Sounding like the presumptive GOP nominee once again, Mitt Romney is returning his focus to President Barack Obama.
After a week of relentlessly targeting Newt Gingrich, slamming the former House speaker constantly for his work for mortgage lender Freddie Mac, Romney more or less ignored Gingrich and the rest of his GOP opponents on primary night. Calling his fellow Republicans "good competitors" he pivoted back to President Barack Obama. Romney tore into the president, deriding his leadership, and comparing and contrasting himself with the commander in chief. He said his leadership helped build businesses from scratch, save the Olympic Games and cut taxes. He said Obama hasn't so much led but followed: "Mr. President, you were elected to lead, you chose to follow and now it's time for you to get out of the way," Romney said.
Romney also alluded to Obama's 2008 campaign slogan.
"Together, we will build an America where `hope' is a new job with a paycheck, not a faded word on an old bumper sticker," he said.
Absent from Romney's speech? Any references by name to GOP rivals Gingrich, former Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Ron Paul.
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GINGRICH SEES TWO
Romney may have beaten Gingrich decisively in Florida, but Gingrich said the contest is now clearly a two-person race. Gingrich said his performance in Florida shows he has emerged as the conservative alternative to Romney. Though Romney did not mention Gingrich in his speech, Gingrich stayed on the front-runner, continuing to label the former Massachusetts governor a "Massachusetts moderate."
Gingrich also lobbed shots at Obama, saying he would reverse a slew of his policies as soon as he was elected.
Gingrich also wasn't subtle about his intention to fight on: He spoke in front of a podium sign that read "46 states to go," a reference to the number of nominating contests left. He said he plans to stay in the race until all of the nominating contests are over and said he believes he will be the nominee in Tampa.
____
NOT HOT FOR FLORIDA
While Gingrich and Romney gave primary-night speeches from the Sunshine State, Santorum and Paul were long gone. The two are targeting other states in the nominating contest and both of them addressed supporters from Nevada on Tuesday night.
Santorum quickly congratulated Mitt Romney on his victory, but was critical of the former Massachusetts governor and Gingrich saying "Republicans can do better." He said the American people don't want to watch people get into a mud-slinging contest and said he will continue to campaign on the issues. He repeated a line from Thursday night's GOP debate saying that he had no problem with Mitt Romney's work in the private sector and that he has no objection to Gingrich's work for Freddie Mac and other private companies after he left office.
Paul said he called Romney to congratulate him -- and told the former governor he would "see him soon in the caucus states." He said he is in third place with delegates "and that's what counts."
LONDON, Jan 31 - Britain's BSkyB is to launch an online TV offering to non-Sky customers to enable it to better take on firms such as Lovefilm and Netflix and following some signs of slowing growth at its main satellite base.
Britain's dominant pay-TV group said it would launch the new service to tap in to the 13 million homes that do not currently pay for a television service. It made the announcement as it revealed it had added 40,000 net new customers to its main TV service in the second quarter, slightly below expectations.
The new offering will launch in the first half of 2012 and will enable new customers to watch Sky content including movies and eventually sports on flexible tariffs and without signing a contract.
BSkyB has grown consistently through the economic downturn by attracting consumers to its range of sports, movies and broadband, but it has started to show signs of slowing growth to its overall base in recent quarters.
The 40,000 net new customers added in the second quarter was above the 26,000 it added in the first quarter but below the 140,000 added in the second quarter a year ago. Analysts had expected net new TV customers of 58,000.
To balance out the slowing growth it sold an increasing number of different services to existing customers, such as high-definition TV or broadband, enabling it to post strong first-half results.
Revenues were up 6 percent to 3.4 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) and due to improving efficiencies in the business it posted adjusted operating profit up 16 percent to 601 million pounds.
Its shares have performed weakly so far this year as investors fear that an auction for crucial football rights, investments in fiber networks and new competitors from the likes of movie service Lovefilm could all hit the business model.
($1 = 0.6377 British pounds)
(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Matt Scuffham)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? EU leaders will sign off on a permanent rescue fund for the euro zone at a summit on Monday and are expected to agree on a balanced budget rule in national legislation, with unresolved problems in Greece casting a shadow on the discussions.
The summit - the 17th in two years as the EU battles to resolve its sovereign debt problems - is supposed to focus on creating jobs and growth, with leaders looking to shift the narrative away from politically unpopular budget austerity.
The summit is expected to announce that up to 20 billion euros ($26.4 billion) of unused funds from the EU's 2007-2013 budget will be redirected toward job creation, especially among the young, and will commit to freeing up bank lending to small- and medium-sized companies.
But discussions over the permanent rescue fund, a new 'fiscal treaty' and Greece will dominate the talks.
Negotiations between the Greek government and private bondholders over the restructuring of 200 billion euros of Greek debt made progress over the weekend, but are not expected to conclude before the summit begins at 9:00 a.m. EST.
Until there is a deal between Greece and its private bondholders, EU leaders cannot move forward with a second, 130 billion euro rescue program for Athens, which they originally agreed to at a summit last October.
Instead, they will sign a treaty creating the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a 500-billion-euro permanent bailout fund that is due to become operational in July, a year earlier than first planned. And they are likely to agree the terms of a 'fiscal treaty' tightening budget rules for those that sign up.
PERMANENT RESCUE FUND
The ESM will replace the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), a temporary fund that has been used to bail out Ireland and Portugal and will help in the second Greek package.
Leaders hope the ESM will boost defenses against the debt crisis, but many - including Italian premier Mario Monti, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner - say it will only do so if its resources are combined with what remains in the EFSF, creating a super-fund of 750 billion euros ($1 trillion).
The International Monetary Fund says an agreement to increase the size of the euro zone 'firewall' will convince others to contribute more resources to the IMF, boosting its crisis-fighting abilities and improving market sentiment.
But Germany is opposed to such a step.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will not discuss the issue of the ESM/EFSF's ceiling until leaders meet for their next summit in March. In the meantime, financial markets will continue to fret that there may not be sufficient rescue funds available to help the likes of Italy and Spain if they run into renewed debt funding problems.
"There are certainly signals that Germany is willing to consider it and it is rather geared toward March from the German side," a senior euro zone official said.
The sticking point is German public opinion which is tired of bailing out the euro zone's financially less prudent. Instead, Merkel wants to see the EU - except Britain, which has rejected any such move - sign up to the fiscal treaty, including a balanced budget rule written into constitutions. Once that is done, the discussion about a bigger rescue fund can take place.
After nearly three years of crisis, some economists believe the combination of tighter budget rules, a bigger bailout fund and a commitment to broader structural reforms to boost EU productivity could help the region weather the storm.
"The fiscal compact and the ESM will shape a better future," said Carsten Brzeski, a euro zone economist at ING.
"Combined with ongoing austerity measures and structural reforms in peripheral countries, and, of course, with a lot of ECB action, the euro zone could master this stage of the crisis."
Economists say the pivotal act in recent months was the European Central Bank's flooding of the banking sector with cheap three-year money, a measure it will repeat next month.
GREEK DEAL?
While EU leaders are managing to put together pieces of legislation and financial barriers that might help them stave off a repeat of the debt crisis, immediate concerns - especially over Greece and potentially Portugal - remain.
By far the most pressing worry is the seven-month-long negotiation over private sector involvement in the second Greek rescue package. A deal in the coming days may help restore investor confidence, although Greece will still struggle to reduce its debts to 120 percent of GDP by 2020 as planned.
"If there is a deal, the heads of state and government can endorse it, welcome it and say that now it is up to Greece to agree to and deliver on reforms to get the second financing package," the euro zone official said.
Negotiators believe they have until mid-February to strike a deal. Failure to do so by then would likely force Greece to miss a 14.5 billion euro repayment on its debt due in mid-March.
Even if Athens can strike a deal with private bondholders to accept a 50 percent writedown on the nominal value of their bonds, it may still not be enough to close Greece's funding gap.
The IMF has suggested it may be necessary for public sector holders of Greek bonds - including the ECB and national central banks in the euro zone - to write off some of their holdings in order to close the gap.
Such a move would not necessarily involve the ECB or national central banks incurring losses, they would just be expected to forego any profit on the bonds they have bought.
But German ECB board member Joerg Asmussen told Reuters there was no possibility of the ECB taking part in the private-sector restructuring of Greece's debt.
(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski, editing by Mike Peacock)
RIO RICO, Ariz?? Picking her way into the desert brush, Raquel Martinez gathered scores of plastic water bottles tossed in an Arizona desert valley near the Mexico border, often by migrants making a risky trek into the United States across increasingly remote terrain.
"We need more bags ... there's so much trash," said Martinez, one of scores of volunteers helping clean up the dry bed of the Santa Cruz River about 10 miles north of the Mexico border on Saturday.
Trash tossed by thousands of illegal immigrants as they chase the American Dream has been a persistent problem for years in the rugged Arizona borderlands that lie on a main migration and smuggling route from Mexico.
The problem was compounded as immigrants and drug traffickers responded to ramped up vigilance on the U.S.-Mexico border by taking increasingly remote routes, leaving more waste behind in out-of-the way and hard-to-clean areas, authorities say.
"Migants used to follow the washes or follow the roads or utility poles," said Robin Hoover, founder of the Tucson-based non-profit Humane Borders.
"Now they're having to move farther and farther from the middle of the valleys," he added. "They end up making more camp sites and cutting more trails when they do that, and, unfortunately ... leave more trash."
Those making the punishing march carry food, water and often a change of clothes on the trek through remote desert areas that can take several days.
Most is tossed before they pile into vehicles at pickup sites like the one getting attention on the outskirts of Rio Rico, from where they head on to the U.S. interior.
"One of the problems that we are facing is that these sites are becoming more and more remote as law enforcement steps up its efforts," Henry Darwin, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, said of the flourishing borderland garbage dumps.
"There's probably sites out there that we haven't encountered yet or don't know about because there's a lot of people out in those areas," added Darwin, who gave testimony on the issue to state lawmakers earlier this month.
There are no numbers to show exactly how many would-be migrants or smugglers take the illegal and surreptitious trek across the border into Arizona from Mexico each year.
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But in an indication of the scale of the migration, federal border police made nearly 130,000 arrests last year in Arizona, where hundreds of Border Patrol agents, miles of fencing and several unmanned surveillance drones have been added in recent years to tighten security along the porous border.
With limited funding for clean up, Arizona environmental authorities draw on volunteers to help in drives like the one near Rio Rico, where an estimated 140 volunteers including residents, community and youth groups took part on Saturday.
Clean up efforts since 2008 by the department of environmental quality have included pulling 42 tons of trash from 160 acres of Cocopah tribal lands in far western Arizona, and clean ups at least seven sites on ranches and public land in areas south of Tucson.
Signs of illegal immigrants and even drug traffickers making the circuitous foot journey abound in the mesquite-studded riverbed near Rio Rico, a vigorous day's walk north of the border.
"I've found about a trillion water bottles," said David Burkett, a lawyer from Scottsdale, who worked up a sweat as he filled his fourth 50-pound trash bag. Nearby are tossed backpacks, food containers, a blanket and a pair of shoes.
He points out that alongside the apparent migrant trash is a large amount of other waste including a couch, kitchen countertops and yard debris, likely tossed by residents and contractors. Still, it is a shock to those living locally.
"We don't realize how bad it is until we come down and see it," said Candy Lamar, a volunteer who lives in sprawling, low density Rio Rico, as she works to pick up trash.
The area getting attention on Saturday lies a few miles from a remote spot where the bodies of three suspected drug traffickers were found shot to death "execution style" last November.
The area is not far from another out-of-the-way spot where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot dead by suspected border bandits in December 2010. Volunteers working on Saturday were aware of the potential hazards.
As she stuffed a blue garbage sack with trash, retiree Sharon Christensen eyed discarded burlap sacking, blankets and cord -- the remains of a makeshift backpack of the type often used by drug traffickers walking marijuana loads up from Mexico.
"It would make me hesitant to come out here on my own, knowing that this kind of activity is going on ... It is a concern, and we need to be mindful," said Christensen, a retiree and hiking enthusiast.
Clean-up organizers liaise with Border Patrol and local police on security, in addition to warning volunteers of potential danger from snakes, scorpions or even bees that can swarm in discarded vehicle tires, and of potential hazards including medical waste and human excrement.
Equipped with gloves, volunteers such as Burkett, the Scottsdale lawyer, were glad to take part on Saturday.
"As an avid outdoors person in Arizona, I spend a lot of time using the desert," he said. "It's important to me personally to take the time to give back."
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
SUNNYVALE, CA, Jan 09, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) ?Fortinet(R) /quotes/zigman/115092/quotes/nls/ftnt FTNT -0.35% ? a leading network security providerand the worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions? today announced that Siemens Enterprise Communications, a premierglobal provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, has deployedmultiple FortiGate-1240B network security appliances to help secureits OpenScape Cloud Services. Fortinet?s devices are uniquely meetingthe provider?s stringent requirements in terms of performance,functionality and reliability.
As a provider of voice and communications solutions, SiemensEnterprise Communications offers easy-to-implement, reliable andsecure Unified Communications (UC) solutions to customers of allsizes around the world. When Siemens Enterprise Communicationslaunched its OpenScape Cloud Services to extend its voice and UCservices to customers using a public cloud, the company looked atsetting up secure and reliable IT and communications infrastructuresas well as high-availability data centers in Germany and in the US.
The requirements for Siemens Enterprise Communications? OpenScapeCloud Services were high in terms of security and reliability, aswell as performance and scalability. In parallel, the securitysolution needed to provide rich functionality to supportvoice-over-IP (VoIP), UC and application data.
Thanks to a long track record in successfully securing the dataenvironment of Siemens Enterprise Communications? enterprisecustomers, Fortinet?s FortiGate network appliances were part of themarket solutions subject to the provider?s nine-month evaluation andwere ultimately selected to secure its communications cloud services.
?The decisive factor was Fortinet?s outstanding success in thepreceding tests,? said Andreas Seum, Vice President ConvergedNetworks & Security at Siemens Enterprise Communications. ?Also,Fortinet?s expertise in the provider and carrier sector, in additionto the personal support contributed to our decision. At last, on atechnical level, the FortiGate appliance proved to uniquely functionin compliance with the SIP standard and support all the voice and UCapplication functionalities without impairing the performance orreliability of our communications solutions.?
In Germany and in the US, Siemens Enterprise Communications deployedmultiple clusters of FortiGate-1240B network security appliances forhigh availability, ensuring the reliable protection and controlledaccessibility of its data centers. The FortiGate clusters act ascentral firewalls for the OpenScape Cloud Services and primarilyprovide firewall, VPN, IPS, and SIP VoIP security.
The FortiGate appliances? high performance allows Siemens EnterpriseCommunications to meet all operations requirements, including highloads during peak periods and possible disruptions, withoutnoticeable constraints. With a very low latency, Fortinet?sappliances are ideal for the provider?s new voice services, since nodelay is incurred during voice traffic.
?Siemens Enterprise Communications is a long-standing customer ofours, and we are very pleased to now secure their latest cloudcomputing service,? said Patrice Perche, senior vice president ofInternational Sales & Support at Fortinet. ?Our technology integrateskey high-performance functionalities, such as VoIP security andvirtualization, which uniquely help carriers and service providerssecure cloud infrastructures and deliver cloud security services.?
About Fortinet ( fortinet.com ) Fortinet /quotes/zigman/115092/quotes/nls/ftnt FTNT -0.35% is aworldwide provider of network security appliances and the marketleader in unified threat management (UTM). Our products andsubscription services provide broad, integrated and high-performanceprotection against dynamic security threats while simplifying the ITsecurity infrastructure. Our customers include enterprises, serviceproviders and government entities worldwide, including the majorityof the 2010 Fortune Global 100. Fortinet?s flagship FortiGate productdelivers ASIC-accelerated performance and integrates multiple layersof security designed to help protect against application and networkthreats. Fortinet?s broad product line goes beyond UTM to help securethe extended enterprise ? from endpoints, to the perimeter and thecore, including databases and applications. Fortinet is headquarteredin Sunnyvale, Calif., with offices around the world.
Copyright Copyright 2012 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. Thesymbols (R) and (TM) denote respectively federally registeredtrademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., itssubsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet?s trademarks include, but arenot limited to, the following: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard,FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer,FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP,FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiCarrier, FortiScan, FortiAP,FortiDB and FortiWeb. Other trademarks belong to their respectiveowners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements orcertifications herein attributed to third parties, and Fortinet doesnot independently endorse such statements. Nothing in the newsrelease constitutes a warranty, guaranty, or contractually bindingcommitment. This news release may contain forward-looking statementsthat involve uncertainties and assumptions. If the uncertaintiesmaterialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, results may differmaterially from those expressed or implied by such forward-lookingstatements and assumptions. All statements other than statements ofhistorical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-lookingstatements. Fortinet assumes no obligation to update anyforward-looking statements, and does not intend to update theseforward-looking statements.
Media Contacts: Rick Popko Fortinet, Inc. 408-486-7853 mailto:
Copyright 2012 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.
ST. LOUIS ? Veterans who attended the nation's first major Iraq War parade Saturday in St. Louis said they appreciated the welcome home, even though some expected to be redeployed to Afghanistan or elsewhere in the coming months. Here are a few of their stories:
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Army Maj. Rich Radford had two long tours of duty in Iraq under almost constant threat of violence.
Radford, a combat engineer, spent 15 months on his first tour starting in January 2004, then about 10 months when he went back in September 2009. He earned the Bronze Star for his service.
"Every day we were in danger," Radford, 40, said, "because the Iraqis didn't like us, didn't want us in their country. They would sell out our positions, our missions."
Radford, a 23-year military veteran, marched in the parade with his two children, Aimee, 8, and Warren, 12. An image of the father and daughter upon his return home from the second tour of duty is emblazoned on T-shirts and posters associated with the parade, fashioned from a photo taken by Radford's sister of Aimee, then 6, reaching up for her father's hand as family greeting him at Lambert Airport in St. Louis.
"She grabbed my hand and said, `I missed you, Daddy,'" Radford recalled. "That's been my Facebook page picture ever since."
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Air Force veteran Kevin Jackson got a nice welcome-home with Saturday's parade, something his father never got for his service.
Don Jackson, 63, served in Vietnam. America still stings from the treatment of Vietnam veterans. There was no parade, no rally, when that conflict ended in the mid-1970s. Not that Don Jackson is complaining.
"I didn't need a parade. I was just glad to be home. This is for them," he said, nodding to his son and other young veterans.
Kevin Jackson, 33, is glad to be home, too. He has lost track of how many times he was sent overseas ? three or four tours of duty in Iraq, four or five in Afghanistan.
In Iraq, Jackson's job was to teach Iraqis how to fly three C-130s planes that the U.S. donated to the Iraqi Air Force.
It wasn't easy. First, they had to teach them English. And turnover was constant.
"They'd be there for a couple of weeks then go home on break and not come back," Jackson said. "The bad guys would find out they were working with the Americans and threaten their families. So they wouldn't come back."
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Gayla Gibson didn't know much about improvised explosive devices before the Air Force sent her to Iraq in July 2003. She spent the next four months as part of the first line of help for soldiers wounded by IED attacks.
"We saw some horrible things," she said. "Amputations. Broken bones. Severe burns from IEDs. It was pretty much every day."
Gibson and other medical technicians helped mend the wounded best they could before they were moved to hospitals in Germany.
"We'd talk to them, try to comfort them," she said. "Mostly we wanted to stabilize them."
Gibson, 38, was thrilled that her hometown of St. Louis was the site of the first big parade to welcome home those who gave much for their country.
"I think it's great when people come out to support those who gave their lives and put their lives on the line for this country," Gibson said.
Thanks to the baby boomers, the middle-aged now make up the biggest, richest, and most influential segment of the country. New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen?s new book In Our Prime: The Invention of Middle Age is a social history of the concept of middle age, which explores the way its biological, psychological, and social definitions have shifted from one generation to the next. The discussion lasts around 27 minutes.
MELBOURNE, Australia ? Rafael Nadal outlasted Roger Federer 6-7 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (5), 6-4 in an Australian Open semifinal on Thursday night, the longtime rivals playing with the intensity normally displayed when meeting in a Grand Slam final.
The stars who met in eight Grand Slam finals were on the same side of the draw for the first time at a major since 2005.
Two weeks ago, Nadal injured his right knee and wasn't sure he'd be able to start the tournament. Now, he can barely believe he's in the final.
"If you tell me that two Sundays ago, I really cannot imagine," Nadal said. "For me, it's a dream to be back in a final of the Australian Open."
Nadal will have the opportunity to win another championship on Sunday night when the Spanish left-hander plays the winner of the semifinal Friday between defending champion Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
Earlier Thursday, Maria Sharapova overcame Petra Kvitova to advance to the women's final against Victoria Azarenka. Sharapova broke Kvitova's serve in the last game to finish off a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 victory and the third-seeded Azarenka beat defending champion Kim Clijsters 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 to set up a Saturday night final at Rod Laver Arena that will decide the No. 1 ranking.
Nadal, who holds a 6-2 edge in Grand Slam finals against Federer, made the key service break in the ninth game of the fourth set, making an incredible cross-court forehand winner from well behind the baseline, then watching as Federer hit a backhand wide to give Nadal a 5-4 lead.
Serving for the match, Nadal moved two points away from the win when Federer sent a backhand long. He won on his second match point when Federer floated a forehand long.
At the end, Nadal smashed a ball up high in the stadium, almost clearing the roof. He then applauded along with the crowd when Federer walked off.
The 25-year-old Spaniard won the 2009 Australian title but lost in the quarterfinals in his next two trips to Melbourne Park. Federer hasn't added to his record 16 Grand Slam titles since he won the 2010 Australian Open.
"I thought Rafa played well from start to finish," Federer said. "It was a tough match physically as well. I'm disappointed, but it's only the beginning of the season. I'm feeling all right, so it's OK."
When the often enthralling play was suspended for 10 minutes late in the second set for an Australian Day fireworks display, Federer seemed to be affected most. Nadal led 5-2 at the time, and Federer lost his serve in the next game to give the Spaniard the set. In all, the Swiss dropped 11 points in a row.
"It's tough, it's not helpful, that's for sure," Federer said of the break for the fireworks. "They told us before, so it was no surprise. But I knew it was a lot of points in a row that I lost."
The capacity, 15,000-strong crowd was evenly split in its support, with the names seeming to blur after the R in rival chants.
Each time somebody called out for Rafa, it was met by a response for Roger. The cheers were just as loud for Nadal's scrambling, sometimes astonishing, passing shots as for Federer's deft winners.
With the players on serve in the second set, Nadal went so far wide on a Federer return that he was near the side wall of the arena. Incredibly, he stretched wide and returned the ball crosscourt for a winner. That set up three break points and Nadal clinched the game to take a 4-2 lead in the second set.
Federer saved a set point in the 11th game of the third set that eventually forced a tiebreaker. But Federer made three unforced errors in the tiebreaker to give Nadal a 6-1 lead, and the Spaniard eventually clinched the set on his last opportunity of five set points.
"Please win the point, that's all," Nadal recalled when asked what he was telling himself at 6-5 in the tiebreaker. "I was very, very nervous at that moment. Losing four set points in a row is tough, especially when you play the toughest in history."
Both players were asked if they bring out the best in each other.
"I don't know if it's true ... it's my assumption," Federer said. "I feel he plays really good against me. He's also got a winning record against me which maybe gives him extra confidence. I think he has a clear plan and he follows that one very well."
Nadal said that's not the case.
"I don't play my best tennis because it's Roger in front, I play my best tennis because I am ready to play my best tennis," Nadal said. "It's true I played a lot of good matches against him during my career ... but I believe that he played a few fantastic matches against me, too."
Clijsters was in the crowd, only hours after her title defense ended. And Ivan Lendl was at Rod Laver Arena for a second night, scouting opponents again as Murray's coach. So were former Australian greats Laver, Ken Rosewall and Pat Rafter.
Sharapova lost to second-ranked Kvitova in the Wimbledon final last year, her first major final since returning from an injury layoff following a shoulder operation in 2008. She has won three majors, but none since the 2008 Australian Open.
"In the third set, I felt she always had the advantage because I was always down on my serve," said Sharapova, who served five double-faults in the third set and 10 in the match. "I just told myself 'You just gotta go for it, don't let her finish off the points like she likes to.'"
Azarenka won the first semifinal after twice recovering from periods when a resurgent Clijsters seemed to have the upper hand, to secure victory in only her second appearance in a major semifinal.
"I felt like my hand is about 200 kilograms and my body is about 1,000 and everything is shaking, but that feeling when you finally win is such a relief. My God, I cannot believe it's over. I just want to cry," Azarenka said as she choked back tears, then buried her face in a towel.
Clijsters is popular in Australia, where she's widely known as "Aussie Kim" after dating Lleyton Hewitt years ago. She had most of the backing from the crowd on the national holiday in what is likely to be her last Australian Open.
Azarenka held her nerve despite the crowd and playing against a proven big-match player. Clijsters has won four majors and has defended a Grand Slam title ? winning the U.S. Open in 2009 and '10. To reach the semifinals, the Belgian saved four match points despite a sprained ankle to beat French Open champion Li Na in the fourth round and beat top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki in the quarterfinals.
"I guess before you all thought I was a mental case," Azarenka said in a courtside interview. "I was just young and emotional. I'm really glad the way I fight, that's the most thing I'm really proud of. I fight for every ball."
Wozniacki will vacate top spot in next week's rankings after her quarterfinal loss, leaving either No. 3 Azarenka and No. 4 Sharapova a chance to move to the top.
"A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority (who vote) will vote for those candidates promising the greatest benefits from the public purse, with the result that a democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship." Lord Thomas MacCauley 1857
Iridescence ? a lustrous rainbow-like play of color caused by differential refraction of light waves ? has just been detected in the fur of golden moles.
Aside from the ?eye shine? of nocturnal mammals, seen when a headlight or flashlight strikes their eyes, the discovery marks the first known instance of iridescence in a mammal. The findings, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, reveal yet another surprise: The golden moles are completely blind, so they cannot even see their gorgeous fur.
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?It is densely packed and silky, and has an almost metallic, shiny appearance with subtle hints of colors ranging between species from blue to green,? co-author Matthew Shawkey told Discovery News.
Shawkey, an associate professor in the Integrated Bioscience Program at the University of Akron, was first inspired to study golden moles after an undergraduate student of his, Holly Snyder, wrote her honors thesis about iridescence. Snyder is lead author of the paper.
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For the study, the scientists pulled hairs from specimens of four golden mole species. Using high-tech equipment, such as scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, the researchers analyzed the structure of the hairs, down to their smallest elements.
The researchers determined that the hairs are indeed luminescent. They further discovered that each hair has a flattened shape with reduced cuticular scales that provide a broad and smooth surface for light reflection. The scales form multiple layers of light and dark materials of consistent thickness, very similar to those seen in iridescent beetles.
Optical modeling suggests that the multiple layers act as reflectors that produce color through interference with light. The sensitivity of this mechanism to slight changes in layer thickness and number explains color variability.
What remains a mystery is why blind animals would have such eye-catching fur.
Ancestors of the moles were sighted, so it?s possible that the iridescence is a carryover from those times. ?However, the moles have diverged considerably from these ancestors so there had to be some selection pressure other than communication to keep their color intact,? Shawkey said.
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Another possibility is that the fur somehow wards off the mole?s sighted predators. But Shawkey said shiny fur ?would seem to make them more conspicuous,? doing just the opposite. The moles are not poisonous, so the coloration does not serve as a warning to other animals.
The researchers instead think that iridescence may be a byproduct of the fur?s composition, since the structure also streamlines the mole?s profile and creates less turbulence underground, permitting the animals to move more easily through dirt and sand.
?Many of the nanostructures producing iridescent colors have non-optical properties like enhanced rigidity (think mother of pearl) or enhanced water repellency (such as seen in Morpho butterflies),? Shawkey explained. ?In the former case, the color, like in the moles, clearly has no communication function and is a byproduct.?
PHOTOS: Top 40 nature photos of all time
Iridescence has been around for at least 50 million years, since beetles from that time with the unique coloration have been unearthed. An ancient, iridescent bird feather dating to 40 million years ago has also been documented, as have early shells. Now peacocks, hummingbirds, sunbeam snakes, birds of paradise, the rainbow skink, and many fish flash their iridescence.
Daniel Osorio, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex, has studied iridescence in birds.
Surprisingly, one of the most beautiful examples may belong to the common feral pigeon. The pigeon?s neck feathers shift from green to magenta, but often look drab gray to human eyes. Osorio told Discovery News, ?In fact, this gray may be a remarkable and very unusual color to birds that can probably see more colors than us.?
In the future, Shawkey and his team hope to study the phenomenon more, to better understand the function of iridescence in the moles and other species.
Image of Cape golden mole: Copyright H.G. Robertson, Iziko Museums, www.BiodiversityExplorer.org. Used with permission.
SAN FRANCISCO?? Netflix said on Wednesday that it expects Amazon.com to brand its video streaming offering as standalone service.
Netflix also said it expects Amazon's standalone service to be priced below its own service.
Netflix made the prediction in a letter to shareholders that was posted on its website Wednesday.
The company warned in the letter that it will face increased competition from Amazon, Hulu and other businesses as viewing solutions for TV shows and movies proliferate and improve.
"One class of competitors is the other over-the-top pure plays such as Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime," Netflix said in the letter. "We expect Amazon to continue to offer their video service as a free extra with Prime domestically but also to brand their video subscription offering as a standalone service at a price less than ours."
Amazon Prime is a $79-a-year service that provides two-day free shipping in the U.S. and free access to thousands of TV shows and movies streamed over the Web and via devices like the popular Roku TV box.
A spokesman at Netflix declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman at Amazon.
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
In a privacy policy shift, Google announced today that it will begin tracking users universally across all its services—Gmail, Search, YouTube and more—and sharing data on user activity across all of them. So much for the Google we signed up for. More »
LONDON (Reuters) ? France and Germany will call on Monday for a relaxation of global bank capital rules to prevent lending to the real economy being choked off, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble and his French counterpart Francois Baroin will urge special treatment for banks that own insurance companies, according to a joint paper seen by the newspaper.
The pair will also urge important elements of the Basel III guidelines on capital requirements to be watered down to mitigate any "negative effect" on growth, according to the article.
The FT said the paper calls for a three-year delay to the mandatory deadline to disclose leverage ratios, a measure of bank borrowing and risk.
"European institutions should agree on achieving the EU financial market regulation agenda while taking due consideration of its impact on the financing of the real economy," the draft proposal states.
The FT said the German-Franco move is likely to infuriate policymakers in London, who have been fighting hard to stop French-led attempt to dilaute the Basel III accord.
Banks across the world will have to follow Basel III accords for disclosing the size and quality of their capital safety buffers from 2013 to help reassure investors they are stable.
(Reporting by Stephen Mangan; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Scientific plagiarism: A growing problem in an era of shrinking research fundingPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Aleta Todd Delaplane aleta9@vbi.vt.edu 540-231-6966 Virginia Tech
As scientific researchers become evermore competitive for scarce funding, scientific journals are increasing efforts to identify submissions that plagiarize the work of others. Still, it may take years to identify and retract the plagiarized papers and give credit to the actual researchers.
"We need a better system," said Harold Garner, executive director of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech. Garner discussed the problem and solution in a Comment in the January 4, 2012 issue of Nature and in a January 19, 2012 radio interview with NPR's Leonard Lopate.
Garner, creator of eTBLAST plagiarism detection software, identified numerous instances of wholesale plagiarism among citations in MEDLINE. "When my colleagues and I introduced an automated process to spot similar citations in MEDLINE, we uncovered more than 150 suspected cases of plagiarism in March, 2009.
"Subsequent ethics investigations resulted in 56 retractions within a few months. However, as of November 2011, 12 (20 percent) of those "retracted" papers are still not so tagged in PubMed. Another two were labeled with errata that point to a website warning the papers are "duplicate" -- but more than 95 percent of the text was identical, with no similar co-authors."
But even when plagiarism is uncovered, it does not guarantee that the plagiarized articles will be retracted. In Garner's study, as noted in his Nature commentary, "Three of the 56 retracted papers are cited in books, including one citation after the retraction. Another eight were cited in other PubMed Central archived articles before retraction, and seven were cited after retraction."
Some researchers say plagiarism has become a pandemic in many large institutions and schools, and that there is an entire industry built on the business of copying the work of others for the purpose of developing theses content and technical papers.
Quelling the proliferation of scientific plagiarism by identifying and retracting plagiarized articles is not the only issue. Publication editors and researchers must agree on the definition of plagiarism as noted in Nature.
Said Garner, "Ultimately, plagiarism comes down to human judgment, similar to other questionable practices -- you know it when you see it."
###
The Comment in Nature appears here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7379/full/481021a.html#/harold-garner-flag-plagiarized-studies
Watch Garner here: http://youtu.be/cuAjUqNF-R8
Garner also was featured in an interview with NPR's Leonard Lopate of WNYC, January 19, 2012. Lopate investigated with Garner the prevalence and problems presented by plagiarism of scientific and medical literature, and discussed ways that new detection software can help to identify plagiarized materials and encourage publication editors to retract these articles.
Listen to the interview: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/jan/
About the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute
The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech is a premier bioinformatics, computational biology, and systems biology research facility that uses transdisciplinary approaches to science, combining information technology, biology, and medicine. These approaches are used to interpret and apply vast amounts of biological data generated from basic research to some of today's key challenges in the biomedical, environmental, and agricultural sciences.
With more than 320 highly trained multidisciplinary, international personnel, research at the institute involves collaboration in diverse disciplines such as mathematics, computer science, biology, plant pathology, biochemistry, systems biology, statistics, economics, synthetic biology, and medicine. The large amounts of data generated by this approach are analyzed and interpreted to create new knowledge that is disseminated to the world's scientific, governmental, and wider communities.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Scientific plagiarism: A growing problem in an era of shrinking research fundingPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Aleta Todd Delaplane aleta9@vbi.vt.edu 540-231-6966 Virginia Tech
As scientific researchers become evermore competitive for scarce funding, scientific journals are increasing efforts to identify submissions that plagiarize the work of others. Still, it may take years to identify and retract the plagiarized papers and give credit to the actual researchers.
"We need a better system," said Harold Garner, executive director of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech. Garner discussed the problem and solution in a Comment in the January 4, 2012 issue of Nature and in a January 19, 2012 radio interview with NPR's Leonard Lopate.
Garner, creator of eTBLAST plagiarism detection software, identified numerous instances of wholesale plagiarism among citations in MEDLINE. "When my colleagues and I introduced an automated process to spot similar citations in MEDLINE, we uncovered more than 150 suspected cases of plagiarism in March, 2009.
"Subsequent ethics investigations resulted in 56 retractions within a few months. However, as of November 2011, 12 (20 percent) of those "retracted" papers are still not so tagged in PubMed. Another two were labeled with errata that point to a website warning the papers are "duplicate" -- but more than 95 percent of the text was identical, with no similar co-authors."
But even when plagiarism is uncovered, it does not guarantee that the plagiarized articles will be retracted. In Garner's study, as noted in his Nature commentary, "Three of the 56 retracted papers are cited in books, including one citation after the retraction. Another eight were cited in other PubMed Central archived articles before retraction, and seven were cited after retraction."
Some researchers say plagiarism has become a pandemic in many large institutions and schools, and that there is an entire industry built on the business of copying the work of others for the purpose of developing theses content and technical papers.
Quelling the proliferation of scientific plagiarism by identifying and retracting plagiarized articles is not the only issue. Publication editors and researchers must agree on the definition of plagiarism as noted in Nature.
Said Garner, "Ultimately, plagiarism comes down to human judgment, similar to other questionable practices -- you know it when you see it."
###
The Comment in Nature appears here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7379/full/481021a.html#/harold-garner-flag-plagiarized-studies
Watch Garner here: http://youtu.be/cuAjUqNF-R8
Garner also was featured in an interview with NPR's Leonard Lopate of WNYC, January 19, 2012. Lopate investigated with Garner the prevalence and problems presented by plagiarism of scientific and medical literature, and discussed ways that new detection software can help to identify plagiarized materials and encourage publication editors to retract these articles.
Listen to the interview: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/jan/
About the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute
The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech is a premier bioinformatics, computational biology, and systems biology research facility that uses transdisciplinary approaches to science, combining information technology, biology, and medicine. These approaches are used to interpret and apply vast amounts of biological data generated from basic research to some of today's key challenges in the biomedical, environmental, and agricultural sciences.
With more than 320 highly trained multidisciplinary, international personnel, research at the institute involves collaboration in diverse disciplines such as mathematics, computer science, biology, plant pathology, biochemistry, systems biology, statistics, economics, synthetic biology, and medicine. The large amounts of data generated by this approach are analyzed and interpreted to create new knowledge that is disseminated to the world's scientific, governmental, and wider communities.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A: This would be a good question to put to the candidates in the Republican debate tonight! If this guy were just a co-worker, this would be none of your business. But as you?re about to put your financial future into each other's hands, any concerns you have about his character are legitimate. Do keep in mind that whatever happens, your co-worker won't cheat on you in quite the same way as he cheated on his wife. I've never been aware of any evidence that Richard Nixon cheated on Pat, yet if you considered marital fidelity as the primary indicator of integrity, you'd have been badly misled about him. The number of sexually profligate politicians is too numerous to mention, yet some have been honest and effective leaders. Marriages end for many reasons, and his intimate life is not your business. But you should have a broad sense of this guy's character. Since your future will be so intimately tied up in his, I think it's fair to sit down and tell him that you're not prying into the reasons for his divorce, but infidelity does raise concerns about personal honesty for you. Then see what he says. If he's hostile and defensive, if he bad-mouths his wife, then weigh what you hear. If he responds that he doesn't want to discuss his personal life, but he understands your concerns and wants to assure you this private matter is separate from his professional life, you'll have a different sense. And if he tells you what you've said is the most despicable question imaginable, don't give him a standing ovation.
HAVANA (Reuters) ? The opposition group "Ladies in White" accused the Cuban government on Sunday of "murdering" by neglect a 31-year-old dissident who died last week following a hunger strike in prison.
Ladies in White leader Berta Soler said Wilman Villar Mendoza died because the government did not respect his rights and that he was only the latest such victim to die for the same reason.
"Today is a day that the people of Cuba, like Ladies in White and the internal opposition, are in mourning. We are in mourning because we have lost a young man who gave his life for the freedom of the Cuban people," said Soler, speaking in a tree-shaded Havana park after the group's weekly silent march demanding the release of political prisoners.
"He was a dignified man, a man who really should not have
died, but ... the government killed him. It's one more murder in the Cuban government's account," she said to about 40 other white-clad women.
The Ladies in White are Cuba's leading dissident group and have been marching every Sunday in Havana since a 2003 government crackdown on political opponents.
"Why do we say murdered? This young man was only asking that they review his case, which the government did not listen to," she said.
Villar died on Thursday in a hospital in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba after contracting pneumonia during a hunger strike in prison, dissidents said.
He launched his hunger strike shortly after he was arrested in November, put on trial and sentenced to four years in prison for crimes including disobedience, resistance and crimes against the state.
He was put in solitary confinement under difficult conditions which, combined with his lack of nourishment caused the health problems that led to his death, human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said.
Government opponents said Villar had joined an opposition group called the Cuban Patriotic Union last summer and been an active dissident ever since.
But the Cuban government said Villar was not a dissident and
had received the best medical care possible in an attempt to
save his life.
It said his legal problems arose not from political activities, but from a violent family dispute.
Soler equated Villar's death to that of another imprisoned dissident, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died in February 2010 after an 85-day hunger strike.
"They let him die, the same as Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Orlando Zapata was another victim of the government, which let him die only because they didn't respect his rights," she said.
Cuba drew international condemnation for Zapata's death and has been criticized for Villar's demise by several countries including the United States.
"Villar's senseless death highlights the ongoing repression of the Cuban people and the plight faced by brave individuals standing up for the universal rights of all Cubans," a White House spokesman said on Friday.
Cuba issued a sharply worded response saying, "It is the United States government that practices torture and extra-judicial executions in the countries that it attacks and
that which uses police brutality against its own people."
COMMENTARY | The Obama administration has rejected the permit application for the 1,700-mile, $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would connect Canadian tar sands to oil refineries in Texas.
According to ABC News, Barack Obama blamed the rejection on the "rushed and arbitrary" deadline that was set by Congress. According to that deadline -- written into the legislation that extended the payroll tax cut in December -- Obama had 60 days to either approve the pipeline project or inform the public as to why it was not in the nation's best interest to do so.
I don't agree that Obama can blame this on Congress. I think this is entirely his deal and it's one that is going to come back to haunt him when the November election comes around. In a country that sorely needs jobs, this is no time to be patently rejecting the opportunity for thousands of jobs that this pipeline could provide. No one is asking to build it willy-nilly, Mr. Obama. No one is asking that we just forget any sort of environmental regulations and slap the thing down without care.
Interestingly, on the same day as the administration rejected the Keystone Pipeline, a press release was offered by the White House stating that energy independence has been a clear priority of the Obama Administration since day one. How so?
The press release cites significant progress being made to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources, to develop new industry incentives and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil overall. There's even a boast of the first oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since the oil spill. It seems I remember this administration going to great legal lengths to keep production from going on in the gulf with a moratorium. Seems I remember lawsuits, as well, over oil and gas leases, where the lease was accepted but work was prevented from being done via a tangle of environmental demands and bureaucratic red tape. Those things happened on Obama's watch and the jobs that were lost from them also happened on his watch. So, too, will the jobs lost from his Keystone decision.
LONDON (AP) ? A European agency is investigating a multiple sclerosis drug made by industry giant Novartis to determine whether the medicine played any role in the deaths at least 11 patients.
The drug, Gilenya, was licensed last year in the European Union to treat a severe type of multiple sclerosis. It can cause a slow heart rate when first taken and doctors closely monitor patients after the first dose.
The European Medicines Agency, which is now investigating the drug, said it isn't clear if it caused the deaths. One of the fatalities occurred in the United States, where a patient died within 24 hours of taking the first dose.
The European agency said it didn't know where the other 10 deaths occurred, but that they were reported to its drug database, which monitors side effects from medicines in the European Union.
Novartis said not all the deaths were heart related.
A spokeswoman at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it also is conducting a data analysis but has not made any definitive conclusions and does not know when its review will be complete.
More than 30,000 patients have taken Gilenya worldwide.
The European Medicines Agency advised doctors to increase their monitoring of patients after the first dose of the medicine. The agency said the risk of a slow heart rate after the first dose of Gilenya was known when it was approved.
Novartis AG said it was advising doctors of new recommendations on using Gilenya. They had previously said all patients should be monitored for six hours after their first dose, but are now tightening that to include continuous heart monitoring using electrocardiograms and measuring blood pressure and heart rate every hour. In certain patients, that monitoring should be extended, the drug maker said in a statement.
This new guidance applies only to patients taking their first dose, Novartis said in a statement.
The EU drug regulator hopes to finish its review of the drug by March.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? While silent movie "The Artist" gathers steam ahead of the Oscars, the only other non-talking picture to win an Academy Award is getting a makeover as Hollywood falls back in love with the early days of cinema.
"Wings," a World War I aerial dogfight epic made in 1927, won the first ever Oscar for best picture. Paramount Pictures, which is celebrating its centenary, has restored the classic silent action film and will present it with live organ accompaniment at the headquarters of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Wednesday, ahead of a Blu-ray release on January 24th.
William Wellman, a veteran World War I fighter pilot, directed "Wings," giving 1927 audiences a view of the world most had never seen. With cameras affixed to the flimsy bi-planes, a crew of flyers created dogfights featuring death-defying aerial stunts that continue to amaze viewers today.
"The thing about 'Wings' that's so exciting is that it was the 'Avatar' and the 'Star Wars' of its day. It was a state of the art action film," said Academy archivist Randy Haberkamp.
Set in Hollywood during the advent of sound, "The Artist" is not the only new movie focusing on early cinema. Martin Scorsese's 3D family film "Hugo" centers on French film pioneer Georges Melies, and in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" Owen Wilson plays a modern screenwriter time traveling back to the 1920s.
"I think the zeitgeist is the realization that silent films are not a dead art form because true cinema is a very visceral and visually-generated thing," Haberkamp said.
In "Wings," Richard Arlen played David Armstrong, a small-town kid with a taste for speed. Immune to the affection of Mary (Clara Bow), the girl next door, he is smitten by city girl Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston). His rival in romance is Jack Powell (Charles Rogers), heir to a fortune.
Volunteering for service, the two men become fast friends through their wartime experience. Early on, they meet Gary Cooper playing a doomed pilot in one of his first screen appearances, a role that catapulted him to stardom.
WAY OVER BUDGET
Budgeted at what was then a record-setting $2 million dollars, "Wings" wound up costing way over that amount while Wellman spent idle days waiting for clouds, which he claimed were needed to offset the planes against the background.
Due to his bickering with studio brass, Wellman was not invited to the 1929 Oscar ceremony even though the movie was a hit. Powered by public enthusiasm for Charles Lindbergh's daring crossing of the Atlantic, "Wings" went on to become one of the top-grossing films of the decade.
Silent, black-and-white movie "The Artist", directed by Frenchman Michel Hazanavicius, is unlikely to become a major box office blockbuster despite having won more than 40 awards, including three Golden Globes last Sunday.
But it is considered a front-runner for the best film Oscar in February, and it may represent a reexamination of cinema's early roots in an era of dwindling movie goers.
"Through festivals and the availability of different kinds of materials on streaming and DVD release, I think people are experimenting with different types of films," said Paramount archive vice-president Andrea Kalas.
"People listen to the Beatles and the latest thing, and maybe something similar is happening with film too, where we're appreciating all sorts of different movies from different eras," Kalas said.
Oddly, early film technique has become more relevant in the modern era where a proliferation of digital effects has resulted in spectacle-driven box office. Consequently, action scenes are becoming longer and dialogue scenes shorter.
"Most of the movies that we go to see now are based on action sequences," said Haberkamp. "If you don't know how to cut an action sequence, if you don't know how to stage an action sequence, you don't know too much. Frankly, that's where the silent era really was phenomenal."
With all the technical advancements through the years, not a lot has changed, according to Haberkamp. What continues to make cinema past and present a unique art form is the transposition of images and the ability to manipulate time and space.
"In the end, I don't care whether it's silent or sound I just care whether it's compelling and well made," he said. "I think that's why there are so many people looking at silents going, 'Wait a minute, there's something going on here that is more than just a dated technology.'"
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