Cardinals manager La Russa announces retirement

FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2011 file photo, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa speaks during a celebration for the Cardinals' 11th World Series victory, in St. Louis. Three days after winning the World Series, La Russa is retiring. The 67-year-old manager announced his retirement at a news conference Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2011 file photo, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa speaks during a celebration for the Cardinals' 11th World Series victory, in St. Louis. Three days after winning the World Series, La Russa is retiring. The 67-year-old manager announced his retirement at a news conference Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2011 file photo, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa smiles as he answers a question during a news conference, in St. Louis. Three days after winning the World Series, La Russa is retiring. The 67-year-old manager announced his retirement at a news conference Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2011 file photo, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa answers a question during a news conference, in St. Louis. Three days after winning the World Series, La Russa is retiring. The 67-year-old manager announced his retirement at a news conference Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2011 file photo, St. Louis Cardinals' Tony La Russa holds up the Commissioner's Trophy after Game 7 of baseball's World Series against the Texas Rangers, in St. Louis. Three days after winning the World Series, La Russa is retiring. The 67-year-old manager announced his retirement at a news conference Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2011 file photo, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa speaks during a victory celebration in honor of the Cardinals' 11th World Series in franchise history, in St. Louis. Three days after winning the World Series, La Russa is retiring. The 67-year-old manager announced his retirement at a news conference Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

ST. LOUIS (AP) ? Tony La Russa retired as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday, three days after winning a dramatic, seven-game World Series against the Texas Rangers.

"I think this just feels like it's time to end it," the 67-year-old La Russa said at a news conference at Busch Stadium.

The World Series win over Texas was the third of La Russa's 33-year career. The manager guided the Cardinals to the championship despite being 10 1/2 games behind Atlanta on Aug. 25 for the final playoff spot in the National League.

La Russa retires third on the all-time wins list, 35 behind second-place John McGraw. In addition to this season, he won championships in Oakland in 1989 and St. Louis in 2006.

"Other than some of the personal attachments, I feel good," La Russa said. "I feel good that this is the right decision."

La Russa said there wasn't a single factor that led to his decision, but he began having doubts about returning for 2012 midway through the season. In late August he told general manager John Mozeliak and other team officials.

La Russa said the timing of those discussions ? about the time the Cardinals appeared to be out of wild card contention before their miraculous run ? was pure coincidence. He said he simply felt it was time to go, a feeling that didn't change even as the Cardinals squeaked into the playoffs on the final day of the season, then upset the Phillies, Brewers and Rangers.

He spoke with little emotion at the news conference with one exception, when he paused to compose himself as he thanked his wife, Elaine, and two daughters for putting up without him over much of the past 33 years. But he did say his meeting with players after Sunday's parade and celebration was short but emotional.

"Some grown men cried," La Russa said, then he joked, "I kind of liked that because they made me cry a few times."

Mozeliak said work is under way to find a new manager for the first time since La Russa was hired prior to the 1996 season. A search committee will be formed. Mozeliak did not speculate on how long the process might take.

La Russa answered flatly, "No," when asked if he'll ever manage again. He also said he had no plans to be a general manager, but said he is open to some sort of baseball job in the future.

"Maybe open a book store," he said.

Chris Carpenter, who won four times in the postseason, including the decisive Game 7, said La Russa gathered the team together in the weight room moments after Sunday's celebration at the stadium, along with Mozeliak and principal owner Bill DeWitt Jr..

He spoke about how proud he was of the team's championship run, "and then he said that he was done," Carpenter said. "Everybody was surprised, shocked. I think every single guy in there was emotional and gave big old hugs on the way out."

Carpenter said the behind-the-scenes La Russa is different than the public persona ? including a great sense of humor. But he lauded La Russa for always having his team play at its highest possible level.

"I'm not sure there are a lot of people that can match the preparation, the dedication and the ability to put it all together," he said.

Mozeliak said the team will have a "long list" of candidates for a job that will likely be considered among the best in baseball given the strong returning team ? whether or not Albert Pujols decides to come back ? and based on the strong fan support in St. Louis.

"There's going to be a lot of names that we'll consider," Mozeliak said. "We want to do our due diligence. We want to be smart."

DeWitt said replacing La Russa will be a tall task.

"We're not going to find a Tony La Russa out there, given his career and what he's accomplished, what he's meant to the Cardinals," DeWitt said. "We're in a pretty good situation for the future. But it'll be different, no question about it."

La Russa's decision leaves the future of his coaching staff up in the air. Mozeliak said the new manager will be given autonomy to hire his own staff or retain some or all of La Russa's. Asked about pitching coach Dave Duncan, La Russa's longtime right-hand man, Mozeliak did note that Duncan is under contract for 2012.

As for Pujols, Mozeliak noted that he has a strong relationship with the only manager he's ever played for, but doubted it would be a factor in whether the free agent first baseman stays.

"He probably understood that Tony is not going to manage forever," Mozeliak said.

La Russa was a .199 hitter in a brief major league career. He began as a manager with the Chicago White Sox in 1979. He guided the Oakland A's to three straight American League pennants in 1988-1990 and the 1989 World Series title over the Giants.

La Russa was hired by the Cardinals in October 1995, soon after the new ownership group purchased the team from Anheuser-Busch. His impact was immediate ? the Cardinals won the NL Central and came within a game of going to the World Series in 1996, losing to the Atlanta Braves.

Overall, St. Louis went to the playoffs nine times in La Russa's 16 seasons, won pennants in 2004, 2006 and this year, and won two championships, over Detroit in 2006 and this season, rallying to win the final two games over Texas, including the memorable Game 6 when the Cardinals trailed five times and were down to their last strike in two innings. His teams were successful on the field and in the stands ? the Cardinals drew 3 million fans in 13 of La Russa's 16 seasons.

La Russa, who won 2,728 regular-season games, including 1,408 with the Cardinals, said he never considered coming back simply to reach No. 2 on the all-time wins list.

"I'm aware of the history of the game, but I would not be happy with myself if the reason I came back was to move up one spot," La Russa said.

Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson said La Russa picked the right time to leave.

"I tip my hat to him. He's had a great career. What a way to go out," said Johnson, who at 68 is a year older than La Russa. "If you're going to retire, that's the way to go out; a world champion."

___

AP Sports Writer Howard Fendrich in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-31-Cardinals-La%20Russa%20Retires/id-b2aca718d6f8432fb91123427a1a5e4e

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Half of voters don?t know Romney is Mormon, according to poll (The Ticket)

(Al Behrman/AP)

Recent polls have suggested Mitt Romney's Mormon faith could have a significant impact on whether voters back his second bid for the White House. But a new survey suggests most people still don't know exactly what his faith is.

A Public Religion Research Institute poll finds just 49 percent of registered voters correctly identified Romney's faith as Mormon. The number is even lower among all Americans, with just 42 percent of those polled knew Romney's faith.

But in what could be a danger to Romney's electoral chances, the survey finds that evangelical voters are the most aware that the former Massachusetts governor is a Mormon. According to the poll, 53 percent of white evangelical Protestants identified Romney as a Mormon?up 9 points since July.

The big unknown for Romney is whether his religion will be a factor as voters increasingly learn more about him?especially in early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina, a population heavy with social conservatives and evangelicals.

The poll comes as Romney's faith has become more of an issue on the campaign trail? in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Robert Jeffress, a Dallas pastor backing Rick Perry in the GOP nomination race, called Mormonism a cult and said it is "not Christian" during a faith forum featuring the 2012 candidates.

Meanwhile, a recent Quinnipiac poll found voters nationally are still deeply concerned about electing a Mormon president. Just 45 percent of those polled say they have a favorable view of the religion. Meanwhile, roughly 1 in 5 Republican voters say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon candidate, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Last week, a voter in Iowa pressed Romney about possibly delivering a speech clearing up misconceptions about the Mormon faith, as he did during the 2008 campaign. But in that exchange, Romney indicated he had no such plans.

"I don't think so," Romney replied. "I think the great majority of American people want to select the person who's the most capable of getting our country going again, with strong values and a strong economy and a strong military? Among the things that are unique and exceptional about our country is the fact that, in America, we recognize and appreciate differences in faith."

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Want more of our best political stories? Visit The Ticket or connect with us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20111028/el_yblog_theticket/half-of-voters-dont-know-romney-is-mormon-according-to-poll

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Oh no, Wisconsin: Buckeyes stun Badgers, 33-29 (AP)

COLUMBUS, Ohio ? After almost a year of suspensions, rumors and NCAA trouble in the headlines, Ohio State finally made some news on the field.

Braxton Miller threw a 40-yard touchdown pass to Devin Smith with 20 seconds left and the Buckeyes beat No. 12 Wisconsin 33-29 on Saturday night, handing the Badgers their second consecutive stunning defeat.

It was seven days earlier that Wisconsin was beaten 37-31 at Michigan State on a desperation pass on the final play of the game. The latest heartbreak, just like the one that ended the Badgers' run at an undefeated season, wasn't confirmed until a video review.

"The replay booth has definitely not been our friend the last two weeks," frustrated Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema said.

The Buckeyes (5-3, 2-2 Big Ten) earned their biggest win yet in a season shadowed by NCAA problems.

"This is what Ohio State's about," interim coach Luke Fickell said. "We don't ever look at ourselves as underdogs. This is a huge win, a signature win. This is for this team, this is for this program. This is what we expect."

The Badgers (6-2, 2-2) drove to the Ohio State 45 ? and got an extra play after time elapsed due to a defensive facemask call ? but linebacker Andrew Sweat hit quarterback Russell Wilson as he was throwing to end the game and touch off a wild celebration.

It was an incredible finish, with four touchdowns scored in the final 4:39. But the Buckeyes were the last team standing after a series of knockdown punches by both sides.

Miller, a freshman, ran for 99 yards on 19 carries and scored twice, in addition to completing 7 of 12 passes for 89 yards and a score.

Fickell said that before Miller went onto the field for the last possession, the quarterback turned to the coach and winked.

"I felt good about it. That's what you need," Fickell said. "You've got to have confidence in what you're doing. You have to have belief in what you're doing."

Dan Herron, in his second game back from two separate suspensions for accepting improper benefits, rushed for 160 yards on 33 carries.

"It was a great feeling," Herron said. "We definitely wanted this win very bad. The team kept on fighting and guys never gave up and we went out there and got it done."

Miller scored on runs of 1 and 44 yards ? the latter putting Ohio State up 26-14 with 4:39 left. Herron rumbled 57 yards on the first play of the second half to set up Miller's first TD.

The Badgers came in averaging 47.4 points and 512 yards, but were stymied most of the night. They also said all week that they had put the painful loss in East Lansing, Mich., in the rearview mirror. But adding in this latest loss, they may have recurring nightmares.

"(This is) real tough," Wisconsin wide receiver Nick Toon said. "We've handed them the game two weeks in a row at the end of the game. You can't do that."

Wilson completed 20 of 32 passes for 253 yards and three touchdowns and Montee Ball gained 85 yards on 17 carries with one touchdown. Jared Abbrederis had six catches for 113 yards and two scores.

Taking the kickoff to start the second half, Ohio State immediately got a big play.

Herron burst through a hole at the line and past defenders pinching the line, racing 57 yards to the Wisconsin 18. He later went 18 yards to the 1, setting up Miller's first TD run.

After the kickoff, the Badgers had to punt. For the second week in a row, things didn't go as planned.

A week after Wisconsin had a blocked punt lead to points in the backbreaking loss at Michigan State, Ohio State's Ryan Shazier came in completely untouched to block Brad Nortman's punt. The ball was downed at the Wisconsin 1 by Curtis Grant and the Buckeyes were right back near paydirt.

On Jordan Hall's third run from the 1, he stuck his nose in the back of blocking fullback Zach Boren and slid into the end zone, putting the Buckeyes up 17-7.

The celebration was short-lived. The Buckeyes forced a punt but Hall promptly fumbled it, with Andrew Lukasko recovering at the Ohio State 27, leading to Ball notching his 21st touchdown of the season through a wide hole on the left side.

After Drew Basil converted a 22-yard field goal to push the lead to six points, a Wisconsin drive ended at the Ohio State 38 on fourth-and-2 when Sweat knifed through to bring down Ball a yard short.

Six plays later, Miller kept the ball on third-and-2 and raced through a big hole at left tackle, going 44 yards untouched for the score with 4:39 remaining.

The Badgers answered with a quick score in just 44 seconds, with Wilson hitting Abbrederis on a 17-yard score to cut it to 26-21 with 3:48 left.

Wisconsin kicked deep and then held the Buckeyes on three runs, forcing a punt.

It took just four plays to cover the 68 yards, with Wilson finding Abbrederis all alone down the left sideline for a 49-yard score with 1:18 left. A 2-point conversion pass from Wilson to Ball made it 29-26.

"Unfortunately, we scored too fast," Bielema said.

But the Buckeyes came right back, taking over at their own 48 after a 42-yard kickoff return by Hall.

They picked up 12 yards on three plays before Miller took the snap on first down at the Wisconsin 40 with 30 seconds left. He floated right to avoid a rush, barely sidestepped a potential tackle and suddenly noticed Smith wide open in the end zone. Miller stopped and looped the ball to Smith who caught it just before two defenders closed on him.

The crowd of 105,511 went wild.

After Basil's extra point, the Buckeyes kicked off ? out of bounds. That gave Wisconsin the ball at its own 40 with 18 seconds left.

Wilson threw three incompletions ? twice off the hands of receivers who could easily have made huge plays.

As a mob of fans waited to rush the field, it was announced there was a flag on the final play of regulation. It was for a facemask against safety Christian Bryant.

That gave the Badgers the ball at the Ohio State 45 and one final play.

But the pocket closed on Wilson and Sweat hit him from behind just as he was releasing the pass, the ball fluttering to the ground while the field filled with running, jumping fans celebrating Ohio State's 90th homecoming.

"We knew it was going to be a fight," lineman John Simon said. "This is a big win for us. We're going to enjoy it tonight and get back to work tomorrow. There's a lot of football left."

The Badgers are hoping for brighter days.

"Obviously, it's another heartbreaking loss," Bielema said.

___

Follow Rusty Miller on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rustymillerap.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111030/ap_on_sp_co_ga_su/fbc_t25_wisconsin_ohio_st

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Survey: Economists more bleak about US economy (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Fewer U.S. companies expect to hire new workers in coming months, as business economists grow increasingly pessimistic about the overall economy's growth in the coming year.

Nearly 85 percent of economic experts surveyed expect the economy to grow at a meager 2 percent or less over the next 12 months, according to the National Association for Business Economists. In July only 23 percent of the survey's respondents predicted such slow growth.

Additionally, the number of companies that plan to hire more workers fell from 42 percent to 30 percent, while the number of companies laying workers off rose. The group reports that 13 percent of respondents have reduced their staff, up from 8 percent in July.

One-fifth of the economists say the European debt crisis has hurt sales, with the average estimate around 10 percent, and 30 percent expect the squeeze to continue into the first quarter of 2012.

The quarterly survey includes the views of 70 economists for private companies and trade groups who are NABE members. The data are reported by broad industry group.

About one-quarter of respondents reported increased profitability since the last quarter, compared with 16 percent who reported declines. Companies that reported improved profit margins include those in the food, transportation, utilities, information and communications sectors.

On Sunday, European leaders yet again put off tough decisions which economists say are needed to save the continent from its debt crisis. Earlier in the weekend officials said the leaders were nearing agreement on slashing Greece's debts and strengthening the continent's banks, many of which are awash in Greek bonds.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_bi_ge/us_nabe_survey

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Car Insurance Megastore Nominated for 2007 Insurance Awards for ...

Car Insurance Megastore Nominated for 2007 Insurance Awards for the Most Comprehensive Car Insurance Quotes Comparison Site

(PRWEB) June 13, 2007

The Wolverhampton-based online car insurance quotes specialist ?The Car Insurance Megastore? has been nominated for the ?2007 Insurance awards? by Open GI, the largest insurance software company in Europe.

The Car Insurance Megastore have been used to pioneer their revolutionary software ?Oasys Motowriter? which searches over 300 UK insurance policies and schemes for the cheapest online car insurance quotes. With new policies and schemes added regularly allowing The Car Insurance Megastore to stay ahead of the competition.

Car Insurance Megastore trading as http://www.carinsurancequotes.uk.com is a rapidly growing internet-only motor broker based in Wolverhampton. The company was set up in 2003 by owner Wayne Lee, and already controls ?6m GWP. Having worked within the industry for over 10 years, Wayne saw an opportunity to replicate the success of some of the bigger internet brokers and devised an e-business strategy that would differentiate Car Insurance Megastore Competitors targeting the following sectors:

? Prestige Car Insurance

? Family Car Insurance

? Lady Drivers Car Insurance

? Performance Car Insurance

? Convicted Driver Insurance

? 4?4 Car Insurance

? Imported Car Insurance

? Young Drivers Insurance

? Sports Car Insurance

? Van Insurance

?The quote process on the site is fully transparent. We offer customers a choice of the top three quotes provided by the uk?s leading insurers, they can view all the information they need about the insurer, key facts and about the policy. We have also developed a unique requote facility which toggles between all levels of cover ? third party, fire and theft, comprehensive or third party only so that the customer can find the best quote to suit their needs.?

The launch of The Car Insurance Megastore ? http://www.carinsurancequotes.uk.com

Said Lee: ?Our massive product database is sure to get tails wagging we have been working around the clock to get our massive 317 insurers and schemes loaded onto our database and we are well on track to becoming the uk?s most comprehensive car insurance price comparison site.?

?Our car insurance quotes system offers a highly flexible approach to underwriting and monitors every online application in real time ? something which we believe is unique and allows us to iron out any mistakes before they occur in their application.?

Car Insurance Megastore Live Web Support

Said Lee: ?To counteract any potential customer mistakes we have introduced a live support facility on the site, which has been up and running for around eight months. This allows customers to input an immediate contact number at any point in their application and be called straight back by one of our expert advisers. So often the issue with online car insurance quotes is that the customer makes a mistake and there?s no assistance. By guiding the customer through the entire process they get the benefits of internet trading but with the added consultation from the broker. For example, if the customer gets a conviction code wrong we can intervene to make sure they get it right.

?Once the customer has completed their online application we text them with the quote details so they have a reference point if they?re shopping around, and also if they take up the policy with us. The response to text is much better than a phone call.

?We are also the first insurance company to offer flexible online payments for customers. Once they have taken out the policy, they can log onto the administration page and modify the payment days by up to 30 days. And it?s totally secure. We are one of the first insurance websites to be authenticated by Google Checkout, which protects customers against unauthorised purchases.

?We are constantly monitoring the market and introducing new schemes whilst developing our presence with the likes of Google via search engine optimization. This is a key focus for us and something we outsource to an expert. We have also planned a digital TV advertising campaign which is due to kick off later in the year. As we hand hold the customer through the entire quote process we get continuous feedback. In fact we?ve only had 2 complaints in the last 12 months.?

Summary / Future

Said Lee: ?Our aim is to be one of the UK?s largest car insurance quotes comparison sites, with online and handling capabilities that are completely controlled and totally transparent ? and we?re fast achieving that. We?ve added some major innovative new developments to the site and will continue to do so.

###

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, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

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Jackson doc's defense to finally question expert

LOS ANGELES?? For several moments, the milky white substance that authorities say killed Michael Jackson dripped down into an IV line a few feet away from jurors.

Sometimes the drops fell fast, until their rate was slowed by the Columbia University researcher and professor who for three days has testified about the drug and its effects on the King of Pop as he died. The demonstration, with the anesthetic propofol dripping harmlessly into a water bottle, was one of the final scenes prosecutors presented Thursday to jurors hearing the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray.

On Friday, Murray's lead attorney will finally get his chance to question the expertise and assumptions laid out by Dr. Steven Shafer, the prosecution's final and one of its most important witnesses. The Houston-based cardiologist has pleaded not guilty.

After days of testimony and demonstrating the type of IV drip that was likely present in Jackson's bedroom in his final hours, Shafer bluntly responded to a question about Murray's culpability.

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"He has been entrusted by Michael Jackson to look after his safety every night and he has failed," Shafer said.

Sitting in the courtroom, watching and listening to it all was Shafer's former teacher and longtime colleague, Dr. Paul White, who will testify for the defense.

Story: Expert: Jackson didn't give himself propofol

Shafer opened Thursday's testimony by saying he was "disappointed" in his former instructor, who earlier this year had written in a report that he thought it was possible Jackson had died after swallowing a dose of propofol.

Shafer told jurors that medical studies dating back to 1985, performed on animals as varied as rats, dogs, monkeys and more recently, humans, had shown that propofol if swallowed wouldn't produce sedation or any ill effects.

White has been taking notes throughout Shafer's testimony and his observations will likely influence lead defense attorney Ed Chernoff when he begins his cross-examination Friday afternoon.

Shafer also attempted to discredit another defense theory ? that Jackson may have swallowed eight lorazepam pills in the hours before his death without Murray's knowledge and that authorities overlooked it. He said the amount of lorazepam that was found in Jackson's stomach was "trivial."

Video: Prosecution set to rest in Conrad Murray trial (on this page)

The only explanation that supported all the evidence ? including the items found in Jackson's bedroom, the singer's autopsy results and Murray's lengthy statement to police ? is that Murray gave the singer propofol on an IV drip and left the room when he thought the singer was safely asleep.

"This fits all of the data in this case and I am not aware of a single piece of data that is inconsistent with this explanation," Shafer said.

Using charts and his own experience, Shafer said that Jackson likely stopped breathing because of the propofol and without someone to clear his airway. The whole time, propofol would have kept dripping into the IV tube, gravity carrying it into the singer's body.

In all, Shafer said Murray committed 17 violations of the standard of care that could have led to Jackson's serious injury or death.

Murray's actions in setting up the IV stand in Jackson's bedroom ? similar to the one Shafer set up in front of the jury box Thursday ? led to the singer's demise and his Murray alone was to blame, Shafer said.

"He is responsible for every drop of propofol in that room, every drop of lorazepam in that room," Shafer said.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44988293/ns/today-entertainment/

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UN starts talks to lift Libya no-fly zone (AP)

UNITED NATIONS ? Russia is proposing that the U.N. Security Council lift the no-fly zone it imposed on Libya and end its authorization of military action to protect civilians now that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has been killed.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters after closed council consultations Friday evening that he had circulated a draft resolution on the matter among the group's 15 members.

Although NATO earlier Friday said it would start winding down its operation in Libya, Churkin said it was up to the council to end the legal authorization for the international military action it passed earlier this year.

"Since it was the decision of the Security Council of the United Nations to impose the no-fly zone, it should be the decision of the Security Council of the United Nations to lift it," the Russian ambassador said.

NATO made a preliminary decision to end its seven-month bombing campaign on Oct. 31 and will make the formal decision next week, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after a meeting of the alliance's governing body, the North Atlantic Council.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud and British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said more consultation with Libyan authorities is needed to ensure a smooth transfer of air traffic control to civilian officials.

"We share the view that we are now in the phasing out of the operation," Araud said after the council meeting. "It's technical, we have to work with Libyan authorities. We have to do it properly."

Lyall Grant said his country earlier in the day had consulted with Libyan authorities, who "made clear they didn't want a premature ending of the military authorization. So we want to proceed in a more measured way."

The British ambassador to the U.N. said he expected the matter to come before the full council for a vote around the middle of next week.

Russia, Britain and France are all permanent, veto-wielding council members, along with the U.S. and China.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111022/ap_on_re_us/un_un_libya

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'Drunkorexia': A 'disturbing' new trend? (The Week)

New York ? To stay both thin and blotto, college students are saving money by skipping meals ? and buying booze instead

"Drunkorexia" ? combining the worst aspects of binge drinking and eating disorders ? is a condition by which college students skip meals to control their weight, saving both money (and calories) they can then use to drink. A new study from the University of Missouri found that 16 percent of college students engage in the practice, including three times as many females as males. Sound dangerous? It is. Here's what you need to know:

What's the appeal?
By avoiding food and the money it costs, drunkorexics are able to get drunk more easily and buy more alcohol. Twisted bonus: Even though booze itself can pack on pounds, All Headline News points out, drunkorexics often "vomit the alcohol they consume, causing them to lose weight."

Why is it so dangerous?
It may seem obvious, but according to Victoria Osborne, assistant professor of social work and public health at the University of Missouri, failure to provide the brain "adequate nutrition" while imbibing "large amounts of alcohol" can lead to more serious eating disorders or addiction problems: "Together, they can cause short- and long-term cognitive problems including difficulty concentrating, studying and making decisions," she says.?

And it's worse for women?
Yes. It's "pretty disturbing" and downright "ludicrous" to sacrifice food for alcohol, says Deborah Dunham of Blisstree. "Women metabolize alcohol differently" from their male counterparts. "We are likely to make blubbering idiots out of ourselves faster, get sick faster and suffer damage to vital organs sooner than men," she says. "Hopefully these college students will soon realize that the starve-drunk-starve-drunk cycle does not cure anything ? even a negative body image."

Sources: All Headline News, Huffington Post,?Blisstree

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20111019/cm_theweek/220462

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Renaissance man Kimbo looks pretty mean in ?The Scorpion King 3?

Kimbo Slice doesn't need MMA to make a living. The former king of street fighting, and a veteran of EliteXC and the UFC, Slice is slowly making the transition to movies and television.

Kimbo is part the cast in "The Scorpion King 3" along with former WWE star Dave Batista. He gets pops in the trailer at the 0:30 and 0:48 marks.

Kimbo is still fighting, but now he's using the big gloves. He moved to 2-0 as a pro boxer over the weekend

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Renaissance-man-Kimbo-looks-pretty-mean-in-821?urn=mma-wp8362

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Malaria vaccine candidate, RTS,S reduces the risk of malaria by half in African children

Malaria vaccine candidate, RTS,S reduces the risk of malaria by half in African children

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

First results from a large-scale Phase III trial of RTS,S*, published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), show the malaria vaccine candidate to provide young African children with significant protection against clinical and severe malaria with an acceptable safety and tolerability profile. The results were announced today at the Malaria Forum hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington.

Half the world's population is at risk of malaria. The disease is responsible for close to 800,000 deaths each year, most of whom are children under five in sub-Saharan Africa

5 to 17 month-old children

The trial, conducted at 11 trial sites in seven countries across sub-Saharan Africa, including a UNC-led site in Lilongwe, Malawi, showed that three doses of RTS,S reduced the risk of children experiencing clinical malaria and severe malaria by 56 percent and 47 percent, respectively. This analysis was performed on data from the first 6,000 children aged 5 to 17 months, over a 12-month period following vaccination. Clinical malaria results in high fevers and chills. It can rapidly develop into severe malaria, typified by serious effects on the blood, brain, or kidneys that can prove fatal. These first Phase III results are in line with those from previous Phase II studies.

The widespread coverage of insecticide-treated bed nets (75 percent) in this study indicated that RTS,S can provide protection in addition to that already offered by existing malaria control interventions.

6 to 12 week-old infants

The trial is ongoing and efficacy and safety results in 6 to 12 week-old infants are expected by the end of 2012. These data will provide an understanding of the efficacy profile of the RTS,S malaria vaccine candidate in this age group, for both clinical and severe malaria.

Combined data in 6 to 12 week-old infants and 5 to 17 month-old children

An analysis of severe malaria episodes so far reported in all 15,460 infants and children enrolled in the trial at 6 weeks to 17 months of age has been performed. This analysis showed 35 percent efficacy over a follow-up period ranging between 0 and 22 months (average 11.5 months).

"The publication of the first results in children aged 5 to 17 months marks an important milestone in the development of RTS,S," said Irving Hoffman, PA, MPH, co-principal investigator at the Lilongwe site. "These results confirm findings from previous Phase II studies and support ongoing efforts to advance the development of this malaria vaccine candidate," said Hoffman, who is also associate professor of medicine in the UNC School of Medicine.

Long-term efficacy

The RTS,S malaria vaccine candidate is still under development. Further information about the longer-term protective effects of the vaccine, 30 months after the third dose, should be available by the end of 2014. This will provide evidence for national public health and regulatory authorities, as well as international public health organizations, to evaluate the benefits and risks of RTS,S.

Safety

The overall incidence of serious adverse events (SAEs)** in this trial was comparable between the RTS,S candidate vaccine (18 percent) recipients and those receiving a control vaccine (22 percent)

Differences in rates of SAEs were observed between the vaccines groups for specific events, such as seizures and meningitis, and were higher in the malaria vaccine group. Seizures were considered to be related to fever and meningitis was considered unlikely to be vaccine-related. These events will continue to be monitored and additional information about the safety profile of the RTS,S malaria vaccine candidate will become available over the next three years.

"Making progress against this disease has been extremely difficult, and sadly, many have resigned themselves to malaria being a fact of life in Africa. This need not be the case," said Francis Martinson, MPH, PhD, co-principal investigator in Lilongwe and country director of UNC Project-Malawi. "Renewed interest in malaria by the international community, and scientific evidence such as that we are reporting today, should bring new hope that malaria can be controlled."

###

University of North Carolina School of Medicine: http://www.med.unc.edu

Thanks to University of North Carolina School of Medicine for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 349 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114413/Malaria_vaccine_candidate__RTS_S_reduces_the_risk_of_malaria_by_half_in_African_children

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Belafonte: I didn't fall asleep on-air

By Denise Hazlick

Whenever you go live on TV, anything can happen, as the news anchors on a Bakersfield, Calif., station discovered this week when singer Harry Belafonte appeared to discuss his new book, "My Song: A Memoir."?

While it appears that Belafonte fell asleep, the legendary singer, 84, says that's not?the case. His representative told TMZ.com that?a technical glitch meant Belafonte's earpiece?stopped working temporarily, "so he decided to take the time to meditate before the rest of his Day-O."?

The rep went on to say, "Mr. Belafonte is 84 years young, but sharper and more awake than most who have been interviewing him. Maybe the world would be a better place if more people took a moment to meditate."

?

Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/18/8382460-a-bit-too-early-day-o-for-belafonte

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Danny Masterson and Bijou Phillips Wed (omg!)

Reese Witherspoon Jokes About Making Out With Jennifer Aniston Access Hollywood - 18 hours ago

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston have been close ever since Reese made her TV debut on "Friends" playing her sister back in 2000, but how close are the two leading?? More??Reese Witherspoon Jokes About Making Out With Jennifer Aniston

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/http___omg_yahoo_com_news74935/43311579/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/danny-masterson-and-bijou-phillips-wed/74935

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Larry Hagman of 'Dallas' diagnosed with cancer

NEW YORK?? Larry Hagman has been diagnosed with cancer.

The 80-year-old actor is famous for playing J.R. Ewing on "Dallas." In a statement Friday, he said: "As J.R. I could get away with anything ? bribery, blackmail and adultery. But I got caught by cancer."

Hagman declined to specify what kind of cancer he's contracted, but said it's "a very common and treatable form." He plans to continue working on a new reboot of "Dallas" for TNT, which begins production Monday.

Breast cancer diagnosis for Giuliana Rancic

The new "Dallas" focuses on the Ewing offspring as they clash over the future of the family dynasty. The original prime-time soap opera aired on CBS from 1978 to 1991. Hagman underwent a liver transplant in the mid-1990s.

Said Hagman: "As we all know, you can't keep J.R. down!"

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44932558/ns/today-entertainment/

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Culinary Union spearheads ?the UFC is anti-gay? campaign, Perez Hilton now on board

Who thought the UFC's battle to get into New York would come to this? The Culinary Union in New York and gossip guru Perez Hilton are lashing out at the fight promotion claiming it's anti-gay.

The mixed martial arts fighting promotion is still unable to get fights licensed in New York. Owner Lorenzo Fertitta and president Dana White haven't hidden their feelings about the real culprit in the battle. Both have pointed the finger of blame at the state's powerful Culinary Union.

Last week in a letter to Anheuser-Busch, the union fired back saying the UFC allows homophobic behavior from it fighters and personalities.

• In recent videos, UFC light heavyweight Quinton "Rampage" Jackson repeatedly urged Japanese fans to repeat an anti-gay slur.' The fans, who do not appear to understand English, repeated the anti-gay slur at Jackson's urging. In one video, Jackson instructed a Japanese man to say, "Goodbye, I want you to piss on my face."
• In an expletive-filled video rant posted on YouTube.com, UFC president Dana White used an anti-gay slur, saying, "Whoever gave you that quote is a [expletive] and a [expletive] faggot and a [expletive] liar and everything else. He also uttered the "F" word a total of 34 times, the "S" word 4 times, and referred to a female sports journalist as a "[expletive] dumb bitch."
• According to the Los Angeles Times, "Rampage" Jackson shouted "every conceivable gay slur" at a movie crew member of "The A-Team" who had called him a homophobic epithet. He was also quoted in the article saying, "Acting is kind of gay. It makes you soft."
• In a recent UFC promotional video, Michael Bisping, a UFC middleweight fighter and coach on the reality television show "The Ultimate Fighter," screamed an anti-gay slur at his opponent. In a media conference call, Bisping tried to. smear an opposing-coach. on "The Ultimate Fighter" by saying that his opponent had a "gay chiropractor" on his staff."
• Joe Rogan, who does commentary for televised UFC events, recently used a homophobic slur while referring to a MMA blogger.' Rogan also to referred to an MMA blogger as a part of the female anatomy. According to sportswriter Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports, Rogan then wrote on a blog, "Never did I imagine that so many people would get their panties in a bunch about the use of the word [expletive] to describe a female blogger."

Now Hilton, the openly-gay blogger, is firing shots at the promotion.

Ugh! We are not happy to hear about this. While sports organizations like the NBA and MLB are working to end homophobia, others like the NHL seem to be tolerating it. Unfortunately, the UFC (Utlimate Fighting Championship) seems to be flat out endorsing anti-gay bigotry!

Some of these incidents go back a few years, so it looks like the Culinary Union waited for an opportune time to go on the attack. It just so happens that the UFC is debuting on network television in less than a month on Fox.

Tip via Bloody Elbow

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Culinary-Union-spearheads-the-UFC-is-anti-gay-?urn=mma-wp8310

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Obama looks to South in bid to help keep his job (AP)

JAMESTOWN, N.C. ? North Carolina and Virginia are two southern states at the heart of President Barack Obama's re-election strategy.

Obama won the states in a surprise in 2008 and his campaign is now doubling down in the region, hoping to turn to changing demographics as a way to offset potential losses in traditional swing states.

The president is in the middle of a three-day bus trip through North Carolina and Virginia even as polls show his challenges there. A recent Elon University poll put the president's approval rating in North Carolina at 42 percent and a Quinnipiac (KWIHN'-uh-pee-ak) University poll had it at 45 percent in Virginia.

Democrats are keying on the region. The party will hold its convention in Charlotte, N.C., next summer.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111018/ap_on_el_pr/us_obama_southern_strategy

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Daily App Deals: Read It Later Pro Is Free on Android [Deals]

The Daily App Deals post is a round-up of the best app discounts of the day, as well as some notable mentions for ones that are on sale.

The Best

Read It Later Pro (Amazon Appstore) Read It Later Pro is a billed as a "DVR for the web," and it allows you to save content you find on the web to read later (even offline). You can save articles from any computer or device and Read It Later will make them all available on your Android device where you can organize and share the content right from the app. Read It Later Pro, usually $4, is free for today in the Amazon Appstore. (via LogicBuy)

Free

iOS

Android

Windows

The Rest

iOS

Android

Windows

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/DTE9WygddJg/daily-app-deals-read-it-later-pro-is-free-on-android

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How safe is your hospital? Website lets you check

Medicare has begun publishing patient safety ratings for thousands of hospitals as the first step toward paying less to institutions with high rates of surgical complications, infections, mishaps and potentially avoidable deaths.

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The new data, available on Medicare?s Hospital Compare website, evaluate hospitals on how often their patients suffer complications such as a collapsed lung, a blood clot after surgery or an accidental cut or tear during treatment. The measures also include specific death rates for patients who had breathing problems after surgery, had an operation to repair a weakness in the abdominal aorta or had a treatable complication after an operation.

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   3. State Flexibility Key Issue In Health Law Implementation

In addition, Hospital Compare is evaluating rates of some specific medical errors, such as giving patients the wrong type of blood, leaving surgical implements in patients? bodies during surgery and falls that occur during their stay.

The evaluations are part of Medicare?s broad move from paying hospitals a set amount for each procedure. That change was directed by last year?s health care law, which set up new ?value-based purchasing program? that will begin in October 2012. Over time, hospitals with the lowest quality?as judged by a variety of metrics, not just the new patient safety measures?will be at risk to lose up to 2 percent of their regular Medicare reimbursements under the health law.

How to check your hospital

1. To find find out how hospitals in your area compare to the national average, go to the website http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/, type in the city and state, click on the hospital name and then select the ?Patient Safety Measures? tab at the left. Hospital Compare also gives patients the option of choosing several hospitals at once. The new data covers the period between October 2008 and June 2010.

The new data on patient safety moves Medicare further along toward its ultimate goal, which is to base payments on the actual medical outcomes for patients. To rate hospitals, Medicare is comparing them to the national rates for medical complications and hospital acquired conditions. For instance, on average, 2.1 out of every 1,000 patients discharged suffered an accidental cut and tear from medical treatment. Out of 100 patients, 4.4 on average died after surgery to repair a weakness in their abdominal aorta.

By looking at how a hospital compares to the national average on this and other complication statistics, Medicare has come up with overall evaluations of how good hospitals are at avoiding complications and hospital-acquired conditions. Medicare is aiming to incorporate the new patient safety data into payments in the second year of the program.

Making this information public has been long favored by patient safety advocates. ?This is pulling the curtain back on preventable health care harm to older Americans,? said Rosemary Gibson, co-author of ?The Treatment Trap? and editor of a series of articles on overtreatment in the Archives of Internal Medicine. ?These are really good things to know. We are really getting into the meat of what can happen to patients in hospitals.?

But the latest data is intensifying objections from the hospital industry and some academic researchers that Medicare is using dubious and unfair measurements in ways that will hurt some hospitals, particularly those with sicker patients. The data is based on billing claims that hospitals submit to the government, not clinical medical records. One concern held by hospitals and researchers is that hospitals categorize the same things differently when billing Medicare, skewing comparisons.

?Medicare claims data is the thing a lot of people judge from, but it?s a large database and frankly I?ve always wondered if apples and oranges are being mixed,? said Dr. Gerald Healy, a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a Massachusetts nonprofit, and past president of the American College of Surgeons.

Hospital officials said their initial review of the new data has exacerbated their concerns that Medicare?s calculations do not fully take into account the fact that some hospitals do more surgeries or treat sicker patients.

?We believe the data is fairly seriously flawed in the way it?s calculated,? said Nancy Foster, a vice president at the American Hospital Association. ?When inaccurate data is out there, it both misleads the public and generates a lot of activity that is unproductive in the hospital.?

Atul Grover, head of advocacy for the Association of American Medical Colleges that represents teaching hospitals, said some of Medicare?s measures also make teaching hospitals look worse. ?If you?re not appropriately risk-adjusting on this, you?re already selecting a patient population that?s more likely to die,? he said. ?That?s why they come to us, because other people are reluctant to operate on those complex cases.?

Officials at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which designed many of the measures, referred questions to Medicare. Officials there were not immediately available to discuss the new measures. Dr. Patrick Romano, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine who helped the government design the measures, said the measures do take the sickness levels of patients into account, although not as thoroughly as Hospital Compare?s existing evaluations of readmissions and hospital-wide mortality rates.

Still, he said the measures were a good addition to the overall view of how well hospitals are doing. ?We?re trying to understand a large animal like an elephant or a whale,? he said. ?To do that, we take pictures from a variety of perspectives, with different cameras and different techniques.?

Hospital Compare was originally designed to be a helpful consumer tool, but to date it has not been widely used by patients choosing hospitals. Experts caution about drawing dire conclusions from the raw rates of hospitals, as some of the measures are complex and differences not statistically significant. For some of the measures, Hospital Compare categorizes most hospitals simply as ?average,? ?above? or ?below? the national norm, which experts say is a better way for consumers to know whether a hospital is an outlier.

Medicare last week announced 18 more measures it is considering for inclusion in the value-based purchasing program. Many of these measures look at how hospitals handle stroke patients and what steps they take to protect patients from blood clots. Others are intended to address two bacterial infections that can spread through hospitals: Clostridium difficile and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

? 2011 This information was reprinted with permission from KHN. KHN is an editorially independent news service and a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy organization that isn?t affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44909622/ns/health-health_care/

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Wall Street protesters energized by park decision

A man affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests tackles a police officer during a march towards Wall Street in New York, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. The official cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from a crowd that had scrambled to scrub the park on its own out of fear the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton)

A man affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests tackles a police officer during a march towards Wall Street in New York, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. The official cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from a crowd that had scrambled to scrub the park on its own out of fear the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton)

A protestor participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests screams while marching towards Wall Street Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton)

An Occupy Wall Street protestor presses his head into a police officer's chest as hundreds march towards Wall Street after being heartened by a postponement of a scheduled cleanup of their camp at Zuccotti Park that many protestors saw as a de facto eviction, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. Some arrests have occurred after a few hundred protesters left Zuccotti Park and marched to the area around the New York Stock Exchange. There are barricades and mounted police around the exchange. About a half-dozen arrests were seen in the surrounding blocks. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A New York City police officer runs over a National Lawyers Guild observer as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators march through the streets near Wall Street, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Demonstrators affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests confront New York City police officers as they march on the street in the Wall Street area, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Anti-Wall Street protesters went into Saturday campaigns emboldened by a change of plans among park property owners and police to usher them out of their lower Manhattan encampment for cleanup and impose restrictions that would have essentially shut down their Occupy Wall Street headquarters.

"We are going to piggy-back off the success of today, and it's going to be bigger than we ever imagined," said protester Daniel Zetah after Friday's announcement that protesters could remain in the park.

Over the past month, the protest against corporate greed and economic inequality has spread from New York City to cities elsewhere across the United States and around the world. Several demonstrations were planned this weekend in the U.S., Canada and Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa.

Supporters in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday waved signs such as "you can't eat money." About 200 people in Tokyo joined the global protests, and Philippine supporters in Manila marched on the U.S. Embassy to express support for Occupy Wall Street and to denounce "U.S. imperialism" and U.S.-led wars and aggression.

The Friday showdown in New York came as tensions rose, with several arrests in many U.S. cities and scattered clashes between demonstrators and police. Zuccotti Park owners planned to temporarily evict the protesters at 7 a.m. so the grounds could be power-washed.

The protesters, their numbers swelled to about 2,000 before daybreak, feared the cleanup was a pretext to break up the demonstration. They vowed to stand their ground.

Just minutes before the appointed hour, park owners Brookfield Office Properties announced it would postpone the cleanup "for a short period of time" at the request of "a number of local political leaders." The company gave no details. Word of the decision brought boisterous cheers from the demonstrators and predictions that it would strengthen the movement in the U.S. and beyond.

In Denver, police in riot gear herded hundreds of protesters away from the Colorado state Capitol early Friday, arresting about two dozen people and dismantling their encampment. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents near a war memorial. San Diego police used pepper spray to break up a human chain formed around a tent by anti-Wall Street demonstrators.

In New York City, police arrested 15 people, including protesters who obstructed traffic by standing or sitting in the street and others who turned over trash baskets and hurled bottles. A deputy inspector was sprayed in the face with an unknown liquid.

In one case, an observer with the National Lawyers Guild who was marching with the group refused to move off the street for police, and the tip of his foot was run over by an officer's scooter. He fell to the ground screaming and writhing and kicked over the scooter before police flipped him over and arrested him.

And a video posted online showed a police officer punching a protester in the side of the head on a crowded street. Police said the altercation occurred after the man tried to elbow the officer in the face and other people in the crowd jumped on the officer, who was sprayed with a liquid coming from the man's direction. Police said the man, who escaped and was wanted for attempted assault on an officer, later said in an online interview he's HIV positive and the officer should be tested medically.

A man who identified himself as the protester, Felix Rivera-Pitre, said in a statement posted online that he didn't provoke the officer. "I was just doing what everyone else was doing in the march," he said. "It felt like he was taking his frustrations out on me."

Organizers in Des Moines, Iowa, accepted an offer Friday night from the mayor to move from the state Capitol where they were prohibited from staying overnight to a city park blocks away, averting a possible showdown.

Brookfield, a publicly traded real estate firm, had planned to allow the protesters to return to the park after the cleanup. But it said it would begin enforcing park rules against tents, tarps and sleeping bags, complaining the grounds had become unsanitary and unsafe. The New York Police Department had said it would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were broken.

Overnight Thursday and into the Friday morning darkness, protesters rushed to scrub and sweep the park and pick up trash in hopes of preventing a crackdown. In changing course, Brookfield said it would negotiate with protesters about how the park may be used. But it was unclear when those discussions would occur. Though the park is privately owned, it is required to be open to the public 24 hours a day.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is on Brookfield's board of directors, said his staff was under strict orders not to pressure the company one way or the other. He noted that Brookfield can still go ahead with the cleanup at some point.

"My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying, 'We're going to make your life more difficult,'" he said on his weekly radio show.

State Sen. Daniel Squadron, a Democrat who represents lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, said he had conversations late into the night urging Brookfield's CEO to wait.

"The stakeholders must come together to find a solution that respects the protesters' fundamental rights, while addressing the legitimate quality-of-life concerns in this growing residential neighborhood," Squadron said in a statement.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Patrick Walters in Philadelphia, Patrick Condon in Minneapolis, Mike Householder in Detroit, Colleen Long in New York and Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-15-Wall%20Street%20Protest/id-f5a36196e8ec409c8e003f7947227d53

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Email Direct Marketing Tool-Bring your Online Business to the Next ...

Have you thought how email direct marketing tool can multiply your sales form your online business? Did you doubt if this is indeed effective? Well, erase all your doubts because this is definitely true! There is money in this email direct marketing tool. You know how? A lot of people who have been striving to increase traffic in their websites and convert them into sales, but fail to get their desired results. For the very reason that you lack knowledge on the appropriate web marketing tool to apply, that is why you end up not meeting your objectives. Being consistent on getting high sales is not easy to achieve, may it be offline or online business. However, if you have the right email direct marketing tool, this can be as easy as you think. You might have lost huge sum of money because of using the wrong email direct marketing tool before. Well, you are not alone. There are also a lot of web marketers who did the same mistake. All of them have promised you to give promising results but only to find out in the end that they are all lies. Thus, it is very important that you are packed with knowledge about online marketing campaigns to avoid getting scammed. On the other hand, there are also other individuals who do not seem to realize the benefits of using email direct marketing tool. For them, they have generalized it and no longer believe that it can in fact bring them millions from their business. Well, if you share the same sentiments with this group, then you are actually throwing away big opportunities for your business. Email direct marketing tool is the best solution to bring your business to a higher level. So, how could it be? Well, here are some of the benefits that will put an end to all your doubts about the ability of this email direct marketing tool. Higher ROI This option is a lot better than the tradition direct marketing which is found to be costlier. Since this only requires a stable internet connection and the expertise on making a persuasive email, you need not to shell out huge sum of money just to materialize everything. Unlike in traditional direct marketing, you will have to exert time, effort and money to make the entire process work. The worse part is you are not yet assured of the figures for ROI. Easiest and most effective mode of communication As of the present, email is the ideal mode of communication if you are targeting a substantial amount of individuals. This is also the only medium that gives consent to receive emails from other parties. Thus, information dissemination is a lot easier through email than any other medium. Generates comprehensive reports Through email direct marketing, you can gather as many data as possible. Since you can filter your email wherein you are only aiming for your target market, this can generate comprehensive and reasonable reports. Therefore, you can easily reach out your target market as well as your sales budget. Email direct marketing tool has numerous benefits. Those mentioned above are some of the basic ones. If you want to shape up your business without having to spend too much on sales campaigns, but would not want to sacrifice the quality of service, then email direct marketing tool is the ideal solution.

Tags: best solution, marketing campaign, online market, marketing tool, online marketing, net connection, lot easier

Source: http://www.212articles.com/email-direct-marketing-tool-bring-your-online-business-to-the-next-level/

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Hold the phone for vital signs: Researchers turn a smart phone into a medical monitor

ScienceDaily (Oct. 7, 2011) ? An iPhone app that measures the user's heart rate is not only a popular feature with consumers, but it sparked an idea for a Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researcher who is now turning smart phones, and eventually tablet devices, into sophisticated medical monitors able to capture and transmit vital physiological data.

A team led by Ki Chon, professor and head of biomedical engineering at WPI, has developed a smart phone application that can measure not only heart rate, but also heart rhythm, respiration rate and blood oxygen saturation using the phone's built-in video camera. The new app yields vital signs as accurate as standard medical monitors now in clinical use. Details of the new technology are published online, in advance of print, by the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

"This gives a patient the ability to carry an accurate physiological monitor anywhere, without additional hardware beyond what's already included in many consumer mobile phones," the authors write. "One of the advantages of mobile phone monitoring is that it allows patients to make baseline measurements at any time, building a database that could allow for improved detection of disease states."

The application, developed by Chon and WPI colleagues Yitzhak Mendelson, associate professor of biomedical engineering, Domhnull Granquist-Fraser, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and doctoral student Christopher Scully, analyzes video clips recorded while the patient's fingertip is pressed against the lens of the phone's camera. As the camera's light penetrates the skin, it reflects off of pulsing blood in the finger; the application is able to correlate subtle shifts in the color of the reflected light with changes in the patient's vital signs. Chon, who is an expert on signal processing, has previously developed algorithms that monitor a range of vital signs using traditional clinical devices like a Holter heart monitor. In the new study, Chon and his team created and adapted algorithms to process the data gathered by the phone's video camera.

To test for accuracy, volunteers at WPI donned the standard monitoring devices now in clinical use for measuring respiration, pulse rate, heart rhythm, and blood oxygen content. Simultaneously, the volunteers pressed a finger onto the camera of a Motorola Droid phone. While all devices were recording, the volunteers went through a series of breathing exercises while their vital signs were captured. Subsequent analysis of the data showed that Chon's new smart phone monitor was as accurate as the traditional devices. While this study was done on a Droid, Chon said the technology is easily adaptable to most smart phones with an embedded video camera.

Furthermore, since the new technology can measure heart rhythm, Chon believes the smart-phone app could be used to detect atrial fibrillation (AF), which is the most common form of cardiac arrhythmia. "We are building that application now, and we have started a preliminary clinical study with colleagues at UMass Medical School to use the smart phone to detect AF," Chon said.

Chon and colleagues are also at work developing a version of the mobile monitoring technology for use on video-equipped tablets like the iPad. A patent application for the technology has been filed. "Imagine a technician in a nursing home who is able to go into a patient's room, place the patient's finger on the camera of a tablet, and in that one step capture all their vital signs," Chon said. "We believe there are many applications for this technology, to help patients monitor themselves, and to help clinicians care for their patients."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

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Journal Reference:

1. C. Scully, J. Lee, J. Meyer, A. Gorbach, D. Granquist-Fraser, Y. Mendelson, K. Chon. Physiological Parameter Monitoring from Optical Recordings with a Mobile Phone. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2011; DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2011.2163157

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111006113622.htm

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