World lacks enough food, fuel as population soars: U.N. (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday.

As the world's population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially.

Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water, according to U.N. estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply.

And if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks condemning up to 3 billion people into poverty, the report said.

Efforts towards sustainable development are neither fast enough nor deep enough, as well as suffering from a lack of political will, the United Nations' high-level panel on global sustainability said.

"The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required," the report said.

"Tinkering on the margins will not do the job. The current global economic crisis ... offers an opportunity for significant reforms."

Although the number of people living in absolute poverty has been reduced to 27 percent of world population from 46 percent in 1990 and the global economy has grown 75 percent since 1992, improved lifestyles and changing consumer habits have put natural resources under increasing strain.

There are 20 million more undernourished people now than in 2000; 5.2 million hectares of forest are lost per year - an area the size of Costa Rica; 85 percent of all fish stocks are over-exploited or depleted; and carbon dioxide emissions have risen 38 percent between 1990 and 2009, which heightens the risk of sea level rise and more extreme weather.

The panel, which made 56 recommendations for sustainable development to be included in economic policy as quickly as possible, said a "new political economy" was needed.

"Let's use the upcoming Rio+20 summit to kick off this global transition towards a sustainable growth model for the 21st century that the world so badly needs," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in response to the report, referring to a U.N. sustainable development summit this June in Brazil.

ACTION

Among the panel's recommendations, it urged governments to agree on a set of sustainable development goals which would complement the eight Millennium Development Goals to 2015 and create a framework for action after 2015.

They should work with international organizations to create an "evergreen revolution," which would at least double productivity while reducing resource use and avoiding further biodiversity losses, the report said.

Water and marine ecosystems should be managed more efficiently and there should be universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.

To make the economy more sustainable, carbon and natural resource pricing should be established through taxation, regulation or emissions trading schemes by 2020 and fossil fuel subsidies should also be phased out by that time.

National fiscal and credit systems should be reformed to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices as well as disincentives for unsustainable ones.

Sovereign wealth and public pension funds, as well as development banks and export credit agencies should apply sustainable development criteria to their investment decisions, and governments or stock market watchdogs should revise regulations to encourage their use.

Governments and scientists should also strengthen the relationship between policy and science by regularly examining the science behind environmental thresholds or "tipping points" and the United Nations should consider naming a chief scientific adviser or board to advise the organization, the report said.

The report is available at http://www.un.org/gsp/

(Reporting by Nina Chestney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/wl_nm/us_un_development

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Consumers using smart phones while shopping

By Eve Tahmincioglu

Santa was no match for tech-savvy shoppers during the holiday season.?

When it came to finding the best products and the best prices, more than half of consumers came armed with their cell phones to help them make purchasing decisions. And just as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers feared, many of those shoppers decided not to buy merchandise from stores they visited thanks to information they got via mobile phone comparison shopping.?

Those findings come from a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center?s Internet & American Life Project, which found:?

• 38 percent of cell owners used their phone to?call a friend?while they were in a store for advice about a?purchase they were considering making.
• 24 percent of cell owners used their phone to?look up reviews of a product online?while they were in a store.
• 25 percent of adult cell owners used their phones to?look up the price of a product online while they were in a store, to see if they could get a better price somewhere else.?

?Consumers are feeling like they have a leg up on retailers,? said Esther Swilley, assistant professor of?marketing at Kansas State University, about the increasing use of mobile devices to bargain hunt. ?They can get price quotes quickly, and they now realize, ?I can do better than what you?ve got here.? ??

Not surprisingly, the under-50 crowd was more likely to use mobile devices for online product reviews, and urban and suburban cell phone owners were about twice as likely as rural users to have recently used their phones for product analysis.?

Minority mobile users were more apt to look up online reviews than white cell phone owners; and college-educated shoppers were more likely to dial for deals?than those who did not attend college.?

Retailers who are worried about consumers? new-found independence, she added, are going to have a hard time curbing these cell-phone price crusaders.?

Target recently moved to try and derail mobile deal seekers by asking some manufacturers?to create Target-exclusive items that would make it harder to comparison shop. The retailer, along with many other merchants who rely heavily on in-store sales, don?t much like the growing habit of ?showrooming,? an industry term for shoppers who use stores as a place to check out items and then buy products online at lower prices.?

Such fears, it turns out, are warranted, according to the Pew study.?

Researched asked respondents what actions they took after using their phones in stores to look up prices, and 37 percent said they decided not to buy the product at all.?

In addition:?

• 35 percent purchased the product at that store.?
• 19 percent purchased the product online.?
• 8 percent bought the product at another store.?

That?s just the beginning, said Eric Johnson, management professor and information technology expert at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University, who expects mobile devices will become a shopping mainstay.?

Retailers such as Target and Best Buy, he said, have been the most worried about how the technology will undermine sales because of the ?petting-zoo phenomenon,? but they?ll have to learn to embrace it given the potential upside.?

Savvy merchants are using mobile technologies to ?augment the shopping experience,? he explained, pointing to Wet Seal, the junior apparel chain, as a prime example.?

Wet Seal offers its customers an app that gives them suggestions for ensemble pieces, or accessories, when they scan codes on merchandise in the store. They can buy the products in the store, or go to a virtual shelf online and purchase the color or size they want if it?s not in stock, he said. Mobile users can upload the outfits to Facebook so friends can offer their ?likes? or ?dislikes? before shoppers buy.?

This type of mobile integration, he said, ?is where the real excitement is.??

Traditional retailers, he continued, ?can?t just employ defensive moves to make it difficult to compare, but they have to find substantial ways to connect with the shopper in the shopping experience, and do that with mobile apps.?

Related story:

Target tries to fight off online retailers?

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Do you use your smart phone to look for deals while in the store?

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Source: http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/30/10272875-more-consumers-using-smart-phones-while-shopping

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Stocks and bond yields drop on Europe worries (AP)

NEW YORK ? The wait for an expected deal between Greece and its creditors rattled financial markets around the world Monday. Yields for ultra-safe U.S. government debt hit their lowest this year, the euro dropped against the dollar, and European stocks took a fall.

But U.S. stocks dropped only slightly. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 6.74 points to close at 12,653.72, for a drop of 0.1 percent. The Dow lost as much as 131 points in morning trading then slowly recovered in the afternoon.

Borrowing costs for European countries with the heaviest debt burdens shot higher. The two-year interest rate for Portugal's government debt jumped to 21 percent after trading around 14 percent last week.

Greece and the investors who bought its government bonds were said to be close to an agreement over the weekend. A tentative deal would replace bonds held by investment funds and banks with new ones at half the face value.

The plan is aimed at cutting Greece's debt by roughly euro100 billion ($132 billion). Greece needs it to secure a crucial installment of bailout loans and make an upcoming bond payment. But a deal has been in the works for weeks and could still fall apart.

The focus on Greece has shifted attention away from what's going well in the U.S., said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank. Companies have reported stronger quarterly earnings, and hiring has picked up.

"Our collective breath has been held for so many months," he said.

At this point, a good or even a bad resolution of Greece's debt crisis could lead to a stronger U.S. stock market, Ablin said.

"If it finally happens and the world doesn't fall apart, maybe we'll have a reason to take risk again," he said. "Once you pull off the Band-Aid, it feels better."

U.S. Treasury yields sank to their lowest level this year as traders parked cash in the safest assets. The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 1.85 percent. It was trading above 2 percent last Wednesday.

The yield on the five-year Treasury note hit a record low of 0.71 percent early Monday. It finished Monday at 0.74 percent, from 0.75 percent late Friday.

An agreement between Greece and its creditors could serve as a blueprint for other European countries with heavy debt burdens. Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG, pointed to Portugal's soaring bond yields in a note to clients.

"At this rate, Portugal is going to move from the back to front burner in very, very short order," he said.

European leaders also gathered in Brussels, focusing on how to stimulate economic growth when huge government spending cuts threaten to push many countries back into recession. The latest data showed Spain's economy shrank in the last three months of 2011.

In other trading, the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3.32 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,313.01. The Nasdaq composite lost 4.6 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,811.94.

The euro dropped 0.5 percent against the dollar, to $1.3124 in late trading Monday from $1.3208 late Friday. It was worth almost $1.50 in May.

European stocks sank. French and Spanish stock markets closed down 1.6 percent. Italian stocks closed down 1.2 percent and German stocks 1 percent.

Among stocks making big moves Friday:

? The fast food chain Wendy's fell 3.8 percent. The Wendy's Co. said a key measure of earnings dropped 30 percent in the fourth quarter. Charges from selling Arby's offset the effects of a jump in sales.

? PharMerica Corp. plunged 11 percent. The Federal Trade Commission said it was suing to block rival pharmacy company Omnicare Inc. from completing its $457 million takeover of PharMerica. The agency said a merger of the country's two largest long-term care pharmacies would raise the cost of Medicare prescription plans covering drugs for nursing home residents. Stock in Omnicare Inc. fell less than 1 percent.

? Thomas & Betts Corp. soared 23 percent on news that Swiss engineering group ABB Ltd. agreed to buy the maker of power lines and other electrical products for $3.9 billion in cash.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/us_wall_street

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Economy more worrying than Mideast for Florida Jews (Reuters)

AVENTURA, Florida (Reuters) ? Newt Gingrich describes the Palestinians as an invented people and seeks covert action against Iran, while Mitt Romney accuses President Barack Obama of throwing Israel under a bus.

But the Republican presidential candidates' tough talk on the Middle East in Florida before Tuesday's primary is doing little to sway the state's large Jewish population from its longstanding support for the Democrats.

If anything, it's Republican arguments on the U.S. economy - not Israel - that might win more favor with Jewish voters here come the general election in November.

"There has been, particularly among younger voters, a small shift toward the Republican Party in general," said Terri Susan Fine, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

She said there was some concern about Israel, but the larger reason was because some Jews see the Republican Party as more friendly to business.

"Economic conservativism is what is shifting their focus toward the Republican Party," she said. "Younger Jewish voters are very secure in Israel's stability."

Rabbi David Kaye of Congregation Ohev Shalom, a conservative temple north of Orlando, said members of his congregation were more concerned with economic issues in a state hard-hit by the housing crisis and one of the nation's highest unemployment rates.

"We still see that there's a lot of folks hurting," he said.

Jewish voters are also generally more liberal on social issues than the Republican candidates.

President Barack Obama received almost eight out of every 10 votes cast by Jewish voters in 2008. That overwhelming support among Florida's 640,000-member Jewish community, half of whom are over 65, was a key component in his narrow 3 percentage point victory in the swing state.

Jewish voters historically have been concerned with social justice and older voters especially have deep ties to the Democratic Party and labor movement going back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency during the 1930s and earlier.

"It's part of our being - we are our brother's keeper," said Sydelle Sher, 79, of Delray Beach, a retired schoolteacher.

IRAN TENSIONS

But Sher, who attended a Gingrich rally last week, described herself as a fiscal conservative worried about the direction the country is going in under Obama.

"I fear the European-style socialism trend," she said, although she added that Israel policy is very important in her decision.

With tensions in the Middle East rising over Iran's nuclear ambitions, some Jewish Republicans wonder if the United States will stick by Israel.

Gloria Winton, 75, had harsh words for Obama on Israel as she headed into Mo's Bagels and Deli, near her home in Aventura, Florida. "I never thought before that Israel couldn't trust the United States. Now, I don't think that they can trust us," she said.

But she said she was leaning toward Romney, not Gingrich, because of Romney's more moderate tone. "I think (Gingrich is) very smart but I don't know if the independent voter would accept him," she said.

As they fight for their party's nomination, Romney and Gingrich have often seemed to compete over who can take the strongest pro-Israel line.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, drew 700 people to a rally on Friday sponsored by a Jewish Republican group, and both he and Romney count pro-Israel businessmen among their financial supporters.

Gingrich dismisses the Palestinians as an "invented people," and promises he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv as soon as he takes office.

Despite years of U.S.-led negotiations toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Romney insists the Palestinians are not interested in living in their own nation alongside Israel, saying they want to destroy the Jewish state.

The former Massachusetts governor says Obama "threw Israel under the bus" for suggesting negotiations start with borders as they were before the 1967 Middle East war.

Democrats insist that Obama is not hostile to Israel, and call the Republicans' campaign a misleading and desperate attempt to make headway with an overwhelmingly Democratic voter bloc.

"Our ironclad commitment - and I meant ironclad - to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history," Obama said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Jewish voters typically account for 6-8 percent of turnout in Florida elections, and a lower percentage in Republican-only contests like Tuesday's primary, but they can make a difference if the vote is close.

Ira Sheskin, who runs the University of Miami's Jewish Demography Project, said statements like Gingrich's denial of the Palestinians' national identity could alienate the many Jewish voters whose main goal is Middle East peace.

"It was really not good for Gingrich to say that," Sheskin said. "Because if he becomes president, you want him to act as an honest broker in the Middle East. You don't do that if you've told one of the sides that they are an invented people."

"You won't advance the cause of peace."

(Additional reporting by Ros Krasny in Delray Beach; Editing by Alistair Bell and Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/us_nm/us_usa_campaign_jews

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Attorney: Texas redistricting talks have stalled (AP)

SAN ANTONIO ? Negotiations between minority groups and Texas officials in a lengthy clash over new political districts appeared stalled Monday as both sides prepared to argue in Washington over whether the Republican-drawn maps violate the federal Voting Rights Act.

An attorney for the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of nine groups suing to block the maps, said negotiations to create temporary maps so Texas could salvage an April 3 primary date hit an impasse over the weekend. Both sides have another week to work out a deal, but Luis Vera, LULAC's general counsel, said he was not optimistic.

"It just doesn't seem feasible," he said.

A federal court in San Antonio last week gave the sides until Feb. 6 to draw up the temporary maps that would remain in place through November's election. If they don't, Texas' primaries will be pushed back for a second time. They were originally scheduled for March.

Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general's office, said her office was not commenting on the negotiations.

Vera said a major obstacle is that the state isn't involving all parties in the negotiations. Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP that is among the nine plaintiffs, said the state was mainly negotiating with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

Bledsoe said unanimous agreement among the nine isn't required for the court to accept a deal. He believes that while there is a "reasonable chance" the state could work out a deal with two or three of the groups, odds are longer of getting total consensus.

Vera has been among the most vocal proponents of simply waiting for a Washington federal court to rule on the separate issue of whether the original maps violate the Voting Rights Act.

States typically redraw their political boundaries every 10 years based on population figures from the census. Texas is one of nine, mostly Southern states that require "preclearance" from the U.S. Justice Department when changes to electoral maps are made.

At issue is how the Texas maps treat minorities. Republican leaders say the maps merely benefit their party's candidates, but minority groups claim they discriminate by diluting minority voting power. One major issue has been whether the maps fairly account for the surge in Hispanic population in Texas over the last decade.

Closing arguments in the Washington trial are set for Tuesday. Many of the principal negotiators involved in the interim map talks traveled to Washington on Monday to prepare for that case.

The three-judge panel in Washington has given no indication on when it might rule.

The San Antonio court had previously drawn interim maps while the Washington trial took place. The U.S. Supreme Court threw them out earlier this month, saying the San Antonio court did not show enough deference to the map crafted by Texas lawmakers and adjusted parts of the map where there was no Voting Rights Act argument.

Before the San Antonio court last week gave both sides an additional 10 days to hash out a compromise or forfeit an April 3 primary date, Texas Republican Party chairman Steve Munisteri said conservative minorities would be disenfranchised if the primary is delayed again.

The later Texas' primaries are held, the less influence the state is likely to have on who emerges as the Republican presidential nominee.

"If we're talking about minority rights, what about Hispanic Republicans?" Munisteri told the court during Friday's hearing.

If the April 3 date is postponed, Democrat and Republican party leaders say an April 17 primary would be possible if temporary maps are in place by mid-Februrary.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_go_co/us_texas_redistricting

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Mysterious gelatinous spheres rain down in England (Yahoo! News)

The discovery of?mysterious, blue, gelatinous spheres in an English backyard has captivated the imagination of?scientists and the public alike. What the heck are the spheres? And?where did they come from?

The unscented, water-insoluble spheres were first found in the yard of former aerospace engineer Steve Hornsby. Since the discovery was made immediately following an?ususual hail storm, the spheres were first assumed to have come from the sky.?However, according to?the?Met Office, the U.K.'s?national weather service, the spheres are "not meteorological."

There's no consensus as of yet regarding the source of the gelatinous balls. One research assistant believes the spheres could be eggs from marine invertebrates that hitched a ride on birds' feet; another believes the gel could be a type of underwater bacteria colony. Yet another theory says the balls are made of hydrogel, a planting material used to regulate soil moisture, but Hornsby says he's never used the product.

It appears that the mystery may soon be solved. Hornsby saved a few spheres in his refrigerator, which?Bournemouth University have accepted for analysis.

[Image source:?Baok]

This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/techblog/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20120130/tc_yblog_technews/mysterious-gelatinous-spheres-rain-down-in-england

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NHL All Star Game 2012: Team Chara Beats Team Alfredsson 12-9

OTTAWA ? Marian Gaborik made New York Rangers teammate Henrik Lundqvist pay for not selecting him to play for Daniel Alfredsson's team in the NHL All-Star game.

Gaborik beat Lundqvist twice in the first period, finished with three goals and an assist, and earned MVP honors in leading Team Chara to a 12-9 win over Team Alfredsson on Sunday.

Tim Thomas made 18 saves in the final period, and extended his record by winning his fourth All-Star game.

Chara, with the eventual winning goal, Marian Hossa and Corey Perry broke the game open by scoring three times in a span of 1:22 that put their club ahead 11-8 with 6:34 remaining.

Despite the loss, Alfredsson rewarded his hometown fans by leading his team with two goals and an assist. The Senators captain also hinted afterward that he is considering coming back for one more season.

In an interview broadcast on the arena's scoreboard, Alfredsson was asked about his future.

With a smile on his face, and fans cheering his name, Alfredsson said: "Fifty percent yes, and my wife's going to have to decide the other 50."

Henrik Sedin had a goal and two assists for Team Alfredsson.

Gaborik became the 16th player to score at least three goals ? one short of matching the record ? in the All-Star game, and first since Rick Nash had three in 2008.

The outcome was decided in the final period, in which Team Chara outscored Team Alfredsson 6-3.

Hossa broke an 8-8 tie by scoring on a partial breakaway after being set up by Pavel Datsyuk with 7:56 left. Settling the puck, Hossa stopped in front and then backhanded a shot past Brian Elliott.

Chara gave his club a 10-8 lead when Gaborik fed him a perfect pass into the middle for a snap shot past Elliott.

For Team Chara, Hossa and Jarome Iginla had a goal and two assists, and Joffrey Lupul scored twice.

Daniel Sedin, John Tavares, Jason Pominville and Milan Michalek had a goal and assist each for Team Alfredsson.

Team Chara got off to a fast start, building a 3-0 lead on Gaborik's second goal 9:51 in. The club was so dominant that it was leading 2-0 before Alfredsson's team got off its first shot.

Gaborik certainly enjoyed getting the best of Lundqvist. After scoring his first goal on a give-and-go with Datsyuk, Gaborik circled the net dropped to one knee and pointed his stick at Lundqvist while pumping his fist.

Lundqvist jokingly lamented about being beaten three times on eight shots, including twice by his Rangers teammate.

"There's been a lot of trash talk, but it feels like it's game over already," said Lundqvist, who was wearing a microphone during the opening period.

Lundqvist was Alfredsson's assistant captain, and had a hand in the team's drafting philosophy on Thursday.

Team Alfredsson rallied to tie the game at 3 before the first period was over. But they didn't get their first ? and only lead ? until Alfredsson scored twice during a 1:31 span to put his team up 6-5 with just under four minutes left in the second.

His first goal came on a great individual effort in which Alfredsson, dragging the puck behind him, split defensemen Kimmo Timonen and Ryan Suter, and flipped a shot that sneaked inside the right post to beat goalie Carey Price.

Alfredsson's second goal came on a wonderful passing play courtesy of Daniel and Henrik Sedin, whom Alfredsson was looking forward to play with when he drafted the twins. Henrik Sedin drove up the left wing, fed a pass through the crease to his twin brother, who then redirected to the high slot, where Alfredsson slapped it home.

Price allowed three goals on 14 shots, and had lamented the All-Star game's lack of defense during the first intermission.

"I feel like being a lamb getting led to slaughter," Price said. "I'm must be holding on for the ride today and hope I don't get lit up too bad."

Alfredsson nearly had a third goal nine minutes into third period, when he one-timed a shot off the left post

The game was missing the NHL's most high-profile stars in Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Crosby has been limited to playing just eight games this season as a result of a concussion, and has also been diagnosed with a neck injury, making it unclear when or if he will play at all this season.

Ovechkin backed out last week after the NHL suspended him three games for an illegal hit.

The game featured 17 first-time All-Stars, 10 playing on Team Alfredsson. Team Chara's roster had the edge over Team Alfredsson in combined games played (10,227-8,425, not including goalies), career goals (2,850-2,286) and career points (7,394-6,164).

Steven Stamkos was awarded a penalty shot with 3:27 left in the first period after he was tripped up by Dion Phaneuf.

On the penalty shot, Stamkos ? who leads the NHL with 32 goals ? attempted the same spin-around move he used to beat Price in the skills competition on Saturday night. Howard didn't bite on Sunday, holding his ground and hugging the post to stop Stamkos' attempt.

It was the second penalty shot taken in an All-Star game. The other was last year in at Raleigh, N.C., when Colorado's Matt Duchene was stopped by Lundqvist.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/29/nhl-all-star-game-2012-team-chara-alfredsson_n_1240485.html

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3 people die in freezing weather in Serbia (AP)

BELGRADE, Serbia ? Three people have died and two more are missing in central and southern Serbia amid heavy snow and freezing temperatures, authorities said Monday.

Authorities in 14 municipalities throughout the country have introduced emergency measures to deal with the situation.

Police said a woman froze to death in a snow storm in a central village, while an elderly man was found dead in the snow outside his home. An 81-year-old died in his snow-covered home in the same area.

Further south, emergency crews are searching for two men in their 70s, who are feared dead.

Authorities urged elderly people to stay indoors as temperatures dropped to minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country.

Heavy snow also caused problems in traffic and power supplies, leaving thousands without electricity for much of the past week.

Clearup efforts have been additionally hampered by strong winds, said police official Goran Nikolic.

Snow has caused trouble in other parts of the Balkans as well.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_re_eu/eu_europe_weather

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Rep. Barney Frank mourns ex-Boston Mayor White (AP)

BOSTON ? Retiring Rep. Barney Frank says former Mayor Kevin White was a political pioneer who opened up the Boston political system to African-Americans, women and gays, and pushed Frank to abandon plans to pursue an academic career and get into politics.

White died Friday at his Boston home. He was 82.

Frank, a liberal Democrat who worked for White in the City Hall for three years, describes him as Boston's "first modern mayor" who refused to let Interstate 95 run through the city because he wanted to protect low-income homes.

White led the city for 16 years, including during racially turbulent times in the 1970s.

His family announced that a public viewing is set for Tuesday and public funeral Mass is set for Wednesday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_kevin_white

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SUMO-snipping protein plays crucial role in T and B cell development

Saturday, January 28, 2012

When SUMO grips STAT5, a protein that activates genes, it blocks the healthy embryonic development of immune B cells and T cells unless its nemesis breaks the hold, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports today in Molecular Cell.

"This research extends the activity of SUMO and the Sentrin/SUMO-specific protease 1 (SENP1) to the field of immunology, in particular the early lymphoid development of T and B cells," said the study's senior author, Edward T. H. Yeh, M.D., professor and chair of MD Anderson's Department of Cardiology.

SUMO proteins, also known as the small ubiquitin-like modifiers or Sentrin, attach to other proteins in cells to modify their function or to move them within a cell. SENP1 is one of a family of six proteins that snips SUMO off of SUMO-modified proteins. SUMOylation (SUMO modification) of proteins has been implicated in development of cancer, heart and neurodegenerative diseases, among others.

The team first analyzed the role of SENP1 in the development of lymphoids in mice and found it is heavily expressed in precursor cells, the early stages of B and T cell development.

Working with genetically modified mice they developed that lack SENP1 gene expression, Yeh and colleagues found the mouse embryos had severe defects in their T and B cells, white blood cell lymphocytes that identify and fight infection.

SUMO pins STAT5 in the nucleus

Subsequent experiments led them to STAT5, a transcription factor known to play critical roles in the development and function of immune cells. Transcription factors work in the cell nucleus, activating gene expression by connecting to a gene's promoter region.

"STAT5 works in a cycle, moving from the cytosol of a cell into the nucleus to activate genes and then back out to the cytosol," Yeh said. "We found that when STAT5 is SUMOylated in the nucleus it gets trapped there when there's no SENP1 to remove SUMO."

The team found that SUMO muscles in on two other signaling events that govern STAT5 activity - phosphorylation and acetylation.

SUMO inhibits STAT5 signaling

STAT5 is activated in the cell cytosol when the JAK tyrosine kinase attaches a phosphate group at a specific site on the STAT5 protein. This transformed STAT5 crosses the nuclear membrane into the nucleus to transcribe genes.

The team found that SUMO attaches to STAT5 close to its phosphorylation site and that cells lacking SENP1 have increased SUMOylation and decreased phosphorylation.

SUMOylation vs. acetylation

In addition to phosphorylation, acetylation of STAT5 has been shown to be essential for STAT5 to cross the nuclear membrane into the nucleus to enhance gene transcription. Yeh and colleagues found that SUMO competes directly with acetyl groups for the same binding site, inhibiting acetylation.

"Without SENP1 to remove SUMO, STAT5 can't be acetylated or phosphorylated and can't be recycled for use again," Yeh said. "We discovered that SENP1 controls lymphoid development through regulation of SUMOylation of STAT5."

Since Yeh's lab discovered SUMOylation in 1996, SUMO has been found to alter the function of thousands of proteins.

Yeh is hosting the 6th International Conference SUMO, Ubiquitin, UBL Proteins: Implications for Human Diseases Feb. 8-11 in the Dan L. Duncan Building at MD Anderson. Yeh organizes the meeting every other year.

"There used to be so little known about SUMO. Now, a protein is assumed to be SUMOylated until proved otherwise," Yeh said.

###

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center: http://www.mdanderson.org

Thanks to University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center 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.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117155/SUMO_snipping_protein_plays_crucial_role_in_T_and_B_cell_development

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Pre Present Issue Wellbeing Insurance coverage

Well being insurance plan policies are financial arrangements generally devised with the assumed that ought to the policy holder suffer some form of wellbeing issue or imminent hospitalization someday during the tenure of the wellbeing insurance plan cover, the insurance plan provider ought to take treatment of all the expenses that could be incurred. In return, although the policy holder IS in the pink of wellbeing, he will spend sums of funds towards rates for keeping the insurance plan policy likely. But of training course, if you have some type of wellbeing situation the possibilities of the insurance plan provider obtaining to finance your medicine and other affiliated expenses are quite high. So the insurance plan firms space bit wary in handing out this type of insurance plan policy, identified as the pre existing situation wellbeing insurance plan. Examine on for wellbeing insurance plan plans and wellbeing insurance plan rates with optimum nutrition whey protein.

Pre Existing Clinical Condition Insurance policies

What is a pre existing situation wellbeing insurance plan? The term ?pre existing condition? is employed when a individual applying for wellbeing insurance plan has some type of really serious wellbeing situation. How really serious a wellbeing situation are we chatting about here? Effectively, the definition of a pre existing situation is a bit free, but persistent wellbeing problems this kind of as heart sickness, cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes are normally brought beneath this category.

Now this pre existing wellbeing situation wellbeing insurance plan is a tricky bit of company equally for you and for your insurance plan provider. The possibilities that your insurance plan provider will not detect a pre existing wellbeing situation are decidedly uncommon as they carry out quite precise tests to keep an eye on your situation. If they locate a issue which arrives beneath their definition of pre existing wellbeing situation, they will be a small wary of offering a wellbeing insurance plan policy. The way insurance plan firms see it, you happen to be a quite damage doing proposition as they will have to spend your sizable clinical costs. For this reason they can fundamentally supply you two alternatives.

Higher Premium
The insurer wishes to bust even and make a profit, so there is really no way that he is likely to incur a damage on you. So your insurance plan premium on the pre existing situation wellbeing insurance plan will be a bit greater. The way they see it, they don?t want to make a damage in case of hospitalization expenses and high clinical costs, so a greater premium might enable them cover these expenses, ought to they come up in the long term. So when you go in to get a pre existing situation wellbeing insurance plan, you will in all probability be asked to spend a greater premium. So your possibilities of finding a lower cost wellbeing insurance plan plan are very lower indeed.

Pre Existing Condition Exclusion
The other solution that a individual with a pre existing clinical situation seeking insurance plan has, is to opt for the exclusion. This small clause in the insurance plan arrangement says that ought to the policy holder suffer from any form of wellbeing issue, other than a single which is straight relevant to his or her pre existing situation, then the insurance plan provider will take treatment of all these expenses. The expenses relevant to the pre existing situation will of training course have to be borne by the policy holder himself. Now the issue here is that the exclusion is only for a interval of time. So ought to you opt for a very long term policy, you will be insured for the pre existing situation as soon as it is about. But it is a lot more probably that the insurer will give you short term wellbeing insurance plan policies instead.

Examine on for a lot more on wellbeing insurance plan for individuals with pre existing circumstances.

So this was all about pre existing situation wellbeing insurance plan. As you can see, the pre existing situation wellbeing insurance plan protection can be a bit tricky and could work from you. For this reason it is normally much better to get a wellbeing insurance plan early in daily life and for a lengthier term.

Source: http://www.thecalculus.org/?p=142

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Need Roleplayers for a coliseum!

roleplay/the-daedalus-coliseum/ I need some more people for this RP. Currently in need of a Champion, Daedalus and just some more fighters. Anyone interested, feel free to make a character. A fragmented tale, eternally retold.
When darkness falls, two shall stand against it.
The crimson-haired girl and the beach born boy,
their fates intertwined, stand together.

Come my children and listen,
For time is all we have.

-Darkness on the Coast

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/XGl1ivatyq4/viewtopic.php

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Researchers find cancer in ancient Egyptian mummy | The ...

A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment.
The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.
AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.
She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.
"Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors," she said.
A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/health/2012/01/researchers-find-cancer-ancient-egyptian-mummy

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Saturday Night Open Thread (Balloon Juice)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192785063?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Which Are Best Mutual Funds For Those New To Investing | Mutual ...

The first thing to consider when asking the question in the title is, ?How do you find the best mutual funds?? In what terms is investing in mutual funds the best course of action for you? To answer those questions means you having to define, even in the broadest sense, what your goals in investing are.

As a rule, the younger you are the more risk you can take because you have more time to weather the swings in prices associated with higher risk investments. Investing in mutual funds focused on small cap growth stocks or emerging foreign markets is one way to implement that strategy. Another strategy would be to look at an annual sector breakdown of the economy and find the best mutual funds in terms of performance and cost in that sector. Precious metals, for example, have been returning more than 10% per year since 2000 and if you believe that those returns will continue then investing in the funds that gave the highest return over that period would be a good plan.

It is never too early to begin investing in mutual funds for your future as the law of compounding numbers works to your advantage the longer it is allowed to operate. The best mutual funds in the best performing sectors of the economy will provide you will excellent returns as long as you are willing to reassess their performance annually. Markets change with time and while your investment strategy may be set for a decade, your tactics of how to implement that strategy should adapt to changes in the market, ie. Just because gold was a good investment last year does not mean it will be this year.

As one gets older the prevailing wisdom is to reduce risk and seek longer, more stable, if lower yields. The math works to your advantage there as you have a larger pool of funds to draw from at relatively fixed lifestyle costs if you have been prudent, are debt-free and have adequate medical coverage, assuming low and stable inflation. Shifting from stock funds to bond funds is one example of moving from higher risk to lower risk with more stable yield.

For the novice investor having even a cursory understanding of how and why capital flows is necessary to making the best investment choices. If you do not believe your time is well spent doing that and have the means, then seeking the advice of the professional financial planner to guide your investments is not only a choice but is recommended.

No related posts.

About Pete Southern

Pete is an active investor with knowledge of all sectors but his first love are IPO's. A failed day trader who now understands research. A love of economics and writing seen Pete begin to publish content for various finance blogs. Our main editor and collator of contributions, he is your point of contact via editorial at stockpricetoday.com

Source: http://www.stockpricetoday.com/mutual-funds/which-are-best-mutual-funds-for-those-new-to-investing/

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Sudan sells seized South Sudan crude at deep discount: sources (Reuters)

SINGAPORE (Reuters) ? Sudan has sold at least one cargo of crude seized from South Sudan at millions of dollars discount and is offering more, industry sources said, as Khartoum looks to recover oil revenue from its former civil war foe.

A bitter row has escalated between the two over the value of the transit fee landlocked South Sudan should pay for oil pumped north by pipeline through its northern neighbor and exported from Port Sudan.

South Sudan is shutting down production in protest after Khartoum blocked exports and seized some of the oil as compensation. South Sudan's President Salva Kiir accused Khartoum of having "looted" revenues amounting to roughly $815 million from crude cargoes.

The seized crude was loaded onto three tankers from January 13-20, South Sudan's justice ministry said.

Sudan sold one of those cargoes, a 600,000 barrel shipment loaded on the vessel Ratna Shradha, to a North Asian trader. The final price of the sale was unclear, but one trader said that the cargo was sold at a discount as steep as $14 a barrel. That would indicate an $8.4 million discount for the whole cargo versus the last official price charged by the South.

"This is crude from the South sold by the North at a $14 discount to the South's last selling price," a Middle East-based crude trader said.

The tanker is heading to Singapore, another source said.

The last time South Sudan sold Nile Blend cargoes, it did so at a premium of $2.50-$3.00 a barrel to the benchmark Indonesian Crude Price, traders said. This would indicate that Sudan has sold the cargo at a discount of around $11 a barrel to the Indonesian price.

Sudan has also loaded two other cargoes of seized Dar Blend crude, but it is not immediately clear if they have sold those. Khartoum had offered these cargoes last week at a discount to official South Sudan prices, traders said. One of them is headed to the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, they added.

The South last sold seven cargoes of Dar Blend at discounts between $5 and $11 a barrel to dated Brent. Sudan offered the cargoes at a discount of $15-$16, another source said.

OFFGUARD

Buyers of South Sudan oil were caught offguard when Khartoum started blocking exports in late December.

In addition to the three, at least seven tankers are still waiting at the port to lift December and January cargoes, raking up demurrage costs of $20,000-$22,000 per day, traders and shipbrokers said. Buyers include PetroChina, Glencore, Vitol, Trafigura and Arcadia, they said.

"There was no reason given. They just held back sailing," a second trader with a Western firm said, adding that demurrage costs and the uncertainty were a "nightmare."

South Sudan pledged to fully shut its output of 275,000 barrels per day (bpd) in two weeks, a move that could also cut off supplies to equity holders China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), Malaysia's Petronas and India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp.

A third trader said buyers could declare force majeure if they still cannot lift the oil 30 days from the date of loading.

"Force majeure is the last resort if the cargo has not been loaded 30 days after the scheduled loading date. As long as the ship has not loaded the oil," the trader said.

"It will be complicated to declare force majeure if the oil is already on board. How are you going to discharge the oil back into the shore tanks?"

South Sudan became independent in July under a 2005 peace agreement with Khartoum that ended decades of civil war but both sides have failed to agree how to untangle their oil industries.

(Additional reporting by Yaw Yan Chong and Osamu Tsukimori in TOKYO Editing by Manash Goswami and Simon Webb)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_sudan_oil_dispute

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Gingrich: Use Reagan approach for post-Castro Cuba (AP)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. ? Republican presidential hopefuls are casting President Barack Obama as a failure on Cuba and say they would do a better job ushering freedom into the nation after Castro.

Newt Gingrich said during Thursday night's debate that the United States should use the same tactics President Ronald Reagan employed to bring down the Soviet Union. Gingrich says the U.S. policy should be to connect with young Cubans to persuade them that they want freedom for their generation.

Mitt Romney says he would use economic pressure to bring about freedom for the island nation 90 miles off Florida. Rick Santorum says Obama's policies to ease restrictions on Cuba are "the exact wrong message at the exact wrong time."

Ron Paul alone says the United States should engage Cuba now to ease tensions.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_debate_cuba

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U.S. to deport Taiwan envoy who abused Filipina maids (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? A U.S. federal judge ordered the deportation on Friday of a high-ranking official from Taiwan who pleaded guilty last year to human trafficking charges for abusing her two Filipina maids, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Hsien-Hsien Liu, the 64-year-old director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Kansas City, Missouri, was arrested in November and charged with fraud in foreign labor contracting in connection with her treatment of the two maids.

Liu ultimately admitted to forcing the two women, whom she hired in the Philippines and brought to work for her in the United States between 2009 and 2011, to toil day and night for significantly less pay than promised in their contracts.

U.S. District Judge Greg Kays sentenced Liu, who has been in custody since her arrest, to time served and ordered her deported back to Taiwan as part of a plea deal.

Prosecutors said Liu told one of the women she would pay her $1,240 a month to work eight hours a day, five days a week -- but only paid her $450 a month and forced her to work 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

She also installed surveillance cameras inside her home in Johnson County, Kansas, to monitor the woman, did not allow her to leave without supervision or permission, and seized her passport and visa and refused to return them.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in the case, Liu also warned the woman she "was friends with local law enforcement and well known in the community, so if the (female victim) acted out, she would be deported."

Liu pleaded guilty to the charges last November.

In addition to the deportation order, the judge also ordered Liu to pay $80,044 in restitution to the women, as well as an as-yet unspecified fine, and to cover the full costs of her incarceration and deportation, including round-trip airfare for the U.S. immigration agents who escort her back to Taiwan.

Liu's two former maids are eligible for T-visas, designed to help victims of human trafficking who cooperate with prosecutors. The visas will allow them to live and work legally in the United States and to apply for permanent residency after three years, the U.S. attorney's office said.

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/us_nm/us_taiwan_official_deportation

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A Bad Night for Newt (ABC News)

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Nokia releases Q4 2011 earnings report: operating profits drop, Lumia sales break one million

Nokia released its latest quarterly earnings report today, following up on a somewhat disappointing Q3 with a similarly bleak Q4. The Finnish manufacturer finished 2011 with a little more than €10 billion ($13.1 billion) in net sales -- 11 percent higher than Q3, but 21 percent lower than 2010, when Nokia raked in about €12.7 billion (approximately $16.7 billion). Operating profit, meanwhile, rose by 90 percent over Q3, but is still down on the year by a whopping 56 percent; this quarter, in fact, saw an operating loss of €954 million (about $1.3 billion). Its net cash and liquid assets also dropped by €1.4 billion over the year, marking a 20 percent decline. The general takeaway, then, is that things are looking better than they were last quarter, but worse than they were last year.

To date, the company has sold "well over" one million Lumia devices, but this Windows Phone surge has apparently come at Symbian's expense. "In certain markets, there has been an acceleration of the anticipated trend towards lower-priced smartphones with specifications that are different from Symbian's traditional strengths," CEO Stephen Elop said in a statement. "As a result of the changing market conditions, combined with our increased focus on Lumia, we now believe that we will sell fewer Symbian devices than we previously anticipated." Looking forward, Nokia expects to break even during the first quarter of 2012, due in part to lower than expected seasonal sales and what it calls "competitive industry dynamics." For the full report, check out the source link below.

Nokia releases Q4 2011 earnings report: operating profits drop, Lumia sales break one million originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Nokia (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/26/nokia-releases-q4-2011-earnings-report-operating-profits-drop/

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Gates Donates $750 Million to Global Fund

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The donation to the struggling fund was made as a promissory note intended to tide the fund over regular cash shortages.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=563e0c47a0090b9deb7da512b0b4d7e6

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Nintendo sees first annual loss, cuts 3DS forecast (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Nintendo Co Ltd posted a sharp drop in quarterly profit and forecast a bigger-than-expected full-year loss, its first at an operating level, as it battles a strong yen and its games devices lose ground to gadgets such as Apple's iPhone.

The creator of the Super Mario franchise dominated the video games industry for years with its DS handheld players and Wii home consoles, but is now struggling to keep up as more versatile smartphone and tablet sales boom.

"To say that (the days of consoles) are over is likely an overstatement, but social network and Internet delivered games are growing and structurally changing the future of the industry, which is a strong wind against Nintendo," said Shigeo Sugawara, senior investment manager at Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Asset Management.

Nintendo now expects an annual operating loss of 45 billion yen ($575 million), dwarfing expectations of a 4.2 billion yen loss, based on the average of 21 analyst forecasts.

"Their time of growth (from consoles) is over, and, while I don't think the company will cease to exist, if they don't move into new categories, they will no doubt lose the great scale they've amassed," said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management in Tokyo.

Nintendo cut its forecast for annual sales of its ageing Wii console to 10 million devices from 12 million, and for the 3DS handheld games device to 14 million from 16 million.

"We had higher expectations for the year-end season, but failed to meet them," President Satoru Iwata told reporters in Osaka.

Poor sales forced Nintendo to slash the price of its much-anticipated 3DS handheld games device in August, just six months after its launch.

The move halted its record of making profits on games hardware as well as software, a business model that took operating income to a high of 555 billion yen in 2008/09.

Nintendo also faces tougher competition in the home console market from Sony Corp's Move and Microsoft Corp's Kinect, and Iwata said consumers were more eager than ever to seek out bargains in the harsh economic environment.

The company plans to launch the Wii's successor, the Wii U, in Japan, the United States, Europe and Australia in the year-end season, Iwata told reporters.

But with cloud-based gaming emerging as a potential threat, Nintendo may have trouble generating excitement about its new product, some analysts say. Google is taking steps into gaming with Google TV, while Apple is thought to be preparing a new iPad and possibly a smart TV that could be game-changers for the industry.

"We think we need to consider the possibility that home consoles could become a thing of the past," Citigroup analyst Soichiro Fukuda wrote in a recent report.

"We think the direction taken by marketing trendsetter Apple will be very important and we will be watching the company's announcements at future events with interest."

PROFIT FALLS

Nintendo's profit slumped to 40.9 billion yen for the traditionally strong October-December period, compared with a consensus estimate for 52 billion yen, based on a survey of three analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The results came a day after Apple blew away Wall Street's expectations with its own quarterly earnings.

Shares in Nintendo have halved to below 11,000 yen since the beginning of the financial year in April, hit by weak 3DS sales and market disappointment with the Wii U next-generation home console, unveiled at the E3 games show in June and set to go on sale late this year. At their peak, in late 2007, the shares traded at 73,200 yen.

Last week, the stock dipped to 10,020 yen, the lowest since April 2004, before either the DS or Wii were launched.

($1 = 77.58)

(Reporting by Yoshiyuki Osada in OSAKA and Isabel Reynolds in TOKYO; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Ian Geoghegan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/videogames/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/bs_nm/us_nintendo_results

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Ice-T weighs in on presidential race from Sundance (AP)

PARK CITY, Utah ? Regardless of the outcome of the presidential primaries, Ice-T already has his mind made up about the forthcoming election.

The rapper and actor, who is making his directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with the documentary "Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap," says he expects President Barack Obama to be re-elected. After that, he predicts Hillary Clinton will be the next president.

The 53-year-old entertainer said, "She did the Secretary of State job, she was a G, she held it down, she didn't cry," referring to the former New York Senator with the hip-hop term for gangster (a positive thing).

"Obama will support her," he said, "and she'll be the first woman president."

Ice-T's documentary premiered at the Sundance festival, which continues through Sunday in Park City, Utah.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_en_mu/us_film_sundance_ice_t

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Activists send hundreds of tacos to Conn. mayor

RETRANSMITTING WITH ALTERNATE CROP - East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., center, delivers a proclamation to an employee in East Haven, Conn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. Maturo has expressed remorse for saying he "might have tacos" to do something for his town's besieged Latino community - but he has no plans to step down. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

RETRANSMITTING WITH ALTERNATE CROP - East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., center, delivers a proclamation to an employee in East Haven, Conn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. Maturo has expressed remorse for saying he "might have tacos" to do something for his town's besieged Latino community - but he has no plans to step down. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., center delivers a proclamation to an employee in East Haven, Conn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. Maturo has expressed remorse for saying he "might have tacos" to do something for his town's besieged Latino community - but he has no plans to step down. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. hugs Arlene Hackbarth while delivering a proclamation for her years of service in East Haven, Conn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. Maturo has expressed remorse for saying he "might have tacos" to do something for his town's besieged Latino community - but he has no plans to step down. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., center delivers a proclamation to an employee in East Haven, Conn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. Maturo has expressed remorse for saying he "might have tacos" to do something for his town's besieged Latino community - but he has no plans to step down. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., center, delivers a proclamation to an employee in East Haven, Conn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. Maturo has expressed remorse for saying he "might have tacos" to do something for his town's besieged Latino community - but he has no plans to step down. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

EAST HAVEN, Conn. (AP) ? The office of East Haven's mayor was blasted with prank phone calls and a delivery of hundreds of tacos Thursday after his now-famous quip that he would address accusations of anti-Latino bias by eating tacos, a remark that left emotions raw in the town's large Hispanic community.

Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. has apologized several times but resisted calls for his resignation over remarks he made to a television reporter following Tuesday's arrests of four town police officers, men described by one FBI official as "bullies with badges."

Maturo held regular meetings Thursday as Connecticut's Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission called on him to resign.

"The Latino community is upset and deeply wounded in what should have been a day of redemption for them," the commission's acting executive director, Werner Oyandel, said in a written statement, calling the comment "unprofessional and given in poor taste."

An immigration rights group, Reform Immigration for America, delivered 400 tacos to his Town Hall office in protest, though Maturo had left shortly beforehand for a meeting. A soup kitchen picked up the tacos, but one was left symbolically for the mayor.

In a statement released by his office, Maturo said the abundance of tacos highlights the need for healing in the town.

"The events of the past few days have focused our Town, and my administration, on the need to deal sensitively and compassionately with the challenges currently facing our Town," he said.

His office fielded a steady flow of calls, some with prank comments about tacos and others from supporters who want him to stay in his job.

Maturo has been mayor off and on since 1997 in this predominantly white, blue-collar town on the shore of Long Island Sound where Latino residents comprise about 10 percent of its population of 29,000. East Haven has been under federal scrutiny since the U.S. Justice Department launched a civil rights probe in 2009 that found discrimination and biased policing against Latinos.

A federal indictment accuses the four police officers of assaulting people while they were handcuffed, unlawfully searching Latino businesses, and harassing and intimidating people, including advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct or abuse.

The taco flap came after a reporter for New York's WPIX-TV asked Maturo on Tuesday, "What are you doing for the Latino community today?"

Maturo's response: "I might have tacos when I go home; I'm not quite sure yet."

Maturo, who is of Italian heritage, then said he might have spaghetti or any other kind of ethnic food, growing increasingly angry as he told Diaz to "go for it, take your best shot" to make the "taco" comment seem to imply something he did not intend.

He has called himself a "jerk" for the comment, which he called an off-the-cuff quip made at the end of a long, stressful day of interviews.

The video of Maturo's comments has spread across the Internet on social networks and media websites. It led Connecticut's largest paper, The Hartford Courant, to call for his resignation in an editorial that declared: "The Mayor is an Idiot." A Facebook page demanding Maturo's resignation had more than 750 supporters Thursday afternoon.

The town's Democratic Party is demanding the resignation of Maturo, a Republican, and he has fielded criticism from state and local officials including Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who said on a conference call Thursday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Maturo's remarks were "pretty bone-headed."

Many residents were still angry Thursday in East Haven, where 38-year-old Jose Tapia, a cook originally from Ecuador, joked, "We've got tacos!" as he left a bakery with a bag of bread.

"I took it as a joke, but deep inside, it's the true version of racist, that comment," he said.

Pedro Gutierrez, the owner of the Guti'z Bakery, said the comment showed the mayor is out of touch because many Latinos in East Haven are from Ecuador, where tacos are not a part of cuisine, as they are in Mexico. But he said it also shows disrespect for all Hispanics.

"He clearly thinks of us as a third-class people," he said.

Others were more forgiving, saying they viewed the comment as a misstep, but not something that should end Maturo's political career.

Others in East Haven said people are being too sensitive.

Paul Esposito, 70, a lifelong resident, made a special trip Thursday to East Haven Town Hall to express his support, telling Maturo's receptionists, "I don't want him to resign. People make mistakes all the time."

Those who know Maturo say that he's not an idiot or a bigot, but that if the taco comment was meant to be a joke, it was clearly a misstep they think he genuinely regrets.

"It's baloney. They're making a mountain out of a molehill," said Michael Liso, 65, who said he worked as a firefighter with Maturo and has known him for 40 years. "That's why you put erasers on pencils. ... It's over and done with. Now let's move forward."

Maturo, 60, asked East Haven residents in a written apology Wednesday to "have faith in me" and the town. Whether he can make peace soon with Latino residents upset by his taco comment remains to be seen.

Marcia Chacon, a native of Ecuador and co-owner of My Country Store, said the one remark by Maturo destroyed some of the goodwill he had earned in the community by hosting a recent open house with the police department.

"We realized that he is a racist person," she said. "We realized it is worse than we thought."

Maturo has said he will no longer publicly discuss the quip. Messages left for several of his political allies at the state and local levels were not immediately returned Wednesday and Thursday.

___

Associated Press reporter Stephanie Reitz in Hartford and photographer Jessica Hill contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-26-Police%20Discrimination-Mayor/id-e408553869e948ff98e4930f0069ee23

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