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Friday, March 29, 2013
Hollande's popularity at new low as he grapples with French economy: poll
PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande's popularity rating has fallen to its lowest level since he came to power, a poll found on Wednesday, a day before he is due to address the nation to ask for patience as he attempts to revive the economy.
Ten months into his tenure, the Socialist president is struggling to reverse rising jobless claims, which are at their highest level in 15 years, and to stimulate an economy teetering near recession.
Only 27 percent of those polled in the LH2 poll for left-leaning weekly Le Nouvel Observateur expressed satisfaction with Hollande, with 68 percent dissatisfied.
Hollande was elected last May on pledges to get people back to work. His inability to meet that goal and a steady stream of weak economic data has eroded his popularity, which fell to about 30 percent late last month, according to various polls.
In the LH2 survey, just 15 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with his efforts to fight unemployment, with 81 percent dissatisfied. His efforts to reduce the public debt fared only slightly better, garnering a 22 percent satisfaction rate.
"This assessment ... shows that his May 2012 designation as a 'candidate of change' now leaves people with a feeling they have been deceived, which is amplified for his measures to fight unemployment and reduce the public debt," said pollster LH2.
Only in Hollande's management of foreign relations did those polled express more satisfaction than dissatisfaction - 47 percent against 45 percent.
Hollande is due to give a prime-time television interview on Thursday aimed at reassuring a skeptical public over the economic outlook.
The survey questioned 968 people by telephone on March 22 and 23.
(Reporting By Alexandria Sage; Editing by Pravin Char)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hollandes-popularity-low-grapples-french-economy-poll-193530637.html
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Justices could strike down DOMA
Hundreds rally outside the Supreme Court March 27. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
A majority of Supreme Court justices expressed concern Wednesday about a federal law that excludes same-sex couples from marriage.
On the second day of arguments over the legality of gay marriage, the probing questions from both wings of the court suggest the so-called Defense of Marriage Act could be struck down. Such a decision would be a major victory for the gay rights movement, just a day after it appeared unlikely the court would decide the Proposition 8 California case in a way that settles the question of whether same-sex couples can wed.
In Wednesday's arguments, the court's conservative leaning justices asked pointed questions about whether DOMA, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, intrudes into states' traditional right to regulate marriage. The more liberal justices seemed amenable to the argument that DOMA discriminates against gay people and was passed with the clear intention of excluding an unpopular group.
DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages even in the nine states (and the District of Columbia) that allow them. Justices could strike down the law in a narrow way that would force the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages only in states where it's already allowed, or in a broader way that would make dozens of state gay marriage bans legally vulnerable. Such a broad ruling from the court is considered much less likely.
The Justice Department would typically defend a federal law being challenged in the Supreme Court, but the Obama administration has declined to defend DOMA in court because it believes it is unconstitutional. Paul Clement, an attorney chosen by members of the House of Representatives who support DOMA, defended it instead.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative-leaning swing vote who has written two landmark opinions affirming gay rights, seemed unconvinced by the argument advanced by Clement that DOMA defines marriage as only between opposite-sex individuals to avoid confusion. Clement said that the federal government has an interest in "uniformity," and had passed the law to avoid having to treat same-sex couples differently based on whether they live in states that allow gay marriage or not.
Kennedy pointed out that DOMA excludes married same-sex couples in more than 1,100 federal statutes and laws, which has a substantial impact on the "day to day life" of those couples and their children. He said the law does not provide uniformity because it affects "only one aspect of marriage."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said excluding married gay couples from sick leave, tax benefits, Social Security survivor benefits, and hundreds of other federal benefits and obligations relegates same-sex couples to a "skim milk marriage" that is substantially worse than what heterosexual couples are allowed.
Justice Elena Kagan suggested that the law was not passed for uniformity's sake, but to discriminate. She read aloud from the House report on the law when it passed 17 years ago saying it expressed "moral disapproval of homosexuality."
Chief Justice John Roberts objected to the argument that Congress passed DOMA based on a dislike or hatred for gays and lesbians. He asked Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, representing the Obama administration, whether he believed the 84 senators who voted for it at the time were all motivated by animus. Verrilli said the lawmakers could have voted for DOMA due to a "lack of careful reflection," but that the law discriminates no matter why it was passed.
Roberts also objected to Attorney Roberta Kaplan's characterization of gay people as a disadvantaged minority group lacking political power.
"As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your case," Roberts said.
But Roberts did seem concerned by the federalist argument. He, Kennedy and Justice Samuel Alito posed tough questions about whether the federal government was overreaching with the statute. Kennedy said DOMA did not seem to recognize states's "historical" responsibility for marriage and suggested that the central question of the case is whether the federal government has the authority to regulate marriage.
Both attorneys arguing to strike down DOMA refused to make a federalist argument against the law, however?instead insisting it was a discrimination case.
Before even getting to the merits of the case, the justices spent nearly an hour grappling with whether they should decide it at all because of procedural issues.They appointed Harvard professor Vicki Jackson to make the case that House Republicans do not have the legal right, or standing, to appeal the lower court's decision.
Several justices were also critical of the Obama administration's decision to stop defending the law in court while still enforcing it. Roberts appeared to have serious doubts about the case's procedural issues, repeatedly saying that it is "unprecedented" for the U.S. government to appeal a case while disagreeing with a lower court's ruling.
The two gay marriage cases before the court this term have been dogged by procedural concerns, as both were left orphaned by public officials who no longer wanted to defend them.
On Tuesday, Kennedy wondered whether the court should have agreed to hear the Proposition 8 case at all. Other justices suggested they were skeptical that supporters of Proposition 8 had standing to appeal the case once California officials decided to drop it.
It's possible that neither case could end with a decision. In DOMA, that means the lower court's decision would stand and DOMA would be illegal in the Third Circuit. The plaintiff, Edith Windsor, would be repaid the $360,000 she had to pay in estate taxes when her wife died because the government didn't recognize her marriage in New York, where gay marriage is legal. In the Proposition 8 case, gay marriage would most likely become legal in California if the justices throw it out on standing or do not reach a majority.
A group from Alabama prays in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, March 27, 2013, before the court's hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In the second of back-to-back gay ... more? A group from Alabama prays in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, March 27, 2013, before the court's hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In the second of back-to-back gay marriage case, the Supreme Court is turning to a constitutional challenge to the law that prevents legally married gay Americans from collecting federal benefits generally available to straight married couples. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) less?Red Equal Sign Kordell Stewart Mexico vs USA Harmony Korine Battlefield 4 Human Rights Campaign Dorothy Hamill
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Private food markets gradually see the light of day in Cuba
Desmond Boylan / Reuters
Men unload vegetables from a truck for wholesale at a market before dawn in Havana on Feb. 14. Communist-run Cuba is gradually dismantling its monopoly on the purchase and sale of food in favor of private vendors, as part of efforts to reform the Soviet-style economy. With the country importing around 60 percent of its food and private farmers outperforming state farms on a fraction of the land, the government is systematically deregulating the sector, leasing fallow land to would-be farmers and encouraging private transportation and sales.
Desmond Boylan / Reuters
A man sits in a car loaded with carrots at a wholesale market on the outskirts of Havana on March 26.
Desmond Boylan / Reuters
A man arranges vegetables for sale on a tricycle in the village of Sagua La Grande in central Cuba, around 149 miles east of Havana on March 10.
Desmond Boylan / Reuters
A woman holds money to pay a farmer in the village of Sagua La Grande in central Cuba, around 149 miles east of Havana on March 2.
By Marc Frank, Reuters
Cubans are building private food distribution networks from the farm through to retail outlets as communist authorities gradually dismantle the state's monopoly on the purchase and sale of agricultural products.
The country's first wholesale produce market is up and running on the outskirts of Havana and across the island farmers report they are selling more of their goods directly to customers, ranging from hotels to individual vendors.
Those involved say the change is speeding the flow of food to market, helping end longstanding inefficiencies that often left crops to rot in fields and putting more money in the pockets of producers. Continue reading.
Enrique De La Osa / Reuters
Tomatoes are displayed for sale at a private wholesale market in Havana on March 26.
Previously on PhotoBlog:
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UK church exhumes grave rumored to house a king
LONDON (AP) ? A diocese in southern England says it has exhumed a grave over fears that a set of bones could be stolen amid speculation that the remains are those of King Alfred the Great.
The Diocese of Winchester says the exhumation took place earlier this week in the churchyard of St. Bartholomew's Church. The bones are now in storage.
Nick Edmond, diocese spokesman, said Wednesday the exhumation was authorized to protect the bones amid heightened interest following the recently discovered remains of King Richard III.
Edmondson said no permission has been given to analyze the bones.
Alfred ? who lived from 849 A.D. to 899 A.D. ? was believed buried at nearby Hyde Abbey and there is speculation he was later reburied in the same area.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-church-exhumes-grave-rumored-house-king-180833728.html
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Britain's domestic spy agency names new director
LONDON (AP) ? Britain's domestic spy agency has chosen a new director, a 50-year-old ornithologist with counter-terrorism experience in the Middle East and Northern Ireland.
Andrew Parker, one of the youngest MI5 directors in recent history, has worked for the service for 30 years and led the agency's response to the July 7 London transit bombings in 2005.
Parker said Thursday that he's "extremely proud of the extraordinary work the men and women of MI5 do to keep the country safe in challenging circumstances," and that he looks "forward to leading the service through its next chapter."
Parker has been the deputy director general since 2007.
He succeeds Jonathan Evans, who is leaving MI5 after 33 years of service. He starts his job on April 22.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britains-domestic-spy-agency-names-director-165931622.html
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S&P 500 moves above its record high, keeps going
Specialist Mario Picone, left, works with traders at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, March 25, 2013. U.S. stock markets are opening higher after Cyprus clinched a last-minute bailout that saved it from bankruptcy. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Mario Picone, left, works with traders at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, March 25, 2013. U.S. stock markets are opening higher after Cyprus clinched a last-minute bailout that saved it from bankruptcy. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
NEW YORK (AP) ? There goes another stock market record.
The Standard & Poor's 500 crossed into record territory Thursday morning, beating the closing high it set in pre-financial crisis days. Three weeks earlier, the Dow Jones industrial average beat its own 2007 record.
The S&P 500, a barometer that investors use to gauge how the market is performing, edged above the Oct. 9, 2007, record close of 1,565 about an hour into trading. At midday it was still holding on to the record, trading at 1,567. That was up four points from the day before, a small increase but notable for the milestone it obliterated.
Investors will be waiting until the end of trading, at 4 p.m. EDT, to see if the index can hold on to the record. Their reactions were more guarded than celebratory. Even as the S&P touched new milestones, investors noted that the U.S. economy's footing is still uncertain, and the European debt crisis still far from resolved. Some also are concerned that the gains are being artificially fueled by the Federal Reserve's easy money policy.
"Getting back to where we were is an important step," said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices. But, he cautioned in a note to investors: "Markets are volatile, and if you are a long-term investor you should expect declines."
For most of this year, the stock market has zoomed ahead. A mixed performance over the last two weeks, thanks to the bailout of cash-strapped Cyprus, has been more the exception than the rule. Thursday marks the end of first-quarter trading, as markets will be closed for the Good Friday holiday. The Dow is up 11 percent for the three-month period, the best performance in more than a year. Last year, it lost ground in two quarters and was up 4 percent and 8 percent in the other two.
On Thursday, though, news about the U.S. economy and the European debt crisis was far from decisive. For every sign that things were improving, another said it wasn't.
The government reported that the U.S. economy grew faster than first estimated in the fourth quarter. But the growth, an annual rate of 0.4 percent, was still anemic. The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped for the second straight week. On a longer time frame, though, jobless claims have been declining since November.
Investors are also uncertain of what to make of the continuing debt crisis in Europe. Portugal reported that its budget deficit widened. In Cyprus, banks reopened for the first time in nearly two weeks, after closing because the government was worried that depositors would make panicked withdrawals. The country reached a deal late Sunday for bailout loans from other European countries.
Like the Dow record three weeks ago, the S&P record reminded investors of a headier time. The last time the S&P closed above 1,565, in the fall of 2007, was back before the financial crisis imploded. October 2007 was pre-bailouts, pre-Great Recession, back when jobs were much easier to come by. Bear Stearns still existed. So did Lehman Brothers, Wachovia and Washington Mutual.
But by March 2009, long after the subprime mortgage market had been revealed as an unsustainable bubble and rumors were buzzing that the government might nationalize U.S. banks, the S&P had cratered from its lofty heights. It fell to its Great Recession low, 676.53, on March 9, 2009 ? down 57 percent from its October 2007 pinnacle. Now, with Thursday's gains, it has more than doubled since reaching that bottom. Including dividends, it is up 152 percent.
With the quarter ending, investors noted the records it had brought for the Dow. The Dow climbed for the first 10 trading days of March, a record not matched in more than 16 years. Its record since then hasn't been as impressive. The index fell on five of the last nine trading days.
Like other major market indicators, the S&P darted between small gains and losses shortly after trading opened Thursday. By midday the indexes were all slightly higher. The Dow was up 30 points, or 0.2 percent, at 14,557. The Nasdaq composite rose a point, 0.03 percent, to 3,257.
Among stocks making big moves:
?Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry phones, rose after surprising analysts with a profitable quarter and better-than-expected sales of its new touch-screen BlackBerry 10s. The company hopes to take back some of the market share it has lost to Apple's iPhone and other competitors. The stock rose 36 cents, more than 2 percent, to $14.93.
?Repros Therapeutics, a drug developer, shot higher on news that its potential treatment for low testosterone moved closer to regulatory approval. The stock rose $6.27, or 69 percent, to $15.40.
?Signet Jewelers, which runs Kay and Jared stores, and Mosaic, the fertilizer maker, were both up after reporting higher quarterly profits and revenue. Signet rose more than 6 percent, $3.97, to $67.24. Mosaic was up nearly 2 percent, rising $1.03 to $59.71.
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Colm Toibin leads lineup at Blue Metropolis festival
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Irish writer Colm Toibin has been chosen the recipient of this year?s International Literary Grand Prix.
Photograph by: Courtesy: Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival , Courtesy: Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival
MONTREAL - One of the biggest current names in world literature highlights the lineup for the 15th Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, announced Tuesday at Espace La Fontaine
Colm Toibin has been chosen the recipient of this year?s International Literary Grand Prix, a prize whose past winners include Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster and Norman Mailer. The Irish writer has lived in Spain and currently resides in New York; his three most recent works of fiction are the Henry James-inspired The Master, the story collection The Empty Family, and last year?s The Testament of Mary, a novella that views the life and death of Jesus through the eyes of his mother. One of the abiding mysteries of the international literary community is just how Toibin has thus far failed to win the Man Booker Prize; he has won almost everything else.
Claire Holden Rothman, a member of the five-person jury that chose Toibin, says ?He is digging deeply and painfully into his own life and into the lives of the fictional characters that emerge from this effort, and he has the generosity to reach out and offer us the truths he?s found.? Jury president Terry Rigelhof points out something else about this year?s choice, not planned but a happy coincidence: the sheer timeliness of Toibin and his work. The Testament of Mary, published last fall, has been one of the most argued-over books of recent years, and its theatrical adaptation has just opened on Broadway.
The other stellar international name for English readers in this year?s lineup is American novelist, memoirist and essayist Edmund White, a member of the Stonewall generation of writers who brought gay fiction into the mainstream. The former resident of France is fluently bilingual and will be separately interviewed at the festival in both English and French.
A deep lineup of younger fiction writers is led by a pair of Scotiabank Giller Prize winners: Concordia graduate Johanna Skibsrud, a Cinderella winner in 2010 for her small-press debut novel The Sentimentalists, and Vincent Lam, who won in 2006 for his debut collection Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures and whose 2012 novel The Headmaster?s Wager was also highly acclaimed. Other prominent names are Montrealer Saleema Nawaz, whose just-published first novel Bone & Bread is one of this spring?s buzz books; Torontonian Pasha Malla, whose People Park is currently shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award (we?ll know by the festival whether he has won); and American novelist Chad Harbach, author of the bestselling The Art of Fielding. Harbach will participate by Skype in the David McGimpsey-hosted panel event Baseball and Beer, sure to be a partial salve to to the many local literati who still associate April with the Expos.
Blue Metropolis?s remit has always been an international, multicultural and multilingual one, a philosophy shown this year by an array of writers including the popular Israeli short-story writer and graphic novelist Etgar Keret, Booker-shortlisted Anglo-Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, and Nicaraguan Sergio Ramirez. The local Portuguese community is sure to turn out in strength to see the most read author in the lusophone world, Mozambican Mia Couto. Comics culture is represented by the Hungarian-born Israeli cartoonist Miriam Katin, who will be interviewed by Drawn & Quarterly publisher Chris Oliveros; local urbanologist Mary Soderstrom will give a guided tour around the Duluth St. neighbourhood called How The Portuguese Saved the Plateau; David Homel will be part of a panel discussion with two psychologists on writing about mental illness.
Tribute will be paid to three women who have served as pillars of Canadian culture: architect, author and CCA founder Phyllis Lambert, multiple Governor general?s award-winning translator Sheila Fischman, and Judith Mappin, founder of the much-missed Westmount bookstore The Double Hook, a flagship venue for the CanLit renaissance.
Blue Metropolis is now in its third full year under the stewardship of William St-Hilaire, president, general manager and artistic director, and programming director Gregory McCormick. After a peripatetic spell in a variety of bigger, slightly out-of-the way hotels, the festival looks to be settling happily into its current home at the boutique Hotel 10 on the corner of Sherbrooke St. and St. Laurent Blvd. The venue got good reviews from attendees last year for its setting in the heart of the Lower Main and for the user-friendly proximity of its various salons.
The Blue Metropolis Festival takes place April 22 through 28. The full program can be seen at bluemetropolis.org
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Monday, March 25, 2013
AP interview: Lesbian couple in gay marriage case
This photo taken Feb. 8, 2013, shows Sandy Stier, left, and Kris Perry, the couple at the center of the Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Whatever the outcome of their momentous case, Perry and Stier, who have been together 13 years, will be empty-nesters as the last of their children will heads off to college. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
This photo taken Feb. 8, 2013, shows Sandy Stier, left, and Kris Perry, the couple at the center of the Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Whatever the outcome of their momentous case, Perry and Stier, who have been together 13 years, will be empty-nesters as the last of their children will heads off to college. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
This photo taken Feb. 8, 2013, shows Sandy Stier, left, and Kris Perry, the couple at the center of the Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Whatever the outcome of their momentous case, Perry and Stier, who have been together 13 years, will be empty-nesters as the last of their children will head off to college. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
In this photo taken Saturday, March 23, 2013, Jessica Skrebes of Washington reads while waiting in line with others outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington in anticipation of Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing on California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, and Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing on the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) ? Big change is coming to the lives of the lesbian couple at the center of the fight for same-sex marriage in California no matter how the Supreme Court decides their case.
After 13 years of raising four boys together, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier are about to be empty nesters. Their youngest two children, 18-year-old twins, will graduate from high school in June and head off to college a couple of months later.
"We'll see all the movies, get theater season tickets because you can actually go," Stier said in the living room of their bungalow in Berkeley. Life will not revolve quite so much around food, and the challenge of putting enough of it on the table to feed teenagers.
They might also get married, if the high court case goes their way.
Perry, 48, and Stier, 50, set aside their lunch hour on a recent busy Friday to talk to The Associated Press about their Supreme Court case, the evolution of their activism for gay rights and family life.
On Tuesday, they plan to be in the courtroom when their lawyer, Theodore Olson, tries to persuade the justices to strike down California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages and to declare that gay couples can marry nationwide. Supporters of California's Proposition 8, represented by lawyer Charles Cooper, argue that the court should not override the democratic process and impose a judicial solution that would redefine marriage in the 40 states that do not allow same-sex couples to wed.
A second case, set for Wednesday, involves the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that prevents same-sex couples who are legally married from receiving a range of federal tax, pension and other benefits that otherwise are available to married people.
The Supreme Court hearing is the moment Perry and Stier, along with Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, have been waiting for since they agreed four years ago to be the named plaintiffs and public faces of a well-funded, high-profile effort to challenge Proposition 8 in the courts.
"For the past four years, we've lived our lives in this hurry-up-and-wait, pins-and-needles way," Perry said, recalling the crush of court deadlines and the seemingly endless wait for rulings from a federal district judge, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also based there, and the California Supreme Court.
Stier said Olson told them the case could take several years to resolve. "I thought, years?" she said.
But the couple has been riding a marriage rollercoaster since 2003, when Perry first asked Stier to marry her. They were planning a symbolic, but not legally recognized, wedding when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004. So they were married, but only briefly. Six months later, the state Supreme Court invalidated the same-sex unions.
They went ahead with their plans anyway, but "it was one of the sadder points of our wedding," Perry said.
Less than four years later, however, the same state court overturned California's prohibition on same-sex unions. Then, on the same day Perry and Stier rejoiced in President Barack Obama's election, voters approved Proposition 8, undoing the court ruling and defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Their lawsuit was filed six months later, after they went to the Alameda County courthouse for a marriage license and were predictably refused.
"It's such a weird road we've been on," Perry said.
All the more so because neither woman defined herself as a gay rights activist before the marriage fight.
Perry, a native Californian from Bakersfield, and Stier, who grew up in rural Iowa, moved in together in 2000, with Stier's two children from a heterosexual marriage and Perry's from a previous relationship. Utterly conventional school meetings, soccer games and band practice ? not the court case ? have defined their lives together.
As if to highlight this point, their son, Elliott, briefly interrupted the interview to ask for a pair of headphones. Perry said the boys find her useful for two basic reasons these days. "Do I have any headphones and do I have any money," she said with a smile.
Perry has spent her professional life advocating on behalf of early childhood education. Stier works for the county government's public health department.
"When you've been out as long as I have been, 30 years, in order to feel OK every day and be optimistic and productive, you can't dwell as much on what's not working as maybe people think you do," Perry said.
Even with Proposition 8's passage, Perry and Stier said they were more focused on Obama's election.
"I was all about health care reform and Kris is all about education reform and that was everything. Gay rights, that would be great, but it's a way off," Stier said.
They don't take the issue so lightly anymore. Of course, they could not imagine a U.S. president would endorse gay marriage along with voters in three states just last November.
When Obama talked about equal rights for gay Americans in his inaugural speech in January, Perry said she felt as if "we've arrived at the adults' table. We're no longer at the kids' table."
They will watch the argument in their case and then return home to wait for the decision, worried that it could come the same day as the boys' high school graduations in mid-June.
They know that the court could uphold Proposition 8, which would almost certainly lead to an effort to repeal it by California voters. Recent polls show support for repeal.
Any other outcome will allow them to get married. But Perry said they are hoping the court strikes "a tone of more inclusion" and issues the broadest possible ruling.
They will get married quickly, in a small, private ceremony. "We did the big celebration a long time ago," Perry said. "I hope this will be something a lot bigger than the two of us."
___
Follow Mark Sherman at http://twitter.com/shermancourt
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Aye aye! Sequence genomes to save species
Edward Louis / Pennsylvania State University
An aye aye, a type of lemur, lives in Madagascar. A new study highlights genetic diversity among various populations, aiding conservation of the endangered species.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
A study of nocturnal lemurs in Madagascar known for their smarts, beaver-like teeth, and long, thin middle fingers may point to the future of endangered species conservation: cheap and fast genome analyses.
Researchers obtained and compared complete genomes from three separate populations of aye ayes and found that one is more distinct from the others than are humans of African and European descent, suggesting that the population warrants greater conservation attention.
"No emphasis has been placed on preserving the places where this one population exists in northern Madagascar," Patricia Wright, an anthropologist and world renowned lemur expert at Stony Brook University in New York, told NBC News.
Wright, who was not part of the new study, called it "extremely exciting" because it highlights previously unknown information about the genetic diversity of aye ayes that should impact conservation management plans. Similar use of genome analyses, she said, "is the wave of the future."
The genomes were obtained for about $2,800 each using sequencing technology that has only become available within the past five years, according to George Perry, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, who led the study. Within a few years, further improvements may push prices even lower.
Aye ayes are an endangered species in part because locals consider them an omen of bad luck and kill them on sight. Their habitat is also increasingly fragmented due to logging and other human pressures.
These threats along with a large geographic distribution, low population densities and a slow rate of reproduction made aye ayes a prime target to test the ability of genome analyses to inform conservation management decisions, according to Perry.
Edward Louis
Aye ayes have the largest brain to body ratio, making them the smartest lemurs. Humans often kill them on sight because the animals are considered a bad omen.
"One of the goals of a conservation strategy," he explained to NBC News, "might be to preserve distinct genetic diversity or overall genetic diversity in order to achieve long-term survival." Genome sequencing, he added, can guide researchers on where to spend limited conservation funds.
The sequencing tools now available to conservationists were previously only available to teams with "huge resources," Perry noted. He and colleagues explain their method today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and made the analytical tool kit publically available.
While the finding of a genetically distinct aye-aye population in northern Madagascar is new information, it fits with earlier studies suggesting the region is genetically isolated and thus full of genetically distinct creatures.
"It may mean if you preserve these habitats in northern Madagascar, you are probably not only preserving distinct aye-aye populations, it may be the same toward other populations in other species as well," Perry said.
For Wright, the aye ayes hold a special place in the story of lemur evolution. They are the only member in its family, one of five families of lemurs. They have the biggest brain-to-body ratio of any lemur, and fill a woodpecker-like foraging niche with long thin middle fingers they use to fish out larvae from trees.
"They can actually twirl the top of their finger around inside the log to grab those larvae," Wright said. "It is just amazing what they can do, so for many, many reasons, we really want to save the aye ayes."
John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, check out his website.?
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Samsung Galaxy S3 Data Usage
I was just talking to a friend who had this problem, android has an issue of leaving things running in the background and it will connect to the network to check for updates and other silly things, if this is happening 24/7 it will eat up your data as well as give you terrible battery life. One of the most common suggestions is to kill the data connection when you aren't using it, that is kill it when it's running in the background.
1.At the first go to main menu.
2.Now go to the Settings.
3.Now open the Wireless and Network settings.
4.Now tap on the Mobile networks option.
5.Now remove the select option for the Use packed data option.
I'm not 100% sure since I have an iPhone, but seems this is the 'common' cure for this problem and it seems it's a common issue.
Source: http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=61170&goto=newpost
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Court: Can drug companies pay to delay generics?
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Federal regulators are pressing the Supreme Court to stop big pharmaceutical corporations from paying generic drug competitors to delay releasing their cheaper versions of brand-name drugs. They argue these deals deny American consumers, usually for years, steep price declines that can top 90 percent.
The Obama administration, backed by consumer groups and the American Medical Association, says these so-called "pay for delay" deals profit the drug companies but harm consumers by adding 3.5 billion annually to their drug bills.
But the pharmaceutical companies counter that they need to preserve longer the billions of dollars in revenue from their patented products in order to recover the billions they spend developing new drugs. And both the large companies and the generic makers say the marketing of generics often is hastened by these deals.
The justices will hear the argument Monday.
Such pay-for-delay deals arise when generic companies file a challenge at the Food and Drug Administration to the patents that give brand-name drugs a 20-year monopoly. The generic drugmakers aim to prove the patent is flawed or otherwise invalid, so they can launch a generic version well before the patent ends.
Brand-name drugmakers then usually sue the generic companies, which sets up what could be years of expensive litigation. When the two sides aren't certain who will win, they often reach a compromise deal that allows the generic company to sell its cheaper copycat drug in a few years ? but years before the drug's patent would expire. Often, that settlement comes with a sizeable payment from the brand-name company to the generic drugmaker.
Numerous brand-name and generic drugmakers and their respective trade groups say the settlements protect their interests but also benefit consumers by bringing inexpensive copycat medicines to market years earlier than they would arrive in any case generic drugmakers took to trial and lost. But federal officials counter that such deals add billions to the drug bills of American patients and taxpayers, compared to what would happen if the generic companies won the lawsuits and could begin marketing right away.
A study by RBC Capital Markets Corp. of 371 cases during 2000-2009 found brand-name companies won 89 at trial compared to 82 won by generic drugmakers. Another 175 ended in settlement deals, and 25 were dropped.
Generic drugs account for about 80 percent of all American prescriptions for medicines and vaccines, but a far smaller percentage of the $325 billion spent by U.S. consumers on drugs each year. Generics saved American patients, taxpayers and the healthcare system an estimated $193 billion in 2011 alone, according to health data firm IMS Health.
But government officials believe the number of potentially anticompetitive patent settlements is increasing. Pay-for-delay deals increased from 28 to 40 in just the last two fiscal years and the deals in fiscal 2012 covered 31 brand-name pharmaceuticals, Federal Trade Commission officials said. Those had combined annual U.S. sales of more than $8.3 billion.
The Obama administration argues the agreements are illegal if they're based solely on keeping the generic drug off the market. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, speaking at Georgetown Law School recently, noted that once a generic drug gets on the market and competes with a brand-name drug, "the price drops 85 percent." That quickly decimates sales of the brand-name medicine.
"These agreements should actually be considered presumptively unlawful because of the potential effects on consumers," Verrilli said.
In the case before the court, Brussels, Belgium-based Solvay ? now part of a new company called AbbVie Inc. ? reached a deal with generic drugmaker Watson Pharmaceuticals allowing it to launch a cheaper version of Solvay's male hormone drug AndroGel in August 2015. Solvay agreed to pay Watson an estimated $19 million-$30 million annually, government officials said. The patent runs until August 2020. Watson, now called Actavis Inc., agreed to also help sell the brand-name version, AndroGel.
Actavis spokesman David Belian disputed the government's characterization of the agreement with Solvay. Belian said that in addition to licensing agreement over Solvay's Androgel patents, Watson was being compensated for using its sales force to promote Androgel to doctors.
AndroGel, which brought in $1.2 billion last year for AbbVie, is a gel applied to the skin daily to treat low testosterone in men. Low testosterone can affect sex drive, energy level, mood, muscle mass and bone strength.
The FTC called the deal anticompetitive and sued Actavis.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta rejected the government's objections, and the FTC appealed to the Supreme Court.
The federal district and appellate courts both ruled against the government, AbbVie, which is based in North Chicago, Ill., said. "We are confident that these decisions will be upheld by the Supreme Court."
The Generic Pharmaceutical Association's head, Ralph Neas, said the settlements are "pro-consumer, pro-competition and transparent." He said every patent settlement to date has brought a generic drug to market before the relevant patent ended, with two-thirds of the new generic drugs launched in 2010 and 2011 hitting the market early due to a settlement.
"By doing what the FTC wants, you're going to hurt consumers rather than help them," said Paul Bisaro, CEO of Actavis of Parsippany, N.J.
Bisaro said consumers will save an estimated $50 billion just from patent settlements involving Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering drug made by Pfizer Inc. of New York that reigned for nearly a decade as the world's top-selling drug.
Lipitor's patent ran until 2017, but multiple generic companies challenged it. Pfizer reached a settlement that enabled Actavis and a second company to sell slightly cheaper generic versions starting Nov. 30, 2011 and several other generic drugmakers to begin selling generic Lipitor six months later. The price then plummeted from Pfizer's $375 to $530 for a three-month supply, depending on dosage, to $20 to $40 for generic versions.
Because generic companies tend to challenge patents of every successful drug, the FTC's position would impose onerous legal costs on brand-name drugmakers and limit their ability to fund expensive research to create new drugs, said the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents brand-name drugmakers.
According to the 2010 RBC Capital Markets study, when trial victories, settlements between drugmakers and dropped cases are combined, generic companies were able to bring their product to market before the brand-name drug's patent expired in 76 percent of the 371 drug patent suits decided from 2000 through 2009.
Consumer, doctor and drugstore groups have lined up to support the Obama administration in this case.
"AARP believes it is in the interest of those fifty and older, and indeed the public at large, to hasten the entry of generic prescription drugs to the marketplace," said Ken Zeller, senior attorney with the AARP Foundation Litigation. "Pay-for-delay agreements such as those at issue in this case frustrate that public interest."
The American Medical Association, the giant doctors' group, believes pay-for-delay agreements undermine the balance between spurring innovation through patents and fostering competition through generics, AMA President Dr. Jeremy A., Lazarus said. "Pay for delay must stop to ensure the most cost-effective treatment options are available to patients."
Drugstores also believe pay-for-delay deals "pose considerable harm to patients because they postpone the availability of generic drugs which limits patient access to generic medications," said Chrissy Kopple of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.
Eight justices will decide this case later this year. Justice Samuel Alito did not take part in considering whether to take this case and is not expected to take part in arguments.
___
The case is Federal Trade Commission vs. Actavis, Inc., 12-416.
AP Business Writer Linda A. Johnson in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.
___
Follow Jesse J. Holland on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland
Follow Linda A. Johnson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-drug-companies-pay-delay-generics-140009962--finance.html
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Google?s killing spree continues: shuts down blocked sites feature
And here goes another product feature. Google has been retiring many of its products, services and product features in recent time in several so-called Spring cleaning rounds. The company only recently announced the closure of the RSS feed reading service Google Reader and several other products.
Today it became known that Google removed the blocked sites feature rather quietly from Google Search. The feature enabled users of Google's search engine to block select websites from appearing in the search results. That was quite handy to keep low quality sites from appearing in your search results.
Basically, if you added a domain to your blocked sites list you'd make sure that it would never again appear in the search results. Google for some time displayed a "block all domain results" when users returned to the search results after visiting one of the sites displayed on the page.
If you open the manage blocked sites page today on Google you are greeted with the message that the feature has been discontinued.
Manage Blocked Sites (DISCONTINUED)
Dear users,We have discontinued offering the blocked sites feature for now. We continue to offer the Chrome extension for blocking sites, and will reconsider features for blocking unwanted search results in the future.
You may download your blocked sites list as a text file below.
Download as text file
You can download a text file from Google that contains all of the domains that have been blocked by the Google account accessing the website.
The text file lists all domain names in a file called blocked_sites.txt. All domain names seem to be lumped together though in the text document so that it may be difficult to distinguish them from each other or import them into another script or program. They show up lumped together in Notepad but will display fine in better text editors such as Notepad++.
Google is promoting the company's official Chrome extension to block sites on Google Search when you are using Google Chrome. It fails to mention solutions for other browsers. Firefox users can take a look at the Google Domain Blocker userscript which lets them block domains in Google Search as well.
It is interesting to note that blocked sites was not Google's first attempt at adding a feature like it to its search engine. This may mean that we may see a similar feature appearing again in the future.
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ using the icons below.About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.
Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2013/03/24/googles-killing-spree-continues-shuts-down-blocked-sites-feature/
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HTC drops 'Quietly Brilliant' slogan, promises more aggressive marketing
With things getting just a little bit too quiet in HTC's finance department, the marketing folks across the corridor have come up with a solution: drop the old "Quietly Brilliant" tagline in favor of something bolder. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, HTC's new chief marketing officer, Ben Ho, said the company "hasn't been loud enough" in presenting its innovations. He didn't go as far as detailing a new motto, but after his recent remarks about the Galaxy S 4 we're expecting something punchy.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC
Source: Wall Street Journal
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/eDPQ7zl5D4k/
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Kerry warns Iraq on Iran flights to Syria
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, second right, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 24, 2013. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and will urge Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make sure Iranian flights over Iraq do not carry arms and fighters to Syria, a U.S. official said. (AP Photo/Jason Reed, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, second right, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 24, 2013. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and will urge Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make sure Iranian flights over Iraq do not carry arms and fighters to Syria, a U.S. official said. (AP Photo/Jason Reed, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 24, 2013. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and will urge Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make sure Iranian flights over Iraq do not carry arms and fighters to Syria, a U.S. official said. (AP Photo/Jason Reed, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 24, 2013. Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and will urge al-Maliki to make sure Iranian flights over Iraq do not carry arms and fighters to Syria, a U.S. official said. (AP Photo/Jason Reed, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, right, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 24, 2013. Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and will urge al-Maliki to make sure Iranian flights over Iraq do not carry arms and fighters to Syria, a U.S. official said. (AP Photo/Jason Reed, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, arrives to meet with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, not pictured, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 24, 2013. Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and will urge al-Maliki to make sure Iranian flights over Iraq do not carry arms and fighters to Syria, a U.S. official said. (AP Photo/Jason Reed, Pool)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Just days after the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry confronted Baghdad for continuing to grant Iran access to its airspace and said Iraq's behavior was raising questions about its reliability as a partner.
Speaking to reporters during a previously unannounced trip to Baghdad, Kerry said that he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had engaged in "a very spirited discussion" on the Iranian flights, which U.S. officials believe are ferrying weapons and fighters intended for the embattled Syrian government.
Kerry said the plane shipments ? along with material being trucked across Iraqi territory from Iran to Syria ? were helping President Bashar Assad's regime cling to power by increasing their ability to strike at Syrian rebels and opposition figures demanding Assad's ouster.
"I made it very clear that for those of us who are engaged in an effort to see President Assad step down and to see a democratic process take hold ... anything that supports President Assad is problematic," Kerry said at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad after meeting separately with Maliki at his office. "And I made it very clear to the Prime Minister that the overflights from Iran are, in fact, helping to sustain President Assad and his regime."
The overflights in Iraq have long been a source of contention between the U.S. and Iraq. Iraq and Iran claim the flights are carrying humanitarian goods, but American officials say they are confident that the planes are being used to arm the support the Assad regime. The administration is warning Iraq that unless action is taken, Iraq will be excluded from the international discussion about Syria's political future.
U.S. officials say that in the absence of a complete ban on flights, Washington would at least like the planes to land and be inspected in Iraq to ensure that they are carrying humanitarian supplies. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton secured a pledge from Iraq to inspect the flights last year, but since then only two aircraft have been checked by Iraqi authorities, according to U.S. officials.
One senior U.S. official traveling with Kerry said the sheer number of overflights, which occur "close to daily," along with shipments trucked to Syria from Iran through Iraq, was inconsistent with claims they are only carrying humanitarian supplies. The official said it was in Iraq's interest to prevent the situation in Syria from deteriorating further, particularly as there are fears that al-Qaida-linked extremists may gain a foothold in the country as the Assad regime falters.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said there are clear links between al-Qaida linked extremists operating in Syria and militants who are also carrying out terrorist attacks in Iraqi territory with increasing regularity.
Kerry's comments in Baghdad come as U.S. lawmakers are calling for President Barack Obama to do more to stop the bloodshed in Syria, including possible airstrikes against Assad's aircraft fleet.
The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, said Sunday the U.S. should create a "safe zone" in northern Syria that would give the U.S. more leverage with opposition forces.
"This doesn't mean the 101st Airborne Division and ships" are deployed, Rogers told CBS' "Face the Nation." ''It means small groups with special capabilities reengaging the opposition so we can vet them, train them, equip them so they can be an effective fighting force."
Last week, Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Obama in a letter to step up U.S. military efforts in the region, including destroying Assad's aircraft using precision airstrikes.
Kerry said Iraq's tacit approval of Iranian overflights left the American people wondering how an ally would undermine U.S. efforts, particularly after the enormous sacrifices made by the United States in liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule.
"There are members of Congress and people in America who increasingly are watching what Iraq is doing and wondering how it is that a partner in the efforts for democracy and a partner for whom Americans feel they have tried so hard to be helpful, how that country can be, in fact, doing something that makes it more difficult to achieve our common goals, the goal expressed by the prime minister with respect to Syria and President Assad," he said.
In addition to the overflights, Kerry said he had urged Maliki and other Iraqi officials to promote unity amid a spike in sectarian violence and called on them to ensure that upcoming provincial elections are free and fair. Kerry said the postponement of the polls in two provinces ? Anbar and Ninevah ? was unacceptable and should be reversed.
"We strongly urge the prime minister to take this issue to the cabinet and to see if it can be revisited, because we believe very strongly that everybody needs to vote simultaneously," he said.
In addition to his meeting with Maliki, Kerry saw Iraqi parliament speaker parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, whose faction is at odds with Maliki's Shiia. Kerry also spoke by phone with Massoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdish Regional Government based in Irbil to encourage the Kurds not go ahead with unilateral actions ? especially involving oil, like a pipeline deal with Turkey.
Kerry arrived in Baghdad from Amman, where he had been accompanying President Barack Obama on his tour of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. His visit to Iraq is the first by a U.S. secretary of state since Clinton went in April 2009. During Obama's first term, the Iraq portfolio was largely delegated to Vice President Joe Biden as Obama wound down the war.
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Amniotic fluid 'may heal babies'
24 March 2013
Last updated at 22:26 ET
Amniotic fluid may hold the key to healing a fatal gut disease which affects premature babies, doctors say.
Severe inflammation, called necrotizing enterocolitis, can destroy the gut's tissues and lead to major organ failure.
Early animal tests, published in the journal Gut, showed that stem cells inside amniotic fluid could heal some of the damage and increase survival.
Further tests are still needed before it is tried in premature babies.
Pregnancy fluidBabies born too soon are not ready for the world outside the womb and their guts are ill-prepared to deal with food. About one in 10 premature babies in a neonatal intensive care will develop necrotizing enterocolitis.
The inflammation can cause tissue death and lead to a hole in the baby's intestines which can result in a serious infection.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Dr Simon Eaton Institute of Child HealthWhat appears to be happening is a direct effect on calming inflammation and also stimulating resident stem cells in the gut to be more efficient at repairing the intestines?
Breast milk can reduce the risks, but the only major treatment is surgery to remove the diseased tissue. However, 40% of those needing an operation will not survive.
"It is quite a problem and we think it is on the increase," said Dr Simon Eaton, from the Institute of Child Health at University College London.
He was part of a team investigating the use of stem cells, which are able to become any other type of cell in the body from nerve to bone, taken from the amniotic fluid which surrounds a developing foetus in the womb.
In experiments on laboratory rats, which are programmed to develop fatal necrotizing enterocolitis, injections of stem cells appeared to increase survival times.
Dr Eaton told the BBC news website: "We're able to prolong survival by quite a long way.
"What appears to be happening is a direct effect on calming inflammation and also stimulating resident stem cells in the gut to be more efficient at repairing the intestines."
The study, funded by Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, showed the intestines were also working better after the treatment.
Cancer risk?Fellow researcher Dr Paolo De Coppi said: "Stem cells are well known to have anti-inflammatory effects, but this is the first time we have shown that amniotic fluid stem cells can repair damage in the intestines.
"Although amniotic fluid stem cells have a more limited capacity to develop into different cell types than those from the embryo, they nevertheless show promise for many parts of the body including the liver, muscle and nervous system."
Far more testing would be required to work out if the treatment would work in babies and if it would be safe.
The stem cells would have to be taken from a donor as it would not be practical to store fluid from every birth, just in case. This means there is the risk of rejection.
As the stem cells are capable of becoming other types of cells there is also concern that they may pose a cancer risk.
However, in the future doctors hope they could harness a drug instead.
"It's not the cells, they're delivering something and if we knew what that was then we could deliver that directly," said Dr Eaton.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21900203#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Arizona sends Harvard home with a thump, 74-51
Arizona's Solomon Hill (44) dunks in front of Harvard's Laurent Rivard (0) in the first half during a third-round game in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament in Salt Lake City Saturday, March 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Arizona's Solomon Hill (44) dunks in front of Harvard's Laurent Rivard (0) in the first half during a third-round game in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament in Salt Lake City Saturday, March 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Harvard coach Tommy Amaker shouts to his team in the first half during a third-round game against Arizona in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament in Salt Lake City on Saturday, March 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Harvard's Siyani Chambers (1) and Arizona's Mark Lyons (2) reach for a loose ball in the first half during a third-round game in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament in Salt Lake City, Saturday, March 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ? Sometimes, it's rough being the smartest guy in the room.
Harvard freshman point guard Siyani Chambers knows.
He'll be heading back to Harvard missing part of his front tooth ? all part of a wicked basketball lesson provided by Arizona in a 74-51 crushing of the Crimson on Saturday in the NCAA tournament.
Mark Lyons matched a career high with 27 points to lead the sixth-seeded Wildcats (27-7), who showed how a real basketball school does it when March rolls around.
"The history of Arizona speaks for itself," coach Sean Miller said. "This time of year, we not only represent ourselves, but all the great players and teams of the past."
This will be Arizona's 15th appearance in the Sweet 16. The Wildcats are heading to Los Angeles for a West Regional matchup against Sunday's winner between Ohio State and Iowa State.
And Harvard ? well, it's back to class, though Chambers may want to stop by the dentist's office first.
"We got the rebound, we were on a fast break, I went in the air, came down, and before I knew it, my tooth was out," he said, in describing the inadvertent elbow he took early in the second half from Arizona guard Kevin Parrom.
Luckily, teammate Christian Webster was on the ball. He walked over to retrieve the tooth fragment and hand it back to its owner.
But there wasn't much to salvage by that point.
Harvard (20-10) missed its first 13 shots and 20 of its first 22 while falling behind 30-9. The Ivy League champs, who shot 52 percent in their upset win over New Mexico on Thursday, made only 27 percent in this one.
"We had some open opportunities early, and once we missed some, we kind of got our heads down and they took advantage of it," coach Tommy Amaker said.
Laurent Rivard, the Canadian guard who made five 3-pointers in the upset Thursday, shot 1-for-6 this time. He missed two early, then shot two airballs in the second half and finished with three points.
"They played me different than New Mexico did," Rivard said. "Stayed on me, forced us to finish inside. That changed the game."
Indeed, this was nothing like Thursday, when the upset over a physically imposing New Mexico team riled up the Harvard twitterrati and sparked dreams of nets somehow being cut down with a slide rule.
Yes, Amaker's program could be redefining what's possible in the Ivy League.
But Arizona, a team that hasn't lost to an opponent outside of the Pac-12 this season, had too much height, too much speed, too much talent to be slowed by this Harvard team.
"They pounced on us from the beginning," Webster said. "I think it took us by surprise how hard they played, how physical they were, their length and size and speed. From there, it was just an uphill battle."
Indeed, it was over early and a couple vignettes told the story.
Forward Solomon Hill (13 points, 10 rebounds) spotted up for a 3-pointer, drained it, then looped his fingers over his eyes ? the 3-point goggles ? right by the Harvard bench, in Amaker's face. On Harvard's next possession, Hill rebounded a missed shot, took the ball coast to coast and jammed with both hands, then bumped chests violently with Parrom.
Moments later, Lyons made a backdoor cut and took an alley-oop pass from Jordin Mayes for an easy layup.
Bad enough that happens to a defense once in a game. But on the next possession, Lyons and Mayes combined for an absolute carbon-copy of the same play.
"My teammates got me the ball in the right position and I was able to make shots today," said Lyons, a senior who came to Arizona from Xavier along with his coach.
Impressive as the back-to-back oops were, Chambers will remember another play better.
He was trying to make a jump pass, when Parrom left his feet, as well, to block it. His elbow bashed Chambers' lip and he grimaced in pain. Helped off the floor with the tooth in hand, he was wincing on the bench, where TV cameras caught a clear shot of his newly jagged right incisor.
"That showed how physical the game was," Rivard said. "It wasn't even close to the rim. Guys were scratching and clawing. But it was an accident."
Chambers came back shortly after and made a 3. He finished with six points.
Kenyatta Smith, Harvard's tallest player at 6-foot-8, led the Crimson with 10 points. Also shut down was Wesley Saunders. Saunders led Harvard with 18 points against New Mexico, but went 1-for-11 for eight points against Arizona.
"They're 7-feet, 6-9, 6-8," Amaker said. "They're in front of the rim, around the rim. They make it very difficult to finish."
Arizona, meanwhile, was every bit as good on offense as it was on defense. The Wildcats made 55 percent of their shots, led by Lyons' 12-for-17 night.
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Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Steatite Limited | Industrial and Rugged Mobile Computing Platforms ...
Steatite are a market leader in the supply of Industrial and Rugged Mobile computing platforms and integrated Battery solutions for customers who demand high performance and reliability in mission critical and environmentally challenging environments.
As a Windows Embedded gold partner with ISO 9001: 2008 certification and working within the SC21 framework, Steatite has a strong engineering and design capability with an in depth knowledge of CE, UK DEF STAN, American MIL-STD, NATO STANAG and UK, European and American TEMPEST requirements. This allows Steatite to offer the additional services of prototype design and development (COTS modification), custom enclosure design, Post Design Services (PDS), pre-compliancy testing and through life support (15+ year support contacts).
Rugged Mobile Military Computers
Steatite specialises in Military Rugged Mobile and handheld computing solutions. This capability covers a basic hardware platform solution to a fully integrated installation, supported by custom software design and build. Steatite supplies a range of Military-Off-The Shelf (MOTS) and Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products into defence and security markets across Europe. These include rugged laptop computers, rugged tablets, rugged workstations and rugged pda?s.
Over the last 25 years Steatite has developed a clear understanding of demanding operational environments, user requirements and procurement cycles.? This knowledge has enabled Steatite to successfully design, manufacture and deliver hardware solutions into applications like Testing Equipment, Man Machine Interfacing, Data Collection and Communications terminals.
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Steatite is a primary European distributor of ViaSat and Persistent Systems military communications products and specialise in designing custom solutions to meet your specific requirements. Products available range from "true" mobile ad-hoc networking systems (MANET), Mesh Radios, UHF SATCOM terminals and amplifiers, VUHF and L Band Communications System (VULC) as well as other innovative satellite and digital communication products that enable fast, secure, and efficient communications to any location.
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Steatite is an approved supplier to the UK MoD and other Government authorities, providing a wide range of battery packs and cells for use in demanding operations.
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Utilising Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) print engines and mounting them into custom-made protective enclosures, rugged printing solutions from Steatite have seen action on Navy vessels, been used in aircraft ground support, under canvas and outdoors.
Steatite has the benefit of having their own test laboratories for Heat, Cold, Humidity, Shock and Vibration.? The company also has its own in-house design team using ?solid works? 3D design software. This enables the company to design, prototype and test at our Oxford facility, to meet standards such as MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461 and a given IP rating.
A bespoke range of rugged printers and mobile printing solutions are available.
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Rugged Military Displays
Steatite offer a range of rugged displays that are specifically engineered to withstand harsh environments experienced in military, marine, industrial and transportation applications.
When working in extreme shock, vibration and specifically salt fog environments, rugged displays provide a reliable solution for any military, nautical or offshore application, these displays can be highly customised to suit any application or operational environment by specification, colour, finish and format.
Several levels of EMC protection are available as options, providing reliable data protection in the field of operations. Further upgradeable options are available for secure desk, console or rack mounted environments.
Steatite also offers KVM Switches, giving the ability to switch Keyboard, Video and Mouse between multiple computers.
Typical Features
- Available in a range of sizes, from 3.5" to 57"
- Panel Mount, Rack Mount or Vehicle Mount options
- 19? Rack mount monitors with keyboards
- MIL-STD-810 / MIL-STD-461 Approved
- Custom Rugged KVM design
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