No Woman, No Drive video mocking Saudi Arabia's ban on women drivers goes viral

A music video criticising Saudi Arabia's ban on women drivers has gone viral - with nearly EIGHT million views in less than a week.
No Woman, No Drive, set to the tune of Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry, was filmed by Saudi comedians and activists.
They sing lyrics such as: "In this bright future you can't forget your past, so put your car keys away."
Hisham Fageeh, an Arab-American comedian living in Saudi Arabia, introduces the video and sings in the film.
In an apparent dig at the country's authorities, he sings a capella - using whistling, finger clicks and beard scratches to make music - as musical instruments are frowned upon by some conservatives.
He also mocks recent comments from a Saudi cleric who claimed driving could damage a woman's ovaries and her chances of having children.
The lyrics say: "I remember when you used to sit in the family car but back seat, ova-ovaries all safe and well so you can make lots and lots of babies."
Currently, Saudi women cannot receive driving licences, although the law does not explicitly say they cannot drive.
The song was released on the same day that women in the country got behind the wheel in protest at the ban.
Campaigners had hoped it would be the biggest day of action so far, but threats of arrest and legal action stopped many from participating.

Read More : http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/no-woman-no-drive-video-2659219

Love Gone Wrong: Five Weird Sex-Related Injuries

An Australian court ruled Wednesday that a woman who was hit by a falling piece of glass while having sex on company time won’t get any workers’ compensation. Presumably a sense of humor is the only thing that could compensate her — and the parties involved in these other five sex-related injuries:
1. The Hospitalization Hickey
The point of giving someone a hickey is to playfully annoy that person and to leave a mark that says “I was here” — not to cause a stroke. A Kiwi husband seems to have missed that memo. When smooching his wife in January 2011, he caused a blood clot to form and travel to her heart. As her left arm became paralyzed, the amorous session came to an end, and the woman was rushed to hospital and put on anticoagulants.
2. The Kiss of Deaf
When two young Chinese shared a kiss in December 2008, the man, perhaps overly eager, kissed the woman in such a way that pressure was reduced in her mouth, rupturing her eardrum. “While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution,” wrote China Daily at the time. The woman was expected to regain full hearing in her left ear after two months.
3. Concrete Proposal
Dr. Peter J. Stephens and Dr. Mark L. Taff wrote an article for an academic journal about one of their patients — a sober and healthy 20-year-old found with a foreign object in his rectum. The patient had been “fooling around” with his boyfriend when the two of them came up with the idea to stir a batch of concrete mix and get a funnel. The rest is medical history. “Examination of the specimen revealed a perfect concrete cast of the rectum, measuring 12 x 7 x 5 cm and weighing 275 g,” the doctors wrote in their article.
4. Kama Sutr-Ow!
A Russian couple in their 50s decided to spice things up at home and borrowed a book of Kama Sutra positions from a friend. One of the positions they tried out was indrani, or the “deck-chair position,” in which the woman draws up her knees so her legs are jammed under her partner’s armpits, or else draped over his shoulders. Problem was, once in that position, the woman had a muscular spasm, and locked the two of them together. Struggling for an hour to break free, they finally had to call paramedics for help. They were successfully separated.
5. A Pleasant Buzz
According to the racy U.K. tabloid Daily Star, 24-year-old Amanda Flowers began suffering from a condition known as “persistent genital arousal disorder” after falling off from a Wii Fit board and twisting a nerve. Now she claims to find mere vibrations of her food processor and mobile phone stimulating. “With no cure I just have to try to control my passion by breathing deeply,” she says. “Hopefully one day I’ll find a superstud who can satisfy me.”

SOURCE  :  http://world.time.com/2013/10/31/love-gone-wrong-five-weird-sex-related-injuries

Suicide bomber hits Tunisian resort, no victims

Tunisia had largely avoided violence, but since the country kicked off the Arab Spring by overthrowing its long-ruling secular dictatorship, it has been battered by a rising Islamist insurgency in remote parts of the country. The violence is the first in a tourist area and raises fears for the country's already troubled tourism industry.
Witnesses told Tunisian media that the man appeared to be about to enter the Riadh Palm hotel in Sousse, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) south of the capital, Tunis, when he exploded. The Interior Ministry said that no one else was injured and no property was damaged. It said the bomber was a Tunisian man wearing an explosive belt.

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Police also arrested a man carrying explosives near the mausoleum of Habib Bourguiba, the country's first post-independence president, in the nearby city of Monastir, ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui told a local radio station. Both men appeared to belong to an extremist group, he said.
Sousse has long been a major destination for European tourism, a sector that was just now recovering from a catastrophic drop following the country's 2011 revolution when tourists stayed away amid the unrest. A security vacuum opened up and many long-repressed hardline Islamic groups appeared, some of whom armed themselves with weapons from civil war-wracked Libya to the east.
After tolerating hardline groups like Ansar al-Shariah, the moderate Islamist government banned them in September and began arresting members.

Read More : http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-10-30/suicide-bomber-hits-tunisian-resort-town

Sebelius to face grilling at hearing on glitch-ridden ObamaCare website rollout

The top health official in charge of ObamaCare implementation will face a chorus of critics Wednesday as she prepares to testify on Capitol Hill – amid complaints not only about the main federal website, but also a wave of cancellation notices.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, her first appearance before Congress since the troubled launch of state-based health exchanges on Oct. 1.
Sebelius is likely to face tough questions about problems with the HealthCare.gov website, which was plagued by technical glitches again Tuesday night after the website's data hub experienced an outage that left consumers in Connecticut unable to apply for coverage.
On Sunday, a similar outage at a Verizon Terremark data center brought the website down, even as White House officials claimed the website was up and running.
In written testimony released ahead of Wednesday's hearing, Sebelius vowed to improve the website and said the consumer experience to date is "not acceptable." But she defended the law itself and said extensive work and testing is being done.
"We are working to ensure consumers' interaction with HealthCare.gov is a positive one, and that the Affordable Care Act  fully delivers on its promise," she said in the prepared remarks.
Sebelius blamed the website contractors and the "initial wave of interest" for the glitches, but expressed confidence in the experts and specialists working to solve "complex technical issues."
"By enlisting additional technical help, aggressively monitoring errors, testing to prevent new issues from cropping up, and regularly deploying fixes to the site, we are working to ensure consumers’ interaction with HealthCare.gov is a positive one, and that the Affordable Care Act fully delivers on its promise," she said.
Among other issues, the initial wave of interest stressed the account 3 service, resulting in many consumers experiencing difficulty signing up, while those who were able to sign up sometimes had problems logging in.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., speaking on the Senate floor, called Tuesday for Sebelius' resignation. Alexander is the top Republican on the Senate health panel.
"Mr. President, at some point there has to be accountability. Expecting this secretary to be able to fix what she hasn't been able to fix during the last three-and-a-half years is unrealistic," he said. "It's throwing good money after bad. It's time for her to resign -- someone else to take charge."
Republicans were also voicing concern Tuesday about Americans being kicked off their current health plans, and newly uncovered documents that show the administration anticipated millions might lose their current coverage and be sent into different plans -- despite pledges to the contrary from the White House.
Sebelius is also expected to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on the rollout of ObamaCare, committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said in a statement. The hearing is scheduled for Nov. 6.
Her appearance Wednesday comes a day after Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services,  repeatedly refused to disclose how many people have enrolled in ObamaCare -- during a hearing where she did not deny that officials have that information.
At the top of Tuesday's House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Tavenner apologized for the failures of the main ObamaCare website and vowed to fix them.
But, raising more questions about the administration's transparency on the project, she declined to cite enrollment numbers. She did not claim, as Sebelius recently did, that officials simply do not have those numbers -- rather, she said a "decision" was made to release them in mid-November.
"We made the decision that we were not releasing the numbers until mid-November," she said.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., asked again whether she had any idea what the numbers are.
Her answer was the same.
"I'll take that as you don't want to answer the question," Nunes said.

SOURCE : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/30/sebelius-to-face-grilling-at-hearing-on-glitch-ridden-obamacare-website-rollout/

CSU researchers capture unique photo of asteroid

It just was a small white streak — a small cloud speckled with dark spots — hurtling toward rural Russia.
But to Colorado State University scientist Steve Miller, who had combed many satellite images searching for it, that white streak was unique, a one-of-a-kind image of a rare and largely unpredictable event: A meteor crashing to Earth’s surface, like it did on Feb. 15 in Chelyabinsk, Russia.
The photo of the meteor trail, captured from a satellite orbiting 500 miles away from Earth, is the subject of a new CSU study and has the potential to help foster a new field of research, Miller said. Until now, scientists have not been able to track relatively small asteroids, like the Chelyabinsk meteor, and divert them from Earth. Miller hopes that photos taken from space and Earth, along with closer study, will change that.
The Chelyabinsk meteor was a complete surprise — its trail through the atmosphere was stunning.
In the lens of countless cameras — on car dashboards, on top of buildings, on cellphones — the fireball cast a blinding white light before it crashed to the ground. It was about 55 feet wide and weighed more than the Eiffel Tower. Its sonic boom burst windows miles away.
It was also the sonic boom that convinced Miller, deputy director at the university’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, that this meteor was the real thing.
“I watched it over and over again on the TiVo,” he said.
Thanks to a 33-year partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, Miller and his team of researchers were able to capture a shot of the meteor as it trailed to Earth. One of 21 partnerships around the country, the CIRA researchers can access images from 10 geostationary satellites orbiting Earth, monitoring weather.
One satellite, what Miller calls a “low Earth orbiter,” was moving over the northern hemisphere when it caught the image of the meteor on one of its daily passes over the northern hemisphere at seven kilometers per second. From Earth, it looked like a shooting star.

Read More: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20131028/NEWS01/310250046

It's a snake! Monkey brains may explain our fear of reptiles

We’re not born with a fear of snakes, but it sure seems to develop early.
Now scientists may be closer to a explaining why ophidiophobia ranks among the top fears of humans, and seems to be shared with other primates.
Researchers inserted probes into the brains of Japanese macaques and found that neurons in a part of their brain that controls visual attention were more strongly and quickly activated in response to images of snakes, versus other objects.

The results, published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appear to support a theory that early primates developed advanced perception as an evolutionary response to being prey, not as an adaptation that may have made foraging or hunting easier.
Though fear of snakes may not be innate, noticing them more than other phenomena may be hard-wired by evolution, said Lynne Isbell, an evolutionary biologist from UC Davis and one of the authors of the paper. That heightened attention, research has shown, can lead to early and resilient learned behavior, such as fear-mediated avoidance. In other words, getting out of the way of snakes.
“The characteristics we have help us to see them better than other mammals can see them,” Isbell said. “Mammals in general are really good at picking up movement. But snakes lie in wait. They don’t move very much, so it’s crucial to see them before they see us and to avoid them.”
Developing new additions to the brain would have given ancestor primates an advantage. Many scientists assumed the advantage had to do with catching insects for food. But Isbell shook that view of primate evolution in 2006, eventually elaborating on it in a book, “The Fruit, the Tree and the Serpent: Why We see So Well.” An arms race between predator and prey is what selected for bigger-brained primates, Isbell argued.
“They were actually prey,” Isbell said  “And the first of the modern predators of primates, and the most persistent, that continued to this day -- and that look the same as they did 100 million years ago -- are snakes.”
The brain addition that made all the difference for Old World monkeys was the pulvinar nuclei, according to Isbell. Those areas of the thalamus have been found to control such things as eye and head motions toward stimuli -- responses known as selective spatial attention.
Researchers were probing deep into the limbic system, a region of emotional processing and memory that sometimes is called the old mammalian brain. They inserted probes into the pulvinar nuclei. These nuclei receive inputs directly from the retina of the eye and also connect with nearby brain regions associated with threat-relevant behavior and emotional processing.
Electrical pulses from the pulvinar neurons occurred about 60 microseconds after the snake was presented to the monkeys -- suggesting that the signal might be processed unconsciously. Another pulse came at about 250 microseconds, and that could be associated with feedback from the cortex, where higher cognitive functions are controlled. The researchers used two monkeys raised in captivity that had no opportunity to encounter a snake. Probes measured responses to snakes, faces and hands of monkeys, and geometric shapes. More neurons responded to the snakes, and did so with greater strength and speed, the data showed.
In addition to those at UC Davis, the research team included scientists from the University of Toyama in Japan and the Primate Center of the University of Brasilia in Brazil. It was supported by the Asian CORE program, which promotes research cooperation.

Read More : http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-snake-fear-monkeys-20131026,0,3773593.story?track=rss#axzz2j69Z08KH

Heat waves could be predicted weeks in advance, study finds

Scientists have discovered a weather pattern that foreshadows heat waves and could be used to predict them more than two weeks in advance, well beyond the 10-day range of weather forecasts, a new study reports.

Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research wondered if the prolonged and often deadly heat waves that hit the United States and other Northern Hemisphere countries during the summer could be triggered by large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns.
They started by searching weather records before 20 extreme heat waves since 1948, but there were so few examples it was difficult to find patterns amid the statistical noise.
“These are extreme events. They are very rare by definition,” said Haiyan Teng, a climate scientist with the center and lead author of the study published Sunday in Nature Geoscience.
So researchers used a computer simulation of 12,000 years of atmospheric conditions that included approximately 6,000 heat waves. They found that major heat waves tend to happen after an alternating sequence of five high- and low-pressure systems they dubbed “wavenumber-5.”
The pattern essentially forms a ring of weather systems that move slowly across the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, eventually shutting down rainfall and setting the stage for a heat wave.
The odds of a heat wave in the United States rose 15 to 20 days after that weather pattern formed, scientists found. In some cases, heat waves were more than four times more likely to happen, the computer model showed.
After making that discovery, researchers tested the model with historical measurements and found that some of the heat waves in the record books were indeed preceded by that circulation pattern.
The takeaway, Teng said, is that “some extreme events may be more predictable than day-to-day weather.”
Though the pattern could be useful to tell whether there is a higher or lower chance of a heat wave in the next several weeks, Teng warned, it cannot be used to predict specific temperatures.
As anyone who watches the weather forecast knows, that predictive ability drops off after about 10 days.

The findings could give emergency managers more time to prepare for the type of prolonged heat spell the United States last saw in June and July of 2012. A heat wave that hung over North America in the summer of 2006 killed hundreds of people.

“Because of the damage to society, there is a higher priority to produce a probability forecast,” Teng said. 

SOURCE : http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-heat-wave-predict-weeks-advance-weather-pattern-20131028,0,4053065.story#axzz2j69Z08KH

Dinosaur-era bird tracks: Proof of 100-million-year-old flight?

It's all about the fourth toe. While birds and dinosaurs both left three-toed footprints, few dinosaurs have the backward-facing fourth toe that birds use to grab a branch or provide drag during landing. So when Anthony Martin saw the four-toed impression left in an Australian rock more than 100 million years old, he knew he was looking at something special.
"The track seemed familiar, like a face I had seen before but couldn’t quite identify," writes the Emory University paleontologist in a blog describing the find. "Then I realized who it belonged to, and where I had seen many others like it. It was a bird track, remarkably similar to those in the sands and muds of the Georgia coast, made daily by the herons, egrets, and shorebirds."
Within minutes, he was sure that he was looking at the footprint of a small shorebird, similar in size to a modern-day snowy egret or tricolored heron, both of which leave distinctive four-toed footprints. His findings appear in the current issue of "Palaeontology."

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While not all Cretaceous-era birds had a "hallux," a backward-facing fourth toe, and in fact some theropod (bird-like) dinosaurs did, four slender toes splayed out like an off-kilter peace sign nearly always means bird, says Dr. Martin. Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, had a vestigial rear toe up near his Achilles tendon, but an elevated toe wouldn't show up in a footprint, he notes. "In bird feet with that fourth toe, the hallux was down on the ground with the tracks, where that same toe on non-avian theropod dinosaurs was usually raised."
What's more, this hallux had left a long groove behind it, which Martin's thousands of hours watching birds make tracks along the Georgia shoreline told him was the sign of a bird coming in for a landing.
"The then-soft, wet sand had been sliced by the sharp claw on the hallux, which contacted the sand first before the rest of the foot registered. As this toe slid forward and stopped, the other digits came down, and forward momentum caused their leading edges to push against the sand, mounding it in front of these toes," he writes.
The footprint in question appeared on a slab of sandstone with two other footprints. They were all about the same size, but only two of the three showed signs of a hallux, leading Martin and his colleagues to conclude that two birds and a bird-sized dinosaur had made the three prints. Because wet sand dries quickly, the three footprints must have been made within a narrow window of time, possibly within the same day, says Martin. The dinosaur and the birds must have shared an ecosystem, just as modern animals might share a watering hole or visit the same stream.
The rock containing the footprints was found on November 29, 2010, by Sean Wright and Alan Tait, two volunteers from the Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. They were scouting the shore for more of the dinosaur bones that gave Dinosaur Cove its name when they found what looked like dinosaur footprints. Four months later, Mr. Tait went back to the site, broke the slab into four backpack-friendly pieces, and schlepped the 100 pounds of sandstone back to civilization.
When the footprints were made, about 105 million years ago, Australia was much farther south than it is now. Dinosaur Cove, which is now near the southeastern tip of Australia, was then in a temperate region close to the South Pole. Birds and non-avian dinosaurs were still in the process of separating on their evolutionary journey. Many scientists now class birds as theropods – the class of dinosaurs that includes T. rex and velociraptors – and they're searching for clues into how modern birds diverged from their giant cousins, and how feathered flight evolved.
These footprints provide important clues toward those questions, especially if Martin is right that the long groove is evidence of flight, and not just hopping or foot-dragging.
"Could we all be wrong, and none of these tracks are from birds, but from some theropod dinosaurs that were very close to birds in their foot anatomy?" Martin asks. "Sure, that’s possible, but not likely at this point. Could I be wrong about taking one track and interpreting it as evidence of flight? Again, that’s possible. Alternate explanations include that the bird just hopped – perhaps with a flap or two – before landing. Or its foot just slipped on the wet sand as it was walking forward. However, in my experience with modern birds, such tracks are even more rare than volichnia (flight traces). Could Cretaceous birds in polar Australia have been more clumsy than those today, hence their slipping tracks would have been more common? OK, now that’s just silly. Let’s just celebrate this find for what it is."
Read more : http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/1028/Dinosaur-era-bird-tracks-Proof-of-100-million-year-old-flight

NY Rangers open renovated Madison Square Garden with a 2-0 loss to Canadiens

The Rangers finally played their home opener Monday night after starting the season with nine straight road games as the $1 billion transformation of Madison Square Garden was being completed.
The game did not live up to the anticipation.

Andrew Theodorakis/New York Daily News

Brian Boyle takes a peek up at the scoreboard during the Rangers loss.

Fans had little to cheer about as the Rangers lost, 2-0, to the Montreal Canadiens and fell to a dismal 3-7-0 on the season.
“I mean everybody was excited for this game, playing at home here, so I’m pretty sure everyone’s disappointed,” Mats Zuccarello said.

That’s an understatement.
Coming off an OT win in Detroit that ended his team’s marathon road trip, Alain Vigneault was optimistic, only to see his Rangers fail to get a single puck past Habs goalie Peter Budaj, who made 27 saves. The Rangers came up empty on five power-play tries.

Andrew Theodorakis/New York Daily News

Fresh off Tommy John surgery, Mets ace and Rangers fan Matt Harvey with his model girlfriend Anne Vyalitsyna (l.) before the game.

The good news for the Rangers was that Henrik Lundqvist was back in net and played well after sitting out two games with an undisclosed injury. He saved 25 of the Habs’ 27 shots, with his first blemish coming at the 16:34 mark of period 2 on a well-executed Canadien transition play that resulted in Tomas Plekanec’s power-play goal. Plekanec slipped through the defense and deked around Lundqvist for a backhanded goal.
But the Rangers felt the Habs never should have been given the opportunity, arguing a questionable roughing call on Brian Boyle.
“Probably from the angle, it looked like I probably hit him (Brendan Gallagher) in the head,” Boyle said. “It’s unfortunate that we got scored on, but again, there was plenty of time to try and generate offense.”
The refs picked on the Rangers again at the 5:37 mark of Period 3, when a Derek Brassard breakaway was blown dead after a dubious interference call on Chris Kreider at the blue line, where two Canadiens players simply seemed to get tangled.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/hockey/rangers/new-garden-jolt-rangers-life-2-0-loss-habs-article-1.1499683#ixzz2j67XLQvC

James Taylor flubs national anthem, recovers smoothly

(CNN) -- All future singers of the national anthem should pay close attention to James Taylor's performance at Game 2 of the World Series on October 24.

If you're going to make a mistake, this is the way to make it.

On Thursday, the musician was at Fenway Park in Boston to lead the stadium in a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner." But when he opened his mouth to sing, the words of "America the Beautiful" started pouring out.

Rather than "Oh, say can you see," Taylor kicked off the song with, "Oh, beautiful ..."

But the singer quickly -- and rather smoothly -- recovered, going straight into the correct lyrics without missing a beat.

While other singers have caught major flak for messing up the words to the national anthem at such events, Taylor did have an excuse: he was also performing "America the Beautiful" that same night during the seventh inning stretch.

SOURCE : http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/25/showbiz/music/james-taylor-national-anthem/

U.S. Deal With JPMorgan Followed a Crucial Call

At a museum on Fifth Avenue, in a sparkling reception hall overlooking Central Park, Jamie Dimon convened his top executives and their spouses last month for the Wall Street equivalent of a pep rally.
“I’m proud of the company,” Mr. Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said at the event, held at the Museum of the City of New York, a mansion with a marble staircase and French doors. According to people who attended, Mr. Dimon said, “We will get through all of this,” referring to the legal and regulatory woes dogging the nation’s biggest bank.
The next week, Mr. Dimon aimed to put one of those woes behind him.
On Sept. 24, four hours before the Justice Department was planning to hold a news conference to announce civil charges against the bank over its sale of troubled mortgage investments, Mr. Dimon personally called one of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s top lieutenants to reopen settlement talks, people briefed on the talks said. The rare outreach from a Wall Street C.E.O. scuttled the news conference and set in motion weeks of negotiations that have culminated in a tentative $13 billion deal, according to the people briefed on the talks.
An account of the negotiations, based on interviews with these people, pulls back a curtain on the private wrangling to illuminate how the bank and the government managed to negotiate what would be a record deal. It also sheds new light on the hands-on role that Mr. Dimon and Mr. Holder played in the talks. And it highlights how Mr. Dimon has so far maintained the support of the bank’s board when other Wall Street chiefs were derailed by the financial crisis.
Much of the deal came down to dollars and cents. Mr. Dimon, the people said, signaled during that Sept. 24 call that he was willing to increase JPMorgan’s offer to settle an array of state and federal investigations into the bank’s sale of troubled mortgage securities before the financial crisis. The government, these people said, had already balked at the bank’s two initial offers: $1 billion and $3 billion.
And so that same week, Mr. Dimon traveled to the Justice Department in Washington for a meeting with Mr. Holder that underscored how expensive the healing process had become. At the meeting, the people briefed on the talks said, JPMorgan executives raised the offer to $11 billion, $4 billion of which would serve as relief to struggling homeowners.
But Mr. Holder wanted more money to resolve the civil cases, the people said. And despite the bank’s requests, he refused to provide JPMorgan a so-called nonprosecution agreement that would halt an investigation from prosecutors in California, who were scrutinizing the bank’s mortgage securities. Instead, the people said, he informed Mr. Dimon that the Justice Department wanted JPMorgan to plead guilty to a criminal charge in that case, an unusual show of force against a Wall Street bank.
While they were unable to strike a deal that day, Mr. Dimon and Mr. Holder kept in close touch, talking five times in the last two weeks. Late Friday, on the last of those calls, they finally reached the tentative deal: $13 billion and no promise of dropping the criminal investigation.
The deal, which could still fall apart over issues like how much wrongdoing the bank would admit, would be a record accord for the Justice Department. A single corporation has never before paid this much to settle.
The deal might also embolden the Justice Department and set a precedent for the agency’s investigations of Wall Street. Using the JPMorgan case as a template, and relying on a law that extends the legal deadline for filing certain financial fraud cases to 10 years from five, the Justice Department is planning to take action against other big banks suspected of selling troubled mortgage securities.
For JPMorgan, once known as Washington’s favorite bank, the deal would be a stunning reversal of fortune.
Complicating matters for the bank, Mr. Dimon is inextricably linked to the settlement. With the government, he assumed the role of chief negotiator. And at the bank, as illustrated at the museum gathering last month, he remains its chief cheerleader.

Read More : http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/u-s-deal-with-jpmorgan-spurred-by-a-phone-call/

Peyton Manning, Denver lose in his return to Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS Peyton Manning failed Sunday night in his first game against his former team.

All the 37-year-old ex-Indianapolis Colts quarterback can do now is hope for a second chance.

On a night when second-year quarterback Andrew Luck, Manning's successor in Indianapolis, threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, the Denver Broncos committed four turnovers and lost for the first time this season, 39-33.

"This is a game we need to learn from," Manning said. "We, I guess, had four turnovers and still somehow had a chance to win that game. I would have liked to have seen it go to a two-point game down there toward the end and see what would have happened, but it never quite got to that point. We certainly have to improve from this game, because we weren't as sharp, execution-wise, as we'd like to be."
"It's not real fun watching him," Luck said of Manning. "But he is something to watch."
"Manning did Sunday night what he has done all season, doing it ugly without great arm strength or even great spirals, but putting the ball in spots where only teammates could catch it and run with it," writes CBSSports.com national columnist Gregg Doyel. "He completed 29 of 49 passes for 386 yards and three touchdowns.
"But he didn't win this game, in part because of a harassing Colts defense that did to him what it has done to quarterbacks for years, and in part because of the guy who replaced Manning (Luck)."
The game certainly showed how vulnerable the Broncos (6-1) are at the moment.
Already playing without their starting left tackle and center, they juggled the offensive line again. This time, Manning was hit 10 times, sacked four times, lost a fumble and threw an interception - the last two when his arm was hit before he could get rid of the ball cleanly.
Running back Ronnie Hillman was stripped of the ball inside the Colts' 5-yard line late in the game on a series when the Broncos were down two scores.
Cornerback Champ Bailey, who had just returned to the lineup last week after missing the first five games with a left foot injury, departed in the first half after hurting the same foot. Coach John Fox didn't provide an update on the severity of the injury after the game.
Without Bailey, Luck managed to extend the lead and kept the pressure on Manning all game.

And dynamic kick returner Trindon Holliday fumbled twice, losing one that led to an Indianapolis (5-2) touchdown.

Heading into the game, Manning and Denver looked virtually unbeatable. The Broncos were scoring points by the dozens in the midst of a 17-game regular-season winning streak and showed no signs of even hitting a speed bump.

But nothing went right and now the Kansas City Chiefs are the NFL's lone unbeaten team.

"That's a big play any time you give them a safety or give them the ball again," Manning said, referring to Robert Mathis' strip sack in the second quarter. "Robert's a great player, no doubt, but that was one of a number of plays that we gave them points and it was ultimately too much to overcome."

While Manning finished with solid numbers, 29 of 49 for 386 yards with three TD passes, he certainly wasn't himself. Passes fluttered, passes sailed, passes were broken up.

Luck was 21 of 38 for 228 yards with three scores and no turnovers in ending Denver's pursuit of perfection. Indianapolis extended its lead in the AFC South and still hasn't lost consecutive games since Luck arrived in the NFL last year.

Admittedly, this was no typical night for Manning.

The weekend's marquee matchup was the NFL's most anticipated homecoming since Brett Favre went back to Green Bay - with the dreaded Minnesota Vikings - in 2009.

Indy's former franchise quarterback dealt with questions all week about owner Jim Irsay's most recent comments expressing disappointment with winning just one Super Bowl title during the Manning years, then arrived to find out the roof and window at Lucas Oil Stadium would be open on a chilly night inside the house he helped build.

And when he first ran onto the field, some sections in the lower bowl looked like a checkerboard of Colts blue and Broncos orange. They roared for No. 18 throughout a 90-second video tribute featuring some of his most memorable moments with the Colts, including the record-breaking pass to Marvin Harrison for most TDs by a quarterback-receiver duo, the AFC championship comeback against New England and, of course, the evening when he finally hoisted the Lombardi Trophy after winning the Super Bowl in rainy Miami.

Manning responded to the standing ovation by stopping his warm-up throws, taking off his helmet, waving to the fans and mouthing the words "Thank you."

The large video screen then cut to a fan holding a sign that that read "Thanks Peyton But Tonight I'm A Colts Fan."

Afterward, he acknowledged it was an emotional game.

But the Broncos were dealing with far bigger issues on the field.

After Holliday fumbled, Luck hooked up with Darrius Heyward-Bey on the next play to give Indy a 10-7 lead.

After the free kick following the safety Luck found Stanley Havili for a 20-yard TD pass to make it 19-14. Indy never trailed again.

"That's my job, that's how I help my team," Mathis said. "It felt good."

The Colts extended the lead to 26-14 at halftime and 33-14 in the third quarter when Luck scrambled for a 10-yard TD during a drive on which four flags came out on Denver defenders.

Then Manning rallied the Broncos, throwing a 31-yard TD pass to Demaryius Thomas early in the fourth and handing off to Knowshon Moreno for a 1-yard TD run to make it 36-30 with 8:44 left in the game.
Denver forced a punt, giving Manning another chance as the stadium noise subsided. But on the first play, Erik Walden hit Manning's arm and Pat Angerer picked it off to set up Adam Vinatieri's 42-yard field goal.

Read More : http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57608385/peyton-manning-denver-lose-in-his-return-to-indianapolis/

Administration responding to pressure for answers on messy ObamaCare site

Obama administration officials and other Democrats appeared to respond Sunday to increasing pressure for a full, public explanation from the Health and Human Services Department about the problem-plagued federal health care website.
The agency on Sunday posted a blog on its site with some preliminary statistics and an assurance to Americans that officials are “working around the clock” and “committed to doing better.”
And President Obama is scheduled Monday to publicly address the issue. The White House said Sunday the president will directly address the technical problems with the site that "he and his team find unacceptable."
The website has been mired in problems since going live Oct. 1, including crashes, slow response times and failing to allow customers to complete the online process by purchasing health insurance.
Also on Sunday, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would testify before Congress about the site, amid a growing call for her to accept requests to speak on Capitol Hill.
“Ultimately, Secretary Sebelius will testify,” Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, told “Fox News Sunday.”
The 918-word blog acknowledges the glitches have been “frustrating” for Americans and states roughly 500,000 applications for coverage have been submitted. It also states that healthcare.gov has had roughly 19 million unique visits, which “confirms that the American people are looking for quality, affordable health coverage, and want to find it online.”
Officials said in the post they have called in additional help to solve the problems.
The agency has said it will release information on how many people have purchased insurance but has not so far.
Insurance coverage under ObamaCare begins in January and those who fail to purchase insurance under the 2010 law will have to pay a tax penalty by March 31.
Sebelius and the entire administration have declined requests to testify on Capitol Hill.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter directly to Sebelius last week asking her to testify Thursday on the matter.
Sebelius has yet to respond publicly, but reportedly plans to attend a gala the night before in Boston, which has fueled calls for resignation.
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said he’s “reluctant” to call for an immediate dismissal in such situations, but was critical of Sebelius for so far not agreeing to testify.
“Her refusal to testify and be transparent has undermined her credibility,” he told Fox News, adding her not testifying could lead to her resignation.
House investigators say they want to know whether officials involved in the website “didn’t know or didn’t disclose” problems, after repeatedly saying the site was “on track” to launch.
Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt told Fox News that Sebelius’ position appears “unsustainable.”
“She cannot sustain it,” he said. “She’ll have to testify.”
Commerce committee Chairman Fred Upton began focusing on Secretary Sebelius after she went to Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” last week to talk about the website.
“Secretary Sebelius had time for Jon Stewart, and we expect her to have time for Congress,” the Michigan Republican has repeatedly said.

SOURCE : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/21/administration-responding-to-pressure-for-answers-on-messy-obamacare-site/

Building a High Quality Early Learning System

As part of the Secretary’s Strong Start, Bright Future back-to-school bus tour, I had the opportunity to meet with early learning providers, parents, and children in Las Cruces, N.M. Las Cruces, situated near the Mexico border, has a large Hispanic community and is surrounded by small rural farming villages. It was chile harvest time and the smell of roasting green chile was in the air.
Las Cruces and Doña Ana County are served by three early intervention agencies under contract with the New Mexico Department of Health, Family Infant Toddler (FIT) Program. The FIT Program is the lead agency for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Part C) and ensures that families of children birth to age three with, or at risk of, developmental delays and disabilities have access to quality early intervention services, no matter where they live. In New Mexico, that can mean serving families in large urban areas, rural towns and small villages, tribal communities, and those families living on ranches separated by long dirt roads. I was thrilled to personally witness the passion, commitment, and dedication of the individuals and organizations involved in making sure that families get the supports and services they need, in the language and culture appropriate to the family.    
Of course, children receiving Part C services are children first, and have the same need for high-quality early care and learning opportunities as their nondisabled peers.  Fortunately, for the children and families in Doña Ana County, providers of Part C services, Head Start, Early Head Start, home visitation, child care, and the public preschools all work together to ensure that some of our most vulnerable babies have access to high-quality early learning.
For New Mexico, it starts with rigorous outreach, public awareness, and home visitation to identify infants and toddlers who are eligible for early intervention services.  According to Andy Gomm, the State FIT Director, “we make sure families know that early intervention can make a lifetime of difference.” Part C early intervention services provide critical supports and services to our youngest children with disabilities or delays so they too can enter kindergarten ready to succeed.
But Part C services are not an educational placement. Young children with disabilities need these services as part of their early learning experience. To be most effective, these services should be delivered in inclusive early care and education settings.
With scarce resources, the providers in Doña Ana County work collaboratively and share those resources, tools, professional development, and training to make sure that families get the early care and education their children need. Parents expressed how important it is for these providers to work together so their children can experience seamless, high-quality early learning.
During the trip, I also had the opportunity to visit with the amazing folks at “Jardin de los Niños,” who provide early care and education, as well as parent support services, to homeless families. One of the highlights was playing in the sand box with a little girl who offered to “bake me a chocolate cake” out of sand. These educators and other providers are truly creating new possibilities for homeless and near homeless children and families.
The dedicated and passionate early care and education providers of Doña Ana County are working together to meet the diverse needs of young children and families in their community. They’re building a high-quality early learning system, giving our children the best opportunity for a strong start and a bright future.

Read More : http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/10/building-a-high-quality-early-learning-system/

Duncan Speaks on Vitality of Historically Black Colleges

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), “must not just survive but thrive,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told those gathered at the HBCU National Conference in Washington yesterday. Duncan spoke of the enduring contributions HBCUs have made to the country and said that the tremendous historic role of HBCUs must endure as well as evolve.

Historical Role of HBCUs

Too many Americans are unfamiliar with the staggering accomplishments of HBCUs. Most of America’s civil rights giants were educated at HBCUs—Dr. King, W.E.B. DuBois, Rosa Parks, Booker T. Washington, and Thurgood Marshall.
In our time, Jesse Jackson, Andy Young, Barbara Jordan, Congressman John Lewis, Marian Wright Edelman, and Doug Wilder all earned their degrees at HBCUs.
Legendary artists and authors came out of HBCUs—Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison.
Yet what is most impressive about the HBCU record is not just your famous alumni. It is that HBCUs, working with meager resources, almost single-handedly created an African-American professional class in the face of decades of Jim Crow discrimination.

College Completion Rates

The math here is pretty simple. To reach the President’s 2020 goal, student populations with high dropout rates—especially minority students—will have to exponentially increase their college graduation rates.
This is not just about access—this is about attainment. Nationwide, only about one in four—28 percent—of young black adults have received a college degree.
But we know that African Americans have the highest proportion of adults who have some college but not a degree of any major racial group. Almost 18 percent of African Americans aged 25 years and older—nearly one in five adults—went to college but left without their degree.
That college completion shortfall is both a tragic squandering of talent and an unprecedented opportunity to do better.
So, in the years ahead, we want HBCUs to continue to be known not just for their storied alumni but for leading the way for all institutions in educating and graduating African American college students.

Innovation at HBCUs

I want to be absolutely clear: Support for innovation at HBCUs should be government-wide, and not just from the Department of Education. I’m excited that the Department of Energy awarded $9 million to nine HBCUs in South Carolina and Georgia to develop academic programs that promote minority involvement in STEM fields, especially in environmental management.
And just yesterday, the National Institutes of Health announced it has awarded planning grants to five HBCUs, totaling almost one million dollars in its new NIH BUILD initiative.

Read Secretary Duncan’s entire speech, learn more about HBCUs and follow the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities on Twitter.

Kim Kardashian shows off post-baby body in racy swimsuit photo, Kanye West tweets ‘heading home now’

Kim Kardashian posted a new photo of her post-baby body to Instagram on Thursday morning.

Now that the Atkins Diet has been revealed as Kim Kardashian's secret to successful post-baby weight loss, the hot mother of one is getting back to showing off her famous assets.
Kardashian, 32, posted a "no filter" photo of herself to Instagram, showing off her pert derriere while wearing a high-cut, sexy white swimsuit.
RELATED: KIM KARDASHIAN REVEALS HOW SHE LOST HER POST-BABY WEIGHT
The picture garnered a lot of attention — especially from Kardashian's beau, Kanye West.

PHOTOS: KEEPING UP WITH KIM KARDASHIAN

PHOTOS: KIM KARDASHIAN AND KANYE WEST'S MATCHING STYLE

"HEADING HOME NOW," West, 36, tweeted early Thursday, proudly sharing the photo of his girlfriend with his 10 million followers.

Marc Piasecki/WireImage

West was apparently excited by the photo, proudly tweeting ‘heading home now’ and showing off the racy shot of his girlfriend.

PHOTOS: KIM KARDASHIAN'S STYLE MAKEOVER
West has been proudly proclaiming his love for Kardashian as of late, even recently declaring that his lady love is worthy of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — an honor she doesn't qualify for, despite her noteworthy curves.
It's her first return to posing in a swimsuit since Kardashian was pregnant with now 4-month-old daughter North West.
RELATED: KHLOE KARDASHIAN SHARES ADORABLE PHOTO WITH NIECE NORTH WEST
In February, she did a pregnant swimsuit spread for Du Jour magazine and talked about "shifting her priorities" upon becoming a mother.
"My boyfriend has taught me a lot about privacy," she told the mag about West.
RELATED: KIM KARDASHIAN DOESN'T QUALIFY FOR WALK OF FAME, SAYS SPOKESWOMAN
"I'm ready to be a little less open about some things, like my relationships. I'm realizing everyone doesn't need to know everything. I'm shifting my priorities."
Apparently, everyone still needs to know what Kardashian's body looks like.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/kim-kardashian-shares-racy-swimsuit-photo-kanye-west-tweets-heading-home-article-1.1488337#ixzz2i4ZIuZe5

'I've taken no secret files to Russia': Edward Snowden says he gave all NSA material to reporters in Hong Kong

Former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden says he did not take any secret NSA documents to Russia.
And he says that intelligence officials in China as well as Russia could not get access to the documents he had obtained before leaving the US.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr Snowden said he handed over all the documents he had obtained to journalists during his stay in Hong Kong.
Mr Snowden said he did not retain copies of the documents and did not take them to Russia 'because it wouldn't serve the public interest,' the newspaper reported.
He said his familiarity with China's intelligence abilities allowed him to protect the documents from Chinese spies while he was in Hong Kong.
'There's a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,' he said.
Mr Snowden's leaks of highly classified material have resulted in numerous news stories about US surveillance activities at home and abroad and sparked debate about their legality, and the privacy implications for average Americans.
The newspaper reported that the interview took place over several days in the last week and involved encrypted online communications.

SOURCE : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2465737/Edward-Snowden-Ive-taken-secret-files-Russia.html

Five Yemeni soldiers killed in suicide attack on military base

(Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least five Yemeni soldiers on Friday in a suspected Islamist militant attack on a military base in the south of the country, a Yemeni military official said.
Militants linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are increasingly targeting Yemeni army facilities in the U.S.-allied state, which shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and flanks major shipping lanes.
The military official said the bomber drove a car laden with explosives and blew himself up at the gate of the army camp in Ahwar, an area in the southern province of Abyan.
Other militants attacked soldiers in the camp with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), the source said, adding that 15 soldiers were wounded in the clashes.
The military official gave no detail on any casualties among the militants, but said the fighting was still going on.
Local witnesses said a helicopter, apparently belonging to the Yemeni army, was circling in the vicinity.
AQAP is regarded by the United States as one of the most active wings of the militant network, posing a serious threat to Western interests including oil tanker traffic in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.
Last month, dozens of militants stormed and captured the headquarters of the Yemeni army's Second Division in the eastern coastal city of al-Mukalla and seized some military personnel. Military officials said four Yemeni soldiers were killed and nine wounded in a counter-strike to retake the base.
AQAP said in a statement last week that the September 30 attack targeted an operations room used by the United States to direct drone strikes against militants. This was denied by a Yemeni official, who said the facility contained a counter-piracy room for monitoring and securing shipping routes in the Arabian Sea.
Yemen's state news agency Saba reported on Thursday that a soldier was killed and two injured in militant attacks in al-Bayda province, south of the capital Sanaa. Saba said al Qaeda fighters suffered heavy losses and were forced to flee, but provided no details.
Militants took advantage of political chaos in Yemen during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011 to seize control of some towns in the south of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.
They were subsequently beaten back by Yemeni armed forces, with assistance from the United States, and dispersed into smaller groups spread across the arid, rugged south.
But they have since carried out a series of attacks on important military and civilian targets, killing hundreds of soldiers and some senior officers, including Major General Salem Qatan, the Yemeni army commander in south Yemen.

Read More : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/18/us-yemen-attacks-idUSBRE99H09Y20131018

Angela Ahrendts to leave Burberry for Apple

Ahrendts has been named senior vice president for Apple retail and online stores. She will start at the technology giant in mid-2014.
The move comes as Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) attempts to ramp up its push into China, a market in which Ahrendts has had great success in the past.
American-born Ahrendts, who was appointed Burberry (BBRYF) chief executive in 2006, has been credited with turning around the luxury fashion brand and expanding its presence in Asia. Part of her success has been driven by embracing digital and social media to attract a youthful following to the label.
Ahrendts was the highest paid CEO in the U.K. last year and is one of the country's highest profile female executives.
Christopher Bailey will become Burberry's new chief executive officer, in addition to current responsibilities as chief creative for the fashion brand.
Burberry investors reacted badly to the news, with shares slumping nearly 4% in early London trading.

Read More : http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/15/news/companies/apple-burberry-ahrendts/

Talks to avert San Francisco rail strike continue through night

Oct 15 (Reuters) - Talks to avert a potentially crippling San Francisco area rail strike failed to produce a deal by a Monday midnight deadline, but the sides will continue to meet through the night and trains will run on Tuesday, a federal mediator said.
Unions representing Bay Area transit workers spent the day negotiating with management, with union leaders saying only an 11th-hour "hail Mary" would likely stop a walkout.
But a federal mediator involved in the talks said early on Tuesday some "constructive and productive progress" had been made.
"Because of all of our concern about the public's interest, I am authorized to announce that trains will run tomorrow (Tuesday)," George Cohen, director of the U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, told reporters. About 400,000 passengers use the rail system every day.
More than 2,000 drivers and other employees at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) have been working without a contract since June 30, and two unions representing them had promised to walk off the job on Tuesday if no deal was reached.
Management has offered a 12-percent pay raise over four years for workers, who they say make an average of $79,000 plus benefits. The unions peg the average worker salary lower at $64,000, excluding manager pay.
"We think we have a great offer on the table. We don't think a strike is necessary. We don't think a strike is smart," said Tom Radulovich, president of the BART board of directors. "So far they're not excited about our last, best and final (offer), but they are talking to us."
Peter Castelli, executive director of Service Employees International Union local 1021, has said negotiators were close to a deal but time was running out. He said unions had made a counter offer, but the details were under wraps.
Should a strike halt the BART trains, riders would be forced to turn to the bus system for public transit options. However, a union representing workers at the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit Agency, the third largest in the Bay Area, on Monday notified its management they could strike as soon as Thursday.
HIGH COST OF LIVING
Partly because BART worker pay is considered by many to be generous - and considerably higher than the median U.S. salary of about $50,000 - the potential strike comes against an unusual backdrop of public discomfort with a possible labor action in a typically pro-union region.
"The Bay Area traditionally is a very pro-labor part of California. But this go-round the issue seems to be framed differently," said Larry Gerston, a retired professor of political science at San Jose State University.
"The relatively high salaries of BART employees, the overtime they routinely get in conjunction with lots of sick time, and that's against a backdrop of a public that's just recovering now from a recession where every dollar meant a whole lot."
The unions point out that San Francisco and nearby Oakland are both among the 10 most expensive U.S. cities. Because the management offer also includes a demand that employees pay a portion of their medical and retirement benefit costs, some of the 12 percent offered in raises would be immediately swallowed up by those contributions.
The unions had initially asked for a three-year contract, with a 3.75 percent raise in each of the first two years and a 4 percent raise in the last year.
BART spokesman Rick Rice has said the transit system wanted workers to contribute to pensions, starting at 1 percent in the first year and growing to 4 percent in the fourth. The agency also wanted a cap on its healthcare costs, he said.
Bay Area commuters had a taste of the havoc a transit strike could bring in July, when BART employees walked off the job after their contract first expired. A strike was again threatened in August before Democratic Governor Jerry Brown intervened to seek a 60-day cooling-off period, now expired.
Melvin Mendoza, 31, had to take three days off from his job as a technical support specialist at a San Francisco law firm during the July action.
"Transportation last time was just a nightmare," said Mendoza, a father of two whose wife uses the family's only car to get to her job. "The way this is going, it's putting a bad taste in my mouth both on the part of BART and with my concept of the unions." (Writing and additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

SOURCE : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/15/usa-bart-sanfrancisco-idUSL1N0I509A20131015

Record number of runners at Chicago Marathon despite heightened security

The Bank of America Chicago Marathon was run without incident Sunday as tighter but by no means suffocating security did little to scare off runners or subdue the raucous street party bubbling along the 26.2-mile racecourse.
Police and event organizers instituted new safety measures after the bombings that marred April's Boston Marathon, but the essential character of the race remained unchanged. Some runners and spectators said they were grateful for the heightened scrutiny, while others said they barely noticed it.
"It's good that you don't see the presence because that makes people uncomfortable," said Kelly Kane, who was cheering on runners in Old Town with few uniformed police officers in sight.
As of Sunday evening, Chicago police had reported no serious trouble during the bright and brisk morning. George Chiampas, the race's medical director, said 750 people requested medical attention and 26 were transported to hospitals, though none appeared to be critical.
The marathon's safeguards were evident before the race even began, with a sign near the runners' check-in cautioning participants not to wear "costumes covering the face or non-formfitting bulky outfits."
Runners had to carry their belongings in clear plastic bags provided by race organizers, and police set up watchtowers near Buckingham Fountain to keep an eye on the record 40,230 athletes assembling in Grant Park.
Shannon Seiferth, of Chicago, said she had thought about the Boston bombings before arriving at the starting gate but had full confidence that she would be safe.
"I think the security measures are in place, and I think people are going to be on high alert," she said.
Rolling Meadows resident Michelle Thomas, who was in her first marathon after taking up running in January, said she, too, was at peace.
"I prayed this morning," she said. "(With the) security that I've seen throughout the entire week, I feel very comfortable. So this is for Boston."
Once the race began at 7:30 a.m., the runners wound through city streets guarded by police officers in neon yellow vests, FBI agents in military-style fatigues and undercover cops. Police were especially noticeable in the Loop, with at least one officer at every intersection, a show of force that reassured spectators like Belinda Musgrave.
"You always think about safety because you never expect (violence), but I haven't felt uncomfortable at all," said Musgrave, who had come from Houston to cheer on her friend Rhonda Kersgieter. "They seem to have everything under control."
Other precautions were also evident. Newspaper boxes vanished in some parts of the city, and the large, compacting trash cans in the Loop were sealed shut, leading spectators to pile their coffee cups on top. A police dog, wearing a patch that read, "DO NOT PET," patrolled the finish line with an officer from the Department of Homeland Security.
But the strictness of course security varied by neighborhood. In Greektown, crowd control barriers prevented spectator Maxine Jones, of Country Club Hills, from jogging alongside friends in the race.
"It wasn't so secured" in years past, Jones said. "(Now) you can't run out and say, 'Hi.'"
In Old Town, though, no barriers prevented onlookers such as Kristi Summers from weaving through groups of runners to cross the street, or from briefly joining friends on the course.
"We've totally done that at least three times," she said.
That pointed to what some security experts have called the impossibility — and undesirability — of completely buttoning down a sprawling, urban marathon route. Police asked spectators and runners alike to be vigilant, but that didn't appear to alter the spirit of the race, embodied in people such as Aimee Shuey.
The New Orleans resident had come with more than a dozen others to join a 61-year-old friend who was running her first marathon. Doing a high-profile race in the shadow of Boston made Shuey a little anxious, but she said her friend wasn't fazed at all.
"She's nervous about finishing the race more than anything," Shuey said at the 12-mile mark.

SOURCE : http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-chicago-marathons-heightened-security-solidarity-keep-runners-afoot-20131013,0,4020904.story

Lauren Conrad engaged to boyfriend William Tell

Jerod Harris/WireImage

‘The Hills’ star Lauren Conrad is engaged to boyfriend William Tell, she announced on her personal website.

Lauren Conrad is over the hills in love!
The reality star turned fashionista and author is engaged to boyfriend William Tell, she confirmed on her blog site.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/lauren-conrad-engaged-boyfriend-william-article-1.1484187#ixzz2hhb493CX

Deadly hornets kill 42 people in China, injure over 1,500

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Swarms of aggressive hornets, in their fall mating season, are inflicting a deadly toll in a central Chinese province.

Hornets have killed 42 people and injured 1,675 people in three cities in Shaanxi province since July, according to the local government. Thirty-seven patients remain in critical or serious condition.

Over the summer and early fall, hornets have invaded schools full of children and descended upon unsuspecting farm workers in China.

One of them is Mu Conghui, a woman who was attacked in Ankang City while looking after her millet crop.

"The hornets were horrifying," she told Xinhua, the Chinese state-run news agency. "They hit right at my head and covered my legs. All of a sudden I was stung and I couldn't move.

"Even now, my legs are covered with sting holes."

Killer hornets sting nearly 600 people

Two months, 13 dialysis treatments and 200 stitches later, Mu still remains hospitalized and unable to move her legs.

The influx of venom to the human body can cause allergic reactions and multiple organ failure leading to death. Patients like Mu have been receiving dialysis to remove the toxins from her body. In photos, patients bore deep dark craters scattered across their limbs, the size of bullet wounds.

Government authorities say these attacks are from a particularly venomous species, the world's largest hornet, known as the Asian giant hornet or vespa mandarinia.

The giant hornet extends about 3.5 to 3.9 centimeters in length, roughly the size of a human thumb. It has an orange head with a black tooth used for burrowing, according to an animal database at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Wang Xue, director of the intensive care unit at First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University and an expert of the provincial hornet sting treatment guidance unit, warned in a Shaanxi government release that hornets tend to be aggressive and more active during September and October -- their breeding season. The hornets do not go into hibernation until December, according to local government authorities.

Local authorities have deployed thousands of police officers and locals to destroy the hives. So far, about 710 hives have been removed and at least 7 million yuan (about $1.1 million U.S.) sent to areas affected by hornets, according to a government press release.

The spate of attacks could be caused by the unusually dry weather in the area, authorities say. The arid environment makes it easier for hornets to breed. Urbanization could also be a contributing factor, as humans move into hornets' habitats.

Some experts cited in Xinhua stated additional factors such as increased vegetation and a decrease in the hornets' enemies, such as spiders and birds because of ecological changes.

Humans can inadvertently irritate the hornet hives, as most are tucked away in secluded places, such as tree hollows or even underground.

The provincial government has warned residents to wear long sleeves when outdoors, and not to attempt driving away the swarms or removing their hives.

Vespa mandarinia are known as formidable, carnivorous killers, found in eastern and southeastern Asia, especially in Japan.

About 30 to 50 deaths are reported each year in Japan from such attacks, according to Japanese studies. Most of the deaths are due to allergies to the venom, said Shunichi Makino, director general of the Hokkaido Research Center for Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute.

"It's very difficult to prevent the attacks because hornet nests are usually in hidden sites," he said.

Makino, who specializes in entomology, warned that the sting from an Asian giant hornet was severe compared with those of other insects.

"The venom of an Asian giant hornet is very special compared with other hornets or yellow jackets," he said. "The neurotoxin -- especially to mammals including humans -- it's a special brand of venom."

The giant hornets are also destructive to western honey bees. Research in Japan suggests tens of thousands of honey bee hives are damaged by the giant hornets each year.

The species feed their young with the larvae of other insects and use their mandibles to sever the limbs and heads of their prey. The hornet's venom sting is a neurotoxin so powerful that it dissolves human tissue, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The giant hornets are attracted to human sweat, alcohol and sweet flavors and smells. They are especially sensitive to when animals or people run, according to Xinhua.

One victim told local media earlier this month that "the more you run, the more they want to chase you." Some victims described being chased about 200 meters (656 feet) by a swarm.

Every breeding season, the giant hornets produce an average of 10,000 offspring. They feast on other insects such as wasps and bees, launching coordinated attacks on the hives of their prey.

SOURCE : http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/03/world/asia/hornet-attack-china

Exercise, weight control reduce risk of breast cancer

Breast cancer can be a devastating disease, but most women can take active steps to reduce their risk, say some of the nation's leading breast cancer experts.

Women shouldn't blame themselves for their illness, doctors say, noting that it's usually impossible to pinpoint what caused an individual woman's breast tumor.

But about 25% of all breast cancer cases in women of all ages could be avoided by maintaining a healthy body weight and doing regular physical activity, says internist Anne McTiernan, a researcher with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

"The greatest benefits for breast cancer reduction come from weight control and physical activity together," she says.

Alpa Patel, an American Cancer Society epidemiologist, agrees that these are "modifiable risk factors," along with limiting alcohol consumption.

STORY: The latest on 3-D mammograms

STORY: Fix your metabolism for weight control

STORY: What's your weight-loss personality type?

It may seem obvious, but being a woman is the main risk factor for developing breast cancer, the cancer society says. Men may also develop it, but the disease is about 100 times more common among women than men. This is likely because men have less of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone, which can promote breast cancer cell growth, the group says.

A woman's risk of developing breast cancer increases as she gets older. About one in eight U.S. women (12%) will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime, the cancer society says.

A large part of breast cancer risk is determined by women's lifetime exposure to estrogen, Patel says. Your risk increases if you begin your period early, if you go through menopause late, if you have fewer children or if you have them later in life. Those are considered non-modifiable risk factors, she says.

About 5% to 10% of breast cancer cases are thought to be hereditary, resulting directly from gene defects, called mutations, inherited from a parent, the cancer society says.

A small percentage of women, including Angelina Jolie, "have genes that put them at a very high lifetime risk," Patel says. Jolie opted for a preventative double mastectomy after learning that she carried a mutation in a gene called BRCA1, which gave her an 87% chance of breast cancer.

The most common cause of hereditary breast cancer is an inherited mutation in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, the cancer society says. Women with those genes need to be thinking of more intensive ways of reducing their risk, McTiernan says. "They need to be talking to a specialist."

But breast cancer that isn't linked to genes appears to be connected to lifestyle and environment, she says. Her studies show that weight loss and exercising regularly combined have the most impact on improving the biomarkers, including estrogen and insulin, for breast cancer risk.

Read More : http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/01/breast-cancer-exercise-weight-control/2795127/