as wide as Earth.
The dream now is for astronomers to combine the two discoveries and find an Earth-size planet that's also orbiting its star in an Earth-like orbit that puts it in the habitable zone.
"The holy grail of the search for other worlds is to find an Earth analogue, a true Earth twin," Fressin said. "We just need to have these two pieces of the puzzle together."
While the newfound planets orbit with periods of 6.1 and 19.6 days, Fressin estimated the habitable zone around Kepler-20 begins at orbits that take roughly 100 days to make a circuit.
Astronomers think it's only a?matter of time before they finally find one?that's just right.
"These discoveries are a great technological step forward ? to detect small planets, in size like Earth ? but these planets are very hot and not in the habitable zone around their star," astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics wrote in an email. Kaltenegger, who studies the habitability of exoplanets, was not involved in the new study. "If we can already find these small planets with radii around Earth's now, some future ones could be in the habitable zone of their stars and THOSE future ones would be great targets to look for liquid water and signatures for life."
A paper detailing the discovery was published online in the journal Nature Dec. 20.
You can follow SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.
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Monday, December 26, 2011
Safety of Postoperative Administration of Human Urinary Trypsin Inhibitor in Lung Cancer Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
by Yoshikane Yamauchi, Yotaro Izumi, Masanori Inoue, Hiroaki Sugiura, Taichiro Goto, Masaki Anraku, Takashi Ohtsuka, Mitsutomo Kohno, Kenzo Soejima, Hiroaki Nomori
Background
Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) undergoing pulmonary resection for lung cancer carry risks of acute exacerbations of IPF (AE) postoperatively. Currently, agents which may attenuate AE are actively sought. Urinary trypsin inhibitor, ulinastatin, is a synthetic glycoprotein which may potentially inhibit various inflammatory factors associated with the development and progression of IPF. The present study was done to evaluate the effects of administration of high dose ulinastatin in lung cancer patients with IPF immediately following lung resection.
Methods
Patients with IPFs radiologically diagnosed on high resolution CT, and histologically diagnosed resectable lung cancers, were eligible for the study. The effects of escalating doses of ulinastatin 3?105, 6?105, and 9?105 units/body/day, administered postoperatively for 3 days were evaluated. The endpoints were safety and feasibility.
Results
Nine patients were evaluated, in cohorts of 3 patients per dosage. Postoperative follow up ranged from 3 to 12 months (median 9 months). The postoperative courses were uneventful in all patients. No subjective adverse events such as abdominal symptoms or skin rashes, or objective adverse events as per serum laboratory tests, such as liver or kidney dysfunctions potentially attributable to ulinastatin administration were observed. AE was seen in one patient at 3 months after surgery, but since this occurred shortly after administration of chemotherapy, it was considered to be attributable to the chemotherapy rather than surgery.
Discussion
Ulinastatin administration after lung resection in lung cancer patients with IPF was considered to be safe and feasible. Further study is planned at the highest dose of this study to evaluate efficacy.
Trial Registration
UMIN.ac.jp/ctr/UMIN000002410
For the full article visit: Safety of Postoperative Administration of Human Urinary Trypsin Inhibitor in Lung Cancer Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Syndicated from:PLoS ONE
Article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
Huge rally supports Pakistani cricketer's politics (AP)
KARACHI, Pakistan ? Tens of thousands of people have rallied in support of Pakistani cricket legend and opposition politician Imran Khan in the southern city of Karachi.
Sunday's rally further cemented Khan's status as a rising force in Pakistani politics. The turnout was impressive because the event was held outside his traditional support base, Punjab province.
Karachi is Pakistan's largest city and the capital of Sindh province.
Khan entered politics 15 years ago when he founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice Party, but he long struggled to attract support.
That changed when he drew over 100,000 people to a rally in the Punjabi capital of Lahore in October.
He has attracted several prominent politicians to his party since then.
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Air Zim dodges debt collectors
23-Dec-2011
AIR Zimbabwe has suspended flights to South Africa fearing its aircraft could be seized for outstanding debts.
Acting chief executive officer Innocent Mavhunga confirmed the decision, adding that the airline could not make the payments on its US$140 million debts.
?We are trying to secure funding to pay our debts in South Africa,? he added.
Earlier in December, South African ground handler Bid Air forced the grounding of an Air Zimbabwe aircraft in Johannesburg over non-payment of a $500,000 debt.
In the UK at London Gatwick Airport another company ? American General Supplies ? also forced the grounding of an Air Zimbabwe aircraft over debts of $1.2 million for aircraft spares. That has now been released over a week later, but Air Zimbabwe's regional manager for Europe and the America?s, David Mwenga, said the company does not have enough funds for compensation.
Source: http://www.aircargonews.net/News/Air-Zim-dodges-debt-collectors.aspx
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Wal-Mart pulls formula after baby dies in Missouri (AP)
COLUMBIA, Mo. ? Wal-Mart and health officials awaited tests Thursday on a batch of powdered infant formula that was removed from more than 3,000 stores nationwide after a Missouri newborn who consumed it apparently died from a rare infection.
The source of the bacteria that caused the infection has not been determined, but it occurs naturally in the environment and in plants such as wheat and rice. The most worrisome appearances have been in dried milk and powdered formula, which is why manufacturers routinely test for the germs.
Wal-Mart pulled the Enfamil Newborn formula from shelves as a precaution following the death of little Avery Cornett in the southern Missouri town of Lebanon.
The formula has not been recalled, and the manufacturer said tests showed the batch was negative for the bacteria before it was shipped. Additional tests were under way.
"We decided it was best to remove the product until we learn more," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Dianna Gee said. "It could be returned to the shelves."
Customers who bought formula in 12.5-ounce cans with the lot number ZP1K7G have the option of returning them for a refund or exchange, Gee said.
The product is not exclusive to Wal-Mart. The manufacturer, Mead Johnson Nutrition, declined to answer questions about whether formula from that batch was distributed to other stores.
"We're highly confident in the safety and quality of our products," said Christopher Perille, a spokesman for the company based in the Chicago suburb of Glenview.
A second infant fell ill late last month after consuming several different types of powdered baby formula, but that child recovered, health officials said.
Powdered infant formula is not sterile, and experts have said there are not adequate methods to completely remove or kill all bacteria that might creep into formula before or during production.
Preliminary hospital tests indicated that Avery died of a rare infection caused by bacteria known as Cronobacter sakazakii. The infection can be treated with antibiotics, but it's deemed extremely dangerous to babies less than 1 month old and those born premature.
The virus "is pervasive in the environment," Perille said. "There's a whole range of potential sources on how this infection may have got started."
A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said the agency is investigating the death, along with the Centers for Disease Control and the Missouri Department of Health. Investigators have collected samples from the family and are testing unopened formula purchased at stores.
Siobhan Delancey said the FDA gets four to six reports a year of infant infections related to formula and has not found a powder that tested positive since 2002.
The FDA is also investigating the other case of illness, which involved a baby from Illinois whose case was reported in neighboring Missouri. But the agency does not believe there is any connection between the two, Delancey said.
Public health investigators will look at the formula itself, as well as the water used in preparing it and at anything else the baby might have ingested, Perille said.
Only two to three cases a year are reported. New Mexico saw two in 2008, including one infant who died and another who suffered severe brain damage. A Tennessee infant died in 2001 after being infected.
It could be several days before test results are available.
The family submitted two types of infant formula for testing ? the powdered version and a pre-sterilized, ready-to-eat liquid ? as well as the distilled water used to prepare the powdered product.
"We're just trying to test anything that was consumed by the baby," Laclede County Health Director Charla Baker said.
Avery was taken to a pediatrician Dec. 15 ? a week after he was born ? after showing signs of stomach pain and lethargy. When the pain persisted the next day, his parents took him to an emergency room.
He died Sunday at a hospital in Springfield after being removed from life support.
The Missouri Department of Health advised parents to follow safety guidelines for preparing powdered infant formula, including washing hands, sterilizing all feeding equipment in hot, soapy water and preparing enough formula for only one feeding at a time.
A flood of calls from worried parents prompted Missouri officials to clarify that the formula pulled by Wal-Mart is not being provided to participants in the Women, Infants and Children federal program for low-income parents.
___
Associated Press Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in Atlanta contributed to this report.
___
Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier.
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Video: Shearing triggers odd behavior in microscopic particles
Friday, December 23, 2011
Microscopic spheres form strings in surprising alignments when suspended in a viscous fluid and sheared between two plates ? a finding that will affect the way scientists think about the properties of such wide-ranging substances as shampoo and futuristic computer chips.
A team of scientists at Cornell University and the University of Chicago have imaged this behavior and have explained the forces causing it for the first time. Its findings appear in the Dec. 19-23 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The experimental breakthrough revealed that these string structures were perpendicular to the shear instead of parallel to it, contrary to what many in the field were expecting," said Aaron Dinner, associate professor in chemistry at UChicago and a study co-author.
The experiment was led by Itai Cohen, associate professor of physics at Cornell, who custom-built a device that would enable him simultaneously to exert shearing forces on suspended colloids (the spheres) and image the resulting motion at 100 frames per second with a confocal microscope. Imaging speed was critical to the experiment because the string-like structures appear only at certain shear rates.
"This issue of strings has been pretty controversial. I'm not sure that we've solved all the controversies associated with them, but at least we've made a step forward," Cohen said.
Shearing forces affect the dynamic behavior of paint, shampoo and other viscous household products, but an understanding of these and related phenomena at the microscopic level has largely eluded a detailed scientific understanding until the last decade, Dinner noted.
Futuristically speaking, these forces potentially could be harnessed to produce microscopic patterns on computer chips or biosensors via special paints that flow easily when layered in one direction, but becomes hard when layered in another direction.
Cohen's objective was more scientifically immediate: to devise an experiment that would overcome the technical difficulties associated with measuring the mechanical properties of the colloidal strings while also imaging their formation. "The holy grail is to be able to understand how the structure leads to the mechanical properties and then to be able to control the mechanical properties by influencing the structure," Cohen explained.
This 12-second video shows the formation of particle strings at angles perpendicular to the direction of shear flow. Many scientists had predicted that the strings would form parallel to the direction of shear flow. Experiments at Cornell and computer simulations at the University of Chicago show that the strings form perpendicular to the direction of shear. Credit: Xiang Cheng, Cornell University
As members of UChicago's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Rice and Dinner are part of a larger effort to determine how materials behave under the influence of various dynamic forces. Some of their physics colleagues analyze forces operating on macroscopic scales, while chemists such as Rice and Dinner attempt to assess how those findings might apply to microscopic phenomena.
Rice and his UChicago co-authors used computer simulations to develop a precise explanation for the string-like colloidal structures that formed in the Cornell experiment. "The previous simulations all left out the consequences of the flow created in the supporting fluid as the particles move, the so-called hydrodynamic forces," Rice said.
"A very large fraction of the work in the field neglects hydrodynamic forces because it's hard. You try and get away with what you can," Rice noted with amusement. "But in this case it turns out that the inclusion of those forces is the crucial element."
The simulations allowed the UChicago team to control various experimental parameters to assess their relative importance. "You can play God," Rice said. "The important finding is the overwhelming role of the lubrication forces and the anti-intuitive result that they create."
The lubrication force comes into play when two colloids come together to behave much like macroscopic ball bearings soaking in a reservoir of goopy fluid.
"Pulling them apart would be working against the fluid and so it would be very hard," Dinner said. "So actually, when you get a collision in these colloidal systems, those lubrication forces hold them together much longer, and that actually allows for some of the unique dynamics that give rise to the structure. That was specifically what the simulations showed."
Xu, the UChicago postdoctoral scholar, adapted a mathematical formula developed by John Brady at the California Institute of Technology to simplify the simulations, which ran for days and weeks at a time. "Every time you rearrange the particles, the interactions are different," Rice said. "If you were to calculate that directly, it would be extremely tedious."
But Xu's adapation of Brady's formula enabled him to generate a table of hydrodynamic interactions that listed each particle configuration. Xu found that he could accurately simplify the simulation by focusing on just two of the experiment's seven layers of colloids.
The simulations and the experiment showed that even after three centuries of study, the field of hydrodynamics continues to yield surprising discoveries. "We are still discovering novel behavior that is fundamentally determined by the hydrodynamics," Rice noted.
###
University of Chicago: http://www-news.uchicago.edu
Thanks to University of Chicago for this article.
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Japan's emperor praises nation tackling disaster
(AP)? TOKYO ? Japan's Emperor Akihito praised the compassion of a nation striving to overcome the earthquake and tsunami disasters, as he waved from his palace balcony to throngs of well-wishers for his 78th birthday Friday.
Akihito expressed gratitude to all who have worked in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which devastated northeastern Japan and left 20,000 people dead or missing. Those he thanked included military personnel, residents of northeastern Japan, volunteers, workers at a hobbled nuclear plant and overseas contributors to relief efforts.
"Looking back on this year, I must say this has been a truly distressing year, dominated by disasters," he said in a statement from the Imperial Household Agency.
"I feel that the Japanese people have come together as a nation to squarely face the disaster," said Akihito, smiling next to his wife, Empress Michiko, who was dressed in a pale beige dress.
He was accompanied by his two sons and their wives.
Akihito, the son of Hirohito ? who announced Japan's surrender after World War II ? said Japanese people have learned their lesson from history and have vowed never to go to war again. He urged everyone not to forget that lesson of peace, despite the passage of time.
Akihito was hospitalized last month for a fever and an infection, but appeared to be in good health. He said he felt better and thanked people for worrying about his health.
Akihito has three eligible male successors ? his two sons and a grandson.
Japan's emperor, revered as divine during the wartime years, now has a largely ceremonial function as a "symbol of the nation."
___
Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama
Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsGamecore/~3/FkTbJPF7lt4/
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Obama, Biden welcome home US commander in Iraq (AP)
JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. ? Blending solemn tradition with joyous reunion, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq returned home to U.S. soil Tuesday, greeted by his wife and his president in an understated ceremony to mark the end of the nine-year conflict.
President Barack Obama met Gen. Lloyd Austin and his top command staff with a smart salute at this military post in suburban Washington. Austin made his homecoming with his staff bearing the U.S. Forces-Iraq flag, the symbolic conclusion to the war.
Obama was accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden. Though neither offered formal remarks, both greeted the troops and their families.
Those families, however, had to await the ritual return of the flag before embracing their loved ones. Under Army custom the flag will be retired and either stored or displayed.
"Today we bring home the colors to United States soil, at the same time we embrace many of our own back into the fold just in time for the holidays," Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the returning men and women. "Welcome home."
The last U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq on Sunday. In a visible reminder of the conflict, Dempsey, Austin and the troops who accompanied him wore their combat uniforms.
With Obama, an early opponent of the war, sitting nearby, Austin praised the war's outcome.
"What our troops achieved in Iraq over the course of nearly nine years is truly remarkable," he said. "Together with our coalition partners and core of dedicated civilians, they removed a brutal dictator and gave the Iraqi people their freedom."
Later, at the White House, Obama referred to the ceremony while calling for House Republicans to accept a Senate bipartisan compromise to extend a payroll tax cut for two months.
"These Americans and all Americans who served are the embodiment of courage, and selflessness and patriotism," Obama said during a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room. "They work as a team and they do their job. And they do it for something bigger than themselves."
"The people in this town need to learn something from them."
Dempsey and Austin saluted military families and Dempsey also singled out the USO and its history of entertaining troops during wars. Among those in the audience were former NBA star Robert Horry, a participant in a current USO holiday tour.
As the ceremony concluded, Obama waded into a teary and jubilant scene of reunion as troops and their families hugged and posed for photographs.
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
'30 Rock' Season 6 Premiere: How Liz Lemon Spent Her Christmas (VIDEO)
"30 Rock" is no stranger to Christmas-themed episodes ... except for Season 6. The show returns to NBC just a few weeks after the holidays (Thurs., Jan. 12 at 8 p.m. EST), but EW has a sneak peek at the premiere. The audience may not see Liz Lemon's (Tina Fey) drunken holiday exploits this season, but they will certainly hear about them.
"I know exactly how your holidays were," Jack (Alec Baldwin) tells Liz in the clip. "You took the train to your parents house. On Christmas Eve you forgot that eggnog has alcohol in it and got into a shoving match with your aunt about who puts the star on top of the tree."
In Liz's defense, it was her turn.
When "30 Rock" kicks off, Liz will have a new man in her life. "Liz is completely re-energized," Fey said in a new NBC promo. The reason? She has a hot new boyfriend played by James Marsden.
"She's trying to loosen up a little bit by dating somebody who is a little more laid-back," Marsden said. "That could either be good for her or ultimately bad for her."
Other Season 6 guest stars lined up for the first few episodes include Kelsey Grammer, Denise Richards, Will Arnett and Kristen Schaal.
For more click over to EW.
WATCH: "30 Rock" Season 6 sneak peek.
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Canadiens fire coach Jacques Martin
FILE - In this Dec. 8, 2011 photo, Montreal Canadiens head coach Jacques Martin reacts during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Vancouver Canucks, in Montreal. Martin has been fired as coach of the last-place Montreal Canadiens. The team said Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 that assistant Randy Cunneyworth will be the interim head coach for the rest of the season. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)
FILE - In this Dec. 8, 2011 photo, Montreal Canadiens head coach Jacques Martin reacts during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Vancouver Canucks, in Montreal. Martin has been fired as coach of the last-place Montreal Canadiens. The team said Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 that assistant Randy Cunneyworth will be the interim head coach for the rest of the season. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)
MONTREAL (AP) ? Sloppy play, blown leads, a poor record at home.
It proved all too much for the last-place Montreal Canadiens, who fired coach Jacques Martin on Saturday and put assistant Randy Cunneyworth in charge for the rest of the season.
"The primary reason is the team wasn't performing as well as it should be in our minds," general manager Pierre Gauthier said at a Bell Centre news conference.
Assistant GM Larry Carriere was appointed assistant coach, his first coaching job after a long career in scouting and administration.
Martin, who preaches defense, was in his third season with the Canadiens. He is also one of the winningest coaches in NHL history.
He now gives way to Cunneyworth, a Toronto native whose lack of French was quickly noted. He is team's first unilingual English-speaking coach since Al MacNeil in 1971. On a team that symbolizes French-Canadian pride, he faces a daunting task in his bid to remove the interim tag.
"I have the utmost respect for the language here and I am very aware of how important it is to try and learn the language," Cunneyworth said after running his first practice. "Obviously I know a few words, and not all the good ones."
Montreal remained at the bottom of the Northeast Division with a 13-13-7 record after losing 5-3 to New Jersey in Cunneyworth's debut on Saturday night.
The 59-year-old Martin has also coached the Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators. Gauthier hired Martin in Ottawa. In 1996 in Ottawa, Martin inherited Cunneyworth as his hardworking captain.
"I would hope that my coaching style was similar to the way I played," Cunneyworth said. "I felt for the most part that I competed very hard."
Cunneyworth joined his former coach's staff as an assistant this summer after spending the previous season as head coach of Montreal's AHL affiliate in Hamilton.
"I have mixed emotions this time around," said Cunneyworth, who began and ended his career with Buffalo and also played for Pittsburgh, Winnipeg, Hartford and Chicago. "There is still the excitement but my thoughts are with Jacques. ... I have the utmost respect for Jacques and everything he does, the wealth of experience that I have learned over my times with him."
Martin was in his 17th season in the NHL. He reached his 600th NHL career victory last April, making him the ninth winningest coach in league history.
The Canadiens have been hurt by mistakes this season. They are 5-6-6 at home, often squandering third-period leads.
"Especially in the last few weeks, we didn't really know what was coming out of the box every night," Gauthier said. "And the way we were losing the leads and the way we were coaching the games wasn't very consistent, and that's what we hope to change."
There were hints of tension between Martin and Gauthier. After a poor start, Martin's closest ally, assistant Perry Pearn, was fired just before a game Oct. 26.
"We were on the same wavelength right to the end, but that doesn't mean that the team's performances were acceptable," Gauthier said.
The players were told of the coaching changes when they arrived for their morning skate.
"When we are where we are and expect to be a better team than we've been, you definitely are aware there might be changes," forward Michael Cammalleri said. "For it to be Jacques was somewhat surprising."
"We're in 11th place, that's what went wrong," he added. "I think Jacques was still trying to work on thing and improve the team. I don't think there was anyone not listening to him."
In the 50-year-old Cunneyworth, the Canadiens get a more tech-savvy coach, although one who is not expected to make major changes.
"I think the message will be to get back doing the things that the players are potentially capable of," Cunneyworth said. "We obviously have to figure out ways to get more out of our individual players. It's a responsibility of the coaching staff, but it's also a responsibility of the players themselves."
Cunneyworth was promoted to the NHL club along with assistant Randy Ladouceur after coaching in Hamilton last season.
"What system is in place doesn't matter if everyone buys in and plays the right way," defenseman Josh Gorges said. "If you only have half the guys doing what's asked of them, everything is in disarray and I think that's where we got to."
"We weren't playing together and doing the things we need to do to win," he added. "And consequently we lost games we shouldn't have lost and changes needed to be made."
Martin joined the Canadiens in 2009-10 and took them on an improbable run to the Eastern Conference finals where they lost to Philadelphia. Montreal made the playoffs the following year but was eliminated in the first round.
Martin also won the NHL coach of the year in 1998-99 and was part of Canada's gold-medal triumph at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
"The bottom line is winning games," Canadiens defenseman Hal Gill said. "We weren't winning and changes happen. I don't think it was about losing the room or anything like that."
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